by Talia Vance
“It meant something, right? The name?”
Dad pushes his glasses back against the bridge of his nose. “Why the sudden interest in your grandmother’s superstitions?”
Not an answer. He’s watching me like I’m about to sprout horns or something, but I’m not backing down. “I was just thinking that Beltane is coming up and it made me think of her, that’s all.” Our family has celebrated Beltane for as long as I can remember. Nana made sure we celebrated both half-year eves. It went right along with keeping away from black cats and wearing sprigs of mint around our wrists when we got a cold.
Dad smiles. “Your mother isn’t going to make us eat that nettle soup again, is she?”
“She always does.” In the two years since Nana’s death, my mom has continued the tradition.
“You sure you can’t talk her into a nice chicken tortilla or tomato bisque?”
“Sounds very Irish. Good luck with that.”
Dad picks up his coffee. “She’ll listen to you. You’re the one she does this for.”
I have to grab the sink for support. “Me?”
Dad’s eyes widen and I can tell he wants to take back what he just said. Then he sets down his coffee, resigned. “Honey, I know how hard it was for you when Nana died. And then we had to move here when I took over the branch office.” He doesn’t mention the other reason we moved. I don’t blame him. No one mentions it. “Your mom is trying.”
“Mom’s trying to do what? She doesn’t have to pretend for my benefit, okay?” For the last few years, Mom’s been a ghost, a beautiful specter who floats in and out of our house on a breeze, her brilliant smile reserved for bus stops and coffee mugs. She avoids me. The only exception was when she sat me down to ask if I’d started the wildfire that burned nearly two hundred homes in Rancho Domingo last fall. We’re close like that. I’m halfway to the front door before Dad can respond.
“Brianna.” The tone of his voice stops me. “Try not to be so hard on her. It’s been rough for her too. She lost her mother.”
I can only nod and sigh. I don’t say what I’m thinking: So did I.
“Say hi to Piece of Meat for me,” Dad says, our discussion over.
I drive to Bridle Oaks as fast as the Blue Box can manage—which means I almost make it to fifty-five miles an hour. My old hatchback has seen better days. When I enter the stable, Dart is nestled in a corner of his stall polishing off a flake of alfalfa. I pull a carrot from my pocket, drawing a welcoming nicker. He walks over and devours the carrot in two bites, sniffing for more. Once he determines I’m out, he goes back to his hay. He always eats like he doesn’t know when he’ll see his next meal. When I first saw him, he was all ribs and withers, nearly starved after an unsuccessful year on the racetrack. Now he looks like a different horse.
Parker Winslow leads her bay hunter, Tristan, down the barn aisle. I can’t tell if she notices me in the stall with Dart or not, but it hardly matters, since she’s never spoken to me in the three years I’ve worked here. Parker and I are the same age. That’s pretty much the full extent of what we have in common. Parker goes to McMillan Prep, drives a convertible Lexus, and has three horses in training with Sam Sabatini, the grand prix rider. I’m just the hired help, teaching beginning riding lessons to spoiled ten-year-olds in exchange for Dart’s board and my own lessons with Sam’s assistant Marcy.
I lean back against the stall. Everything feels so normal in the light of day. Normal is good.
“Hello? Excuse me!” Parker Winslow stands in front of the stall door. Tristan’s reins are now looped under her arm as she pulls on a pair of black leather gloves. She doesn’t look quite so perfect up close. Her face is a bit too narrow and her chin sharpens to a point. I can’t fault her body, though. Her cashmere sweater molds to her chest in all the right places. Effective, if not exactly practical. The seafoam color sets off a touch of green in her hazel eyes. Parker knows how to accentuate the positive.
“Hey,” I say.
She gestures toward Dart without looking at him. “Sam wants me to try this horse. Bring him to the main ring at nine.” She walks away, leading the big bay behind her, not waiting for a response.
I know that Marcy told Sam I would be selling Dart soon. Still, I can’t imagine that Parker Winslow is interested in my rescue horse. Even if he’s bloomed into a handsome prince, to Parker it would be like buying designer clothes at an outlet mall. There’s no point.
