by Katie Cross
The three symbols of Yule filled the dining room. Sprigs of holly and Letum Ivy decorated the fireplace mantels, while winterflowers covered the walls in decorative wreaths, fanning out like skinny fingers with small white and red flowers.
“Miss Celia must have decorated last night,” I said, looking at the evergreen rushes and boughs. The Yule holiday celebrated the quiet bounty of the winter season, like evergreen and winterflowers. The evening of Yule, the students would gather around the large dining room fireplace to light the Yule log and feast while it burned. A bouquet of red winterflowers accompanied every meal that day, bringing the blessings to each table.
Camille’s half-open eyes looked around with detached interest as she struggled to stay awake. I piled a few pieces of bacon onto my plate while Leda grabbed for the rolled thin cakes, but a change in the air drew my attention. I stopped and gazed around. No one else seemed to notice, chattering over their plates like a cacophony of squirrels.
I looked out to the hallway to see Miss Celia headed for the vestibule. Someone had knocked on the door. She pulled it open to admit a Messenger. He wore a heavy overcoat and a tan scarf over his face, relinquishing an envelope over to her with a quick nod. She took it, her forehead creased, and disappeared in the direction of Miss Scarlett’s office.
Whoever had sent a Messenger meant business. Although the everyday messenger paper we used to send messages home was mostly reliable, there was no telling when, or in what state, your letter would arrive. Shaking off the sudden chill that swept in the room from the open door, I turned my mind back to breakfast.
The meal continued without a hitch. I left my friends and climbed the stairs, my mind lingering over the bitter memory of Miss Mabel cursing the students. What would she have me doing today?
Miss Mabel stood at the blackboard, staring at a word she’d just written with her head tilted to the side. I slipped into my desk and waited. She waved for an eraser. It popped up and rubbed out the only word on the sprawling board.
Bindings
“A binding is simple, really,” she said, spinning around to face me. “It’s an agreement that binds two people together. Some would call it an unbreakable promise. Whatever you call it, a binding is a binding. If a binding is not fulfilled, the witch that did not complete her part will die. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss Mabel.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“No,” I said, wondering how a binding applied to Advanced Curses and Hexes.
“Good.” She tossed the chalk into the air and shook off her hands. It flew in a graceful arc to her desk and landed with a little plop. An amused smile crossed her face. It raised alarms in me immediately. She cast her eyes out on the hallway and said with a jovial tone, “Due to the lovely change in plans, we’ll talk about it more when you return.”
“When I return?” I asked, turning in my seat as she sauntered out of the room. At that moment, Miss Celia huffed her way to the top of the stairs. She waved for me.
“Bianca,” she wheezed as she came to a stop. Her lips were turned down, and she waved with a fluttering hand. “Come with me. Hurry now. Miss Scarlett needs you. Immediately.”
She put a hand on my back as we walked down the stairs, escorting me to the library. A grim feeling crept into my bones. Why would Miss Scarlett need me so early in the morning? I found both Miss Scarlett and Miss Bernadette waiting by the fireplace in the warm library. Miss Bernadette fidgeted with the end of her sleeves, while Miss Scarlett stood, her arms folded across her chest.
“Bianca, please have a seat,” she said. “Miss Bernadette needs to talk to you.”
Miss Bernadette motioned me into a chair near her, but I stayed close to the doorway for a quick escape. Something terrible had happened. I could see it in their eyes. When she saw I wasn’t going to move, Miss Bernadette opened her mouth to say something, but no words formed. She turned to Miss Scarlett, as if seeking help. She couldn’t do it herself.
Stepping forward, Miss Scarlett spoke with an even tone that sounded foreign, as if it had come from someone else.
“Bianca, we just received a message from your mother,” she said. “She included a note for you.”
The Messenger at breakfast had come from my mother.
Miss Scarlett handed me an envelope with my name written in a familiar, graceful handwriting. I broke the gray wax seal with trembling hands, tearing the thin parchment in my hurry.
