Threadneedle

by Cari Thomas

  ‘Manda’s sixteen going on forty-five,’ said Effie, perusing the countertop.

  ‘Sixteen – those were the days! I want to hear all about what trouble you’re getting up to in school.’ She swivelled to Anna, her smile faltering. ‘My little matchstick.’ She folded Anna into a deep hug. It smelt like fresh flowers on the wind, cloves and cinnamon. Anna sank into it. Selene eventually let go and an uncomfortable, hesitant silence fell between them. Anna wondered if Selene might bring up the bindweed or whether she ought to ask her if they could speak privately, but then Selene said brightly, ‘Well, you’re looking healthier than when I last saw you. More flame in those cheeks, more light in those eyes. This coven is doing you good. I think you need a margarita!’

  A margarita was a long way from bindweed, dead parents and curse symbols, but Selene had pulled her into the kitchen before Anna could say any more.

  ‘How was your trip?’ said Rowan, descending on them. ‘Effie said you’ve just got back from Russia!’

  ‘Fabulous start, catastrophic end.’ Selene made a dramatic gesture. ‘Put it this way, I’m off Russian men and vodka for at least ten years. Now who wants a margarita?’

  ‘But we’re only sixteen,’ said Manda.

  ‘The perfect age for tequila, fresh and clean, before it gets all the bad memories associated with it. Effie, your friends seem a lot sweeter than the ones you were hanging out with in New York.’

  ‘You sent me to an all-girls private school in Dulwich: what did you expect?’

  ‘Don’t worry, cherub.’ Selene cupped Manda’s chin. ‘Just one drink. I’ve got a client due.’

  ‘What client? What kind of magic do you do?’ asked Rowan eagerly.

  ‘Love potions – the only currency I deal in.’

  Perhaps it was a kitchen for potion-making because it certainly didn’t look like food had been cooked in it for a long time: wine bottles, lipstick-stained glasses, books and piles of unopened post covered the surfaces; the oven was full of takeout boxes and the smoothie maker was being used as a hat stand. Shelves along the back wall wheezed with books and pots and pans and hundreds of glass jars and bottles of all shapes and sizes, shimmering with so many wondrous colours it looked like the inside of a kaleidoscopic cave. A glinting copper cauldron sat on the hob amongst it all like a dragon’s eye blinking out through the chaos.

  Rowan pointed at it. ‘Is that for your potions? I’ve never seen a cauldron so beautiful.’

  ‘Are cauldrons beautiful?’ Manda asked doubtfully.

  Selene and Rowan looked at her as if she’d just insulted their own mothers.

  ‘All cauldrons are beautiful.’ Selene reached to stroke its bright edges. ‘They are a window into a witch’s soul.’

  ‘Well, mine is blackened, dented and leaks, which is about right.’ Rowan giggled. ‘Can we make a potion, pleeeease? I have several men who it would be highly convenient to have fall in love with me …’

  Selene laughed. ‘Ah, but my sweet, there is no spell for love.’

  ‘But I thought that’s what you did?’ said Anna. ‘Love spells?’

  ‘I do and they cover every permutation of love – lust, longing, obsession, infatuation, jealousy, heartbreak, revenge – everything really, except true love. Maybe once upon a time … but no. That kind of magic is long gone.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is, we’re screwed,’ Rowan moaned.

  ‘Of course not! Who needs love? You girls don’t want to find the man you want to be with forever – now! Keep searching your whole life, I say, it’s far more interesting. Passion. Now there’s a more interesting proposition. Much more thrilling – volatile, impermanent, ever-changing. Love in motion. How about we add a little passion potion to our margaritas?’

  They nodded vigorously and she turned to a book with a purple velvet cover on the counter and flicked it open to a page stained with multi-coloured splotches. ‘Cherub, you read from this,’ she directed Miranda and then threw the summer hat off the smoothie maker and dragged it to the centre of the counter. ‘We don’t have much time so today, ladies, this shall be our cauldron! It is the hour of Venus: let us begin! What do we need?’

