Once a Witch (23 page)

“Do something,” Uncle Roberto says again to his wife, and she smiles at him, a gentle smile, one that a teacher would give to a pupil who wasn't maybe her best and brightest but who held her heart just the same.

“I am doing something, dear. What I'm supposed to be doing. But this isn't something you should have to see” And with a light brush of her fingers she touches her husband's forehead tenderly. All at once Uncle Roberto stops moving. His eyes remain wide open but unblinking. I lurch toward Gabriel, but somehow Aunt Beatriceblocks my path, anchors me to her by grabbing both of my wrists in one hand. She is holding me so tightly that my palms and fingers tingle unpleasantly.

“Gabriel!” I shriek.

“Drop it. Drop it now.” With what seems like great effort, Gabriel turns his hand over, but the pocket watch has adhered to his fingers.

“Good thing it wasn't his left hand,” Aunt Beatrice says musingly as she turns her attention back to Gabriel.

“Otherwise, he'd have died by now. But then again it'll just take another minute or two to reach his heart this way.”

“What?” I cry, tearing my eyes away from Gabriel's stone-colored face.

“Stop this!” I say fiercely to Aunt Beatrice, trying to pry her fingers from my wrist.

“Now or you'll regret it.” She smiles at me, a very different smile from the one she just gave her husband, and my skin crawls trying to equate this sword blade of a woman with my dotty great-aunt. With her free hand, she reaches up and flicks her fingers against my forehead with what seems like considerably more strength than when she touched Uncle Roberto. Her eyes gleam with a cold and righteous anger. Inwardly, I feel the familiar dizzy wave roll over me and then it's gone. Twisting my wrists in her grasp, I finally manage to angle my palms away from each other. Flames erupt from my right hand and sizzle into the grass near her feet.

“Oh!” she shrieks, beating frantically at the hem of her dress. Taking advantage of her distraction, I wrench myself free of her, step forward, and snatch the watch from Gabriel's hand. Instantly, the silver ribbons engraved in his skin begin to shimmer and fade, but he remains motionless. All at once I remember how Gabriel, the fire, and even time itself seemed to have stopped when I touched the clock in 1899.

“What have you done?” Aunt Beatrice whispers, staring at me now. Her lips are trembling and her eyes dart from me to Gabriel, then back to me again. I stare at the watch in my hand, then flick it open. Faint writing has appeared on the lid, but try as I might I can't read it. Just as I seem to catch a word here and there, it squiggles away from me. With a start I realize these letters are behaving in the same way as the ones on the clock in 1899. And in my family's book. Ten seconds have passed.

“What does this writing say?” I whisper hoarsely.

“I don't know,” Aunt Beatrice answers immediately. Even though I know somehow that she's not lying, I say anyway,

“What do you mean you don't know? You're the Keeper, aren't you?” She flinches, nods once.

“But I still can't read it. I don't have that Talent.”

“How long have you been the Keeper?” Twenty-five seconds have passed.

“Three years.” She closes her eyes briefly.

“And now I will lose it.”

“Why?” ”Once the power's breached, it goes to someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. Keepers never know who the next Keeper will be. The Domani chooses them.

“Thirty, thirty-five seconds have passed.

“Why was Uncle Roberto able to touch the watch without… without those snaky things attacking him?”

“Because my husband has no Talent. He's an ordinary man” And the way she says ordinary sounds like wonderful. I swallow.

“Since he has no Talent, the Domani doesn't recognize him.”

“So this writing would never appear if… when… he touches it?” Aunt Beatrice shakes her head.

“But if I read this writing, what would happen?” Aunt Beatrice blanches, shakes her head again.

“What would happen? If I read this aloud? Would I be able to destroy it? Would I be able to destroy the Domani?”

“No,” Aunt Beatrice whispers.

“You would be able to return to the time when it didn't exist.”

“To the time it didn't… to the war between the families? Is that what you mean?” Aunt Beatrice nods stiffly, looks at me fearfully. The clock's second hand reaches the roman numeral XII. One long shudder rips through her, her eyelids fluttering wildly. Then she opens her eyes and looks at me through the liquid dark.

“Who are you?” she whispers.

“Do I know you?” I shake my head, hand her the pocket watch mutely. She clicks it open, shuts it again.

