The Witch Collector Part I

by Loretta Nyhan

  I woke up with a crick in my neck. Security lights from the apartment building next door kept the room from fully darkening, and everything seemed covered in a cool gray film, including me. I tossed around in the bed for a few minutes, trying to get back to sleep, but only managed to tangle the sheets.

  I padded to the bathroom, turned on the light, and found myself blinking at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. Surprisingly, I looked pretty normal. Better than normal, even. The whites of my eyes were neon bright, contrasting with the dark brown of my irises. Unlike my mother’s, the skin underneath was smooth and didn’t show any sign of our sleepless nights on the road.

  How long had I slept? I quickly redid my braid and walked to the kitchen. The clock above the stove said 8:03.

  That was it?

  I tiptoed to my parents’ room and placed an ear against the door. Nothing but the faint sound of my dad’s snoring. As much as I wanted to knock on the door, I didn’t have the heart to wake them up. Our talk would have to wait.

  My stomach couldn’t, though. It had moved past the growling phase and had resorted to pushing itself against my rib cage in protest. I made my way back to the kitchen and stuck my nose in the fridge. I hoped Aunt Evie had a thing for sushi or ready-to-micro burritos.

  She didn’t. Expired milk, OJ, yogurt, a block of unpronounceable French cheese covered in mold. Eggs. Ketchup. Some murky sludge in a jar marked “Do Not Eat.”

  How long had it been since Evie lived here?

  I could take a chance and whip up some scrambled eggs, but I didn’t want to make any noise and wake up my mom. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but if I wanted to help, I needed to let her rest. I’d have to go out.

  I pulled two twenties from my mom’s purse and shoved them in my jeans pocket. Then I brushed my teeth, swabbed some more lemongrass deodorant under my arms, and ran my mom’s berry-colored lipstick over my mouth. I didn’t pay that much attention to makeup, but this was a different city, and for some reason I wanted to look like a different person while exploring it. Nothing about this neighborhood reminded me of Portland, but maybe that was exactly what I needed. To take a break from all the wondering. To forget.

  I walked down Sacramento Boulevard, figuring if I kept my path simple I wouldn’t get lost. The pointed spire of St. Sylvester’s made the perfect landmark up ahead, its peak stretching just beyond the roofs of the surrounding buildings.

  The night still held on to the day’s warmth—not what I was expecting from Chicago in the spring. Women wore funky dresses and ballet flats, or jeans with running shoes. The men walking beside them wore polos and cargo shorts. I fit in, though my thin T-shirt and rolled jeans were more surfer-chick than urban explorer. My ballet flats slipped against the cement, catching occasionally on the uneven sidewalk. I’d put them on in Oregon because I wanted to wear something nice to the training center. I thought about the comfortable hiking shoes sitting in my closet back home. Hopefully, we’d return before I had to replace them.

  I kept walking but soon realized I was going to have to turn at some point. Sacramento was pretty residential. The upcoming intersection showed only more apartment buildings. I stopped at the mouth of an alley, trying to figure out which way to go.

  Then I saw the sign.

  Fresh—Organic—Local

  And Cheap!

  Belladonna’s—Logan Square’s Best-Kept Secret!

  Open Late!

  An arrow pointed down a well-lit alley to my right. I followed it.

  The entrance to the restaurant faced the alley, which—given the many rat warnings posted on the telephone poles—seemed a little unhygienic. It looked cozy, though, with paisley café curtains and a bright yellow door held open with a ceramic frog. The aroma of roasting chicken filled the air and drew me in.

  “Welcome, welcome,” said the pretty woman behind the 1950s-style counter, her curly, dark blond hair held back by a pink bandanna. “Sit wherever you’d like.”

  The tables, covered in gingham cloth and topped by flickering candles, were mostly free of customers. A skinny guy wearing all black sat on a tiny stage in the corner of the room, distractedly strumming a guitar. I was tempted to sit and give him a real audience, but too much time had passed and I needed to get back.

  “Do you have carryout?” I asked.

  The woman looked up from the saltshakers she was filling. “Sure thing,” she said, smiling broadly and reaching into her apron. “Here’s a menu. Let me know what you decide.”

