Witching Hour

by Skylar Finn

  “Anytime.” I put the car in drive and turned off onto the narrow street that led to home.

  The cuckoo clock house at the end of the lane looked just as I remembered it: like a series of boxes stacked on top of one another, the smallest at the top. Like always, it seemed to appear out of nowhere when we got to the end of the street.

  I parked the car and got out. Not even bothering to get my bag, I ran for the door. Tamsin, on the other hand, slowly shuffled to the trunk and made sort of a production of getting her overnight bag from the back.

  My mother opened the door before I even reached it. She enfolded me in her arms. After years without my mother, I never tired of her affection and felt like I had a bottomless well of time to make up for. And my mother had missed me, too.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said as she held me. She smelled like bread baking and honeysuckle, like everything wonderful in the world. When she finally released me, she held me an arm’s length away and studied me.

  “You look lovely,” she said. “Being in love has done wonders for your complexion.”

  “Mom,” I whined, embarrassed. Even not having spent my childhood with her, I still regressed to being a child around her.

  “I don’t understand what you’re so squeamish about,” she said, shaking her head. “Peter is a perfectly reasonably person to be in love with. I’ve known him since he was a baby and he’s always been a lovely boy. Who grew up to be a charming man.”

  Peter grew up in Mount Hazel, same as Tamsin, a fact I often forgot. It sometimes felt strange that the people closest to me now had already known each other for a lifetime, as if they were all posed in a picture that I casually stepped into after appearing out of nowhere.

  My mother released me and waited patiently for Tamsin to plod reluctantly up to the door. She immediately took her bag and kissed her on the head. Tamsin sighed heavily.

  “It’s only a few hours, love,” said my mom, squeezing her arm. “And it will mean so much to your mom.” We followed her into the entryway. The sundial was illuminated by a single shaft of light from the skylight far above. My mother released Tamsin’s bag and gave a little wave of her hand. Instead of dropping to the floor, it drifted up the stairs to the second floor and disappeared into her room. I stopped and stared, mouth agape.

  Tamsin laughed at me in spite of herself. “It’s like doing magic in front of a normal person,” she said. “I always forget how shocking it must seem to you. You know you could do that too, if you wanted to.”

  “I don’t know that I would.” I continued to stare up the stairs, where the bag had disappeared after casually escorting itself.

  “It’s really not a necessary spell,” said my mother with a shrug. “I’m just being lazy.”

  Minerva came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. I could tell she’d been restraining herself from rushing outside the moment she heard the car. Like my mother, I had premonitions, but like my grandmother, I could see into the minds of others—though I largely chose not to. Usually the things I saw made me wish I hadn’t looked in the first place. But it was impossible to ever turn off completely. The thoughts of other people were so loud.

  Tamsin’s expression softened when she saw her mom. She hugged her, and I could feel Aunt Minerva hold back her tears at how happy she was to see her daughter. Overwhelmed at the mix of emotions hitting me in the face, I slithered past them into the kitchen, where I was unsurprised to see a large copper pot simmering on the stove. My stomach growled. That breakfast sandwich felt like yesterday.

  “I’ll put on a pot of tea,” said my mother, entering the kitchen behind me. “We’ll just give them a minute, shall we?”

  The patio door opened and I looked up to see my grandmother framed in the light of the doorway. She wore gardening gloves covered in soil and carried a handful of clippings from the forsythia outside.

  I didn’t even need to cross the kitchen. Happiness to see me flowed from her mind into mine from across the room. I felt a sense of relief. I was so used to being on my own, I forgot what it felt like to be among family and how safe and loved I felt. What stifled Tamsin made me feel better than I ever felt.

  “Well, hello.” Aurora came into the kitchen and removed her gloves, tossing them on the table. She arranged the forsythia clippings in a vase on the center of the table. “Have the two of you been keeping out of trouble?”

  I thought of our wild night at the gallery. “Not really,” I said honestly. There was no point in lying to her; she’d know it immediately.

