The Witch Haven

by Sasha Peyton Smith

  I don’t know how to ask Maxine and Lena Who here knows about my dead brother, and why did they leave a terrifying note on my bed?

  But Maxine is still looking at me expectantly, so I move on to my second most pressing question.

  “How does a world with magic work?”

  “The way it always has. The magic isn’t new. Your awareness of it is,” Maxine says.

  “So tell me more. Tell me the rules. Tell me how it works.” If it’s real, teach me to be so powerful no one ever touches me without my permission again. My curiosity builds and builds. I can’t stop it. I don’t want to. If I know it—magic, how it works, being a witch, all of it—maybe I won’t be so afraid anymore.

  She smiles at me, finally pleased with something I’ve said. “You have to be present for the magic to work. It is exceedingly difficult to magick more than one object at a time. You’ll learn spells in class, and those will help you focus the energy. The first day or two after a magical awakening are strange; we aren’t usually able to do spell-less magic after this, except by accident. But Mrs. Vykotsky doesn’t react well to magical accidents.” She turns on a voice to mimic Mrs. Vykotsky’s. “The worst thing a girl can do is lose control of herself.”

  “Have you?” I ask.

  “Have I what?” Maxine replies.

  “Lost control?”

  “Mrs. Vykotsky only has two Finders at Haxahaven. She needs my skills to find new pupils more than I need her. But please do know… Mrs. Vykotsky does not make empty threats.” She sighs, and the corner of her mouth twitches up. “I like you, just a little, and I’d like for us to be friends. So please be careful, but don’t be boring.”

  Maxine’s affection feels a bit like when the vicious mouser cat we had in the shop decided her favorite place to nap was under my desk. Something sweet and rare and a little dangerous. One wrong move and my ankles might be torn to shreds. I’m not naive enough to trust anyone here, but I desperately want to trust Maxine and Lena.

  “If we are to be friends, there are a few more questions I’d like answered. This is a school, correct? Who teaches the classes? How does any of this work?”

  “A combination of teamwork and magic,” Maxine trills.

  “I’m serious!”

  “So am I!” She laughs, and despite my frustration, I find myself laughing too at the ridiculousness of it all.

  “Magic is typically awoken by an event in someone’s life. For most of us, that event occurs in adolescence, but we don’t find some witches until adulthood. Other girls are just children. Everyone stays for different lengths of time, depending on ability. That’s why the sanitarium guise works so well. It takes different people different amounts of time to gain enough control to be ready to reenter society.”

  “Just like a real sanitarium.” I echo my conversation with Mrs. Vykotsky.

  Lena chews on her cheek, then answers, “Only if you think magic is a disease.”

  “Is it?”

  “If you let it be.” I don’t know Lena well enough to know for certain, her face is purposefully impassive, but if I had to guess, she seems sad.

  “How long have you been here?” It is perhaps the wrong question to ask, but I can’t stop myself.

  “Nearly two years,” she says. “Happy anniversary to me.” Her words bite with sarcasm. I remember what the headmistress said yesterday about most girls staying at the school for years. My heart aches for Lena, who looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here.

  “And you, Maxine?” I ask. Our table sits close enough to one of the long rectangular windows that I press my hands to the glass just to feel something cool and steady. Fat clouds float by in an autumn sky of brilliant blue.

  “Six years. They found me when I was thirteen.” I wonder what happened to wake their magic, but it feels impolite to ask.

  “How did you find me? How did they find you?” I ask, the memory of Maxine and Helen appearing in the shop to rescue me from the police, as if by magic, playing in my head.

  “Witches like Helen and me can sense… disruptions in the energy source. Usually it means a flare-up of power for the first time. It comes to me like a vision; it’s strange every time it happens. I don’t often know their names. I only knew yours because the officers were talking about you outside your shop.”

  At her mention of police, Lena casts a sidelong glance at me.

  “Do you bring all the people you feel to Haxahaven?” I ask.

