She feels the point of the blade. “If he has to go to an assessment he might not be able to have a Giving.”
She’s winding me up. I just have to ignore her. I will get three gifts. Every witch gets three gifts.
Gran says, “Nathan will receive three gifts on his birthday. That is the way it is for all witches. And that is the way it will be for Nathan.”
“I mean, it’s bad enough for a White whet if something goes wrong and they don’t get three gifts.”
“Nothing will go wrong, Jessica.” Gran turns to look at her, saying, “I’ll give Nathan three gifts, just as I’ll give them to you and Deborah and Arran.”
Arran comes to sit by me. He puts his hand on my arm and says quietly just to me, “I can’t wait for your Giving. You come to mine and I’ll come to yours.”
“Kieran told me about a whet in York who didn’t get three gifts,” says Jessica. “He married a fain in the end and now works in a bank.”
“What’s this boy called?” Deborah asks.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not a witch now and never will be.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of such a boy,” Gran says.
“It’s true. Kieran told me,” Jessica says. “Kieran said that it’s different for Black Witches, though. They don’t just lose their abilities. If Blacks don’t get three gifts they die.”
Jessica puts the point of the knife into the table in front of me and holds it there, balanced on its tip, by her index finger. “They don’t die straightaway. They get sick, maybe last a year or two if they’re lucky, but they can’t heal and they just get weaker and sicker and sicker and weaker and then”—she lets the knife fall—“one less Black Witch.”
I should close my eyes.
Arran gently wraps his fingers around the handle of the knife and moves it away, asking, “Do they really die, Gran?”
“I don’t know any Black Witches, Arran, so I can’t say. But Nathan is half White and he will get three gifts on his birthday. And Jessica, you can stop this talk of Black Witches.”
Jessica leans close to Arran and mutters, “It would be interesting to see what happens, though. I’d guess that he’d die like a Black Witch.”
And I have to get out of there. I go upstairs. I don’t break anything, just kick the wall a few times.
Surprisingly, Jessica hasn’t chosen to have a big ceremonial Giving but a small and private one. Unsurprisingly, she has chosen to go so small and so private that although Deborah and Arran are invited, I am not. I heard Gran trying to persuade Jessica to invite me a few nights earlier, but it didn’t work, and I don’t want to go anyway. I have no friends to play with, so I’m left alone at home while Gran, Jessica, Deborah, and a glum Arran trudge to the woods.
Normally I’d be in the woods, but I can’t leave the house because I don’t want to be punished with one of Gran’s potions. I don’t want to go through twenty-four hours leaking yellow pus from boils the size of gobstoppers for the sake of Jessica.
I sit at the kitchen table and draw. My picture is of Gran performing the ceremony, giving Jessica three gifts. The gifts have just been passed to Jessica but she is dropping them, a sign of seriously bad luck. The blood from Gran’s hand, the blood of her ancestors that Jessica must drink, drips bright red on to the forest floor, undrunk. And Jessica remains in the picture, horrified, unable to access her Gift, her one special magical power.
I like the picture.
All too soon the ceremonial group are back home, and it is clear that Jessica has not dropped a thing. She walks in the back door, saying, “Now that I’m no longer a whet, I need to find out what my Gift is.”
She stares at the picture and then at me. “I’ll have to practice on something.”
And all I can do is sit there and hope that she never finds her Gift. And I hope that if she does find it, it’s something ordinary like potion-making, Gran’s Gift. Or that she has a weak Gift like most men. But I know there is no point hoping for that. I know she will have a strong Gift like most women, and she will find it and hone it and practice it. And use it on me.
I am lying on the lawn in the back garden watching ants building a nest in the grass. The ants look big. I can see the details of their bodies, how their legs move and march and climb.
Arran comes to sit by me. He asks me how I am and how school is going, the sort of stuff Arran is interested in. I tell him about the ants, where they are going and what they are doing.
Out of the blue he says, “Are you proud that Marcus is your father, Nathan?”
The ants carry on with their work, but I no longer care.
“Nathan?”
I turn to Arran, and he meets my gaze with that open and honest look of his.
“He’s such a powerful witch, the most powerful of all. You must be proud of that?”
Arran has never asked me about my father before.
Never.
And even though I trust him above anyone, trust him completely, I’m afraid to answer. Gran has drummed into me that I must never talk about Marcus.
Never.
I must never answer questions about him.
Any answer can be twisted or misinterpreted by the Council. Any indication that a White Witch sympathizes with any Black Witch is seen as treacherous. All Black Witches are tracked down by Hunters under the direction of the Council. If they are captured alive they suffer Retribution. Any White Witch who aids a Black is executed. I have to prove to everyone, at all times, that I am a White Witch, my loyalties are to Whites and my thoughts are pure White.
Gran has told me that if anyone asks me how I feel about Marcus I must say I hate him. If I can’t say that, then the only safe answer is no answer.
But this is Arran.
I want to be honest with him.
“Do you admire him?” Arran presses.
I know Arran better than anyone, and we talk about most things, but we have never talked about Marcus. We have never even talked about Arran’s father. My father killed his father. What can you say about that?
And yet . . . I want to confide in someone, and Arran is the best and only person I can trust with my feelings. And he is looking at me in that way he has, all kindness and concern.
But what if I say to him, “Yes, I admire the man who killed your father,” or “Yes, I’m proud that Marcus is my dad. He is the most powerful Black Witch and his blood runs in my veins.” What will happen?
Still he presses me, “Do you? Do you admire Marcus?”
His eyes are so pale and so sincere, pleading with me to share my feelings.
I have to look down. The ants are still busy, evacuees carrying huge loads to a new home.
I answer Arran as quietly as I can.
“What did you say?” he asks.
I still keep my head down. But I say it a little louder.
“I hate him.”
At that moment a pair of bare feet appears by the ant’s nest. Arran’s feet.
Arran is standing in front of me and he is sitting beside me. Two Arrans. The one sitting down scowls and then transforms before my eyes back into Jessica, looking cramped inside Arran’s T-shirt and shorts.
Jessica leans across and hisses at me, “You knew. You knew all along it was me, didn’t you?”
Arran and I watch her stomp off.
He asks, “How could you tell it wasn’t me?”
“I couldn’t.”
Not by looking at her anyway. Her Gift is impressive.
After that first attempt at using her Gift to trick me, Jessica doesn’t give up. Her disguises are flawless, and her determination and persistence equal to them. But her problem is a fundamental one that she is incapable of understanding: Arran would never try to get me to talk about my father.