Escape to Witch City

by E. Latimer

  Lenore’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, of course, though you’ll be learning math and spelling too. But your studies will mainly be in magic.”

  A school for magic.

  Even Emma, who’d had a series of terribly boring tutors and had always hated lessons, thought it sounded rather exciting.

  Lenore began to turn away, and Emma hesitated for just a moment before clearing her throat pointedly. They’d been promised answers at some point today, and so far they hadn’t had any.

  Lenore turned back, brows raised expectantly.

  “Um, sorry.” Emma shifted from one foot to the other, feeling her face begin to heat up. “But I have questions. I know you and my mother probably didn’t have the best relationship, and neither did we, if I’m being honest.” She paused, feeling a nervous flutter in her stomach. “She’s…she’s hard to live with.” She glanced over at Edgar, who nodded in agreement. “Both of our mothers are…well…”

  “Bad people,” Edgar finished, his voice hoarse.

  Lenore nodded and then sighed, her expression softening. “My sisters—your mothers—they weren’t always like that. We had…a difficult childhood.” When Emma and Edgar continued to stare at her expectantly, she smiled faintly and nodded. “Well, you can imagine a little how we grew up in the shadow of a fallen kingdom. The witches had taken over and wiped out our family. We were rescued and taken in by a distant cousin.” Lenore’s voice was soft, and a little strained. “We were raised to loathe magic, to believe it was evil. And so we learned we had to stamp out our own.”

  For a moment there was only silence, and then the words clicked somewhere inside Emma’s brain. “Our own?” she blurted out, at the same time as Edgar said, “What?”

  Lenore nodded slowly. “We all had some level of magic, though Isolde and Alexandria would never admit it. But it was there. We each suppressed a major piece of ourselves, and it affected us all differently. I was full of self-loathing, and Alexandria went terribly cold, became hardened. I think it was something Isolde admired.”

  Emma’s pulse was pounding hard in her ears now. She recalled how the queen drank thistle wine every morning, and how her own mother had panicked and made her drink the juice. Isolde had known they had witch blood. She’d simply been continuing her habit of attempting to stamp it out. She’d been scared.

  The thought made her feel a strange rush of sympathy, though it was tinged with anger.

  Lenore drew in a breath and shook her head, as if shaking off thoughts of her past. “I’d better go. Rest up a little.”

  She began to turn away, her smile forced. Emma gripped the doorframe, heart still pounding furiously against her ribcage. It was just beginning to dawn on her that this was it. This was their new home.

  She wasn’t ever going to see Isolde again.

  The idea left her feeling breathless, and a little ill. But not sad. Not exactly.

  “My mother, she couldn’t have known about the nooses under the castle, all the children who were taken there every year—” Her voice broke, and she cut herself off, shaking her head. “She couldn’t have known, could she?”

  No one said anything. Beside her, Edgar shifted, eyes fixed on Lenore’s face as she turned back to them.

  Lenore blinked, and Emma was dismayed to see the glitter of tears in her eyes. “Oh, Emma, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that one way or another. You know your mother better than I do.” Lenore reached out and squeezed Emma’s shoulder. “We clearly have a lot to discuss, we three. And we will, soon. But for now, get some rest, all of you. I’m heading into the In-Between to help someone along, and I’ll be back to collect you in a few hours.”

  They said goodbye to one another, and then Lenore left.

  For a moment Emma stood there in the doorway, thinking hard. There’d been something horribly sad in her aunt’s face. Something that made Emma’s chest ache, and her stomach feel leaden. Whatever had happened between the sisters must have been truly horrendous—and Lenore was still clearly hurt about it all these years later.

  Emma turned to follow the others into the room and then hesitated, listening to the sound of Lenore’s footsteps retreating down the hall. Yes, there was definitely something she still wasn’t saying. Something she didn’t feel comfortable sharing, or that she felt wasn’t the type of thing a child should know. And as much as Emma wasn’t impolite enough to pry it out of her, she did think she and Edgar deserved to know—especially after everything they’d been through, after all the time she’d waited for answers. They were part of the Black family, after all. They should be allowed to know their own history.

