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

by Heidi R. Kling

  For the moment Logan might have meant what he said.

  Lily

  “This emergency meeting was called to discuss Lily’s contact with a warlock outside their boundaries. A warlock who claimed to be the son of Jacob.”

  The large group of coven members gasped at Camellia’s words.

  “The bad news and first order of concern is exposure. If Jacob finds out, he will accuse us of trespassing. Lily knew better than to roam that far from the coven, especially that close to Black Mountain,” Camellia chastised. “Especially this close to such an important solstice…”

  She left the rest of the sentence dangling. I doubted the young witches knew just how important the solstice was. That the Year of the Curse was about to begin. The elders nodded knowingly, however.

  “Yes. I apologize for that,” I said, keeping my head bowed in respect. I’d begged Iris not to tell Camellia about the euca leaves, and she hadn’t. But I had to swear I’d never consider cheating again. I’d promised in earnest, squeezing Mom until I thought she’d crumble into dust. Then she’d warned me about the meeting: take responsibility, be entirely polite. So I took responsibility. I was entirely polite. I was appreciative of her keeping part of my secret. But I hated this.

  “How did she make contact with a warlock?” an old witch named Pansy asked.

  Camellia explained that I’d been out hiking, and that I was hexed by a spell that left me sleeping on a rock. That the warlock stumbled upon me. The room burst with concern and theories.

  “This had to be Jacob’s doing!” a brunette witch, Laurel, blurted out.

  A hush went over the group when Camellia silenced them with her hand.

  “If Jacob trapped Lily and ordered his warlock to play this game with her amulet, then he is the one breaking the Seven Sisters’ rules about contact outside the Solstice Stones,” Camellia said. “Though I admit, it seems unlikely. Jacob may be a lot of things, but he isn’t a rule breaker. He has too much to lose risking a disciplinary infraction from our Congression majority so close to the Gleaning.”

  The elder witches exchanged glances. “This could be a different situation. The boy could be acting alone.”

  I didn’t want to give up my opinion of Logan. True, he didn’t seem like someone who would act as a pawn for his master, but I believed him when he said he hadn’t enchanted me.

  Camellia peered at me over thin glasses, her purple eyes probing. “If we’re up against one young warlock, we may get the amulet back.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “You must have made an impression upon him. Iris said he revealed his ink to you?”

  All eyes were on me now. I squirmed in my bean bag. “Yes, but that was situational. We, well, when we, um, touched, the amulet burned us.”

  “When you touched?” a young, curly-haired young witch, Daffodil, blurted out. “You touched a warlock!”

  “What did he look like?”

  “How old was he?”

  “Did he have horns?”

  “A pet dragon? I hear they ride on their shoulders?”

  The room exploded with questions and comments. Camellia had to flicker the lights like an angry schoolteacher, just to get them to stop.

  “Quiet! Lily will share all she knows, but we must have order to this meeting. So, Lily. It appears you shared a…heated moment, no?”

  “There was…um, I guess, tension between us.”

  “How so?” She paused. “Go on, we’re all curious.”

  “And don’t hold back on the physical details,” Jasmine called out from the window seat. I was mortified. Not only did I have to admit I was wandering around near warlock boundaries, but now I had to share all these personal details about Logan?

  The witches hung on my every word, nodding at each other, their eyes sparkling. The younger ones looked at me with a mix of awe and respect. Especially Daisy, who was literally on the edge of her seat. Not only had I crossed the line into enemy territory, but I’d met a warlock outside the Stones, and lived to tell the tale. The only one who didn’t look entranced was Orchid. Rightly, she looked pissed that I’d kept such a huge secret. When I mouthed “Sorry,” she just shrugged.

  When I got to the part about the mixed rainbow of energies, I hesitated.

  “That’s enough,” Camellia said, holding up her hand.

  I stopped, grateful to her. She probably didn’t want the coven to freak out even more than they were already. Or get more flustered.

  “I just have something to add, if that’s okay?”

  Camellia nodded. I stood up and faced the coven.