Dearest Bianca,
I don’t know what to say except to tell you that your dear Nana is finally free. After years of pain and ill health, she hurts no more. She passed away in her sleep last night and is finally at rest.
Do not mourn her, sweet girl. She would not want you to. She is happy, and her burdens are gone. She loved you very much and spoke of you every day. I’ll see you soon. Your teachers have my directions and will send you home now for the funeral.
All my love,
Mama
In the end, Miss Scarlett’s sturdy demeanor pulled me through the horror of those moments. Once I finished reading, when my knees went weak and my vision spotty, her sharp voice broke through the haze.
“The funeral is tomorrow,” she said. “We’ve already told Augustus to get the carriage ready. You need to go upstairs and pack.”
Dazed, I looked back at the letter. It felt like an out of body experience, staring at the words that confirmed I would never talk to Grandmother again. This was nothing like the Competition. This was real. I could feel it in my bones.
“Come,” she insisted. “Let’s go pack.”
Underneath it all, I understood Miss Scarlett’s motivation. I needed to focus, to think about something else. The pain would go away if I didn’t think about it. My heart wouldn’t fall apart. My lungs wouldn’t feel this fire, this consuming pain. I needed to think about something else. Something mundane. Something that would tie me back to reality.
Packing, yes. What should I take with me? Clothes. Shoes. Agony. Guilt. Should I pick my heart up off the floor and bring it along, bruised and disappointed?
“Come,” Miss Scarlett demanded. She grabbed my shoulder and steered me to the hall. “Let’s go get your things.”
All of a sudden, we were in my bedroom, but I didn’t remember climbing the spiral stairs.
“Where is your shoulder bag?” she asked.
I got down on my knees and pulled it out from underneath my bed.
“Do you have a white dress?”
“No.”
Miss Scarlett rummaged through my closet.
“Then let’s go find one. We have a closet with extra clothes. Follow me. Come on, walk.”
Miss Scarlett spent the next twenty minutes making me complete small tasks. I existed from one moment to the next, in between flashes of Grandmother’s eyes and Miss Scarlett’s inquiries. When I spaced out and shock threatened to envelop me, she would snap her fingers in front of my face, demanding attention.
When the carriage was ready, Miss Scarlett walked with me down the quiet corridor, past the full classrooms. I heard the drone of Miss Amelia’s voice in the background and realized the school continued to function without me. It had no idea that my world had just paused.
A classroom door opened, and Leda spilled into the hallway, followed by Camille.
“Bianca!” Leda yelled. Miss Bernadette stepped out from behind them and grabbed their arms.
“Stay here,” she quietly commanded.
“Let us talk to her!” Camille demanded in an uncharacteristically sharp voice, her face flushed and limbs flailing. The hysteria in her voice increased with every sentence. “Let us go! She needs us, Miss Bernadette. We are her only friends. She needs a friend right now! I know she does. I know she does!”
But Miss Scarlett steered me away. I looked over my shoulder to see Leda peering after me in concern. She was fighting Miss Bernadette too.
We passed through the side door near the kitchen and out into the cold. Augustus’s hunched pr
ofile sat like a gargoyle on top of the carriage. He wouldn’t look at me. Miss Scarlett held the carriage door open and set my bag inside.
“Grief won’t kill you, Bianca,” she said. Her firm voice felt like an order. “Don’t wallow in it. There is still life to live. There are still things for you to do.”
She meant more than she said, but I was too numb to read into it. The door closed, and the carriage started for home.
40
Not Your Fault
The wind blew strands of hair across my face as I stared at Grandmother’s headstone.
Leaves drifted through the graveyard on the wind. A few stray flower petals tumbled away from the bouquet resting at the base of her headstone. Trees ringed the area like protective guards, casting a naked canopy over the soil that would fill with leaves in the spring. For now, the world reflected the gray shadows in my heart.