That doesn’t stop me from spending the next half hour brushing Dart until he gleams. Even I have to admit that Dart will fit right in next to the expensive warmbloods that Sam’s students normally ride. In some ways Dart, a thoroughbred, is even more beautiful. He has the graceful athleticism that comes from a hundred years of selective breeding.
I bring Dart to the center of the arena, where Sam and Marcy stand. Parker rides toward us, bringing Tristan to a halt. She dismounts and pulls the reins over his head, handing them to me so I’m holding one horse in each hand. She unbuckles the girth and slides her saddle from Tristan’s back. She marches around to Dart, cinching the saddle in place without once looking at him. She takes the reins from me in silence.
“He’s afraid of crops.” It’s Dart’s one quirk from his days on the track. I learned it the hard way.
“I think I know how to ride a horse.” Parker mounts with one smooth motion and guides Dart to the rail, easing into a trot. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone else ride Dart, and I’m amazed at how he seems to float across the ground. Sam occasionally comments to Marcy and smiles.
After just a few laps around the arena, Parker pulls Dart up and walks him back to Sam. “I don’t like him.” She says it loud enough so I can hear. Me and half the county. “His trot is jarring, and he doesn’t understand lateral aids.”
Sam laughs and then I hear his elegant voice. “Parker, dear, you’re just not used to so much extension. He’s a ten.”
“Well, he needs some professional training.” Parker has already dismounted and is running her stirrup iron up the leather. Within seconds, her saddle is off and on the bench next to Marcy and Sam. She hands Dart back to me without another word, holding out the reins and simultaneously grabbing Tristan’s. Her long platinum braid sways in time with her steps as she marches out of the arena without a backward glance.
Marcy walks over to where I stand fuming. Her face breaks into a huge grin.
“What are you so happy about?” I stroke Dart’s neck, insulted for both of us.
“Sam loves him.”
“Really?” My spirits lift. Sam’s buyers shop in an entirely different stratosphere than the riders on the local show circuit where Marcy and I toil. If I have to sell Dart, I could do a lot worse than one of Sam’s clients.
When I’m done teaching my lessons, I hack Dart around the smaller arena designated for Marcy’s students. I try not to notice that his trot might be a little bit bouncy, or that he doesn’t exactly respond when I squeeze my inside leg to push him toward the rail.
FIVE
The next afternoon, Christy and I make a quick trip to the mall. Christy buys a life-sized cutout of the celebrity du jour and I get my bracelet fixed. We’re back in the car before I broach the subject I’ve been avoiding all weekend. “So? Did you talk to Haley?”
“No. You?”
I shake my head. I can’t bring myself to ask Haley about Austin. I’m not jealous, exactly, but I can’t help feeling sad that my first kiss has to stay buried in the dark room where it happened. I’m dying to tell someone. It occurs to me that I could tell Blake, that I want him to know. It’s a stupid idea. For one thing, Blake already has a good idea what happened. For another, he couldn’t possibly care. And it’s not like I should even consider talking to Blake again.
Haley’s already waiting in front of her house when we pull into the cul-de-sac. At least we won’t have
to risk facing her mom. As Christy moves to the back seat, I brace myself for the play-by-play.
It hasn’t always been this way with Haley. She was boyfriend-free until September of sophomore year, when she fell head over heels for Tyler Laredo, a senior and wannabe musician. All his songs were about OD’ing on Vicodin, but he was cute in an artsy way, and he worshiped the ground Haley walked on. Tyler lasted a whole six weeks before she broke it off. Since then, Haley’s been in perpetual motion—falling madly in love, losing interest, and then starting all over with someone else. By my count, Austin will be lucky number thirteen. If he plays his cards right, he’s probably in for the best three weeks of his life.
And my first kiss never happened.
Haley spends the drive talking about a biography on Ayn Rand she’s reading. There’s no mention of Austin. And I can’t bring myself to ask.
