Sunday morning's were now becoming my favourite time of the week for some strange reason. I think it was because we were now spending so much time at Arne's these days which was fine by me. Victoria and Katie had been going home more at weekends now as we were officially on the run up to Christmas, so if I didn't spend my weekends here I would be on my own. Sunday mornings though, I would have a lie in in my huge comfy bed, I would wander down to the kitchen where either Arne or Duncan would be making breakfast then at some point, I would wander back to my room and slowly get ready for the day.

I did need my lie in today though as we had a serious, but short coven meeting on Saturday night. It had to be cut short as the weather had taken a turn for the worst and no amount of pleading with the impending storm or reasoning with mother nature was helping. It was almost as if mother nature herself was giving us a warning for some reason. We had been discussing the kidnappings and murders in town with the rest of the coven who wholeheartedly agreed to help in any way they could. My Aunt had told everyone that a "cleansing" was maybe on the horizon for the whole coven. I read about cleansings in one of my Aunt's own spell books and it looked mind boggling. I had also stayed up a little longer than usual as some of Arne's clan had returned from their trips away. My cousin Molly had even come back to Arne's after the coven meeting as Luca had returned. He had been back to Italy for a few months as he had vampiric family over there that he hadn't seen in a long time, the long time being around fifty years. If there was one thing about vampires, they had a tendency to move about a lot and didn't think that spending decades apart from each other was that weird. At least I got to meet him, he wasn't present at my initiation but pretty much all of Arne's clan had met me now.

My Aunt had been somewhere this morning and had returned on Sunday afternoon with a large box. She waltzed in to the lab where I had been listening to music and doing a bit of studying. Magic and regular schoolwork too.

'Oh hey Auntie M, what you got there?'

'This right here, is a box full of old maps and blueprints and other stuff from Wendy. I've just been to pick it up.'

'Oh wow that's neat!' I exclaimed. 'Do you think it will help?'

'I hope so Maddie. I think we're pushing our luck for time, especially if we wanna get Francesca back alive. The police haven't even come up with anything yet and that's slightly worrying. I'll give all this to Arne and see what he makes of it. Him and the clan have a better chance of finding something useful.'

'That sounds like a good idea.' I said.

'Yeah well they've had the occasional trip around the school grounds and the surrounding area every so often since we found those nasty things inside the school, but they turned up nothing.'

'Nothing's ever easy is it?' I sighed.

'Nope. Oh erm, I also went to see your mum this morning.' Auntie Morrigan told me. I didn't really know what to say to that.

'Oh.' I did manage to force out. 'What's she saying?'

'Not much as per, I give her a bit a grief, wound her up a bit. The usual.' Auntie M smirked. 'She was asking me about you obviously, she knows about your initiation.'

'Did you tell her about it?' I asked.

'Only when she asked questions. She's your mum Maddie. Even though she hasn't used her powers properly in ages she's still blood and she can still feel these things.'

I didn't really want to talk much more about my mum. To be honest we had more pressing matters at hand. Like the fact that we were meeting up with Mr Evans and Liam later. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it as I had barely seen Liam recently never mind speaking to him. We were to meet up for dinner later so we could share information.

'C'mon, we'll let Arne and his crew take care of all this. We can go back to the school and get sorted before we go out. I've been keeping Daniel up to date on what's been happening so hopefully we can all put our heads together and figure out what to do next.'

I did as I was told. Auntie M left everything in her lab and marched me out in to the main vestibule where Arne and Duncan were waiting for us. Arne and my Aunt had their sickening display of affection thing with each other . I however, got quite possibly one of the nicest and most warming hugs ever from Duncan.

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'Take care okay Maddie. I'll message you in a bit.'

'Sure thing.' I squeezed him back as I laid my head on his chest. 'We can plan our date can't we?'

'Of course.' Duncan kissed me on the top of my head. We eventually let go of each other and I made my way to the front door and had to wait a moment for my Aunt to finish whatever the hell she was doing with Arne. It was funny because of the height difference between them, Arne like always would pick her up if just to get her closer to him; her feet would be dangling at least a foot off the floor. Eventually he put her back down and she hurried over to me.

