“If we had gold, we could,” Matt muttered. For a short time, she had had her own supply of magic, malleable gold like Suki’s. It had done whatever she asked it to, until she used it all up.
“I’m not a genie or a fairy. My kind of craft doesn’t work that way,” Edmund said. He got doughnuts and the loaf of bread out of the grocery bag. “To get something for you, I have to take it from somewhere else. I don’t know where to find a pheasant under glass, and if I found one and took it, someone would be upset. All I can offer you is what we already have.” He smiled and pulled a doughnut out of the bag, showed it to Rebecca.
“Oh, goody, chocolate sprinkles,” she said. Edmund got a napkin out of the bag and put the doughnut on it, then handed it to Rebecca. She sat down at her place and dunked the doughnut in her coffee. “I haven’t done this in a long time!” She took a bite. “Yum! Well, that’s great. You guys want coffee? I’ve got a pot made.”
“I’ll get some,” Matt said. “Edmund doesn’t drink it. Everything’s where it used to be, right?”
“Right. Help yourself.”
“Want cheese sandwiches?” Edmund asked. “How about peanut butter and jelly? What we’ve got is road food. We’re traveling right now.”
“We shouldn’t use up your food,” Rebecca said. “Look, I’ve got instant rice. I could run out and do some shopping. We could get Chinese or pizza or something. Drat that Terry, anyway. She probably offered you dinner, didn’t she? She doesn’t care about food. Friday nights I usually have ramen with egg in it and whatever leftovers I’ve got from the previous week. I use up all my produce, and—”
“That sounds good,” said Matt. She sat at the table with her loaded cup of coffee and looked through the bag of groceries in front of her.
“We can use whatever we’ve got,” Edmund said. “We can get more.”
“Look,” said Matt. “Potatoes!”
“Okay. Let’s pool our resources,” said Rebecca.
By the time Terry came back from her shower, stylish again in a maroon shirt and black slacks, short black hair neatly blow-dried, they had put together a strange but interesting meal, a stew of noodles, chopped celery, green beans, potato chunks, eggs, carrots. After they dished it into bowls, Rebecca and Matt added slices of pepperoni to theirs, and Edmund put cheese slices on top of all of them. Rebecca added thick-sliced sourdough bread and butter. Terry stuck with cottage cheese and yogurt. She didn’t even taste the mulligan stew, but Matt thought it was great.
“sure, you can stay in Tasha’s room if you like,” Rebecca said when they had finished eating and cleaning up and sat around the kitchen table. “She doesn’t mind.”
“It’s not Tasha’s room,” Terry said. “She never lived in this house. She’s got her own apartment halfway across town. Mom just set it up and hoped.”
“I promised her I’d always have a place for her to stay. She has stayed here.”
“Twice, out of pity,” said Terry. “Hey, Matt, want some cocoa?”
Cocoa was one of the few good things Matt remembered about being here before. Terry would eat her horrible meals of white and tasteless things, and Matt would eat the same things because that was one of the ways the tether spell had worked. Every once in a while, Terry would give her cocoa. In that flavorless existence, cocoa had come close to nirvana.
“Yeah,” Matt said. “That’d be nice.”
Terry made cocoa the hard way: heated milk on the stove, mixed Dutch chocolate with a measured amount of sugar, then blended in the hot milk. She got the milk carton out of the refrigerator.
“Terry, offer some to your other guest,” Rebecca said. “And what about your ailing mom? Doesn’t she deserve some?”
“Does she want some?” Terry’s voice held a strange note.
“Actually, I’m stuffed,” said Rebecca. “We did good, guys.”
“What about you, Edmund?” Terry turned and glanced at him, eyebrows up.
“No, thank you.”
Terry smiled and put milk on to heat, then got down a mug Matt remembered from ten years earlier. It was gray, the shape of a beer stein, and it had a blue coat-of-arms-type eagle stenciled on the side.
Her special mug.
The articles of confinement …
Matt felt strange.
