Love Charms

by Multiple

  “If I had to guess, Gem would have made sure Mom had it, just in case.” I was tired of concentrating, but there was only about a mile to go. Still, I wondered how I could ever be a Golden. “Dad?”

  “Yes, love?”

  “What if I’m not up for being a Golden Enchantress? By all accounts, they’re some sort of Pollyanna Good Witch of the North. I’m, well, you know. Not.”

  He chuckled. “Why do you think you’re not a good soul?”

  “I’m mean. And lazy. I couldn’t even get my degree. And I dislike people.” I thought of Mavis’s lame daughter, Rah. Of Gordon. “Lots of people.”

  Dad squeezed my arm. “You’re going to be fine. Whatever you’re supposed to be, I’m willing to bet, you already are.”

  We skidded again, harder this time, and I couldn’t steer us out of it. I narrowly missed a snow-covered car, and we bumped along a curb until I gradually regained control.

  Hallow rolled over, shaking his head. “That is some terrible driving.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Maybe we should just pull over. Sounds like we’re in for trouble if we go home anyway.”

  Hallow sat up in Dad’s lap. “The lair is secure. Tess ran a bad-intentions spell, something only mothers can do inside their lairs. It keeps out any enchanters who plan to cause their children harm.” He rubbed his eye. “No doubt the Mother Beast back there is performing one now on her own lair.” He gazed up at me. “She thinks it will keep you out, but it probably won’t. It knows true intentions.”

  “So you’re saying we can go into our own lair and be safe?” I asked.

  Hallow nodded and laid his head back down. “If we ever get there.”

  I gripped the wheel, even more determined to get home. This solved everything. I could get the book, learn some key spells, and head back to Martel’s. I didn’t have a choice but to fight them.

  My mouth turned down at the corners. Could I kill them? I wasn’t sure I had it in me. A glow grew in my belly, warming my whole body, and now I was certain. Goldens didn’t kill. There would have to be some other way. I could only hope the book would help me.

  The snow began to fall again as we navigated the silent streets. We passed a snowplow, two gas-company trucks, and a few straggler cars, the drivers leaning forward and concentrating much like I was.

  At last we turned the corner to our street.

  “Jet, stop,” Dad said.

  I gingerly applied the brakes, trying to avoid a skid. We rolled to a stop behind a neighbor’s truck.

  “Someone’s in front of the house.”

  I peered down the road. A figure in a long black coat waited in front of our garage. Blond ponytail. Father or son? He turned a little, and I could see his face: the younger one. “That’s Dei Lucrii.” I shoved Hallow. “I thought you said he couldn’t come to the lair.”

  Hallow stretched his little body up, holding on to the dash so he could see out. “I said he couldn’t come inside the lair. He can’t portal in. But he can wait outside.”

  The garage door was still up a few feet from when I had raised it after the explosion. Snow drifted inside. Hopefully the potions wouldn’t freeze.

  “Now what do we do?” I asked.

  “You need to portal into the lair,” Hallow said.

  “But Genevieve has blocked hers.”

  “Keep thinking, Goldie,” Hallow said.

  “Where could we find a portal?” I smacked the steering wheel, and then I remembered. “Mavis’s.”

  “Bingo.”

  We’d passed her house just a block ago. “Should we drive or make a run for it?”

  “He hasn’t seen us,” Dad said. “I think we should stay in the car.”

  I backed slowly down the street and turned around. When we arrived in front of Mavis’s house, I realized something was wrong. “Her Christmas lights are out,” I said. The curtains were shut tight where the Santa tree had been.

  “Maybe they’re gone,” Dad said.

  “But people who overdecorate like that always have lights on a timer. It’s Christmas Day!”

  I got out and stood inside the car door, looking over the roof of my Beetle at the house. Sure enough, the curtain twitched.

  I bent back into the car. “They are there. Hiding.”

  “From you,” Hallow said. “Genevieve probably ratted you out.”

  “Do you think she closed her portals too?” We had to get home.

  “She can unlock them,” Hallow said.

