“Yes.”
“It’s a lot like that, only it’s in your whole body. Mama says that when I get older, I won’t even feel that, that it will just be completely normal.”
“You can do magic now?”
“Not really. Mama says I have to learn to control it before I can learn spells.”
I pause in braiding Aggie’s hair to shiver. “Are you controlling it now?”
She laughs a little at this. “Yes. You don’t have to worry that you’ll fly away.”
“Good.”
I finish with Aggie’s braid and she strokes it gently. “I really missed this,” she says.
“So did I.” I crawl into her lap so she can give me a hug. Things are still different between us, but not entirely in a bad way.
Chapter 3
It’s terrible being in a houseful of witches and being the only normal person besides the servants. Sophie’s powers began to bloom exactly on her thirteenth birthday, though as befitting her personality, in a far less dramatic way than Agnes’s. She hardly raised her voice when it happened to her in the library. “Mama, it’s happening,” she called out.
I’m the only one now who’s still a regular person. Worse yet, it’s going to be at least six years until I get my powers. Six years of being the only one without magic. It’s not fair.
I can really feel it when we’re all together. This is only after Sophie spent two months in quarantine to learn how to control her power. Being more disciplined than Aggie, she needed far less time to accomplish this.
Now when we sit down at dinner together, Mama, Aggie, and Sophie discuss magic, sounding as if they’re talking in another language. I have no choice but to sit there and eat my food, feeling left out. They’re still discussing magic when I mumble for permission to be excused from the table.
Mama must see my depression because she finally lets me go outside unescorted. “You’re old enough now,” she says, patting my head as though I’m still three. “Just try not to get your dress dirty.”
Mama did finally show me around the estate when I was five. I remember the way to the stables, anxious to see the horses. I want to learn to ride, but Mama thinks this is too undignified for a young lady. So I can only stand in front of the stall and feed the horses sugar cubes taken from the kitchen.
I’m feeding one of the horses when I hear a boy ask, “What are you doing here?”
I turn and see a boy a couple years older than me, his hair tousled and littered with bits of straw from the stable. I recognize him from our arrival here as the one who opened the carriage door for us. “Mama said I can go outside,” I say.
“Well I’ve got to clean the stables, so unless you want to get shit all over that dress, you should leave.”
I cross my arms over my chest and stamp my foot. “You can’t talk to me like that!”
“Why not? You’re just a baby.”
“I am not!”
“Are too.”
I charge at him. He’s so surprised by this that he doesn’t even move as I knock him to the ground. I squat on top of him, not caring what Mama said about not getting my dress dirty. “Could a baby do that?”
“No,” he says.
“That’s right.” I get off of him and then offer a hand to help him up. “You can start over there. I won’t be in your way.”
“Fine.”
I go back to the horse while the boy takes a pitchfork and begins cleaning up one of the stalls. I soon lose interest in the horse, more fascinated by watching the boy. I’ve never watched anyone clean a stall before. He finally looks up at me and says, “You want to try?”
“I don’t think I should. Mama would be mad.”
“If you’re too scared—”
“I am not scared!” I stomp into the stall and rip the pitchfork from his hand. I jab it into a pile of straw, shrieking when I see a mouse poke its head out. The mouse jumps out of the straw to skitter away through a hole in the back wall of the stall.
My anger returns when I hear the boy snickering at this. I whirl around, holding up the pitchfork as if I’m going to stab him with it. “What’s so funny?”
“Scared of a little mouse, are you?”
I stamp my foot again. “I am not scared!” In a lower voice I add, “I was just surprised.”
“If you say so.”
“Why are you being so mean to me?”
“Because I have work to do and you’re getting in the way. If I don’t get this done before dinnertime, Papa will tan my hide.”
“Oh.” I hand the pitchfork back to him. “Can I still watch you?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s interesting.”
“Interesting? Stinky is more like it.” Despite this, he lets me sit on a stool and watch as he cleans the stables and then brushes down the horses. During the latter he offers me the brush. “You want to give it a go?”
“Sure,” I say, not wanting him to think I’m scared of the horses. I wipe the brush along the flank of the animal just the way the boy did. The horse shows no reaction to this. I continue brushing along one side of the horse and then the other. By the time I finish, there’s sweat beading up on my forehead, the first time I’ve ever worked up a sweat. I’ve also turned my white dress brown; Mama is going to tan my hide when I go back inside.
I keep working, enjoying the steady rhythm of brushing down the horse. “Where does your family live?” I ask the boy.
“Past the vineyards.”
I remember seeing that area once before when Mama took me out to the vineyards. There were a pair of wooden houses, each no bigger than our living room. “In those little houses?” I ask him.
“They’re big enough for us.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Mama and Papa and my four brothers and three sisters.” I’m not as good at math as Sophie, but I still imagine how cramped the place must be compared to our house, where we could go days without ever seeing each other if we wanted.
“Do you like it there?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. I’m just asking.”
“It’s not really your business.”
