Season of the Witch

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  “It would be a shocking and inappropriate thing that you’ve done many times,” Aunt Zelda observed.

  Ambrose pointed a spoon at her, grinning. “Yes I have. And I’ll be doing it again, Auntie Z.” He shrugged and started eating his cereal. “I’m just looking for a connection.”

  “To what, the criminal underworld?” Aunt Zelda raised her eyebrows. “Why do you need to find connections? Stay calm and worship Satan in an orderly fashion. That’s all I ask of any of you. And sit like a gentleman, for the Dark Lord’s sake, Ambrose.”

  She waved her cigarette, held in its gleaming old-fashioned cigarette holder that resembled a tiny pitchfork, in a commanding fashion. Ambrose kept grinning and kept one leg hooked on the back of another chair.

  Aunt Zelda consumed the cigarette in a few sharp, short breaths.

  “It seems as if you’ve been wearing pajamas for seventy-five years. Can’t you dress properly?”

  “Why?” said Ambrose. “It’s not as if I’ll be leaving the house. Robes and pajama pants are standard hermit attire, and I’m committed to my hermit aesthetic.”

  I flipped the ends of the little velvet scarf he was wearing around his neck, when he wasn’t even wearing a shirt. “So why jazz up the dressing gown with this?”

  Ambrose’s smile gleamed around his spoon. “Obviously I want to be a fancy hermit, Sabrina.”

  Aunt Zelda snorted. She herself was sitting ramrod straight, wearing a pinstripe blouse with a dramatically high collar and a double-breasted suit jacket. Ambrose commented once, out of Aunt Zelda’s hearing, that Aunt Zelda dressed like an evil secretary pinup. He said he meant that in a good way.

  There was a rap on the door knocker, and I smiled. Since the mail had already come, there was only one person it could be.

  Aunt Zelda made a small scoffing noise, put her cigarette holder down on the table with a click, and rose.

  “I simply cannot deal with mortals before noon.”

  “Maybe Auntie Hilda will open the door,” Ambrose said, his voice deliberately needling. “Or wait, where is Auntie Hilda?”

  “She made a smart remark too early in the morning, so I killed her,” Aunt Zelda flung over her shoulder as she departed upstairs.

  Ambrose leaned back in his chair. “She’s in a lovely mood, I must say. How are you doing, cousin? Aren’t you excited to see what our spell wrought?”

  I kept my eyes fixed on the window, and the fresh grave. Aunt Zelda kills Aunt Hilda every now and then. It’s not like it sounds. It’s not so bad. She buries Aunt Hilda, and then Aunt Hilda comes back good as new. It’s no big deal. Magic can fix anything.

  Still …

  “I hate it when she does that,” I whispered.

  Ambrose flicked a hand over my hair. All his gestures are like that, fleeting and casual, his fingers roving like a butterfly, landing lightly and then moving on.

  “I know, cousin,” he murmured.

  He doesn’t like it either, but he jabs Aunt Zelda about it and then lets it go, as if it doesn’t matter much.

  Witches and their cold, fickle hearts.

  It doesn’t matter, I told myself, and straightened my own sweater. I’d come home and see Aunt Hilda at the stove, just as always. And right now, I’d see what magic could do for me.

  I hopped up. “I should go see Harvey.”

  “And I’ll be entertaining some charming corpses downstairs,” Ambrose declared. “By the Dark Lord’s drawers, I’m lonely!”

  People at school say it must be weird, living with a mortuary downstairs. They have no idea that it’s the least weird thing about our family.

  I opened the door and saw Harvey standing on my porch. His eyes weren’t wandering today. He gazed at me with rapt attention, as if everything from the buttons on my sweater to the buckles of my shoes was fascinating.

  “Sabrina. You are golden and lovely as the morning!”

  “Um, thank you,” I said, and Harvey beamed as if even the sound of my voice was thrilling.

  His greeting had been slightly unusual, but I basked in the warmth of his smile and relaxed. Harvey sometimes seemed wistful, or distant, but this morning he was lit up with delight pure and bright as sunshine. It suited him. This was what magic should do: smooth out all the tiny imperfections of the world, and make it right.

  “Nice to see you cheerful,” I added. “I’ve been a little worried that something was wrong.”

