The Orphan Witch

by Paige Crutcher

  In the evenings, Moira taught Persephone lessons in the fine art of flour. “Life isn’t all magic,” Moira told her. “It’s about heart, too. About building a life even around the extraordinary. When we bake, we live in the present moment.”

  Persephone learned how to sift all-purpose flour with the gentle shake of her wrist and strain it through cheesecloth. She took joy in measuring butter and sugar, and adding freshly ground berries and peeled apples to craft perfectly sponged cakes. She became a master of fashioning cream cheese icing from scratch and whipping up scones with her head half in the clouds. And Persephone listened, as Moira would whisper poetry (the witch truly had a heart for Christina Rossetti) with flair and flourish while she worked.

  As Persephone’s knowledge of the island and her connection to her cousins grew, her sense of magic stalled. Whatever power Persephone was able to tap into began to sputter as her thoughts inevitably drifted to the mother and grandmother who weren’t on island with her.

  Persephone also felt a debt mounting in her heart. Her payment to the Ever sisters for their kindness and acceptance was meant to be her power—“As three we are stronger than Ellison and Ariel Way can ever pretend to be,” Hyacinth told Persephone time and again—but their power was only fortified if Persephone’s was tamed.

  Persephone’s guilt grew the more Hyacinth’s concern blossomed. Her friend and cousin had taken to spending the hours she wasn’t coaching Persephone in the garden, studying her books, talking to the trees, and searching for answers. Time was running out, and the more agitated Hyacinth became the calmer Moira got.

  Persephone also couldn’t stop thinking of Dorian and the library, but each time Persephone tried to speak of either to one of her cousins, the words curled up and turned to ash on her tongue.

  The annoying truth was that Persephone thought about him—the angles of his face, the crooked tooth, and the smile that never quite reached his eyes—more than she cared to admit. When Persephone dreamed, she saw him crouched by the fire, the endless stacks of the library moving all around him.

  Then, on the thirteenth day of the second month of being on the island, Persephone woke to a searing pain in her chest. She sat up, and the pain spread like fire slathered across her skin. Persephone reached for her shirt and her hand clasped the hourglass tucked beneath the fabric. She gasped and jerked her fingers away, a burn searing the tips.

  Thinking fast, Persephone yanked off her shirt and swung around onto her knees and hands so the hourglass dangled in the air below her neck. It pulsed a bright, brilliant green three times before the color faded to a rosy gold. She didn’t trust touching the metal, so she leaned forward and worked her fingers around to the clasp at the base of her neck. Undone, the locket dropped to the bed. Persephone sucked on her singed fingertips. After a few moments the pain was dull enough for her to gingerly press a pinky to the hourglass timepiece. It was no longer hot, but ice-cold to the touch. She pressed the two injured fingers to it and cool comfort spread through them before the aching burn left entirely. Persephone studied the tips in wonder—the red had faded to pink, the injury gone. She scooped up the necklace and found it was heavier in her hands than before.

  As she tugged her shirt back on, the bottom of the hourglass swung open. Miraculously, a note on thick parchment weighted like a stone tumbled from it into her palm before the hourglass swung closed on its own. None of the grain of sands inside the timepiece had moved.

  The note read:

  A walker is meant to travel alone.

  She is not meant to burn out.

  Your scent lingers on the books.

  Persephone’s heart fluttered at the last sentence. She reread it until the words faded into the page and dissolved into a single rose quartz she cradled in her palm.

  Dorian.

  Persephone stood, tucked the hourglass and the rose quartz into her pocket—she didn’t trust either yet against her skin—and walked into the hall, still wearing her flannel pajamas. The urge to see him, one she’d barely kept banked, spread faster than a wildfire.

  Persephone tiptoed down the stairs, brushed past the crescent couch and a dozing Opal, and quiet as a dormouse unlatched the front door and slipped outside.

  The shadows watched, and waited.

