by Cate Tiernan
“That’s never stopped us before,” I pointed out. Since we were fifteen, Racey and I had been wrapping the lesser sex around our pinkies. This was the first time she had encouraged me to put on the brakes. “What is it?”
Racey shifted her weight in her seat, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “He’s different somehow than all the others.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Absolutely.”
Racey still looked hesitant. “I don’t know what it is. He just makes me feel . . . cautious.”
I looked at her speculatively. Did Racey have the hots for Andre? I didn’t think so. I’d be able to pick up on it if she did. Well, they just didn’t click for some reason. I wasn’t going to worry about it.
“Okay,” I said, switching into party mode. “Show me your list. We gotta hit the store.”
Thais
“Damn it! Damn it! Where the hell are they?” Crash.
As a way to wake up, this was worse than an alarm clock but better than having a bucket of cold water dumped on my head. Next to me, Minou yawned and looked offended. I blinked groggily at my clock. Ten a.m. Another restless night had led me to sleep in.
But what was Axelle doing up so suspiciously early?
“ They were right here!” she shrieked from the living room.
I pulled on some gym shorts and cautiously made my way out to the main room. Axelle had torn the place apart—sofa cushions on the floor, a table overturned, the basket of kindling by the fireplace knocked over. Newspapers, magazines, and clothes were strewn everywhere.
In short, the place was even more of a wreck than usual, and guess who was the only person who would care enough to clean it up?
Still shouting, Axelle picked up my French-English dictionary and heaved it across the room. It smacked the opposite wall with force, which showed me that the door to the secret room was wide open, as if the search had started up there and spilled over into the secular area of the apartment.
“Hey!” I cried, hurrying over to get the book. “ That’s mine!”
Axelle looked up at me, wild-eyed. I’d never seen her so wiggy—usually she moved at a slinky, feline saunter, summoning energy only to decide what shoes went with which purse. But now she looked like she’d been up for hours, and even her characteristic silky, shiny black bob was totally mussed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.“What are you looking for?”
“My cups!” she shrieked, grabbing handfuls of her hair, as if to keep a tenuous grip on her sanity. “Family heirlooms!”
I looked around, trying to remember whether I’d seen anything like that. “Were they silver, or crystal, or what?”
“ They were wood!” Axelle cried, distraught. “Carved cypress! They’re invaluable! I mean, for personal reasons! This is a disaster!”
“Wooden cups?” I felt a sense of dread come over me. “How many?” I already knew.
“Four!” Axelle cried, looking near tears. “Four wooden cups!” Then she seemed to catch something in my voice and looked up, her black eyes locking on me like lasers. “Why? Have you seen them? Four wooden cups?”
“Uh—” I froze like a frightened rabbit.
Axelle’s eyes narrowed, and then she rushed past me into my room. I saw my pillow fly out into the hall, heard her sweep all my stuff off my desk. Minou raced out of my room and disappeared. I clenched my hands at my sides, and then Axelle tore into my small bathroom.
Her howl was a mixture of relief, rage, and triumph.
Head bowed, dreading the inevitable, I shuffled toward the bathroom. Axelle was holding her carved wooden cups—the cups that had seemed so old and battered I was sure no one would miss them from the living room armoire. Her face glowed with intense emotion as she stared at the one that held cotton swabs, the one that held cotton balls. . . .
When she spoke, her voice was low and trembling. “ These four cups are the most valuable things you’ll ever see in your whole life. If you had ruined them—”
There was nothing I could say. I hadn’t known. If they were so valuable, why weren’t they upstairs in the locked room? I mean, they weren’t much to look at—just four old wooden cups.
With great effort, Axelle seemed to get herself under control. “From now on, ask if you borrow anything of mine.”
This was much more reasonable than she usually was, and I nodded, embarrassed. She swept out of the bathroom, having dumped the cups’ contents onto the floor, and then I heard her heading upstairs.
