by Kayti McGee
Rose sipped her chai and peered at me through the steam.
I attempted to look encouraging, which involved suppressing another fake smile, sitting forward, leaning back, and crossing my ankle over my knee.
“So you’re... a warlock,” she began tentatively.
“Yes.”
“How did that happen to you?”
“The same way it happened to you. I was born.”
“It’s a family curse?”
I chuckled helplessly. “Oh, I don’t know if I would put it like that. It’s a birthright. A lineage.” I ran my fingers to and fro along my jeans. “An exclusive club, if you like.”
“What about Wiccans? Are they—can you choose to be witches?”
“Not in the same way that we are. Witches are born, not converted. There’s magic around us all the time and some mortals can tap into it, but their gifts are limited. Think about Judaism. It has a religious component and a heritage component. An outsider can convert, but an insider need only be born.”
She mulled over that for a while.
“Mortals? Is that what you call”—she lowered her voice, though no one was in earshot—“humans? Aren’t you human? Am I?” She paled.
“Ah...” I sipped my coffee and considered how much to tell her. Candor seemed the safest route, though I tried to offset my revelations with a conversational tone. “I don’t particularly consider myself human. I’m a hundred and eight. Spellwork allows us to halt our aging, if we choose.” I smiled. “I suppose there is a humanness in that vanity. But you have to understand; I would not choose to live out my days in a feeble and failing body. I don’t know many people who would.”
Rose was staring at me as if I had just announced that I harbored a second, secret head. I shifted in my armchair. It was velveteen, claw-footed, and probably antique. It was the sort of piece I might put in my own home.
“This is a... surprisingly nice place,” I said, glancing around.
Rose wasn’t having my small talk.
“Can you die?” she blurted out. “Can I?”
“Oh, yes. I certainly plan to. After a few hundred years we tend to go mad. It’s faster for some. At that point we usually sacrifice ourselves.”
“You... sacrifice yourselves,” she repeated flatly.
“Or give ourselves over to the coven for sacrifice. It’s no laughing matter, Rose. Death magic is some of the most powerful magic we have.”
“What then?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s next for you?”
“When I leave this body, I’ll join the gods in Summerland and walk with them there. I’ll have time to reflect on my life, my mistakes and successes. Eventually, I will be reincarnated for another cycle. So will you.”
“Summerland,” she whispered.
“That’s right. I suspect I have been there before, and will be again.”
“You don’t remember?”
“No, but I don’t need to remember. There’s a reason we call them the Summerlands. Pan reigns there, the Horned God, consort of the Triple Goddess. Personally, I like to imagine Summerland as a golden forest.” I smiled faintly. I was warming to our conversation. “You know, everything slow and hot, leaves the color of honey. The souls awaiting rebirth aren’t in torment. They’re reflective, peaceful.”
Rose stared at me for a while. Perhaps she was caught up in my vision. She wore a funny little smile and looked faraway.
“Death magic,” she said. “What other kinds of magic are there?”
“Oh, too many to list. Blood magic, psychic magic, earth magic, celestial magic.” The corner of my mouth turned up. “Sex magic.”
She looked at everything but my face. “Why does it... kind of hurt, when we touch?”
“Annoying, isn’t it?” I grinned wickedly. I could very much have teased her for that question, considering the sequence in our conversation. “Someone—probably your birth mother—cast a warding spell on you, I think to protect you from other witches.”
At the mention of her birth mother, Rose’s eyebrows shot up.
“You know about her?”
“No. I know that you’re adopted. I know that your birth family”—I stopped just short of saying killed my family—“made dangerous enemies in Juniper Hollow. Some of those enemies were connected to my family. That’s why you have to leave, and stay away forever if you value your life.”
“All the witches up there are your family?”
“No. We call our coven a family, but they aren’t all blood relatives. I’m an orphan, like you. My parents died”—I gestured vaguely—“in an old land dispute. I don’t remember them. My aunt raised me.”
