Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County)

by Heidi R. Kling

  Dedication

  Begin the story

  Prologue

  Practical Magic

  Black Mountain

  Select a choice: Lily Sees Boy/Boy Disappears

  Enchantment

  The Grove

  Acknowledgements

  About Coliloquy

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1

  by

  Heidi R. Kling

  Palo Alto | San Francisco

  Dedication

  For Ethan and Amelia—who fill my life with magic.

  Prologue

  The first time it happened, I was barely old enough to walk.

  We were playing down by the shore, building lopsided sandcastles, when something distracted me from my little yellow bucket. The color of midnight and slick as stone, the thing sank deep beneath the waves before breaching high into the air. Not like a ballerina-dolphin, but fierce, like there was no way whatever it was after would survive the chase.

  Wanting a closer look, I toddled deeper. When Iris called out to me, I whipped around, was knocked off my feet. I clawed at the sand, only to be swept in further. Everything was topsy-turvy panic until I opened my eyes, expecting the burn of saltwater, and realized I could see.

  See everything.

  Like being on the inside of an aquarium wearing magic 3D glasses. Sea glass became kaleidoscopes, effervescent fish danced, even a rusty bottle cap sparked to life as rainbows of light shone off its metal. Cross-legged, I sat on the ocean’s sandy bottom watching my fingers weave through ribbons of water until a scream and a tug and I was yanked up into real air—into the fiercest of hugs. My lungs filled so quickly it was oxygen that burned, the petrified look in my mother’s eyes that finally caused my tears to flow.

  “Mommy,” I said. “It’s okay. I could breathe.”

  Pushing cold fingers to my lips, she hushed me. Then cradling me to her chest cocooned in a towel, she rushed me toward the sunny shore insisting I imagined it.

  “Nobody can breathe underwater.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, then. When I was three years old I had no idea she was anything more than sweet-smelling Mama Iris who made cheese noodles and tucked me in at night. I had no idea what I was. What I would one day become.

  But now I know.

  She had meant not even us.

  Not even a witch could breathe underwater.

  Practical Magic

  Thirteen Years Later

  Orchid’s jaw clenched, tensing her gorgeously complex face. Even irritated, she looked like she should be on a magazine cover, all full lips, and piercing eyes. Next to her, especially in the water, I felt like her extreme opposite: white blonde hair, too-long legs, and over-thinking brain wheel.

  “I’m done waiting,” she announced.

  Palms glowing, she closed her eyes and hummed a chant. I felt the water rumble under my board, then rise up.

  “Orch, this is crossing the line,” I said, feeling like a total hall monitor. But I was right: it was forbidden to spin spells in public, unless it was for the good of humankind or required by an emergency.

  “Ah, come on, Miss Lily White, have a little fun will you? Leaders are supposed to be boundary pushers, no? How can you expect us to follow, if you’re not…”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and broke a rule: magically tipping her surfboard over and dumping my bikini-clad best friend into the freezing water.

  “You’re right,” I laughed. “That was fun.”

  She dove under my board and flipped me over easily.

  “Brain freeze!” I sputtered, as I scrambled for my board.

  “You deserved it,” she laughed, playfully blocking me. “Besides we both know you and the ocean are like this.” She crossed her index and middle fingers. “Brain freeze, my butt.”

  “Touché, touché. Now let me back on my board.”

  She relented, and we both climbed back up on our boards, dripping wet and energized.

  She loved to tease me about my new place as Leader of the Daughters of Light, constantly daring me into these awkward situations in the human world, when we both should have been back with our coven, focusing on bettering our magic. There was an edge of jealousy to her taunts, but I could sympathize: why the elder witches chose me over Orchid still bewildered me.

  She was stronger, fiercer, smarter. More confident, more dedicated—everything.

  I mean, I was dedicated to our coven too, but I had always played second fiddle to Orchid, was always the one kicking the ball up the field and then passing it to her, so she could strike.

  This new role…still felt so foreign and strange.