  “I found something today. A riddle in an old book in the library, or I should say, it found me.” I glanced over at Iris, then peeled open the paper rose and read aloud the prophecy. Everything I learned. Word for word. The crowd again succumbed to chaos. The elders still and guilty; the young witches outraged and worried.

  “We planned on telling you Daughters of Light about the Year of the Curse,” Camellia tried to assure them, “but we wanted to wait until after the Gleaning, so you wouldn’t be distracted.”

  “Distracted?” Orchid chimed in. “By our disappearing magic?”

  “How could you keep this from us?” Laurel stood up, confronting her. “I just thought I was screwing up!”

  “Girls! I will have order!”

  A loud crack and the lights flashed again. “This is why you were not told of the secret until you were ready. This is why we have a hierarchy. We can’t have mayhem.”

  “Look, I was really upset too. But there is an addendum to the curse. A chosen Spellspinner is supposed to give us the key to breaking it. I—well, Iris and I believe that this Broken Magic Man in the riddle could be the warlock I met on Black Mountain. The ‘broken magic’ meaning the dark energy in him is fading, and the light energy growing.”

  The room rang out with commentary and chatter once again.

  “I think Logan could be the Roghnaithe.”

  “We still lack sufficient evidence to make that assumption,” Camellia said.

  “Actually,” my mom butted in, “we have every reason to believe. This is the most promising lead I’ve seen in my lifetime. And Lily has offered to find out if this boy could be our key toward peace, to unlocking the curse.”

  “What if we don’t want peace? What if we don’t want the curse broken?” an older witch, Nettle, blurted out, her voice as prickly as her name.

  “Would you just as soon live as humans, then?” I said. “Because that is the only other option. By June of next year, our magic will be eradicated.”

  The girls were silent now.

  “What do you propose we do, then?” Nettle pressed.

  “I’d like to find out if Logan can help us,” I said. “Even if it doesn’t work, I need to try. We’ve all worked too hard, our magic means too much to us. Sure, we could give up our magical halves and go on to live decent lives as humans, but why would we want to? Our magic…it’s a gift. One I will fight to preserve for us. For you. It’s what the Seven Sisters want; otherwise they never would’ve gifted us with a clue to help find him. The one male Spellspinner left who could possess both light and dark magic.”

  When I sat back down, the room was silent.

  “That,” Iris leaned in and whispered to me, “Is why you were chosen as our leader.”

  After the rest of the coven left, I talked to Camellia and Iris alone.

  “While I don’t approve of that stunt you pulled in there, Lily, giving information to a coven who was not yet ready to hear it, I do applaud your motivation.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now we need to discuss how you will go about discovering whether or not this boy wears the mark. Read the riddle again.”

  Under a broken rose moon lies a broken magic man with the art of a broken rose moon.

  “What’s a rose moon?” I asked.

  “What the English used to call the June moon,” Iris said, “which is also referred to as the flower moon in
some instances. Moons have always been related to witches, and in the early days of Spellspinners, they were magical to warlocks too. Their marriage ceremonies took place under full moons. And if they fell on a solstice or equinox, the union was felt to be especially blessed.”

  “So what about the ‘art of a broken rose moon’?” I asked. “What’s the art?”

  I thought of the ink running down the warlock’s arm. The Gaelic chains.

  “The Roghnaithe, the Chosen or ‘broken magic man,’ has a mark revealing his possession of both light and dark magic, like the ones our ancestors wore before the curse. Did you happen to notice a mark on this boy? It won’t appear on his hand; and it wouldn’t appear after an energy reaction from an amulet. In ancient times, a witch and a warlock would know they were destined to be together if they were the only ones to see an identifying mark on the other. My theory is that this will be the same way. The mark will only appear to their magical ‘other’ in certain…situations. And most likely on his iliac crest.”

  “Situations?”

  “They differ. Sometimes it’s when one has made a sacrifice for the other; or the mark might appear during arousal—only in the most intimate of situations.”

  My face felt so red I thought it would melt the rest of my body into the ground.

