by Laura Sibson
I shake my head. “You two are believers, then?” I ask. “In magic?”
“How can anyone know about it and not believe in it?” Rhia says. “I’ve been studying the craft for years.”
“Yeah, since eighth grade at least,” Tess says.
Around the same time Rhia was beginning to learn the craft, I’d decided that I wasn’t meant for that world.
“I’ve read everything that I can get my hands on. I’m learning how to cast spells,” she says, and I hear the excitement in her voice. “But I don’t have innate magic, so I’m pretty limited.” She says this last part with a sigh, and she seems to shrink a bit. It’s the first time I’ve seen anything except pure confidence come from Rhia.
Mom and GG had told me how spells were basically recipes. As long as you had the right ingredients and a true intention, they could work for anyone. But mastering elements was something that could only be done by those born with innate magic. Like the Mitchells. Like me.
Rhia might be limited, but she clearly knew way more than I did. I remember the card in my back pocket. “What does this mean?” I hold out the tarot card. “Or do you give them randomly to whoever comes in?”
“Not random.” She takes the card from my hand and I can practically see the glow of her confidence return. “Right, the Wheel of Fortune. This one was meant for you. It’s about external forces and being powerless. It’s sort of ambiguous, though. Could be good stuff is coming that’s out of your control or could be things are going to suck. Are you feeling tossed around by Fate right about now?” I expect her to laugh at this last bit, but her expression is earnest.
“You could say that,” I say.
Rhia holds the card out to me and I take it. I feel a tingle when our fingers touch. Maybe there are more forces out of my control than I originally thought. And not all of them are bad.
“What are these forces?” Rhia asks. “I mean, if you want to tell us.”
Do I tell them that I’ve somehow gotten myself infected with corrupted magic? Not sure I’m ready for the oversharing portion of the evening, so instead I say, “My grandmother wants me to learn about . . . all of this faster than I’m ready to. And I don’t think I can do it.”
“That’s rough,” Tess says.
Rhia practically spits out a mouthful of soda. “Rough? Having your grandmother teach you magic? That sounds amazing.”
“It’s complicated,” I say in a quiet voice.
“I get it,” Tess says. “Here, have more Gummis.” I grab a handful and pass them to Rhia.
“Okay, yeah,” Rhia says. “Sorry. I love magic. But family. Not always the easiest.” She reaches in the bag for more Gummi Bears, and I notice she keeps putting back the green ones.
“We could help, though,” Tess offers.
The first feeling that zips through me—which I do not expect and therefore can barely give a name to—is something like . . . joy? Or maybe wonder. I’ve never had anyone my age to talk about magic with. But in the next beat, I’m worried that it could all go wrong. Like what happened before. “That’s okay. Learning magic—it’s a lot of work.”
“Edie.” Rhia levels me with a grin. “I love magic. This isn’t work to me.”
“Really?” I ask, my heart fluttering with hope.
“Really.”
“You’re not setting me up so that when I get real about this, you two can laugh at me behind my back?”
“Whoa, what?” Tess says. “Somebody must have been a real bag of dicks.”
I watch the dance of the flame from the candle. “Somebody was.”
“We promise that we are not setting you up,” Rhia says quietly. “So tell us.”
I breathe in some courage, hoping that I can trust them. “My grandmother thinks if I master my element, I’ll be safe.”
“Safe? From what?” Tess asks.
“I told you I went back to that cabin, right?” I pick up a dead leaf sitting in front of me. It’s brown and as smooth as paper.
Tess nods. “You said it was not normal.”
“What cabin?” Rhia asks.
“The one on Shaw,” Tess says to Rhia.
“Oooh, bad energy up there,” Rhia says.
“Yeah, and I was really wigged out”—I’m still not ready to spill the truth of the infection—“GG figured out that I went there, and she said that she won’t feel I’m safe until I learn magic and how to master my fire.”
Both girls are quiet for a moment and I wonder if I said too much, even though I was trying not to. I fold the leaf in half and then half again until its brittle edges break apart. I sprinkle the pieces back to the ground.
“What does she want you to do exactly?” Tess asks.
“Light a candle, no matches allowed.” I hear Tess let out an oooh.
“You could try now with us,” Rhia says.
“Really? Here?” I’m full of doubt, not to mention major amounts of self-consciousness.
“Sure, use this.” Rhia picks up one of the candles sitting on the tree stump. My eyes linger on her lips as she purses them to blow out the flame. She places the candle on the ground in front of me. The smoke from the blown-out wick drifts between us.
Tess leans in closer.
I slow my breathing and hold my palms up. I close my eyes, ready to call the fire. But then I remember that day three years ago. I pull my hand back and clench my fingers into a fist.
Of course, nothing happens.
Rhia scoots closer to me. She smells like the sandalwood incense from the store. I realize I don’t mind the scent on her.
“Maybe you need to channel your thoughts toward light or fire or heat or something,” she says. “Try again. Embrace your inner witch.”
Rhia’s probably onto something. Mom and GG talked a lot about our elemental connection to nature. Mom’s element was water and GG’s earth. But by the end of eighth grade, it seemed safer to keep my elemental connections to logic and the real world. And I definitely stayed away from embracing my inner witch. And my outer witch, too, for that matter. “I’m not sure I want to.”
