The Orphan Witch

by Paige Crutcher

  “Is the library not open?” Persephone asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not that kind of library.”

  She looked around the room full of books. All her life libraries had been safe havens. “What kind is it?”

  He waved in the direction of the sign. “A library for lost people, lost things.”

  What an odd thing to say. He glanced back, and Persephone tried hard not to stare at how his shirt strained across his chest. “I’m lost.”

  “You’re not lost,” he made a half motion she couldn’t interpret as a shrug or shake. “You’re in the wrong place.”

  He slipped further into the room. Beyond him the shop was warm and smelled of ink and paper. Antique oil lamps with large glass domes were tucked into corners, the light pushing into the room like a beacon of welcome. The dark hardwood beneath their feet was blanketed with a deep burgundy rug, and a path was worn in the way of usual foot traffic. The library was large, with stacks going back as far as she could see.

  It looked like any number of libraries Persephone had visited before. Then a vibration ran up her legs, clamoring onto her shoulders. Persephone leaned into the sensation. Into the call of magic.

  The library may look ordinary, but it was not. She stepped further inside. The walls in front of her were adorned with books, and in the center of the room was a small castle made of leather-bound journals. Persephone crossed to it immediately, drawn to how enchanting it was.

  “How many books did it take to make this?” she asked, squatting down to study it.

  “I didn’t count.” He moved to a chair behind her, the arms of it creaking as he sighed and sank into the deep-cushioned seat.

  The right wall of the book castle was missing three books, and her fingers brushed where the spines should be. Persephone studied the curious way he’d left a door off the castle. No way in and no way out.

  The librarian cleared his throat, and she turned, careful to focus above his eyes. He was studying Persephone like a deer might eye a hunter. The feeling from when she was a child, a giggle, worked its way up her spine. Persephone tucked her hair behind her ear, wishing he wasn’t affecting her so much. He closed his eyes, and Persephone grew warm.

  “Is this a … magical library?”

  “It’s a library for the lost,” he repeated.

  Power thrummed in the room, making her head swim. “The magical lost,” she decided, and turned back to the books in front of her. She smiled to herself. “I wrote a book once. A long time ago. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

  “The Upside of Down Magicks.” His eyes snapped open and roamed over her face. One of his hands gripped the edge of his seat. “Persephone May.”

  She startled, knocking over four books leaned together to form a turret. “No one’s heard of my book or me.”

  “Consider me no one,” he said, the gravel in his voice causing her to suppress a shiver. He leaned back into his chair. “I know most tomes that have anything to do with magic.”

  “Because…?”

  He didn’t bother to hide his frown as he conceded what she already knew. “The library is a warehouse of magic.”

  “Like I said,” she muttered.

  He stood up and walked to the long reading desk in the center of the room. Persephone stared after him. Magic was all around her, and this man knew.

  He was also very nearly gorgeous, and limping. His right leg shuffled, the foot dragging a little along the floor. He slid onto a worn stool, and watched her for a moment, before turning to a large book, roughly the size of an Oxford dictionary, with the image of a moon sliver wrapped around a large tree across its front.

  “Hey,” Persephone said, her gaze transfixed on the cover. “I know this.”

  “You’ve seen something like it before?”

  She shook her head. “No. I … I don’t know.”

  “It calls to you?”

  “Yes, maybe.” Persephone tried to look away, but ended up leaning closer to study it.

  He stared at her. She could feel the heat of his eyes, smell the minty air of his breath.

  “Have we met before?” Persephone asked, unable to shake the sense of knowing.

  “Not quite,” he said, with a small smile that transformed his face from handsome to stunning. He ran a finger along the spine of the book, looked down at his hand. “Some people believe when you see something and it draws you in, you have already seen or learned it before.” His voice dropped dangerously low. “It’s a remembering. You remember what you’ve already known, as though in this life you are catching up with pieces of your past life.”

  His hand closed over the book as she leaned forward, ready to take it from him. A flash of anger flared to life in the pit of her stomach. His brows lifted like question marks and Persephone fought the deep desire to stare at him. To study his eyes, so later she could remember him. With effort, she looked back to the book.

  She thought of Devon and the forgettable faces from her past, of Thom and Larkin. She thought of how she should definitely not make eye contact with this man, magical library or no. She felt him watching her, his gaze drawing heat as it traveled across her face. The sleeping dragon of desire in her belly flapped its wings relentlessly, like a horde of butterflies warning her to be careful even as she made up her mind. Magic was here, couldn’t that make the difference?

  Persephone lifted her face. She stared back at the librarian.

  The hazel in his eyes shifted to amber. Tawny eyes, full of strength and something else, something Persephone could not name.

  Persephone and the librarian locked eyes in a war of gazes for five long breaths. Her hands clenched. His breath caught. She waited, terrified of watching the change come over him.

  He lifted one thick, sloping brow, and inclined his head. Then, he smirked.

  For a moment, she wanted to shove him. To throw him down and, she didn’t know … steal the book, slap him, kiss him hard. Maybe all three.

