I said hello to Diana, offered her tea, and settled into my usual chair, a rocker with a brown leather cushion, the same chair Mother had sat in to soothe us when Jimmy and I were babies.
“Diana called last night to tell me about your experience yesterday and your seeming determination to learn magic,” Mother said. “I felt this was something we should all discuss together.”
I nodded. “Except she said she couldn’t teach me—that no one could learn magic, it was either in you or it wasn't.”
Diana set the teacup she was holding on the occasional table next to her. “That’s true, Cassie. But—”
I sat forward. Sometimes but is the best word in the world—it holds out promise.
“But spells can learned by the talented. Spells that can help.”
I knew this in the back of my mind. Mother had a spell to bind the sea goblin. When Diana had said she couldn’t teach me magic, it hadn’t occurred to me that she could teach me spells.
Mother nibbled on a ginger cookie, then held it in her hand. “Diana called to ask my permission to teach you certain things—enchantments.”
Diana cleared her throat. “Of course you’re of age and don’t need your mother’s permission, but what sort of friend would I be to Audrey if I didn’t at least see how she felt about it before offering the knowledge to you?”
I looked Diana straight in the eyes. “Teach me.” And then added, “Please.”
I turned to look at Mother. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind isn’t the word I’d use,” Mother said. “I’d prefer you not chase the sea goblin, but it’s your fate and nothing I can do will change that. I want you to be as well-armed as possible. I want you to do it right, not halfway, like I did.”
My gaze shot from Mother to Diana and back.
“Your mother—” Diana said, and my gaze flew her way again.
“I got ahead of myself,” Mother said. “I flew off half-cocked chasing the gremhahn. It made me a little crazy.”
“Crazy?”
Mother blushed—something I’d never seen her do before.
“And then, all that standing in the rain,” she said. “I was compelled, you know. I couldn’t bear to be in the house. I know now it was unformed magic roiling around inside me that caused it.” She shivered slightly. “It took a long time to get the magic settled.”
So her illness wasn’t caused by the sea goblin, but by an incomplete knowledge of how to use her magic. I didn’t know if I was truly all that relieved to know this—not when I was begging to learn magic myself.
“And then,” Mother said, “it made me sick.”
“Nearly killed you,” Diana said harshly.
Mother nodded. “It did. So, of course I’d prefer that you not chase down that road, but I also know that I can’t stop you.”
I saw now what Diana was trying to tell me yesterday—that magic wasn’t some trifling game. It was serious business and could have serious consequences. And yet—
I bit my lower lip and looked at Mother. “But you’re all right now? The magic isn’t still making you crazy or sick?”
“I’m fine, but I won’t use magic again. It’s not good for me.”
I was relieved she was healthy, and relieved she wouldn’t be using magic in the future, even though that was exactly what I planned for myself. I would have pursued learning the spells no matter what Mother had said, but it would be easier knowing that, even if she’d prefer things go differently, she had approved.
I faced Diana. “When will we start?”
“Tomorrow,” Diana said. “Come to the house at noon.”
Ten
Hermosa Beach, California
December 1923
I arrived at Diana’s early, but not so early as to be rude. She’d invited me into the formal dining room and we sat at a walnut table that would easily seat ten, which seemed odd since Diana lived alone. I nibbled politely at the cucumber and watercress sandwich Diana had made and sipped the lemonade she served, trying hard not to scream my impatience to get started.
“This sort of magic, a magic that is akin to what the Hindus and Buddhists call karma, the bringing to someone what they have earned and deserve,” Diana said, finally getting to the reason I’d come, “this magic has an odd component to the learning.”
I looked up, a crustless sandwich quarter poised in my hand.
“Until you reach a certain level, I can only teach you what you ask to learn,” she said.
I set the food on its plate, the sandwich neatly obscuring the red roses at the plate’s center. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
She gently pushed her plate away from herself. “If you want to learn something, you will have to ask specifically for a spell that does a specific thing. I can’t guide you. It must be your own actions that drive forward your knowledge.”
“I’ll need to figure out myself what I need to know?”
“Yes.”
“But eventually I’ll figure out enough that you can start telling me what I need to learn next?”
“Exactly.”
I don’t know what I’d expected—that there was a book of spells and we’d start at the beginning and work through to the end, I supposed. I’d thought Diana would be the teacher and I the student, much like any class in school. I certainly hadn’t thought this would be a self-guided course—that I would have to set the lesson plan when I had no idea what I needed to learn.
“How inconvenient,” I said.
Diana’s eyebrows rose at my comment, but she kept whatever she was thinking out of her voice. “What do you think you would need to learn first?”
I blew out a breath. “How could I know?”
She kept her voice pitched low, a calming tone. “Think of the steps. If you were to meet the goblin on the way home, what would you want to do first?”
“Grab him by the throat and make him return my brother,” I said.
Diana’s smile was kind, but I knew I’d given the wrong answer.
“Even before that, Cassie,” she said. “Think.”