  My grandmother laughed. “I’m unsurprised,” she said. “Tamsin is probably more of a bad influence on you than you are a good influence on her.”

  “I’m a good influence,” protested Tamsin as she came into the kitchen. “Sometimes.”

  Minerva bustled in behind her and grabbed several mugs from the cabinet over the sink. “Who wants honey?”

  “Sugar,” said Tamsin. “Obviously.”

  “What were you going to tell me?” I asked my mom. “In the mirror earlier?” I added this last part a little resentfully.

  Aurora snorted. “If I’ve told her once, I’ve told her a dozen times not to appear in your bathroom that way. Or Peter’s. Especially Peter’s. She should pick up a phone and call you or leave you alone.”

  “I needed to talk to her, Mother,” my mom protested, bringing the whistling tea kettle to the table. “It was important.”

  “We didn’t even have anything concrete to tell them,” my grandmother countered. “I’m still not entirely sure that we do.”

  “Well, we need to tell them something.” Minerva set out sugar, honey, and milk. “I don’t like the thought of them in the city, unaware.”

  “We’re aware,” protested Tamsin. “We’re very aware. They had a whole lecture on awareness during orientation.”

  Minerva shook her head. “I’m not talking about implementing the buddy system and sticking to the busier streets at night, or whatever it is they told you to do. This is different.”

  “I have some stuff to tell you guys, too.” My mother poured our tea as I told them what happened with Lindy and about Peter’s story. “Do you think there’s any connection between these girls disappearing and the hearts?” I asked. “Do you think Lindy’s behind it?”

  My mother and Minerva looked sickened at the thought of these crimes. “I always hated the city,” said my mother, closing her eyes. “It’s filled with insanity.”

  “There are maniacs in small towns, as well.” Aurora sipped her tea. “If anything, I would argue that isolation drives far more people mad than living in close quarters with a lot of other people around you. Though admittedly in a small town, there are fewer people who might become maniacs.”

  “The disappearances and these murders trouble me deeply,” said Minerva. “If they are connected, the ritualistic nature of them suggests something terribly dark. It sounds like someone preparing for something. But this Lindy person—that I find truly alarming, in a more immediate sense. Especially where Sam is concerned.”

  “Sam, you must stay away from this person.” My mother was so agitated her tea cup was trembling. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing such a thing, but she clearly has dark intentions.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Aurora. “If she comes back, I’d like to teach her a thing or two about messing with a witch.” Her eyes narrowed. “I have some spells you could use against her.”

  “She can’t just go around zapping people,” protested Minerva. “What if this is an ordinary person, just trying to pretend she has some kind of power? Sam could get in a lot of trouble for harming her. Not to mention the accompanying guilt.”

  “It’s a moot point,” I interrupted. “I’m not going to go zapping someone I barely know just for tricking me into reading my own fortune or whatever.” Tamsin pressed a hand to her face, as if embarrassed for me. “I know, I know! I get that it’s a bigger deal than that, but if she comes back, I’ll take out a restrain
ing order. Or something.”

  Tamsin laughed out loud. “Sam, you can’t employ practical, real-world solutions in magical situations,” she said. “That’s not how it works. Restraining orders barely work for normal people; I don’t know how you expect it to work against whatever this harpy is.”

  “I don’t know what she is, but whatever she is, she’s a nuisance,” said Aurora. “I don’t see the correlation between her trying to earn Sam’s trust and these hearts.” She frowned. “Or it could be something else altogether...”

  12

  A Mysterious Guest

  “What else could it be?” I asked, taken aback. “You keep talking about a powerful presence. What does that even mean?”

  “It’s like when you can sense the magic in this house,” my mother explained. “We can sense magic from farther away, because we’ve been doing it longer than the both of you.” At last, I thought, triumphant. Something Tamsin isn’t good at yet, either.

  “Whatever it is, it’s powerful,” she continued. “It’s neither dark nor light, but timeless. It’s odd that we wouldn’t be aware of it prior to now.”

