by Willow Mason
“A conscientious abductor?” The words sounded even more ridiculous aloud than they had in my head.
A good question. I relayed the message, but he shook his head.
Jared tapped his bottom lip. “What about where the body was found? Could there be more evidence there?”
“Oh, the wheelchair.” When the group turned to me, I explained, “I found a chair when I cut through the woods yesterday. There weren’t any marks to show who it belonged to, but…” I trailed off and waved at Blair’s house.
“Right. Show me.”
My aunt restrained Jared, shaking her head. “We should be looking for Blair, not worrying about where he dumped Isabella’s body.”
“If it is Blair.” When she glanced at me with her eyebrows raised, I elaborated. “If the suckling has taken him over, he could be just as much a victim of whoever’s behind this as Isabella.”
I would have corrected Annalisa, but my stomach growled in sympathy. My nerves couldn’t run on anxiety alone—they wanted sugar. “Fair enough. Let’s get some grub and see if we can come up with any bright ideas on how to track down a missing person slash kidnapper.”
We stopped off for takeaways on the way home and I clutched the paper package of fish and chips as close to my chest as the heat would allow. “Plates are in the top cupboard,” I instructed my aunt—though she probably knew the arrangement of the house better than me—“and any magical assistance to get them cleaned at the end of this would be appreciated.”
The small group felt comfortable, despite our recent acquaintance. Watching Jared and Annalisa squabbling like siblings while Patrick and Aunt Florentine listed everyone in town who didn’t meet their high standards calmed me. It was like the requisite family gatherings on a sitcom—something I’d never experienced firsthand.
My return home might have been paved with problems I wouldn’t wish on anybody, but just then—at that moment—it also felt completely worthwhile. I tore a piece of fish apart with my fingers—using a torn scrap of the paper wrapper for a plate—and smiled as I chewed.
Screwing up my grease-stained paper, I struggled to my feet. “Who wants dessert?”
A chorus of me’s sent me into the deep freeze, pulling out a large tub of vanilla ice cream. I was warming a spoon under the hot tap when there was a knock at the door.
“Allison!” I checked over the girl’s shoulder, expecting to see Travis lurking behind her, but she was alone. “What are you doing here?”
She tilted her face towards me, and I saw the erupting skin under a heavy coat of foundation. “They came back.” The corner of her eyes watered, sending a tear sliding down her cheek. “Can you run the spell again? I don’t want to go to school tomorrow looking like a freak.”
“Sure. Just give me a moment.” I rubbed my fingers on my jeans, drying them. “Let me see, it’s something like hocus pocus give me focus.” I tried to send a wave of magic out through my fingertips, but nothing happened. No sparkle. No shooting lights.
“Why can’t I feel it buzzing?”
“Ah.” I snapped the fingers on my right hand together. Nothing. The same nothing repeated more clumsily when I switched to my left. “Give me a second.”
I closed my eyes, concentrating on what I wanted to achieve. A random slew of words came to me and I recited them under my breath. The sentences made my mouth feel content, full of power and purpose.
I flicked out my hand, commanding magic to flow out through my body and get to work on Allison. Instead of pulsating with a surge of energy, my fingers hung limply in the air.
“Did it work?” The teen ran a hand over her lumpy face, her single tear turning into a spout as she felt the truth on her skin.
Trying not to panic, I walked back through into the lounge, gesturing for my aunt to come over. “Something’s happening,” I whispered, inadequacy washing through me. My throat tightened, remembering how it felt to place last in a class of witches, as useless as a human.
“My magic’s gone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Genevieve responded to my frantic call within minutes, turning up on the front step with a wary expression on her face. It changed to full-blown alarm when she saw the collection of people in my house.
“What happened to keeping the investigation on the downlow?” The supreme charged through the door and slammed it shut behind her. “You do realise the more people you involve, the greater chance there is of someone tattling when they shouldn’t.”
“I’ve only told the people who needed to know,” I insisted, grateful when Jared stepped forward in my defence.
“Perhaps next time, you’ll do the sensible thing and phone the governing coven as soon as the paranormal mischief comes to light. Desi should never have been placed in this position.”
Genevieve narrowed her eyes at him, taking a good sniff. “Who let the dogs out?”
“Can we save the vitriol for another evening?” My aunt snapped her fingers, making the supreme’s face twist further into outrage. “Desdemona has lost all her powers. Look what’s happened to this poor girl’s face.” She shoved Allison into the fray.
“A few bumps never hurt anybody.” The supreme’s eyes narrowed. “And what were you doing, casting spells on a human, anyway?”
“I didn’t think the spell would work,” I said, fumbling for a better excuse but coming up short. “She asked.”
“Anyone else you’ve cast spells on that I should know about?”
I shook my head while my aunt sighed. “There was a boy with atrocious body odour. By the time the spell grew into its full power, he had half the town’s teenage population chasing after him.”
