Big little spells, p.2
Big Little Spells, page 2
“Maybe you did save the town,” Felicia says, with her little sniff of disdain that I remember all too well. “But if you did, it was for your own gain and nothing more.”
I want to say that at least that’s better than doing it for attention, but I don’t, because I’m evolved as fuck.
My sister’s eyes narrow. And here’s the thing that most people don’t know about Emerson Wilde. She expends a lot of energy trying to convince the people around her to see the error of their ways. She embodies the notion that if you lead a horse to water in the right way, it really will drink.
But when she’s done, she’s done.
As her little sister, I know this better than anyone. So, I step in to stop the impending storm. “This seems straightforward to me,” I say, doing my best to sound as if all this carrying on is a waste of energy, and I low-key resent it. And as if I’m some kind of authority here. “Emerson has some magic. Let her take the test again.”
2
MY SUGGESTION IS MET with the kind of silence that could freeze waterfalls in place.
Carol’s gaze turns to me, and that’s when I realize she hasn’t really looked at me until now. Too busy playing games with Emerson, I guess—and I remind myself that it doesn’t matter if nothing ever changes and everyone still treats Emerson like she’s the only important Wilde sister. Because I don’t live here and the way these people behave reflects on them and has nothing to do with me.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
I have to chant that a few more times as Carol curves her mouth into a benevolent smile that makes my blood run cold. “And what about you, Rebekah?” she asks.
“Me?”
“You were warned not to use any witchcraft during your exile,” she says, so very softly, and I don’t know what Emerson sees when she looks at the creepy head of the Joywood, but all I see is my own impending death. I always have.
It’s one of the reasons I knew I had power all along. And more, that I was a Diviner. I could see even the futures I didn’t want to see.
It makes me shiver, though I fight it back, to realize the future I see in this woman hasn’t changed at all since I was a kid. It’s the same bleakness.
But I spread my arms wide and smile as if she didn’t just threaten me. “And I haven’t,” I say. “I assume you already know that or I would have been called before you long ago. But this is home. Does participating in coven magic in St. Cyprian actually count as breaking the no-magic-in-exile rule?”
Clearly, I catch Carol off guard with this. It’s far more satisfying than it should be. I like to talk a lot about active recovery. I like to consider myself clean. I put magic behind me, which, not to brag, I doubt any of the witches on this field tonight could do. I call myself a cycle breaker and I mean it.
But that old drumbeat of revenge still exists inside of me. The desire to take Carol Simon down every last peg and dispense some much-earned justice to the rest of her coven too, while I’m at it.
Collectively, they’re responsible for almost all of my trauma. It would give me nothing but joy to return the favor, which I know is disordered thinking and sickness reasserting itself and so on. That doesn’t make it any less true.
“I’m more than happy to head right back into exile, actually,” I say as mildly as possible, as if I’m not emotionally invested in anything that happens here.
But I know I am, because an emotionally uninvested person wouldn’t go to all the trouble I do to keep from looking over at Emerson, Ellowyn, or any of the rest of them. Including the glowering immortal witch standing almost directly across from me, the dark night draping itself around him like a cloak, not that I should notice or care.
Sadly, noticing him is an old habit and it makes me furious at myself, because I should know better.
I don’t need to look at any of them anyway. I can feel their disappointment in me just fine. I should be used to it by now. I smile at Carol and remind myself that I’m not responsible for anyone’s feelings but my own.
“Exile is always a choice,” Carol agrees. But there’s something in the way she studies me—in the way her dangerous, insidious magic swishes around me, looking for a way in—that tells me there’s a catch.
Or maybe it’s just that I know her and her cronies.
“You may choose it again, if you wish,” she tells me. Then her eyes gleam with what is clearly malice. “After the pubertatum.”
“I’ve already taken and failed the pubertatum,” I point out, trying to sound anything but terrified. Because I choose my goddamned emotions and I choose not to be terrified by that stupid old test I couldn’t pass when I was actually prepared for it.
“You were part of this.” Carol waves her arm at the river flowing calmly before us, like it was all some childish prank here tonight. Not, you know, my sister sacrificing herself to save this stupid town that only cares about witch hierarchies and power. “You and Emerson exhibited power, according to your own accounts of what happened. You yourself suggested retaking the test, Rebekah.” Carol studies me the way a scientist might study a corpse. A cold chill starts at my chest like corpse is a premonition. Maybe it is.
“I’m afraid we cannot let you back out into the world again without the proper test to check the extent of any abilities you might have,” she says, sounding almost sorrowful, though I can see she’s no such thing. “It wouldn’t be safe. We must keep witchkind safe, Rebekah. You know as well as I do what happens when witches expose themselves.”
No one says Salem. The pitchforks and hysteria are implied.
Still, I try to argue, because apparently I’m not that evolved after all. “You can’t just—”
Carol sweeps her hand up and I cannot speak. She literally hexes me mute.
“You’ll both be tested,” Carol is saying, as if she regrets the necessity, yet thinks it’s for the best. As if this is a kindness. “We’ll investigate this river business. And we’ll come to a verdict that, as ever, keeps witchkind’s best interests at heart.”