  Lenore was hiding something, and Emma was going to find out what it was.

  Emma slipped into the room, closing the door gently behind her. When she turned, Maddie and Eliza were perched on one of the bottom bunks. Edgar was sitting on the floor, his back to the bedpost, a plate of sandwiches from the tea tray already balanced on one knee. They all stared at her expectantly.

  Emma blinked at them. “What?”

  “We know that expression,” Eliza said.

  “You’re not satisfied.” Maddie folded her arms across her chest. “You want answers.”

  “It’s just,” Emma said slowly, “I feel like she’s holding something back.”

  She glanced over at Edgar, who nodded. “I think so too. Like there’s something really horrible she doesn’t want to tell us.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Emma stepped over to the window, which had a good view of the streets below. After a moment Eliza joined her, and then Maddie, and Edgar. It was the second day of the Ostara festival, and they watched witches zip past, cloaks flying behind them. A faint sound of bells could be heard, mingling with the fiddle music, as a horse pulling a white carriage full of witches decked out in flowers and ribbons passed beneath their window.

  For a moment, Emma let herself relax.

  It felt both strange and wonderful to have a moment to breathe, to simply sit and reflect on the fact that they had made it. Even if Lenore was hiding something from them, they were in Witch City, and they were together. They were all okay.

  They were silent for another few minutes, watching a crowd of children with wooden wands decorated with colorful crystals play a game of chase, shrieking with laughter as they blasted one another with what looked like bits of confetti.

  “Well, what do we want to do?” Maddie said after a moment. “How do we begin to look if we don’t have a clue what she might be hiding?”

  “I imagine everything we’d want to know is quite nearby.” Eliza leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, elbow on the sill. She peered out the corner of the window, nearly mashing her cheek to it. “In the library.”

  “But we’re not allowed to just go out on our own,” Edgar protested.

  “Nobody said that, actually,” Eliza pointed out.

  “But it’s implied.” Edgar crossed his arms over his chest. “No one expects a bunch of children to go out wandering by themselves.”

  “We’re not just children—we’re witches,” Maddie said firmly. “Witches who want answers.” She glanced sideways at Emma, who frowned, thinking hard. She was determined to learn more, but she hadn’t actually thought about sneaking out right this minute. It seemed rather daring.

  “It’s just a library,” Eliza said, “and it’s on the next street over. It’s not like we’re going down to the pub to try out the local ale.”

  That was true. Of all the things they might get in trouble for, going to the library seemed the least likely.

  “I suppose,” she said slowly, “that no one told us to stay put, not exactly. If anyone asks, we could just say we’re out to find a good read to pass the time. Or we want to find something by the witch poets Lenore told us about.”

  Edgar didn’t look entirely satisfied, but he also didn’t protest when Emma shrugged into her coat and s
lipped out the door. In fact, he followed her so quickly he nearly stepped on her heels, and Emma was fairly certain he was thinking about new poets.

  The hallway floor was creaky under their shoes, and at first, Emma winced with each step. After a minute, however, when nobody came out of a room to check on them, they began to grow bolder.

  Once downstairs, they made their way through the empty, lavender- scented landing, and into the vestibule.

  Thankfully, no one was there. Emma reminded herself that it wasn’t that they were doing anything wrong, technically, but they probably weren’t supposed to be out on their own.

  Not to mention that the moment they left the building, Emma remembered that the city was constantly shifting. If they got lost, they had no familiar to help them, and no Find-Me-Here.

  Outside, the sun was bright, and it had warmed up slightly since the morning. There was a clear blue sky, and the faint breeze that ruffled her hair smelled like campfires and fir trees. Emma breathed in deeply before moving down the steps.