Magic Beans is empty for now, but the Sunday night special will start in about fifteen minutes. Nothing brings out the college crowd like two-for-one espresso drinks.
Max Carroll snaps his fingers as soon as we walk in. “Girls. Lovely. Fresh. The first sign of Spring.” He has the annoying habit of turning every sentence into spoken word poetry.
Haley puts on a blue apron and ducks behind the counter to make our drinks. “You know spring started like three weeks ago, right?”
Max rolls his eyes and pumps vanilla into an oversized mug. “Killjoy. Heartless. Weak. Murderer of all that is good.”
Christy giggles. Max is almost weird enough for her. Too bad he isn’t a little less harmless.
I wander toward the back, navigating the silk vines that hang from the shop’s signature beanstalk, a floor-to-ceiling monstrosity that takes up most of the square footage. The door to the back office is open. If the coffee shop is an exercise in overindulgence, the tiny office in the back is its complete opposite. Only a handwritten shift schedule adorns the white walls.
Kimmy sits in a metal folding chair, hunched over a ledger. She’s spending more time here since her husband left, which, depending on what kind of mood Haley’s in, is a good or bad thing. She doesn’t look up from her list of numbers.
“Brie!” Christy calls from a table under the beanstalk. “Come on.” She sets three white candles in a circle in front of her.
I make my way over to Christy. “Are we drinking our lattes by candlelight now?” It wouldn’t be the first time Christy insisted we do something like this for better feng shui or chi or something equally arcane. I wander back toward the table, arriving just as Haley sits down with our drinks.
Christy shakes her head and reaches into her bag, pulling out a thick hardcover. “Delia sent me this amazing book.”
I eye the book with some skepticism. Christy is not by nature an avid reader. Aside from a book on sexual techniques she stole from her sister Delia’s college dorm room, she hasn’t read anything more substantial than People magazine in the last two years.
“It’s a book of spells,” Christy says. “We’re going to cast a love spell.”
Even Haley looks pensive. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Of course! We can all use more love in our lives, right?” Christy thumbs through the large book. “Delia says we should try the simple spell on page sixty-seven to start.”
Delia never met a psychic she wouldn’t shell out fifty bucks for. Like Christy, she’s drawn to all things corrupt. It must be genetic.
“Here it is!” Christy reads the page in earnest, her lips moving as her fingers follow the path of the words on the page. “We sit in a circle, then we each take a turn lighting a candle and saying the spell.”
“So is this witchcraft or something?” Haley grabs the book.
“White magic. It’s totally fine.”
“My mom will flip out,” Haley says. She is so in.
I shake my head. “Don’t look at me.”
It’s not that I believe in witchcraft, exactly. But you don’t grow up in a house with my grandmother without having a few old-world superstitions conditioned into your subconscious. And this superstition is a big one: Nana always claimed the women in our family were “touched.” So, to practice witchcraft was to actually invite trouble from spirits and faeries. Or worse, to attract the attention of the Milesians, men of God who would burn us at the stake.
Yeah, Nana was a few centuries behind the times. Still, she would’ve freaked if she thought I was even contemplating messing with witchcraft. Especially so close to Beltane.
Haley is laughing at me. “Don’t tell me Ms. Uber-
Science is afraid of a little magic?”
“It’s a waste of time.” It sounds like a lame excuse even as I say it, but I’m not going to admit to some crazy superstition I don’t even believe in.
Christy shrugs. “It’s your love life. Or lack thereof. You can just watch if you want.”
Haley’s attention is back on the book. “No, she can’t. We need a circle of three.”
“Get Kimmy,” I say, making one more attempt at an out.
“Kimmy’s not ready to date yet.” Haley’s emphasis on the word “Kimmy” is a not-so-subtle reminder that I am ready. And in need of all the help I can get.
I take the book from Haley. Peer pressure: one. Brianna: zero.
Christy goes first. She reads the verse, her face filled with excitement. When she lights the candle, no fire and brimstone rain into the coffee shop. Nothing happens at all. Not that I expected anything to happen. Not really. I’m just a little on edge after last night.
