by Cate Tiernan
In the next instant, I raced back upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. Behind a poster in my room was a niche I’d made in the wall. My supplies were in there—my usual magick tools, plus the things I used with Carmela. I threw them into a canvas bag and rushed downstairs.
At the front window, I was just in time to see a dark blue car pull up in front of our house. Clio went out to meet it. I stared, even as I shoved my bare feet into my sneakers by the front door. When Clio opened the passenger-side door, the interior light went on.
It was Daedalus. What a big surprise. They’d been working together; now they were going to do something, put some plan in action. Oh, Clio, I thought in anguish. How could you?
I accepted the fact that I would follow them even before I consciously decided to. I grabbed the keys to the rental and hovered by the front door. As soon as they were down the block, I slipped out the front door and hurried to our car. The streets were virtually empty: they would be easy to follow, but I’d have to stay far back, since I would be obvious.
Clio, he killed our father. What are you doing?
She Will Be Pleased
Beside him in the front seat, Clio looked tired but alert. For the last forty minutes, she’d been uncharacteristically quiet, none of her usual bravado on display. He felt the tension coming off her and felt also how she was working to control it.
He was proud of her. He congratulated himself on finding her, discovering her talent, taking her under his wing. Melita would be very pleased.
“And this will open the Source?” Clio’s voice was quiet but startling in the dark car.
Daedalus shot her a glance. “Yes.”
“And we’ll increase our power with those spells?”
“Yes. We’ll take power from the nature around us, as we’ve practiced. Then we’ll be able to take greater power from the Source itself.”
Clio nodded, not looking at him.
On the farthest horizon, the sky was lightening almost imperceptibly. It would be dawn in half an hour. He would be ready. And so would Melita.
I’m not a morning person. There’s a reason I started drinking coffee when I was five—I needed that jolt of joe to gear me up for kindergarten. Right now I felt like my eyeballs had been fused open. I was hyper-alert, every nerve ending tingling, but I also felt a bone-deep weariness from a combination of having worked hard magick again and again and having gotten barely any sleep last night.
Each road Daedalus turned down was narrower than the last, and by the time it was almost dawn, we were bumping down what felt like a dirt cattle path. I recognized where we were; he’d told me we were going back to the circle of ashes.
“What about everyone else?” I asked as Daedalus rocked to a halt beneath a huge live oak. I looked around—no other cars were visible.
“They’re joining us at daybreak,” Daedalus said, getting out of the car. As usual, he was dressed in dark, somewhat old-fashioned-looking clothes and had his walking cane hung over one arm. “We’ll start with the purity of just us two and then add others as needed.”
I looked at him and once again mentally kicked myself for having put myself into what had the potential to be an incredibly stupid, if not deadly, situation. I seemed to have a death wish of some kind, or maybe I was just dumb as an effing rock.
Daedalus popped the trunk, then leaned around to call me. “Come, my dear. It isn’t far now.”
This whole area felt deeply familiar, now that Id been here less than two weeks ago—and then there were all the visions of the place that Thais and I’d had.
Well, here goes.
We cast our circle within the circle of ashes just before dawn lit the clouds with scalloped edges of pink and orange. It was almost cool right now, but it would be warm again later. Around us, some trees had lost their leaves, but mostly there were pines and live oaks. Though the woods looked scraggly, they weren’t bare.
No measly candles for us—instead Daedalus kindled a small fire on the patch of bare earth in the center of the circle. We stood facing each other but not touching. Closing my eyes, I sang the spell to reveal my power, perfect and whole and strong, the inner essence of who I was. Then I felt Daedalus’s power, and together we sang the bridge that twined our powers together. We weren’t an even match—when Thais and I did this, it felt smooth and almost indistinguishable. But Daedalus and I were two very different beings, and I was glad we wouldn’t have to do this much.
