The Family Friend, C. MacDonald [ereader for android TXT] 📗

concussing herself. And, together, they will throw her out. Maybe Raf will take all of Amanda’s wacky bullshit and put it out in the street and they’ll watch the wind blow it into the sea and they’ll never have to see her again.

Erin stands up and extends her hand for Raf to follow her. He looks at her and there it is, the first hint at how angry he really is about the photo, a glint of jealous rage he’s desperately trying to style out with a chill exterior. He stands up, shaking his head as Erin makes her way to the doors into the garden. He pinches his eyes into his nose as if he hasn’t slept for weeks. He knows where they’re going so Erin marches out to Amanda’s studio before he can object. According to Sophie’s Instagram Amanda’s doula-ing for her today so she’s definitely not in. Erin opens the door of the studio, glances at the crystal grid, still on the table beaming its love energy towards Raf as he turns sideways to edge his way through the door. He seems giant in the tiny room, and from the way he sniffs the herbal air and casts his eyes over the brightly coloured throw that Amanda’s put up on the back wall, it seems like he hasn’t been in here since she arrived.

‘I need you to listen to me now. Do you see this?’ She points to the crystal grid. ‘I spoke to an expert and these crystals are designed to bewitch someone or to repair an old relationship.’

‘Erin –’

‘Please.’ She goes to him and takes his hands in hers, grips them tight and looks straight into his shining brown eyes. ‘Please let me finish.’ He nods, the anger in his eyes replaced by an etch of concern. Erin slams open the cupboard door and reveals the Post-it, something shimmers in Raf’s eyes. He thinks I’ve lost it, Erin thinks, but she has to make her case.

‘“Let us not to the marriage of two minds admit impediments.” It’s a Shakespeare sonnet all about how once you love, you can never ever let that love go. It’s extreme. Too much. And it’s Amanda’s mantra.’

‘How many times have you been in here?’

Erin ignores him, undeterred. ‘You know voodoo?’

‘What?’

‘Voodoo, sticking pins in dolls and causing them pain.’

‘I guess.’

‘Well.’ She goes round to the sofa, bends down to her knees and reaches under. Her hand finds square metal legs. She sweeps again and only finds the edge of the folded mattress. Raf’s looking at her down his nose, expression blank. She gets her phone torch out and shines it under the sofa. The jar isn’t there. Nothing’s there. ‘There was –’ She stands up and goes into the bathroom. She looks behind the toilet, opens the bathroom cabinet even though there’s no way the jar could fit in there. She looks in the shower. She crosses the room, trying not to look at Raf who’s leaning out of the open studio door. Erin yanks all of the cupboard doors, high and low, she puts her head into the deep cupboard under the sink and rustles around the cleaning products. The jar isn’t here. She’s taken it. She’s hidden it.

‘There was a jar,’ Erin says.

‘Let’s go back to the house.’

‘It was a curse. There was a doll of me in the jar. I’ve googled it. It’s witchcraft.’

‘I don’t want us in here any more. Close the cupboards, make it look like it did and let’s go back to the house.’

‘She wants to take you away from me. She’s in love with you.’ His jaw tenses. ‘She’s always been in love with you, that’s what the poem means. She’s going to try and take you away from me. You and Bobby maybe. She put pepper in the jar, chilli flakes, it’s part of the spell, to make me angry. And there was some graveyard soil in there as well that was meant to drive us apart. She’s planned it all to steal you from me. Now she’s moved the jar because she knows I’m on to her. She knows it proves everything. That’s why she took the picture with Xavi as well. She’s the troll. She has to be. She knows we’ll throw her out now we know and she’s getting desperate.’

‘Get back in the house, now.’ Raf says it with such force, such authority that it silences Erin instantly. She almost sits on the floor like a young child. He goes out the door, holding it for her, and she walks past through the tunnel of his arm against the door frame and back towards the kitchen feeling the chilly vitality on her skin that she would have walking back from a big night out at dawn. Everything tingles, her pulse races.

‘She’s moved it.’ Erin sits on the sofa, hands cradled in between her knees. Raf’s in the kitchen, staring into the garden. ‘She knew I saw her getting back from London, so she moved it just in case I came into her room.’ Raf begins moving things from the drying rack and stacking them in a pile next to it. She leans over the sofa towards him, ‘I know you can’t see it. You still see her as a little girl so you can’t see how manipulative she is.’ There’s a huge bang as Raf slams the stack of dinner plates down on the work surface. He speaks as if his voice was being fed through a mangle, deliberate but strained.

‘You’re going to go and see someone.’

‘What?’

‘I didn’t want it to come to this but you need professional help. Perhaps go somewhere, away from us for a bit.’ Erin laughs. She’s knows it’s not the right reaction as soon as it comes out of her mouth but she can’t help it. He wants to section her. She’s never heard anything so ridiculous in her life. He’s shaking his head, anger turned to sadness now. He pities her. It suddenly