“I've lost it,” she says, and there is such a flatness and finality in her voice that I can't speak even if I had known what to say. For one heartbeat we are silent as a breeze tosses through the trees above us, and then she says more fiercely,

“Why were you able to touch the Domani? Without harm? No one but the Keeper can touch it without harm” Her voice dips suddenly and she raises one shaking hand, saying,

“Are you the next–”

“I don't think so,” I say.

“Wouldn't I know?”

“Oh, yes,” she says reverently.

“You would know” She seems to be looking at something beyond me.

“With every shred of your soul you would feel the tie. It is the highest honor” Her hand falls back to her side and she steps closer to me.

“And why didn't my Talent work on you? Why didn't you freeze?” And quick as a snake she reaches up, taps my forehead again, and stares at me expectantly. I blink, step back. This time I felt only the barest push inside me.

“Try it again,” I say wonderingly, and though I'm not exactly sure why, Aunt Beatrice obeys me and touches my forehead again, this time gazing into my eyes. Nothing. Not even a ripple. Experimentally I reach out and touch her forehead. Even though I know what's going to happen, I'm still shocked when it actually does. It's as though she turns into a living column of stone, her eyes caught wide andunblinking, her mouth held half open in an expression of surprise or fear.

“Aunt Beatrice,” I whisper.

“Stop now. That's enough” Somewhere a door creaks open and I jerk toward the house. Several white-capped figures move back and forth inside the great windows, carrying silver trays and platters. Sooner or later someone is going to come down this path and know something is terribly wrong. Desperately, I look at Gabriel, Uncle Roberto, and Aunt Beatrice, all motionless as if we're playing a game of freeze tag.

“Okay, um . .”

I say, my voice rising a little in panic.

“Enough, now.” Footsteps crunch lightly across the gravel pathway and I spin to find only the shadows gathering beyond the small circles of torch light. Just as I'm wondering if I imagined the sound, a girl steps into view. It is the girl in white who was standing next to Aunt Beatrice in the garden earlier.

“I don't know what to do,” I say to her miserably, one high-heeled shoe digging into the moist earth of the garden.

“I don't know what's happening.” The girl glances around the garden, her eyes lingering on Uncle Roberto, then Gabriel, and finally Aunt Beatrice.

“You froze her,” she states, and there is just the faintest hint of admiration in her voice. She studies me for a minute, then closes her right eye completely while the other remains wide open, pinning me in place.

“Ah,” she adds softly.

I STARE AT MY GRANDMOTHER, stunned. Of course, of course, my brain sings. She's Aunt Beatrice's sister, so why wouldn't she be here? My eyes skip over her appearance, trying to find my grandmother's prune of a face in this girl's clear, smooth skin and large eyes.

“Grandmother,” I say softly to her and then backtrack.

“Well, technically, I suppose you're not my grandmother yet, are you? It's me…

it's Tamsin. I know it doesn't make much sense right now, but…

“The moon breaks away from a barrier of clouds, and its soft silver light coats the trees surrounding us. My grandmother walks toward me, the skirt of her filmy white dress skimming the shadowy grass. Coming to a stop before me, she reaches out with one hand, traces the curve of my cheek.

“Tamsin,” she murmurs.

“I've been watching for you” Her voice is deep and clear, the exact same as I remember, and just hearing it unlocks something in me. I want to sink to my knees, bury my face in her dress, and cry. But I need to ask something first.

“Why did you… why did you let me live for so many years thinking I had nothing? Nothing at all. Why did you–”My grandmother holds up her hand and I fall silent. When she speaks, her voice is softer than I've ever heard it.

“Believe me, what I did . .”

She pauses, shakes her head.

“What I will do will never be done lightly. If you've gotten here it confirms what I've always suspected.”

“And what's that?”

“That the Knight family is rising again.

“Her confirmation of my parents' fears spirals into me and I shudder, letting my eyes rove across the garden, half expecting Alistair to step from the shadows.

“I thought we already defeated them. When you… whoever it was… formed the Domani. Wasn't that enough?” Tilting her head back, my grandmother studies the sky for a moment as if reading the stars before she recites,

“One stood for North, and one stood for South; one stood for East, and one stood for West. And one stood Center. North summoned Air, and South carried Water; East called Fire, and West bore Earth. And the Center offered blood. And all were bound together.”