Terry fixed the cocoa for her and handed her the mug. “Thanks.” Matt sniffed. It smelled so great. A little bitter, not milk chocolate, something old and dark and powerfully comforting. She lifted the mug for a sip, and thought,—Hi, mug. Remember me?—
—Matt! Missed your hands. Missed your lips.—She kissed its lip.
—Don’t drink,—it thought.
—Why not?—
—She put something changing inside.—
Matt set the mug on the table, kept her hand on the handle, and stared at Terry. Terry shrugged, smiled, and waggled her eyebrows.
“What does it do?” Matt asked.
“Makes you happy. It’s a short one.”
“That’s it?”
Terry licked her upper lip. “No.”
What had Matt said when she left last time? I’ll be your friend if you don’t cast spells on me. But here Terry was, casting a spell on her without even asking. Matt had given Terry a second chance, and Terry blew it.
Why?
Terry was bad at making friends.
Matt felt a rush of exasperated affection. When was this kid going to learn? She shoved the mug toward Terry. “You drink it,” she said.
“I will if you will.”
A dare. More kid stuff. “You first.”
Terry got another mug down and poured half the cocoa into the second mug. She drank, then showed Matt the inside of the mug, empty except for a few foamy beige bubbles on the side.
Matt watched Terry. Terry blinked rapidly, sagged back in her chair, then smiled at Matt. It was kind of a dopey smile. “Yeah,” she said. “I feel good. Come on.”
Had Matt promised to drink? Implied it, but she hadn’t said it out loud. Not a strictly binding promise. She could let Terry endure the spell alone.
What if it was dire? It couldn’t be too dire. Terry had too much self-respect to do something that would mess her up permanently.
“C’mon. C’mon.”
Matt sipped chocolate. It was as wonderful as she remembered, warm, sweet, smooth, dark. She felt a reminiscent flicker of hopeless pleasure that tumbled her back into the past she had shared with Terry, where cocoa had taken on huge symbolic meaning; whatever good Matt could find, she had tried to enjoy it, no matter what else was going on. And there had been good things, more than just cocoa.
The spell hit. Warmth flooded through her, flushed out to her fingertips and toes and the tips of her ears and nose. The hair prickled on her scalp. Immense, inescapable comfort overwhelmed her. Contentment, and the conviction that here was where she belonged; no place else held any interest.
She finished her cocoa. The spell only enhanced the flavor. She set her mug on the table and looked at Terry, tried to remember what was worrisome about this situation.
Worry? What a waste of energy. She was warm, full, and happy, here with her friends. What more could she want than just to be sitting in this chair in this kitchen in this house in this town in this corner of the universe?
“Don’t you think it’s nice?” Terry asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Matt,” said Edmund.
“Uh-huh.”
“What just happened?”
“Huh?”
“Terry doped your cocoa, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Matt smiled and nodded at her mug.
“Terry!” cried Rebecca. “What did I tell you? No spells in the house! No spells on our guests! What have you done?”
“Terry,” said Edmund, and his voice was dark razor steel.
Terry blinked and turned to look at him. “Huh,” she said. “Shiny.”
Matt glanced at Edmund too. Red glowed in his eyes, and flames flickered from his curls. “Terry, tak
e the spell off,” he said. His voice was deep, quiet, sharp, and very scary. He leaned toward Terry. Matt thought, If I could think, I wouldn’t want him looking at me like that.
Terry giggled and said, “Can’t. It’s on me too. Can’t think.”
Something in Matt’s bones struggled with the spell. She felt very strange. Vines grew inside her: tendrils spiraled and spread, hooked to each other, reached out to all her edges, pin-pricky flickery feelings, until she felt overgrown, loaded down with internal lace. Shock, sharp and hot, jolted through the vines. Matt sat up straight. “Whoa!” The vines flashed into nothing, and the spell, too, disappeared. “God, Terry. What a nasty thing.”
“What?” Terry blinked at her. “Feels nice.”
“Matt?” Edmund touched her hand. She turned to him and saw that anger still flickered in his eyes. “You okay?”
