Once a Witch

by Carolyn Maccullough

  And yet Alistair is looking at me hopefully, his hands tightening on the counter as he leans toward me. I picture myself saying the right thing, the thing I am supposed to say should a customer ask for help beyond where to find the latest Pat Griffith mystery. My grandmother is the one you need to talk to. She'll be in tomorrow. I'm just watching the store and I'm not the one. Not the one you need.

  Instead, I hear myself saying, "I can help you." And then I pause. Fix it, fix it now, a tiny voice screams at me. "This is my grandmother's store." That's right, that's right, backpedal. I take a breath, stomp on the voice, grind it into silence. "But I do this kind of work with her all the time." My words are steady and surprisingly assured. Hector stops purring and opens his eyes, giving me a long yellow stare.

  "I heard about your family in an antique shop—"

  "That answers my next question. Which one was—"

  "Go see Mrs. Greene, they told me. Or her granddaughter Rowena. Rowena Greene will be the one you want." And then he smiles again, but this time it's an odd half smile, and he adds softly, "The words I had waited so long to hear. Rowena Greene."

  My throat has just gone dry, a kind of wandering-in-the-desert-for-a-week-without-water dry. We have a bunch of weird names in our family. Even so, I hate mine especially. Tamsin. It sounds so ... hard and unmusical. Unlike Rowena, which ripples off the tongue, Tamsin falls with a splat. I asked my grandmother repeatedly when I was little why she had saddled me with such a name, but she only smiled and said it was a story best saved for another time.

  Now I swallow and try to say, "Um, actually my—"

  "And when I walked in the door tonight, I just had this feeling that it's you I'm supposed to talk to." He tucks the bag away into an inner pocket of his coat. "You'll likely think I'm mad. Maybe I am mad." He pinches the bridge of his nose briefly with two fingers.

  "I don't think you're mad," I say after a moment, when it appears that he's finished speaking. It seems to be my new job to reassure him. I've seen my grandmother put nervous clients at ease in no time. "I'm flattered, really," I say truthfully and stop myself from adding, You have no idea how flattered. No one has ever, ever mistaken me for my extremely Talented older sister before.

  He leans across the counter, seizes my hand, and pumps it up and down a few times. Hector utters an offended meow and edges away from our clasped, flailing hands, but Alistair doesn't seem to notice. "I'm so delighted to hear this. I just have this feeling that you really will be able to help me."

  I swallow, refrain from pointing out that he's pressing on my injured wrist.

  "Listen, Dr. Callum—"

  "Alistair," he insists.

  "Alistair," I repeat after him. "I need to tell you..."

  "Yes?" he prompts, and when I don't answer right away, his shoulders twitch a little and his hand, suddenly limp, falls away from mine. I can't bear his disappointment.

  "Um ... I wanted to say that I can't promise anything." Actually, I can promise you that I most likely won't be able to get the job done.

  Maybe I should have phrased it the way my grandmother does when confronted with a particularly pushy customer or an exceptionally hard case. What wants to be found will come to light. I will not rest until I have shone this light into all corners and chased away all shadows.

  Not that she's said much of anything lately. This summer when I came home from school, I found her spending most of her time sitting quietly in the garden or in her room, a dreaming haze spreading over her face and stilling her hands. Nobody else will admit it. At least not openly. Instead, my mother told me that I'd be working in the bookstore most of the summer while Rowena stayed at home and helped with everything else. "Everything else" being the business of living as witches in a world that doesn't really know they exist.

  "No, no. Of course, of course," Alistair is saying, and I focus on him again. "I completely understand. Whatever you can do." He backs up toward the door and reaches for his umbrella without taking his eyes off me, as if he's afraid I'm about to start chopping up bats' wings and muttering incantations.

  "Wait. Don't you want to tell me more about it? What it is I'm supposed to be looking for?"

  He stops and closes his eyes briefly, and the corners of his mouth tug upward into a small smile. "Yes, of course. But..." He glances at his watch. "I have a train to catch in just a few minutes. Can we make an appointment to talk in my office when the semester starts?"

