The Broken Spell Read Online Free PDF Page B

experience.’
    ‘Vera Miller, she was, before she was Quinlan,’ Rachel read. ‘And look at the stuff other kids have written.’
    Beneath the photo were the obligatory scribbles of other students, written at the end of the school year. Grace took the book, turning it this way and that as she read.
    Take it to the Max, V. You’re awesome!!
    Diggin’ your tunes, V-girl! Keep in touch
!
    Movin’ on and movin’ up in the world. Far out V xx
    YOU ARE DYN-O-MITE!!
    To the grooviest groovy chick I ever met – life won’t be the same without you!
    The girls looked at each other in surprise.
    ‘Mrs Quinlan was…
popular
,’ said Grace.
    ‘There’s friendly stuff scribbled all over this page,’ said Jenny, ‘
and
the next one. Loads of people. Wow.’
    ‘And she looked cool,’ Rachel said. ‘I mean, actually
cool
. Look at her hair. My mum went mental when Una put a few highlights in mine, and you could barely see them.’
    Grace smiled and ran her fingers over the old, fading photograph.
    ‘They look like they were good friends, don’t they?’ she said. ‘Wonder what happened…’

    A soft breeze blew through a kitchen window onto seventeen -year-old Bethany Lemon, who sat at the table, staring into her slightly undercooked porridge and tugging at her fringe. It was the summer of 1977 and the yearbook photos were being taken today. She pulled her heavy fringe across one eye, low enough to almost cover her nose, and wondered if she could cover her face altogether.
    The pictures were taken individually now that Beth was in the last year of school. No more hiding behind the boy or girl in front; no more subtly glancing off to one side just as the photo was taken, ensuring her face was barely visible in the printed book.
    Stephen McFadden had already snapped one of her, Vera and Meredith by the school gates. ‘A candid moment’, he called it. He had smiled widely and explained, mainly to Vera, how people’s real memories of school were rarely captured on film. ‘Posed images’ eclipsed the reality of their teenage years. He preferred to catch a genuine moment, when the subjects were unaware. We were unaware, alright, Beth thought bitterly. She hadn’t seen the camera in time to avoid it.
    ‘Are you going to eat your breakfast?’
    Her mother barely looked up from her own bowl as she spoke, and Beth nodded mechanically. She picked up her spoon and poked at the stodgy mess. Her father sat silently on her other side.
    Breakfast and dinner were still a family affair in her house, though she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why. There had been a little more conversation at each meal when her brother still lived at home, but that usually broke down when he made excuses and left the table early. Now he lived with his wife in a big house nearly three hours drive away. They were expecting a baby too. She couldn’t blame him. He was creating a happy family life to replace the one he’d never had. Her parents must have been happy at some point, but not in her living memory. They didn’t argue; they didn’t fight. They just didn’t like each other. And she didn’t think either of them was particularly fond of her. But still, twice a day, they sat down together and ate in silence.
    Today she counted the minutes until she could politely leave, and hurry to school to meet her coven. Meredith and Vera were never quiet – they argued all the time – and with
them
she felt comfortable. She could take a break from her shyness, and from the cloak of unhappiness that shrouded her home. They were kind of her surrogate family. In some ways, they felt more like her
real
family.

    ‘Keep moving, Lemon.’
    A strong hand gripped her elbow before she rounded the school gates, and steered her past them.
    ‘Where are we going?’
    Vera’s numerous piercings jingled slightly as she whipped her head around, scoping out the area for teachers and other authority figures. When she was satisfied they were in the clear,