“Edmund?” Rebecca said in a tiny voice.
“I’m okay,” Matt said, and the red in Edmund’s eyes faded. He glanced at Rebecca.
“I guess you are a witch,” Rebecca said, her voice still faint.
“Yes,” he said. He frowned and stared at Terry. She smiled sleepily back. “What did it do, Matt?”
“It made me feel good and dumb. Like I just wanted to sit here for the rest of my life and be happy.”
“You knew she put a spell on the cocoa before you drank.”
“The mug told me.”
“So why did you drink?”
Matt shook her head. “It was kind of a dare.”
“She said it was short. Did it wear off? It’s still working on her.”
“No, it didn’t wear off,” Matt said. She touched her chest, looked down at her front. “It burnt up. Something grew in me and burnt it all up.”
He took both her hands. “Something’s taking care of you,” he said softly. “The house again? Hello? Are you in there? Can you speak?”
“Hello,” said Matt. “I can’t stay here too long. I have to go home.” It was the other voice again, the one that had spoken the night they spent in the desert, a calm, matter-of-fact, flat voice a slight shift away from Matt’s.
What the house had given her could burn a spell out of her. It wasn’t there just to see to its own mission. It protected her, too.
“It broke the spell.” Matt gripped Edmund’s hands and smiled.
He returned her smile.
“Am I still acting like me?”
“Yep.”
“What broke the spell?” Rebecca asked.
“She has a guardian,” Edmund said.
“I wish I had one of those,” Rebecca said, and glanced at Terry, who just grinned and stared up at the kitchen light fixture. “Then, on the other hand, there she is, incapacitated, under a spell she cast herself. Terry?”
“Yes?”
“How do you feel?”
“Good. I feel nice.”
“Is there anything you want?”
“I just want to stay here.” Terry closed her eyes and smiled too widely. “It’s so nice.”
“How long will this spell last, honey?”
“What? Don’t know exactly. An hour, maybe.”
“Did you make any more of this one?”
“Sure. I got lots of this one, Mom. Just made a big batch. First time I tried it, though.”
“Give me what you’ve got.” Rebecca held out her hand. Terry bit her lower lip and reached into the pockets of her slacks. She squirmed around for a while, then came up with a handful of pink pellets. She frowned at them and dropped them into her mother’s hand.
“Thank you, honey. Now forget you did that.”
“’Kay,” said Terry, blinking.
“I’ll be right back.” Rebecca rose and left the room.
Matt and Edmund exchanged glances. What was going on?
Rebecca came back, dusting off her hands.
“What were those?” Matt asked.
“‘Spells.” Rebecca studied Terry, who just smiled and looked away, her face serene and stupid. “Terry mass-produces them and mass-markets them. My daughter, the spell dealer. She’s got a web page. I check it every day to make sure she’s not offering anything dangerous. I don’t like this one. It seems like the perfect date-rape drug, and it makes me sick that she test-drives it on somebody she calls her friend. She has this impulsive streak.”
“Jeeze. What kind of spells does she sell?” Matt asked.
“Some of them are about making yourself attractive to the one you want, or being able to study really well, or remedy hangovers, or summon money. College crowd-pleasers. She makes them pretty weak; they work just well enough so people can tell they’re getting something for their fifty bucks. I know she’s working on others—more intense, more expensive, more dangerous—but she doesn’t sell them on her site; she does it some other way. I can’t ride herd on her. She’s beyond my ability to control. I just have to hope. I make these rules she’s supposed to follow if she wants to live here, and so far she seems to want to live here enough to appear to follow my rules. This was a definite trespass, though. Matt, I’m so sorry.”
“I knew she was doing something. I just didn’t know what.” Matt got up and rinsed out her mug three times, then filled it from the coffeepot.—Thanks for the warning,—she thought to the mug.
—You’re welcome. This is better.—
“Brilliant making her try it first,” Rebecca said. “The hardest part about the whole thing is that she helps pay the mortgage. She usually makes more money per month than I do at my legitimate job.”
