Witch's Brew - Spellspinners 1 (Spellspinners of Melas County) (7 page)

We were living in June 2011, weeks away from the Summer Solstice.

The Year of The Curse was about to begin.

Lily

“Lily, there you are! Omigod, finally, I’ve been waiting, like
forever
,” Daisy whined when I walked through the door. She uncrossed her legs on the patchwork quilt. Was she meditating? She crossed, then uncrossed, and then crossed them again. Daisy had a hard time sitting still.

Even though I was reeling from what I’d just learned, I had to act normal. The last thing I wanted was to freak out Daisy too. “You hungry? I’m going to make a peanut butter bagel, and then go find Mom.”

“Sure. Can you put strawberry jelly on mine? Mom just jarred some fresh ones and they are delici-o-so.”

“Got it.”

Instead of heading straight for the kitchen, I watched my sister squirm around on the quilt she was using as a half-baked yoga mat. Messing with her fingers, she was clearly trying to achieve a Lotus pose, but looked like she was trying to pick up slippery noodles with invisible chopsticks. I couldn’t resist asking what the heck she was up to. She sighed melodramatically. “I’m trying to levitate. Unsuccessfully, I might add.”

I sucked in a laugh. “Levitate? We can’t levitate, sweetie—and even then it’s only the truly exceptional who can achieve that skill.”

Her eyes popped open and a slow, mocking smile spread across her face. “It’s only the best of us who can achieve that skill,” she said in her best Yoda impression.

My sincere laugh came easily now. “You know what I mean. No mocking your sister. Rule #1.”

“Blah. As your sister, I’m exempt from treating you like royalty.”

“Which is why you fail, young Jedi.” I meant it as a joke. I was just quoting the movie, but she was very sensitive about her skills. I had to tell her I was just kidding three times.

“Fine, you’re forgiven. Where’s my bagel?”

“Where are your legs?”

She pointed to the pretzels she was resting her laurels on. “Come on, I’m busy. Plus, you offered.”

“I swear if it weren’t for me, no one in this family would eat.”

“Unfair. I make milkshakes.”

“Correction, I make milkshakes for you, and I’m not even allowed to have one.”

She beamed. “See? That’s helping. I am here to make milkshakes for. I’m like your walking, talking chef sampler.”

I leaped behind her and lifted her off the blanket. Giggling she kicked her legs in the air. “Levitation, ladies and gentlemen! The first to achieve it without attending even one coven practice!”

She followed me into the kitchen and hopped up on the counter to munch on a banana while I toasted our bagels.

“Why don’t witches fly on broomsticks like we used to in the good old days? Way more fuel efficient if you ask me.”

I handed her a gooey bagel sandwich on a blue ceramic plate. “Then the Powers That Be couldn’t have an oil monopoly, sister of mine.”

She crinkled her nose. “I’d love to fly.”

“Well, stick with your training and maybe you’ll eventually be able to.”

“Have you ever flown?”

“Once, I sort of did. On my bike.”

“Actually lifted off the ground?”

“I think so. A couple inches anyway.”

“Wow.” Her eyes shone like disco balls. “So Lil,” she said, wiping peanut butter off her lip, “You promised you’d run those spells with me after practice, and”—she checked the cat-shaped clock with its wagging-tail second hand—“and yep! It’s after practice. So…?”

“Okay. Just let me talk to Mom really quick…”

“Really quick? Nothing with Mom is ever really quick. First you’ll have to get her attention, and unless you ‘Shape of an atom bomb! Form of a meteorite!’”—Daisy bumped her two fists together like the Wonder Twins cartoon characters—“then good luck doing that! Besides, she’s been ranting around all afternoon slamming in and out of here yelling about her broken fountain. I can’t deal. She won’t help me memorize those beginning chants AT ALL. Lily. I
need you
.”

Daisy’s eyes shone with frustration. “My initiation is right after the solstice, and Clover’s mom’s been helping her all the time. It’s not like I don’t want her to do well, I do, but I also don’t want to look like a total loser in comparison, you know?
Help me, Lily
.”

“Okay. I promise. I promise. Give me fifteen minutes.”

