Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  ‘Another path for the Finnish tradition,’ Mum explained, ‘is anger. We harness the energy of rage to reach inside the space – although the idea is to make yourself angry in order to make magic, not be angry and have magic happen, which probably happened last night.’ Mum now looked a little more than angry herself. ‘Maybe you didn’t understand the lesson, or were too young when Nanna taught you. I’m very cross that she’d teach you things behind my back.’ Concerned, she added, ‘I don’t have to ask if anyone saw? At the magazine launch?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to divulge to Mum any more than I already had.

  ‘It must have been terrifying,’ said Mum. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Her expression looked genuine but it wasn’t enough for me to let down my guard. I thought of Nanna and the bird in the tureen, the games with the crystals … and the universe of information that she’d poured into my head on Friday night. The things she could teach me now, Mum had said, her lifetime of knowledge.

  ‘I’ve had visions too,’ I said cautiously. ‘When I was at Nikki’s I thought a statue was talking to me. Nanna didn’t teach me about anything like that.’

  ‘Was this the night with the peach oil? Were you messing around with other things? Who were these people from school?’

  ‘Just the girls from my group. They didn’t hear the voices or anything – to them it was just a game – but I—’

  ‘I’m relieved to learn they’re amateurs, but, please, never trust anything that smells like peaches – it’s a truth serum.’

  ‘I guessed that,’ I told her. ‘I also got some peppermint oil on my forehead.’

  ‘Soph, now you know, you really have to be more careful mucking around with this stuff. Peppermint oil is a very potent psychic chemical. It makes your brain receptive to energy fields created or enhanced by magic. You are coated with spells – protections, like your amulet – that have been cast on you from the day you were born. It means your aura, your own energy field, is quite enriched. When two kinds of energy come into close contact, sometimes there is a magical reaction. It’s not the result of Will, so the effects can be very unpredictable and sometimes dangerous.’

  I thought of shattering windows, burning streets and flocks of murderous crows. The boy coated in dark magic.

  ‘Contact with peppermint oil would create a reaction with you and I’d say the statue probably also had some kind of coating that you picked up on in your altered state. Was it a glimpse of the future?’

  ‘Past,’ I evaded. ‘Some weird stuff that had gone down in Nikki’s family.’

  Mum sighed. ‘Whatever it was, don’t dwell on it – it’s just an echo you’ve managed to overhear and it has nothing to do with you.’

  I knew a visitation from an apparition that spoke to me by name was no echo, but I continued to keep my mouth shut.

  ‘So many things I would have liked to explain to you, and teach you, but your father …’ Mum twisted a curl of hair around her finger, her mind obviously somewhere else. ‘Thank God, all over now. A bind unpicked by your single question – isn’t that funny?’

  I half-smiled.

  ‘Dad just wanted to protect you, in his own lumpy way,’ Mum said. ‘The more knowledge you have, the more power you have over your world. Many, many people want that power – more than could ever be trusted to use it wisely. That’s why we stay hidden. A witch’s greatest treasures are the jewels she keeps in her head, and more people than you realise are willing to crack open some skulls to dig them out. Your grandmother has fought many battles to keep her knowledge safe.’

  ‘I know about the witch hunts and the tortures,’ I said, trying to sound as though I’d learned it at school, ‘about Witchfinders.’

  My mother’s young face grew shadowed. ‘Yes, they’re still around. They’re always a threat, but there are also factions within the witches, and old, old tensions amongst them. In the Burning Times, most of the victims were ordinary midwives, or girls messing around with herbs and love potions, but some of the Strix worked with the Finders to enact old revenges on clans like ours. And no family that survived has forgotten that.’

  ‘What are “Strix”?’

  Mum now had a smile as cold as the cement under our feet. The boulevard was curling around the bay and I saw we were nearly at the park. The sky was grey, like a metaphor of this strange netherworld I was entering. I noticed Mum’s lips tremble; she was picking her words before she spoke.