'We'll keep you updated. Speak in a bit.' Auntie M said.

We drove back to Saint Augustine's in Auntie M's BMW. It was pretty cold outside so she let the BMW warm up a bit before we set off just so there was warm air blowing around the car. It didn't take us long to get back thanks to it being Sunday meaning the roads were clear. My Aunt's phone had suddenly cut off from playing her mad playlist as she was receiving a call. It was from Mr. Evans. She answered and his voice came through the car's speakers.

'Morrigan it's Daniel. Listen just thought I'd let you know that the Police have turned up at the school. They're going through Francesca's locker and speaking to some of the staff and kids.'

'Thanks for the head up Daniel. We're about fifteen minutes away so we'll see you soon.'

'See you in a bit.'

'Ta-ra.'

When we did eventually get back to the school it was like all hell had broken loose, not literally though thank Goddess. The police were there in a small capacity but all the boarding students and most if not all of the faculty were outside the main building being nosey. My Aunt drew as close as she could get and parked up. I saw Katie and Victoria stood on the outskirts of the gathering of people and waved them over.

'Madelyn! Hey have you heard what's going on?' Katie asked me. 'Francesca's gone missing.'

'They think she may have been kidnapped by that serial killer guy.' Victoria added. 'Well, they haven't said that but that's what we reckon.'

I hadn't told them... anything. I couldn't. Not after that horrible dream I had where they had been kidnapped too along with some other women from town. I didn't want to mention anything about it, knowing me I'd probably end up telling them everything they really shouldn't know. I hated lying to them, but really I'd done a good job so far in keeping my gob shut.

'I heard the school might suspend classes tomorrow.' Victoria added.

'I heard the police were coming to give us all talks about stranger danger and stuff.' Said Katie.

To be honest, all that was well and good and everything but a talk and discussion about how to keep yourself safe from the paranormal and demonic would have been more appropriate. Thankfully they didn't need to talk with me or anything, probably because I had already given a statement regarding Francesca when I was in the police station the other night with my Aunt. Katie and Victoria had given a statement as they were present when Francesca had fallen on the body of poor Lisa Murphy who had been dumped in the woods on the school grounds. Maybe the police thought that her "finding" Lisa's body and her being missing were connected. Well, they were sort of right.

I chatted with Katie and Victoria for a little while longer, agreeing that we needed a chill girly night later on; maybe watch a film and get the face masks and nail polish out. But they bid me adieu as they had some laundry to do and studying to catch up on. As soon as they left, Mr Evans and Liam came over to my Aunt and I. Liam was awkwardly stood next to me to the point where awkward wasn't the best word, cringe was more appropriate. It was like he didn't know what to do with himself.

'Hey Maddie.' He mumbled.

'Hey Liam.' I mumbled back. Yeah this was definitely cringe territory we were in. And now we were all heading out to the usual diner for a late lunch/early dinner. My Aunt and Mr Evans were having a quiet chat with each other as I stood watching what was going on and Liam just, didn't really do anything. We were soon instructed to get in my Aunts car then we were speeding off to the diner. I had already planned on what I was going to order. A double cheeseburger with salad, loaded fries, a side of onion rings, a side of macaroni cheese, fried chicken strips and then I would have waffles and ice cream for dessert; all washed down with the biggest strawberry milkshake they offered with extra whipped cream.

I figured that if I had that much food to eat, I wouldn't have to talk much as I would be too busy stuffing my face and I could just get through dinner and save any embarrassment with Liam; then I could go back and have a nice evening with my friends who I haven't seen as much as usual and give them all the gossip I was allowed to tell them about Duncan. Sure I wanted to no the normal teenage girl thing and have fun with my friends and mess about with make up and stuff and talk about boys.

The importance of what we were doing and my newfound duties as a witch were not the things I was bothered about. No, it was being sat near Liam as we'd barely spoken to each other since that kiss. It didn't bother me when it happened, but it had started to since I started getting closer with Duncan. What if Liam was really in to me and I wasn't so much in to him... Oh boy this was going to be difficult working alongside him from now on, especially if I had to turn him down. Maybe we could just be friends?

Oh shit. Was I potentially going to friend-zone the most popular guy at school?