  The library was only one street over, and they soon found themselves climbing up the stairs to its tiny front porch. As they walked they could hear the noise and music of the festival, but thankfully the street between the Push Broom Inn and the library seemed empty, aside from a chubby orange tabby on the top of a fence, who paused in its washing long enough to squint at them.

  Once they were on the porch, Emma let out a sigh of relief. When she glanced back over her shoulder, the Push Broom Inn was still there. Hopefully, it would stay put.

  She tilted her head back to look up at the library sign, and was surprised to see that it contained more words than she’d initially noted—in smaller script at the top and bottom. It read The Edwin A. York Library of Charms, Enchantments & Witchery.

  “Oh, what does that mean?” She turned to look at the others, who were all staring up at the sign as well. Maddie’s eyes were wide and excited.

  “Charms, as in magic. That’s brilliant. Quick, let’s go in!”

  Maddie bolted forward, pushing open the door, which gave a cheerful jingle to announce their entry. Emma and the others followed close on her heels. What could a charms library possibly look like?

  Inside it was tiny, and the warm, wooden interior reminded Emma more of a holiday cottage in the English countryside than an actual library. But it was the floor-to-ceiling shelves that drew her attention. The entire place seemed to be made of shelves, in fact, and there were sliding ladders along all the walls. Instead of books, the shelves held a series of silver boxes. Each bookcase was labeled at the top—with 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent, and so on, with a little arrow pointing up next to the number. In the corner a narrow shelf was marked 1–10 percent.

  Additionally, each shelf on the case was clearly a subsection of sorts. The first shelf on Emma’s left held a sign that said 15 percent: Flying—Bouncing, Floating, Dancing, Swimming, Jumping, Wishing.

  “What on earth does that mean?” Eliza stopped in front of the shelf, staring up at it in awe.

  “Different types of flying!” Maddie’s eyes were shining. “You know, like how the way you fly in dreams is always different? It’s like that.”

  Emma moved closer, heart thumping in her chest. The thought of flying was so enchanting that she momentarily forgot why they were there. “Are these the crystals she was talking about?” She gestured at the first box on the shelf. It had a glass top that revealed a series of cloudy pink crystals inside, resting on beds of blue velvet.

  “Enchanted stones, like in Lenore’s necklace.” Maddie reached for the box, and Edgar smacked her hand.

  “Don’t touch anything! You’ll get us in trouble.”

  “These look really valuable.” Eliza drew back a little. “Maybe he’s right. Just…don’t touch anything.”

  They moved deeper into the room. The library was bigger than Emma had first thought, with a little section in the back corner with a cast-iron fireplace and several worn-out, cushiony armchairs. Emma flitted from one shelf to the next, feeling a little dizzy with excitement. She passed Artistic Talent, with subsections like Cooking, Drawing, Dancing, Sewing, Singing, Painting, and Morphing: Subsection B—Animal, Plant, Mineral, Man.

  Deeper into the library she found an enormous section labeled Lecture Notes, and paused there, scanning the shelves. How were there charms for lecture notes? The sections here were labeled Math, Geography, English, Science, and also Divination, Necromancy, Mediumship, Animagery. She paused at History when she saw a box of crystals with the words Great War etched across the front.

  No more blanked-out pages. No more omissions. No more lies.

  Slowly, with shaking hands, she flipped the latch on the lid. Behind her, Edgar sucked in a breath, but he didn’t say anything. In fact, he pressed forward, peering over her shoulder. There were six crystals laid out on black velvet, all of them various shades of cloudy blue. Holding her breath, Emma reached in and took one carefully between finger and thumb.

  The crystal was cool to the touch, the outside smooth and glassy. She thought she felt something when her skin made contact, like a tingle in her fingertips. And then…nothing.

  Frowning, she turned to the others. “What’s meant to happen?”

  “You’ve got to activate it.”

  They jumped, and Emma fumbled the crystal, nearly dropping it. There was a woman in the doorway. She was tall and thin, and she wore a pale-gray walking dress and silver-framed spectacles. Her hair was a riot of black curls, and Emma spotted a pencil poking out from above her ear.