Just yesterday he had taught me the next section, where I joined my power to the nature around me. Here, surrounded by huge trees and leaves and rocks, I would feel like the Incredible Hulk when it was over. I’d memorized the spell phonetically and recognized only about half the words. It felt very ancient, and as I sang, I realized for the first time that a dark thread ran through it. I hadn’t noticed it yesterday, hadn’t felt it. But now that I was here, setting it loose, its dark undercurrent set off an alarm in my head.
But the alarm vanished in the next moment as a rush of power, beautiful and pure and intense, swept me from head to foot, making me sway and gasp. Light and strength filled my chest and spread throughout my body, as if I’d been empty before and was being filled with life and oxygen for the first time. I was awestruck—this was a hundred times more powerful and intense than anything I’d done before. I felt unbearably ecstatic and at the same time overwhelmed.
I opened my eyes. Opposite me, Daedalus looked flushed, healthy, younger. He smiled faintly, eyes glittering, the rising dawn painting a golden outline around his head.
I smiled, every breath I took feeling like pure sunlight. If I raised my arms, I would float right off the ground. If I touched a flower bud, it would bloom. If I brushed my hand over the ground, sleeping insects would waken, seeds would burst with life, new plants would push through the surface. I felt like I would live forever.
I laughed, and Daedalus smiled at me, his face lit by the fire.
“It’s so beautiful,” I whispered. My voice was other-worldly, musical, so perfectly in tune with nature that it was barely human.
“Yes,” he agreed softly. “Power is beautiful.”
Colorful leaves fluttered to the ground behind him—I saw them despite the weakness of the daybreak’s light. Joy rose up in me at the very idea of autumn, of seasons changing, of the endless cycle of death, rebirth, and growth. All around me, life pulsed in time with my heartbeat; I was connected to everything, one with everything, surging with power, bursting with magick.
“Now, let’s open the Source.” Daedalus’s words came to me as a thought, a feeling, and I felt a new rush of exhilaration at the idea of creating more magick in this exalted state.
“Yes,” I breathed, and the leaves falling from the trees looked like nature’s jewelry. I wanted to hold out my hands and have a leaf land on me as lightly as a dragonfly.
Daedalus started his spell, first casting the limitations. The song went on for a while, and our surroundings grew more lit with each passing minute. I was paying attention to Daedalus, but the gentle sound of leaves falling distracted me, and, enchanted, I focused on one wavering in the air.
And in the next moment, I was chilled with a horror so complete it was like someone had thrown a bucket of icy water on me.
My mouth opened in an O. Quickly I looked around—here, there, all around—and had my horror confirmed. It wasn’t leavesfalling to the ground—it was birds. Everywhere around us, one by one, small songbirds were falling from their perches, from their nests, and dropping to the ground. Appalled, I realized that the magick pulsing with each heartbeat was in fact the power, the lives that these birds were losing to me. Each new pearl of light that swelled inside me meant that another bird had just died and that I had absorbed its power.
“Daedalus!” I choked. “Daedalus! Something’s wrong!”
It took almost twenty seconds for my words to register. Slowly he opened his eyes, stilling the spell. He looked angry.
“Clio! You realize I’ll have to begin
again.”
“Look! Look!” I pointed all around us. “The birds—birds are dying everywhere! Something’s wrong! Stop the spell! Break it! We did something wrong!”
Daedalus didn’t even flick a glance over my shoulder. In that second I realized he wasn’t shocked, wasn’t horrified. Wasn’t even surprised, in fact. This was the spell he’d had me memorize yesterday: a spell to take power from birds by taking their lives and adding them to ours.
“Oh goddess!” I cried.
“Clio, don’t overreact,” Daedalus said more calmly. “This is what we talked about; this is what you wanted. Everything has a price, and you said you were willing to pay that price.”
“Not thisprice!” Littering the ground like crumpled tissues were ten, twenty, thirty, moresongbirds, too many to count. I knew their names, I had memorized these and so many more, as part of my working magickal knowledge. Carolina wrens, brown-headed nuthatches, thrushes, sparrows of various kinds, and even some tiny, delicate, jewel-like painted buntings, which are so rare to see. All dead everywhere I looked, and others still falling.