  And yet, how could I not accept the greatest honor a sixteen-year-old witch could be granted?

  Orchid’s wave rose and then fell, fizzling out completely.

  “My water spells haven’t been working right lately,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Really? Orchid too? I thought I was the only one.

  “I’m having the same problem with earth spells,” I confided. “The other day, I was just trying to float a rock from one side of the cove to the other—not even a boulder, just a small rock. I could only get it halfway across before my spell not just failed me, but went all wonky. The rock crumbled in on itself.”

  “I see how your spells are failing you,” she said ironically, gesturing with her thumb toward the sea. “That’s why my hair is all wet.”

  “Well, this was on land…” I started to say. “I seem to be better in the water. For some reason,” I added. I couldn’t let Orchid know about my Breathing. I’d been sworn to secrecy long ago in my mother’s arms.

  “Did you tell your mom about it?”

  “No. I don’t want to freak her out. You know with the Gleaning coming up.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I haven’t told Camellia about my mistakes either.”

  “How can we expect to reap magic from the Sons of Darkness, if we can’t control our own?”

  It was a hypothetical question—but one I was determined to answer.

  Silently, we rose and fell with the waves, basking in the afternoon sun. The water rippled under my dangling feet, cool and inviting, urging me to disappear for a while in my secret underwater kingdom, where my magic still worked perfectly. It’d been over a week, and I was antsy to practice my unusual gift again.

  “I wonder if it’s mistakes we’re making or something else, Orchid. Because I’ve been spinning spells exactly how I always have, by the book, with optimal focus, and lately they are all over the map.”

  She blinked. “Yeah, me too. For about how long?”

  “Just the past week or so. It makes sense that our magic would start to wane by the end of each solstice. I mean, that’s why we have to fight the Sons of Darkness in the Stones to begin with. But this doesn’t just feel depleted, it feels chaotic, I don’t know… Maybe we should say something.”

  “Maybe,” she said. But like me, she seemed far from convinced.

  Lily

  Joining hands in our ceremonial grove of eucalyptus, my sisters and I chanted our song of gratefulness to the Seven Sisters. The wind blew quietly through the wreaths of sweet wildflowers in our hair. Our flowing, luminescent skirts rippled around our legs like rings of fire.

  Camellia, our Mistress of Light and an active member of Congression, raised her arms and stepped into the center of the circle. “Seven Sisters, though we can’t see you, we know you are always with us, granting us guidance and courage. Now, on the cusp of the Summer Solstice, the dawn o
f the most important year in modern times, the year of Transition, we ask you to bestow on our daughters the strength to face our enemies in your magical Stones. Empower them to subdue our foes, and regain what was stolen. Through scorning you, beloved Goddesses, by denying the light and the good, by worshipping the darkness and embracing evil, the Sons of Darkness have betrayed us, and in doing so, betrayed you. Divine Sisters, we praise you for the precious gifts we hold so dear. We thank you for granting us the foresight to understand that the greater good is always better than the benefit of self.

  “Girls,” she addressed us with flashing Indigo eyes, “join me, please.”

  In conclusion, we chanted in the old language the song I learned when I was barely old enough to speak:

  Water, wind, fire, earth, Goddesses of health, love, sun, and youth,

  Protect us from wickedness of night, guide us with the light of truth.

  The wind picked up, and I felt a spark ignite within, which flowed through my arms, down my wrists, and into the now-glowing tips of my swordfingers. Squeezing the witches’ hands on either side of me, I spread the regenerating magic to the rest of my coven, adding a silent prayer of my own.

  Afterwards, Orchid came over for a sleepover. It was Friday night, after all.

  Daisy, my twelve-year-old sister, wanted to hang out with us, so we let her.

  Lying on my canopy bed, staring up at the ceiling, we attempted to teach Daze how to make the pastel starfish and seahorses that Mama Iris had decorated my room with when I was three (and I haven’t had the heart to take down) spin on their own.