  “The silver holders to the right of the shelf.”

  Emma blinked at the woman—a librarian, she supposed. She was pointing at something over Emma’s left shoulder, which turned out to be a hook on the wall that held a number of silver chains with claw-shaped pendants.

  “You fit the crystal in the cage to get started.” The woman’s voice held a faint note of amusement. “You’re the new ones, aren’t you? Lenore’s niece and nephew. I can see the resemblance.” She tapped her own necklace with one long fingernail. “You’re restricted to non-active spells. Unsupervised, of course. Lecture notes and prophecy records and the like, until you pass Year Ten exams.”

  The woman glided over and plucked one of the silver necklaces off the hook, eyeing Emma with a dark, quizzical gaze. When she held it out, Emma took it carefully. “Thank you. Are you the…the charms librarian?”

  “I’m Sophia.” The woman smiled, watching as Emma slid the necklace over her head. “I didn’t expect anyone, since the festival is in full swing. Does Lenore know you’re here?”

  “Uh…”

  “Of course she does.” Maddie stepped up beside Emma, her smile wide and sincere.

  Sophia made a noncommittal humming noise, and then reached down to pluck the crystal from Emma’s hand. “Here, like this.”

  Emma looked down. Sophia’s fingers were slender, her nails long and pink. She took the pendant between her thumb and index finger and flipped it upside down, so that the prongs were facing upward. Then she snapped the crystal into place before stepping back and letting the pendant fall onto Emma’s chest. “You’ll have to be over ten percent for it to work, I’m afraid.”

  “I am.” The crystal was warm, and slightly heavy against her skin, and Emma frowned at it, brows creased. “When does it start working?”

  “Give it a few seconds. And you may want to sit down.”

  “Why—”

  The lights flickered. Emma blinked, glancing around at her friends, who were still staring at her expectantly. “Did you see—”

  They flickered again, rapidly, on and off, and then her friends’ faces were strangely blurry, and Emma’s breath caught. Finally the lights went out altogether, plunging her into darkness.

  With her sight gone, she suddenly became aware of a gentle humming coming from the crystal, low and soft, much
quieter than the well of fire, but clear all the same. When the lights came back on, she was not in the library anymore.

  Emma was standing in the center of a narrow dirt lane. One side was filled with blocky brick houses, the other with an assortment of mismatched, shambling wooden huts. There was garbage strewn across the street and littered in the gutters, and flies buzzed over heaps of refuse.

  The air was hot and putrid, and Emma put her hand over her nose, eyes watering.

  The only way she could be certain she was in London was because the clock tower was visible in the distance. She had a moment of confusion when she realized it was standing upright, unblemished.

  Did this mean she was in the past?

  She glanced around, frowning. The dirt lane was mostly empty, though there were a few children sitting on the steps in front of one of the wooden shacks, and a pair of women walking toward her, speaking quietly to one another.

  Nobody seemed to notice Emma.

  She was just thinking she might ask the two approaching women what part of town this was when a voice abruptly boomed from overhead.

  “1807: The first whispers of an uprising begin in London, as a young Alexandria Blackwell and her sisters, rescued from the palace by a royal cousin while their family was being slaughtered, begin to work on a plan to reclaim the family’s stolen throne.”

  Emma jumped, looking around wildly. There was nobody around, save for the women and the children on the steps, and none of them even glanced up. No one else seemed to have heard the voice. She glanced both ways down the street, then up at the rooftops and down at the dirt pathway. When she happened to catch sight of her own feet, she drew a sharp breath in surprise.

  Her feet were see-through. She could see the dirt road right through them.

  Abruptly, she felt the weight and warmth of the crystal around her neck. Yes, that was right. She wasn’t actually here. She was in someone’s lecture notes. That had been the voice from overhead. She let out a breath of relief, and it slowly began to dawn on her what the booming voice had said.