Daisy’s still-entirely human green eyes were magic enough as it was.

I didn’t want to see them change. Even the luminous gold of amber would pale in comparison to what came natural to my Daisy. She needed no magic to highlight her beauty. I was torn about her joining the witches in the first place. She was dead-set on it, and yes, the magic was in our blood (passed on from our mother to us), but going through the training was our personal choice. It was a huge commitment to go the witch track compared to the human track.

It was a life choice.

Sure, a Spellspinner’s life was more exciting, but it was also more dangerous. And I didn’t want Daisy worrying about the same things I did. Fighting in the Gleaning, what would happen after.

The idea of her… of anyone hurting her, stabbed my heart like the sharpest of blades.

But if Daisy opted
not
to be initiated, then Iris would have to erase all knowledge of us being witches. She would think she had a normal family. That Iris was just a silly hippie. She would only see what we let her see.

That part bothered me. If she weren’t a witch, I’d lose my confidant, my partner in making-fun-of-Iris crime.

Truth was, none of my thoughts on this mattered now. If we didn’t break this curse, the
deireadh na n-amanna
would begin, and the choice would be ripped right from under her.

“Go practice your spells then. I’ll be up to quiz you.”

I watched my sister skip up the stairs, then I dashed out back to Iris’ garden. To the untrained eye, our backyard was more Zen than anything else. Chubby Buddha statues lined the tidy stone walkways, and glass mosaics lay in patterns only Iris understood.

When I was a little girl and still played with human girls, our yard was only a funky hippie garden, and Iris just an eccentric mom who loved to tend to it.

Iris didn’t turn around from the magic window, guised as a birdbath’s water, she was staring into. She swirled the water in slow circles with her long, dainty finger. Her never-aging blond hair, which she highlighted with streaks of grey for the sake of appearances, tumbled past her chest in a messy braided knot.

Moaning, she fiddled with the water pump. Under her breath she grumbled, “Ever since Frank left I haven’t been able to get this right.”

Mom. Something happened.

She looked shocked. “Something to do with Daddy?”

“Um. No.” My stomach clenched up so tight I could barely squeeze out the words. I hated it when Mom dropped Dad’s name out of nowhere like that. It was like she chucked a knife at me when I was expecting a rubber ball. “Why would it be about Daddy?”

“Well, I was just talking about the pump…he had a way with this thing.” She went on tinkering, and I watched quietly, waiting for her to pay attention to me.

Inwardly, I was fuming. Witches are supposed to be these highly intuitive beings, the most perceptive creatures in the world, and in this one subject she was totally oblivious to my reaction. Every single time. It was like she had no idea how much hearing his name hurt me. Since she only mentioned him on random occasions, usually perfectly innocent occasions, I never had time to prepare, no time to protect myself.

She was so casual about it, bringing his name up in the most ordinary of circumstances. One time the dough was too soggy, the sauce not spicy enough and it was “Daddy knew the best place to order pizza.”

Oh yeah
, I had wanted to say.
Then why doesn’t he come home after work with a steaming box of pizza, then?

Because he’s gone, that’s why.

And who knows if he’s coming back?

Dad had left a year ago to “go find himself” at some Ashram in India. Secretly, I thought he was too overwhelmed with my transition from sweet little girl to arse-kicking witch, though he would never admit as much. He just…started looking at me funny. And then he was gone.

Iris promised he’d be back, every holiday, every birthday. On those days, she paced the front room glancing out the window, listening for his car. But he never comes.

The longer he stays away the more suspicious I get. I ask. But Iris doesn’t say anything more than, “He is a wandering spirit. He’ll be back when he’s found what he’s looking for.”

He does email from time to time, and he sends cards and gifts on holidays. Little wooden statues from Southeast Asia, blankets from India—I pile them in a corner in my room. I don’t want gifts. I want my dad back.

But I couldn’t think about him right now. It only made me upset and unfocused. At this moment, I had to be strong. A warrior. A witch. I needed to tell Iris about Logan. And what I subsequently learned at the library.

“What’s
deireadh na n-amanna?
”

Iris jerked upright. Gone was the sweet singsong voice. Now she was all business. “It. It means the End of Times.”