“Wait a minute,” I interject.” Mom mumbled that same spiel, but she didn't mention anything about a Center. And she certainly didn't mention anything about blood. Air, water, fire, earth, yes, but not blood” I swallow queasily.

Maybe that's what she meant by sacrifice. My grandmother's face seems to shrink in on itself, as if she is suddenly weary, and for one instant she appears as the grandmother I know, not the young girl in front of me.

“She doesn't know,” she whispers at last.

“Very few of us now know what our family did. We took a life. A terrible solution to solve a terrible problem” She pauses, then adds,

“But it didn't solve it. In fact, I think that was part of its undoing.” I feel a sinking, shifting feeling as Alistair's voice comes snarling back at me. Make no mistake about the word murder. I stare at the ground, stir the pebbles with the edge of one glittering shoe.

“I started all of this, you know. By pretending to be Rowena. He thought I was Rowena and I let him think that. It was… sort of an accident.”

“Nothing is an accident, Tamsin. Even if it seems like one at the time” She sighs and steps closer.

“Will you let me show you what I've seen? Will you allow me?” I nod, swallowing hard as she raises her hands and presses them to my temples.

“Close your eyes,” she says, and I do. All at once I am standing in a vast green field, and it takes me a second to realize that it's the field behind our house. My right hand is fused with Rowena's, my left with Gabriel's. Gwyneth and Jerom and Silda are standing opposite me and we're all swinging in a loose circle. The edges of the field keep blurring and flickering and the lightseems to dance with us, shining down on our faces, warm and golden. Catch me, my sister calls, her voice ringing pure and sweet through the soft air, and then we're all running and running through tall grass. Wild daises and purple aster brush at my splayed fingers as I stretch my arms out to my sister, who is always flying just a step ahead of me. We come to the edge of the woods, and all of a sudden Rowena is gone and the light is fading, fading, falling to darkness. Rowena, I cry, hovering at the edge of the forest. Massive twisted tree trunks soar into a colorless sky, and I freeze in the act of taking a step, unable to move. The others have disappeared. I am alone. Rowena, I call again and am rewarded by a flash of her golden hair as she moves through the trees ahead of me, the shadows swallowing up her slender form. Suddenly, I'm walking again, then running, but my heart is pounding–too late, too late, too late, an insistent staccato rhythm that begins to thrum faster and faster through my brain. Up ahead of me Rowena stops in midnight, her hands falling to her sides. Just beyond her a tall, dark figure stands quietly waiting. Rowena! I scream, and with an agonizing dream-speed slowness she turns. The color is slowly seeping out of her hair, and then strands begin to fall out in ribbons of ash that float on the breeze and disappear. Her face grows paler and paler, sharpening to a knife-blade thinness, while her eyes, fixed on me, darken. She stretches out one wisp-thin hand,the tips of her fingers blurring into nothingness. Tamsin. Her mouth shapes my name before her features slacken and lose all definitive form. Her body fades like a gust of smoke and she is gone. Then I'm standing in the backyard staring at my family's house–or what's left of it. A desolate silence seems to grip the worn wooden beams and a cold wind is whistling through the gaping mouths of the windows. At my feet withered and graying stalks of lilacs are scattered across the black earth. The altar lies in two jagged pieces as if struck by lightning. Everyone is gone. The cool pressure of my grandmother's hands vanishes suddenly and I open my mouth, gasping as if I have just surfaced from a dark lake. The sound of my ragged breathing fills the garden.

“What do I have to do?”

“I don't know,” my grandmother says, and for the first time in my life and maybe in hers, she sounds afraid. I stare at her for a second.

“What?” The word bursts from me before I can check myself.

“What do you mean you don't know? You're supposed to know everything.”

“Even if I could read the future completely and accurately, something no one in our family has ever been able to do, I couldn't tell you what to do. It changes so easily, so swiftly, depending on everything that we do now. Every second you stay here, something changes in the future. Something small, inconsequential, perhaps… or perhaps not so inconsequential. You must know that by now.”

My grandmother turns away, begins pacing through the garden, wending her way among the statue forms of Uncle Roberto, Gabriel, and Aunt Beatrice. She pauses by my aunt and touches the pocket watch that dangles from her curved fingers.