The candle flame seemed to surge higher and burn brighter after she’d burned the paper. She knew she had to leave it for a while for the spell truly to take hold before she should blow it out. She sat in silence, trying to exclude from her mind all other thoughts but her wish, and to concentrate on empowering her spell. Her eyes started to close and her breathing slowed …

Suddenly the silence of the room was shattered by the sound of a door slamming. It was very loud and sounded nearby. Gina’s stomach flipped and her heart was instantly pounding.

Who could that be? What?

She listened intently, trying to silence her ragged breath, but heard no more. Gradually she relaxed. She must have been mistaken; it was nothing.

When she felt the spell had had time to … to what? To cook? – She laughed to herself at this. Time to be born, maybe? – she blew out the candle and enjoyed inhaling the smoke.

There, that will teach Dad to hit Mum and Nell and kick up so much that they have to seek refuge at the farm.

They’d gone back home next morning, Dora had told her when Gina had insisted on hearing exactly how Dora’s face had come to be bruised, and Mr Beveridge promised to have a very strict word with Philip.

‘Next time, Mum, I think you should go to Uncle Tom’s,’ said Gina, looking her mother hard in the eye.

‘I’m hoping there won’t be another time, love,’ said Dora, looking away and shrugging the incident off. ‘I reckon your dad was just anxious about summat at work and it made him short-tempered, like.’

‘Mum, why do you make excuses for him? Uncle Tom will deal with him once and for all if you go to the Lodge.’

‘And that’s why I won’t be going, Gina,’ Dora said. ‘And I went straight to Tom this morning and told him he’s to do nowt either. I can’t be responsible for more violence.’

‘There shouldn’t be any violence at all,’ said Gina. All her life she’d been on the receiving end of physical punishment by her father, but she’d always been a naughty girl, too, and she almost regarded it as the cost of being found out. But now, with her living at the Hall, it seemed Philip had turned more violent towards Dora and Ellen, who surely were blameless.

It was then that Gina decided she needed to seek the help of her magic powers to deal with her father. Let the magic do the work for her, and for Mum and Nell.

It was raining hard and Edith was plainly bored.