  I closed the door and began tramping up the lawn. The sidewalks were completely hidden.

  Dad got out of the car, holding Hallow on his shoulder. “I’m coming.”

  I rapped on the door. “Mavis! I know you’re in there! I just need to use your portal to get home!”

  Silence.

  I banged on it harder. “How about some Poison Lyceria? Surely you can toss some poison out a window.”

  Dad laid his hand on my shoulder. “Jet. She’s not going to open.”

  “Gah!” The front window was curtained, but I wasn’t giving up. I rounded the corner of the house, lifting my feet high to struggle through knee-deep drifts against the walls.

  This side had two windows, probably both bedrooms. As I approached one, the blinds quickly snapped shut, but I could see a stripe of floral through a broken bottom slat. “Mavis! Really! Just toss me some poison, and it will all make sense.” She wouldn’t turn away a Golden Enchantress. I just had to show her.

  “She’s not going to let you in,” Hallow said from Dad’s shoulder. “Mavis is a very weak enchanter, her power diminished by too much human breeding. She can’t risk Dei Lucrii noticing her.”

  Dad blew on his hands. “Maybe we should consider a tactical retreat. Find a hotel, figure something out. We don’t even know any spells.”

  “I have the perfect spell.” I bent down to the garden that ran along the side of her house, mostly buried, to dig out a stone from the border. “It’s called ‘Breaking and Entering.’”

  And I reared back and slammed the rock against her window.

  21: Poison Lyceria

  Mavis screamed like a little girl.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, feeling around for the window latch.

  The window rose with a groan.

  “You can’t come in here.” Mavis backed to the doorway, holding her hands out in front of her. “I’ll — I’ll turn you into a frog!”

  “Really? That’s all you’ve got?” I glanced around the room, a disaster area, clothes and CDs and notebooks scattered everywhere. A poster of a blonde in a red bikini told me it belonged to the boy.

  Mavis moved into the hall. “Tess — your mother — said you didn’t know anything about enchanters.”

  I walked toward her. “And so you tried to threaten me with frogs?”

  Mavis backed up against the wall. “That bad man will come. The one that asked your mother to make the illegal potion. I know that he killed her, somehow.”

  “That was his father, actually.” I glanced back at Dad, who had managed to make it through the window. I hadn’t told him that Mom had been sabotaged on my account. Sorrow welled up, and when I tried to stuff it down as usual, it wouldn’t go. My throat began to close, but I squeaked out “He killed her to get to me.”

  That got Mavis to step forward. “Why on earth would he want a nix? And a red nix, no less? There’s nothing to be gained.”

  Dad made it inside and took my hand. “We’ll straighten all this out. Figure out the truth.”

  “But I know the truth! I saw the doctored sea foam with my own eyes!” I turned back to Mavis. “I’m not a nix,” I said. “If you have some Poison Lyceria, I can show you.”

  Dad squeezed my fingers. “We’re going to get through this.”

  Mavis pressed her pulpy hand to her throat. “That’s a deadly herb. Poisonous to humans and enchanters both.”

  “I know. I got a message from Gem — Mom’s mom. She told me that if I sprinkled it on myself, the
nix mark would go away.”

  “What are you, then?” Mavis had flushed red, like an angry rooster.

  “She seemed to think I was a Golden Enchantress, like her.”

  Mavis turned to Dad. “But that can’t be!”

  “Give me the poison. We’ll find out.”

  Mavis hesitated, her hand on a doorknob as if she might lock us in the room. “All right. I’ll fetch it.” She blocked the hallway. “But you can’t come in the lair. I have a bad-intentions spell on it!”

  “Then it wouldn’t let me in if I planned to hurt your family.”

  She hesitated. “Why do you need the portal?”

  “The bad man, as you so cleverly called him, is waiting outside our lair. But he’s blocked by his bad intentions.”

  “The strongest spell in any realm,” Mavis whispered. “It cannot be broken, even in death.” Her tiny green eyes bored into me. “Not even by a Golden.”

  “Good, good. See? If I portal in, I’ll be safe from him. Safer than here.”