Suddenly it was obvious. “I’d need a way to protect myself from him.”
“And what might the way be?” she asked.
I thought about it. “Two things. One, a way to make myself invisible to the gremhahn. And two, a protective shield or something so whatever magic he threw at me would bounce off.”
“Two good thoughts,” she said. “Suppose we start with spells for those.”
Another idea struck me. “And a way to hide the sea goblin and myself from being seen by anyone who might be around. A wide invisibility spell of some sort, I guess.”
“Yes,” Diana said, and then propped her chin on her fist, evidently thinking.
“Yes,” she said again. “Come with me.”
She led me out behind the house to a large swath of lawn beside a koi pond, stopped, and turned to face me.
“Put out your hand,” she said.
When I did, she rubbed her palm over mine as if scraping something off her and onto me.
“Excorm,” she said, and then, “You say it.”
“Excorm.” The word was neither Latin nor Greek, which would have made it easier to remember once I learned its purpose. Excorm was a nonsense word to my ears.
Diana nodded. “Good. Excorm is the spell word that will sheathe you in a personal protective covering.”
I repeated the word over and over in my head, but said, “Don’t I get a magic wand or something?”
Diana scoffed. “You’re trying to be humorous. No magic wand, I’m afraid, but a magic hand movement—this.” She turned her hand sideways and shook it once rather violently. “Try the word and gesture together.”
“Excorm,” I said, and twitched my hand the way she had.
“Very good.” She seemed to be musing on what to teach me next. If every spell was as easy as that one, I’d be ready for the sea goblin in no time.
Diana strolled around the koi pond while she
thought. She bent and picked up something she’d spied in the grass.
“Ow!” I cried, as a rock the size of a baby’s fist struck my left shoulder.
“You must always be vigilant, Cassie,” Diana said. “The protection spell must always be on the tip of your tongue.”
I rubbed my sore shoulder and glared at her. “That wasn’t fair.”
Diana lightly shrugged. “The sea goblin won’t be fair, either.”
“Excorm,” I said harshly, and flicked my hand.
Diana threw another rock. It hit me in the chest.
“This spell doesn’t work,” I said, rubbing the new sore spot.
“It works,” she said. “But not when spat out in anger. You must be ready, but also in control of yourself. Anger can get you seriously hurt. Or worse.”
Or worse. Now there was a comforting thought.
I drew in a deep breath, held it, then let it out, exhaling until my lungs were empty, then filling them again. It was an old trick for calming myself down.
“Excorm,” I said, flicked my hand, and waited.
And waited, while Diana glared at me this time.
“I don’t think you’re ready,” she said. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll begin again.”
“But—”
“No but,” Diana said firmly. “Go.”
My heart sank. Arguing was useless, I could see that. But it didn’t stop my cheeks from burning. I walked past her, my head high, and had my hand on the doorknob when I heard the slight rustle of her dress and then an almost imperceptible grunt.
I said the word and made the gesture as I swung around to face her. A rock stopped only inches from my head, hung in the air a moment, then fell to the ground.
I stared at the rock lying near my feet, then laughed. “You’re a bit sly, aren’t you?”
“Not half so sly as the gremhahn will be,” she said.
*
That night I made a list of the spells I thought I’d need. I brought the list with me when I went to Diana’s the next day.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as I settled on the lion’s-claw sofa in her front parlor.
“Fine.” She’d never asked about my health before and it seemed odd for her to do it now. “Oh,” I said. “Because of Mother, that magic made her ill.”
“You’ll need to watch out for that, Cassie. Your mother didn’t see it coming and it overtook her.”
A nervous twinge wriggled through my stomach.
You are not your mother, I told myself. You’re young and strong. You can master this.
“I’ll watch out,” I said.
Diana raised her eyebrows. “I’ll be watching, too. I didn’t catch the change with your mother until it was too late. With you, the moment I see that magic is having a negative effect, the lessons will stop. Agreed?”
I nodded. “Agreed.”
“Good,” Diana said. “Now, what do you want to learn today?”
I’d written down the spells to learn in the order I thought I’d need them. But I didn’t pick the next spell on the list. I jumped to one near the end.
“I want to know how to break the gremhahn’s curse on Mother and the one on me.”
Diana gave me a level look. “Why that one now?”
“It’s the timing. Last night I wrote out what spells I thought I’d need in the order I thought I’d need them. Capture the gremhahn. Put him under my thrall so he must do what I say. Get Jimmy back. But then I realized—the gremhahn cursed Mother to never see her son again.” For a moment, it was impossible to speak. I clenched my hands into loose fists and finished what I had to say. “So the order has to be, capture the sea goblin, put him in thrall, break the curse, then get Jimmy back.”
A small smile graced Diana’s lips for the tiniest moment, and then was gone. “That’s good, Cassie. You’re thinking it through.” She frowned. “That sort of spell is hard to break. It takes three people.”
“You, me, and Mother?” I said.