  A flustered Manda ran her finger down the list of ingredients. ‘Er – ok – I don’t know what these symbols mean, but it says we need apple blossoms, lavender, red hot chilli flakes, midsummer honeysuckle …’

  ‘Come on.’ Selene ushered the rest of them to her shelves and began fetching items from her store and throwing them into the smoothie maker with zeal. She seemed to be adding a lot more than the items Manda was reading out. Anna joined the hunt but was distracted by the names on the bottles and containers – ‘Violet Blossoms’, ‘Liquorice Root’, ‘Myrrh Resin’, ‘Powdered Mandrake’, ‘Benzoin’ – they tasted exotic on her tongue, whispering of distant places, hot sands and feverish spices. Others were stranger, darker – ‘Numbing Water’, ‘Goofer Dust’, ‘Rainfall (downwards)’, ‘Rainfall (upwards)’, ‘Hangman’s Ash’, ‘Devil’s Shoestring’, ‘Blood of a Broken Heart’ … She could have spent all day exploring every last bottle, wondering at the colours and textures, breathing in the different landscapes of their scents.

  ‘… cherry stones, yarrow, cinnamon and cloves – it says to grind together for four hours.’

  Selene laughed, twirling around the kitchen. ‘We don’t have four hours!’ She pressed the button and the smoothie maker whirred into life, pulverizing the ingredients into a small hurricane of colour. ‘Beautiful! A potion begins and ends with its cauldron. It mixes, transforms, dies, sparks once more – just like passion a potion is never still, it is always renewing. What more?’

  ‘A quart – I think that means quart – of red wine and we have to distil rose petals—’

  ‘Anna darling, pass me the rose water, that will do, and someone get me catnip!’

  ‘Catnip?’ Manda cried.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Selene replied seriously. ‘A love-potion essential.’

  The kitchen was veering wildly out of control. Various glass bottles were open along the surface, releasing strange and clashing scents and plumes of powder, while colourful drips and drops covered the surfaces; the mixture in the smoothie maker had begun bubbling and spitting up the sides and the crooning tones of retro love songs gushed from the radio. Anna felt transferred, as if she had entered some other, more vivid world. She played the melody with her fingertips, reaching for the rose water. Her hand moved towards the bottle as if she had known it was there all along, like the next line of the song. This was magic without bounds, without rules, magic fed by something else entirely.

  ‘We need dream dew too for lust feeds on dreams,’ sang Selene.

  ‘I can’t keep up!’ Manda cried. ‘You’ve missed half the ingredients and added a whole load more.’

  Selene flicked the book shut. ‘A potion doesn’t need exacts, darling, it needs energy: grinding, powdering, boiling, brewing, stirring.’ She raised her hands into the air and the smoothie maker responded, whirring the ingredients with colourful frenzy. Selene grabbed Effie’s hands and the next moment they were dancing. Effie’s unwillingness faded as Selene spun her in and out, giggling with an abandon Anna had rarely seen in her.

  ‘Someone get me the powdered heart and feathers of a black cockerel,’ said Selene.

  ‘For a love spell?’ Rowan replied, voice uncertain.

  Selene spun Effie away. ‘Ah, but there is darkness in love. Love is never complete without death.’

  She sprinkled in a dark black powder and the mixture smoked pink, releasing a frisson of bubbles, smelling of wine and spices and something hot and unsettling. Anna breathed in deeply and felt her cheeks grow warm.

  ‘Now, I want you each to give it a mix and add the name of the one you desire! The potion wants your stories! There’s nothing more powerful than a story.’ Selene threw her head back, laughing. Anna decided she was a little mad when she did magic.

  They gathered around the smoothie maker, giving each other giddy if not
wary looks. Effie stepped forwards first and pressed the button. The potion whizzed. ‘Laurence Ellerton. Tonight.’

  ‘My turn!’ Rowan bounded her way to the front, almost knocking the whole thing over. She cleared her throat and held down the button, shouting over the sound: ‘David Jones from band practice. Bryn Sawbridge in the year above. Adrian Martinez, son of a family friend. The guy I see on my bus to school and occasionally stalk. Leonardo Vincent—’

  ‘He’s a movie star,’ Manda pointed out.

  ‘I know! Attis Lockerby, I mean, who wouldn’t? Any boy tonight at the party who takes my fancy – I think I’ve over-stirred this thing?’ The mixture was bubbling so much it was almost overflowing and the air in the kitchen was tinged pink.

  ‘I think you might have given the potion too many names, darling,’ said Selene, stepping swiftly between Rowan and the makeshift cauldron.

  Manda stepped forwards; her round face set itself into an expression of pained concentration as if she was about to take an exam. ‘Karim Hussain,’ she sighed, giving the mixture a quick, self-conscious whirr.