  ‘There is a spectrum,’ she said finally. ‘Like in politics: whatever country you are in, you have progressives and conservatives and most people find themselves somewhere in the middle but there are extremes at either end. With witches it is the same – whether you are Australian or Finnish or Spanish or African – and we are on all continents, we are within every culture – you reach an age and decide where your preferences lie. Our clan, the Otsos, we think of ourselves as shaman, wise women … healers and blessers, protectors. We pick flowers, dance in stone circles, play drums … but the Strix choose to worship older gods, and their tastes run to darker magics.’

  ‘Darker magics like what?’ I asked.

  ‘Curses,’ said Mum. ‘Destructions. Sacrifices. They use spells and rituals that I would not describe as cruelty-free. They call our side Befanii. Befana is the name of the mythical Italian witch who gives good children gifts at Christmas, like Santa Claus – and, of course, the Strix mean it as an insult, but we claim it. They can call us what they like – at least we’re not defined by bloodletting.’

  My mind returned to that little room in Snake Bar, the claw marks, the bleeding man.

  ‘So Befanii do only good stuff?’ I said to Mum. There was a need for assurance in my voice that my mother did not hear.

  She stared out over the water, a strand of her hair buoyed in the breeze. ‘Oh, everyone’s capable of both, in certain circumstances,’ she said.

  I dropped my eyes to the cement. As we walked silently to the park, I remembered the boy covered in bees, and my mother’s hand twisting the stomach of a wooden artist model when we were in a bookstore, making a man scream and fall down dead.

  36

  There were more questions I wanted to ask, but I was tired now as well as overwhelmed. I couldn’t choose my words as carefully as I wanted to, so I remained silent. We ambled around the park, mostly not talking. My mother, when she did speak, told stories of my childhood rather than of witchcraft and the magic world.

  It was odd to hear someone who looked like a stranger talk so intimately about the time I got a grass rash or fell off a swing. I started to feel uncomfortable and it was another burden to my already burdened mind. Dad as a witch-trapper? Nanna as some kind of hardcore sorceress? I’d seen Nanna in action on Friday night, and I guessed that whatever was done to my mind amongst the oils and candles and the Circle that evening had given her the opportunity to enter my head. Dad, on the other hand, I knew only as a suburban accountant and my image of him could not shift.

  As Mum and I walked home I thought of Brody and the magical reaction between us; it wasn’t, I guessed, based purely on attraction. Ashley too had said something about him being coated – that first time he and I had smiled at each other in class Ashley had started bleeding. I wondered whether, with the knowledge my grandmother had given me, knowledge so powerful it had almost killed her to transmit it, I’d be able to ‘uncoat’ him. If the dark magic on Brody meant bad luck just to be near him, I marvelled that fooling around in the book room hadn’t killed us both.

  I was so preoccupied as we crossed back into the familiar suburban street I almost didn’t notice my mother’s long hair shrink back into its short, neck-length curls, her hips grow plump again, and her face weather back to its real age. By the time we reached the gate of Nanna’s villa complex, she looked like the woman I knew – although, I realised with a jolt, I didn’t in fact know my mother at all.

  ‘Do you want me to teach you things?’ she asked, opening the gate. ‘When Nanna’s out of hosp
ital and our lives are less out of order? You’re a bit old for orthodox Instruction, but if you want to learn about our family …’

  ‘I just need time to process everything,’ I said. ‘It’s overwhelming.’

  ‘Yes, of course. And there’s no need to overwhelm everybody,’ my mother said, smiling gently at me.

  I saw, without her realising it, her lips quiver with some silent incantation and her fingers make a delicate movement, as if she were turning a key in a lock. My lips felt a twinge like they were being twisted together and shut.

  As Mum walked into the house, I followed slowly behind her. While her back was turned, I hummed my own silent tune and the lock she’d put on my mouth popped open, out of her sight.

  37

  I clambered into the camp bed in the study and slept for some hours without dreams. It was more of a dream to pretend that everything was normal when I came downstairs later, had chicken sandwiches at the dining room table and recounted what had happened with Lauren to Dad. Mum poured orange juice into glasses as if ribbons had never shot out of her eyeballs, as though she’d never attacked a small boy with bees.