I left out the part about my aunt being the Maven of the Blackmanes.
I left out the part about my aunt plotting to kill Rose.
Rose asked how many covens existed in North America, then in the world, and I told her everything I knew about the powerful families on the East and West Coast, in Brazil and Europe, and elsewhere around the globe. I explained uncovened witches like Rosemary and Sage, who were overly solicitous because they hoped for an invitation.
She asked what we did, as if being witches obligated us to uphold some mystical balance or rescue imperiled civilians, and we had a good laugh when I revealed that we did quite a lot of nothing.
I described the sabbats, our tendency toward decadence, our communal spells and private altars. I also told her about the natural course of a witch’s progress in a coven, from early education to maturity, when our gifts emerged. “As yours would have done,” I said, “if you had been on the path.”
“So I’m not... on the path.” She was crestfallen.
“You are now. And the shop owner in Kansas City can help you.” I trailed off, unwilling to tell the truth: that Rose had lost countless precious years of progress and that she would need the help of a high-ranking witch, or a potent and organic moment of catharsis, to draw out the full strength of her gifts. I couldn’t be that witch, and I couldn’t concoct that moment.
She gazed at her hands, her expression solemn. Many things in her life must have made sense now, and yet I recognized that she was bereft, feeling the loss of her family acutely. The sadness rolled off her like a fog. How different her life would have been in a coven—how truly magical—but she had been robbed of her birthright and the alternatives left to her now were difficult and insufficient.
I dragged my chair around the table, arranging it alongside hers. Carefully, I took her hand. Her ward protested, but she was a quick study and reduced the spell’s sting by relaxing and concentrating on something else.
“Can you make that go away?” she mumbled.
“I could, with some effort. It would be like untying a Celtic knot. But I don’t think I should. It might come in handy... in the future.”
A future without me. The thought rang out so clearly.
Rose gripped my hand with both of hers. Too late, I realized that I shouldn’t have spent the last four hours talking and laughing with her. She didn’t want me to go, and I didn’t want to go.
“What’s this?” She brushed her thumb over the tattoo on top of my hand, which was the Eye of Providence. I explained the symbol at greater length than necessary. Afterward, she pointed to the ankh on my middle finger, the triple moon beside it, and then the Eye of Horus. Tattoos covered my fingers, hands, wrists, and arms, disappearing beneath the sleeves of my T-shirt, and Rose traced them and I explained them one by one: The unalome, various runes and hieroglyphs, Hekate’s wheel, the symbol of the Horned God, tarot imagery, the tree of life, an infinity loop, an ouroboros.
On my arms were elaborate, unfading sleeves in blackwork style, depicting Lilith and Pan, and the Triple Goddess, among a tangle of blooms and thorns. By the time Rose got to those, we were standing together, her palms sliding over my skin, the pain of the ward a faraway prick. I let her touch me liberally. She pushed up my sleeves, revealing the tips of Baphomet’s horns on my shoulders. My ches
t rose and fell sharply. I was drunk on her nearness, on her roving fingers.
“Yesterday, in the shop...” She laid one hand on my chest, the other on my stomach. Her nails curled against me. I wanted to show her everything.
“Doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. I cupped the back of her neck and tugged her mouth against mine. She should have been mine to nurture and train. She should have been mine in bed, my witch mate, the spark to the dead tinder of my life. If not all of that, then why had our paths intersected? The hand of fate was on me, but it was on me in jest.
She squeezed my hips and I folded her closer. She whimpered into my mouth.
I couldn’t remember ever wanting anything the way I wanted her then.
I broke the kiss.
“Leave,” I said. “Promise me you’ll go home. I’ll see you if I can.” In that reckless moment, I honestly believed I could tryst with Rose without endangering her life, although it wasn’t true.
“I promise,” she said.
