First Frost (4 page)

“Screw it,” she muttered.

She got out of her car and ran inside the house. She called for her mother as she searched for her upstairs in all of the rooms. Nothing. She quickly ran downstairs and was ready to go down to the basement when a strange turquoise light caught her eye. She looked out the kitchen window; she couldn’t believe what she saw. Her mother was throwing what Bianca could only describe as balls of turquoise fire at a woman wearing a black hood. Bianca couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she could see her pale hands and slender fingers.

Bianca tried to make sense of it all. She kept expecting to see a special effects crew to come out from behind the trees and tell her that it was all part of an elaborate prank. But no such thing happened. All she knew was that a strange turquoise flame was coming out of her mother’s hands.

She knew that her mother sometimes read old, dusty books on witchcraft, but she didn’t know she had actual
powers
. She thought about all the little quirks her mother had. Things that Bianca thought were essentially
Rose
. Her mother talked to plants and trees. She would sometimes stare off into space as though she were looking at something in another world. Something only she could see. She read tarot cards to random people and would tell them things about his or her life as though she were reading an open book. Bianca always thought she just made really lucky guesses. She chose not to believe in this
other world
and everything it stood for.
Magic
represented a life out of the norm, and Bianca desperately wanted to be normal. Just like everyone else.

Bianca pulled herself out of her thoughts. As she looked at the blue and green flashes in the backyard, she quickly realized that this was something she couldn’t escape.
Normal
was no longer a part of her world.
Normal
was no longer an option for her.

Bianca didn’t know what to do. She was frozen in place. She was afraid to distract her mother for even a second. She ducked behind the screen door; at least this way she could still hear what they were saying to each other.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t come?” the witch shouted.

“Oh, I knew you’d be back,” Rose replied.

Bianca slowly lifted her gaze and peeked above the screen. She saw her mother standing behind the shed on the left side of their backyard. The witch was still too far away for her to get a good look at her, but Bianca could tell that she was on the far right corner of their yard.

“Where’s the book?” the witch demanded.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rose replied with a smirk.

“Don’t be coy with me. You know very well what I’m talking about.”

“Sorry. I can’t help you.” Rose’s breathing was becoming more labored, and she was drenched in sweat, obvious signs of exhaustion, but Bianca could tell by the look on her mother’s face that she wouldn’t give up.

“The wards in the museum are impressive. I couldn’t get past them. But maybe…she’ll know where the book is,” the witch said as she looked in Bianca’s direction and threw a sickly olive-colored fireball at the screen door.

Bianca shrieked and jumped out of the way. The screen door fell off its hinges and landed on the kitchen floor with a loud thud.

“Bianca!” Rose screamed.

The witch laughed as she made her way toward the house.

“Stay away from my daughter!” Rose shouted.

Bianca watched as the witch tried to walk into the house, but she stopped as if held back by an unseen wall. Bianca gasped as Rose struck the witch with a citrine-colored fireball from behind. The witch howled in pain. Bianca wasn’t going to wait and see what else would happen. She got up and hid inside the fireplace. It was dark, dirty, and cramped, but she wasn’t going to come out of her hiding place until she was sure it was safe.

“Bianca?” Rose cried.

She was ready to call out to her mother, but she wasn’t sure if someone was trying to trick her, so she remained silent.

“Bianca, it’s me, sweetie. Are you okay? Where are you?” Rose asked.

She could hear the desperation in her mother’s voice as she searched for her in the house.

“Mom?”

“Yes, it’s me, honey.”

Bianca struggled for a few moments to get out of the fireplace. When she finally managed to get out, her pale hands were black with dust and soot, her clothes were ruined with ashes, dirt, and God only knew what else. Bianca sneezed a few times as she shook off the worst of the dirt from her body.

“Oh, thank God. Thank you, God,” Rose whispered as she embraced her daughter and did her best to hold back her tears. She didn’t seem to care that Bianca had left a trail of black dust behind her.

“Mom, who was that?” Bianca asked as she pulled herself away from her mother’s tight embrace.

“Our enemy, Lenore.”

“Lenore?” Bianca echoed.

Rose sighed. “Sit down.”

“Will she come back?” Bianca looked at the singed screen door. She shuddered to think of how close she had been to being burned to a crisp.

“Yeah, but not tonight. She was distracted for some reason; she’s rarely that sloppy. Lucky for us she’s as out of shape as I am. She hasn’t attacked me in years. But this is good; now I have some time to train you.”

Rose closed the kitchen door and locked it behind her.

“Why did her magic burn the screen door?” Bianca pulled a chair and sat down.

“I put the ward on the main kitchen door not the screen door. Trust me…I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Bianca…” Rose sat down beside her daughter. She took her hand and held it tightly. “God…how am I supposed to cram hundreds of years of family history into one conversation?” she wondered aloud. “I’ve never spoken of your grandmother, have I?”

Bianca shook her head. It was a taboo subject. What little she did know was fairly unpleasant. Based on what Rose had told her, Alice Phillips, her grandmother, had been a woman who’d been rough around the edges. She’d had patience only for her garden and animals. There had been very little left over for her only daughter, Rose. Bianca had always been curious about her mysterious grandmother, but she’d kept all questions to herself. She knew talking about the past caused her mother pain.