Haley goes next, striking a match and saying the verse. Her candle also lights without fanfare. I let out a breath, relaxing a little.
My turn. “Hear my wish, loud as the raven’s cry.” My voice cracks a little. “Send out my magic. Send it high.” That part comes out smoother. No problem. “Let the magic hear my plea. Let me meet the guy for me.”
My fingers barely shake as I light the match. “So it will be.”
I lower the flame to the wick. The candle flares to life in a perfectly normal orange flame, completing the circle.
Christy grins from across the table.
I smile back, about to laugh at my own unfounded fear, but I’m stopped by a gust of wind that has no place in the shop. It swirls around me, lifting the hair off my back and whipping it around my face. Bright silver light floods my vision. Then the coffee shop is gone and I’m lost in a vortex of mist and blinding light, the wind whipping faster and faster. I spin around, unable to get my bearings, surrounded as I am in light and fog. I reach out, searching for something to ground me, but find only empty air.
The outline of a man materializes in the distance, moving toward me. I can’t make out his features, just the dark shape of his body, sinewy and strong. I wrap my arms around myself, bracing against the cold, wet air. The man’s hand extends in my direction, a beacon of strength and safety in this strange world. I reach out, desperate to touch something solid, but my fingers don’t quite reach. I strain to stretch another millimeter, frantic. At last, our fingers brush. At the touch, a searing white heat pools in my abdomen, primal and strong. The contact breaks, but the warmth remains, filling me with strength and power. He drifts away, farther and farther, until the mist swallows him.
I push forward, grabbing at the wind, begging for another glimpse of the dark figure, for one more touch. But there is nothing. I am completely alone. The wind turns to ice, cutting to the bone, removing any last trace of warmth from my body. From somewhere in the distance, a desolate shriek slices through the air. I shiver and spin away from the sound. But there is nowhere to run.
The mist fades and there’s ground beneath my feet. Damp, moist ground. Bright rays of sunlight dot the landscape, illuminating the greenest grass I’ve ever seen, each blade more vivid than the last. To the right is a wall of stacked gray stone, intricately
arranged and packed with mud. To the left is a field of endless emerald, dotted with yellow and purple wildflowers and large boulders that seem to grow right out of the ground. Even with the sun, the air is cold and everything feels wet.
A young woman walks beside the stone wall, her hand trailing along the stacks of rock. She wears a flowing blue dress, just a shade lighter than her indigo eyes. Dark curls spiral down to her waist. A crown of violet flowers makes her look like she stepped right out of a fairy tale. She graces me with a benevolent smile, like she knows how lost I am.
“Can you help me?” I ask. “I need to get home.”
She laughs. When she speaks, her voice is a soft brogue. “Do you not know me then?” She reaches out to brush a strand of hair away from my face. “Do you not know yourself?”
I blink at her. “Should I know you?”
She shrugs. “In time you will know me well enough. I’ll not be the one to tell you. I remember well the peace that comes with ignorance.”
I tremble, though whether it’s from the cold or the ominous tone of her voice, I can’t say.
Her hands come to my face, palms warm against my cheeks. “Welcome home, child!” Her smile is so bright that even the white light fades in comparison. And then there is nothing but darkness.
“Get some water!” Haley’s voice is far and distant. A hand presses against my shoulder. “Brie!” Haley screams in my ear.
I’m on my back on the cold tile floor, staring up at the silk and wire beanstalk. Not again. Two bizarre hallucinations in as many days. I did it to myself this time, freaking myself out over Christy’s stupid spell. Still, this can’t be good.
“She’s okay!” Haley searches my face. “You’re okay, right?”
I nod, even though I’m not okay. I’m nowhere close to it. I start counting in exponential sequences again, this time with the number seven. It takes more concentration, the calculations getting more difficult with each number. It’s almost enough to make me forget that it’s happening again, that I’m losing my fragile grip on reality. That no one is safe.