If you don’t know Carol, you might think she sounds relatable and sweet. Humans think she’s the best head of the town council they’ve ever had. But everyone here tonight is a witch, and we know who Carol really is.
“Then let’s take this test,” Emerson pipes up when Carol finishes speaking. Always ready to slay the dragon, no matter the cost.
“Em,” Georgie says softly. Her voice is quiet, but there’s a power in it. She’s not the same shy Georgie I remember from high school. She lays a hand on Emerson’s arm, and her gaze feels like the same kind of touch on me when it meets mine. “The adult test is different.”
It’s a warning.
Emerson’s forehead wrinkles, and I imagine mine does too as we both look at Georgie. “The adult test?” we ask in unison.
Though all I actually do is move my mouth, with no sound coming out.
This is one of the things that used to keep me up at night. The pettiness of St. Cyprian witchcraft when it’s magic. You could build whole worlds if you were Carol Simon, and instead you slither around hexing younger witches, just because you can.
Georgie eyes Carol, but then looks back to us. “There’s recourse for when an adult spell dim witch finds some power. But it’s much more difficult than the pubertatum. You’ll need time to prepare. To study.”
“You’ll have until Litha,” Carol says. Litha is what stuffy older witch types call the summer solstice. Then she intones, as I have heard her do many times before, “The longest day of the year, when we celebrate the light yet welcome back the darkness, and in so doing recognize the great gifts of witchkind in our young. The current class of fledgling witches will take their test then, as usual. You may take your adult test at the same time.”
That last part is offered like Carol is doing us a great favor. As if the solstice isn’t a mere two months away when the fledglings spend their entire lives getting ready for their supposedly easier test.
“I reject the entire paradigm of test-taking,” I say, which is how I discover she’s returned my voice to me. Everyone in the field stares at me. I smile. Okay, it’s more of a smirk, and yes, I’m still slouching. “I mean, historically, I’m pretty bad at tests.”
“What you were bad at was studying,” Emerson says, frowning at me in all her big sister glory.
That brings back all kinds of memories, most of them ending in sisterly conflict, but this is not high school, I tell myself for the nine millionth time tonight.
“I’m sure your well-informed Historian will help you,” Carol says in that slimy way of hers, complete with that insincere smile that’s always been her calling card.
Then she turns her back, dismissing us. The Joywood disappear in an over-the-top display of light and power, but Carol’s voice echoes after they’ve gone, like a thunderclap so loud it makes the trees shake.
Don’t try to run away this time, Rebekah. We’ll only have to drag you back.
I want to scream. Rage. Set something on fire like I may or may not have done the last time I failed—but I don’t like to think about that night or what I did. I do know I want nothing to do with tests. With these witches messing with me, implying that I ran away like a baby instead of claiming the only path I could live with. With my overzealous, endlessly perfect big sister. With too much high school drama in the air and a brooding, unfathomable immortal like a cherry on top of a shit sundae.
I want to be as far away from St. Cyprian as I can be.
But as I stand there, fuming, Emerson comes over and twines her fingers with mine. Anchoring me here, maybe, but I can’t deny that it comforts me.
Her hand doesn’t feel the way I remember it, and I look down to see a ring on my sister’s finger. Clearly an engagement ring, so I guess I have some catching up to do. I want to congratulate her, but something stops me. Because I have visions. I always have. Like all great Diviners, a universe of chances and paths not taken exists within me.
The light from Emerson’s ring seems to blind me—but I know I’m the only one who sees it. The way I’m the only one who’ll see what comes next. The magical alchemy of what a future might look like for Emerson.
Usually our shared blood—filled with generations of Wilde power no matter what the Joywood say—means my visions of Emerson come in pure and strong.
But something is wrong tonight. The visions come tumbling at me, too fast, and they’re all...garbled. Cracked. There are too many lines, pictures, all scrambled. Nothing is clear. Nothing is right. It’s neither good nor bad. It’s nothing.
I’m used to visions coming at me full and clear, whether I seek them or not.
I focus on Emerson’s ring. I try to see any one future line of events to completion. I even go so far as to whisper the old words I haven’t dared say out loud in over a decade.
“I am the mirror, the Diviner, the crystal ball bright.
Scry me a future, let the path ignite.”
But it’s like a mirror that’s been shattered into a million pieces. Static on an old TV. Something is wrong.
And even though I’m usually what’s wrong in St. Cyprian, tonight I don’t think it’s me, or Emerson’s future. It’s... something else. Something bigger.
“I have the literature,” Georgie is saying. “We can find out what kind of tests have been used before and practice for them, but there hasn’t been an adult test in over a century. Firsthand knowledge would be better.” Georgie’s eyes dart over to the shadows. Over to Nicholas Frost.
Everyone turns to him, but his too-knowing gaze never leaves mine. Even if I was tempted—and okay, I’m tempted despite the fact I already know he’d betray me in a heartbeat, because he has—I wouldn’t try to see his future. I have some concerns about the weight of his past. Anyone messing with visions knows you have to be careful. There’s always the possibility they might move in more than one direction.