  “Usually.” She bites at her thumbnail.

  “Not always?”

  “You’d have to ask Vykotsky.” She arches an eyebrow, and I nearly laugh at the thought of ever returning to that office voluntarily.

  Under the table, I pick at a cuticle. “What does this all mean for me, then?”

  “It means you’re home—we’re stuck with each other.”

  From somewhere far off, a bell chimes. Maxine and Lena spring from their chairs.

  “Time for your first class, little Frances,” Maxine declares. “Lena will show you the way.”

  I follow her and Lena out of the library and into the hall. With one kiss blown over her shoulder, Maxine trots away. Girls rush off in all directions, their heads down, mouths shut, capes flapping behind them.

  Through serpentine corridors, Lena and I weave between our classmates. The halls echo with the sounds of heels on flagstone floors and hushed conversation.

  After a long, awkward stretch of silence I ask Lena, “Where did you live before this?”

  “A place called the Thomas School.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  “It wasn’t.” Her answer is fast and certain.

  “Oh—I’m sorry. Why did you go then?”

  “It wasn’t a choice. All of the children from my tribe were forced to go. The nuns came every fall to collect us.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lena shrugs, but there’s tension in the line of her shoulders.

  Soon we reach an open door and join the stream of girls pouring inside.

  We enter a room filled with rows of marble-topped benches, simple stools set behind them. Two skylights, set high in the arched ceiling, illuminate the room with twin beams of morning light. Lena and I take seats behind one bench near the back.

  At the front of the room, standing in front of a well-worn slate, is an old woman with wire-rimmed glasses.

  “A new pupil!” she exclaims the moment I sit down.

  I pop back up from my stool and wave, which feels stupid. The chalk in the air makes my eyes sting.

  “Your name, dear?” She prompts.

  “Frances Hallowell.”

  She clutches her heart with the pride of a mother. “Ah, my darling Frances, how delighted I am that you have joined us. This is Practical Applications, and I’m Mrs. Roberts.”

  She turns her attention to the rest of the class. “Girls, your books, if you please.” It’s strange to be back in a classroom. I never took much joy in school, was never hungry for it the way I am now.

  From the built-in shelves below the benches, the girls pull identical leather-bound copies of a book that look similar to the hymnals at the church we used to go to when I was little. Then William stole enough Bibles that my mother was too embarrassed to go back. Ten-year-old William thought it was the height of comedy. Those Bibles lived under his bed until he died, though none of us ever read them.

  “Turn to page two hundred twenty-four, would you, darlings?”

  While my classmates rifle through the onionskin pages of their books, Mrs. Roberts circulates through the room, distributing squares of scrap fabric, assorted buttons, needles, and thread.

  At the corner of the bench Lena and I share we receive two pieces of dark blue muslin and two delicate mother-of-pearl buttons.

  Mrs. Roberts returns to the front of the classroom, perches at a lectern, and flips open her own book.

  I glance down at my open book, and my vision goes a little fuzzy. I don’t know what the text is, but it isn’t English.
There are drawings of human hands surrounded by looping arrows, as if they were instructions for a dance.

  Magic. I resist the smile that pulls up at the corners of my mouth.

  “Ladies, we’ll be continuing the sewing lessons we began last week. Frances, dear, in my class you’ll learn to apply magic to your everyday life. As witches, it is our responsibility not to burden the world with our power, but it is in our best interest to burn off a little, day by day, in order to be our best selves. Miss Jamison, would you be so kind as to begin.”

  With a nearly inaudible sigh, Lena reaches over and snatches a square of dark blue cotton, a needle, a length of thread, and a button.

  She takes a breath and begins to read in a low, steady voice, “Nal, syn, ga.” Her hand loops in a figure eight.

  The needle, as if held by an invisible hand, levitates from the bench. With her other hand, Lena pinches the thread so about an inch is sticking up from her thumb and pointer finger. The needle swoops down and threads itself, before falling to the bench with a tiny cling.

