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0.5) without the permission of the Council of White Witches. Any witch disobeying this Notification will be considered to be working against the Council. Any Half Code accepting gifts or blood without permission of the Council will be considered to be defying the Council and corrupting White Witches. The penalty for all concerned will be imprisonment for life.
     
    Gran read the notification out and then Jessica started to speak, but I was already heading out the back door. Arran grabbed at my arm, saying, “We’ll get permission, Nathan. We will.”
    I couldn’t be bothered arguing with him, and I pushed him away. There was an ax by the pile of wood in the garden and I hacked and hacked and hacked until I couldn’t lift the ax any more.
    Deborah came to sit with me among all the broken bits of wood. She put her head on my shoulder, resting her cheek on it. I always liked it when she did that.
    She said, “You’ll find a way, Nathan. Gran will help you, and so will I, and so will Arran.”
    I ripped at the blisters on my hand. “How?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “You shouldn’t help me. You’d be working against the Council. They’ll lock you up.”
    “But—”
    I jolted her off my shoulder and stood up. “I don’t want your help, Deborah. Don’t you get it? You’re so bloody clever, but you still don’t understand, do you?”
    And I left her there.
    And now Deborah has received her three gifts and Gran’s blood, and in three years Arran will go through the same ceremony, but for me . . . I know the Council won’t let it happen. They are afraid of what I’ll become. And if I don’t become a witch I’ll die. I know it.
    I have to be given three gifts and drink the blood of my ancestors, the blood of my parents or grandparents. But apart from Gran there is only one person who can give me three gifts, only one person who can defy the Council, only one person whose blood will turn me from whet to witch.
    The woods are silent. It feels like they are waiting and watching. And suddenly I know that my father wants to help me. I know the truth of it so well. My father wants to give me three gifts and let me drink his blood. I know it like I know how to breathe.
    I know he’ll come to me.
    I wait and I wait.
    The silence of the woods goes on and on.
    He doesn’t come.
    But I realize that it’s too dangerous for him to come to me and take me away. So I must go to him.
    I must go and find my father.
    I’m eleven. Eleven is a long way off seventeen. And I have no idea how to find Marcus. I don’t have a clue how to begin to find him. But at least now I know what I have to do.

Thomas Dawes
Secondary School

    Notification of the Resolution of the Council of White Witches of England, Scotland, and Wales.
    Any contact between Half Codes (W 0.5/B 0.5) and White Whets and White Witches is to be reported to the Council by all concerned. Failure by the Half Code to notify the Council of contact is punishable by removing all contact.
    Contact is deemed to have been made if the Half Code is in the same room as a White Whet or White Witch or otherwise within a close enough distance that they are able to speak to each other.
     
    “Shall I go and lock myself in the cellar now?” I ask.
    Deborah takes the parchment and reads it again. “Removing all contact? What does that mean?”
    Gran looks uncertain.
    “They can’t mean removing contact with
us
?” Deborah looks from Gran to Arran. “Can they?”
    I’m amazed at Deborah; she still doesn’t get it. It can mean whatever the Council want it to mean.
    “I’ll just make sure that we keep a list of witches Nathan has contact with. It’s easy enough. Nathan hardly meets anyone and certainly not many White Witches.”
    “When he starts at Thomas Dawes school, there’ll be the O’Briens,” Arran reminds her.
    “Yes, but that’s all. It’ll be a small list. We just have to make sure we follow the rules.”
    Gran is right; the list is small. The only