Rose took a deep breath. “My mother was a witch. And so are we.”

“I’m a what now?” Bianca asked, trying to wrap her head around what Rose just said.

“A witch,” Rose said.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I felt the same way when the time finally came for me to learn of our history. It was the only time in my life that I saw pity in my mother’s eyes. Almost as if she felt sorry for the load she was about to place on my shoulders, just as I’m about to do with you. It all started with one question. I remember that question all too well. That’s how everything began.”

Bianca held her breath and waited.
What could she possibly be about to ask me
?

“Do you know the story of Snow White?” Rose asked.

Bianca arched her eyebrow and nodded. That was the big question?
Of course
she knew the story. What person in the world didn’t? Someone had to live under a rock in order to
not
know about the most famous brunette in the world.

“It’s true. It’s all true,” Rose said.

Bianca frowned, unable to process the words her mother had just spoken. Rose had mentioned something along those lines to her before, but she’d thought she meant that it was
based
on a true story. That perhaps there had been a grain of truth to the story of Snow White. That there may have been a queen somewhere that had been jealous of her stepdaughter and banished her, making the story so scandalous at the time that it took on a life of its own, thus ending up a fairy tale. But never in a million years would she have believed that Snow White was an actual true story, along with magic, poisoned apples, dwarves, and the handsome prince who broke the spell with true love’s kiss.

“Come on, Mom. Really?” Bianca waited for her mother to smirk like she normally did when she was ready to burst into a fit of giggles, but Rose’s face remained stoic.

“A lot of these stories are actually true. Not so much with the Hans Christian Andersen stories. He made a lot of them up…thankfully. But most of the fairy tales in the Grimm books have spells woven into the stories. For example, ‘Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all’ is only half a spell. The Brothers Grimm left the other half out because they didn’t want other people using the spell on the queen’s mirror. At the time they published their book, the mirror was still missing along with other items from their now famous fairy tales. That would just cause too much trouble. People don’t really want to hear the truth about certain things. Look at what happened to the queen.”

“Oh, my God. Are you serious?”

“I am very serious. This isn’t a joke. Magic is real. The stories are very real,” Rose said.

“But why print these stories at all? Why not just keep it all a secret?”

“Because it forced a lot of the witches to go into hiding, especially the evil ones. They were out of control. Children went missing almost every day, and beautiful young girls were locked away for fear that witches would become mad with jealousy and try to kill them. People lived in constant fear. The Brothers Grimm helped put a stop to it.”

“Witches? Like the one that just attacked us?”

Rose nodded.

“When did she get here?”

“Ten-ish. I was ready to make my cup of tea and wait for you to come home.”

Bianca smiled. That was what she had expected to see when she came home that evening. She thought about what her life would become now that she knew this huge family secret.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re witches? For real?”

“Yep,” Rose replied.

“Does that mean I have magical powers too? Like you?”

“I’m sure you have some natural abilities, maybe even some things that only you are capable of doing,” Rose replied. “Your grandmother, Alice, was good with offensive spells and potions. My talents lie with healing spells and some offensive spells, for obvious reasons. I’m no good at potions, which makes sense because I’m not a very good cook.”

Bianca opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She felt like a fish out of water.

What am I good at?

What sort of magic would be her forte? Would she be good at potions like her grandmother? Or would she be a healer like her mother? Or perhaps she would have a completely different talent? The possibilities seemed endless. Then another fear crept up. What if she wasn’t any good at magic? What would happen to her then?

On the kitchen table was a deck of tarot cards. The box was missing some of the flaps and the corners were worn. This was the deck her mother had used since she was thirteen years old. Bianca reached for the cards and pulled them out of the box. She tried to keep her mind clear as she shuffled them. She pulled a card from the middle of the deck. Bianca held her breath as she turned the card over.

The Tower
. The illustration was that of a tower being struck by lightning and several people falling to the ground. The illustrator had drawn people covering their eyes as they fell head first toward the rocky ground.
The Tower
represented chaos, sudden change, revelation, disruption, hard times, and realizing the truth.

Nothing good will come of this
, Bianca thought grimly as she looked into her mother’s emerald eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Rose took a deep breath and replied, “Selfish. I was being selfish. I wanted to keep you innocent for as long as possible. I should’ve started training you the moment you turned twelve. Also…I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes my mother made. I wanted to be the exact opposite of the woman my mother had been. I mean, sure she was an excellent witch and had defeated many evil witches…but it was almost as though she didn’t know how to take that armor off around me.”

Bianca was a little relieved that her mother hadn’t broken this bit of news to her on her birthday. She wasn’t sure she would have wanted to hear she was a witch right after blowing the candles on her chocolate birthday cake.

“So…what happens now?”

“We get some rest. We have an early day tomorrow.”

Bianca’s heart skipped a beat. She would have to learn how to defend herself with magic. She couldn’t imagine being able to go to sleep.

“Okay,” Bianca said, nodding reluctantly in agreement.

“Good night.”

“Yeah…night,” Bianca muttered.

After Bianca turned off the lights in her bedroom, she lay in her bed, and thought about everything that happened that night. Eventually sleep found her, but that night she had dreams of rotting apples, pale hands reaching out to her in the darkness, and sharp white teeth.