by Dima Zales
Not that what they contained looked all that intriguing. An old out-of-date set of World Book encyclopedias, probably from when Great-Aunt Ruby’s sons were young. Books of fairytales. Some tattered paperbacks looking out of place amongst the more dignified hard-bound books, mysteries and some science fiction and a few more sensational titles like Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls.
Wow, Ruby…who knew?
Fighting back a smile, I pulled out what looked like a first edition Wizard of Oz and shook my head. How much must that be worth? It still wasn’t really what I was looking for, though, so I put it back. As I did so, my gaze fell on a slim book bound in dark red leather. It had no lettering on the spine, but I didn’t know whether that was because it never did or because it had worn off over the years.
Intrigued, I opened it up and saw that, instead of being filled with type, it was hand-written. I flipped over to the flyleaf and saw inscribed on the yellowed paper there, Ruby Lee McAllister, 1947. I did some quick mental math. This was her diary, and from her twenty-first year.
My heart started to beat a little faster. Now, maybe I shouldn’t read her diary at all, since it was private. Then again, how private could it be if she’d just left it out on the shelf in plain view of everyone? And there could be things she’d written down that would help me now. A lot had happened to her that year. If there was anything in that diary that could be of use, it would be silly of me to ignore it. For all I knew, she’d put it there precisely so I would find it once the house came to me.
With that rationalization to buoy me, I tucked the book under my arm, and slipped out of the library and down the hall to my room. After closing the door behind me, I climbed back into bed, plumped up my pillows so they’d give me good support while reading, then opened the book to its first page.
Mama took me into Cottonwood today to go shopping as part of my birthday treat. Yesterday was my real birthday, and everyone came over for cake and ice cream. How nice to have a birthday in August when ice cream is appropriate. While we were in Cottonwood, she bought me this book. She said twenty-one is special for any girl, but especially for the next clan prima. It’s in this year that I’ll meet my consort, and everything will change.
I stopped for a moment, thinking of pretty young Ruby with the Rita Hayworth waves and the red lipstick. She hadn’t been afraid of her future — she’d had no reason to be. She had her parents and the members of her clan, and seemed to look forward to being prima. Of course, back then she couldn’t have had any idea how long she would have to hold that post. The prima of her youth, Abigail McAllister, had died early. Rheumatic fever, I thought, but I couldn’t remember for sure. What I did recall was that Ruby had barely a year after meeting her consort before she had to take over as prima. There was no comfortable overlap period for her, either.
Frowning, I looked back down at the book and began to read again. A lot of what I saw really was just commonplaces — descriptions of some new dresses she’d bought, comments about the weather, write-ups of various clan parties and gatherings. Here and there she’d mention working magic, but it wasn’t something she particularly dwelled on, as if it was taken far more for granted than a pretty new pair of shoes.
Then, The first candidate came today. I didn’t like his looks much, but I knew I had to kiss him, just in case he turned out to be the consort. To my relief, he wasn’t. It’s funny to think that if any other girl were discovered to have kissed so many boys, people would think she was fast, but in my case it’s expected.
That entry was dated July 12, 1947. I flipped through a few more entries, until I came to a page dated a few weeks later where she wrote of meeting another candidate. This one didn’t work out, either, and I was disappointed, because he was handsome enough to be a movie star. My mother warned me that sometimes it can take a while to find the right one. I hope not, because right now I can’t decide which is worse, having to kiss someone you don’t like, or kissing someone you think you might like, only to find out he’s not the one, either.
I could definitely relate to that. But at least she didn’t have one of her cousins bugging her to marry him if the whole consort thing didn’t work out.
There was a gap of a week or so after that. She didn’t make any mention of why she’d skipped so much time, but I supposed she had decided to write an entry only when something really notable occurred. I could relate — I’d started a diary when I was around eleven, thinking I should get down all the fabulous details about my life. Only most of the details weren’t that fabulous, except for the whole talking to ghosts thing, and after a few weeks I’d given up and shoved the diary into a drawer, never to be looked at again.