I sank down onto the closed toilet lid, my head in my hands. What a way to start a Sunday. I needed to get out of here. After all the emotion last night with Luc, I felt self-conscious about going to the garden to find him, like I needed to give us both a little time and space. I was also still burning to see Clio and Petra, get some more questions answered, spend time with them. I got up and headed for the phone.
Clio
“But where does the magick come from?”
I tried to summon up patience—never my strong point. When Racey and I had gotten home, there’d been a message from Thais, wanting to come over. Well, we were having a party, the more the merrier, and after all, she was my sister.
We’d gotten a pizza for dinner, and she’d started asking about magick.
To hide my resigned sigh, I got up and went to the fridge. “Want a beer?”
Thais paused in mid-bite. “But—we’re only seventeen,” she said, her mouth full.
I looked at her blankly. “And . . . ?”
“Oh. No thanks,” she mumbled, and I could swear a faint pink tinge flushed her cheeks.
Racey and I exchanged a look over Thais’s head. I sat back down and Racey and I popped the tops on our bottles. This was like a science experiment: the whole nature versus nurture thing. Thais had grown up with our dad, who, even though I so wished I could have met him, seemed to have raised her to be a straight-arrow weenie. Then there was me. Even though Nan was strict about some things, she was pretty cool about others, and I had grown up blessedly free of most hang-ups and willing to experience life to the fullest.
“But where does the magick come from?” Thais asked again.
“Everything,” Racey said. Q-Tip jumped up on the table, and she gave him a piece of her pizza cheese.
“Like Nan said, there’s a bit of power, or energy, or magick in everything in the natural world,” I said. “In rocks, trees, water, the earth itself. The art and craft of magick is all about learning to tap into that power.”
“For what?” Thais asked. “Can I have some iced tea?”
“In the fridge,” I told her. “For what? Because you can. Using magick ties you into the earth, into nature more powerfully than anything else. It’s incredible.”
“It’s also useful,” Racey pointed out. “Magick can help us make decisions, figure things out. Or be used for healing, fixing things. Or people.”
“Hmm.” Thais poured herself some iced tea, looking thoughtful.
“Look, I’ll show you,” I said, taking my plate to the sink.
“I think I’ll run out and get some last-minute stuff,” said Racey, getting up. “And I’ll swing by my house and get some more CDs.”
“Good idea,” I said.
Thais looked hesitant—she’d been spooked the last time, when I’d rearranged the salt, which I had thought was so funny. But magick was one of those things that was better to experience than to hear about.
“Come on,” I said briskly, looking at the clock. “We have a little bit of time before we have to get ready for the party.”
Our workroom was bare except for the wooden altar and bookcases. A small cupboard stood beneath the window. I took out a piece of chalk and our four pewter rite cups. They’d been made for Nan by a friend of hers and had zodiac symbols around the edges.
First I drew most of a circle on the wooden floor but left it open. Then I got the four cups ready. “ These four cups will represent the four elements,” I explained.
“Four cups
,” said Thais, in an “ohhh” kind of way.
“What?” I asked.
“Axelle has four cups too,” she said briefly, and I nodded.
“Well, she’s a witch. Now, this one, in the north position, is for water, or l’eau. In the south, this cup holds a candle.” I lit it. “Which stands for fire, or le feu. This incense, with its trail of smoke, represents air, or as we say in French, l’air.” I grinned and looked over at Thais. She still looked wary, as if deciding whether she should bolt now before the naughty magick got her.
I kept on. This stuff was all so familiar and basic: Bonne Magie’s ABCs. “And lastly, this cup holds literal dirt, to represent la terre, but it could also be sand, pebbles, stuff like that. Now, step into the circle.”
Thais stepped in, and I drew the circle closed. Q-Tip wandered into the room and sat right outside the circle. He never crossed a circle line.
“Okay, now it’s closed, and you can’t break it until we open it again. I’m going to lead you through a basic visualization exercise,” I explained. Nan had first started doing this with me when I was three years old. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to freak out and start tripping. Here, sit down across from me.”
