Legacy

by Cochran, Molly

  “It was she who embroidered the piece above the mantel in this house,” Gram said. “It is infused with knot magic.”

  “Unfortunately, the Shaws did not appreciate the treasure that was Zenobia Ainsworth. In the end, the cowen drove her away.”

  “Horrid people,” Gram agreed.

  “Some of the Shaws inherited Zenobia’s talent with knots. They became clothing designers, fabric manufacturers, artists who work with string and cloth. Some of them are quite famous today. But none of them live in Whitfield.”

  “So Peter does have magical blood,” I insisted. And he’s also my relative, I thought, if having a mutual ancestor 350 years ago counts. I decided it didn’t.

  Agnes sighed. “Actually, Peter is a special case,” she said. “His father, Prescott Shaw, left him and his brother Eric in Hattie’s care before his death. The Shaw family was shocked by Prescott’s decision. They tried all sorts of ploys to get Peter away from Hattie, but Prescott’s will was airtight.”

  “So they disinherited poor Peter,” Gram said. “He has no family except Hattie Scott now. And because he’s a male . . .” She shook her head.

  “What’s wrong with him being male?” I asked.

  “Well, the Shaw men have never exhibited much magical talent. They’re bankers, lawyers, financiers, that sort of thing.”

  “Also big game hunters, soldiers, aviators and, allegedly, clandestine arms dealers.”

  “Grandmother, we don’t know that.”

  “Über-cowen,” I ventured. Gram nodded.

  “So the possibility of Peter’s being magical is very remote,” Agnes continued, ignoring us. “Although not impossible. He may develop some skills in the next year or so. Hattie’s been tutoring him, and she’s the best there is.”

  “The strongest witch in Whitfield,” Gram said proudly.

  “And she can give him magic?” I asked.

  “Goodness, no. No one becomes a witch just because they want to. Some of us, like you, child, are born witches, with talents and abilities that manifest early. Others, with lesser gifts, learn to develop them through teaching and encouragement. But a person with no magical ability is destined to be cowen, even if he comes from one of the twenty-seven magical families.”

  “So what happens then? To Peter?”

  “I’m sure Hattie will succeed,” my great-grandmother said encouragingly.

  “But what if she doesn’t?”

  Agnes looked uncomfortable. She cleared her throat. “In that case, Peter will have to accept the life of cowen.”

  I blinked. “You mean he’ll be sent away?”

  “Cowen cannot be part of our lives,” Agnes said, gently but firmly. “We are too different from them. Those differences may not matter so much in youth, but later, they are nearly irreconcilable.”

  “But my mother did it,” I said. “She married a . . . my dad.”

  The two women gazed at me balefully. “And look what happened,” Gram said. “Zenobia also ended up with an unhappy life. Rather than infusing the Shaw line with magic, the opposite happened. The Shaws treated Zenobia like a pariah. She became known as a witch—the worst thing that can happen to us in cowen society. Her husband grew ashamed of her abilities, and left her. In time, her neighbors turned her in to the authorities. She would surely have been harmed, and maybe even burned at the stake, if she hadn’t sought shelter in the Meadow.”

  “The Meadow?”

  “The fog,” she explained. “It’s a sanctuary. Cowen cannot penetrate it. When witches are inside the fog, we are on another plane. We are invisible to outsiders. That is why the fog appears on each of the eight Wiccan holidays. While we celebrate, we cannot be seen by the mass of men.”

  “Does Peter know all this?” I asked.

  “Of course. Hattie would be quite remiss if she did not prepare him for what may happen. What probably will happen.”

  “He’ll be all alone,” I said, mostly to myself.

  Gram patted my hand and said, “Try to understand, dear. It wouldn’t be good for anyone if you fell in love with Peter Shaw.”

  “Hattie’s seen what’s been developing between you, and she’s spoken with Peter.”

  “What?” My hands curled into fists. “I can’t believe this!”

