Free Home by Keeley Smith Page B

course she would have known, even then. Ayden
looked over her shoulder and smiled.
    “ I remember
that moment like it was yesterday. How did you do it,
Jack?”
    “ I was
hypnotised.”
    “ What? When?”
Cora asked. She couldn’t believe that something like that had
worked.
    “ I know
someone,” Evelyn told them. “Jack mentioned what he had in mind and
I knew just the person.”
    “ It’s perfect,”
Cora sighed. She made her way over the growing pile of paper and
placed the photo on the mantle.
    “ Right, I think
you should open my gift before everyone else,” Ayden told
her.
    She laughed.
“Are you just a little bit excited, Ayden?”
    Ayden pulled a
face. “No.” Yet he shifted his body, like the excitement was too
much for him.
    She shook her
head. “Will it make me cry?”
    “ Yes, but they
will be happy tears.”
    Ayden handed
her a box with a bow on the top. “Have you even bothered to wrap
this?”
    “ I did the bow.
It is my kind of wrapping.”
    Cora nodded,
it was quite good for Ayden as he didn’t have the patience for
fiddly things. She lifted the lid off the box and frowned as her
finger traced the cover of a photo album. Lifting it, she set aside
the box and opened the album. Her mother hadn’t said anything...
The tears sprung to her eyes as she looked at the pictures on the
first page. Her mother had documented her life. How had Ayden
known?
    There were
photos from places Cora couldn’t remember, ones she didn’t even
know of. In one she looked happy, her hair was pulled high on top
of her head. The sun had browned her skin, her arm was slung around
her mother’s shoulders. Her mother looked so young. Almost like her
older sister.
    “ Where?” Cora
asked.
    “ I found them
in the wardrobe as I packed.”
    “ Why?” Why
hadn’t her mother ever shown her them in the last year?
    “ You never age.
You couldn’t stay in one place too long. She couldn’t put them out,
but she could have told you about them since you’ve found out...”
Ember offered.
    “ I’ve never
heard of it before... never known a witch to live with Commoners
who knew their secret, and now we are in the company of two,” Iona
said.
    “ To be fair,
Cora dropped on lucky,” Jack told them, “the people I lived with
made my life hell because they knew my secret and it ruined their
life. Laura embraced it.”
    “ She certainly
did,” Tabitha whispered.
    Cora’s fingers
brushed up against the photo.
    “ I think we are
going to need more frames to be hung up,” Jack joked with a smile
as Ciaran groaned.
    “ Thank you,
Ayden.”
    Ayden
shrugged. “It was an easy present. I had to pay for the
bow.”
    “ Right, time
for my present,” Ember said, passing her an envelope.
    Ember was
already wearing Cora’s present. It was a Christmas jumper. Stitched
into that jumper was a witch sitting in Santa’s sleigh. She’d had
it specially made, knowing this was the only Christmas jumper Ember
would wear.
    Cora opened
her present and looked at it, trying to not let her face show her
confusion. It was a blank piece of paper.
    “ Well, I don’t
have a printer set up just yet and I wasn’t going to use that stone
back at the shop.”
    Cora laughed
and nodded at Clay who turned to Tabitha. “Ahhh, that is where you
are wrong, my lovely.”
    Clay pulled a
box from behind him and Eli then passed it to Tabitha who looked at
it in surprise.
    “ We each put in
some money and bought you a new laptop, Tab,” Eli told her. “I’ve
put all the latest things on there.”
    Was it wrong
that Cora felt giddy about a new laptop for the shop?
    “ Hmmm... I
can’t usually work your new gadgets, Eli.”
    “ Tab, that is
just a normal laptop, nothing too fancy,” Ayden
chuckled.
    “ What do I do
with my old laptop?”
    “ Throw it in
the bin!” Cora giggled.
    “ Burn it whilst
we dance around it?” Jack suggested.
    “ I like the
idea of a burning, but no dancing,” Clay agreed with
Jack.
    “ The bin sounds
like a