I turn and hurl the brush right into the center of the boy’s chest. I catch him unawares, so he cries out in pain. “You don’t have to be so cruel.”
I stamp past him, leaving him to finish with the horse. I’m halfway back to the house before he catches up to me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and breathlessly tells me to wait. I spin around, pushing him to the ground with one fluid motion. “What do you want?”
“I’m sorry,” he wheezes. “Don’t tell your mother on me. Please.”
“I’m not going to tell on you. I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Henri. Henri Devereaux,” he says. He holds out a hand, but instead of shaking it I help him up to his feet.
“Sylvia Joubert. And I’m sorry I pushed you.”
“I shouldn’t have surprised you,” he says.
We walk back to the house. Along the way, he says, “You’re not like how I thought a rich girl would be.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re like my sisters, not so stuck-up.”
“Thank you. I think.”
***
Mama notices the grime on my clothes and in my hair. She forbids me from going out to the stables again. To make things worse, she has the servants draw a bath. As she washes my hair, Mama says, “A proper lady does not associate with her servants.”
“But—”
“Hush. Do as I say.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Despite this command, Mama is too busy with Aggie and Sophie to pay much attention to me. It’s easy then for me to sneak outside and meet Henri again. This time I ask him to fetch some old clothes from his sisters. He returns a short time later with a coarse brown dress that I change into, folding my good dress up so it won’t get dirty. For the first time I use a piece of ribbon to tie my hair back in
to a ponytail so it might not get as dirty.
Mama forbade me to go to the stables, so we don’t go to the stables. There’s more than enough ground on the estate for us to roam without going anywhere near the horses. We race along the rows of grapes, trying to catch each other. I tackle Henri and keep him pinned on the ground until he yields.
I help him to his feet and he says, “I could have got up anytime I wanted.”
“Is that so?” He backs away when I take a step towards him.
After a week we venture into the woods around the estate. Henri has come out here a few times with his brothers and father to go hunting. “The marquis used to go hunting all the time,” he says as we walk through the forest.
“Who?”
“The Marquis Dandenault. He used to own this estate.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died in a battle.”
Henri picks up a stick and waves it around like a sword. He pretends that he’s the marquis, fighting off a hundred opposing knights. He finishes by jamming the stick between his arm and body and then falling onto the ground. “Then he was dead.”
“What about his family?”
“His wife went to a convent, I think. They didn’t have any kids.”
“That’s too bad.”
He stands up and starts waving the stick around again. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a famous knight.”
I snort at this. “No you’re not. You’re still going to be cleaning up our horses.”
I stick my tongue out at him and then take off running deeper into the forest. He pursues me, waving the stick like he wants to bash me over the head with it. I turn into a line of bushes and come to a dead stop.
Aggie is kneeling on the grass on the other side of the bushes. There’s a basket beside her with some plants in it, probably for her potions. Far more troubling is the boy kneeling on the grass next to her. Their bodies are leaning towards each other, their lips touching. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone kiss on the lips before.
I’m still standing there in shocked silence when Henri calls out, “Sylvia? Where did you go? You’d better not get lost out here or Papa’s going to thrash me.”
Aggie’s head turns away from the boy and she looks right at me. Her face drains of color, her eyes going wide. I return her stare for a moment before turning away. I try to run away, but Aggie appears before me in a flash of light, one of the witch tricks she’s learned.
I cry out in surprise and in trying to reverse direction wind up falling on my rear end. I stare up at Aggie, who’s still looking deathly afraid of me. She snaps out of it enough to offer me a hand.
Once I’m on my feet, she kneels down to look me in the eye. “What are you doing out here?” she asks.
“Henri and I were playing. What are you doing with that boy?”
“He was just helping me look for ingredients for a potion.”
I’m only seven, but I’m not stupid. “You were kissing him,” I say with a seven-year-old’s revulsion.
“Yes, I was. Promise me you won’t tell Mama.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’ll all get in trouble then. Do you promise?”
I think about it for a moment, the fear in Aggie’s eyes finally convincing me. “Yes.”
She gives me a hug and then puts on a false smile. “I think you had better go back inside.”
“What about you?”
She looks back to the bushes, where the boy is probably still waiting. “I’ll be along soon. Then you can practice on my hair again.” She bats at my ponytail, trying to distract me by saying, “I like what you did with yours. It’s very pretty.”
I don’t take the bait. “How many times have you and that boy been out here?”
“Just twice. But you can’t tell Mama. Or Sophie.”
“All right.”
Aggie rewards me with another hug and then gives me a little push to send me on my way. I find Henri farther down the path, still swinging his stick idly. His face lights up when he sees me. “There you are,” he says. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere special,” I say and then we head home.
***
I keep my promise to Aggie, but it doesn’t matter. Somehow Sophie finds out about it and tattles to Mama. I’m braiding Aggie’s hair in the living room when Mama comes into the room with Sophie, the latter looking guilty and the former with her face a volcanic red. I let Aggie’s hair drop and quickly dash up to my room.
