‘Eleventh of January.’

Meredith checks something on her phone. ‘There was a huge storm that day. That’s why she couldn’t get back to you. The energy in electrical storms messes with spells.’

I hate to think of Mum standing in the storm, trying the returning spell over and over, knowing she was not going to make it back to me and Dad. Knowing there was no-one to come and get her.

Pete rubs his hands together. ‘Number one, she’d need money, right?’ he says. ‘I guess she’d use magic to conjure up some money?’

‘No,’ Meredith and I say at the same time.

‘That’s absolutely forbidden according to the laws of magic,’ she says.

‘I think when she couldn’t find you, she’d have headed out into the country, to find some nature,’ I say, feeling more certain of this even as I speak. ‘When I was back home, stuff leaked through. We smelt woodsmoke and I heard her speak … she sounded scared.’ My mouth goes dry at the memory. ‘And I had a dream of Mum sitting with a couple of women in a small kitchen.’

‘What did this kitchen look like?’ asks Meredith.

I close my eyes. ‘There was a woodstove. Bunches of herbs. Jars and jars of things on shelves. And a big teapot on the table.’

Meredith looks up at the ceiling. ‘That makes me think of a distant cousin of mine in Wales. I used to write to her when I was a kid. We mailed each other spells we’d made up. What was her name ...?’

As she speaks, my fingers begin to sizzle hard. I’m hoping it’s a sign that Meredith is on the right track.

‘Carys!’ says Meredith. ‘That’s her name. She’s one of Eunice’s descendants that Mum somehow knew of. Carys rather liked the idea of using magic for tricks, but her mother was dead against it. Her mother was a midwife and I suppose Carys would be too, now.’

‘And does that sound like her kitchen?’

‘Well, it could be a lot of kitchens, to be honest. But it might be hers. I visited her once, when I first got here … then I decided to have nothing more to do with big magic, and we lost touch. Oh, what was her village called …?’ She disappears down the hallway and returns with an atlas. She runs her finger over a map and after a minute she exclaims, ‘Llanwydir. I think you say the first part with that Welsh kind of breathy sound.’

As she says Llanwydir, my fingers tingle like anything. This sizzle is finally proving useful. ‘That’s where she is! I’m sure. Let’s go!’

Meredith closes the atlas firmly. ‘Not me. No way. I’ve made that very clear.’

‘But ...’

She stands up suddenly, her chair falling to the ground. ‘I said no!’