  Then his cheeks flushed. Persephone looked down and saw her raised hand. Reaching for him. She backed up. He blinked at her, staring with such focus her knees knocked.

  Persephone tried to think of something normal to say. To play off her reaction. Because he wasn’t reacting. He was standing there, staring at her, as calm as the winter moon. No words came, and instead of saying anything at all, she turned and left.

  He was entirely unaffected by her. The idea of it left her so off balance, she had to reach out a hand to the stone wall outside of the library and hold on.

  Outside the streets were deserted. Persephone shook her head, trying to gather her wits. Desire coursed through her and she grit her teeth. He hadn’t been affected, and yet, oh gods—how she wished he had. Not in the way where looking into her eyes sent him to the edge of insanity, but she wanted him to … want her. The normal way. The way one person craved another. The idea of it thrilled her.

  A throat cleared and Persephone swiveled on her heels to face it. The man stood in the library’s doorway. His head was tilted, his eyes keen like a wolf’s. Persephone swallowed, had to force herself to meet them.

  “Where did everyone go?” she asked, clearing her throat, needing to keep him from seeing too much of her.

  “Go?”

  Her hand waved toward the flagstones, and Persephone peered down the path. “The people dress-rehearsing for the festival.”

  “What festival would this be?” he asked, but there was something in his voice, steel and curiosity.

  “For … the show?” What did the woman in the bakery say? “The most marvelous magnificent show?”

  His hand gripped tighter on the door frame, and she stared at it. His hand. How could she find those fingers so familiar?

  “Persephone,” he said, and her head whipped back to him. “There hasn’t been a festival or a show of any kind on Wile Isle for one hundred years.”

  Persephone blinked, the sun bursting from behind the clouds,
blinding her. She looked away, able to clearly see the shops lining the road. For a moment, they shimmered and Persephone saw thatched roofs, turrets puffing smoke, fresh paint gleaming in the sun.

  A second later, and the same row of stores were worn to near decay. The slate of the roofs chipping from age, the shutters hanging sideways if they were there at all. The buildings seemed to shrug at their own decay, their paint worn away, the remains a ghostly imprint of what once was.

  “I don’t understand,” Persephone said.

  The man’s jaw was tight, his expression bleak. “You’re in the wrong world,” he said, as the clouds shifted to engulf the sun. “You need to go.”

  Wind kicked up, pushing Persephone forward, then trying to tug her back.

  The clouds in the sky changed from somber gray to the purple of a healing bruise. A low whistle cut through the wind, the air scented with rain. Static slipped its way up Persephone’s arms, clung to her skin.

  Lightning cracked across the sky.

  In bolts of three.

  Persephone gaped at the horizon, and what appeared to be worlds intertwined within other worlds. It was like looking at the edge of a globe to realize two other globes were trapped inside.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the man said, his voice shifting into something dangerous. “Go.”

  He shut the door before Persephone could demand his name, an explanation, anything. Everything.

  The wind drew closer, brushing against her skirt, tugging at her shirt, scraping at her hair. Persephone’s shadow grew long on the stones beneath her, and she felt that unruly tug, this time in her chest—this time as a warning.

  Adrenaline took root at the base of Persephone’s spine. She took three steps forward as the shops changed again. The air crackled with electricity and the hair along her arms lifted. Persephone tasted metal on her tongue.

  Across the street a door to a shop the color of burnt wood opened, and a woman stepped out. The woman was dressed in a dark gray three-piece suit, cupping a hidden object in one hand. Her face was in shadow, or made of them. Persephone could not see the stranger’s eyes, but could feel them watching. The warning was back, and a sick sort of excitement pooled in Persephone’s belly as the shadow woman took a step forward.

  She moved like she was born of nightmares, an improperly assembled marionette. Her free hand plucked imaginary strings in the air.

  Then, as if they were living in a slow-motion filter, the woman smiled. Her awful delight worked its way inside Persephone’s mind, and a scream exploded from the back of Persephone’s throat.

  HYACINTH EVER’S JOURNAL

  SUMMER SOLSTICE, TEN YEARS BEFORE

  I never used to think magic could be dangerous.

  It was always clever and charming, seductive but welcoming. But dangerous? No way.

  Now … I’m not so sure.

  My cousin Ariel’s magic is changing.

  The other day I made her a doll from corn husk and ivy, sewn together with elder bark and clovers. I only had to think what I wanted to grow and it appeared. Moira says anything will grow on the island if you have the right seeds and words, but I’ve found if I wish hard enough, I don’t need anything else to make the earth respond. That’s how I got the caraway to weave into Ariel’s doll. I closed my eyes, asked, and when I opened them the little plant was sprouting at my feet.

  It’s funny, but I didn’t have an idea for the doll other than to make it. It turned out to be blond with eyes like an owl’s, large and knowing. I didn’t plan to make a girl, but the doll knew what she needed to be, I suppose, the way most things in magic know. The caraway, I hope, will bring Ariel love.

  Once I finished pinning the marjoram flower in the doll’s hair, I handed it to Ariel. She took it without looking up, her nose still in a book.

  “For the Goddess’ sake,” I said. “Ariel.”