  “Not that you’d be asked to get into an intimate situation with this warlock,” my mother clarified.

  “We will…arrange something official,” Camellia said, with a knowing glance at my mother, who looked a bit concerned. “But for now you will stay away from Logan.”

  My mother nodded firmly in my direction. “Do you understand, Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  “Continue with your studies and your practice for the Gleaning. And we will let you know when it is your time to help our coven.”

  I nodded. Once again I thought of the ink spread out across Logan’s strong back as he hunched over my burning amulet—as he stole my amulet and replaced it with his.

  If he wasn’t someone I could trust, how could he possibly be my magical equal or whatever it was Iris just said?

  But still, I’d do this for my coven.

  I wasn’t afraid.

  I woke up the next morning after another restless night. My mind hadn’t stopped reeling since the meeting—since I’d proposed this daunting mission to find out whether Logan was the Roghnaithe, a warlock who possessed the special gifts the prophecy mentioned. Most daunting of all, I needed to find out if he wore the mark of the broken rose moon.

  The thought that scared me the most was—what if this thing with Logan hadn’t happened? Were they planning on telling me what was going on with our coven? Or would I have gone on fumbling my spells, my mind spinning with confusion until one day I woke up empty? Woke up with all my magic gone?

  I shuddered at the thought.

  And I wondered what they had planned for me. How I would go about finding this mark on my enemy (albeit my incredibly hot enemy) that would only be visible under certain “special circumstances.”

  On his Iliac Crest.

  Last night, as soon as the rest of the coven left, I’d done a Google search on my laptop.

  According to Wikipedia:

  The crest of the ilium (or iliac crest) is the superior border of the wing of ilium and the superolateral margin of the greater pelvis.

  Greater pelvis! I was supposed to go searching for Logan’s maybe-magic-saving mark on his greater pelvis.

  Oh man, I needed caffeine. And I needed to talk to Orchid. She’d barely said a word to me last night after the meeting, clearly pissed off that I hadn’t told her about Logan. I didn’t blame her. I would’ve been mad too if the situations were reversed.

  I dialed her number without pressing any buttons. (Magic has its advantages.)

  She answered, probably without pressing TALK.

  “Oh, so NOW you want to talk to your best friend?”

  “I’m sorry, Orchid. Really, really sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you about what happened, because I was breaking coven law. I didn’t want you to be an accomplice.”

  “An accomplice? Come on, Lily. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “What? That’s the truth.”

  “For the last two weeks you’ve been all up on your high horse: ‘Orchid don’t do this don’t do that, be careful! A crosswalk! Ooh don’t want to bother any humans,’ when this whole time you’ve been fraternizing with a warlock?”

  “I only met him once! And he stumbled on me, it wasn’t like I planned it.”

  “But you MET a warlock. And had this, what did they call it? An energy exchange? And he was apparently young and hot and covered with ink, and yet YOU DON’T TELL YOUR BEST FRIEND.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She huffed. I could See her lying on her bed with her legs propped against the wall, painting her toenails black with her eyes. An invisible paintbrush danced across her toes. “You know how lame I felt as I sat there in your audience with zero intel? I mean, Pansy knew as much as I did.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Ugh. Stop apologizing.”

  “So, does this mean you’ll come hang out with me?”

  “Where?”

  “The Boardwalk?”

  My shoulders grazed my earlobes, gearing up for her reaction.

  “The Boardwalk? If you proposed sparring with metal or a sprint through the forest I would consider whipping up an anti-pity party serum and joining you, but the Boardwalk? Seriously? Do I look nine years old?”

  She set the phone down and started moaning.

  “Okay, I get it. Revised offer. How about Witch’s Brew and then the Boardwalk? And then, only for like a half hour. Tops! I swear you won’t regret it. I’ll fill you in on anything you want to know.”

  “Which thing for a half hour? The brew filled with all the goth wannabe witches, or wannabe gangsters and cheesehead tourists on the Boardwalk?”

  “I don’t care. You decide.”