I look at Tess for support, but she says, “You never let me slack off on a hard workout. I’m with Rhia.”
“We’re here with you. One more time,” Rhia says, placing her hand on my shoulder.
There’s that sizzle again at her touch. Effing Wheel of Fortune, tossing me around. I hold my palms up again, but I’m too agitated.
“I can’t, okay?” I say. “I can’t do it!”
The tingle in my fingers is sudden and intense. I push myself up to stand and then walk through the curtain of draping branches, into the murky night.
“Whoa!” Tess exclaims.
“Crap! Where’s some water?” Rhia’s voice is tense. “Protect the tree!”
“Edie!” Tess yells.
I hear a splash. I run back through the branches to find Tess and Rhia staring at leaves smoldering on the ground. Tess holds an empty can of orange soda.
“You set the leaves on fire!” Tess says. She looks at me the way I’ve been avoiding ever since that time when I was fourteen. Like I’m something to be afraid of.
“I didn’t do that.” The denial flies out of my mouth as if words can make something true. I clench my hands and hold them behind my back. I couldn’t have done that. Could I?
“Edie, come on,” Tess says.
“Your fingers brushed against a leaf and it caught on fire,” Rhia says excitedly. “So you can do it. But that was a little too close to the beech for comfort, especially when it’s been so dry.”
I wipe my hands on my shorts as if they are dirty, as if I can wipe away my magic. “I need to go back.”
“But we just got here,” Tess says.
“That’s okay, you stay, I can run back.”
“It’s late and dark and it’s
far. Are you sure you can’t hang for a little longer?”
“I’m not asking you to leave. I’m sorry. I really am.”
Tess and Rhia exchange a glance, communicating in that way of friends who’ve known one another forever. A way that I, an outsider, am not able to read. I start to walk back toward the dirt track that leads to the road. I tuck my hands under my armpits and try not to cry. I don’t get very far before I hear Tess calling me.
“Come on, Edie,” she yells to me. “I’m not going to let you walk home.” I turn back and see her gesturing from the Jeep.
“Thanks,” I say quietly when I get in.
“Did you do this at home, too?” Tess asks as she drives me home.
“Do what?” I can’t stop rubbing my thumb across the pads of my fingers. I didn’t set those leaves on fire. I couldn’t have done that. I swore I would never let it happen by accident again.
“Run away when you’re uncomfortable,” Tess says. She glances at me before turning her eyes back to the road unspooling before us.
Her words hurt, but they strike true. “Probably. After all, running is what I’m good at.” I attempt a laugh, but Tess isn’t fooled.
“You want to know what I think?” Tess says.
“You’re probably going to tell me whether I want to or not.”
“I think that you have a lot going on and you think you can handle it all on your own. But guess what? You don’t have to do that.”
I don’t trust my voice, so I just nod. When I return to the boat, I shut my bedroom door and slide to the floor. I hold my head in my hands. My hands. I look at them. I haven’t conjured fire for years. I wasn’t even sure I could anymore.
I’d been in eighth grade. Mom had been teaching me about the elemental nature of our magic. By that time, I’d been to the perpetual woods with Mom and GG and I’d helped with gathering ingredients for salves and potions and infusions. I’d been told that a particular talent would emerge for me at some point. But first I needed to learn how to manage my element.
Mom could bring rain, roil water, or calm it. GG’s earth magic is very powerful, which is why the perpetual woods always blooms and why her bees produce the best honey. Everything is connected, Mom had told me more than once. My element would be fire because that was the order of things in our family.
I had wanted to impress the girls in my class. I could create fire from nothing, I’d told them. We’d gone to an empty lot near the school and I’d been trying to set a piece of paper alight. One of the girls called me a useless freak. The others giggled and chimed in. They all started chanting freak, freak, freak.
I felt the anger and then the tingling, only back then I didn’t know what the tingling meant. Or how anger could feed it. I pointed at the girl to tell her to shut up, and a flame bloomed from my fingertip. She started screaming. I tried to quaff the flame, but suddenly all of my fingers sprouted flames. Then all the girls were screaming. Someone squirted her water bottle all over me.
The girls left me behind, drenched in water and shame. Now, three years later, that sense of shame clings to me like an odor. What if I’d accidentally set fire to the ancient beech tree or worse—to Tess’s shirt or Rhia’s hair? I tentatively rub my hands together. They seem completely normal. And I didn’t set fire to the tree or Tess or Rhia. It was only a few dry leaves.
But now I’d proven to myself that I still don’t have any control. How can I do what GG asks of me without control? I look at the black lines veining my palm. GG’s attempts haven’t cured me yet. And I can’t wait around for the Wheel of Fortune to decide my fate.
I go to the top drawer of my dresser and pull out the purple velvet pouch, allowing the necklace to spill into my open palm. I’ve never been able to put it on. It hurt too much to know that my mother would never make another piece of jewelry ever again. It made her death too real. I consider the shining necklace in my hand. My mother is dead; I can’t change that. But she made this for me, for when I needed her near. And I’ve never needed her as close as I do now. I lift the necklace and clasp it around my neck. I touch the silver acorn and feel a bead of golden warmth there, a sense of comfort against everything that’s troubling me.