Tears flooded my eyes. Choking on sobs, I got out the words that would break any spell I was working. Daedalus lunged across the fire and grabbed my shoulders, looking furious.
“Stop it!” he shouted. “How dare you! Now you’ve made their deaths in vain! We need their power to open the Source! This is what you wanted! You don’t understand! Stupid girl!” He shook me so hard my teeth rattled, but I still managed to draw the end sigils in the air, managed to get out the last words, and then it was over. Beauty, life, and power left me, and I dropped to the ground like a sack of dirt.
“You don’t understand!” Daedalus cried again, sounding close to tears of rage and frustration. “You don’t understand!” He sank to his knees by the fire, then dropped to all fours, gasping and trying not to cry.
“No,” I said. I lay on the ground, feeling like I would never be able to move. Without magick, the whole world was in shades of washed-out gray. I was diminished to a point where I wasn’t sure I was human, or alive, or anything. But something had occurred to me, the answer to a puzzle. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Now I know why Cerise died that night.”
“What?” he rasped, raising his head with effort. “What are you talking about? She died in childbirth! Many women did back then.”
“No.” I managed to shake my head, though it felt leaden. “You didn’t see it—you didn’t want to see it. Cerise died because Melita took her life to get her power—the power of Cerise’s life is what’s kept all of you alive all these years. You stupid idiot.”
Daedalus gaped at me, his eyes now bloodshot, his face deathly pale.
“No—you’re wrong,” he insisted. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I’m right,” I said with certainty, feeling like death. “Cerise died to give you immortality. Like these poor birds died to give us power.” I started to cry hard, sobs racking my chest, threatening to break my throat.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Daedalus freeze and then look up. I focused on him in time to see confusion cross his face.
“Wha—”he said faintly.
With huge effort, I turned my head. And saw Thais, my sister, walking toward us with a wand in her hand.
The first time a dead sparrow pelted my shoulder, I gasped and jumped. The second time a little bird bounced off my shoulder, I caught it in my hands.
It was a small brown bird, nondescript, the kind you see thousands of over the course of your life. Nothing special. Its eyes were closed, feet curled, feathers soft and light and warm—a thing of beauty. In my hands it felt as grotesque and repulsive as the earthworm had after I’d stripped its powers. I smothered a shriek and dropped it, and then I saw that more were falling like rain, like slow, feathery raindrops splashing onto the wet leaves on the ground.
What was happening here?
I rushed forward, no longer trying to be stealthy. I’d followed Daedalus’s car pretty easily, then parked out of sight and taken a roundabout way to the circle of ashes.
This was it. Clio would never forgive me, but this was the perfect opportunity. Carmela didn’t think I was ready, but I was. I’d learned the basic form—and I’d crafted a short section that I would insert into the spell where the earthworm part had been.
Death was everywhere, morning light showing the stark corpses. I lost count of how many birds dropped around me, and I tried not to step on them. It was a nightmare, so desolate and horrible that I thought these woods would feel tainted forever.
Especially after what I was about to do.
At the edge of the woods I stopped. I heard Clio crying, saying something about the birds, and I saw Daedalus grab her and shake her hard. Trying to tamp down my anger, I quickly began the spell. It was long and took minutes to set in place, with the limitations and having to exclude Clio. I sang very softly, even after Clio dropped to the ground sobbing and I wanted to run to her. Then Daedalus fell to his hands and knees. Clio’s words about Cerise came dimly to my mind, but I couldn’t process them: I was ready. I aimed my wand at Daedalus and held out my left hand, which had a black silk cord wrapped around it.
I walked out of the woods toward him, and he felt it, looking up in surprise. With four words I hit him with the binding spell and pulled the cord tighter around my fingers. He froze, and part of me couldn’t believe it was working.
