“I can’t burn my way through and I don’t want to freeze it. Whatever it is must be treated with care.”
“Then I’ll get to it the old-fashioned way,” I said. I found a knife and carefully cut through the fabric. Expecting a music box, I was surprised to find a dark brown book with an indigo symbol fastened to the leather cover.
“This looks just like my amulet!” I told Mom. Gingerly, I opened the book.
“Can you see text?” Iris asked.
I blinked. “You can’t?”
“It’s blank yellow pages. Please, whatever you see, read out loud.”
With an inexplicably shaking voice, I began to read.
Dear Diary,
I’m risking so much writing this down, but I will burst into a thousand stars if I don’t tell my story to someone and you are the only one I can trust. The only one who can fix everything that went so terribly wrong.
I stopped. Looked up at Iris. “Mom, what is this?”
“Keep reading!” she said with an urgency I couldn’t argue with.
I’m going to start at the beginning. I don’t want to skip anything. Not a button on his shirt, not a glimmer in his eye. You must bear with me. And know the truth. I’ll start at the beginning:
I didn’t want to go at first, I was not yet old enough for boys and besides I had nothing to wear, but mother insisted I was indeed ready. A rare spark replaced the tiredness in her eyes the moment she mentioned the ball—I didn’t want to let her down. With father working away from home to scrape up any money he could, Mother worked to the bone keeping us in food and fitted shoes. Sewing all night in our attic room, mending things for people with the money, but not the skill or desire for such mundane tasks. With the leftover materials from her jobs, Mother made a gown for me. She was Cinderella’s mice and I was the pauper girl preparing for the ball.
“Tonight will be magical,” Mother said, “if you allow it to be.”
Mother and I had always communicated without saying words. But at that time I didn’t know why. Standing in the parlor room I closed my eyes, clutching the amulet that hung around my neck.
“Everything will make sense after tonight.” Mother’s voice rang in my head.
Feeling fragile as a quail egg, I nodded, hoping she was right.
Then the ink disappeared from the page.
“Iris, is this the same amulet?”
“What do your instincts tell you?”
“Yes.”
“What happens next?” Iris pressed.
“You haven’t read it?”
“It wasn’t written for my eyes. Look to see if there is an inscription.”
I flipped to the front of the book where the only letters remaining read:
December 22, 1911. For my future great-great granddaughter, Lily—with all my love—Rose.
My heart stopped. “She wrote this to me?”
“I got a message from the Seven Sisters this morning. The trunks have been handed down for generations. I never knew about this compartment.”
“But why me? Why now?”
“I don’t know completely, but from what I’m gathering and from what you’ve told me about Logan, I believe the stories are somehow related. She wants you to be her window between the worlds, Lily. She wants to help us see the whole picture from these random pieces we have. She wants to tell you what to do next.”
Logan
Images of heavy swords, the scratching sound of metal on metal and the smell of fresh blood and rotting flesh flooded his sleep. He smelled smoke and had a vision of a child’s treehouse tall and alone in a middle of a thick, dark forest. He heard screaming. Realizing it was his own voice, Logan jerked himself awake with a start.
Father’s spell. It must still be in his system. Logan felt worse than he ever did, even after the days where he spent too much time with the euca-leaves. He was a mess. His head pounded, his gut ached, and his muscles were sore.
He was so screwed.
Logan moaned, rubbed his head hard, deep into his temples with his bony knuckles, trying to dig the horrid nightmares away. Trying to erase what had transpired yesterday with Chance.
A pounding at the door reverberated in his throbbing head.
“Coming!” He lay back down on his bed. The pounding grew louder, but he didn’t move.
The door opened. Logan rolled over, pulling a black t-shirt over his head and yanking up some sweats over his boxers.
Chance. “Voodoo,” Logan said, sitting all the way up, though it pained him to do so. “I’m so sorry about yesterday, Dude.”