  Mavis nodded, then waddled down the hall. “We must hurry, then. If they are monitoring the portals, then he’ll know you’re here.”

  “Can you block it so they can’t see?”

  “As soon as I do, they’ll still know.”

  This woman was smarter than I gave her credit for.

  We came to the end of the carpeted hallway, and Mavis opened the door to a linen closet. Pictures of her two kids lined the walls. I could see that Rah’s pink ponytails were a pretty new development, as even recent portraits showed her with natural color.

  Mavis clicked a latch, and the shelves piled with towels and sheets swung backward to reveal another room.

  “Clever,” I said. “We just have the garage.”

  “Your mother was hidden well enough,” Mavis said.

  “Why was she hiding? Why am I mismarked?”

  Mavis led us into a windowless room outfitted much like Mom’s, only instead of bottles in cases, colored crystals lay on all the surfaces and inside clear jars.

  She turned around. “When your mother moved here, she was escaping the enchanter world. She never said why, but I know that her uncle — your grandmother’s brother — was one of the rarest breeds of our world, a male Golden Enchanter. It’s a big deal, being that, and every enchantress wanted her daughter to be his match. In the end, he was killed for refusing a Dark Enchanter’s child.”

  Mavis opened a drawer and pulled out a tarnished silver key on a leather rope. “That story is common knowledge among all enchanters. There hasn’t been a Golden child of either gender born since.”

  “So that’s why I was mismarked?”

  “Tess didn’t tell me, obviously. You look like a red nix to me.” She glanced at Dad. “And Frank here is unmarked, although naturally we knew he had to be an enchanter to breed a nix.” She unlocked an old wooden cabinet inlaid with marble. “Tess begged us not to tell him.”

  “Dad is marked to me. He’s clearly a green enchanter.”

  Mavis froze. “You see a mark on him?”

  “Clear as day. An ‘E’ encircled in green.”

  Mavis dropped to one knee and bowed her head. “Golden Enchantress! I beg your pardon!”

  What the hell was she doing? “Why do you believe me now?”

  She kept her gaze on the floor. “Only a Golden can see the true heritage of an enchanter. The rest of us know each other only by the marks a Golden imparts upon us at birth.”

  “What’s with the bowing?” I was feeling a little freaked out. I turned to Hallow, who rolled his beady little eyes. At least he was acting normal.

  “Goldens are very rare. You have special powers, and a Golden must preside over any enchanter birth to mark the baby.” She looked up at me. “Your grandmother must have had some strong reason to hide your identity. It’s a grave violation of her code.”

  “So, you have the poison?”

  She heaved herself back to standing. “Of course. But make sure your father and your familiar are out of the way. It’s very toxic.” She rolled open a drawer and extracted a canvas pouch.

  “Where is your portal?”

  “On the table. I have it covered with a linen cloth.”

  Same as Caleb’s. But Dei Lucrii’s had been open. Of course, he was expecting me to come through it. Mom’s had been open, too. Maybe by accident. Probably you couldn’t see it during transport when it was covered.

  “Let’s do this thing.” I braced myself for the poison. “Should I do it to myself so that it doesn’t hurt you?”

  Mavis opened the pouch. “It is an honor for me to do it.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “I will crush the berries and sprinkle the juice on your forehead. Is there an enchantment for it?”

  I remembered the phrase Gem had forced me to memorize. “Yes, I will say it.”

  “You really can see your father’s mark?” Mavis’s lips pinched together. “This could kill you if we are wrong.”

  “Gem told me to do it. I have to risk it.”

  She nodded and pulled several crimson berries from the pouch.

  “Do you have a glove or something?” Dad asked. “Seems like that would smart a fair bit.”

  Mavis picked up a cloth from a stack on the desk and wrapped it around her hand. The red berries stood out starkly against the white fabric. “Ready?”

  “Absolutely.” I turned to Dad and motioned him and Hallow back against the door.

  Mavis lifted her hand and squeezed her fingers. Her sharp intake of breath told me that the cloth wasn’t enough to protect her completely.