  I’ve been told that magic exists, I’ve witnessed it already, but still, seeing the needle levitate off the table and thread itself knocks the wind out of me.

  “Very well done, Miss Jamison. Let’s work on those pronunciations though, darling. They’re still a bit clumsy.”

  Lena nods, then tilts her head back and massages the bridge of her nose.

  “Are you all right?” I whisper.

  “House magic always gives me a headache. I’ll be fine.”

  Mrs. Roberts appearing at my shoulder makes me jump. She moves with the silence of a cat stalking prey.

  “Your turn, Miss Hallowell,” she says.

  I suddenly feel much like I did when I was in the fourth grade and had forgotten to do my report on President Franklin Pierce. “How?”

  “Just take a breath and say the words on the page.” She makes bending the laws of the universe sound so simple.

  I close my eyes, like I saw Lena do, then I loop my hand in the same figure eight in front of my chest and say, “Nal, syn, ga.” The words are awkward. My tongue doesn’t know how to form the syllables. The sounds stick in my throat like peanut butter.

  This magic feels different than the sewing shears, it’s more like learning to hold a pencil. A part of me that is both me and more than me stirs awake, and for the first time since my brother’s death, I feel like a participant in my own life.

  I open one eye. The needle is levitating off the desk. A wave of excitement washes over me, and with my shriek of victory, the needle falls with a ting.

  Mrs. Roberts places a warm hand on my shoulder.

  “Well done, Frances. We’ll try again tomorrow.” She floats on to the next pupil, and I thumb the mother of pearl button, marveling at the things I didn’t know I had inside me.

  The rest of the class passes quickly. I soak in all the magic I’m able, watching classmate after classmate levitate and thread the needle. Mrs. Roberts is kind, adjusting hand positions and pronunciations. It’s tedious, and nothing like the wild magic that made my sewing shears fly across the room, but there is something comforting in the control it gives me over the pounding in my chest.

  A sharp bell dismisses us, and Lena kindly offers to walk me to my next class.

  “All the new arrivals go to Mrs. Li’s class.”

  “So you won’t be there too?”

  “No, I take Emotional Control with Mrs. Porozky and a group of girls who arrived around the same time I did. After that I’ll head to Clairvoyancy.”

  “Clairvoyancy?” I open my mouth to ask her the hundreds of questions on the tip of my tongue.

  “Don’t ask me to tell your future,” she quips.

  “But—”

  “If you don’t ask me to tell your future, I’ll show you where your next class is.”

  “I thought you were doing that already?” I say with a laugh.

  “I’m not above leaving you in the hallway. It would take you days to find your way out.”

  I sigh. “Deal.”

  We trot through the halls of Haxahaven, and although most of my classmates cast their eyes downward, I can’t help but gaze up at the swooping buttresses and sparkly chandeliers. It’s almost enough to make me forget about the note, still tucked under my mattress.

  * * *

  Lena leaves me at the door with a polite wave.

  Sitting at the front of the room is a woman in her early sixties, perhaps, with snowy white hair and a serene smile on her face.

  I wonder if perfect posture comes naturally with being a witch, or if it is something that is taught at Haxahaven.

  “Ah, Frances.” She waves me over. “I’m Mrs. Li. It is my pleasure to welcome you to class.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You’ve been placed with me and a small group of girls with similar powers who all arrived here recently, like yourself.”

  I nod, and with another wave of her hand, she gestures for me to take a seat in the circle of chairs, where a few of my classmates have filed in.

  “Welcome, friends,” she greets us.

  We all take a seat, arranging our capes and black skirts around us.

  “We have a new pupil with us here today. Would you please introduce yourself?”

  Every girl in the room turns their gaze to me, and all the blood in my body rushes to my face. “Frances Hallowell,” I answer.

  “And why are you here?” Mrs. Li prompts me.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question.”

