by Laura Rich
My mother looked pained. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Once. A long time ago.”
“Ok, so where do they come from?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly, and stared at the ground.
“Okay,” I said. “You’ll tell me about it later, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course,” she pulled up the top layer of her skirt and wrapped her hand. “But, first, give me the talismans. They need to be destroyed.”
I hesitated. I expected to feel relief at Mom’s takeover of the situation but, instead, I felt a ping of resistance.
“Come on, Kate.” She gestured with her skirted hands. “Before someone comes along. No good will come of letting these coins remain in circulation.”
I shook the rebellious thoughts from my head. Surely they were planted there as a failsafe to protect the talismans, right? Some charmed items were like that: self-preserving. It was logical an aspect of the talismans made it difficult for the owner to part with them.
Come to think of it, the only reason Miri had given them up was her suffering was stronger, which bore some more analysis on my part. I resolved to think about it later. I gave the coins one last look, and turned them over in my hand. They were so pretty and shiny. And powerful. Maybe just one fortune?
“Kate!” Mom said, in an irritated voice, with an undercurrent of fear.
My head jerked up. This was all so weird. My eyes locked with Mom’s and I felt her push comfort and love at me through our connection. It felt familiar and warm and a wave of lucidity fell over the dark promise of power.
My hand turned over hers and the coins clinked together as they hit her hand. She kicked a small hole in the ground and dropped them in.
In a haze, I pulled Indira back a dozen steps with me, to give Mom room to work.
The wind picked up as my mother raised her hands to the sky and muttered a few words under her breath. Storm clouds gathered overhead, blocked out the moon and brought the small clearing into near darkness. My mother’s hands clapped together and the clearing lit up again as lightning cleaved a path through the black and collapsed on the small coins.
I felt a jolt to my soul and a click behind my eyes, like an old-fashioned camera shutter opening and closing.
Just as quickly as the clouds gathered, they dissipated. The moon lit up the sky and revealed a pool of melted silver, and the attendant feelings of the other victim’s destinies slid away from me with it.
I watched as the silver absorbed into the earth like a lump of sugar in coffee. Soon, there was no trace the ground had been disturbed, though I was still plenty disturbed by the events of the day. I felt emptied of other people’s fortunes. Just me, and me alone, in here.
Suddenly, birds were just birds again. I wasn’t sure that was better.
“Good daayani.” Indira nodded. “Both.”
I was too tired to correct her, to tell her that Mom was the witch and I was just a regular old hedge witch with a bit more empathy than most.
I watched my Mom spit in her hands to dissipate the leftover static from the lightening. They sizzled as she rubbed them together.
Indira turned to me. “I do better next time to watch you.” Her eyes were lowered, as if in shame.
I grabbed her in a bear hug, which she stiffly accepted. “I don’t need watching, but you’re welcome to be my back-up anytime.” I released her. “I’m sorry I got you into this. And sorry you got hurt.”
“Don’t worry, Kate.” She rubbed her burnt chest. “I have seen… worse.”
My eyes grew wide. My friend Indira was a barrel of mysteries.
“We have a lot to talk about.” I said.
She gave me a wry smile.
My mother approached us. “Thank you, Indira, for all your help. You are a true friend to us.” She caught Indira’s eyes in hers and they held their gaze for a few seconds until Mom and Indira both nodded.
“Goodnight, friends,” Indira said and left the clearing with silent footsteps. “I see you tomorrow.”
I watched Indira’s retreating form. “What just happened there?”
Mom pursed her lips. “We have an understanding.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you do.”
Mom’s hand found mine and squeezed. We headed home together.
16
Once back home, I called the Bindan colony to check on Lily and Ella for Mom. The call went on speaker so Mom could run through her list of diagnostic questions, one patient at a time. After the typical questions about fever and nausea, came the questions about magic. Without coming out and saying it, she was checking on the status of their bindings.
“Any greening of left hand or nose?” Mom asked.
“No!” Lily answered.
“Gross!” Ella shouted in the background. “No!”
Mom ticked a few items off her list of symptoms and moved on. “Tingling in shins and feeling of ennui?”
“What’s on-wee?” said Ella.
“That’s a no.” Mom murmured under her breath. She checked off an entire section with a large flourish of her pencil. “Lily?”
“Well…” Lily said. “I might have ennui.”
“You’re a teenager. Of course you have ennui.” Mom snapped. “The problem arises when you also have shin tingling. Do you have shin tingling?”
“Oh,” she said. “Then no.”
Mom shook her head and pushed through the remainder of her list. Once she was satisfied with their answers, she proclaimed them healed and told the Bindan to call if any new symptoms arise.