  My book of spells was probably shorter than the menu. It listed entrée after entrée, and the hunger raging at my stomach took away my ability to think. “Umm . . . I think I have kind of a big order. . . .”

  “Then a little appetizer first, no?” With a wink she handed me a caprese sandwich wrapped halfway in wax paper. “Here’s a pen. Why don’t you sit down and decide what you want. Go ahead and mark up the menu.”

  She eyed the guitarist, who’d mustered enough energy to launch into an unfortunate rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

  “On second thought, across the alley is the back entrance to the Friends and Neighbors Garden,” she continued. “There’s not much to look at this time of year, but at least it’s quiet.”

  I said my thanks and headed back outside, chomping on my sandwich.

  The gate to the garden was open, and I slipped inside. It was fairly well lit, the streetlights bathing the space in a weak glow. I sat down on the bench closest to the alley and looked around. In a few weeks this place would be beautiful, but now it was nearly bare, the decay of winter still overpowering the few plants brave enough to poke through the hardened dirt.

  I studied the menu. Everything sounded so good and reminded me of home. Potato-leek soup with dandelion greens. Farm-raised chicken roasted with root vegetables. Cheesecake topped with fresh-picked strawberries. It was too much.

  A deep, masculine voice cut into my thoughts. “What are you doing?”

  I bolted upright, whipping my head around.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” the voice teased. “You can do better. I’ve seen you do better.”

  It was coming from the alley on the other side of the park. And it sounded strangely, and comfortingly, familiar.

  Clutching the menu and half-eaten sandwich, I moved quickly to where the low stone wall lining the back of the garden met the corner of the building next to it. With my body shielded from view, I tucked my head around the edge of the brick and had a look.

  There were three kids there. A few years older than me, scruffy, and . . . witches. It wasn’t the voice I’d recognized, but the magic. My body hummed with it, the pleasant jolts of electricity skipping through my veins, like it always had since I was a girl.

  Some might call our ability to recognize other witches a sixth sense, but that would imply a certain degree of uncertainty. And we were never uncertain.

  Gavin said this proved we weren’t human. Witches had long debated exactly where we fit in biologically. If we weren’t human, we were pretty close. We ate and slept and cried and laughed. We fell in love and had babies and grew old. We looked the same. We died the same.

  But inside, there was no denying things were very different. Where a human interacted with the natural world, we had it residing within us, producing gifts regular people could only fantasize about. And therein lay the danger. When we accidentally revealed these gifts, humans couldn’t explain them away with logic, so they called them crimes. The days of burning a witch at the stake may belong to history, but there were other ways of killing a witch. Locking someone up in jail or a mental-health facility, far from the sun and moon and Earth, was just as effective. That was part of the reason why my parents had always told me they’d left their coven to join Gavin’s coven in rural Oregon—to keep us safe.

  But these witches seemed to have no fear of discovery. The girl had a small ball of fire rolling on the ground, one hand resting lightly on the pendant circling her neck. Her hair, a mess o
f honey-colored curls, gleamed under the harsh glare of the streetlight. Her face resembled something from Greek mythology—hooded eyes, a strong nose, and a thin, turned-up mouth, like a cat’s. She kept the fireball moving, faster and faster in a tight circle until it was a blur of orange and red.

  “It should be bigger,” said the guy whose voice I heard earlier. His back was to me, yet the playfulness in his tone made me think he must be grinning.

  “I’ve been saying that about you for years,” the girl countered, a smile playing at her lips. The fireball shot into the air, dripping sparks on a hulking blond guy sitting against a garage door. His face looked ruddy in the harsh light, and the whitish-yellow hair spiking off his head was thin.

  “Cut it out, Shelley,” he said. His focus on a block of cement lying between his outstretched legs was like a laser. He touched the stone hanging from a leather cord around his thick neck, and the cement block cracked in two.

  “Stop being so grouchy,” the girl said. Her fireball disintegrated, leaving a faint smokiness in the air. She released her talisman, brought her hands to her hips, and turned to the standing boy. “Let’s go, Miro. If my mom catches us out here, I’ll be on dish duty for a week.”