  Persephone stepped into the garden, and moved to the cobblestone path. Her feet picked up the pace as she went from a quiet stride into a soft run to an all-out sprint. Persephone pulled the images of the library into her mind. As the images appeared, she saw the sign to the library and the wooden door, and wove and unwove time, or rather space, like braiding and unbraiding golden threads around her. The process was nothing like before, when she was forcing—or reacting—to her power. She knew what she wanted, and this kind of wanting made all the difference.

  Past and present swirled as though made of strands of light divided by silver and gold that formed a path under her feet. The colors enveloped her as she walked farther. Moments passed, the air warmed. She reached a hand forward and whispered his name. Dorian.

  Persephone stepped out of the swirling colors and up to the front door of the Library for the Lost.

  Persephone knocked once, and the door quickly swung open. Dorian stood in the archway, breathing heavy as though he’d been the one sprinting instead of her. His hair was wet, and his eyes burned with a focused intensity. Persephone held out a hand. There, cupped in her palm, a flame of light, of spirit finally summoned, danced.

  Persephone asked, “May I come in?”

  * * *

  ARIEL WAY HAD woken early. She often slept, like a cat, in long, luxurious snatches of time. Her naps usually left her clear-eyed and focused, but for the past few weeks she had slept fitfully.

  Her sister was barely sleeping at all.

  When Ellison did sleep, she spoke from within the confines of a dream, rhapsodizing of coming storms and a doorway she needed to keep locked. Ariel watched her sister lose weight even as she denied there was a problem at all.

  Such was the way of the Way women.

  Before her mother had gone off with their aunt to foolishly try and bend the rules around the curse, she’d stopped sleeping. It happened a month after her mother had an affair with a sandy-haired fisherman with a toothy smile and bright eyes. A man who her mother—her bold, rash, and independent mother—begged to stay on the island. Ariel had overheard their conversation after coming home later than usual one night. She’d spent the evening making out with Laurel, who had recently broken up with her college boyfriend, and was—Ariel was fairly certain—stringing her along. She was distracted, her crush on Laurel being no small thing, and didn’t realize anyone was on the porch. When she heard her mom plead with the man to stay, Ariel nearly fell into the water.

  He was the first man her mother had gotten lust drunk over, and in the end his leaving is what Ariel was certain led her mother to do it. Try to fracture the curse. She didn’t believe her mother thought she and her aunt would succeed. No, she believed her mother wanted to fail, to get thrown off island, tossed into the sea like a siren so she could be on her way to tracking that man down.

  That she left without a word told Ariel everything.

  Now Ellison wasn’t sleeping and that damn curse was threatening to fuck everything up yet again.

  Ariel sat in the attic on her favorite tree trunk of a stool, turning her attention to the little automaton who knelt before her. He was a delightful beastie, with his golden eyes and green pants and suspenders. Something about the breadth of his shoulders reminded her of someone. Perhaps a leading man she had once seen in a black-and-white movie.

  The mechanical man she created had been ordered by one of her favorite couples who came on island each May. As Ariel worked the final wires together, she added the little jacket she’d sewn the week before and set the little man before the great oval window. “Time to wake up, my friend.”

  She turned the switch in the back, at the base of his neck, and waited for his whirring and burring to commence
. He creaked and groaned, and there was an unexpected flash of green light. Ariel leaned forward, squinting at where the light went in.

  “Shit,” Ariel said, leaning back. She had purposefully kept her magic at bay while working on him, trying to keep the pocus out. It was difficult not to use her power, but she had long ago learned magic, like her heart, like love itself, was not to be blindly trusted.

  Ariel glanced at the mechanical lady she’d been working on for a young woman who had commissioned it for her mother’s birthday. In the new light, she realized the lady, like the mechanical man, also looked familiar. Too familiar.