Judging by the colour in Genevieve’s cheeks, she was about to blow.
“But nobody was hurt,” my aunt hastened to add. “And I took the power out of it, so the boy should be just fine.”
Allison snorted. “He’s more than fine. One of our classmates caught the entire event on camera and he’s set to be the hero of our high school for the next decade.” She picked at a spot on the side of her chin. “I wouldn’t mind some of that.”
“Come over here.” Genevieve gestured Allison closer. “But we’re only doing this on the condition you don’t tell anyone else in town—and especially in school—that we helped out. We’ve got enough problems in our coven without an avalanche of requests from every human in town.”
Allison bounced onto her tiptoes. “I promise. Pinky swear.”
The supreme ignored the extended digit and spoke a few sentences under her breath. When she finished, a flow of bright light briefly danced across Allison’s face, sinking into her skin. “There you go. Now get home before your parents think we’re indoctrinating you into a cult of witchcraft.”
“Oh, I don’t mind if you want to do that,” Allison said in a giddy voice, spinning on her heel. “It was a great disappointment when I grew up without a single trace of magic coming out anywhere.”
Her words might have been spoken light-heartedly, but I felt them like a punch to my gut. If it was hard to find out you weren’t magic when you didn’t expect to be a witch, it was a thousand times harder to be the daughter of witches and still have no demonstrable skill.
Genevieve’s glare settled on me once the teenager had departed but my aunt stepped between us. “Don’t you dare. If you want to apportion blame out, everyone here will end up with a hefty dose, yourself included.”
She turned to me, gently squeezing my upper arm before retreating to her usual rigid posture. “Sometimes magic comes and sometimes it goes. Don’t worry about it too much just yet, okay?”
I nodded but anxiety had already invaded my bloodstream. “Wh
at are we going to do about Blair?”
My aunt stared out the window, where twilight was turning into night. “In the absence of any brilliant plan, I suggest we get a good night’s sleep while we think about it.” She arched an eyebrow at Genevieve. “Can you get us into the council records? Maybe Mr Candlewood has a holiday home or something similar.”
“I can do that but not until morning.”
Everyone escaped to their respective homes, leaving me and Annalisa alone. The cat padded upstairs after a yawned goodnight, despite it being so early. After cleaning away the traces of our dinner, I turned on the television, wanting the company of voices.
I switched it off again a half-hour later. With a choice between an ongoing series I’d missed half the episodes for or a documentary on the National Parks of the South Island that made my eyes feel like weights were attached, I opted for sleep. Tomorrow I could wake fresh and early, ready to confront all the horrible possibilities for the day.
“Going out?” I asked as Annalisa slipped past me on the stairs, her eyes bright from the brief nap.
“You hold meetings?”
She didn’t bother to reply, just nudging me with her shoulder in a friendly manner.
“Thanks.” I sniffed at my wrist, where the perfume from earlier had faded to a ghost of itself. “It’s the only scent I could find at short notice.”
“Get away.” I pushed against her, feeling ashamed of the scrutiny. Memories of high school and a brand of deodorant that wasn’t as strong as I had needed it to be passed through my mind. “Go sniff all your friends at your meeting.”
“A-ha. Sure thing.” I stifled a yawn against the back of my hand—the decision to go to bed having triggered an appropriate sleep response. “Nobody wants to smell like Barbara.” Not that I knew the woman.
My mouth gaped open as she disappeared, trotting off along the street until I couldn’t tell her black skin apart from the shadows. I clutched at the neck of my shirt, bunching it up and sniffing at the fabric as though it could reveal its secrets to me.
The black smoke had taken my mother. From official records, it affected between one to two percent of the witch community somewhere during their lifetime.
But I’m too young!
I pressed a hand against my trembling belly as the truth of the ailment fought back. Nobody was too young. The hospital and palliative care wards held witches of all ages; from those who’d not yet learned to walk to those who were no longer able.
“She’s just got her wires crossed,” I murmured to myself, closing the door to my bedroom with a shaking hand. “If cats could sniff out illness, they’d be stationed in every doctor’s office in the country.”
Although true, it didn’t stop the planted worry growing in my brain like a weed. Tendrils of fear spun out, wiping away all my other concerns.
Halfway through changing into my pyjamas, I stopped and stared in the mirror. My body appeared the same as usual—the curve in my abdomen that stood resistant to every diet known to man; the slope of my shoulders which made me self-conscious in a dress.
A tiny scar on the side of my waist showed where I’d slipped off the Matthewson’s garage roof on the last day of high school. The three beers that contributed to my run-in with gravity hadn’t been enough to stop me whimpering when the emergency room doctor stitched me together, lecturing me on how much worse it could have been the whole while.
But staring at myself couldn’t confirm or deny a diagnosis. Even when my mother was confined to a chair, struggling for every breath, she hadn’t shown outward signs of the disease. That was one of the things that made it so insidious—an affliction that could eat you whole without showing itself once.