Then, in late August, There were three candidates this week. None of them suited me, not one bit. I complained to Mother that this was turning out to be no fun at all. She only smiled at me and said the fun would begin once I found my consort. Maybe so, but whoever he is, I wish he would show up soon.
On the twenty-first of September, there was an entry about the town’s celebration of the autumn equinox, the second harvest. We still had these observances as well, and it didn’t sound as if they’d changed much in the last sixty-odd years — everyone gathered for large feasts, although back then it seemed those were spread out among individual households. These days we use Spook Hall for that, and of course back then wine-growing hadn’t yet taken hold in the area. She described drinking beer as if it were a delicious, semi-forbidden thing, with no mention of wine at all.
All this was an interesting slice of local history, I supposed, but I’d been hoping to find something more. All during October there were entries about more candidates, more kisses that went nowhere. I could commiserate with her predicament, but at least I knew her story had a happy ending — fifty years of marriage, two children, five grandchildren.
There was an entry on October thirtieth about her looking forward to the Samhain celebration, but she didn’t write anything again until November fifth. And on that one, her handwriting looked shaky and almost messy, whereas before it had been clean and neat. That was back when they cared about penmanship, I supposed, feeling slightly ashamed. My own handwriting was so bad that I block-printed anything that someone else would have to read.
I am safe.
I am safe.
I am safe.
There’s an old saying Mother told me once: “What I tell you three times is true.” So I imagine I wrote that down three times so I could give the notion a power of its own. Everyone is watching over me, and I know such a thing couldn’t possibly happen again. But I imagine I am getting ahead of myself.
I was so happy on Samhain eve. I put on a pretty dress, even though I knew my robes would cover it up. It was a warm day, almost too warm for late October, but I was determined to enjoy it, since I knew it would get cold soon enough.
I decided to walk down to Hull Avenue and look at the view from the little park there, since I was done with my chores for the day and didn’t have much else to occupy me. And it seemed fitting to go enjoy the sunshine on this last day before we went into the dark time between Samhain and Yule.
No one took much note of my going. I walked along in the sunshine and enjoyed the feel of the wind in my hair, even though I knew I’d have to give it a good brushing again once I got home. When I got to the park, it was deserted. Well, almost, anyway. A man I’d never seen before stood over by one of the stacked stone walls, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the view. A shiny black Cadillac was parked a few yards away from him.
I tried not to stare, but it was hard. We didn’t get a lot of strangers here in Jerome. Well, we got people driving through, as it was only one of two routes you could use to get from Prescott to Flagstaff, but they didn’t stop here much, except to get gas. And of those who did stop here, I’d never seen one who looked like this man. His hair was jet black and gleamed in the sunlight, and he had a profile that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a movie screen.
I looked away qu
ickly, but he must have noticed me. He smiled, and dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the dirt with the heel of his shiny black shoe, then said to me, “That’s a heck of a view, miss.”
“Yes,” I said cautiously, although talking about the view seemed safe enough.
He took a few steps toward me. “Are you from around here, miss?”
I nodded, not quite trusting myself to reply. Something about his dark eyes was mesmerizing. I tried to tell myself that I’d seen handsome men before, so it was silly for me to stand here and look at him like a mouse staring at a snake.
His smile widened. “You have a name, miss?”
Something was telling me not to answer, but the word popped out as if I couldn’t bear to keep it in any longer. “Ruby.”
“That’s a pretty name for a pretty girl.”
“Thank you, sir.” I decided to tack on the “sir” because he was some years older than I, maybe as old as thirty.
He moved a little closer, although he was still a few feet away. “You like looking at the view, Ruby?”
“Ye-es,” I said.
A nod, but it wasn’t directed at me. Suddenly two more men, also tall and black-haired, and wearing dark suits, got out of the car. My heart began to pound, and I realized something was very wrong here.