  I gave him a kiss and felt him sigh into my mouth.

  Harvey said: “Everything’s perfect.”

  Harvey walked me to every class that day and carried my books to and from my locker. I tried to get a history textbook away from him at one point, and it turned into a bit of a wrestling match. He gazed down at me adoringly. I grabbed on to the book and yanked.

  “Harvey,” I said under my breath.

  He smiled at me brightly. “Sabrina.”

  “Let go.”

  “Let me do this for you,” he told me, his wide, sweet eyes wider and sweeter than usual. “I want to do everything for you.”

  “I appreciate that,” I panted. “But … let … go!”

  He did let go eventually, though then I sailed halfway across the passageway clutching the textbook. Only a bit of sneaky magic saved me from crashing into the lockers lining the walls.

  At lunchtime, Roz, Susie, Harvey, and I sat down at our usual table, and Harvey bestowed his new shining-sun smile on the whole group. The others seemed startled, but pleased.

  “Having a better day today, Harv?” Susie asked.

  “It’s a beautiful, miraculous day,” Harvey said earnestly. “Sabrina’s in it, isn’t she?”

  Susie’s eyebrows took off as if launched by rockets. “I guess she is!”

  We turned the conversation to subjects other than my glorious presence. Harvey was still smiling very brightly, but that was nice. I relaxed enough so that when he went to put his tray away, I said without thinking:

  “Hey, could you grab me another cranberry juice on your way?”

  Harvey turned to me with a look of horror. I glanced around wildly for the threat.

  “You’ve been sitting here thirsty all this time! You should have said something sooner. I can’t bear to think of you suffering.”

  “I was fine,” I said into the silence.

  “You are so good,” said Harvey. “You sit like Patience on a monument, smiling at Grief.”

  “Oh my God?” Roz muttered down into her mac and cheese. It seemed less a prayer and more as if she was asking God if he was getting a load of this.

  I turned to Harvey and took his hands in mine. Harvey stared down at our linked fingers with soft wonder.

  “Seriously, I only got thirsty this minute. It is not a big deal.”

  He nodded, and lifted one of my hands to his face and pressed his forehead against it, eyes closed as if he was a knight pledging a solemn vow to a queen.

  “I would love to get you juice. I would pull the moon from the sky so you could use it as a silver plate to eat your dinner off.”

  We all stared at him. Harvey beamed and leaped up to get my juice. I hardly dared look at the girls, and when I did Susie’s mouth was hanging open. Roz was still staring at her plate.

  “I know he’s being a little goofy,” I said in a very low voice.

  “He’s always a little goofy about you,” said Susie. “This is something else.”

  I searched hopelessly for an explanation and offered at last: “I think he’s having a weird week.”

  “Clearly!” said Susie.

  “When is a week in Greendale not a weird week?” asked Roz. “Harvey is creeping me out.”

  There was a bitter edge to her voice that made me and Susie exchange uneasy glances.

  “I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Susie said slowly.

  Roz bit her lip.

  “Sorry,” she said in a stifled voice. “I had bad dreams last night, and I have a headache.”

  Roz has more and more headaches these day
s. I mix up soothing teas for her, but it was time to start talking to Aunt Hilda about making a full witch’s potion for her. I could fix this.

  “Rest over the weekend, and let me bring in a tonic for you Monday. It’ll make you right as rain.”

  The strained tautness about Roz’s mouth did not ease. “I appreciate it, Sabrina, but I’m fine. And hey, Harvey being a goofball is better than him being all mopey like he was yesterday, right?”

  She smiled then, and Susie nodded energetically. We all smiled. It was better. Magic made everything better.

  When Harvey walked me home, he kissed me three times at the gate. “I don’t want to be parted from you,” he said, his hands in my hair.

  “I feel the same way,” I told him, and pushed him back a little. “But I have homework to do. You know I don’t approve of leaving homework until Sunday! If you do it on Friday, the weekend’s free.”

  “I do know that about you, yeah.” Harvey grinned fondly. “I’m still doing mine last thing on Sunday like the Lord intended. See you tomorrow?”

  I looked at him blankly.

  “The fun fair,” Harvey prompted.