  “It could have been hidden,” said Minerva thoughtfully. “By its practitioner.”

  “Why would they hide it?” asked Tamsin. “Unless it was bad?”

  “It might be hidden from someone bad,” Minerva explained. “Precisely for the reason that it’s so powerful.”

  “What did you mean when you said we were near it?” I asked my mom. “You said we passed right by it, or it passed by us.”

  “Sam, the light!” Tamsin exclaimed. “The light, in Cameron’s shop. That had to be it. We could see it from the street,” she added, turning to her mom. “It was clearly something magical, but by the time we got inside, it was gone.”

  “And he was alone?” Minerva asked. Tamsin nodded. She frowned. “That’s odd. Maybe the shop itself is some kind of power center. We’ll have to investigate this.”

  “I, for one, am simply happy that there is always new magic to discover and explore,” declared Aurora, getting up and carrying her mug to the sink.

  “Yes, it’s thrilling,” said my mother dryly. “No matter what, there will always be dark and powerful forces threatening to destroy us.”

  “That’s what makes life worth living.” Aurora deposited the cup in the sink with a clatter. “It keeps us on our toes.”

  As Tamsin and I got ready for bed, brushing our teeth in the tiny cupboard of a bathroom down the hall from her bedroom, I asked her what she thought about everything we’d heard around a mouthful of foam.

  She leaned over and spat in the sink before straightening up to regard our shared reflection, perplexed.

  “I’m not quite sure what to think,” she said. “I’m glad they agree with me that Lindy is an insane person and you need to stay away from her. I think you should take a leaf out of Grandma’s book and pick up a few tricks from her before we leave. You don’t have to harm her, you just need to be able to defend yourself,” she continued over my protests. “She doesn’t really strike me as the ritual-murder type, either; at least not based on what you told me. It sounds much more likely that this power they’re talking about might be related. Or it might not be related at all. It might just be a crazy person and nothing to do with dark magic. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that regular people are much more likely to commit some sort of violent crime than a person with powers. Why would we need to?”

  “Bad things do happen in cities,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean it’s unrelated to magic, and that’s just how people are. It could be either. I think we should stay wary. Maybe we can investigate Cameron’s shop and see if we can find anything.”

  “Do you think he knows anything?” Tamsin asked, rinsing off her toothbrush. “He seemed a little evasive when we came in and asked about the light.”

  “I don’t think Cameron would keep something from us,” I said. “He’s not that kind of person. Besides, you’re the one who told me magic never passes through men.”

  “It’s not that I think it was him.” She turned out the bathroom light behind us and we crossed the hall. “But maybe there was someone there with him.” She unzipped her bag and pulled out her pajamas before rolling the trundle bed out from under her own. “Think about it: he doesn’t know we’re witches. He might think he’s protecting someone. Maybe it was Lindy. Maybe she got to him, too.”

  “We should just ask him,” I said. “He would tell us, if we asked.”

  “How is it that growing up around people, with all their violence and insanity, has somehow made you more trusting?” Tamsin asked. “People lie all the time. He might not have bad intentions, but he’s not going to tell us something just because we ask.”

  “People lie,” I acknowledged her point. “But people are also surprisingly forthright, if you’re up front and honest with them. Generally, in my experience, you get back what you give. Even if people want to do bad things, that doesn’t mean that they do. Even when it’s not out of being inherently good-natured, most people are just afraid to break the rules. They don’t want people to think badly of them or they’re afraid of getting caught.” I added, “I have been in the world just a little bit longer than you, by the way.”

  “I know, I know.” She climbed into bed and I did the same. “We’ll ask him when we get back.” She waved her hand above her at the ceiling and the light dimmed before going out entirely. The ceiling remained illuminated with a pattern of bright white stars. Tamsin was exceptionally gifted with enchantments and had bewitched her room to emulate nature. Her walls looked like the forest and her ceiling mirrored the night sky.

