“Speaking of which, where is she?” Morgan asked. “I thought you wanted to get the bonding spell done as quickly as possible.”
“We’re meeting in the square at midnight.” I took the jar of soup back from Morgan and smelled the contents again. “What’s with witches and soup?”
“It’s food for the soul.”
“Smells great.”
Tentatively, I put my lips to the jar and took a small sip. Morgan watched with bated breath.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nope. I feel completely normal.”
“Then now’s probably not the time to tell you that you’ve grown a tail.”
“Damn it!”
Once Morgan relieved me of my extra appendage, we began preparing for my second shot at the bonding ritual. Midnight was still hours away, but I was getting antsy, so Morgan and her sisters did their best to keep me from worrying too much. We went about our business as usual. I helped Malia and Karma cook dinner. We all ate together on the porch. Afterward, Laurel taught me how to prune shrubs using my “natural sense.” Apparently, we all had Laurel’s ability to speak with the earth, but on a far lesser level. As I used my aura to lead the way through the branches and buds of the bushes around the Summers house, snipping off dead leaves as I went, my head emptied of anxiety. The quiet effect of nature on my mind made me jealous that Laurel got to feel like this all the time. No wonder she was such a hippie.
Half past eleven, the Summers sisters wished me good luck, and Morgan and I made our way to the yew tree for the bonding ceremony. Thankfully, Morgan didn’t make me carry the box of supplies this time. Since I’d accidentally destroyed the ritual ribbon earlier that day, she’d commissioned one of the other witches to craft a new one. It was longer and thicker than its predecessor, the silky fabric rolled into a neat cylinder.
When we arrived at the yew tree, Morgan sat with her back against the trunk, leaned her head against the bark, and closed her eyes. The tree seemed to bow over her, extending its branches down toward the witch at its base. I left them be, opting to wait on a nearby park bench instead. As I watched, Morgan stretched out a hand to pat the tree’s roots. Little pulses of power left her fingertips. The yew tree shuddered, almost as if it was laughing at Morgan’s soft tickle.
Midnight came and went. The moon crossed the invisible line overhead and started coming down on the other side of it. Morgan fell asleep beneath the yew tree, curled up in the dirt like one of Laurel’s bunny friends. I drifted off too. My chin thumped against my chest.
A jolt of magic awakened me.
I wiped drool from the corner of my mouth and glanced around for the source of the sting. Morgan was fast asleep. The roll of white ribbon had fallen from my limp grasp and into a puddle of muddy water. I reached down to retrieve it, and a heavy boot nearly crushed my fingers.
Aunt Alberta lifted a finger to her lips, pointed to Morgan, and shook her head. She curled her fingers around the collar of my coat and lifted me from the park bench. I got the message and groggily followed her away from the yew tree.
“Where are we going?” I whispered, my voice hoarse with sleep. “You’re late, by the way. You said to meet you at midnight.”
“I said around midnight,” Alberta replied as she tiptoed across the town square. “I also specifically told you not to bring Morgan le Fay with you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Did you or did you not agree to do things my way?”
“I did, but—”
“My way does not involve the enchantress,” she hissed.
I stopped short of the road that led out of Yew Hollow. “I don’t understand. Do you have a problem with Morgan or something? We need her to complete the bonding spell. And why do you keep calling her the enchantress?”
When Alberta realized I was no longer following her, she cast a long roll of her eyes at me. “Questions. I hate them. Everyone has so many questions. Why don’t you come up with a few of your own answers every once in a while?”
“You’ve made that impossible.”
She sighed heavily. “One, you do not need a third witch to complete the bonding spell. It’s simply tradition to have the coven leader perform it. Two, I make no quarrels with Morgan. Three, I call her the enchantress because she is the enchantress. The woman fetched Excalibur from the depths of the otherworld and used it to vanquish an army of the dead. She is not your average witch, and neither are you, Guinevere. What do you know of your namesake?”
“Uh, she was King Arthur’s wife?”
“She was a woman of great power.”
“She’s from a story. A legend. She wasn’t real.”
Alberta conjured a long wooden staff from out of nowhere and used it as a walking stick as she continued on. “All legends come from somewhere. Our craft is legend. We know not of its source, and we’ve only just begun to understand that the power was gifted to us, rather than created by us.”
I hurried to catch up with her. “What exactly are you saying? That the Summers don’t deserve the ancient power of the yew tree?”
“Not at all,” Alberta replied. “But they should keep in mind that anything given can be taken away just as quickly.”
“You’re telling me,” I muttered. I checked behind us. Morgan and the yew tree were far in the distance. “I’m guessing we don’t need the yew tree to complete the bonding spell either?”
“You’re catching on,” she said as she led me beyond the mortals’ neighborhood at the edge of Yew Hollow and into the woods behind it. “The yew tree is good fun, but there’s more than one way to connect with the giver of our powers. Ah, here we are.”
We had arrived at a tiny pond, no larger than twenty feet in either direction. The water was crystal clear, but despite its small size, I couldn’t see the bottom. The pond was hidden by a barrier of trees all around it. If Alberta hadn’t pulled aside the curtain of moss to let me through, I never would have known it was there.
