But mainly I just ached. I ached with remorse, with regret, with fury, with helplessness and with missing him. Phin’s meals were brought to him and he was allowed toilet visits twice a day, his father hovering outside the door with his arms folded across his stomach like a malevolent bouncer.
The atmosphere in the house during those days was ponderous and impossible to read. Everything emanated from David. He radiated a terrible dark energy and everyone avoided angering him further, including me.
One afternoon during Phin’s incarceration, I sat with Justin, sorting herbs with him. I glanced up at the back of the house towards Phin’s window.
‘Don’t you think it’s bad’， I said, ‘that David’s locking Phin up like that?’
He shrugged. ‘He could have killed you, mate. You could have died.’
‘Yeah, I know. But he didn’t. I didn’t. It’s just … wrong.’
‘Well, yeah, it’s probably not how I’d do things, but then I’m not a dad, I don’t know what it’s like to have kids. David’s just doing “his job”， I guess.’ He made quotes in the air as he said these words.
‘His job?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know, having ultimate control over absolutely everything.’
‘I hate him,’ I said, my voice breaking unexpectedly.
‘Yeah, well, that makes two of us.’
‘Why don’t you leave?’
He glanced first at me and then at the back door. ‘I intend to,’ he whispered. ‘But don’t tell a soul, OK?’
I nodded.
‘There’s a smallholding. In Wales. This woman I met at the market told me about it. They’re looking for someone to set up a herb garden. It’ll be like here, free board and lodging and all that. But no fucking dick-swinging overlords.’ He rolled his eyes towards the house again.
I smiled. Dick-swinging overlord. I liked it.
‘When are you going?’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Really soon.’ He looked up at me, quickly. ‘Want to come with?’
I blinked. ‘To Wales?’
‘Yeah. To Wales. You can carry on being my little apprentice buddy.’
‘But I’m only fourteen.’
He didn’t say anything, just nodded and continued tying the herbs.
It wasn’t until a little later that the significance of what he’d said hit me. He was not inviting me to Wales to be his little apprentice buddy; he wasn’t inviting me because he needed me. He was inviting me because he thought I’d be safer there than in my own home.
Justin disappeared two days later. He told nobody he was going and left so early in the morning that even David had yet to wake up. Having learned a lesson about telling tales from what had happened with Phin, I told nobody about the Welsh smallholding. I got the impression he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going. I walked into his room later that day. He’d arrived with very little, and left with even less. I walked to the windowsill where all his books sat in a row.
The Modern Book of Witchcraft and Spells.
Wicca for Beginners.
Wicca Book of Herbal Spells.
I felt sure he’d left them for me on purpose.
I glanced out into the hallway and, having ascertained that there was nobody about, I bundled the books under my jumper.
I was about to run back to my bedroom when my eye was caught by something else on his bedside table. Something small and furry. I thought at first it was a dead mouse, but upon inspection I found it to be a disembodied rabbit’s foot attached to a small length of chain. I had a vague idea that it was supposed to be lucky in some way, like heather and four-leaved clovers. I jammed it quickly into my pocket and ran to my bedroom where I slid everything under my mattress.