I shrugged on my coat, avoiding her eyes, and took out my wallet. “Go quickly. Don’t delay. Don’t stop until you’re out of the state.” I emptied my cash onto the table. I never knew how much money I had in my wallet at any given time, but that day it turned out to be six hundred dollars in twenties and fifties. “And keep this on you for a while, would you? For me.”
I had prepared a bracelet—a blue yarn string with a bone bead—which was a simple family charm. A wheel of bone / On a string of yarn; / Wake me in my grave / If she should come to harm. I folded her fingers around it and left.
Somewhere, with someone else, Rose would become the witch that she was born to be. Our separation was no more or less fair than the rising of the sun. It was arbitrary, like the seeming coincidence in our names or the strength I had felt in our kiss. That, at least, was what I told myself as I drove back to Juniper Hollow.
Twelve
Rose
When Thorn kissed me outside of time, I’d had a vision. His strong, capable hands wrapped around a dagger, the blood that rushed from his chest to soak into the forest floor until there was no strength left in his pale, empty body. That night, after he visited, I dreamed it again.
In the dream, it wasn’t just me, frozen, watching him die at his own hands. The details were sharper. A clearing, with a sign carved into the soil. Hooded figures. Murmured phrases, the scents of blood and danger steeped in iron. In the middle of everything, Thorn, bleeding out from a wound he’d inflicted on himself. When the last of the light finally drained from his green eyes, I heard the accusations.
You killed him.
You killed him.
Necromancer.
I recognized the woman from that night in the stream as she lunged at me, but even more, I recognized the truth in the words she snarled. I awoke, heart pounding and sore with the knowledge she was correct. Whatever this vision was, I would cause it. Some one of my actions would result in death if I continued to train with Rosemary and Sage.
Sitting in a cozy armchair with him the next day, autumn sunlight streaming in through the windows, it was easy to tell myself that it wasn’t a sure thing. He was strong, he was so healthy. It felt impossible he could ever die, this solemn, wise man with so many gifts. Couldn’t he make his own fate? But then he kissed me again. His lips assured me he had no control, and his tongue offered promises he couldn’t keep. My entire body yearned and mourned for his; I longed to rip out my heart and offer it to him, even as it was already breaking in two. The intensity of emotion was as terrifying as the vision, but it also confirmed what I’d hoped to deny.
Only the presence of Death can elicit that sort of response in a person, and if I stayed in Colorado, I’d lead Him right to Thorn.
So I took his money. I took his bracelet. And I walked away from the man who had shown me the truth of the world.
For the second time, I packed my things. It wasn’t lost on me that doing things with him multiple times like this could be considered rituals. My clothing and toiletries went in my duffel, regardless, and after a second’s thought I dumped out my makeup bag in there as well, freeing up the space to keep my new assortment of magical items separate. My hand lingered on a rose quartz. Once I was back home, surrounded by my old life again, would I be able to practice witchcraft without the urge to come running back here?
Even the lightest touch of my fingertips on the crystal had a current thrumming through me that reminded me of Thorn’s kiss. The moldavite amulet was the same shade as his eyes on the rare occasions he smiled. I had a sinking suspicion that there weren’t going to be enough salt baths in the world to cleanse this man from me.
I was fascinated, a mouse in the snake’s gaze.
Saying goodbye to Tessa felt harder than I’d expected, so I didn’t bother. A note on her counter under a farewell bottle of pinot would have to do. As she took a shower before bed, I swallowed my guilt and slipped out. The night was chill and dark, wind buffeting my car as I sped down 93 again to pick up I70 and the endless drive home. It wasn’t until just then that I remembered I didn’t technically have a home to go to at all.
It pissed me off.
Everything about my current circumstances did, in fact. It felt mean that all I had done was ask for a crumb of knowledge, finding out a bit about my ancestry, and what I was given was a feast I couldn’t eat from. I couldn’t decide who to be more mad at—the gods on Thorn’s arms for setting me up, or myself for being too headstrong to resist falling right into the trap.