I set a white candle between us and gave Thais a box of matches. “Conjure fire. Just strike the match like you normally would, but say”—I did a quick translation in my head rather than start trying to teach Thais Old French—“Fire, fire, hot and light, help me have the second sight.” I was pleased with myself for making it rhyme.
Thais murmured the words and struck the match as if she thought it might explode. It went out before the candle caught. She did it again and lit the candle, and then I took her hands in mine.
“Now, we both just look at the candle and sort of let our minds go,” I said. “And magick will show us what we need to see.”
“Is this like self-hypnosis?” Thais asked.
“Well, with self-hypnosis you’re putting yourself into kind of a magickal state,” I said. “You’re releasing outside influences and concentrating on your inner knowledge, your subconscious. It’s your subconscious that’s attuned to magick.”
“Oh.”
“Just let your boundaries dissolve,” I told Thais in a soft, slow voice. “Become one with the fire, with me, with your surroundings. Open your mind to anything and everything. Trust la magie to show you what you need to know. Focus on your breathing, on slowing it down, making it so shallow and smooth you can hardly feel it.”
It was interesting—when you’re little and learning this, you often practice in front of a mirror. I’d spent countless hours in front of a mirror with a candle, working on being able to sink quickly and easily into the trance state that makes magick possible. Looking at Thais, holding her hands, it was eerily like those days, only this time, Thais was the mirror.
I felt myself sinking and drew Thais along with me. This was working well, despite the slight distance I felt because I’d drunk half a beer. I really had to remember the negative effect alcohol had on magick. It was a bummer.
Then, with no warning, Thais and I were standing in a cyprière—a swamp. It happened suddenly and abruptly, which is not usually how a vision works. And this was utterly complete—there was no sign of my workroom. I started to get a bad feeling.
Thais looked at me, startled, and I tried not to let her see my concern. “ This is a swamp,” I whispered, figuring they didn’t have too many back in Connecticut. It was dark all around us, nighttime, and I felt a heavy, oppressive weight in the air.
Thais nodded, not looking thrilled. “I’ve been in a swamp,” she said.
Then we saw a group of witches through the trees. Thais gripped my hand, and I realized we hadn’t let go of each other.
With dismay I recognized the huge cypress tree and the dark water bubbling up between its roots from my vision with Nan. Déesse. No way did I want to go through this again, and no way did I want this to be Thais’s first experience with visions.
I literally backed away from the tree, starting to murmur words that would take us out of here. Nothing happened. I said the words again, sure I was remembering correctly, but still nothing happened.
“Who are they? What are they doing?” Thais whispered.
I didn’t know. “I’m trying to get us out of here,” I said in a low voice, as if speaking loudly would draw attention to us. The witches, all wearing long robes of different colors, some with hoods, started moving dalmonde, clockwise, in a circle before the tree. We heard a faint humming sound, their chanting, but I couldn’t make out any words.
Thais’s face was white and scared.
Before, Nan had pulled me out of my bad vision. But no one was waiting for us back at the workroom.
Boom! A burst of light and a huge shock wave of sound almost lifted us off our feet. Thais and I gripped each other’s arms, our hair practically on end from electricity. I saw the circle of witches glowing as the energy entered them, saw their backs arch with either ecstasy or pain, their hands outstretched.
One of the witches was laughing—I think it was a woman. We saw another witch grab her stomach and fall to the ground. Two other witches bent over her, and even through the storm, the pouring rain that drenched us, we could hear her wails.
“Get us out of here!” Thais cried.
“I’m trying!” I told her, and repeated the words that should pull us right back to reality.
Time seemed to speed up. We could see everything more clearly, though we weren’t too close. The witch on the ground gave birth—another witch helped the baby out, and the rain started washing it clean. It was tiny and hardly moving. Then the baby’s mother sank back on the black, wet ground, her face pale and bloodless, her eyes open. Even from here we could tell she had died. The rest of the coven seemed horrified and shocked, except for the witch who was still in the throes of enjoying her surge of power.