  “Peter knows he can never have you,” she said. “And he’s sensible enough not to try.” Deliberately, she put her hands over mine and brought them to my sides. “Even if you’re not.”

  CHAPTER

  •

  THIRTEEN

  BINDING

  I cried so hard that night that the next day I looked barely human. All day long people asked me if I was sick, so I said I was. I showed up for Existentialism in Fiction wearing sunglasses. Mr. Zeller didn’t say anything. Maybe he thought I was just getting into the existentialist zone or something.

  Peter didn’t sit near me. And he didn’t walk me to work afterward. Just like the beginning of school.

  When I arrived for work, he was leaning against the counter, studying a notebook. It was the same one I’d found under the table the first time I’d come to Hattie’s.

  “Hi, Peter,” I said, hanging up my coat. He may have agreed not to have anything to do with me, but I hadn’t.

  “Aren’t you ever going to take off those shades?” he asked.

  I didn’t want him to see how terrible I looked. “Light sensitivity,” I said glibly. “Doctor’s orders.”

  “Okay.” I doubt if he believed me. “Katy . . .”

  “Mmm?” I picked up a rag and pretended to wipe off the spotlessly clean counter.

  “I wanted to walk you to work today.”

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. Some things are just too complicated to discuss. “Let it be.” I reached for the notebook, which he’d laid on the counter. “Whatcha reading?”

  He made a move to hide it from me but, realizing I’d already seen it, made do with an embarrassed shrug. “Binding spells,” he said. “Hattie’s been trying to teach me. I’m not very good, though.”

  “It takes practice,” I said. Like I’m the big expert giving advice. I wanted to kick myself.

  “You don’t have to practice,” he said.

  “I don’t know any binding spells. I just cook, remember?”

  “I think you could do anything.”

  My heart must have stopped. It was hard for me to carry on any sort of conversation with him while I was looking at him, with his wheat-colored hair falling into his eyes and his lips parting over his perfect white teeth.

  I realized that I’d been staring. My neck was getting tired from looking up at him, so I shifted my gaze onto the countertop. It didn’t make any difference. He even smelled wonderful.

  “Hey,” he said softly, touching my chin. I had to look up into his eyes again. It was like falling into a pool of honey. He smiled, an easy, slow grin. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” he said.

  “No, I . . .” I had to run a finger along the collar of my sweater. “I just . . .”

  “Do you even know how good you are?”

  I cleared my throat. Four or five times. I didn’t want to be good. I didn’t want to have powers if that meant I couldn’t be with him. “Um, why do you want to learn binding spells?” I asked, trying to talk about something besides my alleged talent at witchcraft.

  He spread his hands, palms up. “Because they’re easy. At least that’s what Hattie says. Here, let me try one on you.”

  “Bind away.” I held out my arms, wrists overlapping.

  “Take these off first.” Before I could object, he removed my sunglasses. Terrific, I thought. Red eyes and no makeup. With my green irises and pallid, northeastern skin, I probably looked like the flag of Italy.

  Now he was staring at me. “Witch eyes,” he whispered, still smiling. I tried to turn away, but with the gentlest pressure, he stopped me. “Beautiful and strange. One of a kind.”

  I was trying hard to keep breathing. Inhale, exhale . . .

&nb
sp; “I can try the spell now,” he said.

  “The . . .” But my throat had closed in a glottal stop, as if I were speaking some African language. So I just nodded.

  He held out my arms, which had taken on the consistency of cooked spaghetti, then took a couple of steps backward and made a face.

  “Are you all right?” I finally managed. He’d turned red and was panting.

  “I’m concentrating,” he said.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Do you feel it?”

  “Feel what? Oh, the binding. Yes, I think so.” But that was only to be polite. Actually, all I felt was my arms getting tired. “Yes. Definitely.” My eyes were closed. I was trying to will myself to feel bound.

  When I opened them, though, Peter was standing in front of me with his lips pursed and his hands on his hips. “You’re a terrible liar,” he said.