Her journal whispers to me now. I crawl to my bedside table and retrieve it, the red leather worn and smooth in my hands. With my finger, I trace the trinity knot. Mom isn’t physically here to help me. Maybe her journal is the next best thing.
Chapter Eleven
MAURA
June 27, 2003
Today when I woke, the gray skies didn’t give away the time, but the clock told me that it was well into morning. I guzzled some water and grabbed a granola bar and headed to the boat. Mama sat in one of the chairs on our porch, staring at the river. She looked up when I came out with a bag on one shoulder, Dad under the other arm. I let the screen door slam. She didn’t say a word. But this time, I expected the silence.
I started where I’d left off the day before, sanding and more sanding. I wondered how I’d thought that I could do this by myself when I was completely clueless about rehabbing boats or even just about boats in general. But I kept sanding because I had no idea what else to do. And also because when I was inside the cave of the boat, sanding, I felt connected to my father. I sanded and sanded. As the day moved toward late afternoon, I heard the bell from the porch of the cabin. Mama had always rung the bell to let Dad and I know that food was ready when we were down here. The clanging resounded with normalcy.
I set aside the sander and was surprised to realize that the rain had let up. Outside the boat, I leaned down on the dock to rinse my hands in the water, watching tiny whirlpools form. I pulled my hands from the water and idly twirled my fingers and the water obeyed, swirling in response. I used to love my element, playing with the water for hours at a time. But now the idea of it just made me tired. As I climbed the steps to the cabin, I hoped that Mama was ready to talk today.
I asked Dad’s ashes why Mama would not speak. He didn’t speak either, but that was probably for the best.
Mama had grilled some fish and I prepared a salad. But we ate in silence again because hearing only my voice in the cabin made me lonelier than if I kept quiet. After cleaning up our dinner dishes, we sat on the screened-in porch overlooking the river. The rain had started again, and we listened to it drip onto the leaves of trees and ping the surface of the river and the top of the boat. Mama cleared her throat and I looked at her in surprise.
She pointed to me, but I didn’t understand what she was trying to communicate. I asked her to speak to me, but Mama shook her head and kept her lips closed tight. She pointed at me, then pointed to her shirt. It took a minute to realize she was asking about Dad’s T-shirt.
She held her nose, and I understood she was telling me it was time to wash it. In any other moment, I might have laughed. But I wanted my mother to talk to me. I needed to hear her voice.
I knelt before her and begged her to speak. But all she did was grab the sleeve of my T-shirt between her pointer finger and thumb and lifted it. And still, she refused to speak to me. Frustration spiked, hot and red. My fingers began to tingle.
She grasped the hem of the shirt again.
I pulled away from her, wiggling my fingers to try to calm them. Mama saw what I was doing and stood up, her own hands at the ready. I didn’t want to be wrapped in vines and I didn’t want my magic to be bound. When Mama did it to me once, the whole world felt muffled, like I was experiencing it through cotton. I felt the magic building inside me, but I couldn’t let it out.
I found a bind-breaking ritual in one of her old books, but it wasn’t easy magic, and I didn’t have it in me to perform it now. I yanked the shirt over my head and tossed it at her.
She reached out for me, but I shook her away. I went to my room and shut the door. Dad’s ashes looked at me from my dresser.
Dad, when I close my eyes, I can pi
cture you walking in the door, smiling. You always arrived on Fridays after work. You would unload your pockets on the kitchen counter. Keys, mints, change, and whatever else you’d accumulated during your workday. It always drove Mama a little crazy, didn’t it, the way that you’d dump your things there like that? Then you’d crack open a beer, take a long swallow, and ask who wanted to walk down to the dock? Or who wanted to walk to town for ice cream?
I don’t remember doing either of those things last summer. What was I doing that seemed so important that I couldn’t walk to the dock with my father? What held my attention so much that I wouldn’t go with him to get an ice cream cone?
You know what? After I wrote that, about Dad, I read it out loud and I sort of saw him for a few seconds. His ghost, I mean. It was faint and flickering, but it was there. I wonder if there’s a way that I can use magic to make him appear permanently.
Chapter Twelve
EDIE
OLD BIND-BREAKING RITUAL
This is a powerful one. The ingredients are specific, and your intention must be pure.
INGREDIENTS:
Soil cleansed under moonlight or soil from perpetual woods
Hawthorn bark
Crystal quartz
Feather
Three strands of hair from yourself and three from the one who bound you
INCANTATION:
Dirt of earth and feather of sky,
With bark and crystal here do lie,
Hairs of mine and the caster twined,
Hear my words and break this bind.
On Tuesday, when I return from my morning run after leaving Tess at the diner with Jorge, GG stops me on my way to get changed out of my running gear. My grandfather floats just behind her, as does Mildred. Ever since I told GG that I’m ready to learn, we’ve been spending our time in the kitchen, with GG showing me how to prepare salves and infusions and decoctions. But whenever she asks me to practice my fire, I am still reluctant.