by D. R. Perry
We headed down the hall, through the waiting room, and out the door. We took our time again strolling down Essex Street, steeped in the remains of the evening.
Chapter Forty-Six
Passover was the celebration of liberation, but I felt like a slave to my powers. And also to the evil inside voice, because it hadn't left me alone for a whole day the entire semester. Its constant presence, naysaying half my choices and putting down everything from my academics to friendships, was an albatross around my neck.
I wished there was a way to be free of it, but the problem with maladies of the mind was that you couldn’t get away. There was no running from a bully inside your head. Even with distraction, there was always part of your brain working without your knowledge. Mine tended to run counter to what was healthy.
When we’d celebrated Yom Kippur, the weight of my stress had lifted, something I'd experienced before. But with Passover, it was all about appreciating the freedoms you had while remembering what it was like to live without them. The Seder plate literally symbolized fight and flight from oppression.
All I could see was the prison of lies I'd built for myself. I barely remembered what it was like anymore, being open with my family. My mind had slipped, and my heart was just as bad. I knew what I wished to be free of, but it was utterly impossible to break those chains. I'd never heard of anyone losing their extramagus powers.
So, because I couldn't cast off my solar magic, visit plagues upon it, or part a sea to drown it, the only possible course was confessing everything. Being honest had always been my fallback until this year. The yoke of dishonesty galled me, wearing holes in my resolve and fraying the fabric of all my relationships.
At least I wasn’t going it completely alone, although I'd always wonder whether my school friends only accepted me because I kept their secrets. Despite that, it was a comfort that Grace knew and was with me that day as we prepared for our Seder. Bubbe baked downstairs, so I was in the upstairs kitchen with Noah and Grace, helping Mom and Dad with everything else. This included finishing the soup, roast, and brussels sprouts, but also making sure we'd gotten rid of all the leavened grains in the house.
"Are you really throwing this out?" Grace raised an eyebrow as she held up a bag of Bubbe's challah rolls.
"If you want to bring it back to school with you, go ahead. Just stow it in your luggage because we can't keep it in the kitchen." My mother nodded toward the stairs.
"Thanks. I've been craving this bread since Thanksgiving." Grace dashed up the stairs and returned in a few moments.
That was it for leftover leavened goods. Tonight, and for the next eight days, it'd be all matzoh all the time. Fortunately, there were several varieties, so there was plenty to bring back to school, and I wouldn't get bored with it.
During my long-overdue conversations yesterday, Mom and Dad had gone out to get the symbolic foods and all the special Kosher for Passover stuff they'd use this week. The most well-known was matzoh, but there were so many others.
From pasta to jam and everything in between, there was a version that was Kosher for Passover. That seemed sort of extra, but it was all because the ancient Israelites didn't have time to let their bread rise as they fled Egypt. Things like meats are specially blessed by a rabbi, but other more shelf-stable foods had substitutions for any leavened ingredient, and those got certified too. Nothing like croutons or breadcrumbs were in those items. Yes, we got that particular about it.
Most of the work was already done. All that needed doing now was setting the table. It was different from Thanksgiving because Passover had both religious and cultural significance. You didn't just yeet thousands of years of tradition without a good reason, so this night was different from any others.
One way was in how we arranged our seating. We sat upright at all our other meals, but on Passover, we got comfy. The Haggadah, that book of instructions for Passover, called it reclining. What that really meant was we could put our feet up or lean back or add extra cushions to the chairs. One year, Noah even set up piles of pillows on the floor, insisting he and I have our meal there.
We set up the Seder plate. This was the big symbol energy of the entire holiday, so it always went right in the center of the table. Ours was enameled wood, white with blue edging, with four sections ringing the sides and one in the middle. Remember when I said before that this holiday symbolizes escape from slavery in Egypt? Every item on that plate represented a different part of what our ancient forebears experienced.
I helped Mom put everything on it, just like last year. The only thing different this time was Grace watching over my shoulder. And Ember, perched on top of the refrigerator.
“What’s that parsley in middle?” Grace asked.
“Karpas.” Mom added more. “It represents how the Israelites first came to Egypt. Joseph brought them.”
“Who?”
“You know.” I snapped my fingers. “Remember that musical we watched last week with the guy in the coat of many colors who interprets dreams? And for a while, it was good. Sort of like parsley when you first taste it.”
“Raw parsley doesn’t have a pleasant aftertaste.” She wrinkled her nose.
“That’s why we use it,” Dad said. “Life in ancient Egypt was like that. Bitter later on. At one point, we’ll dip it in saltwater because it got so bad.”
“That actually looks good.” Grace pointed as the paste of fruit and nuts. “What is it?”
“Haroset.” I spooned some on the appropriate section of the plate. “This is my favorite because it's delicious.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s all about the labor,” Noah answered. “The mortar we used, building for the Pharaoh. But this stuff’s nasty.” He wrinkled his nose and dropped a dollop of horseradish on the plate. “Maror, standing in for the bitterness of slavery.”