  It was the dark eyes and curly hair, the combination of Italian and Spanish ancestry gorgeously showcased by sharp cheekbones and a full mouth. She’d been so absorbed in her work she hadn’t realized she had created a miniature Hyacinth from memory without even trying.

  Growling out a frustrated curse, Ariel set the female automaton aside. She’d figure out what to do with her later. For now, she focused on the whirring man, and how his eyes lit as he creaked his head to one side and blinked his slow methodical blink at her.

  “Ah, there we are,” Ariel said.

  He opened and shut his mouth, turned his head from left to right and lifted his chin up and down. Satisfied with his range of motion, Ariel reached out to turn him off when his mouth opened again and a word tumbled out in a voice as real as any curse could be.

  He said simply, “Persephone.”

  Ariel’s scalp tingled and she looked across the room. The female automaton’s eyes opened and her lips curved into a twisted, mechanical smile.

  * * *

  “PERSEPHONE.” DORIAN STARED at her, blinking rapidly. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I got your note.”

  He reached a hand out, hesitated, and dropped it.

  “What?” Persephone asked, wanting to step to him, afraid if she did he might disappear. Which was almost as ridiculous as her being able to cross time and space to stand outside his doorway.

  “Come in,” he said, and stepped out of the frame.

  Inside the library two navy wingback chairs sat in front of the wide-mouthed fireplace. A small table was pressed between them. Dorian waved a hand, and two cups appeared. Persephone crossed to the closest chair and studied the cup. The scent of cocoa and cinnamon rose up to greet her.

  “Library magic?”

  “One of the few perks.” He stood at his chair, and she realized he was waiting.

  Persephone sat, and he followed suit, lifting his cup to his lips on an almost smile. He drank deep, and the smile shifted up to his eyes. The corners creased, and Persephone studied his face. It was a combination of sharp angles and deep slashes—the cheekbones, nose, eyebrows, and then there were those wolf eyes. Dorian would never be cast as the hero of any story. Persephone liked that about him.

  She sank back into the seat, and took a sip from the mug. “Oh,” she said, delighted. She drank again. “Hot chocolate.”

  “Spiced chocolate,” he corrected. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  “I’ve worked in coffee shops,” Persephone said, thinking about how that life was worlds away from where she was now. “The air would sometimes smell like this tastes. Do you like coffee?”

  “I prefer sweet to savory.”

  She nodded into her mug, and watched him drum his fingers across the top of the chair. Was he nervous?

  “I don’t…” His fingers now ran along his jawline, drawing her gaze. “I haven’t shared a drink with someone in some time.”

  Persephone looked over to the fire, at how the tips of the flames wavered blue. She thought about the endless cups of coffee and tea she had steeped and served. Not once had she sat down to have a cup with anyone. Not even Deandra or Larkin.

  “Me either,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been in a library either. I’d be terrified to bring water inside, let alone something that could spill and stain. Most librarians are…” She trailed off, a laugh gurgling in the back of her throat.

  “Are what?”

  “Terrifying,” she said, the laugh bubbling over and out.

  Dorian raised a brow, and the laugh turned into a cough.

  “I don’t know if I should be flattered or flummoxed,” he said, and scratched his chin. “I think I’m offended.”

  Persephone let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “You’re scary enough,” she said.

  “And yet.”

  “And yet?”

  “Here you sit,” he said, his dark eyes piercing as they met hers.

  Persephone lifted the cup and drank, trying very hard not to react. There was so much of Dorian, it was like he was surrounding her in the room, rather than sitting across from her.

  His gaze dropped to her hands and she cleared her throat. “Why did you send me the note?”

  “I shouldn’t have sent it,” Dorian said, leaning forward. “But I needed to warn you.”

  She set the cup down with a clatter. “Warn me?”

  He nodded. “You aren’t safe on the island.”

  Persephone frowned. “Not safe how?”

  Dorian stood up, crossed to the fireplace, and then walked back to her. “There’s too much in the way.” He gave his head a small shake. “I can’t see it all, but I see enough.”