“I do not wish to take part in your study group, thank you,” he says in that mocking voice. And something’s wrong with me that I find it hot. Or maybe it’s just the way he looks at me. Too long. Too dark. Like he already knows all kinds of futures I’m not ready to face. Like we’re alone. “Welcome home, witchling.”
Then, because he’s Nicholas Frost, he disappears in a literal puff of smoke while a raven caws dramatically from the trees.
Show-off.
But for the first time, I almost feel like I’m home.
When everyone turns to stare at me—including Emerson right beside me, still gripping my hand—I smile like I planned this whole thing all along. Fake it ’til you make it, or something, because that’s always been my philosophy and I’m still here.
“Well,” I say, drawling out the single syllable because it’s that or sob into the strange quiet that descends over us, here in the weird, fraught aftermath of the Joywood. And that whole saving our hometown thing we did earlier. And the mess that lies ahead of us, like it or not. “I guess we’re having a high school reunion after all.”
Around me, no one says anything, maybe lost in the horror of high school. Or possibly contemplating Nicholas’s dramatic exit.
So I keep going. “I guess I need to collect my things if I’ll be home through Litha,” I say brightly. And maybe inside I’m tense like a fist, but to my sister and my old friends I’m going to keep on looking as cheerful as a daisy. My heart stutters over the home part, but I ignore it, along with the tears that threaten to sting my eyes. I will not let the Joywood steal my peace. And I will not show my soft underbelly in a field on a farm in Missouri, surrounded on all sides by my apparently as-yet-unburied past. Deep inside, I feel an old spark ignite. “Smudge won’t care for being left alone in the wilds of Sedona.”
Emerson’s gaze flickers, a slight frown tugging the corners of her lips downward. “You still have Smudge?” She turns that frown at Jacob, who for some reason looks apologetic.
I remind myself that I’m a freaking daisy and smile. “Of course I still have her. Was I supposed to leave her behind?”
“The exiled and mind wiped aren’t supposed to keep their familiars,” Jacob says. Like he’s reciting a rule book. Clearly perfect for Emerson in every way, and I’m suddenly remembering what it was like to go to school with all this perfectionism and overachievement.
Be a daisy, not a dick, I order myself. “Smudge is just your average house cat, Emerson.” And thank the moon she isn’t around to hear me say that.
Emerson blinks once but doesn’t belabor the point before she smiles broadly. “You’re cold. We’re all tired. We’ll all go home and regroup tomorrow.”
As if I don’t have a million complicated feelings about home. As if she’s naturally in charge of all of us.
Emerson squeezes my hand, but she looks at Jacob. Where Emerson once only had room for St. Cyprian and leadership roles and community service and helping Grandma at Confluence Books, that ring on her finger suggests she now has space for an entire man she’s going to share her life with.
If that’s not evidence of change, I don’t know what is.
But I also notice Jacob’s subtle nod. There’s a slight fidget of Emerson’s hand, then the ring disappears.
Is it a secret? That doesn’t make sense, but then again, the two of them are clearly having some kind of telepathic conversation the rest of us aren’t in on.
Emerson reaches out for Georgie then, and Georgie for Ellowyn. Ellowyn clasps my hand tighter and smiles at me. I feel that smile like a key in a lock I didn’t know was there. It’s the same smile I remember from when we were little. Ellowyn smiling at me on the playground, just like this.
It feels like even if everything isn’t going to be okay here, always a possibility with witches all over the place, we’re okay again.
I’m more than a little shocked at how much it seems I need to know that.
We shoot up into the sky as if we’re heading straight for the moon. Then we move over the river, and I catch my breath.
I used to be able to do this whenever I wanted. I assume I still can, though I haven’t tried. Even the weakest witch can fly through a dark St. Cyprian night on their own. But I haven’t flown in a decade.
Maybe there was a part of me that told myself I was making all this up. Or misremembering it. Maybe I had no choice but to tell myself that losing this wasn’t torture.
Because flying again is sheer joy.
High in the sky, I can see Jacob’s farm and the old cemetery where too many Wildes are buried, including my grandmother, who I can’t bear to think about right now. I can see the two rivers that even humans agree cut through this part of Missouri and Illinois, but I can also see the third river that human maps claim never comes near enough to the other two for all three to mix.
But they do.
Our ancestors hid the real confluence when we settled here after Salem, because a confluence of three rivers means power, even to humans. Better to keep the real power to the witches who know how to use it well and let the occult-loving humans flock to places like Pittsburgh, where three rivers might meet but any power was drained long ago.
I haven’t seen the three rivers that marked the first part of my life in a long time. Not from this angle. Not from up so high I feel like we’re made of stars and the rivers underneath us are liquid silver.
Down below, St. Cyprian is spread out, a carpet of lights set against the hills, the rivers, the marshland in the distance. Up here, I can’t see the details of my hometown, though all its landmarks seem embedded deep inside me. From Nicholas Frost’s falling-down house high on the bluff at one end, down along the cobbled streets past the brick buildings like my grandmother’s bookstore, winding around to the house my ancestors built back when this was the great frontier.
