The Watching Wood (21 page)

She was slumped over an old-fashioned school desk in one corner, fast asleep. She held a quill pen in one hand and her fingers were stained with ink. She looked older than before, her grey hair falling in matted clumps over her face, and she was snoring so loudly Grace could hear her from outside the house.

‘I wonder how long she’s been cooped up in there,’ Jenny whispered.

‘Days,’ Grace replied. ‘Look at that mess.’

They watched through the glass and felt guilty. Even in her sleep the woman looked worried. How could they wake
her now and reveal they had returned home – but that one of them was missing? They stood in the dark and listened to the hypnotic drone of Mrs Quinlan’s snores.

‘So are you going in, or what?’

Grace’s heart nearly stopped. That voice, she knew that voice! She turned to the end of the driveway.

‘Rachel!’

She looked like something out of a fairytale. Her leather jerkin was open over her cotton blouse, and the moonlight played on her shiny, dark hair that was falling out of its plait. She held something in her hands, but after a quick glance at it, tossed it into the parched grass of Mrs Quinlan’s lawn.

‘Rachel! Oh, Rachel!’

Adie ran first, her black curls flying behind her as she wrapped her arms around the girl’s neck. Delilah and Una followed, and when Jenny finally ploughed into the mass hug they all toppled to the ground. Grace walked slowly down the driveway and stood over them, watching with tears in her eyes as her friends giggled and squealed, and moaned when one of them got an elbow in the stomach.

This was it. This was real. They were all, finally,
home
.

She tipped forward onto the pile of bodies, ignoring Una’s yelling as she was squished under her weight, and cried her eyes out.

‘Who’s out there?’ a voice yelled from the door. ‘Who is that?’

The girls scrambled to their feet, still giggling and sighing, and smiled at the Old Cat Lady filling the doorway.

‘We’re home, Mrs Quinlan,’ Una said loudly. ‘We made it.’

The woman just stood with her mouth wide open. Finally, she stumbled forward and grabbed hold of Delilah, crushing the girl against her moth-eaten robe, and jumping as the little wood nymph clambered out and grinned at her. Delilah wriggled out of Mrs Quinlan’s vice-like grip and grasped the nymph around the waist, sitting him on her shoulder. She smiled up at her guardian, pulling a stray cat hair out of her mouth.

Mrs Quinlan stared down at them, still in shock, then pointed into the house.

‘Phone,’ she said quickly. ‘I have a phone.’

She snapped when no-one replied.

‘To phone your parents. I have a phone!’

In the whole time that they’d known her, Mrs Quinlan had scoffed at any form of technology, and never had a phone in the house.

‘Actually,’ Jenny said, pulling her mobile from her pocket, ‘I think we’ve got signal now, so we can just–’

‘I got a phone!’ the woman yelled again. ‘For this. I got a phone for this! It’s in the hall. Now, go and ring your parents.’

‘Okay then.’ Jenny smiled at Grace. ‘I’ll go first.’

‘Do you know how to use it?’ the woman barked, following her into the house, and keeping a grip around
Delilah’s shoulders.

‘Yeah, yeah, I know how to use it.’

‘You wait for a dial tone …’ Mrs Quinlan’s voice disappeared into the hallway.

Una and Adie burst out laughing.

‘I know it’s not funny. I know everyone’s going to be crying, and it’ll be horrible and brilliant at the same time,’ Adie said, wiping a tear from her eye. ‘But still.
A phone
.’

Una leaned on Adie’s arm, still in stitches as they made their way into the house, leaving Grace and Rachel on the driveway.

Rachel went to pull her jerkin closed, then let it go.

‘What’s the point?’ she said lightly, tugging at the falling mess that was her hair.

‘I think you’ve never looked better,’ said Grace.

They grinned at each other for a moment.

‘Will you miss it?’ Grace asked finally.

‘You know,’ Rachel said, linking her arm and walking her towards the house. ‘I really won’t.’

Neither will I
, thought Grace.

She squinted against the light of the hall and listened to the always-arguing voices of Jenny and Mrs Quinlan and sighed. It was so good to be home.

Where did you get the idea for the first book in the series,
The Demon Notebook?

From the memory of when my friends and I actually tried to do a pee spell on someone in school! The first book came from that one little incident. My friends and I were aspiring witches – but we were not good at it. Like Grace and her friends, we tried casting spells (that didn’t work) and making potions (mostly smelly goo that also didn’t work). I don’t remember what all of the spells were, but I remember the pee spell. We tried to make a boy pee his pants in French class because he’d been mean to one of us. It didn’t work, and we were absolutely gutted. But, looking back, I’m glad we were rubbish witches. I dread to think what would have happened if we’d gotten exactly what we wanted!

Who was your favourite author as a kid?

Roald Dahl. I still love his books. As a kid I adored reading them. They were so gross and impolite and grotesque, it felt like I was reading something I shouldn’t, yet they were books that were bought for me by adults. And the kids in his stories always did cool stuff – they were outwitting witches, getting abducted by giants or moving things around with their minds – they were the ones with the cunning and the power. I loved that.

Do you ever get to meet your readers?

I do. I visit a lot of school groups in libraries during book festivals and other events, and I love it. Before I started, I thought talking to a big group of kids would be terrifying – I thought they’d heckle me and make me cry – but I haven’t run crying from a library yet. Kids are actually a brilliant audience. I love talking to them about reading, because I can talk about books like
I’m
a kid again. I don’t have to be serious and sensible, I can be as enthusiastic as I want and get all hyper when someone loves the same books I do.

How long have you been writing?

I know I’m three books in now, but I still feel like a newbie. I haven’t been slogging away at the craft for years like I’m supposed to have done. I wanted to be an author when I was very young, but I grew out of it as a teenager and didn’t start writing again until my late twenties. So I’ve really only been doing it a few years. I hope I’m getting better as I go along.

What’s the hardest thing about writing?

Being disciplined. That’s really hard. Usually I sit down at my laptop, stare at the screen for a bit, then get up and make a cup of tea – I make a lot of tea when I’m writing – I also do the laundry, wash the dishes, surf the net, watch YouTube videos of animals who sound like they’re speaking English … I can procrastinate with the best of them.

But when you do get into the swing of it – after the tea, and the laundry, and the springer spaniel saying ‘I love you’ – there’s nothing like it. Getting some good writing done always feels great.

What advice would you give to budding writers?

First, write. Write and read – every day if you can. They go hand in hand and, the more you read, the more you’ll write. It’s also a good idea to keep a scrappy journal to jot down interesting ideas, snippets of overheard conversations, items from magazines or newspapers. It could all be raw material for a story.

Second, write what you enjoy. It can be very hard to get published, and there’s always pressure to write what’s most likely to sell. But if you’re scribbling about something that doesn’t really interest you, it’s bound to show. And I always think, if you’re not getting a kick out of what you’re writing, then why do it at all?

Erika McGann grew up in Drogheda and now lives in Dublin. As a kid she wanted to be a witch, but was no good at it, so now she spends her time writing supernatural stories, and living vicariously through her characters. She hopes, in time, to develop the skills to become an all-powerful being.
The Watching Wood
is her third book.