Regardless, Elder Wright insisted we return tomorrow to re-bind them, which highly offended my mother.
She gestured to me with an angry fling of her hand that the conversation was over, and stomped into the bathroom to get ready for bed.
“Elder Wright?” I said, enjoying every word of what I was about to say, “that simply makes no sense. Goodbye.”
17
Between the call, my full examination and recovery, Mom was comfortable that the effects of the talisman had also worn off the other victims from the festival.
We climbed into our beds: mine on a shelf bunk above hers, which was the sofa that pulled out into a bed. It was then Miri’s words drifted into my head as I stared at the ceiling, “How do you live with this?”
“Mom?” I shifted to my side and propped my head up on my hand. “What is Indira?”
In Mom’s bed, Gringo purred like a chainsaw.
“Hmmm?” she said.
“She knows about witches.” I rubbed my eyes and yawned. Sleep was near. “That’s not something humans typically know about.”
“Indira is familiar with the witches of her homeland, called daayani. I have met some in my travels.” Mom yawned. “Their power comes from the earth, the moon, and the sun, as mine does, but they use different rituals to bring it forth. They are formidable, in their own way.”
I smirked. Mom could be kind of obnoxious about her own power.
“So, Madame Miri said something weird and it’s been bothering me.” I picked at the little lint balls on the blanket. “She said the reason she wanted to get rid of the fortunes she took is because mine was too powerful for her.”
Silence.
“What did she mean, Mom?” I said.
“I’ll ask her when I find her,” she said. “She still needs to answer for what she did to you.”
“And the others.” I said.
“Right,” she said. “Them too.
“But-”
“Kate, she’s not a witch, right?” Mom said. “She has no connection whatsoever with the elements or-”
“She said she’s a hedge witch, like me,” I said.
“Case in point: can you detect my power?” she said.
“Nope.”
“There you go,” she said. “She has no experience from which to draw her conclusions.”
“But she definitely took something from me, because I felt chilled, like I had a fever, like Lily and
Ella,” I said. “Miri said they had power, too, but a lot less. That doesn’t make sense if I have no magic.” I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling again. “Right?”
Mom sighed. “Talismans do crazy things, Kate, especially very old ones like those. They have had many masters and take on attributes of those individuals over time. That can cause new owners, especially ones like hedge witches, to experience the results in ways that are too difficult for them to interpret. It’s like trying to learn a new language by reading a complex novel. The subtleties of the language and culture are lost. Does that make sense?”
“I guess.” I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to it. “You’re sure my Dad wasn’t a witch?”
“Trust me, I know exactly what your father was.” Mom hesitated. “I’m sorry, Kate. I really am.”
I sighed. “That’s okay.” k`1`2
“You’re an amazing young woman who will do amazing things,” she said. “Just not amazing magical things”.
“I guess I’ll just have to settle for being the best gosh-darn hedge witch in the world, then,” I said.
“You already are.” Mom sounded a little sad. “Say goodnight, Kate.”
“Goodnight, Kate.” I turned over and fell into the fitful sleep.
18
That night, I dreamed many dreams.
In each of them, I had magic. It was red, like Miri’s.
I was more powerful than my mother and did terrible things.
The next morning, when we spoke of our dreams, I told her I didn’t remember mine.
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I want more magic!
Acknowledgments
My family gave me the courage to put my words on paper, and without them I would have much less material: Glen Rich, Aubrey Rich, Beau Rich, Joanne Pauley, Lew Pauley, Sara Pauley, Velva Pauley, Roy Pauley, Teresa Dragga, Sam Dragga Sr., Tom Dragga, Sam Dragga Jr., Linda Dragga, Craig Montgomery and Sue Rich. Linda and Craig get extra credit (bordering on sainthood) for their hours of reading and feedback on my early drafts as I struggled to improve my craft.
These kind people took me in and continue to read my writing and give me wonderful advice. Thank you, Gargoyles, from the bottom of my witchy heart: Wayne Basta, Ian Everett, Chris Lewis, Hilary Ritz, and Shannon Winton.
Thank you to my incredible beta readers, who spent their precious time to read and provide valuable feedback on this book: Angela Austin, Lisa Amico, Kristin Hovda, Andrea Oxendine, and Lisa Wrisinger.
Cover art by Marianne Nowicki, founder of the PremadeEbookCoverShop.com
About the Author
Laura Rich is an emerging author of young adult fantasy fiction about witches. She loves to read in a hammock with a glass of iced tea, bake cookies, garden and dress up for Halloween as (you guessed it) a witch. She lives in Texas with her family and works as full time project manager on the side. Magic may be involved in pulling all this off.
For more information:
www.laurarichwrites.com
[email protected]