  ‘Anna?’ Selene nudged her forwards.

  Passion. The idea of it had been fun, but now that it applied to her – Anna wasn’t so sure. To Aunt passion and love were in the same bracket of deeply volatile, extremely dangerous emotions that Anna had always been ordered to avoid, but she was tired of Aunt’s interpretations. Perhaps it was the scents stirring the air, the colours stirring the potion, but the thought of Peter’s lips on hers sent shivers into the pit of her stomach.

  Anna pressed the button and said it: ‘Peter Nowell.’ It wasn’t as though she had any intention of chasing those feelings.

  Rowan burst into song, not helping her embarrassment.

  ‘Anna and Peter sitting in a tree,

  K – I – S – S – I – N – G!’

  ‘Peter who?’ Selene interrupted with a hint of accusation. ‘Why haven’t you told me of this boy before?’

  Anna shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t stand a chance with him.’

  ‘First comes a kiss, then comes love,

  Then comes a spell and a pinprick of his blood!’

  Rowan finished the song with flourish.

  Selene raised an eyebrow at Anna and then switched the heat off. ‘Well, you are all so young, hearts flit from one thing to another in less than a beat. Come on. It’s time for a drink!’

  They took up residence at the breakfast bar as Selene began preparing the cocktail. At the end she added a little of the smoothie mixture to the cocktail shaker. ‘Just a few drops.’ She winked, hips wiggling as she shook it. She poured the rosy-hued mixture out into their glasses, the sharp tang of lime stirring the air. ‘To passion!’ Selene raised her glass. ‘May it be yours tonight and in the year to come!’

  Anna and Manda coughed immediately after their first sip, making everyone laugh. The liquid burned its way down Anna’s throat, through her body, making every limb tingle and bringing a flame of blush to her cheeks.

  ‘To passion and the Goddess of the Dark Moon!’ said Effie.

  ‘Passion and the Goddess of the Dark Moon,’ they chimed in, laughing again as Manda missed her next sip, tipping half of it down herself.

  Someone knocked on the door. ‘Ah,’ said Selene, finishing her glass. ‘My client is here. Can I trust you all alone? No more potion or tequila. Although I shall be disappointed if you don’t steal something from the cocktail bar to take to your party.’ She smiled wickedly and squeezed Anna’s shoulder tightly as she left. Anna watched as Selene walked away, only then realizing she’d been so distracted with the potion and the cocktails and the sheer joy of everything, they hadn’t had a chance to speak.

  ‘I think I’m in love with your mother,’ said Rowan.

  Effie rolled her eyes. ‘You and the rest of the human race.’

  ‘So Karim is your secret crush.’ Rowan elbowed Manda.

  Manda blushed and stood up to look at the nearby shelf of books. ‘It’s silly. He’s not interested in me. It’s just – he came to Pen-a-Poem Club once and we ended up talking. He’s Muslim and I’m Christian and I sometimes imagine us like Romeo and Juliet, fated to be together but torn apart by our families … but in reality I think he’s just not interested in me.’

  Rowan looked up from her phone. ‘Looks like he’s going to be at the party.’

  Manda’s eyes widened. She grabbed several books from the shelves and began flicking through them as if they could offer her protection from the oncoming night.

  Rowan turned to Effie. ‘And Laurence, hey? Apparently Olivia lost her virginity to him although he was going out with Rebecca most of last year.’

  Effie laughed. ‘You’re like a human dating app.’

  ‘I have my uses.’

  ‘I thought you were with that other one, the big guy?’ Anna asked.

  Effie rolled her eyes. ‘I am not with anyone, Anna. I don’t do relationships. Plus he was an impatient kisser and, turns out, it translated to other areas too.’ She looked down suggestively. ‘Laurence is my new favourite. I’ll be testing out his skills tonight.’

  ‘You inspire me,’ said Rowan, laughing. ‘So – er – you and Attis … you guys really aren’t – you know, a thing?’

  ‘We are what we are,’ Effie replied with a hint of a smile. ‘We’re not together. As Selene said, where’s the fun in that?’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s Attis and then there’s the rest of mankind. You girls know what I mean.’ Rowan looked at Manda and Anna. ‘He’s got that look. Like he’s undressing you with his eyes – no, he’s already undressed you and he’s deciding what to do with you.’

  Effie nodded. ‘Oh, I know the look you mean.’