A white candle burned tall and bright above her headstone. The freshly churned dirt that covered her body smelled like her herb garden, and a new wave of pain washed over me. Thirteen plants formed a long line over the fresh soil. The protective plant rosemary, one of her favorites.
Mother stood at my side, a pillar of strength in her white dress. Like all her clothes, it was in a simple style, with sleeves and a cinched waist. My bare toes dug into the cold soil. The white cloak I wore flapped a little in the breeze, my hair tangled out over my shoulders, abandoned.
Mama reached over and took my hand. Grandmother lay next to Grandfather’s grave. His headstone showed signs of wear. He had died almost eighteen years ago, before I was a whisper of existence, but his candle stood tall above him still. Not burning, but not gone either.
“She knew she was going to die,” Mama said. In the background, I heard the slow, mournful chant of Grandmother’s friend Helen, a sweet old woman with thin lips and a knowing smile. She stood just outside the cemetery, calling a blessing of remembrance. With no other sound in the forest, her voice rang through the trees with surprising strength from her shriveled and bent body.
As if we could forget her, I thought.
“Nana wanted me to tell you that she loved you and was very proud of you. No matter what happened.” Mama’s voice shifted into a soft laugh, and I envied her ability to work past the pain. “She also wanted me to tell you to stop studying and go have some fun.”
I was too gutted to appreciate the humor. Guilt and rage made it difficult to know what to say.
“I tried,” I whispered. “I tried to bargain with Miss–”
She forbade me from continuing. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I was so close!” I cried, tears filling my eyes. “I completed my end of the bargain with Miss Mabel, but she went back on her word. She refused!”
“Bianca, you don’t know if removing the curse would have saved her. You can’t know. You have to move on. All of us die sometime. We can’t prevent it, no matter how powerful we are.”
Mama grabbed my face, forcing me to look into her eyes.
“Tell me you understand that this is not your fault.”
I hesitated.
“Tell me, Bianca.”
I nodded once, and it was true. “I understand.” This had nothing to do with me. But it had everything to do with Miss Mabel.
My hatred swelled until it bubbled, seething and simmering beneath my skin like a separate supply of blood. I didn’t stop it, didn’t try to deter it. I embraced it instead.
Grandmother may be dead, taken by the curse, but I was not. I could gain power from intense emotion. Strength from hatred. It didn’t matter that this anger had been what Miss Mabel wanted, or that it felt like I was walking into the hands of the enemy. She’d asked me once if I wanted power. Yes I did. And now I had it.
I knew exactly how I wanted to use it, and that was all that mattered.
Mama took a calming breath, and I wondered if she could feel the shift in my rage. She had a special talent for tuning into the emotions of those around her. I pushed the raging grief back, into the recesses of my mind where all the rest of it bubbled. I didn’t want Mama to know, didn’t want to tell her that Miss Mabel had her own plans for me, that Papa hadn’t responded, and that I was so livid I thought it would break me from the inside out.
“It’s going to be okay, Bianca,” she said, putting her warm hand on my shoulder and staring deep into my eyes. “Everything will work out.”
I didn’t believe her.
“Certainly,” I whispered instead. My lie must have worked, because she relaxed. Locking the anger safe and tight in my heart meant Mama didn’t sense it anymore and the worried lines around her eyes receded a little.
“You get your stubbornness from your father, you know,” she whispered, brushing a lock of hair away from my face. “Just like your fast mind.”
All of her movements were slow and deliberate. She hid her pain. The curse would take her life in a few years. It would strengthen with each day until life was nothing more than a cruel repetition of the day before, her bones worked into bitter ash.
“Bianca, I’m worried about you going back to–”
“It’ll be all right.” I stopped her this time.
“I can’t lose you, too,” she whispered in a small voice. I wondered how my mother survived these horrible years. The pressing weight of the curse, loving a man who couldn’t stay, watching her daughter move closer to death with every birthday. I wanted to ask her if it was worth it. She’d say yes, but I didn’t want to hear it, and I didn’t know why.