  “How does the air chant start again?” she asked, excitedly.

  I told her. The old language was tricky to use, particularly the accent, so I showed her how to place her tongue in her mouth, behind her front teeth, to begin. “Do it right out the gate, and you’ll move ahead faster than the girls who stumble over the words.”

  My sister tried again, but sounded so funny, we all started laughing.

  “Not nice!” she said.

  “Here,” Orchid jumped in. “Let me just show you the easy way.”

  She snapped her fingers. Instantly, the Chinese lanterns dimmed out, and were replaced by a string of glowing Christmas lights that hung off my canopy.

  “That was SO cool. How did you do that?”

  Orchid frowned. “I was trying to move the butterflies, actually,” she said, glancing at me knowingly.

  “Well, it was cool anyway.”

  “Maybe because you didn’t use the chant?” I suggested.

  “Maybe, but the shortcut usually works for simple spells like that.”

  “Teach me!” Daisy said.

  I gave Orchid a look like, Don’t talk about our messed-up magic in front of Daisy, and answered my little sister. “You have to wait till your initiation, Daze. We have to get some benefit from all that running and yoga and healthy eating and…”

  “Incredible sacrifices we face on a day-to-day basis,” Orchid finished. “Definitely need to pay your dues before you get into the fun stuff.”

  “Sacrifices? You mean, like sucking down those health smoothies? Yuck.”

  “You must embrace the mad antioxidant effects of flax seeds, sis,” I said.

  “I’ll take my chocolate chocolate chip milkshakes, thank you very much.”

  Orchid raised an eyebrow, pointing out her flat, über strong belly. “You don’t look like THIS by eating THAT.”

  I laughed. “You got two more years to enjoy, Daze. And then it’s all over.”

  It’s true that all of us young witches were on a very strict, incredibly nutrition-based diet—high in protein, low in bad carbs, with a dose of Camellia’s witch’s brew or elixir water (depending on what she put in it) for sustainable energy. It was like a magic version of Red Bull that we slammed each morning after our oatmeal and blueberries. No one knew what was in it, only that it was not an option to refuse it.

  “Let me try again,” Daisy said. This time she closed her eyes, and when she actually focused, she was able to move one of the seahorses the tiniest bit.

  Well, at least I think she did it. It could’ve been the breeze from the open window… but who was I to break her trainee heart?

  “Popcorn! Who wants it?” Iris called up from downstairs.

  “Me!” Daisy said, and took off after the buttery smell.

  She’s been like that since she popped out of Iris and glowed into our lives like a shooting star. Like a moving ball of sunshine that you couldn’t grab onto, that you couldn’t hold still, but one you always wanted to be around if nothing else but just to bask in her gaze for awhile. I named her Daisy because she looked just like my favorite flower. Sunshine on the inside, white fluff on the outside.

  “Daisy doesn’t know anything about the Stones? The real danger of the Gleaning, does she?” Orchid said, straight-faced, when my sister was out of earshot.

  “She knows as much as we did at her age,” I said. Which was that the Stones were an ancient, mysterious ring of boulders, like Stonehenge, where witches fought to glean magic off the warlocks and vice-versa. “But obviously, she doesn’t know everything. I mean, Iris and Camellia didn’t even fill us in completely until this year.”

  “So she has no idea of the risks? That you might not return after your first fight?” Her bluntness made me shudder in the dim light. “No. And I’d rather not think about it either. At least not tonight.”

  “Popcorn and reality TV, then?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  For the moment, spells were forgotten as we ran downstairs and sprawled out on the fuzzy rug of our living room floor, attempting to be normal teenagers. Well, as normal as teenage witches could ever be.

  Later that night, long after Daisy and Orchid were asleep, I lay awake in my bed. The Gleaning was coming up so quickly, and with my magic all goofy, how could I possibly enter the ring as confident as I should be?