  Anna knew the look they were talking about too: those mismatched eyes – as though he’d seen right through you; as though he’d discovered all the parts of you that weren’t whole and all the while had the answers but refused to give them up.

  ‘I guess you just can’t see past Peter’s eyes, can you?’ Rowan elbowed her.

  ‘Something like that,’ said Anna, supplanting Attis’s eyes with Peter’s intent stare. She imagined what it would be like to have it directed at her.

  Rowan frowned. ‘Are you sure about him? Isn’t he just like the rest? He is with Darcey.’

  ‘He doesn’t know what she’s really like,’ Anna protested. ‘You’ve seen her, all smiles and sweetness—’

  ‘And double-D-cup breasts.’

  ‘Peter isn’t like that. I remember the first day I met him. I was in year eight; we had to go to this talk at the Boys’ School. I just wanted to sit down and disappear as quickly as possible, but there weren’t many seats left. I spotted a couple of spare ones at the end of one row but there were a group of boys in the way. The first couple stood up and I tried to get past but then the rest wouldn’t stand so I was trapped between them. They started taunting me, just being idiots, but I was humiliated. Then I heard him – a voice from further down the row telling them to let me pass. They listened to him straight away and let me go. I looked at him to say thanks and he smiled at me and I’m not sure if I said anything at all …’

  ‘And you’ve wanted to shag him ever since,’ Effie cackled.

  ‘I was twelve!’

  ‘Lord in Heaven,’ said Manda, looking up from a large tome, eyes glowing with fascination. ‘It seems if we can’t find boyfriends, we can just make one.’

  ‘What’s the spell?’ said Effie.

  ‘It’s for something called a golem. It’s a translation from an old Arabic spell.’ Manda’s fingers trailed down the page, past stains that looked disturbingly like blood.

  ‘What’s a golem?’ Anna asked.

  ‘According to this it’s an artificial man created from a handful of earth. There seems to be a very long and specific spell for bringing it to life … names of power … heat and fire … you need the blood of whoever you want it to resemble.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them,’ said Ef
fie, ‘but I’ve never seen a spell for one before.’

  Rowan narrowed her eyes. ‘Does that mean if I can get some of Leonardo Vincent’s blood, I can just make my own?’

  Manda turned the page. ‘I think you have to sustain it with fresh human hearts and blood.’

  ‘That’s going to be more tricky.’

  A sound below them made Anna jump.

  ‘That’ll be Attis. He’s back,’ said Effie.

  ‘Wait. Attis lives here?’ Manda gawked.

  ‘Of course. Where did you think he lived?’

  ‘Can we feed him some potion?’ Rowan pleaded.

  Effie shook her head, smiling. ‘Come on, let’s get ready. Grab the tequila.’

  They made their way upstairs. Effie returned the feather to Selene’s bedroom, placing it in a space on the mantelpiece where it proceeded to float gently, an inch off the surface. They went up to the next floor and into a room with mirrors for walls. ‘My dressing room,’ Effie explained, though she needn’t have – there were piles of clothes everywhere. ‘Right. Makeover time!’ Effie lifted up a pair of scissors with a dangerous smile. ‘Manda, come here. I need to cut your hair.’

  ‘What? No!’ Manda objected. ‘Don’t you think my mum will wonder where I found a hairdresser at a SCIENCE FAIR?’

  ‘Don’t worry, these are temporary scissors. It’ll grow back by tomorrow, promise. I use them all the time.’

  ‘But surely people at school on Monday will wonder how my hair has grown back overnight?’

  ‘They’ll just think they’ve remembered it wrongly. Cowans will convince themselves of anything except the impossible.’

  ‘Effie, I really don’t think—’

  ‘Pretty please. I promise you’ll turn heads, including Karim’s.’ Effie put her chin on Manda’s shoulder and made a pleading face.

  Manda whimpered. ‘You promise it’ll grow back by tomorrow?’

  When Anna returned from the bathroom, Manda was squealing at herself in the mirror. ‘I don’t look like me at all! What have you done to me? Although I like it – I think …’

  Her hair now skirted her shoulders in a sharp, tousled cut which suited her heart-shaped face and made her eyes pop. Manda stared at herself, moving her head from side to side and pouting. Anna had never seen her pout before. Rowan had already put on her new playsuit and was shimmying at herself in the mirror. She kissed the mirror, leaving a red lipstick mark.