  Turning her face to the sun, because she moves like a sunflower, she eyed the doll I’d placed in her hand. Her smile took its time as she studied it. Finally, once even the blades of grass had grown bored from watching her, she said, “Well hello, little beasty. Who are you?”

  She stroked her fingers over the doll’s hair, leaned down to smell it. I watched as her fingertips hovered over its cheeks, and Ariel brushed the doll’s face with the sweetest caress. It was as though she had forgotten I was there. I started to brag on how it only took me half an afternoon to create it, when she plucked at the clover closest to where the doll’s ears should be.

  Ariel leaned closer and whispered words I couldn’t hear. A moment later, green light flickered behind the doll’s eyes.

  I watched the eyes blink and then turn in the face to look up at Ariel. She grinned down at it, and I sank back onto my heels. The doll was alive. My breath was a little startled in my laugh, and Ariel swiveled to look at me. She smiled, and tucked the doll under her arm, hiding it from me.

  “Thanks, Hye,” she said. “She’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  Then Ariel went back to reading, and I went back to studying the grass and thinking that no matter what I wished to grow from the island’s powerful earth, I would never have the kind of power my cousin does—and while I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing, I also can’t help but wish otherwise.

  Four

  THE GROUND RUMBLED BENEATH Persephone’s feet; she tried to keep them planted but was forced to her knees. Her vision darkened at the edges as the being in front of her wavered. Persephone blinked, trying to see more clearly, and the person, the thing made of shadows and refracted light, dove at her.

  Persephone didn’t have time to think. The scent of coconuts and rain slammed into the back of her throat, cutting off the scream. She tasted honey, blood, salt of the sea. A melody, coupled with garbled words and the notes of a song with roots as deep as time’s oldest tree, pulsed into her mind.

  Persephone’s fingers dug at the cobblestones. She arched her spine, threw back her head, tried to shake herself free.

  What was happening was wrong. It was an invasion.

  Something—or someone—wanted all the way in.

  Persephone fought. She would not give in to the pain scraping its way down her spine, or clawing at her throat. She was finally so close to everything—to finding her way, to having something more than the life she’d barely been living, that she refused to let the thing in.

  She refused to allow it to take her.

  Persephone felt for the tug at her midsection, and she yanked it deeper. She pulled power into her palms like Moira had taught her, and the magic answered. Radiant currents of energy flooded her system.

  Persephone thought of the tomes she’d pored over at Ever House, of the spells she’d learned and seen performed. She raised her hands to her lips and through trembling fingers she found the words waiting.

  “I am my own,

  more than ash and bone.

  As I will to know,

  your will will let me go.”

  Persephone tugged each line of magic tight to her and spelled it into a chant, turning the words over and over times three. She wrapped the words and magic around her head and heart.

  A low mournful cry begged from inside Persephone’s mind. Earnest and demanding, a strange call bore into Persephone’s thoughts and echoed twice before the pressure inside her skull relented, and her vision cleared.

  Persephone stayed crouched on the ground, clutching her palms to her chest. When she could take a breath without a moan, she slowly rolled herself up to standing.

  Testing, Persephone spread her fingers in front of her face, and looked between them like a child sneaking a peek between the crack of a door and its frame. She should be scared, she thought. Whatever that just was, it should have her weeping in terror, stumbling for safety.

  Instead Persephone felt strong.

  The magic she had pulled into her flared once more, and she threw her head back. Persephone inhaled the crisp air and let the power simmer down low into the marrow of her bones. She had k
nown terror before. After all, she grew up with fear—the fear of not belonging, of never fitting in, never being loved or enough. That fear had once been her constant companion.

  Not anymore.

  The difference was her cousins. It was the island.

  Here, she was not alone.

  Persephone looked to the library, expecting to find the strange man peering back at her, expecting answers. The man was no longer there. The library was gone.

  She looked around, noting the changes in the street. The shops were similar, but not the same.

  Persephone thought of the librarian. She set aside how he had made her feel, how much she liked looking into his eyes — the desire and comfort, and craving it caused — and focused on what he’d said before he disappeared.

  He’d said she was in the wrong world. Persephone studied the exterior of the expansive stone building, and it shimmered before disappearing completely.

  In its wake was the cobblestone road, bordered by lanterns. Persephone turned in a circle, and lightning crossed the horizon. She ran a hand over her eyes, and looked again. She turned back to face where the street had faded, and standing on this road, with a frown marring her face, stood the passenger from the ferry.

  The first thing Persephone recognized was that the stranger was the exact same height and shape of the shadow being. Then thunder rumbled in the distance, and Persephone had a second realization. The stranger was not alone. Another woman stood beside her, and they both wore twin expressions of rage and disbelief.

  Lightning struck again, this time at the feet of the passenger. The woman’s eyes widened, and she growled. Going on instinct, Persephone threw up an arm as a shield.

  The lightning storm scattered around the women. It was like someone was standing overhead, dropping bolts down on the two strangers like a child skittering rocks into a pond.

  The passenger muttered a curse, raised her hand into the air, and clutched her hand into a fist.