  Dad was clearly upset about Lauren and spoke to me about it again when we were driving back to Yarrindi. I could tell he just needed assurance I wasn’t traumatised or, worse, hiding the fact that something similar had happened to me. Gentle, dorky David Morgan showed a bit too much concern for me to believe he was some kind of evil manipulator. Almost laughing, I was about to lean over and say, ‘I know Mum’s a witch and she says you trapped her,’ but my mother’s words sounded in my head: Everyone’s capable of both, in certain circumstances.

  Capable of trapping a witch, if you loved her. Capable of slicing open a man’s face, if he attacked your best friend.

  And I looked at Dad, and I thought: If I was you and in love with Mum, I’d probably want her trapped in a binding spell too. I noticed how bloodless his hands were on the steering wheel and decided that Dad was too freaked out by what happened to Lauren last night for us to have this discussion now.

  Thinking about Lauren made me pull my phone out of my bag. I was worried that the police may had called, but there was only a text message from Lucy: She’s home, sleeping it off. Thank you – for everything. Will keep in touch.

  My thumb hovered over the keys.

  You know I’m good at keeping secrets, Lauren had said.

  Thinking of you, I wrote to Lauren, and put my phone away.

  I was still tired in the car, and when we weren’t that far out of Sydney, my head slumped against the window and I entered some kind of half-sleep. When I heard my father say, ‘Do you want some dinner or to get straight into bed?’ I opened my eyes to Boronia Road at sunset.

  Once in the house, I told Dad I could maybe manage a cup of tea. I offered to make a pot for us both and raided my mother’s canisters for some ginseng. I hummed softly above the steaming cups – a little spellsong I knew would make us both sleep heavily and well. Dad turned on the TV, but I watched it without following anything.

  It was only just after ten pm when I got into my own bed. The tea was working a beige-coloured liquid magic that would give me fresh energy for the morning. Settling into bed – at last – I found myself quite looking forward to catching the bus the next morning, attending rollcall, enduring forty pointless minutes of Maths and doing all the other things that normal people did.

  The room was still. I had the blinds open over the window and I could hear on a gentle wind the distant sound of waves crashing, a breeze through trees, the echoes of trucks on the highway. As my brain slowed towards sleep, I heard Dad flick off the television in the lounge room and make his way into bed. His door shut. The house was silent – but my eyes didn’t close.

  The room’s dark blue glow was from the half-moon, starlight and distant streetlights. I knew, if I looked, I would be able to see the chicken blood smeared in the corner of the room glowing a pale orange, like a night-light, and while I knew that the blood being there meant that room was safe – it was sealed, my mind corrected – something was not letting me sleep. Nothing moved in the room, but I crossed my arms over my chest in a gesture of self-protection.

  Something was coming.

  I snuggled into my sheets and blankets. I tried to feel warm in my nightgown, to convince myself that whatever I sensed was just a faint echo – something that didn’t concern me. I was overtired, I was overtuned. Maybe it was all in my head.

  My hand went to my pendant. It didn’t speak to me; through my fingers I felt Izek’s taint on it. His remnant energy emitted a buzz – a faint one, but strong enough to stop it from communicating. I had to wash it. No, my mind corrected again, I had to bury it in earth, pass it through air, wash it with salt water and then charge it in smoke. I clung at it anyway.

  The buzz, I noticed after a few seconds, was growing stronger. In the stillness of the room, the almost imperceptible tremble of the stone was like a bow strung against a violin. My heart was beating faster. I clamped my eyes shut.

  Something was coming to the window.

  I shoved my head into the pillows. I was sealed in this room. The chicken blood glowed protective magic. Whatever it was couldn’t hurt me in here. My breaths became quick and I heard a rustle outside the window. Whatever it was, it was crawling up the jasmine vine. I clung to my buzzing pendant so tightly I thought that the bones were going to pop out of my hand. There was a scratching at the windowsill. I couldn’t remember if I’d closed the window – I was too frightened to look. My eyes stayed shut. I knew a song, a song to keep things away. I sang it to myself. My pendant seemed to writhe in my hand. Go away, I sang. Go away. The tune was pleading.