  "Sure," I say, struggling to keep relief from spilling into my voice. I know how it is with these people. Once he's back in his office and school starts, this night will start to seem more and more unreal as the pieces of it slip away. Soon enough he'll begin to wonder if he even had this conversation with a girl on a dark evening full of rain. Maybe it will become a story he'll tell someone someday—that he once tried to engage the services of a witch to find something that was destined to stay lost anyway. "I'll look you up. NYU, right?"

  He fumbles in his coat pocket for a minute, an expression of alarm crossing his face. "I had a card in here somewhere. Just had them made." He pats his pockets with increasingly violent motions.

  "Don't worry about it," I offer finally with a wide smile. "I'll find you. I mean, if I can't, you probably really don't want to hire me for the job anyway, right?"

  He looks startled and then he laughs, flashing those almost-but-not-quite-dimples again. "True. And ... well, whatever you want, whatever's your usual price?"

  "My usual?" How does my grandmother handle this part? She's so effortless about everything. "Um ... we'll discuss it when I have a better idea of the job," I say in my most official tone.

  This seems to satisfy him, because he nods and finally disappears into the thick-falling rain.

  I flip the CLOSED sign outward, turn the large brass key in the lock, and drift back to the cash register. I feel as if there's something I've forgotten to do, so I look around the store, my eyes skipping over the stacks of poetry books I have yet to re-price. All of a sudden, the last of the pleasure that I felt at Alistair's assumption, his assurance in me, drains away, leaving me flat. I wish I could tell Agatha this story, but somehow I don't think it would survive the heavy editing it would have to go through.

  The phone jangles sharply. I give the instrument a malevolent look as it shrills and shrills and shrills. I don't need any of my family's Talent to know who it is. Finally I pick it up. "Greene's Lost and Found, New and Used Books, may I help you?" I singsong into the receiver.

  "Tam," Rowena says, and her voice is all business. "We need you to pick up three gallons of vanilla ice cream at McSweeny's. The ice cream churn broke."

  I roll my eyes. "Can't Uncle Chester fix it?" Uncle Chester can fix anything that's broken. Appliances, glass, china, bones.

  "He tried. Now part of the handle is attached to Aunt Minna's hip." There's a short, exasperated sigh. "He's drunk," Rowena adds unnecessarily.

  "Already?"

  "Just close early and pick it up, would you?"

  "Maybe I have customers," I say grandly. I sweep my arms out to the empty store.

  "You don't have customers."

  Talented as she is, my sister can see only what's in front of her, so I lie with perfect ease. "I do, actually."

  "Who?" she demands. "Besides, it can't be anyone important. At least no one you could help," she adds.

  I am silent. I touch the tip of my finger to Hector's nose. He opens his eyes and we stare at each other.

  "I'll bring the ice cream," I say woodenly. "Just as soon as I close up here." Yeah, right.

  "Tam," my sister says, and if possible she sounds even more annoyed than before. "I didn't mean—"

  "You did," I say, my voice cheerful again. "Anything else?"

  "Remember that Aunt Lydia and Gabriel will be here tonight."

  I make a circling motion in the air with one finger. "Great." But inwardly I stifle a pang. Gabriel.

  "Aren't you excited?" she demands. "I mean, we haven't seen them in years."
<
br />   Aunt Lydia is not even our aunt, but she's part of the loose network that has formed around my family over the years, and since we call all older women "aunt" and all older men "uncle," it just slops into one big happy family. Or something like that.

  Gabriel is her son. He also used to be my best friend when we were kids. Then he developed his Talent of being able to locate anything: keys, wallets, books, jewelry, any number of things that get put in one place and become lost almost instantly. People, too. At that point, Rowena and our cousin Gwyneth decreed that he could no longer play hide-and-seek with us. In protest, I stopped playing the game, too.

