“But she still had the power?”
They both nod at my question.
“And then the power was handed down.”
They both nod again.
“And now I have it? And I can’t give it back without killing everybody?”
More nods.
This Sadie was an absolute cow-bag. But a thought occurs to me. I might be way off.
“So, if we went back to when the original magic was made, could we do something? Can we do that? Go back in time?”
They both look at me like I’m an idiot.
Maybe I am.
“Can you go back in time? If the original magic was made so that nobody could give the autonomy back, without killing everybody, could we change the original magic, if we went back to that time?”
They are silent.
“I don’t know,” Fletcher says and looks to his mum.
“I have no idea.” She is silent for a minute, maybe processing my question. “I suppose because we can magic our way out of any situation, I’ve never had the urge to go back in time.”
“If there’s no other way to do it?” I ask but find that I know the answer. There is no other way to do it. And then I know something else.
“Fletcher, go over to the filing cabinet.”
He gives me a funny look but does as he’s told. Good boy!
“Third drawer down, right at the back, under the folders, there’s a box. Bring it here.”
He brings over a plain black box, about the size of an A4 folder.
“Open it.”
He opens it. It’s full of papers, and I watch his face change as he reads them. He looks at me, his eyes wide, full of tears. “You were right. The only way to change it is to go back in time. No other head witch tried as hard to figure it out as my dad, but he did. These are his reports; he figured it all out. And... he was planning to go back in time.” He reads more, his mouth moving as he takes in the words. “Mum.” He looks shocked, sad, confused, all in one go. “Dad wanted to go back in time, he really was planning to do it. Before his death.”
Silence fills the room, and Elodie takes the papers from Fletcher, reading through them, crying, looking at me with something like amazement, or awe, on her face.
Fletcher kisses my cheek. “I can’t believe you figured it out.”
I shrug. I have to be bashful, because I can’t take credit for it. This is pure head witchery at its finest.
But then I know it just as clearly. “We have to do it. We have to go back in time and change the original magic. Then the council members, all the supernatural creatures, will see that we mean no harm. It will fix everything.”
“He’s written out the exact magic. It won’t even be hard.”
“Can we change other things by going back in time? Bring back Griff or...” My mind goes to Molly. Could we go back in time, to when she was alive, before she got leukaemia, and... what? It’s not like a car hit her and I could make sure she didn’t take that fateful step off the pavement. Suddenly, I’m crying more than either of them.
“Are you okay?”
I nod. Lying.
“Looking at it, we can’t bring dead people back to life. We can’t do a lot of things – there’s a list. Mum, we need to look at this carefully, make sure we don’t do anything stupid.”
“Give me a minute,” Elodie says. She is still reading through the papers, running her fingertips over her dead husband’s familiar writing, tears clouding her vision.
Fletcher turns his back on her, giving her much needed privacy, and flings his arms around me. His hug is so tight it hurts a little bit, and my shoulder is wet from his tears. “Thank you. For a million things, but for this most of all. I knew my dad was a good man, and you’ve proved it. He wanted to change our world and make it better.”
“And now you can finish what he started.”
“With you.”
I nod. I’m going back in time! That’s not actually that weird compared to everything else we’ve been doing. “With me.”
I let him cry and I’m crying too. If we can go back in time, change the original magic, undo the head witch-ness, then speak to the council, we’ll have absolute proof that we want to make things better – we’ll have done it.
“Thank you, Ellis.” Elodie has tucked all the papers back into the box. “This means so much to me, to us, to all of our people. We can make everything that has gone wrong, right. Let’s go home, I’ll contact Ember, tell her what we’ve found out, and we can do this tomorrow. After a good night’s sleep. I think you need to be well rested to go back in time and change the world, don’t you think?”
Fletcher and I nod, and I’m grinning like an idiot.
I made a lot of the witches’ problems worse. The rebels had been working in secret until I came along and ruined things by becoming the first accidental witch in the world's history. I brought their anger and need for revenge out into the open, and too many people have died because of that. But now I get to make things better.
We head outside, Elodie with the box and a few more papers besides, and then I’m in Fletcher’s arms once again. It’s absolutely my favourite place to be.
He’s so strong, and his body fits mine just perfectly, and I’m more than happy to put my trust in him and fly away.
6
Back inside the house, Ellis heads up to take a shower, and Fletcher makes tea for his mum and a coffee for himself.
“Are you okay?” He reaches across the table to
