Page 52 of Under Your Spell

I clear my throat. ‘I don’t think I said that.’

‘You definitely said that.’

‘Right, well, regardless of who said what and when, there is absolutely nothing going on between me and Theo now. He’s probably just feeling creative because of all the… sea air.’

‘The sea air?’ Serena lifts a brow. ‘I suppose so. Notoriously hard to find the stuff in California.’

I maintain a stony silence.

She sighs. ‘All right, I believe you. Just make sure it stays that way. You know I wish you nothing but hot sex, but Theo Eliott is not for you, Clemmie. He’d chew you up and spit you out.’

‘I wish we’d never made those wishes,’ I grumble. ‘Not when you and Lil keep bringing them up.’

‘Baaaaabe!’ a voice calls from somewhere off-screen behind Serena. A woman’s voice. A woman in Serena’s flat. Calling her babe.

We freeze, just looking at each other for a moment. Serena’s eyes are enormous. A muscle in her jaw twitches.

‘Babe?’ The voice again. ‘Have you seen my gold bracelet anywhere? I thought I left it by the bed.’

‘Serena!’ I hiss. ‘Who is tha—’ But I don’t get to finish my question because my sister cuts the call off.

I stare, blinking at the blank screen.

‘What just happened?’ I ask aloud. I contemplate calling Serena straight back but I already know she won’t answer, so I do the next best thing and call Lil.

‘Sweet Clementine!’ she coos when she picks up, her face close to her camera, beaming at me.

‘Lil!’ I get straight to the point, breathless. ‘I was just on the phone with Serena and there was a woman with her in the flat and I heard her in the background and…’ I trail off.

‘And what?’ Lil asks, a worried frown on her face.

‘She called Serena “babe”,’ I whisper.

Lil’s face turns blank. ‘She…’ she starts. ‘What?’

‘She called Serena “babe”. Twice.’

‘Fuck me,’ Lil says succinctly, and the phone screen goes blurry. ‘I’m ordering an Uber right now. I’m on my way. Do you think it’s possible she’s in some sort of hostage situation? Was this a cry for help? Was she blinking a lot? Like she was trying to communicate with you in Morse Code? I saw a film where someone did that once.’

‘No, she was blinking a normal amount,’ I say. ‘There was something about it… I think… I think maybe Serena has… a girlfriend.’

Lil’s face is back and she’s on the move, heading down the stairs from her flat, panting into the screen. ‘Serena?’ she says like it’s ridiculous. ‘The woman who said that relationships were exclusively for people of below-average intelligence?’

‘Remember that time Len called me “babe” in front of her and she mimed throwing up so realistically that he panicked and pulled the car over on the side of the A1, and then she had that twenty-minute rant about the infantilization of women and made him donate money to Women’s Aid in front of her?’

‘To be fair, that might be more of an “I-hate-Len” thing than an “I-hate-pet-names” thing,’ Lil points out, folding herself into the back of her Uber and greeting the driver with a delighted, ‘Oh, hello, Marcus!’

‘So, tell me exactly what you heard,’ she continues.

I do, and Lil frowns. ‘So whoever this woman is she has things in Serena’s flat? I don’t believe it. Serena doesn’t even have coat hooks because she doesn’t want people “making themselves too comfortable”. She sleeps diagonally across her bed. She only has one coffee cup.’

‘There was a vibe!’ I insist. ‘The woman’s voice was all sweet and relaxed and Serena flipped when I heard her, and put the phone down.’

Lil makes a humming sound. ‘Suspicious. I’m pulling up to her place now.’

‘Keep me on the phone,’ I say, desperate to know what’s going on.

‘Of course.’ Lil says her goodbyes to Marcus and rides the lift up to Serena’s flat, before pounding on our sister’s door. ‘Serena!’ she shouts. ‘Open the door right now!’