Just like in my vision, blood was seeping into the same ground as the spring burbling up through the tree roots. I had no idea what any of this meant.
“What’s that?” Thais asked, trembling, and I heard a slow bell ringing, sort of a drone.
“I don’t know,” I said. A woman picked the baby up and held it. The baby cried with a high, thin, kitteny sound, and I heard the bell peal again. I frowned at Thais, and she shook her head—she had no idea what it was either.
“It’s the doorbell!” I cried, just as the hood of the witch fell back. A flash of lightning lit her face, the baby, the whole circle, and the ground red with blood. In the next instant, Thais and I were blinking at each other across the lit candle in the middle of the floor. Our hands were white-knuckled, numb from clutching each other so tightly.
The doorbell rang again. Feeling shaky, I blew out the candle and stood up, quickly dismantling the circle. Thais went to open the door, moving slowly.
“Yo! Party!” Racey yelled, holding bottles above her head. A crowd of people swarmed in after her, someone put a CD into the stereo, and instantly the house was filled with noise and light and people. Q-Tip raced out the front door between their legs and escaped into the night. Smart cat. I glanced at my watch—it was past nine. I was horrified, shaken, and wanted only to go sit down somewhere and process what we’d just seen. Thais looked ill and uncomfortable. But we didn’t have much choice right now.
Just as Thais was closing the door, it pushed open again and more people came in. She gave them brief, uncomfortable smiles as they all began to say hi, realized it was her, and then headed on, looking for me.
“Hi! Hi!” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic, feeling like I’d rather be anywhere but here. Fortunately, Racey was in the kitchen, already making blender drinks. Collier Collier came in with a twenty-pound bag of ice on his shoulder. I saw Della head for him, and I smiled and winked at her, feeling odd and numb. With an unhappy glance at me, Thais headed for the dining room, where Eugenie and Kris were starting to rip open bags of chips.
She didn’t need to say anything.
We both knew what we had seen in that last second before the doorbell had pulled us home. The older witch’s hood had fallen off as she held up the newborn baby. It had been Nan. And the lightning had shown us the dead mother’s face: she’d had a birthmark just like ours, a red splotch on one cheekbone.
The baby had had one too.
“Fabulous idea!” Kris said, her long blond hair swinging as she whirled past me. “Where’s your trash?”
“Kitchen,” I said automatically, trying to put myself into the here and now. “But we better set one up in the dining room too.”
I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair. I had no idea what I looked like but decided I could not look very festive. I ran upstairs, tore through my closet, and pulled on a bra-strap tank and a short black skirt. In the bathroom, my eyes looked huge and haunted, but I whipped through my makeup routine and two minutes later, I ran downstairs barefoot just as the doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it!” Miranda Hughes said, grabbing the door.
Andre stood in the doorway, tall, dark, and mouth-watering, and surveyed the noisy crowd inside. I smiled, full of relief and happiness that he was here: his presence would erase the trauma of the vision. He caught sight of me, and his dark blue eyes widened in appreciation. He held up a paper bag: the tequila.
“Andre!” I called, pushing through the crowd to get to him. “Everybody, this is Andre! Andre, this is everybody!”
Laughing, he swept me up into his arms, kissing me on the mouth. I sighed with pleasure and relaxed against him, so, so happy he was here, feeling safe and cared for and not alone.
“Hey, babe,” he said into my ear, and a fluttery sense of delight ran down my spine.
“Hey yourself,” I said as he put me on my feet again.
Still smiling, he glanced around the room, and then suddenly, his face paled and he froze.
“What is it?” I asked. I whirled to see what he was looking at. To my surprise, Thais was standing in the dining room doorway, wearing the same thunderstruck, horrified expression that Andre had.
“Luc,” she breathed, looking like death.