I changed lanes, changed the music, but nothing was shaking me out of my funk. There’s no joy in anger when it can’t be taken out on someone else.
When my phone rang, I ignored it at first. I assumed it was Tessa, scolding me for sneaking out on her. By the third time, I was annoyed enough to answer.
“What?” I asked, not even looking at the display first.
“Rose?” came a trembling, rusty voice. I knew that voice.
“Rune?”
“I need you, child.” I rolled my eyes at his timing.
“Okay, well now that I have your number, I can call you back tomorrow. I’ll be driving all night to get back to—”
“Now,” he said, and I finally identified the terror underlying his tone. There was some scuffling in the background, mostly drowned out by the sounds of the highway surrounding me.
“Uncle Rune?” I’d never called him that. Maybe I never should have. It exposed my need.
But he was already gone, the line cutting out. I fumbled with a callback for a minute before finally getting a message that the number I had dialed was no longer in service. Shit. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go check on him and something happened. I just wasn’t sure I’d be able to live with myself if I went and something else happened instead, either.
Apparently the gods weren’t through with me yet.
So instead of heading back east to greet the sunrise from my parent’s couch, I turned back into the dark. The wilderness of the mountains surrounded me almost immediately. Urgency had me driving a tiny bit faster than the first time I’d made the trip to Juniper Hollow, but my fists were no less clenched around the wheel. Instead of simply driving off a cliff, now I had a whole new set of fears. Weird, that concerns about being vaporized by a voice in the woods were more realistic than any about wildlife this time around. Who cared about bears when you’d made enemies of dragons?
My newfound knowledge meant that I was attuned to the changes around me as I dropped my speed to head down Main. It wasn’t just the lights that went out past the town limits sign. It was also birdsong. Normality. It was civilization itself.
Maybe it was my nerves, but I could have sworn that I felt the fear hiding behind the blackout curtains that hung on every window. For the first time, it occurred to me that keeping the light inside might not just be about the dark skies. It might have been as much out of terror that once let out, it might not return. Me, I almost hadn’t. I couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to see what hap
pens in the night.
Right on Sable.
Third dirt road.
Number ten.
I cut my lights and pulled over before I got to Rune’s driveway, not that it would probably make much of a difference in witch country. Still, I didn’t need to announce myself too loudly. Something was amiss. I could smell it the moment I opened the car door. Iron and danger, the scent of blood. It took me straight back to my vision of Thorn.
I shaped his name in my mouth and held it safe inside like a secret until I saw the source wasn’t him. It was Rune’s poor dog. I breathed out the call I’d been holding as I gazed down at the gruesome scene. She’d been torn apart and split from neck to belly. There was nothing efficient about it. Whoever had done this hadn’t been trying to keep her quiet. They’d been cruel. My gag reflex went into overdrive as I got close enough to see that her entrails had been used as a divination, discarded in a hastily described circle in the dirt. Her head, lying a few feet away, was still chained to the pole in the yard. I covered my nose and mouth with a shaking hand and climbed the steps onto Rune’s porch.
Every scary movie I’d ever seen told me I was doing exactly the wrong thing, but I also knew I wouldn’t stop putting one foot in front of the other. Couldn’t stop. Whatever the big picture was, these moments felt sketched long ago. Inevitable.
One foot. The other. And then I was at the screen door, as shredded as the body behind me.
It creaked loudly as I opened it, as did the knob of the wooden door behind it. Bizarrely, the first thing I noticed inside Rune’s place were the empty walls. All the etchings, all the runes. Gone. As though they’d never existed. As though Luna were still sitting on the couch laughing at a camera. Time was braiding together around me. I could almost hear her.
Then I took another step into the living room and saw my uncle. He was hanging in the air, choking but able to draw just enough breath to survive. It must have felt like dying. He must have been dying for hours now; it took me so long to drive here. When he saw me, he smiled. It was the smile of a child, not a dying man. Pure joy. He strangled a long breath and said, “You’re just in time.”