“You won’t,” I promised. My resolve echoed into the numb soles of my feet. Confidence, Bianca. She needs to hear your confidence. “Miss Mabel’s not going to win. Not now.”
Mama took me into her arms and held me close. I took a great deal of solace from the love in her embrace. We stayed there for several long moments.
“Come on, Bianca,” she whispered, pulling away. “Let’s go.”
Helen’s voice changed, switching from the low keen to a sweet melody. An honor chant. The white candle standing over Nana’s grave flickered, then went out.
We will never forget.
I turned to follow Mama, then stopped, grabbed a few skinny twigs, and knelt in front of Nana’s grave. After whispering a spell, the twigs braided themselves together. A small handful of forget-me-nots bloomed from the dead stalks, unfurling their blue wings like a new dove. I draped the crown of flowers around the headstone so it rested across her name.
“So mote it be,” I whispered, leaving her a kiss on the tip of my fingers. Then I took my mother’s hand, and we left Grandmother to rest in the quiet graveyard.
41
Powerful Chances
I stood at the window in my childhood room, arms folded across my chest, listening to the last of the villagers as they spoke with Mama. Most of the time their words were a murmur in the background, but occasionally I caught a few snippets.
“So sorry, Marie.”
“Can we do anything?”
“How’s Bianca holding up? They were so close.”
My head hurt, pulsing pain with every beat. Below me sat my rickety old desk, built from a tree my mother and I had chopped down, and a feather pen so old it looked like it had molted. Ink dripped off the end, forming a tiny puddle. I’d sent three more letters to Papa without a word in response. I feared more for him than myself anymore. He’d never gone this long without responding. I didn’t dare bring it up to Mama, who would only worry.
I turned around, looking over my shoulder when a waft of lemon on the air caught my attention.
Fog filled the room, carrying a citrus scent. Had I been so wrapped up in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed? An expanding mist with a specific smell only came from a powerful transportation spell. I backed up against the wall and sucked in a hopeful breath.
Papa. Who else could it be? Maybe I’d wished him here, brought him here on the power of my aching heart alone.
The cloud thickened, and the lemon scent intensified. The mist filled
the room until I could only see a few inches beyond my face. Small drops of water condensed on the ends of my hair and fingertips.
Although I expected someone to arrive, the scratchy voice still startled me.
“Why are you standing against the wall?”
My eyes widened.
The High Priestess’s lumpy frame came into view, appearing as a swatch of fog moved aside. She wore a sparkling yellow dress that made her look sallow and old. Diamond earrings dripped from her ears and matched the petite silver crown nestled in her gray hair.
“Waiting, Your Highness.”
“Well, don’t just stand there. I didn’t stop by for tea. Are you coming or not?”
As if I could refuse the High Priestess.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
She turned, and I stepped forward, following her into the fog. It swallowed us like a giant maw as we walked six or seven steps, leaving my quaint little room and emerging into an opulent office.
A massive mahogany desk, at least nine feet long, stretched across the middle of the room. A wall of windows faced the dying embers of the red and orange sunset. No books, just paintings of parts of the Central Network adorned every available space. Instead of seeming chaotic, the effect was warm.
The mist faded when we stepped into the room. She extended her hand to me.
“Take my arm.”
Proof that she wasn’t a deception spell. I gripped her forearm in my hand, and she held mine, completing the formal greeting amongst unknown witches. She dropped it almost immediately.
So much for curtsies, Miss Scarlett.
“I brought you here to talk about Miss Mabel.”
The mention of her name made me turn hot, then cold. This couldn’t be good.
“Miss Mabel, Your Highness?”
“Your education started out as a quest to save yourself from a curse set by a corrupt teacher, but it’s about to become much more than that.”
I watched her carefully, more concerned by the tone of her words than by her detailed knowledge about me. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I remained quiet, waiting for her to continue.