“I knew people who had it with sandwiches on the regular.” Grace shrugged. “But yeah, it’s strong. Do you actually eat any of this stuff?”
This time, Bubbe answered.
“At one point during the meal, we mix the haroset with maror, because while labor can be sweet, forced labor is bitter. It gets pressed between two pieces of matzoh, just like mortar between bricks. And we eat the karpas, both before the saltwater dip and after. But two items on that plate, we don't eat. They’re for contemplation.”
“Right.” I nodded. “The zeroah and beitzah.”
“The what and the who now?” Grace blinked.
“Zeroah is that lamb shank,” Dad explained. “It symbolizes the Israelite's sacrifices and celebrations after reaching Jerusalem. And beitzah is this roasted egg. Any guesses on what it means, Grace?”
“Life and hope?”
“Egg-zactly.” Dad chuckled.
Everyone groaned.
“But there’s a little more than that to Passover.” Bubbe patted my shoulder. “The egg reminds us that this too shall pass.”
For me this year, that was an enormous truth, one so big that perhaps I hadn't been able to see it through all my inner turmoil and chaos.
The plate was finally done, so we brought it out and set it on the table. Noah followed with three pieces of matzoh covered in a cloth. Dad brought out the dish with saltwater for the parsley.
Noah headed back to the kitchen, then returned with an orange. This was something he did last year after coming out because an orange symbolized the social and emotional fruitfulness that comes with including everyone in our society. He set it on his right beside his plate, which was where we always put the items that represented liberation to us personally.
Grace had some of that shimmery copper fabric, the stuff that had been the overlay on her dress for Valentine's Day. Making her own clothes, stuff that rivaled a masterwork of tailoring, was an amazing accomplishment.
Bubbe had a carefully preserved photo of her father as a boy, standing in Trafalgar Square in London. He'd just arrived there as part of the Kindertransport program, rescued from certain
death in Nazi camps.
Dad and Mom usually placed their wedding rings there because they always told us they’d saved each other, though never how. But this year, it was different. Dad had his diploma from Hawthorn Academy. I think because both Noah and I attended, working hard at school, he wanted to show us how important education was to living a free life.
Mom had a clipping from the Providence Journal. It showed a picture of her, one I never knew existed. She walked down the steps in front of the Extrahuman Courthouse downtown, cameras and microphones pointed at her face. She wasn’t looking down, although the shot they chose for this piece was in profile. My mother faced whichever reporter or photographer stood in front of her, staring them down with a gaze as intimidating as any eagle's. The date was over the summer, only one week before she gave me the swimsuit.
The headline read Estranged Hopewell sister testifies against extramagus brother.
I felt strange that I didn't have something of my own this year. Usually, it was some paper or project from school I had done particularly well on, or something from Izzy or Cadence, symbolizing how important friendship is. But I had nothing this year because I felt caged.
Our readings came from the abbreviated Haggadah, which didn't take long. This was good because my stomach already grumbled, and Grace was in the same boat. We’d skipped lunch. Big mistake, but easily rectified.
My father recited the Plagues of Egypt in Hebrew, something he'd always done. After that came the Four Questions, which Noah and I took turns reciting. Reading them wasn't required because they were in our memories forever now. It was something we did together every Passover. Usually, it's the youngest child, but being only a year apart meant he only would have read them once in his life.
One of the best things about this part of Seder was that when we had guests, like Grace this year or Izzy and Cadence on others, they got to learn why everything was just so on Passover. Grace didn't even have to ask why this night was different, why we ate only matzoh and no bread, why we dipped bitter herbs twice, and why we got cozy seats.
The short answers were that we celebrated freedom, the Israelites had no time to let the bread rise, we needed to remember bitterness to appreciate sweetness, remembering tears helps us appreciate joy, and people needed time and space to rest and celebrate after going through trauma.
So that was Passover in a nutshell, but my dilemma was far from over. I had nothing to share because I felt hollow, as though I was the beitzah egg but just the shell. I sat staring at it, sometimes averting my gaze to the news clipping at Mom's right.
Bubbe's story about her photograph was part of family legend. Noah's explanation for his orange was the same as last year. Dad's was new but predictable. Grace said only one sentence, that with freedom comes responsibility to craft a life from what you've learned.
We all hung on Mom's every word. This was a story even Dad might not have heard in full. She’d offered to testify, wasn't responding to subpoena. She said it was her duty to go on record as saying that Richard's crimes were part of a lifelong pattern. That he'd never change or get better unless he admitted to his shortcomings and sought help on his own.
How could I be the daughter of woman this brave? One who summoned the courage to leave her oppressive family, then decades later, spoke out against the worst and most dangerous of them? And she had done it all without a familiar; that was something I got from Dad's side of the family, not hers. The Hopewells were nothing if not supremacists, in more ways than one. They believed magi were above all other people and that magic creatures were there for our amusement, not as friends or even companions.