  “I wish we could have done this growing up,” she said in the darkness.

  “Me too.” I looked up at the ceiling, glowing with constellations. “At least we get to do it now.”

  We fell silent, lost in our own respective thoughts. I thought about Peter and wondered what he was doing. Was he thinking about me? I instantly replayed the thought and felt mildly pathetic. When had I gone so soft? I was getting totally lame. He was probably in a bar, drinking with his buddies from work—decidedly not thinking about me, let alone wondering if I was thinking about him.

  I punched my pillow and rolled over, restless. I didn’t know which was worse, constantly speculating as to Peter’s inner thoughts or second-guessing myself for doing so instead of trying to be stalwart. Look at how freely Tamsin gave herself over to idealizing even someone as obviously slimy as Cristo. Why couldn’t I have that same idealism, but over a perfectly reasonable person?

  I narrowed my eyes at the ceiling. I knew the answer to that question: Les Rodney. However much he’d allegedly changed, according to Bridget, I couldn’t help wondering if there was some kind of spell Aurora could teach me to give Les a little zap. Nothing serious, just enough to make me feel better about things. Maybe I could turn him into a frog. Temporarily, at least.

  I rolled over again, my thoughts going to Lindy. What did she want? Had she, as Tamsin said, been watching me from afar and infiltrated my life? Had she gotten to Cameron? Or was she the one Peter was writing about? Were Tamsin and I safe, or would she come after our hearts next?

  With such terrible thoughts circling through my brain, I have no idea how I finally fell asleep. I must have, because I found myself jolted violently awake when something landed in the center of my chest, heavy enough that for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I woke up, gasping for air. It sat on top of me, a solid weight. Two orange glowing orbs shone in the dark, staring at me. I screamed.

  “What! What is it?” I could hear a rustle of covers and a moment later, a moon appeared on the ceiling above us. It went from waning to waxing in a matter of seconds and illuminated the room with its sudden fullness. In the light, I saw there was a massive cat seated on top of me, looking regally down into my face. It had strange markings, brindled like a boxer’s, and its eyes seemed to glow from within. I screamed again. Seeing it in the light in no way assured
me. If anything, I was even more frightened.

  The cat jumped down to the floor, flicking its tail in annoyance, as if disappointed by my cowardice. It went to the foot of the bed and jumped back up, regarding me from its new position.

  “Where did that come from?” I looked around wildly to see the open window across the room. “Whose is it?”

  “I’ve never seen that cat before in my life,” said Tamsin, staring at it. “We don’t have any pets.” She frowned. “Yet another thing that made me mad growing up.”

  “Do you think it’s a stray?” I asked. I offered the cat my hand. It craned its neck delicately, sniffing my hand politely before retracting its head and going back to staring at me. It was unnerving.

  “I don’t know.” Tamsin frowned. She looked at the cat suspiciously. “There’s something kind of weird about it, honestly.” The cat stared back at her, as if it understood every word. “We should take it downstairs so they can look at it. In case it’s not really a cat.”

  The cat hissed at her. Its hiss was loud and menacing, more like a snake than a cat. Tamsin cringed, pulling the covers up to her chin. “I’m sorry! I’m just trying to find out who you are.” Temporarily mollified, the cat began busily cleaning its paw, wiping it over a large black furry ear.

  “Are you talking to the cat?” I asked. “I mean…is that something you can do?”

  “No, I can’t talk to animals. That sounds like a children’s book,” she answered, sounding annoyed. “They’re wild, they don’t go around ruminating about the weather and what socks they’d like to wear, if they wore socks. Even if you could read their minds, they’d just be thinking about food or whether or not to bite you.”

  “I see you feel strongly about the subject,” I said. I had apparently hit upon a nerve.

  “I hate those stupid kid’s movies about singing rats and things,” she said. “It’s a huge pet peeve. Animals are wild and free, people shouldn’t anthropomorphize them. That’s how people end up getting eaten by tigers when they try to keep them as pets.”