  I felt crestfallen for him. “I just wanted it to work,” I said.

  “Yeah, me too. I wish there was an incantation or something, like in books. Just concentrating is . . .”

  “Vague, I know.”

  “You either have it or you don’t. And I don’t.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “You can develop those abilities. Hattie’s a great teacher. She’s the strongest witch in Whitfield, and you’re practically her son.”

  He looked at me from under his eyebrows. “You know about me, don’t you,” he said.

  “No! Honestly . . .” But he knew I was lying again. “Okay, yes,” I admitted. “Some.”

  “You know I’m cowen. By next year I’ll be thrown out of Old Town.”

  “I don’t know that, and neither do you. What’s more, I don’t care. I’ll never stop . . . being your friend,” I said. He had no idea. “No matter what.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “But when the time comes, that won’t matter. You’ll be in the magic circle, and I won’t.” He turned away.

  “Peter . . .” Just then Hattie walked in with Eric.

  He was all excited to see me, kicking and waving a placemat. “Eric has a new drawing for you,” Hattie said.

  “Kaaay,” he said, pressing the paper against my face.

  “Thanks, Eric. Well, let’s see what we’ve got,” I said. It was the usual. That is to say, a magnificent rendering of birds in flight. This time they were flying in a spiral pattern. It was uncanny, how he could depict every angle of the birds while still conveying a feeling of motion and speed. “Wonderful,” I said, tousling his hair. He shrieked in delight.

  “Hold him for a minute,” Hattie said as she readied his high chair. It was hard to understand. Sometimes she’d act like I was Eric’s big sister, allowing me to hold him and feed him. But at other times, she’d order me away from Eric as if I were the Whitfield Slasher.

  Hattie handed him to me, and I was engulfed in wild hugs and snuggles.

  “The Winter Solstice is right around the corner,” Hattie said.

  I waited for her to say more. She didn’t. “Yay,” I said, hoping to sound enthusiastic.

  “It won’t be busy here. This is a low energy time of year. Since we won’t be cooking much, I thought maybe you could use the time to help Peter learn some binding spells.” When I didn’t answer right away, she added, “I’ll pay you the same as if you were working in the kitchen.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “But I don’t think I can. I don’t know any binding spells. I don’t even . . .”

  At that moment a huge meat cleaver shot out of a drawer and flew right at Peter’s head. I gasped. By the time he turned around, it was headed straight for his right eye.

  And then it stopped. Just froze in midflight for a nanosecond before I knocked it away.

  “You see, you do know how to do a binding spell,” Hattie said.

  “Told you,” Peter muttered. “You don’t even have to practice.”

  “Excuse me?” I shouted. “Was it my imagination, or did you two not notice that Peter almost became a cubist sculpture?”

  Hattie chuckled in that low, maddeningly calm way she had. “Shoot, girl, I knew you weren’t about to let pretty Pete get sliced in two.”

  “But I didn’t . . .” I began, but the steam kind of got knocked out of me, because I knew I did. I’d seen the knife coming, and—I don’t know, I’d just made it stop.

  “Katy will be a great witch one day,” Hattie said to Peter. “Learn what you can, and don’t be macho about it.”

  Peter laughed. “I’ll try to keep it under control,” he said.

  As if control weren’t already his middle name.

  It was all very awkward, being Peter’s teacher. I was doing this stuff for the first time myself. The problem was, I didn’t have to learn how to do these spells. They just seemed to happen. So I had to dissect every move, every thought, and hope that my analysis was correct.

  In the beginning I tried variations of Hattie’s knife trick, pushing things like books and cabbages toward him, but Peter was so inept at magic that everything ended up smacking him on the head. I felt terrible about that. So I tried another tack, using inanimate objects as targets.

  “Just wrap a cord around this tomato,” I instructed. One time I actually saw the bindings, so I knew he had some potential. They were little tendrils of thoughts or intentions or something that oozed out of Peter’s eyes and fingers and forehead and wrapped weakly around the big beefsteak tomato we were using.

