Part One can be found here.

She turned to mum’s page, winced at what she saw, then turned to the next one. She’d need to go to the shop to get a couple of bits, but there was nothing too strange. She shrugged on her coat, and headed out.

She was just leaving the Co-op, weighed down with two bags, featuring a reasonable mix of spell ingredients and microwave food, when a hand brushed against hers. Creepy homeless guy waved a filthy hand at the bags. ‘Some interesting things you’ve brought there. In my experience, combining some of them might lead you to opening a gateway to somewhere you might not want to go—‘

‘What is it with you? Stop looking at my stuff, Jesus. And anyway, I don’t really have much choice.’

‘Your mum—‘

‘Is like, hotter, and way cooler than yours, alright?’

He smiled, revealing a remarkably good set of teeth, and held his hands up before him. ‘Please, let me finish a sentence. OK, so, I was suggesting that the gate you intend to open will lead you somewhere I wouldn’t class as being particularly suitable for a girl of sixteen. So how about I come with you?’

She looked at him. Either he intended to do nasty stuff to her, or he was completely mad. Or both. How did he know she was going to open a gate? ‘Who are you?’

He nodded, smiling as though she’d asked the right question. ‘My name is Martin, though I have been called other things in my time—‘

‘Bet you have.’

‘I have been here for some time, long before your mother and her friends began dabbling in things they would have best steered clear of.’

His voice had changed, becoming clearer and less mumbly, and he was standing straight now. He was actually quite tall, and looked possibly quite fit, in a… eww, no, really not, not ever, what was she thinking? She shrugged at him. ‘Don’t care, really, come if you want. I’m not sure I want you in my house though.’

He nodded, and fell into step beside her. They walked in silence back to the house, her with her shopping, him with a huge bag of rattling cans and random bits of material. When they reached the front door, he stopped, and she looked back at him. OK, probably not completely mad. Still a bit smelly. She sighed and held the door open and he nodded again, and stepped in. They entered the lounge and he took the bags from her, rapidly sorting out the things she needed, giving the crap junk-food dirty looks.

She ignored them, grabbing a pizza from him and going into the kitchen. She stuck it in the micro, and by the time she went back into the lounge with it on a plate, the ingredients were open and he was busy spreading them across the floor. He waved the packet of sage at her. ‘Did you get any matches?’

She shook her head and took mum’s lighter off the TV table. He nodded, opened the sage and rolled it into a tube that he tied tightly with string. She sat on the edge of the sofa, watching him work. She’d expected shaking hands, but he moved like he’d done this before, lots of times before. She was only half done with the pizza when he straightened, clicked his back and turned to her. ‘Are you ready?’

‘What, like, right now?’

He nodded. She sighed, placed the pizza to one side, and stood. ‘Yeah, s’pose so. Umm, what do I do?’

Next instalment: Monday 21st October