Chance shook his head, his eyes now bright blue like before. “Forget it. It was Master’s spell, and there was no way to counter it. I was suffering the same mind-screw as you. Unfortunately, I was on the receiving side of the blade.”
“Will you shut the door, please?” Logan listened for anyone who might be eavesdropping before he lowered his voice into a scratchy whisper and said, “Before…Father forced us to fight, he did something. He put his hand on me and stole some youthful energy. I must have gleaned it from Lily in the cave yesterday.”
“The cave?”
“While you and Orchid were off doing your thing…”
Chance laughed at the memory. “Our thing, yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. You know your Lily bewitched us.”
“She just bewitched Orchid, dude. You were flying all on your own.”
“Normally I’d complain, but…”
“Yeah, yeah, no details necessary. Anyway, Jacob age-reversed right before my eyes. You know that painting in the hall across from his room? He looked like that.”
“No way.”
“Only for a moment, because I was able to reverse the spell and get it back. But he was so confident about it…I mean, my memory was all fogged up from the poison, but I get the feeling that this age reversal stuff has something to do with his new pharma product. Anyway, we need to look for a counterspell. After yesterday, I don’t think he’d stop at anything to complete whatever he’s up to with the Congression.”
“I thought of that too,” Chance said.
Logan fell back. “Chance. What if he poisons me again before the Gleaning? What if I hurt Lily?”
“Cheese, listen. You have to get that witch out of your head until you’re thinking straight again. You look like crap. Get in the shower. Jacob’s on a rampage and he’s looking for you.”
Logan clutched the amulet in his hand. “What for?”
“I don’t know. But Logan?” Chance turned around in the doorway, “Keep that charm on your body at all times. At least one of us will be protected.”
Bonfire Skies
Lily
Daisy and I were walking toward the beach when we heard a friendly little beep-beep.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
I shielded my face from the sun as a beat-up pink VW bus circa 1970 pulled into the gutter behind us. “I think…it’s the Witch’s Brew barista.”
Sure enough, it was Jonah. “You have a pink car,” I deadpanned into his window.
“Correction.” He grinned. “The band has a pink BUS. We call it the Pink Twinkie.”
“The Pink Twinkie! I wholeheartedly approve.”
“So, you girls need a ride?”
“We’re okay to walk,” I said.
“Hey, does this thing have a pop-up sleeper?” Daisy asked, already opening the side door and jumping in. “I love these! Remember we used to have one when we were little? Oh, a kitchen too. And fruit snacks!”
Jonah shrugged.
“I guess we’ll accept that ride then.” I hopped into the passenger seat and buckled up.
“Cool. We are going to the same place.” Dressed in one of those navy blue gas station shirts (with the name Lincoln stitched on the pocket) and black and white checkered pants that he must have stolen from a 1950’s diner waiter, he looked like he’d just popped out of the set of an indie movie.
“Do you live in here?” I asked, looking around
.
He laughed. “Technically, I live in my parents’ basement, but yeah, sort of.”
I peeked in the back. Where the second row of seats should be, there was instead a drum set, two electric guitars, a bass and a box of pink and black stickers that read PINK TWINKIE on them. A guitar with a cartoon-pink Twinkie was their emblem. Motto? Trademark? At any rate it was pretty cool.
“When are you guys playing next?”
“Next weekend. You should come!”
“I’d love to,” I said, and I meant it.
“We aren’t that good though.” He twisted his nose ring around and around. “Be warned.” But Jonah said it with a smile. A guy that could sport pink hair AND drive a pink car around town must be hugely firm in his masculinity. I told him so.
“What is pink if not a softer shade of red, right?”
“I guess?”
“And what does red represent?” he asked, his green eyes locked on mine.
To me red represents Crimson. The second highest level of Spellspinner magic. But I couldn’t say that.
“Blood,” I said instead. Which was also true.
“Exactly.”
“So pink is watered down blood?”