  “What happened to awaken your magic, dear?”

  I briefly consider lying. There is nothing I’d like to avoid more than telling a room full of strangers the story of the worst moment of my life.

  I settle on half the truth. “My boss attacked me.”

  She nods, her lips pursed. “Ah, I see. And how did that make you feel?”

  “Make me feel?”

  “Yes, Frances, how did your boss attacking you make you feel?”

  I wish everyone would stop staring at me. Their unblinking gazes turn the bubbly joy I felt moments ago flat and sour.

  She can’t be serious. “It made me feel bad.” I finally answer.

  She turns just slightly to a mousy girl who sits to my right. I sigh in relief at the reprieve of her gaze.

  “And what do we do when we feel bad, Sara?”

  “We take deep breaths,” Sara says. “We center ourselves. We remember we are in control of our bodies and ourselves.”

  “Yes, very good,” Mrs. Li replies. “Magic is, above all, mastery over yourself.”

  What follows is hours of girls spinning tales of their most horrible moments and describing the way their hearts raced, their anger, their sadness. Mrs. Li sits with her perfect posture and tells my classmates that they must breathe deeply and picture their soul becoming small and retreating back into their chests.

  I’m sick with fascination. Or maybe I’m just comforted in knowing I am not the only one who has experienced the horror that comes with feeling dangerous and out of control.

  Two hollow-eyed girls on the other side of the circle detail their experiences in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that happened a few months ago in midtown. It was all over the papers. One hundred forty-six people died. Sara and Cora should have been among them, but the horror of the accident awoke the magic in them, and they used their abilities to open a locked steel door and flee to safety.

  Sara and Cora take turns telling parts of the story of that awful day. I get the impression they’ve told it many times in this room. They seem well practiced in noting the details; Cora describes the smell of burning flesh, while Sara explains the screams. Mrs. Li tells them they must learn to control the power that resides within them.

  It strikes me as odd that no one in the room acknowledges that it was that power that saved their lives.

  Mrs. Li nods and looks appropriately sympathetic at all the right moments and tells us again and again that we’
re in control of ourselves.

  It’s too much to stare at their vulnerable faces, so I memorize the features of this classroom, as strange and different as the last one. It reminds me of the basement of a church: windowless, with walls that look like they’re covered in dripping black wax. The candelabra overhead casts the paintings on the waxen walls in golden shadows. I watch them flicker and change until Mrs. Li announces class is finished.

  Lena is waiting for me outside the door after we are dismissed.

  My steps fall into sync with hers and soon we’re in the dining room, a lunch spread out before us. Lena sits down next to me and serves herself a bowl of soup. I follow suit, finally hungry. After a moment I ask, “What was all of that?”

  “Mrs. Li’s class?” She glances over at me. “She believes in… purging oneself of emotions. You’re lucky that’s all it was. I heard the woman who taught the class before Mrs. Li was enthusiastic about practical demonstration.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She spent the class period throwing books and screaming at the students. When they had enough control over their powers to not react, she deemed them ready to start learning spells.”

  “That sounds preferable, honestly.” I laugh.

  Lena flashes a knowing smile. “Well, then I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed by the academic offerings here.”

  “All of the classes are like that?”

  “More or less. Without proper control, the power can ruin your life.” Her voice is monotone, as if she’s repeating something she’s been told but doesn’t believe.

  After lunch, Lena takes me to a third classroom, paneled with rich mahogany; again she leaves me at the door.

  I sit down next to a tiny girl with dark brown skin and black curly hair tied into a bun at the base of her neck.

  “Mabel,” she greets me, holding out a small hand.

  “Frances.”

  Her smile is sunshine itself, a relief after being in Mrs. Li’s cave of a classroom for so long.

  The teacher for this class is a pale redhead I saw walking across the entryway when I arrived yesterday. She introduces herself, and I immediately forget her name. Her voice is sweet, but dull.