“I-I have to go,” I told him, my voice sounding weak and stammering, not like the voice of the McAllisters’ future prima.
“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “Although probably not where you were thinking.” Those coal-black eyes fastened on me, and it was as if the world began to spin around me, sky and trees and buildings all swirling like a kaleidoscope. My knees began to give way, and then he was reaching for me, grabbing me. His touch was cold, so cold, and I realized then who he must be.
Jasper Wilcox, primus of the Wilcox clan.
I didn’t know which spell he had cast, or what he had done to me, but I retained enough presence of mind to call out from within, my cry echoing to all the McAllisters. The enemy is here!
Right away people started to converge on the park. Mr. Song came out of the English Kitchen, cleaver in hand, and next to him were my cousins Leonard and Stephen.
I could feel Jasper Wilcox’s hand tighten on my arm. “What did you do?” he demanded.
“I called to them,” I said. “Bet you didn’t know I could do that, did you?”
He scowled at me, and began dragging me to the car.
“There are only two ways out of here,” I told him. “If you let me go and leave now, you might get away. Maybe.”
He cursed, horrible, foul language no one had ever spoken in my hearing before, but I could see that he realized his dilemma. He let go of me, said, “This isn’t the end of it,” and hurried back to his car, his two clan members jumping in, one of them getting the engine started. They sped off with a squeal of their tires, going the wrong way on the one-way street.
No one was coming the other way, and so they made their escape just as I heard the sirens from the town’s one and only police car blaring away up on Main Street. It wasn’t my gift to see the future, but somehow I knew Jasper Wilcox would get away.
Everyone began to crowd around me, asking what had happened. I told them I was fine, which I supposed I was. Nothing had happened, not really. Then my parents came, my mother weeping in fright, and I went with them back home, where they set up a guard to make sure no one else could get to me. Although Jasper Wilcox had said this wasn’t the end, he didn’t reappear the next day, or the day after. No one let down their guard, but people did seem to relax, just a little.
What I couldn’t tell any of them was that I still felt his hands on my arms, still saw his face when I laid myself down in bed at night. So handsome…so evil.
I want my consort to appear. I want that kiss, the one that will bind me to him.
I hope that then I can forget what it was like to look into Jasper Wilcox’s black eyes.
I shut the diary, my hands shaking. No one had ever told me what exactly had transpired when the Wilcoxes tried to kidnap Great-Aunt Ruby, only that the attempt had been made, and had failed. I’d never really understood why they’d bothered, since I’d always been told that a prima’s true power only manifested when she was matched with her consort. For some reason, though, this Jasper Wilcox had believed differently.
I needed to find out why.
12
Margot Emory didn’t look exactly happy to have been summoned to see me, but she knew it wasn’t good to refuse a request from the clan’s prima, even a young and inexperienced one such as myself. She sat in one of the new arm chairs in the living room, looking around at the alterations I’d made. Maybe her sour expression came from disapproval at my remodeling efforts. Since I hadn’t asked her here for input on my design choices, I really didn’t care one way or another.
A fire crackled in the hearth; it was a cold day, with a promise of snow overnight. We were both drinking coffee from my new Keurig coffeemaker. Aunt Rachel had turned up her nose at pre-fab coffee, but I found myself having a great time drinking a different flavor every day.
I set down my mug of hazelnut roast. “I wanted to ask you about the Wilcoxes’ kidnap attempt of Aunt Ruby.”
That did seem to surprise Margot; she lowered her own cup of French roast and shot me a quizzical look. “Why?”
“I found her diary,” I said frankly. I’d decided I might as well be up front about reading it. “She described the whole thing in some detail.”
“Interesting.” She tilted her head to one side, as if considering. “She never mentioned that she kept a diary.”