“Your heart, a newborn baby, the sunrise…all shades of pink. All shades of brand new life.”
“What does any of that have to do with a Twinkie?”
“Ha, exactly. Nothing. The truth is I’m colorblind.”
I could tell he was kidding. I mean, I think he was. “You are one trippy dude,” I said.
He laughed. My butt was hot on the black vinyl seat. I curved around and looked for the guitar he was going to loan me.
I couldn’t wait to play.
Logan
He eyed the bonfires from the cliff behind the beach where the kids parked and carried their driftwood, their beers, their marshmallows down to the pits to build fires and hang out. High school kids hung out on the beach a lot on weekend nights. He knew, because whenever he and his brothers had a chance to get out, namely when Jacob was out of town or dead asleep, they’d slip down here and watch. Watch from afar.
The smell of beer mixed with the jubilant sounds of teenage revelry evoked an odd mix of envy and nostalgia he couldn’t quite put a finger on.
“Want me to come?” Chance asked.
“Better if I go alone, I think.”
“You don’t look convinced.”
Logan shrugged, and pulled his hood on. The wind was picking up and biting against his cheek. He knew where she was. Even if he couldn’t see her, he was drawn to her energy. She lit up among the shadows of teenage silhouettes like a single shining star in the night sky.
Instead of approaching her fire, Logan headed alone toward the shore to stand back, survey the situation and watch night-blackened waves crash onto the beach for a while. Then he’d work up the nerve to go and talk to her.
He wasn’t expecting to hear music. At least not twangy strumming mixed with giggling, as Lily furrowed her brow and tried again.
“Is this right?” Lily was far away, on the other side of the beach, but Logan could hear her as if she were right by his side. He saw her tilt her cheek toward ol’ Pinky Lee quizzically. Logan recognized him as the barista from the Witch’s Brew, a trendy café on the Boardwalk. And he did not like the way this guy was looking at Lily. If it was only a lustful human look—the way he saw some dudes on the boardwalk check out her and Orchid—that would be one thing. He could just excuse it for human nature (and then, if Pinky tried something, Logan could just kick his ass and throw him in a dumpster later).
But this was different. The barista looked at her with warmth in his eyes. Appreciation. Logan could tell he liked all of her. The same way he liked all of her.
Logan felt his pulse race as the barista leaned over Lily and settled her fingers in the right positions on the guitar (his guitar?). Squatting behind her, Pinky bent over her shoulders—he was all over her.
Logan took a step forward. The heat flooding through his body was burning the sand under his feet into lava rocks. Seriously? Did a guitar lesson have to be this hands on? He jumped onto cool sand to calm down.
He fought the urge to storm the campfire, pick him up and chuck him pink head first into the sea. A cruel smile spread over his face as he imagined that crazy hair soaking wet. A soggy pink Q-tip left to its own devices in the freezing water.
But he knew that would not be the right move here.
It would a) piss off Lily, and b) get him in big trouble.
Still. He would have loved to do it.
Feeling better after imagining the ocean toss, Logan surveyed the scene.
A dozen or so kids were standing around, close, shoulders touching shoulders like they were creating a barricade—a wall of friendship—to keep their circle safe from outsiders, or more likely, just trying to stay warm.
Drinking frothy beer out of red plastic cups and mostly dressed in sweatshirts and blue jeans, they were barefoot, toes wiggling in the sand. Tipsy, but not so drunk that they’d be sick. A few of the boys and one girl were playing guitars. Singing along to hippie-trendy-pop music—songs he, of course, didn’t recognize because he wasn’t allowed to listen to popular music.
Baroque? Sure.
This kind of stuff? Not so much.
And he felt a wave of envy… of regret…that he had never experienced before. It hit him like an anvil to the chest. Sharp and heavy and demoralizing. As if these warning words were carved into the metal: This is not your world.
He shook the image away. Shook the feeling away.
