Abby the Witch by Odette C. Bell Page B

they'd just travelled 28 years into
the past. How was this man she'd only just met going to deal with
this?
    Abby watched,
unwilling to break his silence with a 'told you so'.
    Sure enough
Pembrake's face seemed to be cracking under the effort of keeping
his cool. His brow was glistening, visible even under the pale
light of the crackling fire, and if he started clutching that spoon
any tighter, it would probably melt into a puddle of molten
metal.
    Abby wasn't
sure where to take it from here. 'I-'
    'If you could
just excuse us, Martha,' Pembrake's voice was disturbingly calm,
and Abby watched him wearily as he slowly stood up. 'There's
something I need to discuss with Abby,
something important.'
    Abby
practically shivered at the hooded menace rippling through his
words. Okay, so he wasn't taking this well….
    Pembrake stood
and held out his arm, motioning her to stand. The movement was
delivered with the practiced ease of proper gentleman, except she'd
bet her life that wasn't charm twinkling in his eyes.
    She swallowed
and stood, bowing demurely to Martha before following Pembrake from
the house.
    He was all but
dragging her along with his stiff-shouldered strut. Sure he might
not have her by the wrist, but the implication was there.
    When they'd
reached the outside world, the sea breeze racing up off the ocean
and chilling the afternoon air, he'd turned to her.
'You knew about this? You knew we'd travelled into
the past?'
    She could see
he was angry; it would be impossible not to the notice the fierce
crease running across his brow. But he didn't have any right to be
angry with her. This wasn't her fault, after all. 'No! Of
course not! I only guessed!'
    Pembrake
grunted with disdain and took off down the well-trodden path that
led from the house, winding up to the grassy cliffs beyond.
    Abby started
off after him, amazed that the charming, apparently caring Pembrake
who had urged her to lie down when she'd appeared ill, was now
storming off across the cliff, accusing her of having plotted some
strange temporal trap. The exasperation brought tingling heat to
her cheeks as she half-ran after the marching figure.
    It took her a
good few minutes of scrambling after him to realise where he was
headed. The cliff, he was taking her to the cliff she had crash
landed on only last night – the place where this whole thing had,
presumably, gone horribly wrong. 'Where are we going?' she tried to
prompt the truth from him, her breath catching with the sheer
exhaustion of running after him.
    'I don't trust
you,' Pembrake's voice was blank, 'there's something about you,
Abby….'
    Abby suddenly
felt sick. She'd heard that kind of tone before, that sharp
accusation stabbing away at her like a knife. He couldn't suspect
that she was a witch… could he?
    They finally
reached the base of the cliff, and Pembrake climbed it with a quick
powerful stride that left Abby huffing meters behind.
    'There's
something I remembered from last night,' he cast his eyes around
the still damp grass.
    Abby slowed,
her limbs freezing with the terrible thought that ran through her
mind: he knows.
    'It wasn't
until you had that – turn in your bedroom…' Pembrake
walked over to a low twisted bush and peered amongst the tangled
twigs, 'that I remembered something about you.'
    Abby was
standing dead still, watching Pembrake with heart-pounding
interest.
    'Something was
missing, I told myself,' Pembrake's face took on a satisfied smile
and he plunged his hand into the bush, retrieving something. 'The
last two times I saw you, you were holding this,' he brandished her
broom, 'you witch.'
    Abby gasped,
instinctively putting her hands up as if Pembrake had struck her.
'N-no,' the drumbeat of her heart almost drowned out his words, and
she could feel the panic threaten to engulf her in flames, 'I-I
c-can explain.'
    'Explain? Explain? Why don't you explain why you did
this, why you took us back in time? Or is this all just a game?
Have you just cast some