  In the excitement of spellcasting and my worries about this last summer, I’d almost forgotten that Harvey and I had plans to go to the county fair. People called the day of the fair the Last Day of Summer.

  “Oh, right! Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Harvey kissed me again and left me, and I watched him walk away through the woods.

  The fresh earth heaped on the grave in our front yard was undisturbed. Aunt Hilda takes longer and longer to rise from the dead these days. Aunt Zelda says it’s pure laziness.

  I went to the kitchen and got myself a snack. Then I came back outside, perched on a nearby gravestone commemorating a long-ago Spellman familiar, and waited.

  It didn’t take long before a clenched fist broke the earth, and then a head and shoulders, surfacing from the ground like a swimmer from the water. With a soft grunt and a wriggle, Aunt Hilda rose from the grave.

  I wiggled my fingers at her in an awkward greeting. My aunt smiled and gave me a wave back, her face a mask of mud. She tried to brush the earth from her filthy pink dress, but that was a lost cause.

  “Why did Aunt Zelda do it?” I asked.

  What I meant was, Why does Aunt Zelda do it? As if Aunt Hilda might produce a really good reason to temporarily murder your sister.

  Aunt Hilda just shrugged. “No harm done, love.”

  She spoke as if it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. This was the sort of thing I should get used to, after my dark baptism. Witches dealt in death and the dark arts.

  My aunt wiped the mud off her face, gave me a bright smile, and put her arm carefully around me, squeezing me tight without getting mud on me. Aunt Hilda doesn’t have a cold, fickle heart, I know that much, but Aunt Zelda often says Aunt Hilda isn’t much of a witch at all.

  “Let’s go inside, shall we? What do you fancy for dinner?”

  Her voice was completely cheerful, and her steps sure. I swung myself off the gravestone and followed her up the steps to our house. Aunt Hilda was absolutely right, and she was absolutely fine. Magic fixes everything.

  Aunt Hilda went to bed early. She always says dying tires her out. Aunt Zelda said she was being a baby, but she made her a soothing brew and brought it upstairs. I heard her lecturing Aunt Hilda to drink it. I think that might be Aunt Zelda’s way of apologizing.

  I sat alone at the kitchen table for a little while, then climbed up the stairs to the attic to find Ambrose.

  There was a huge ancient-looking map floating in midair in his room, on paper so old it was yellow and drawn in ink so old it was brown. In gold lettering on the top of the map was written the words MAPPA MUNDI. Map of the world.

  Pebbles twinkling with mica were flying over the map like tiny stars, pinpointing destinations. In front of the map stood Ambrose, dressed in his red velvet dressing gown and gesturing expansively for the pebbles to move, as though he was a conductor and the pebbles his orchestra.

  “Hey, Ambrose.”

  He flicked a smile over his shoulder at me, then returned to contemplating his map. There were places with the high slopes of mountains sketched out, marked Here Be Dragons. There were seas marked Here Be Serpents.

  I strolled into his room, keeping my voice casual. “What’s this all about?”

  “I miss espressos in Italy, I miss tea in China, and I miss orgies! Have I mentioned I miss orgies?”

  “You have mentioned that occasionally.”

  “That’s because I really miss them,” said Ambrose.

  I made a humming sound. Witches are dedicated to decrying the false modesty of the false god, and surrendering to all sensual pleasures. I know all that. I just don’t know much about it.

  I stared at the map.

  “If you could be anywhere in the world,” I asked, “where would you want to go?”

  Ambrose flung his arms out wide. The pebbles scattered wildly across the room, a contained explosion of brightness, a tiny, trapped Milky Way in an attic room.

  “Oh, anywhere but here.”

  Here, with our family. Here, with me. I’ve lived my whole life in this house, since my parents died. Since before I can remember. Greendale’s always been home. I love it, and I’m scared of losing it: of losing all the things home means to me.

  But to Ambrose, my home is a prison.

  Ambrose’s gaze slid from the map to me, eyeing me sidelong. “How is that spell with Harvey working out?”

  “Oh, fine, fine,” I said hastily. “Yeah, great. Really good.”

  “Fantastic,” murmured Ambrose.

  His voice was absentminded. Clearly, he didn’t care much. He made another gesture and the sparkling pebbles re-formed, tracing a new path as Ambrose plotted the escape he would make out into the wide world if he could.