  Open the window, came a non-human voice, inches from my ear at the windowsill. Something was sitting there, bending its face towards me.

  Go away, I stammered, the notes falling out of the song.

  Fear makes your spells weak, Sophie, said the voice. Get up.

  ‘No!’ I said. I realised the coldness on my shoulders was a breeze coming through an opening in the window.

  Get up! it barked.

  My eyes flew open. I sat up with a bolt. In the second I’d planned to slam down the window, the mighty crow hopped in the air and spread its wings in a fluttering black span.

  I shrieked from surprise – the fear was gone. Izek – the crow that was Izek – hovered before the window for a few seconds and then lifted himself up, flapping towards the back of the garden into the sky. At a distance, he cawed. I opened the window to watch him circle and land on a dark shape. I leaned forward.

  He’d landed on an arm. The person who owned the arm walked towards my window.

  ‘Get some clothes on,’ said Ashley Ventwood in a quiet voice.

  38

  ‘You frightened me!’ I scolded, once I’d changed into some old jeans and a jumper and hoisted myself through the window. My foot, with a sneaker on it, had sunk into soft earth beneath the window and I tried to drag the dirt off it as I walked across the grass to where Ashley was standing. Izek was perched on her shoulder.

  ‘I would have texted but I don’t have your number,’ she said as I approached.

  ‘If I give it to you, will you not, like, stalk me in the garden?’

  She bowed down suddenly and scooped something from the ground. Izek fluttered on her shoulder. I couldn’t clearly see her facial features, but I heard her sniff.

  ‘The thyme lawn is handy to know about,’ she said, putting the clump of herbs at her nose into her pocket. ‘She’s rather a fortress-builder, your mother, isn’t she? It’s a very English garden for a Finnish witch. But, of course, we’re all globalised now. Love the crab-apple trees. I hope you make jam.’

  ‘What do you want?’ I said, annoyed.

  ‘We’re going for a walk. Izek told you we’d be coming around. Fun party, I heard,’ she said, walking towards the gate to the driveway. Her feet made no sound as she walked.

  ‘Actually, while Izek gave me a Mediaeval Hi
story 101, two perverts tried to rape my best friend.’

  ‘But you stopped them.’

  My hand slid to my hip. ‘Why do you think I’m prepared to follow you out in the middle of the night?’

  ‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ Ashley replied. ‘And it’ll be fun. Come on.’ She silently held the gate open while I walked through and sidled past Dad’s car in the driveway.

  ‘I turned into a bear,’ I told her at the end of the driveway. ‘Did you and Izek know that was going to happen?’

  ‘You’re a Salainen,’ she said. ‘It’s a family trait. An Otso trait – I’ve never really gotten used to knowing your grandmother as a Salainen. Don’t worry about last night, jel’enedra; Izek said you did very well. Apparently, one of the men almost died.’

  I almost choked on shame. We were walking towards the junction with Frankston, on the tarmac of the road. I tried not to look at the scorched houses as we passed. Some were still cordoned off with police tape. I noticed Ashley was wearing her Goth makeup, a black jumper and a black shirt with black leggings. She had a pair of black Converse sneakers on that were identical to mine. She looked like her young self; a glamour, I understood now, like my mother’s. ‘Did Izek attack my grandmother?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘He went to talk to her. The stupid neighbour caused the accident when he came to interfere.’

  ‘Talk to my grandmother about what?’

  Izek fluttered on Ashley’s shoulder. ‘About you. We were worried there’d be trouble with the boy, and we were right.’

  ‘Because he’s coated?’

  ‘I gather you know what that means now.’

  I didn’t want to tell her how. ‘I learn fast.’

  ‘Certainly,’ she said with a dark smirk. ‘I liked your “go away” spell but Izek’s right, fear makes you weak – it confuses the Will. They’ve clearly taught you some things but not others.’ She looked at me. ‘Seems they didn’t even tell you what they were teaching, which confuses me, given the family you’re from. Your mother always was a black sheep … or a black bear, rather. I gather the bird storm might have forced a family conversation. Let’s hope the tricks you’re learning aren’t too little too late. Izek and I are, of course, here to help. Hence the visit.’