  “Make it tighter,” I said.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Concentrate!” Sometimes it was so frustrating. There wasn’t really anything to it except concentrating. It wasn’t even about thinking. “Just focus,” I said, and then, without meaning to, I focused. That was always the problem. I couldn’t teach by showing him how to do something, because then I’d end up doing it for him, like with the tomato. As soon as I started to focus, my own binding threads snapped taut around Peter’s, and the tomato disintegrated, squirting pulp all over both of us.

  “Sorry,” I said, wiping tomato out of my eyes. “Hey, maybe that was you.”

  “Yeah. Right.” He tipped his head. Juice poured out of his ear. We both laughed.

  “You’re getting better, though,” I said. “I saw the strings.”

  “Did you?”

  I looked at him. “Didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  So I knew where to begin. Since we both had passes to leave the school grounds, I took him to the Meadow at night. The place was so full of magic to begin with that anything magical done there was magnified.

  First I set up a gallon jar of mayonnaise about twenty feet away. It was white, so we could both see it in the moonlight. “Now watch me,” I said. “I’m going to focus on that mayo jar. Look for strings coming off me.”

  “Strings?”

  “Sort of. You should be able to see them here. Just watch me.”

  I concentrated on the jar. Almost immediately I could feel the binding begin. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the threads emanating like wisps of smoke from all over me. It began as a kind of nimbus around me, a sort of full-body halo, and then it went wherever I directed it. I raised my arms so that the energy concentrated in my fingers and poured out of them.

  “This is what it’s about,” I said, marveling at what was happening. “The body. It has to all come out in one place instead of floating away.”

  “I see it, Katy,” Peter said.

  “Good. Now you try it. Keep it in your body. Remember that you’re a physical being, not a mind. The magic starts in your cells.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just do it.” I sneaked a peek at Peter. I could see his energy building around him. “That’s it,” I whispered. In the moonlight it glowed in iridescent colors, as luminous as a comet.

  Peter’s face was transfigured by the awareness of his own magic. “I’m doing it,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Slowly he raised his hands, and the light snaked out of his fingers in ten strong beams. Then
he moved toward me. His light merged with mine, creating what looked like a tunnel of starlight, bright enough to be seen by ships at sea.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said.

  “Shh,” I said. “Don’t think. Just be here. With me.”

  The light intensified, brightening until it was something more than visual. It almost seemed to hum with magic, a low buzz that filled me like warm honey. It was moving out of me, yet coming into me at the same time, and through it all, Peter was with me. Not just beside me, but there, in the hum with me, in the honey.

  I felt my breath coming faster. The whole Meadow was alight now, the white mayo jar shining like a July moon. My skin was tingling. I felt a thousand times bigger than my body. And Peter was no longer separate from me, but another part of my being, around me. Inside me.

  And then his lips were touching mine, soft as roses.

  For real. It took me a moment to realize that this wasn’t part of the magic, that Peter Shaw really was kissing me, and I was kissing him back.

  The glowing jar in the distance exploded, and a fountain of sparkling glass fragments showered the night sky. Our fingers touched, extinguishing the light that had come from them. There was nothing now but the night and the Meadow and Peter and me. I held on to him for my life. My life.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away from me. “I have to go.”

  Go? “Why?” I was so confused. “It’s all right.”

  “No,” he said.

  “We can’t do this. Not ever again.”

  “But . . . the magic . . . You did it. You’re not cowen.”

  “You can’t understand,” he said. “I should never have let this happen.”

  “Don’t . . .” It was so hard to ask. “Don’t you want me?” My hands touched his face. He held one, kissing my palm.

  Then he left. Just like that, into the dark.

  I looked down at my hands. They glowed faintly, as if remembering the touch of him. I could still feel the heat from his mouth on mine. But he was gone.

  CHAPTER

  •

  FOURTEEN

  YULE