  “I would, but there’s a problem,” he replied, taking a step backward. His voice held the outline of an accent, like he was born here, but inherited it anyway.

  “What is it now?” the blond guy asked with a groan.

  “We . . . have . . . a . . . spy!” Miro whipped around and I shrieked, dropping the menu on the stone wall. The sandwich fell over the side, landing on the concrete with a thud. The rats would get their dinner tonight.

  He looked at me through half-lowered lids, his chin jutting forth, challenging me to do . . . what? Magic?

  So I did nothing but stare. Miro wasn’t beautiful like Brandon was, but interesting, as if each of his features held secrets only the very lucky got to hear. His dark brown hair was long, curling over the collar of his white shirt. Leather cords circled his neck, one holding an opaque stone of the lightest blue.

  He cupped the talisman at his throat and smiled. The menu sailed into the air, folding into the shape of a bird as it rose. It flew up to the streetlights and down to settle on Shelley’s curls. She swatted at it and the paper bird took off once more, only to land on my shoulder.

  “What’s your name?” Miro asked in the same low, teasing tone as before. His top lip raised in a natural sneer.

  The paper bird flapped its wings against my hair. I slowly raised my hand to my shoulder, and the bird hopped on it. When I lowered my arm, it perched daintily on my index finger. “Breeda,” I said, croaking out the word. My throat felt dry.

  He took a step closer. “Well, Breeda,” he said, “show us what you’ve got.”

  “All right, Miro. Leave the poor girl alone,” Shelley warned. “We’ve got to get inside.”

  Miro took another step toward me. His eyes looked black, the color of coals, but that could have been a trick of the light. “Show us some magic,” he demanded.

  I swallowed. “I can’t.”

  “You can, but you won’t.”

  A woman’s voice called into the night. “Shelley?”

  “Seriously, Miro,” Shelley said, the name becoming a threat. “We need to go.”

  He didn’t turn, but stayed completely still, watching me. “Well?”

  I wanted to drop a rainstorm on his head. I wanted to send a raging gust of wind to blow the smirk from his face. I wanted to do something. Every bit of me yearned for it.

  The bird lifted off my finger and floated upward, toward the streetlamp. It flittered above our heads and circled once before dropping a gray bomb onto Miro’s shoulder. The poop splattered when it hit his shirt, dripping down his chest.

  He doubled over, the sound of his surprised laughter filling the alley. “Nice one!” he managed to get out.

  My throat was too tight for any laughter to escape. Had I done that? It didn’t make sense. Opening things was my gift. It had to be. I’d helped my mother with the door. No one had more than one gift. It was impossible.

  Shelley grabbed Miro’s arm and tugged. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, obviously sensing an opportunity. Miro saluted me with his free hand and then took off with the others, running around the corner of the small park, toward Belladonna’s. The two boys disappeared around the fence, but Shelley turned at the last minute and winked at me.

  She must have done that with the bird. It had to have been her. But hadn’t I just seen her manage fire?

  The menu at my feet looked completely normal, not a wrinkle or stain on it. I picked it up with trembling hands and shoved it in my pocket. There was no way I was going back into that restaurant. Their magic still thrummed through my body, waves of hot and cold coating me in a film of chilled sweat. I stumbled toward the garden’s street entrance, a deep, sharp pain slicing into my diaphragm with each breath. Then I fell onto the gate, curled my hands over the cool iron bars, and puked.

  “Help,” I said, choking on the word. No passersby could hear me, and what would I do if someone did? I couldn’t explain it. I tried inhaling and exhaling like my mom had explained, but the world still spun, dizzying me, and I saw stars.

  “That one belongs to us,” Brandon said, pointing at a star just south of Pisces. We lay in our sleeping bags, shivering. At fifteen, we’d outgrown them, but hadn’t gotten around to asking for new ones.

  “How are some stars so much brighter?” I wondered aloud.

  “Maybe other people don’t see it that way,” Brandon murmured. “Maybe it’s shining just for us.”