  They moved when he was ten and I was just about to turn eight. Aunt Lydia had agreed to move across the country to California, probably to save her marriage to this Talentless guy, Uncle Phil. This caused some serious heat with my mother and grandmother because they'd like nothing better than for everyone in our family, even our "extended family," to stay in one place. Apparently, the move didn't work out. And now tonight Aunt Lydia and Gabriel are scheduled to make an appearance, where they will presumably be welcomed back into the proverbial fold.

  "Great," I repeat. I rub Hector's head and he closes his eyes, arches a little into my open hand. From the other end of the line I hear someone start singing. It sounds like Uncle Chester, his rich baritone cracking and wavering in places.

  "I have to go," Rowena says firmly as if I've been yammering on and on. "Don't forget the ice cream."

  "The what?" I say, but she has already clicked the phone down and so my last little dig is wasted on her.

  TWO

  FAT RAINDROPS pelt my arms and legs all the way through town as I bike home. My feet spin the pedals, street light catching and bouncing off my reflectors. Once or twice a car swooshes past me, voices blaring over music. "Freak show," someone shouts out a window, the word slapping my face. I swallow, pedal faster, until I reach the last stretch of country road that leads to the house. Then all at once the curtain of rain lifts away and the cicadas thrum to life.

  I roll my eyes. Figures Rowena couldn't have a little rain ruin her engagement party. Figures my father would have given in to her sweetly phrased demands in three seconds flat and called up clear skies and balmy breezes that whisper to the very edges of our property.

  I bump and jolt over the driveway, doing my best to avoid the numerous potholes that seem to multiply each time I ride home. Lights blaze from every window of the house, bright narrow stitches against the darkness blanketing the lawn. The sweet-sharp sting of bonfire smoke drifts through the air. It seems as if the celebration has already begun. I picture my grandmother ensconced in her great chair, a queen on her throne. Tell her, don't tell her, tell her, don't tell her. Tell her that you lied. Even if Alistair Callum ever does come back to the store, I could always tell my family that I forgot about his request.

  Because that would be so believable.

  The front wheel of my bike dips into a wide divot that I swear wasn't there this morning and my back teeth clang together. I swerve wildly, try to brake, and then—smash!—I collide with something very solid. And human.

  The next minute I'm falling and then we're both sprawled on the ground, and just in time whoever it is flings up one arm and stops my bike from crashing down on top of us.

  "Oh! I am so—" I begin, just as a seriously annoyed male voice interrupts me.

  "Maybe you could watch where you're going?"

  The injustice of this stings, and before I can stop myself I say, "Maybe you could watch where you're standing?"

  Belatedly, I become aware that I am still lying on top of this person and I scramble to my feet. It's so dark I can't see the full damage, but I can feel mud coating my right arm and there's a painful tingling in my left knee. I brush away a piece of gravel that's embedded itself into my skin. Great. I can just imagine the looks I'll be getting as I walk into Rowena's party.

  My front wheel is still spinning as I reach for my bike.

  "Here," the guy says. "Let me—"

  "No, I've got it."

  Our shoulders bump together as we both struggle over the bike, and I bang the handlebar into what feels like his hip. Beside me, he lets out a sudden exhalation of breath.

  At least I hope it was his hip.

  "Okay, then," he says brightly, in a gritted-teeth kind of voice, and I'm suddenly glad for the darkness that's hiding my face. "I'm going to keep a few feet between us. Maybe about six."

  "Sorry," I murmur as we walk toward the house. My bike is making little clicking sounds that can't be healthy. And just then it occurs to me that I've forgotten to pick up the ice cream. I try not to sigh too loudly. My only consolation is that Rowena will have expected me to have forgotten. Which isn't much of a consolation at all.

  When we reach the porch, I lean my bike against the rail, turn to him, and open my mouth to say something like I'm sorry again, but the words evaporate in my throat.

  The guy standing next to me is undeniably beautiful. He has dark shoulder-length hair, dark eyes, and a lean face. His long, supple mouth quirks up in a smile as he says, "Who knew you'd turn out to be so klutzy, Tamsin?"

  I make a futile swipe at the mud crusting along my forearm while staring at the blue moon tattooed on the right side of his neck. Who knew you'd turn out to be so hot?

