Witch Fire by Laura Powell Page B

played a little trill on the keys. ‘I was not like that as a child at home. I was very spoilt.’
    ‘It must have been a shock coming here.’
    ‘My family was afraid that if the Party found out about my trouble, they would put me to work.’
    China’s official line was that it didn’t have any witches at all. But, as everyone knew, if its witches weren’t imprisoned in the labour camps, they were engaged in government espionage.
    ‘And why are you here, Lucas?’
    ‘Because – because my dad’s an inquisitor.’
    ‘ That must be difficult,’ she said gravely. ‘He is angry with you?’
    ‘He’s worried.’
    Mei-fen idly fingered one, two, three notes. ‘My father is afraid for me. I am his only child. But he underestimates me too.’ The notes became a scale, up and down. ‘ That is why I practise, why I study hard. When I leave here, I need to be as strong and clever as I can be.’
    ‘And what will you do then?’
    Her neat little fingers danced over the keys. ‘I will find new things to practise, and new kinds of work.’ The music came effortlessly now, loops and ripples of melody. ‘And when I do, I will be the very best.’
     
    None of Lucas’s classmates referred to his abrupt exit from the witch-ducking film, at least not in his hearing. But he wasn’t the only student to have an ‘episode’ that week.
    On Saturday, the school was taken on an alpine trek, accompanied by three guardians and led by the sports instructor, a meaty slab of a man named Brett Peters, who’d been in the US Marines and liked everyone to know it. The morning was grey and misty as they set off through the pines, following a winding trail up the mountainside.
    As the day wore on, the mist burned off and the weather became blue and blazing. The scenery was magnificent, but they were not given much time to enjoy it. Peters discouraged idling. The guardians discouraged conversation. Soon, everyone was too hot and breathless to talk, even if they’d wanted to.
    Anjuli in particular was suffering. She always wore baggy layers of clothes, perhaps to disguise her painfully thin frame. For the walk, she was wearing a waterproof coat, now tied round her waist, and a fleece jumper. Under her protective curtain of hair, her face had an unhealthy sheen, and her breath rasped painfully. She began to fall behind.
    ‘Julie,’ barked Peters, coming to a halt. ‘You’re going to get heat exhaustion. Take off that jumper.’
    Anjuli shook her head.
    One of the guardians, Elga, made an impatient noise. ‘Don’t be stupid, girl. You’ve got a T-shirt on underneath, haven’t you?’
    ‘No . . . no . . . I am fine,’ Anjuli whispered. ‘Please.’ She was swaying on her feet.
    ‘Aw, give her a break,’ said Glory. ‘Give us all a break, in fact.’ She sat defiantly down on a boulder and fanned her sweaty face. She was already fed up of alpine scenery. Bloody countryside , she thought.
    Peters ignored her. ‘ Take off that jumper,’ he growled at Anjuli. ‘At once. You’re slowing us down, and endangering your own health.’
    Slowly, reluctantly, Anjuli began to peel off her sweat-soaked jumper.
    She was wearing a black T-shirt underneath. But now that her arms were bare, they could see for the first time the ugly white splotches that disfigured her right arm. Cigarette burns.
    ‘ There,’ said Peters. ‘ That wasn’t so hard, was it?’
    But Anjuli had begun to cry, tears rolling slowly down her face as she futilely tried to cover the scars with her hands. Peters smirked. Everyone else looked at the ground.
    Everyone except for Yuri, that is. He’d already stripped down to a vest; now he took off the cotton shirt he’d tied around his waist and draped it round Anjuli’s shoulders, as a kind of shawl. She clutched at it gratefully. ‘ Svoloch ,’ he spat in Peters’ direction. ‘ Sukin syn .’
    For a moment, Peters looked as if he was going to make something of it. The guards moved closer too. But Yuri stared