Being a Witch, and Other Things I Didn't Ask For

The sunset bled into the edges of the village. Smoke curled out of the cottage chimney like a crooked finger.

The summer sun bowing out threw slashes of colour between the buildings. London looked big, empty, and lonely. She stood in the doorway, like a cat trying to make up its mind.

On the end of my bed. He’s short, round and bald, with a tartan loin cloth, and what looks like a spout on the top of his head,’ Bryony said. ‘You flatter me,’ came the snide male voice. ‘But it’s a valve.

Raya knew this type of girl – they never liked her. Usually they’d make fun of her, behind her back, but loud enough for her to hear. She was too alternative, too poor and too cynical – the foster kid – to be of any interest to these social climbers.

He thrust his shoulders back and spoke in a whisper that sounded like the hiss of a snake. ‘Yes, the very battle between good and evil, played out even in the lowliest of lives like yours. Witches killing dogs because they did not get their favourite drink.

Like water around rocks, people streamed around them as though this sort of interaction, noisy and involving foreigners, was nothing unusual.

What’s “ague?”‘ Raya asked. ‘Malaria.’ Oscar said. ‘Oh, great.’ ‘Hey, you want plague? They got that too.’ Raya ignored the cat.

And she was right. No matter how they tried, the two humans, with the cat but without the microchip, couldn’t connect to headquarters. Raya heard a loud popping sound in her mind, like a huge rubber band being snapped, like a glider plane released from a Piper Cub.

Oscar looked up from his plate, and if a cat could laugh, he would have. ‘Boy, that’s ugly, even for a jinn. Looks like a cross between a rat, a frog and a bottlebrush.

Then Raya saw Rebecca West, the fourteen-year-old who only saved her own life by testifying against her mother, and then she saw her own face reflected in these girls – a swirl of chance, and life and sorrow.

She peeped through one of the small holes in the outer wall rising up from the walkway. The world on the outside was nothing but countryside now. Dirt roads, like chocolate ribbons, disappeared into woods or green fields in the distance.

Oo, I like a good cat fight – especially when it doesn’t involve me,’ Oscar said. ‘Shut up!’ Bryony and Raya said simultaneously. A hairline crack formed in the ice between them.

She saw a jack-o-lantern, smiling and hollowed out, with no candle in it, when a well-dressed businesswoman came in for a latte and muffin.

By six in the morning, she was baking with Emma. She was allowed to eat the burnt and the broken, and together they invented new muffins and pastries.

I’m just a visual thinker – that’s all. Pictures instead of words. No big deal.

After everyone went home, she often took a walk in the long summer evenings imagining she was looking for a party or a rave, which she never found. She usually ended up wandering in and out of the few shops that stayed open. This was not the life she’d imagined.

Who could blame her for choosing fighting aliens and evil instead of just being an ordinary mum?

This felt good, but raw – people caring so deeply.

It felt like a strong, soft cloth that would catch her if she fell, and would also polish her to make her shine. Cherished. That’s what it was.

She wanted to just be. Just be a teenage girl in this amazing mall. She didn’t want to think about mind-bending things like time travel, being a witch, or how to escape death.

They’d only known each other a few weeks, since Jake moved into Angie’s too, but as Raya often found with other foster kids, you either clicked or you didn’t and that was that.

The schizophrenia robbed Raya of her mother... [She] wondered if that other world, revealed by psychosis, was the real one for her mother. Who could blame her for choosing fighting aliens and evil instead of just being an ordinary mum?

... tall apartment blocks and industrial buildings flashed by. The sky had clouded over. Raya’s reflection flickered in the window. She looked younger and sadder than she’d imagined.

Her heart hammered, her head pounded. Part of her felt like maybe she could outrun it – the monster that stole her mother. She ran, the thumping of her feet her only anchor. She thought she might rise up and explode, like a big greasy soap bubble. If only I could.