The Eighth Witch Read Free Page B

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    Carter first met Annie Ryder fifteen years ago when he was staying at the Institute of Psychic Research in Kansas. She was young, fresh from university, and he discovered that she’d been born in the north of England and come to America with her father at the age of seven when her parents divorced.  
    The two of them struck up an instant rapport. She was a technician and he was one of the test subjects, and her presence at the institute made the years he spent there more tolerable. At that time Annie Ryder was a lively twenty-one-year-old—pretty in a rather unconventional way, with a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue, but they found they got along fine. There was no hint of a romance between them, but then neither of them were looking for that kind of involvement. They’d spar with each other in a light-hearted way and be there for each other when things got tense.
    When he finally left Kansas after three years and returned to England to start work with Department 18, they kept in touch, mostly by letter, occasionally by phone and later email. A few years back she wrote to him to say she was moving back to England, to Yorkshire. Her father had died suddenly from a heart attack and she found she was missing her homeland. Carter had not long moved into his cottage in the picturesque Lake District when he received an invitation to go down to Ravensbridge to stay with Annie for a few days. He’d spent a week there and found the chemistry between them hadn’t changed. She was still single and happy to be that way. She’d taken up a post as teacher at a local primary school and settled into the slower-paced northern lifestyle with ease. For her, coming back to England to live in a small town in the country was like coming home.
    In the years that followed any contact became less and less, until the letters and emails dried up completely. He figured that maybe she had met someone, got married and maybe even started a family. It was all speculation of course, with nothing at all to back it up. The email that appeared in his inbox three weeks ago broke the silence of five years.
    She was at the door to greet him as he pulled up outside the cottage. A thin drizzle was falling from an aluminum sky. He switched off the wipers and ignition and sketched a wave. As he got out of the car she flew at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek.  
    “Robert Carter, as I live and breathe! It’s so good to see you. Man, you haven’t changed a jot.”
    “Neither have you, Annie, neither have you.” It was a lie. She had changed a great deal. Her long, chestnut hair had been cropped to a chic, pixie style and was now flecked with gray. Her dark brown eyes had retained their sparkle but there was an awareness and maturity there now, and she’d gained a few pounds, but it suited her, making her look less the college student and more like a woman.
    She held him at arm’s length and stared into his face, looking for the lie and finding it in his eyes. “I’ve got fat,” she said with a smile. She ran her fingers through her hair, tousling it. “And this is a lot shorter. More practical.”
    “Seriously, you look great…just different from how I remembered you.”
    “Different. An interesting choice of words. Better or worse?”
    Carter felt himself flush. “I…I…”
    She shook her head and smiled. “I’m teasing you, Rob. Come on, let’s get inside out of this rain.” She threaded her arm through his and led him through the front door.  
    Annie Ryder’s house was set on a hill and was deceptively large. From the street it looked like a modest cottage, but once inside it opened out, stretching quite a way back into the hillside. There were two large reception rooms and a study on the ground floor, and upstairs three good-sized bedrooms and a bathroom. In the hallway the walls were decorated with photographs set into simple clip frames, mostly black and white, moody shots of the