At once, the drops of essence started to sparkle. Altamira gasped. The essence shone brightly, almost pure gold, and then subsided to a faint, scarcely noticeable glow.

“I just tied my spell to those drops of peppermint essence,” Mika explained. “So now it’ll stay in place until the magic in the essence wears off. It doesn’t have as much power as a living tree does, so I usually add a new drop and top the spell off before bed every night.”

“What does it do?” Rosetta asked curiously. “What’s the spell for?”

“To keep spiders and bugs out of the room.”

The girls burst out laughing. “We’re witches,” Altamira cried, practically rolling on the floor in her mirth. “We’re supposed to embrace nature!”

“I embrace nature,” said Mika, shuddering. “Outside. But I draw the line at creepy-crawlies in my bedroom.”

This seemed to tickle them no end. Mika grinned, not in the least surprised. There’d been a time when she, too, had been unbothered by spiders and had chased frogs around the garden like she had absolutely no doubt Altamira did. Ick.

“Lunch!” Ian’s voice boomed from two floors below them. Mika was frankly amazed it had reached them all the way across the house, but she supposed that was one of the perks of stage training.

Downstairs in the kitchen, the girls went to work getting plates out of the dishwasher while Mika was sent across the room to the table.

Mika had only just sat down when Terracotta, the last of the girls, entered the room. She came straight to the table and, somewhat to Mika’s surprise, smiled at her. “Hello,” she said, her voice high and young and sweet.

“Hi,” said Mika, smiling back.

Unlike Altamira, who looked like she hadn’t bothered to change out of her pyjamas this morning, and Rosetta, who was wearing a pair of jeans and an old pink T-shirt, Terracotta had dressed up. Her straight black hair had been scraped into a high, rather severe ponytail and her outfit was a formal, knee-length black dress with ruffles at the ends of the cap sleeves.

She continued to regard Mika with a steady, unwavering pair of brown eyes, but didn’t say anything more. Mika wondered if she was waiting for someone to notice her outfit.

“That’s a lovely dress,” Mika offered.

Terracotta beamed. “Thank you. I’m wearing it because I might be going to a funeral later.”

“You might be?”

She slipped nimbly into her chair, apparently satisfied that her outfit had been duly noted. “Yes. It depends.”

“On what?”

“On you,” Terracotta said, smiling angelically.

Mika supposed she really ought to have seen this coming, considering everything Rosetta had told her earlier. She considered the child across the table from her. “How would you do it?” she asked curiously.