Steadily I kept on, weaving the spell line by line, phrase by phrase. I drew runes in the air for victory in battle and the one that meant frozen, obstacle, delay. I drew sigils in the air, big, with my whole corded hand, the one that tied the spell to this place right now, the one that solidified my strength right here.
“Thais?” Clio asked brokenly, trying to get up. “What are you doing?”
I couldn’t answer, but now Daedalus was wideeyed: he knew. I felt him trying to move, to break free like a bug from a spider’s web, but I held him there.
The spell was grueling, draining my energy. It was down-to-the-bone terrifying—I knew it was wrong, so wrong. There was a road in front of me: to one side was light, to the other was dark, and I was taking the dark path.
I thought about Daedalus chanting the spell that had made the car jump up onto the sidewalk. I thought about how scared my dad must have been to see it crashing toward him. It must have taken Daddy minutes to die, minutes where he thought about me, about my mom, about my twin who he thought was dead.
I hadn’t been with him. He’d been gone by the time they got to the hospital and called me. I didn’t have a chance to say good-bye.
Daedalus’s mouth opened and his lips formed a terrified “No!” but no sound came out. Still I kept going, thinking of my dad dying, thinking of the life I’d lost. Daedalus’s magick began to leave him. I caught it with my spell and began to pull. He screamed and collapsed on the ground, curling up in agony.
Clio shouted, “No, no!” and tried to get up. I held out one hand, trapping her on her hands and knees. I’d had this all planned out for days, waiting for the right opportunity, and I had to execute it. Daedalus writhed on the ground, a tortured old man, and still I kept going, pulling his magick from him as if I were uncoiling wool from a skein. He lay among the ashes of the circle, their dust streaking his face, his hands. Clio watched the scene with astonished horror, but she was helpless to stop me.
Still I pulled it from him, and it was infinitely harder than it had been with the orchid or the earthworm. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I gritted my teeth, feeling an indescribable pain at working magick too advanced. Daedalus’s power felt ancient and dark and unknown, and I knew it was so much more than what an ordinary witch would have. It flowed through my wand and I dissipated it out into the world because I didn’t know what else to do with it. My studies hadn’t gotten that far.
I don’t know how long it took—once I started, there was no telling how much time had passed. But finally I felt Daedalus’s magick lessen, his thread become
thinner and weaker, and I saw his body lying like a shriveled husk on the ground. The last of it came away from him gently, dandelion fuzz releasing itself from him as lightly as air.
I had done it. I had taken my revenge on the man who had killed my father.
The spell collapsed on itself ungracefully, leaving me standing there as if I’d been hit by lightning. I met Clio’s horrified eyes, saw her blur, and then I too fell to my knees onto the damp, leafy ground. The world was spinning crazily, and I dry-heaved, my stomach empty. I felt horribly ill. But I didn’t care what happened now.
“Very good, child,” I heard a voice say. Amazed, I looked up to see Carmela stepping out of the woods, her own wand raised.
“Who—?” Clio muttered, just as I said, “Carmela!”
“I thought you weren’t ready, but you decided different, I guess,” she said in her seductive voice. “It takes a lot to surprise me, but you’ve done it. Unfortunately, I really didn’t want you to strip Daedalus of his powers—at least, not yet. I needed him. But I suppose I can improvise.”
“What are you doing here?” My voice was thin and broken, and speaking made my head feel like it was going to explode. Carmela smiled pleasantly in a chilling way that awoke fear I hadn’t thought I could still feel. Now that I saw her in weak daylight, her features were clear in a way they hadn’t been before in the darkness.
“Melita.” The word was barely sounded. I whipped my gaze to Daedalus, who was staring at Carmela with hope and, I thought, humiliation.
“Melita? That’s not Melita,” I said, trying to swallow. “Her name is Carmela.”
Carmela smiled at me, and an icy hand seemed to seize my throat. I coughed as she shook her head fondly. “Thais, Thais,” she said affectionately. “So smart, so strong, so unexpected. But not smart or strong enough.” She raised her wand again, pointing it right at me. “You’ve thrown quite a wrench in my plans.”