  “What was the last line of the spell you used?” I asked Ambrose abruptly. “I heard the rest of it, but I didn’t catch the last line. What did you say? What did it mean?”

  “Oho.” Ambrose’s mouth curved. “Not able to translate every word of Latin you hear? Off your game, Sabrina? What’s next for our usually flawless little spellcaster? If you aren’t able to tell the difference between mistletoe and deadly nightshade, Auntie Z. will be berry disappointed in you!”

  Ambrose always teases me, but tonight his voice struck me as mocking. My eyes narrowed.

  “Seriously, Ambrose, I want to know.”

  “Seriously, Sabrina,” said Ambrose, mimicking my voice, deep and stern. Then he broke into a mischievous grin. “I’m never serious. I don’t think I’m going to tell you.”

  “You’re not funny, Ambrose.”

  “Au contraire, cousin. I’ll have you know I was celebrated for my wit in the French court. The Sun King thought I was hilarious!”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  I turned and left, closing the door with a sharp click. I stomped my way back to my bedroom and sat down on the bed with a creak of my wrought-iron bedposts, sinking into the piled-up quilts.

  Not like anybody’s actually getting attached, Ambrose said this morning. Ambrose, with his cold, fickle witch’s heart. Ambrose can’t even imagine truly caring about mortals. Naturally, he doesn’t think magically playing around with human love is a big deal.

  I’m half mortal, so what does he really think about me?

  I shoved that thought aside. One of my school reports said Sabrina has a very tidy mind, and I thought that was true. Compartmentalizing keeps everything neat: my friends in one box, my family in another. I love them all, and I don’t want my situation to get messy. I like to keep things organized.

  These days, I keep worrying that the dark baptism will dump all the things I care about out of the boxes where I’ve carefully placed them. Everything will be mixed up and muddled and ruined.

  I’m attached to Harvey, to all my friends. No matter wh
at happens, I’m going to keep being attached. I have no plans to cut ties.

  I sighed and picked up the framed photograph of my parents on my bedside table. It made me feel better to look at them. My father, tall, dark, and handsome. My mother, fragile, blond, and lovely. Like the hero and heroine of a story. A powerful warlock and a humble mortal, but he loved her enough to marry her and have me. I know they loved me too.

  Sometimes I dream of how it would be, to live in a different house with no dead people in the basement, to have my father and mother waiting for me when I got home. My mother attending parent-teacher meetings and sympathizing about mortal problems, my father powerful and respected and able to answer every question I had about witchcraft: to have a real family. I love my aunts and Ambrose, but I’d still have them too. If my parents had lived, we’d be a proper family, and I would never have doubted they loved me. We’d be so happy. I’m certain of it.

  No matter what Ambrose says about witches and their cold, fickle hearts, I know better. Maybe it’s true for Ambrose, but it won’t be true for me.

  I’m not like my cousin. I’m like my father. My parents would have understood.

  Death is the darkest place.

  Zelda Spellman kills her sister, Hilda, sometimes, and puts her in the Cain Pit in the Spellman graveyard so she will return to life. Hilda tries not to get too cross about it. Zelda would never do it if she couldn’t bring Hilda back.

  Sometimes coming back is harder than others.

  The earth lies heavy on Hilda’s breast. The worms slide down her face like tears.

  What wakes Hilda up is, she thinks, the same shock of fear that wakes a million mortal mothers. A worry that jolts women from soft pillows and fast sleep, sweat on their faces on a cold night.

  Where are my children? Are my children safe?

  Hilda’s not a mother. She’s never had the chance to become a mother. Witches are meant to be slaves to the pleasures of the flesh, and Hilda always supposed she would get around to that. But orgies honestly seem alarming—wouldn’t everyone be looking around and judging you for not being as lascivious and flexible as the other witches?—and no man has asked her for her time one-on-one. She’s thought about it, of course, especially when she reads a really good book, like When the Shepherdess Met the Marquess, or All Scot, No Waiting, or The Wicked Celtic Billionaire’s Most Forbidden Secret Baby. But Hilda doesn’t know if she’ll ever have the nerve to ask a man to experience carnal joys with her. She doesn’t know if she could ever even gather up the courage to kiss a man.