“I don’t know if she did, except for this one that she started around her twenty-first birthday. After the kidnap attempt, she didn’t write it in very much, except for writing about the day she met Great-Uncle Pat, and then a few entries about ordering her wedding gown, that kind of thing.” I wrapped my hands around the mug I held. It still felt cold in here, even with the fire blazing away. “I tried to ask Aunt Rachel about it once, and she just sort of blew me off. But I’m getting the feeling I haven’t been told the whole story.”
For a few seconds Margot didn’t say anything, only watched me carefully. She was a coldly beautiful woman who always reminded me of a retired ballerina, with her graceful neck and fine, sharp features. “I suppose Rachel thought she was trying to protect you. But you are prima now, and because you are in such a…vulnerable…position at the moment, it’s only right that you should know.” A pause, and she set her coffee mug down on a coaster on the side table next to her chair. “How much do you actually know of the Wilcoxes?”
“The usual,” I replied. “They came out here after losing some sort of clan war back in the 1800s — ”
“The 1870s, to be precise. Yes, they’d been caught doing some of the blackest kind of magic, and the other clans in New York united to drive them out. It wasn’t just the magic itself they feared, but that it would be discovered by the non-magical population. So Jeremiah Wilcox and about fifty of his followers headed west, and ended up in Flagstaff, which was very much a wild frontier town back then. My guess is that they thought their goings-on wouldn’t draw as much attention there. But Jeremiah’s wife died on the journey out here — ”
“And he took a wife from among the Navajo,” I finished for her.
She gave me a very thin smile. “‘Took’ being the operative word. He stole her from her tribe because she was supposed to be a very powerful witch, and he wanted to join her magic to his. This didn’t go over very well with her own people, as you can imagine, but they feared his magic, his ruthlessness, so there was no retaliation. She gave birth to a son, then took her own life — but before she did that, she laid down a curse on the Wilcox men so that no girl child should be born to them, and that the wives of Jeremiah’s line should never live to see their children grow up.”
This was all news to me. I sat up, eyes widening. “And no one thought to mention this to me?”
“It’s not com
mon knowledge. The clan elders know the particulars, and the prima, but otherwise we see no need for it to be spread around. It’s enough for most people to know that Flagstaff is Wilcox territory, and Jerome is ours, and we must all stay away from one another.”
“And when precisely were you going to get around to telling me?”
A thin smile. “I’m telling you now.”
“So that’s why the Wilcoxes always have a primus, never a prima.” As far as I knew, the McAllister clan had always had a prima as its head.
“Exactly. They also tend to marry outside their clan more than we do, since their genetic pool was smaller to begin with. That hasn’t diluted their power, though, and their primuses — the men of Jeremiah’s line, and his stolen Navajo wife — are very strong.”
That I could believe. Of course I’d only known Great-Aunt Ruby as an old woman, used to a lifetime of ruling the McAllister clan, and not the young, unworldly girl she must have been, but from her diary entry it was clear that she’d almost been overpowered by Jasper Wilcox. It took a lot of strength to best even a prima-in-waiting.
“And so they tried to kidnap Ruby so they could bind her power to theirs, the way they’d done with the Navajo witch?”
“Yes.”
Here was where I came to the crux of the conundrum. “I don’t understand that, though. I mean, I’ve always been told that a prima’s powers will only fully develop if she’s with her consort. Obviously, Jasper Wilcox wasn’t Ruby’s consort. So why did he think he could force her?”
For the first time during our conversation, Margot looked uncomfortable. She picked up her coffee and drank, but didn’t set the mug back down, instead cradling it in her hands the same way I was doing with my own mug. Maybe her hands were cold, too. “The energy of a prima is a receptive energy, what some refer to as a female energy. A prima cannot force her energy on another. But the energy of a primus is something different — it can be aggressive, outward-seeking. Dangerous, which is also why all the clans have a prima rather than a primus…well, except the Wilcoxes. We learned over the years what was the safer, wiser way and selected for it.”