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fire, watching TV and talking to her dad
and grandma while Steve would be spending his helping to clear out a storeroom
in a freezing shop.
    “Staunchly Springs” had just
ended (with the startling revelation that George’s half-brother, Phil, was
actually his mother’s best friend’s grandmother’s sister’s child and his real
name was Francine), when Belladonna suddenly jumped to her feet.
    “We forgot one!”
    “Heaven’s, Belladonna!”
gasped Grandma Johnson. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
    “You forgot one what?” asked
her dad.
    “One of the herbs. Betony.
It’s supposed to grow in church yards. We were going to check St. Abelard’s but
I forgot.”
    Her dad looked at his mother
and sighed.
    “Well, I can’t leave the
house,” he said. “And there’s no way she’s going alone in the dark.”
    Grandma Johnson heaved
herself to her feet.
    “Come on then,” she said.
“Let’s make it quick before “Great British Bake Off” starts.”
    Belladonna threw on her
jacket and grabbed a flashlight, then waited impatiently while Grandma Johnson
wound a long woolen scarf three times around her neck, fastened her coat right
up to the top, pulled on a hat, put on her gloves and picked up her umbrella.
    “It’s not the Arctic, grandma!”
    “When you get to my age, you
chill easily. Now come on.”
    They walked down Lychgate Lane to the church, with Grandma Johnson admiring the houses that had put up
Halloween decorations and tut-tutting the ones that hadn’t.
    “Some people are just
party-poopers,” she muttered.
    Belladonna stopped across the
street from the church. She couldn’t risk taking her grandmother in and
frightening off the charnel sprites, so she convinced her to wait, turned on
the flashlight and walked into the wet and weedy churchyard alone.
    “Aya!” she called, as loud as
she dared. “Aya! Are you here?”
    “Of course I’m here!” said a
familiar voice right behind her. “Charnel sprites love Halloween.”
    “Let me guess,” said
Belladonna, turning around and lowering the flashlight to charnel sprite
height. “Parties?”
    “Absolutely,” said Aya,
enthusiastically, her slightly purple skin shimmering in the light. “Wouldn’t
miss it for the world. It’s like old home week. What are you doing here at this
time of night? Not calling the Hunt again, I hope.”
    “I need some betony,”
explained Belladonna. “I read that they used to plant it in graveyards to
discourage ghosts.”
    “Silly humans,” giggled Aya.
“There’s some over here.”
    Belladonna followed the
charnel sprite to the far side of the church and picked some leaves of the
missing ingredient.
    “Are you making the Nine
Herbs Charm?”
    “Sort of,” said Belladonna. “But
with two more to make eleven. It’s for a binding.”
    She explained about Branwyn
and the Spirits of the Black Water.
    “Ugh,” said Aya, shuddering.
“Old Magic. Branwyn won’t know the way to the Other Side, though. I’ll make
sure our local office sends someone.”
    “Thanks. I didn’t know you
had regional charnel sprite offices.”
    “Of course we do! How else
could we manage? You lot are constantly popping off.”
    Belladonna smiled, thanked
Aya again, and returned to her grandmother. It was the semi-final of “Great
British Bake Off,” which Grandma Johnson wouldn’t dream of missing, so it was
nearly bed time before they were able to add the betony to the binding potion.
    “So much for an early night,”
said Belladonna.
    “Don’t worry,” said her dad.
“I’ll make sure you’re up in time.”
    She blew him a kiss
goodnight, gave her grandma a hug and headed upstairs to bed. She was tired,
but sleep wouldn’t come. Tomorrow would be something different, it wasn’t going
to be about the Words or anything to do with being the Spellbinder, really. It
was about Old Magic and she wasn’t sure how it would work or even if it would
do anything at all. She didn’t even know anything about the