  “Do it quickly!” I said and stepped in close.

  Mavis dribbled the juice on my face.

  Pain exploded through my temple, and I sank to my knees, trying not to scream. I choked out the words “Amun alonza. Hidiay exponentia,” but the burn didn’t ease. Mavis flung the cloth and berries onto the table and laid a new, clean cloth against my face just as I was forced to close my eyes from the sting.

  Fire licked along my skin. I felt more hands holding my arms, probably Dad. “Hang tight, Jet,” he said. “We’re cleaning it off you now.”

  The pain lessened by degrees. The hands pulled me up and led me to a chair. I sank gratefully into it. “Can I wipe it myself?” I asked. At least I wasn’t dead. I just had to endure a little longer.

  “I’ll let go,” Mavis said.

  I caught the cloth and pressed it into my eyes. “I can’t get the burn to stop.”

  “Do you know any healing spells?” Mavis asked.

  “Hardly. I barely know how to operate a portal.”

  “Surely you know one, Mavis,” Dad said.

  “I’m a very weak enchanter,” Mavis said. “Too many humans in my line. My own children have no powers at all.”

  “What about the crystals?” I asked. “Rah said you and Mom worked with them.”

  “I can try.” Mavis brushed against me as she moved to the table behind us. “I just can’t do much of anything. I never could. That’s why no enchanter would match with me. I wasn’t even assigned a familiar.”

  Rejection — I understood it well. “Just do your best,” I said.

  I could hear her rustling on the table, and the crack of stones rubbing together. “I’m going to press these to your face,” she said. “Lay the cloth down flat over your skin.”

  The fabric was cool against the burn. I had broken out in a light sweat from the pain but was determined not to show it. I couldn’t frighten Dad. Something furry brushed my arm, and I realized Hallow was sitting in my lap. “A familiar can magnify a spell,” he said.

  “But you’re not my familiar,” I said. “You’re a free ferret.”

  “Maybe I can make an exception just this time.” I could hear the strain even in his voice. I must look really bad.

  I ran my hand down his soft back, the first time I’d actually petted him since he started talking. Mavis moved in close, and the heaviness of the rocks pressed into
my eyes.

  She began to chant something. One day I would understand those words. I’d learn what they meant and how to say them myself. Already I was starting to feel the cadence, the long and short tones, the rhythm. All those songs Mom taught me were helping. The cloth against my face grew colder, a relief at first, but then another type of pain.

  I gripped the edge of the chair. I could endure this. I would make it. I would have faith.

  The chill began to ease, and I did feel better. Mavis pulled the rocks from my eyes, and I sat up fully again, realizing how much I’d sunk into the chair.

  “Let’s see how you look.” Mavis lifted the cloth from my face, and the light through my eyelids was blindingly bright, stained red, and frightening. I covered my face with my hands.

  “You look good, Sweetpea. Can you see?” Dad was hovering close, his voice just to my left.

  “It’s too bright.”

  “Can you kill the lights, Mavis?” he asked.

  Her footsteps crossed the room, and the light dimmed; only the brightness of the hall spilled through the open door.

  I split my fingers, letting just a little of the room in.

  Everything was blurry and faint, but I could do it. I breathed in deeply and exhaled, trying to calm myself, and lowered my hands.

  Mavis sucked in a breath, and at first I thought it was in horror, but then she said, “Isn’t it lovely?”

  Dad squeezed my arm. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  They came into focus, both beaming at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mark,” Mavis said. “It’s there. The golden seal.”

  “About time,” Hallow said.

  Mavis helped me up from the chair and led me to a mirror. I looked sort of scary, blond hair shooting out in every direction, trapped by the silver headband. My face was grimy and red. But they were right; in the center of my forehead was a sparkling gold four-pointed star, like the kind you see on the top of Christmas trees.

  I took a deep breath and turned around to them, my little army of outcast enchanters and a mean-mouthed ferret. “Time to take on the bad guy.”

  22: Bad Intentions

  “Do you have any sort of plan?” Hallow asked. “The last time you went charging into the night, you wound up behind bars.”