“What is this place?” I asked. My voice echoed as if we were standing in a large cavern. Fairy lights twinkled all around, and the air within the circle of trees was much cooler than the rest of the town.
“It’s what witches call a wishing well,” Alberta said. “I discovered it several years ago, when I was in the prime of my youth. The water has certain properties I admire… and some that I don’t.”
I gazed across the glistening surface of the pond. “How come I’ve never seen this place before?”
“Because no one in this coven has the ability to find it except for me,” she answered. “Think of this body of water as an environmental potion. It has its own ecosystem, built to protect it from discovery. I’ve guessed Laurel might know of it—attuned as she is to nature—but I believe she feigns ignorance on my behalf.”
I knelt at the edge of the pond, where the water met the shore. Even in the shallows, it was impossible to see past the silvery reflections of the moon overhead. Like with the mud potion on Alberta’s property, something drew me toward it. I wanted to touch it. I reached out a hand—
Alberta smacked me with her walking stick. I yelped and withdrew, clutching my bruised hand to my chest.
“Not yet,” Alberta said. “It’s not ready.”
I moved away from the alluring waters as Alberta roamed the shoreline. “So what exactly is a wishing well? Did a witch create this place?”
“Heavens no,” she replied. “Wishing wells are pockets of natural magic. Most witches can’t begin to understand them, though there are enough stories to make us think we do. The Greeks were particularly fond of screwing around where they weren’t welcome, though they claimed the magic was due in part to Naiads.”
“Due to what?”
“Water spirits.” Alberta stopped on the opposite edge of the shore, looked up at the moon, and shook her head. She resumed her walk around the perimeter. “Nymphs, per se. They didn’t consider that the land itself was the enchantment.”
“But what are they for?”
“What does it sound like?” Alberta asked. “They received the name for a reason. People of all sorts would stumble across wishing wells and be suddenly compelled to ask for something from its depths. The wells complied… for a price. Just ask Narcissus.”
I wrinkled my nose at the thought. “If wells cause so much trouble, why bother wishing for something?”
Alberta looked skyward again to check the moon’s position. “We are a selfish and egotistical species, Guinevere. We are not often dissuaded by the concept of negative consequences until after they come to pass.”
“Hindsight, twenty-twenty,” I murmured as I tucked my knees into my chest and rested my chin on them. “I can relate. Wait a second” —I unfurled myself and stood up— “what are we doing here then? I’m not about to incur the wrath of some natural power that no one understands.”
“Come here.”
I watched my feet as I circled the pond, making sure my shoes didn’t end up near or in the water. Alberta fiddled with a small pouch attached to her belt, extracted a small orange tablet, and flicked it into the pond. As I joined her, the water bubbled and roiled. The orange tablet dissolved and disappeared.
“Fear not,” Alberta said, laying a steady hand on the middle of my back. “I’m familiar with wishing wells, and this one in particular happens to like me. Deep breath now.”
“What—?”
She shoved me forward, and I fell face first into the pond. The water opened up and swallowed me like the mouth of a giant. The glittery reflections of the moon disappeared. There was no way to tell which way was up. The darkness beneath the surface was too complete. Still, I flailed and fought, hoping I’d breach for air at some point. My lungs burned, as did my skin, which was coated in the dissolved orange junk of Alberta’s tablet.
“Would you relax?” Alberta’s voice floated toward me from the depths. “If you’d stop struggling, you might realize you’re not dying.”
Against my better judgement, I decided to trust Alberta. It wasn’t like I had many other options. I closed my eyes, pretended that the darkness and my shortness of breath wasn’t making me wildly uncomfortable, and tried to calm myself. A few moments later, I felt more comfortable. Though I couldn’t inhale, there seemed to be no reason for me to do so. It was as if the water was supplying me with oxygen through some other means. The darkness subsided too, or rather, a ray of orange light pierced the water from above in the distance.
“Swim, little fishie,” Alberta instructed.
I struck out toward the light. It was like swimming through a black hole, but the darkness was not stationary. In my periphery, things skittered and scattered in the water, but if I turned to look, there was nothing there. Still, I knew something—many things perhaps—were watching me.
The orange light glimmered with tiny particles like dust wafting through sunbeams. Instinctively, I moved into the direct path of the light. At some point, my clothes had vanished, so the orange beam washed right across my skin. It felt warmer beneath it, as if it truly was a ray of sunshine permeating the cold surface of the pond, but I knew it was nighttime outside, and this was all of magical means. As if to prove it, the water began to move as if the pond had a tide. It washed me about, trying to break my focus.
“Steady,” Alberta’s muted voice advised. “Stay in the light.”
I fought to obey. A curious energy built up inside me when I was beneath the light, but if the waves buffeted me into the darkness, I lost the feeling of strength. It was like trying to fill a hypothetical power bar, but each time I was knocked out of the orange beams, the bar depleted itself again. After what felt like hours, I gave up trying to fight against the waves and instead let myself absorb the motion instead. This worked far better, as if it was a lesson the wishing well had been trying to teach me all along.