“Huh,” said Matt. “What are you going to do with the spells you took from her?”
Red touched Rebecca’s checks. “I have a little stash,” she said after checking to make sure Terry was still preoccupied.
“You use them?”
“I never have. Sometimes, though, I think they might come in handy. This spell might be the perfect date-rape drug. But look. It’s also like she grounded herself.” Rebecca’s face twisted. “Let’s see how she comes out of it. Sometimes I hate my thoughts. But sometimes she just gets so wild.”
Matt sat down with her coffee. It must be hard being Rebecca. Was she all the time feeling like she didn’t know what her daughter was going to do to her next? Kind of like being a lamb and living with a tiger. Though the lamb had just taken some of the tiger’s claws away, and could use them on the tiger if she had to.
Matt thought about her internal guardian. Hey. Maybe she was luckier than she knew. A whole extra level of survival skill. The more she thought about it, the better she liked it.
“Edmund, if there was a battle between you and Terry, who would win?” Rebecca asked.
“I have no idea. We haven’t tested each other in a long time, and our crafts have gone in different directions. I don’t usually fight anything.”
Rebecca said, “Your eyes got red, and your voice hurt to hear. You scared me.”
The corners of Edmund’s mouth quirked. “Well. That’s handy, but it doesn’t mean I could have actually done anything.”
Matt punched his arm. “Spirit would help you if it knew you were right.”
He lifted his eyebrows at her, smiled. “Maybe.”
Terry shuddered and drew in a deep breath. She shook her head, blew out the breath, took in another. Expelled that one in a whoosh. Then she stuck her tongue out. “Yuck! Oh, yuck!”
“Are you back to normal?” asked Rebecca.
“My mouth tastes terrible! Matt—”
Matt handed Terry her coffee mug. Terry took a big gulp and swished liquid around in her mouth. “Thanks,” she said. “What an evil spell. I didn’t know it was going to work like that. Sorry, Matt.”
“Oh, you are not,” said Matt.
“Yes, I am. I don’t know why I did that. Some imp of the perverse, I guess. I had the spells in my pocket, and—”
“Oh, come on. You picked those pants to wear down to dinner. Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking ahead.”
“But I—But these were
the only clean pants I could find.” Terry dug into her pockets again. “The spells are gone. Where’d they go?”
“I confiscated them,” said Rebecca.
“‘I don’t remember that.”
“What do you remember about being under that spell, Terry?” Edmund asked.
Terry frowned. “Not a whole lot. I felt really, really happy. All I wanted was to sit here forever and feel happy. That’s not the effect I was trying for. I was looking for contentment but with the brain intact. How did it translate?”
“You were very happy. And stupid.”
“No,” Terry said slowly, looking stricken, “that’s not what I wanted at all.” She looked anxiously at Matt.
Matt smiled. “I broke mine.”
“You did? Good.”
“That’s what I think. If I can break your spells, maybe we can be friends after all, no matter how much you try to screw it up.”
“What?” said Terry.
“You’re still really bad at this friendship stuff, aren’t you?”
Terry looked away. “Yeah.”
“Maybe you dropped that spell on me because things were going too well. Who knows. Maybe right now we can only be friends if I’m strong enough to beat you. Maybe I’m strong enough now. Now I need you, too.”
“What?”
“Or the house needs you. I’m having trouble keeping this straight. I’m calling people back to the house.” Matt looked at Edmund. “This was supposed to be your journey,” she said.
“Seems like it’s all three of our journeys, yours, mine, and the house’s.”
“The house needs me?” Terry said. “I go back every year.”
“To renew the wards. House told us,” Edmund said.
Terry nodded. “I spend part of every summer in Guthrie with my aunt. Gran won’t even let me into her house anymore because she doesn’t like what I’m studying, but Nathan doesn’t mind me. Are you saying the house needs me now?”
“We think so,” said Edmund. “Something’s going on that we don’t understand yet. Have you seen Julio lately?”
Terry shook her head. “Not for years.”
“We’ve found everybody but Julio and Tasha.”
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