  “Neither. No effing way.”

  Time to pull out the big guns. “I’ll buy you a double-dipped ice cream cone.”

  “We aren’t allowed sugar, it’s seven a.m., and most importantly, are you insane?”

  “You’re the one who’s always telling me how great it feels to break the rules.”

  “Oh, so now you want to break the rules. Right after you got caught breaking the rules.”

  “Orchid, give me a break.”

  “Never.”

  “You will be the death of me, Orchid Silverstar.”

  She laughed. Orchid Silverstar was the nom de plume we made up for her when we were going to write, star and direct our own quasi-autobiographical series for the Disney Channel about tween best friends who were, of course, super cute, extremely talented and about to become the most famous of all the witches in the world.

  No judging, we were ten.

  “It could still happen,” Orchid said, remembering.

  “The show or our premise coming to fruition in our real lives?”

  “Both,” she laughed.

  “We’d be bathing in Evian if only Iris had let us pitch it to Hollywood.”

  “True. Hey, look. I’ll meet you in an hour. But only because you’re my best friend…”

  “And because your toes need to dry, obviously.”

  She sighed again, but I could tell it wasn’t an altogether unhappy sigh. She enjoyed being convinced to do things.

  And I was so happy she wasn’t mad at me anymore.

  Logan

  Something about the smell—strawberry-vanilla sweet. And the texture. Spun crystal candy on his tongue tasted like sugar snowflakes. Tiny dessert diamonds. He couldn’t take his eyes off the spinning candy the color of sunset over the sea. He ordered two and sat back on the bench, relishing in the spun sugar after a diet of So. Much. Health food. He wasn’t immune to Chance’s disturbed expression, which read like My best friend is a whack job.

  Okay, Logan got that. He was the
one who’d woken up early with an intense and inexplicable desire to go to the Boardwalk. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, inviting the sun to soak into his bare shoulders, neck, and face; he could feel it soaking into the amulet. He just knew he had to get down here, and that it might have something to do with Lily.

  “Not too much candy, or you’ll get sick,” a mom cautioned her little boy on the bench next to them.

  Her husband laughed. “Little treat won’t kill the kid,” he said, as he plucked a pinch of pink off the white cone. “Share the wealth, huh?”

  The mom smiled. A relaxed, carefree smile the whole family shared.

  Happiness.

  “Lucky kid,” Logan mumbled.

  “What kid?” Chance asked.

  “That kid on the bench next to me.”

  “Uh, we’re the only ones on a bench, dude.”

  Sure enough, the adjacent bench was empty, save for a couple of pigeons munching on discarded caramel corn.

  Logan blinked. “Guess I hallucinated,” he said. But he knew he hadn’t. The voices. Their faces. The feelings were as real as the sticky boards underneath his sneakers.

  Witch’s Brew

  Lily

  Exactly one hour later, Orchid and I were sitting side by side at the counter of the Witch’s Brew.

  “Extra hot green tea?” Jonah, the friendly, pink-haired barista, was looking at me with a glint in his eye.

  “Huh?” I said. My body was in the room, but I clearly wasn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about Logan. About how I was ordered to stay away from him until I received my instructions. And this fixation with sugar… Clearly, I was descending into some sort of crazy.

  “Green tea? Hello?”

  “Make that a raspberry mocha with extra whipped cream, please, Jonah,” I said. I was in such a crazy giddy good mood. A craving mood. The aberration from my usual order did not go unnoticed. Orchid eyed me strangely.

  Jonah smiled. “Good for you—change things up. It’s good for the soul.”

  “Why thank you, kind barista person.”

  Still grinning curiously, Jonah busied himself wiping the counters, filling orders. I normally didn’t pay much attention to him—usually Orchid and I sat by ourselves in here, huddled in one of the dark corners, whispering about our spells and such. I had always gotten a good vibe from him, however, and today I noticed how friendly he was with the human customers. So engaged. He looked right at them when they talked, listened to everything they had to say so intently—it was like they were the most engaging humans on the planet.