  I swallow and say only, "Hi, Gabriel."

  As soon as we enter the house, Aunt Beatrice sweeps down on us. "I've lost it," she moans and clutches at Gabriel's wrist. She examines their clasped hands for a moment and then peers up at him. "I know you," she whispers.

  "This is Gabriel, Aunt Beatrice," I say loudly. In addition to her memory, which has been dicey for about ten years now, Aunt Beatrice also seems to be losing her hearing. Then again, at 101, she's the oldest member of the family. And she really is family, too, being my grandmother's sister. I never knew her husband, Uncle Roberto. He died shortly before I was born, and according to my mother that's when Aunt Beatrice really slipped her anchor.

  "I know who he is," she replies, and her long nose quivers as if she is actually sniffing at me before she adds, "And I know you."

  I nod. She's been proclaiming that she "knows" me for the past three years now. Never mind that I've seen her every day of my life with the exception of the past year when I've been away at school.

  "Oh," she whimpers and releases Gabriel's hand. "I truly lost it."

  "Lost what?" Gabriel asks patiently.

  "Isn't it on your wrist, Aunt Beatrice?" I suggest, and when she gives me a distracted look, I motion to her bony wrist and the diamond bracelet hanging off it. Sometimes she can be fooled into thinking you really did just find whatever it is that she thinks she's lost. Then she'll be happy for a while, before her face collapses again and she starts wringing her hands.

  She examines the bracelet with bright eyes for a moment, then shakes her head sadly. "No, dear," she quavers. "I've lost it." She smiles at me, a sweet smile that pulls at the millions of wrinkles on her face. Then she bestows a distracted kiss smelling of talcum powder and sherry on my cheek and I hug her with real affection. I feel some sympathy for Aunt Beatrice. Apparently, she used to be a powerful witch who could stop people from moving with just the touch of her finger. Something happened, though, long before I was born, before my mother was born, even, but no one talks about it. Now she spends most of her time wandering through her own private world searching for whatever it is she's lost.

  "There you are," says Silda, my cousin, coming to stand next to us. She rolls her eyes briefly at us before saying in a bright voice, "Look what I brought you, Aunt Beatrice. Your favorite." In the cup of her palm she holds a tiny fruit tart.

  Aunt Beatrice makes a small huffing noise. "I like chocolate," she says.

  Silda blinks, closes her hand, and opens it again to display a large cookie bulging with chocolate chips. "Your favorite," she says again, a slight wheedle in her voice. "And there's more where that came from."

  "Lost," Aunt Beatrice mutter
s feebly, but she allows herself to be led away.

  I shake my head. "Can't you—" I begin to ask.

  "She hasn't lost anything that I can find," Gabriel answers, lifting his shoulder in a little shrug. "I tried earlier. It was something about a pocket watch. But when I found a pocket watch in a drawer, it wasn't what she wanted."

  I scrape at my arm. Mud flakes swirl onto the threadbare rug. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother standing at the far end of the room. Her head swivels my way and suddenly I'm very conscious of the holes in the knees of my jeans and my faded My Little Pony T-shirt, my favorite thrift-store score from last spring.

  "I should go change," I say. "And you should go mingle. Probably not a good idea for you to spend too much time talking to the family misfit," I add lightly.

  Gabriel raises his eyebrows at me. "Family misfit?"

  I shrug. "You know the deal," I say, because I'm sure everyone's told him by now.

  "No. And now you've got me curious." He takes a step closer to me.

  The level of chatter in the room remains high, but suddenly I feel as though we're on display. "Come on, Gabriel. You've been back all of what, forty minutes? You must have gotten the lowdown on everything that's happened since you've been gone."

  He looks thoughtful for a minute and I'm expecting him to say something pseudo-consoling. But instead he says, "Maybe I would have if you had filled me in over the years."

  "What?" I say, scrunching my face into confused lines. But I know what he means.

  Apparently, Gabriel thinks I do too, because he echoes, "You know what I mean. What was with never writing me back? What was with the radio silence from you?" His eyes narrow in on mine as if daring me to look away. And I do.