  I’d just shut my eyes, about to drift into sleep to the sounds of the forest at night, when I felt Brandon’s hand reach for mine. “It’s ours,” he said. “It will always be ours.”

  The traffic on Sacramento Boulevard jolted me from the vision. I put a hand out to steady myself and turned toward the sky. It was impossible to see any stars. Not a single one.

  But I couldn’t think about that. I just had to get home.

  CHAPTER 5

  My legs, unsteady beneath me, seemed to belong to another person as I tripped down Sacramento. Fireworks of pain burst behind my eyes. What was wrong? Did magic really make a person this sick?

  I spotted the tip of St. Sylvester’s spire and kept it in my line of vision, not stopping, not looking when I crossed the street, not pausing when a man walking a Dalmatian asked if I needed help.

  What was happening to me? The question pummeled my thoughts, over and over, as our apartment came into view. My breathing turned ragged as I pushed open the gate and staggered up the walkway leading toward the front door.

  I didn’t have a key. My trembling hand hovered over the doorknob. Should I risk making myself worse?

  I did.

  The dead bolt opened with an echoing thunk. I bolted to the third floor, my stomach roiling with acidic bile. Once in the apartment I dashed for the bathroom and dry-heaved over the sink. When I stopped retching, I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth. Raising my head, I caught my reflection in the mirror and shivered. I was looking at a ghost. The deep purple smudges I recognized from below my mother’s eyes marred the skin under mine.

  We’d finished tilling my mother’s garden, the rows of rich, black soil straight and neat.

  Gavin withdrew an athame from the inside pocket of his jacket. The blade looked too dull to do much damage, but when he drew it across his palm a crimson line appeared. He tipped his hand, letting the blood drip. “Return my essence to the earth, give this garden life rebirth.”

  I stared at the red droplets slowly sinking into the dirt.

  Shaken by the vision, I lowered myself to the edge of the tub. I needed sleep. Real sleep—not a few hours grabbed at dusk. I bent to fish through my backpack, but it wasn’t there. Had my mom put it in my room? Was she awake?

  “Mom?”

  No answer.

  I stood on rubbery legs and somehow walked t
o my parents’ bedroom.

  The door was open a crack. “Mom? Dad?”

  Nothing.

  It was too late for privacy. I pushed at the door and it swung open, revealing an empty bed, the sheets wrapped in a tangled mess on the floor.

  The room still held my mother’s scent, a mix of jasmine and musk. It smelled of something else, too—sharp and metallic. I flicked on the light.

  Blood.

  A smudge across a pillowcase. A handprint on the wall by the radiator. A splash of crimson on the mirror.

  “Mom?” But I knew I wasn’t going to get a response. Panic clutched at my heart; my pulse roared in my ears.

  A noise, squawking and insistent, sounded outside. I backed into the living room, which shimmered with flickering red and blue lights.

  Someone had called the police.

  Policemen usually made witches nervous, but all I felt was relief to imagine someone might be able to help me. I stumbled down the stairs leading to the front door and tugged it open.

  A cop stood just outside the iron gates, his head tilted back, looking up at our apartment windows. His dark blue uniform melted into the night, and the streetlight illuminated his pale face.

  “Do you need help?” he called out.

  I ran to him, throwing open the gate. “My parents!” I shouted. “It’s my parents. They’re gone. There’s . . . blood.” I was barely making sense, tears catching in my ravaged throat.

  “Calm down,” he said.

  “They’re gone! We’re wasting time.” My mind reeled. “Shouldn’t you alert someone?”

  He stepped forward, placing a cold hand on my forearm. “They might still be in the apartment. Let’s go back inside.”

  It was then that I saw his eyes. The iris and pupil melded together, forming two black holes in a face the color of chalk. His fingers curled around my arm, gripping my flesh. My panic kicked into pure terror. I knew what he was. I’d never seen one before, but every witch had heard stories of demons. They were the stuff of our nightmares.

  “Right now,” he said tonelessly.

  I flung myself backward and kicked at the gate, trying to close it on him, but he was too fast and pulled me forward, drawing me in close. The foul stench of decomposing garbage hit my nostrils, and my stomach heaved.