Diana shook her head. “Your Mother may seem fine now, but she’s still recovering. You’ll have to wait to learn that spell.”
I bit back my disappointment and the new worry that sprung up about Mother’s health. But Diana said she was recovering. I grabbed that thought and held it, even though Mother had said she’d never do magic again.
“Then a spell to call the gremhahn to me,” I said.
“Good,” Diana said. “That one’s a little harder than the protection spell. Are you ready?”
I nodded and we set to it.
*
New Year’s Day brought 1924 into being. Two weeks later, I graduated high school. There were only ten of us for Winter graduation and the ceremony was small. Mother and Diana came. Moira and her parents came, and our old housekeeper, Sophie, as well. The O’Hare’s gifted me a signed copy of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, which seemed a bit of an odd choice for them. Mother gave me a gold locket. Inside, one on each side, were photographs of her and of Father. I nearly cried, but Mother took the locket and fastened it around my neck saying, “We will always be with you.” There was comfort in that thought.
February broke as a cool day with drizzle. Five days a week, Diana taught me spells and the gestures that went with the spells that needed them. Not all spells did. For some, the word or words were enough. I’d already learned the binding spell from Mother when we’d hunted the sea goblin. Diana taught me her personal spells for finding lost things, so I could eventually find Jimmy. She taught me spells for hiding in plain sight and ways to squeeze or extend time.
“Do you have a spell you’d like to learn today?” Diana asked when I arrived at her house on a Monday morning.
“Not a spell, not right off,” I said. “I was wondering about spirit helpers.”
Diana raised her eyebrows.
“Like a witch’s black cat,” I said, only having old folk tales to spark my imagination. That Diana couldn’t offer spells, that I had to ask, was frustrating. I lay awake most nights worrying I was forgetting something that would turn out to be essential—like spirit helpers.
“Cats can be helpers,” Diana said, “but not for you. I think, by the way, that you should get a dog.”
“A dog is my spirit helper?”
Diana laughed lightly. “No. You should get a dog because I see how lonely you are at your house. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you show up early and linger after the lesson is over. You need a companion. People would be better, of course, but you don’t seem inclined to make new friends or invite old ones to come around.”
I hadn’t noticed how isolated I’d kept myself since Father’s death and Mother’s move to the big house, but Diana was right. Moira and I had gone dancing once since I’d come home to the beach, and of course I called Mother every day, or she called me, and I spent a couple of weekends a month with her, but beyond that people felt like a distraction.
When I wasn’t at Diana’s, I was home practicing what I’d learned, making sure it was so ingrained that the spells became second nature. But another dog—I wasn’t sure about that. When Molly died, it’d broken my heart. In the last year I’d lost my little brother, my dog, and my father. Enough was enough. I didn’t want to go through any kind of loss again if I didn’t have to.
“So what is my helper, then?” I said.
Diana turned and went toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “Come on. We’ll find out.”
In the kitchen she took the copper bowl from its place in the cupboard and then brought out a jar of water. This water was clear as glass, not the silty, murky water that had shown me the bow-and-arrow seal.
“We use clear water from a special well near Anza-Borrego for these sorts of things. It has to be pure, with nothing in it to influence the vision. You’ll need your own bowl and jars of water eventually.”
Her words rolled over me like ice. I hadn’t thought beyond breaking the curses on Mother and myself and bringing Jimmy home. Diana seemed to think I would become lik
e her—someone who kept using her magic--and not like Mother, who’d put hers on a dark shelf in the very back of the closet of her life.
What I wanted was to go to college, study art and the ocean, and write about where and how they intersected. I wanted to marry and have children. I didn’t want to be a magic woman to whom people came for help with their problems. Not that I wouldn’t want to help, it was just—
I pushed the worry away. There was time enough to think on all that later. I needed to focus on the here and now. My heart thudded and my nerves jangled as I watched Diana pour the water into the bowl. She pressed her thumb lightly at the spot at the top of my nose, between my eyebrows, then stepped away and said. “Look now and tell me what you see.”
I gazed into the bowl. All I saw was water. I stared and stared, waiting for something to appear, but there was nothing. I looked at Diana and shrugged.
Diana pressed her teeth together and made several quick tsking sounds with her tongue—thinking, I thought. Wondering why it didn’t work. What was wrong with me that it didn’t work?
“It should be sea water,” I said suddenly. I didn’t know where the idea had come from, but knew I was right. “But filtered clean.”
Diana smiled.
I tsked myself. “You knew.”
“I knew,” Diana said, “but we needed to know if you knew. Learning the words to spells means nothing if you can’t tell within yourself what is truly needed at the moment. Your brain might tell you, for instance, that making a small fireball to throw is your best move, but your gut might say this is the time to run. If you can’t listen to your inner voice and trust it, you’ll make mistakes. The mind is rational and useful, but deep truth is always in the heart. The secret is to get the two in harmony.”
She put a funnel in the jar that had held the well water and carefully poured the water from the bowl back into the jar.
The Girl with Stars in her Hair Page 10