  “Enough of what?”

  “Dark magic. Something’s coming.”

  Indecision hung thick in the air. It clouded Persephone’s senses and sent her heart thumping. She climbed to her feet. She took a step forward, and for an impossible moment, Persephone thought he would reach for her.

  Dorian kept his hands at his side, but stepped closer. He smelled of ink and rain, of pages drying with story and a crackling fire roaring to life. Persephone met his eyes and he smiled—the finest, truest smile she’d ever seen. She held his gaze for the longest seconds of her life before his smile faded and he stepped away.

  “There are shadows clinging to your edges, trying to break free. I can’t see enough to know what they mean, and until I do, you have to stop testing time and space. You have to take care.”

  “Shadows?” Persephone lifted a hand and tugged at the chain of her hourglass necklace. “Like the one the Way witches sent after me?”

  “The Ways?” Dorian shook his head. “It’s not their fate trying to undo yours. No, this is something else. The curse and something … hidden from me.”

  “How do I fight what I can’t see?” Persephone asked, her irritation growing with each word. She wanted clarity, needed to understand.

  “I’m looking,” Dorian said, and this time he did not hesitate. He reached out, and brushed a hand along the edges of her hair, cupping the strands. She wanted to lean in, press her nose to his palm, breathe him in. “If I can find out,” he said, “I will call for you.”

  A crash sounded from somewhere deep in the library, and Dorian stepped back. A gust of wind rose up from inside the room and pushed its way toward the far wall. Books dropped to the floor and scattered, their pages bucking, spines cracking.

  Persephone backed away from it, stepping to the door.

  “Dorian.”

  “It’s fine. You need to go.” He stared deep into her eyes. “You have to go.”

  She swallowed hard around the sudden sense of loss, and crossed through the door.

  “Don’t follow the wind,” Dorian shouted over the rising noise. He gave Persephone one last look, and pushed the door closed behind her.

  Persephone tried to call for him, but time sped up and dissolved around her. She stumbled back and found herself standing in the center of town, on the cobblestone path.

  She looked up to find she was facing a grim-looking Ellison Way.

  * * *

  ELLISON HAD BEEN pacing the beach when she’d seen the flash in the attic. It was the same green she’d seen in her vision, the one where the island was drowning. For weeks she had been having nightmares of the island sinking into the ocean whenever she fell asleep, and now
understood what the nightmare meant. She had been wrong to dismiss the red-haired witch.

  Persephone May was the faceless witch she’d been dreaming of, the one who brought them to their knees and sent them down deep into the slumbering waters of the Atlantic.

  As soon as Ellison saw the flash of green, she knew. The blasted curse was a ticking clock of a time bomb, and everything had shifted once the witch set foot on Wile Isle. First it was the little lightning storms stalking Ariel and Ellison during their afternoon walks on the beach after Persephone arrived. Then it was the dead fish washing up on their shore. And last night droves of fireflies with green lights for tails had chased Ellison inside from her evening tea on the porch. Ellison had even taken to wearing an enchanted face mask when checking their magical perimeter to keep the overgrown gnats from darting into her mouth.

  Yes, Ellison had been a fool, and she had been wrong. Something must be done, and Ellison decided she was the one to do the doing. As a witch, she knew what was to be would be. The only thing to do was cower … or meet it face on. For all her faults, and she felt she had many, Ellison never cowered.

  Not when jellyfish swarmed the shore and she had to convince them to return to the depths, not when drunken louts wandered too close to her house during the summer months and needed to be charmed back off the island, not even when the Goddess showed her the vision of her mother’s death ten years before and the only thing Ellison could do was bear witness and protect her sister from the devastating truth.

  No, Ellison was not the sort to shrink from the fates. Throwing on her warmest cloak, and bespelling her sister in the attic to keep her safe, Ellison left the house, and her post as guardian over the ocean and the beach, and headed into town.