  I needed the strength of my spells, as well as my martial arts skills, to defeat the warlock I was paired with. I knew the Seven Sisters would do all they could to fortify my body, and my sword, but if my internal magic was failing? Was flawed? I could endanger everything for our coven. And according to Camellia’s prayer, this was a “Transition” year. I had never heard of that before. What did it mean?

  Then there were the warlocks.

  I’d been thinking about them a lot lately. What they looked like, how they moved, what their energy would feel like mixed with mine.

  The elders didn’t tell us much, other than that they looked like human boys, but with ink markings, and magic eyes. But since we’d never seen one in person (that we knew of), the young witches spread rumors: warlocks, even the young ones, were disgusting, vulture-like creatures, with sharp teeth and serpent tongues. Either that or they were brutally irresistible, like male sirens, drawing witches into their traps with smooth moves and come-hither voices. I wasn’t sure whom to believe.

  We weren’t allowed to attend the Stones battles until we were at least Cerulean rank, which Orchid and I were now. We only knew that half of the girls that went to battle never came back. And there were rumors about that too.

  If you lose your match, you are taken away, to a distant island prison where you are made to suffer for your weakness.

  The defeated witches are brought to sick bay at a hospital for Spellspinners, where they are rehabilitated.

  And the worst rumor of all, one that I worried about when I was alone at night, when all was quiet: that neither of the above was true. That the destroyed witch died in the Stones, overcome by the dark magic. That the elders kept their brutal demise a secret.

  Why would they tell the truth?

  If we knew, who would fight?

  “Just tell me what happens, please,” I’d begged Iris on a particularly insecure evening, after training.

  She’d said, “I don’t want you to think about what happens after, only to concentrate on what you can do before, to train, so that you will come home
safely. Focus on strength, courage, and the greater good, which will come from doing your personal best. The rest will follow.”

  “I don’t want to die,” I’d said, swallowing back tears.

  “Then don’t,” was her reply.

  Black Mountain

  Lily

  After so much coven togetherness, it was a treat to be alone, and I was making the most of the almost-summer day. Nobody else was out hiking. I knew why, of course. Rumors had circulated in Melas about Black Mountain for years. About pet dogs that chased squirrels into the grove never to be seen again. Of dead crows found lying on rocks like sacrifices. Of hunched, black-robed men that walked alone, then disappeared into the fog.

  No rational human, or witch, would dare hike up here unaccompanied, especially this close to twilight. But I was on a mission and not easily deterred. Besides, I was no average rational creature. I was a witch facing my first Gleaning with jacked up magic. And I didn’t want to die.

  Tuning into the local indie station, I caught my favorite songs with my mind and hummed along quietly. (Not having to use an iPod? Cool perk of being a modern witch.)

  It was dusk by the time I got to the top of the hill, where I slipped into the forest in hopes of camouflaging myself. Cutting the music from my head, I Listened for any unusual magic activity. Some static, nothing more. I convinced myself that if warlocks were around, I would sense their dark energy and be able to retreat in time.

  Just in case, I spun a glamour spell to make my eyes look violet instead of bright cerulean, and disguised my floral scent.

  The forbidden grove was so close, I could smell what I was after: the sweet, dusty odor of the famed euca leaves. After the long hike, the magic eucalyptus smacked my system like a jolt of espresso. Instantly wired, my fingers twitched and my heart sped up.

  A little farther.

  After rehydrating with elixir water, I noticed a red-tailed hawk circling above with a long snake dangling from its beak. The snake appeared dead, but the hawk’s eyes glowed like blood-rubies. This was no ordinary bird. My bottle fell to the ground as my swordfinger sprang to life. The last thing I wanted to do was zap a majestic bird out of the sky, but if it attacked, I’d have no choice. The hawk swooped, and I ducked. Instead of barreling into my chest, it stopped inches away from me, hovering in the wind—and then winked. I realized suddenly that the quivering reptile hanging from his beak was a live rattler. On a defensive impulse, I sent a rogue bolt of energy out of my finger, which missed the bird and ignited a dry branch above me.