Alberta sang in Latin from the shore, though the words didn’t match the bonding spell Morgan had used yesterday. The tune was slow and haunting, like a funeral dirge. “Lady of the lake, we seek your vision. We are sisters in need of revision. Make us one, and we promise unending loyalty until this world and the next are done.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the orange beam of light exploded, illuminating the darkness of the wishing well. I saw everything that had ever resided in the water, and it was not pretty. Monsters with huge bodies and larger teeth, beasts of greater depths and terror, and disembodied eyes that stared at me from all directions. The eyes were full of hope and despair. Hands reached out. Countless fingers clutched my arms and legs. They all wanted to ride to the surface with me, but I wasn’t their savior.
If I could have screamed, I would. What did any of this mental torture have to do with the bonding spell for me and Alberta? The light grew brighter. If I were above water, my eyes would have streamed with tears, as if I was staring into the sun. Right before I closed them tightly, I caught a glimpse of a woman swimming toward me.
She was not human. That, I was certain of. No human had pure gold orbs in the place of her eyes or skin that radiated golden light from every pore. The woman looked as if her entire body had been dipped in precious metal, including the enormous wings that spread from her back. As she swam—floated—toward me, the wings folded inward, streamlining her appearance. When she was closer, she let them loose again, almost as if she were using them to make her way through the wishing well.
“Gwenlyn Bennett.” Her voice was not garbled or watery. It rang in my ears like every instrument of an orchestra playing discordant notes at the same time. “From whence have you come?”
When I opened my mouth to reply, water flowed in and made its way to the back of my throat. I coughed and choked as it filled my lungs. The woman in gold clapped her hands, and the horrid sensation of drowning disappeared. When I tried again, the words came from my head rather than my lips.
“I’m from Yew Hollow,” I answered.
This, apparently, was not the answer the woman in gold required. When she chuckled, a stream of golden bubbles left her mouth and floated upward, never reaching the surface of the wishing well.
“From what goddess were you born?” the woman in gold asked.
Perhaps this was supposed to serve as clarification, but it did nothing to clarify anything for me. Stupefied, I asked, “Do you mean my mother?”
The woman in gold smiled again. “You don’t know then. It’s all right. Not many of us do. It would profit you to find out. I could offer you that knowledge… for a price.”
I almost agreed out of sheer amazement of this woman’s presence, but a faint inkling of doubt whispered in the back of my mind. I hadn’t been pushed into this damn pond to find my inner goddess or whatever. I had a different job to do.
“Um, it’s okay,” I said. “I’m actually here for the bonding spell with my mentor, Alberta. I think she called you here to do it.”
“Ah, yes.” The woman in gold floated around me and examined me from all sides. “Alberta is a frequent customer, though not so frequent as to annoy me. Smart woman, that one. Not many who visit this well escape unscathed, but she continues to amaze me.” She glided to a stop in front of me once more, stroking her chin in deep thought. “A bonding spell, is it? And your first assignment, I presume.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She flitted around in a circle, as if she never allowed herself to remain still. “I thought the witches of Yew Hollow asked the yew tree for the assignment?”
“The yew tree has been compromised,” I informed her. “And Alberta likes to do things differently than the rest of the Summerses.”
“Ah, you’re a Summers!”
Annoyance stirred the acid in my stomach. “Not quite. That’s part of the problem. I’m hoping to become an official member of the coven through the coming of age ritual.”
The woman in gold shook her head. “Oh, don’t worry. You’re a Summers. You’re dripping with their power.”
Hope raised its head within me. “But I lost all of it. I can’t get it b
ack until I complete the ritual.”
“It’s not lost,” the woman assured me. “Simply waiting. I’ll help you. It’s not often I get to experience something as legendary as this. Your ability” —she twirled around me once more, her wings tossing bubbles through the water— “Ah! You are one with the dead.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m one with them,” I protested. “But I am able to communicate with them. Morgan and I work together—”
The woman in gold made a zipping sound to cut off my explanations. “Hush, darling. I know more about you than you do. Hmm, a medium… Some of my favorite witches have been mediums. It’s not a common trait. A speaker of the dead tends to harden over the years. It’s difficult to have one foot in the otherworld at all times. Then again, you’ve already hardened, haven’t you?”
This time, she seemed to actually expect an answer.
“I had a difficult childhood,” I answered curtly.
She snorted. “My dear, so have we all. I did not become such a being by having an easy life. Nor will you.”
“I don’t want to be you.”
“But you want to be something,” she said. “Bonded with the Summers coven for life, and you will go to unknown lengths to make it happen.”
The pressure of the water was beginning to take its toll on my body. My organs had started to ache, as if compressed, and my head felt too small to sit on my shoulders. “Please, lady of the lake, or whoever you are. I don’t think I can last down here much longer. Are you able to bond Alberta and myself? Or should I find another wishing well?”
Her golden nostrils flared. “Another wishing well? You think there is a guardian of wishes who is superior to me? Hold your tongue! You might face a demon worse than me.”
I pedaled away from her. “I didn’t mean offense. I thought you might be too busy for my—”
Her wings propelled her forward to close the gap between us. “I am not occupied,” she snarled. “And I am the only one you should ask to help complete your schooling.”
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