I grabbed hold of my necklace and closed my eyes, fighting against the panic that wanted to grip my chest tight. Inhale, two three, exhale, five six.
The pendant made a skittering sound like something was trapped inside.
With a squeal, I tore it from my neck, throwing it against the wall while every nerve in my body went into full alert.
Something was alive in there. I could hear it fighting against the silver cage that held the pendant shut.
Every light in the room went on, blasting out the shadows with their hundred-watt bulbs. My fingers scrabbled on the bedside cabinet, then scoped out the top of the tallboy, searching for a weapon.
With my hairbrush gripped so tightly in my fingers the knuckles locked like steel, I took a step towards the pendant. Had Jared stuck something inside there? Had my foster mum replaced the harmless photographs with a devilish creature hell-bent on my destruction?
I remembered my mother handing me the locket as we waited at the airport when I was five. My father’s body had still been cooling in its grave. She’d put me in a car at the crack of dawn and driven like a madwoman to get us to the nearest airport—on standby for the first flight out of Otautahi Christchurch, it hadn’t mattered where.
“They say magic is a gift,” she’d whispered to me, hot tears leaking down her cheeks as they had, off and on, since the moment a police officer turned up on our front doorstep with the bad news. “It’s not a gift, it’s a curse. Never forget that.”
Photographs. That’s what she’d told me was inside. I could never check—the latch for the locket had been welded shut, broken, destroyed.
“Never take it off,” she’d told me ten years later, gasping for air on her deathbed while an official from Oranga Tamariki waited outside the door, ready to place me with strangers the moment she drew her last breath. “Remember what happened to me and your father—it’s the only way to stay safe.”
I stared at the pendant, seeing it rock as something inside fought for freedom. Something small. Something I’d worn pressed against my heart from the age of five.
With a gasp, I pinched the edge of the chain between my finger and thumb, holding the swinging necklace as far away from my body as I could manage. The walk downstairs felt like the last mile in a marathon, something to get through on willpower alone—my physical being already fully spent.
I tossed the hairbrush on the bench and placed the locket in the sink, sealing it with the plug. The sharpest knife in the block had a thin curved blade for boning. I drew it out with a shaking hand.
When the black smoke first attacked my mother, the doctors tried the only treatment available. The first and last line of defence they had. A curdlebug, held in place against her chest with a plaster until it had sucked every last curl of magic smoke from her body.
It had been too late. Was almost always too late. The first symptoms of the illness only appeared once the disease had invaded deep past the body’s defences.
I poked the blade into the side of the pendant, forcing myself to hold onto the jewellery despite my revulsion when I couldn’t get a good enough angle from above.
Its sharp tip pierced the side, and I twisted the knife, opening the sliver to a large crack. A leg thrust through the gap, adding pressure from the inside.
With a cry, I dropped the pendant and the knife, my back hitting the fridge before I even knew I’d moved. The locket split open, one half bouncing on the counter before sliding onto the floor.
A fat beetle spilled out, its hard shell catching the light and refracting it into a jewelled display. It scuttled along the bench, growing larger with every step. The p
endant must have contained its size, trapping it into a form far smaller than it needed.
Light spilled from a crack near the creature’s front leg—a wound or simply its body rebelling against the sudden freedom. Golden and warm, welcoming, a stark contrast to its pulsating abdomen.
My fingers picked up the twisted locket discarded on the bench. Through a shimmer of frightened tears, words engraved on the inner surface swam and blurred.
Magic isn’t always a gift.
I threw the silver piece, my arm so full of outrage that the metal embedded into the wall, cutting a space for itself through the wallpaper and plaster.
Everything fell into place. Memories lost for decades crowded into my mind, calling out for attention. The crazy days following my father’s death, the rush to get out of Briarton to somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter. A place not full of the coven, not full of witches coming to offer their respects and pass on their best wishes and cast their spells to ease our grief that did nothing of the sort.
Overnight, my powers had gone. Not only disappeared but taking even the memory that they once existed with them.
The beetle was now so fat its belly scraped against the benchtop as it moved. The weight of my magic—years of it, decades of it—crammed into a body too small to house such a burden.
A curl of smoke came out the bug’s mouth. In the haze of its glowing form, it appeared to have been set alight, a fire that expanded and gave more life to the beetle rather than consuming it—leaving it larger, fuller, expanding out with colour, instead of shrinking to ash, turning black.
My hand shot out and caught the insect as gravity pulled it off the edge of the counter. Even seeing its expanding size, I wasn’t prepared for the weight and I nearly lost the beetle, falling to my knees to keep it within my cupped palm.
“Give it back to me,” I commanded, moving my lips close to the beetle’s head and inhaling the smoke as it poured from the creature’s mouth. “The magic is mine. Give it back to me!”