I wasn’t sure how she bucked the odds, but as I stared again at the beitzah egg, contemplating that the one constant in this world was change, I felt something tiny but warm, like that first ray of sunlight hitting the icicle that forms every year outside my window. The one that brings it down, eventually.
Maybe I wasn’t brave like Mom because that was not what I needed to overcome my circumstances. Maybe I needed my family and friends. Perhaps the best way to fight my inevitable descent into the madness too much magic brought was just love.
"Ember, come here, girl." I patted the empty space to my right, where my item would be. No material thing I possessed could represent this new faint hope for redemption.
"What's this, Aliyah?" Bubbe raised an eyebrow.
"This year, it's my bond with Ember that liberates me." I managed a grin as she swooped toward me.
As my dragonet lit on the table between my brother and me, I understood that the lies needed to stop, but not tonight. I'd keep my secret until after the game tomorrow because just like Hal, I'd let down our entire year if I had to bow out. All I had to do was make sure I didn't accidentally conjure anything solar during the game.
Piece of cake, right?
Chapter Forty-Seven
On Monday, we were all back at school, finally. Faith didn't get in until the last train up from Boston on Sunday. Logan's flight was a red-eye, so he didn't arrive until early in the morning. He practically fell asleep in his eggs, so it was a good thing he wasn’t on the team.
Alex kept his distance. Instead of following me closely as he'd done since the dance, he had his head down over his books and notes. Maybe he was behind on studying, or perhaps Ember made faces at him when I wasn’t looking. More likely, he knew I’d spent the whole week in the same house as Noah.
The plan was to have a chat with him later today. For all I knew, he'd been as weighed down by guilt this year as I was. Or maybe not. The biggest takeaway I had this Passover came from Mom and also what she’d testified about Uncle Richard. Some people wanted to do better. Others weren't ready. If Alex was, maybe that'd help me decide how I felt about him.
We had a half-day of classes, which was the case all week because of the tournament. So, we went to homeroom and then Creatives, where we could all chat before heading to the locker room. Alex sat at a drafting table, sketching something. All my other friends hovered over a table in the middle, making collages.
"Aliyah, what's wrong with you?" Faith shook her head. "You've been stiff all day, almost awkward. I saw you drop your pencil like twenty times in homeroom. Are you nervous about the game?"
"No. She's carrying something important for me." Hal glanced at my knapsack, which looked heavier than usual.
It wasn’t. I just put extra padding in there to protect the communication orb. Izzy had brought hers to Bubbe's office before leaving for school, so she could take Hal's call.
"Okay." Faith put her hands on her hips, tapping her toe and giving her boyfriend side-eye. "This is something to do with that stuff we talked about last night, right?"
"Yes."
I knew what the alternative therapy was, too, because Bubbe had let me in on it. She’d even given me a clinical description so they could try it before the game. Yes, I was going to use my contraband orb that could get me expelled right there in the locker room before a tournament game.
Grace had an idea on how to do that covertly. She offered to hide the orb and Bubbe's side of the conversation from casual view with umbral magic. Anyone walking by would see Hal but would think he held a more benign item. He’d be talking to it, so we'd need to cover his voice mundanely. This meant we'd need to shut him in the sauna without turning it on or sit in one of the showers with the water running.
We all agreed that the sauna was the better choice. It was a gender-neutral area, while two of the showers weren't. The entrance to the one gender-neutral shower we had was in a high-traffic area, while the sauna was off in the corner. Also, nobody used saunas before a workout, but sometimes folks showered before games to invigorate themselves.
We bailed on Creatives early, heading to the locker room. The headmaster let us go because it was our first real game. He must have assumed we were super nervous and wanted to be totally prepared, which worked in our favor. Hopefully, more than this would go right today, but I wasn’t counting any chickens.
It would seem weird if anyone walked in. I mean, who read books in the sauna, especially when it wasn’t even on. I figured other students might imagine this was a weird sports-related superstition. Coach Pickman would not be so easily fooled, so I positioned myself by the window as a lookout.
"Hello?" Bubbe's voice was tinny coming through the orb. "Am I speaking with Harold?
"Hi, Dr. Morgenstern," Hal replied quietly, nodding.
"Well, your results came back, and you definitely have Dampyr DNA. It's a significant amount too, so that means it's a very close family member.
"So it's my mom." Hal’s voice was flat.
"Perhaps, but the only way to know for certain is if your parents take their own tests."
"Well, at least this can't make Easter dinner awkward since that already happened." Hal's words belied the gravity in his tone.
Getting hit with a secret identity out of left field was like being in a car crash. Everything slowed down. Each object in your field of vision was at an impossible angle, and when you tried to make sense of things, they moved again. There was nothing about the world that you could pin down in an immediate sense. The only thing that helped after it all stopped was time and distance. “And Hal doesn't have much of either.”
"I don't have what now?" Hal blinked.
"Sorry." I shook my head. "Inside voice being a jerk."