“Were you going to tell us about it?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I was…we were…trying to figure out the right time.”

“The right time to let us know our magic was being eradicated?”

She sighed.

“I also met a warlock.” Might as well drop all the bombs at once.

“A war—” The word caught in her throat. “Are you sure?”

“Jacob’s son, in fact.”

Iris didn’t say anything.

“Jacob, isn’t that the warlock master’s name?”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

Iris cocked her head, her eyes ablaze with curiosity. “Did he attack you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t charge?”

“No. Well, there was a little spar, but it was more like a joke.”

“A joke? There was an altercation? Did he say anything to you?”

The chimes behind us jangled in the breeze. “Yes. Lots of things.”

“Where were you?”

I lowered my voice. “Near Black Mountain.”

“Lily Rose! What in the world were you doing up there?”

“Promise you won’t tell Camellia?”

“No. I will definitely
not
promise. We don’t keep secrets in the coven.”

“Um. Then what do you call not filling us in on
deireadh na
?”

She held up her palm, which was aglow with crimson light. “You need to stop saying that.”

“Why? If I say it out loud it won’t come true?”

I was angry and wanted her to know it. Our coven elders had been holding so much back from us. I’d been worried about my failing magic to the point of cheating, when all along, it was out of my control?

“You should have told me,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I was going to. We were trying to protect you girls until we came up with a plan.”

“Which is? Something to do with a broken magic man, right?”

She blinked. “How do you know about that?”

“I found a book on the Fifth Floor…”

“Lily! That library is for elders only. You may use it only when I accompany you.”

“Well, Mom. It’s a good thing I broke your rules, then. Otherwise, I’d be in the dark, fumbling around, thinking my magic was all jacked up, when really our coven is in grave danger.”

We stared at each other for a moment, something passing between us. A reckoning. An understanding.

Even as a young child, Iris always encouraged me to speak my mind.

But she was still angry. “Tell me everything.”

I did. Leaving nothing out. “I was looking for some euca leaves. I thought if I had a few, before the Gleaning, they could give me the energy I needed…”

“So you were going to cheat? Instead of coming to me? Instead of going to your Mistress? Do you have any idea the penalty for cheating in the Gleaning, Lily…?”

“I’m the leader, Mom. I can’t be…weak.”

“So you break coven law? Congression law. The entire Spellspinning community would be involved. Believe me”—Mom’s face faded from rage-red to ghost-white—“you do
not
want to stand trial before the Congression.”

“If we lose our magic, there will be no Congression. No law. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? I know what’s happening now. What Camellia meant during the coven prayer when she said, ‘Our Transition year.’ We’re going to be transitioning back into humans? Transitioning into a powerless community?”

“Humans might not possess otherworldly powers, Lily, but they aren’t exactly powerless.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t. We’ve always lived among humans; some of my best friends are humans. Even if we lost this,” she said, holding her glowing palms in the air, “would it really be all that bad?”

“That bad?? Mom, this is all I know.”

“Maybe you should know more then.”

I shook my head, completely frustrated. Why wasn’t she fighting for our magic?

“Maybe because I’m tired, Lily. Maybe because I’m sick of fighting. Sick of trying to repair something that can never be mended.”

Basil and mint and clover, sweet garden earth perfumed the air. Making our argument seem less scary, more organic. It was natural to fight with your mom. It was natural not to want to lose something you love.

I wouldn’t lose my magic the way I lost my dad.

Not without a fight.

“You’ve tried before then? To make peace with the warlocks?”

“Too many times to count.”

“And nothing worked?”

“Lily.” She shook her head sadly. “You can’t make peace unless both parties are interested.”

“Then what’s this riddle about the broken magic man? Here.” I handed her the origami rose. “I think it might be the warlock I met—Logan. Mom. Say something.”

She chose her words the way she picks ripe apples off our tree. Carefully, methodically. “Did you see a mark on him? That looked like your amulet?”

“I don’t know, I mean, it burnt his hand. And my chest. We were more concerned with putting it out and easing the pain than noting the shape.”

She stared at my chest. My heart. The spot where my amulet hung, protecting me.