It doesn’t matter as Mama is shouting loud enough that I can still hear her. “What did you think you were doing kissing some strange boy in the bushes?” I can’t hear Aggie’s response, but Mama’s is loud and clear: “You are supposed to be a proper young lady. Not only that, but you are a novice in the coven. You know the rules about fraternizing with mortals. If Glenda found out she could have us both brought up on charges. Is that what you want?”
There’s a pause as Aggie no doubt mumbles something. “What about your sisters? What if Sylvia had seen what you were doing out there?” There’s another pause followed by Mama saying with slightly less venom, “From now on you will act like a respectable young lady or you can fend for yourself. Is that understood?”
A few minutes later I hear footsteps followed by Aggie’s door shutting softly. I wait until nighttime, after Mama’s tucked me into bed and kissed me goodnight before I creep down the hall and slip into Aggie’s room. She’s curled up on her bed, sniffling every now and then. Coming around the side of the bed, I see that her eyes are glossy with tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not your fault. It’s Sophie’s fault.” Aggie sniffles again. I don’t remember her crying like this even after the scene in the living room when she discovered her powers. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“No.”
“That little sneak. She was probably following me.”
“Is Mama going to send you away?”
Aggie shakes her head. “No. Not this time.”
“Good,” I say. I don’t know what I’d do without Aggie here. Then it would just be Mama, Sophie, and me—and Henri. I wonder how long before Sophie tells Mama about my sneaking off into the forest with him. Then I’ll be in as much trouble as Aggie, probably confined to my room for months.
Aggie reaches out to touch my hair, which I shook out of the ponytail before Mama could see it and tell me that wasn’t a dignified way for a lady to look. “It isn’t fair,” she says. “I love him. Why can’t Mama understand that?”
I’m far too young to understand the concept of loving a boy, so I can only shrug. Aggie smiles tiredly at me. “Everything will be all right. I promise. You’d better get back to bed before Mama finds out—or Sophie tells her.”
We hug like in the forest and then I sneak out of the room, back to my own. As I close my eyes to sleep, I can’t help thinking about Henri, looking forward to seeing him again. I’m too little to understand love, but I feel it nonetheless.
Chapter 4
My last night as a twelve-year-old I can’t sleep at all. A few times my eyes close, but each time they shoot open again when I feel an itch or a piece of hair move. I lie perfectly still with my eyes open, wondering if this is it; is this how it’s going to happen?
But nothing happens. Mama opens the door the next morning and I’m thirteen years old. Thirteen and still perfectly ordinary. Mama must sense my grief because she sits on the edge of the bed and pats my arm. “You can’t expect it to happen so soon. Not even Sophie had it happen the instant she turned thirteen.”
“I guess so,” I say. I know Mama is right, but I’m still disappointed. I’ve waited six years for it to happen, so I could finally be like Mama, Aggie, and Sophie. It’s not fair, I want to whine, but I know Mama will only scold me for acting like a child.
That’s been her latest series of complaints ever since that first big change happened almost two years ago. Mama knew about my period before I did, rushing
into the room with my robe and slippers before I woke up to see the bloodstains in my undergarments. She took me outside—where I was grateful Henri didn’t see me—and down to the meadow where the horses grazed. We sat under a tree and Mama said that I was becoming a woman.
“Does this mean I’ll be a witch soon?” I asked.
“No, dear. That won’t happen until you’re as old as your sisters were.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to hide my disappointment. I didn’t care about becoming a woman as much as a witch.
It was a week later when Aggie came home, Henri trailing behind her with a trunk. I thought the trunk must contain Aggie’s personal belongings she’d taken with her on one of her increasingly frequent trips, but she told Henri to take the trunk up to my room. “Why there?” I asked, not really wanting Henri to get a look at my room with all of the dolls and such; he would make fun of me about it for weeks for how girly my room looked.
“Mama said I should make you some new dresses,” Aggie said. I followed her and Henri upstairs to find that the trunk did indeed contain a stack of new dresses. Unlike my old ones, these didn’t feature lace, ruffles, or bows; these were simpler, more elegant dresses like Mama, Aggie, and Sophie wore—big girl dresses.
I picked up a dark blue gown, holding it up to my body. “It’s too big,” I whined while Henri stifled a snicker with the back of his hand; I promised myself to cuff him a good one as soon as we were alone.
“Not for much longer,” Aggie said. Since she had become a junior witch, Aggie had developed this annoying habit of speaking with ominous foreshadowing like a fortune teller. She told me she couldn’t really see the future; she could just feel things that were going to happen.
It turns out that Aggie is right about the dress. I wear that blue dress for my thirteenth birthday and now it fits snugly in the chest from my growth spurt of the previous summer. Aggie and Sophie are downstairs, Aggie just returned from another trip and Sophie back from her training. Any day now she is going to become a junior witch while I am still nothing. With this in mind, I can’t help glumly staring down at my plate all through breakfast.
Aggie pats my back. “It’s going to happen,” she says. “You can’t rush it.”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call Page 89