Maybe. Maybe if he just…wandered over and stood outside the group. Maybe he could just hang out there with them for awhile and soak it all in.
Maybe they wouldn’t immediately recognize him as an outsider.
Maybe he could what? Hit a bongo drum with the dude with the belly-length dreadlocks? Why not?
He walked a few paces in the cold sand before stopping abruptly. It wasn’t fear of his own rejection that stopped him. It was the look of complete acceptance washing over Lily’s face, guised as a golden glow from the flames. Behind the swirls of smoke spinning into the sky, tucked crossed-legged in front of this barista, her ankles molding into the cool sand, Lily looked so happy.
The false pained look on her face from struggling with the guitar notes was so different from the actual pained expression she made when he saw her struggling with her magic. Or when she was struggling with him. Trying to figure out what was going on, trying to process her feelings and internally debate all this…madness.
She’d been through so much. The universe was not going easy on her…and Logan certainly wasn’t helping things. First taking her amulet, and then refusing to return it. Not to mention training to possibly destroy her in the Gleaning.
He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. Then let his eyes settle back on her again. Her face flushed from the warmth of the fire, maybe from the barista’s attention. A younger girl—a blonde like Lily, only more honey-colored—crawled to her other side and teased her about something. Lily elbowed her playfully. Must be her younger sister.
When Lily strummed the strings again, this time a familiar tune filled the air. He recognized that song, maybe from the Brew. It was popular, and Lily got it right. First try out the gate. The barista leaned back in the sand, a mixed expression of impressed approval and pride washing over his face.
Of course he thought it was his majestic teaching abilities that got Lily playing this well, this fast. Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that Lily herself was a force of nature, who could figure out anything on her own.
When she opened her lips and started singing along with the song…that’s the moment that he was not only frozen in place, but desperate to run away. It felt wrong to interrupt this one purely content moment he was witnessing for his own selfish purposes.
He wanted to leave her in this happiness for as long as he could.
Lily
“I love this. I
love playing the guitar. I’m never doing anything else again ever with my life. This is what I was born to do. Yep. This is my destiny.”
Daisy giggled next to me. Jonah looked goofily proud. I was actually playing an instrument. Like a human. No spell was rolling my fingers onto the correct chords. No magic was finger-picking for me.
“Is that what I’m doing? Finger-picking?” I asked Jonah, who was kneeling next to me in the sand.
“You sure are. Man, I’ve never seen anyone catch on this quick, Lil. You’re a natural.”
“Thanks!” I said cheerfully. I played the first few notes of Daisy’s favorite song again. “I was going to learn this for your birthday.”
“Aww,” Daisy said, leaning over and kissing my cheek. “Aren’t you just the most bestest sister in the universe?”
“I try.”
“You succeed!”
Grinning, I bent back over the instrument. It was curved and smooth. Felt so nice on my lap. Like the way my old black cat rested on my lap, stretched out and open to me stroking her white belly with my fingertips. That’s how the guitar was opening up to me. It was like it was created for me to play.
“Ohmygosh a shooting star!” Daisy leapt up and pointed into the milky darkness.
Jonah jumped up to join her, matching her energy level perfectly. Daisy grinned up at him. She liked him the instant she saw his pink van. And now Daisy was eating up the attention. Jonah could be like the perfect big brother she never had. Quirky instead of edgy, sweet instead of overbearing. And when Daisy liked people, she let them know it.
She turned to me. “Lil, can we keep him forever and ever and for always?”
I met Jonah’s eye sheepishly. “Um. I’m sure Jonah has a family of his own who wants him.”
“Well, you can be our foster brother then, k?”
He tousled her hair. “There is no other flower-named girl that I’d rather have as a foster sister than you.”
“My sister has a flower name. Don’t you want her?”
He blushed. “Well, who wouldn’t?”
Before I could process the look he was giving me, the energy suddenly shifted. Goosebumps rose on my arms.
Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County) Page 12