The Once and Future Witches

by Alix E. Harrow

  On the tenth of June, Agnes and the Sisters of Avalon walk two-by-two down St. Lamentation. They wear their billowing black gowns, their skin gleaming white and olive and clay-dark beneath the gas-lamps, and carry seeds in their pockets: rye and rose, wisteria and ivy.

  They plant their seeds in the ashen dirt of the Square Shirtwaist Factory, and toss glittering handfuls of fool’s gold into the lot. They speak the words. They’re silly words, stolen from a tale about a boy who trades his milk cow to a witch for a handful of magic seeds, known only by women and children and daydreamers: fee and fie, fum and foe.

  The Sisters feel the sweet rush of witching in their veins. They leave before the first green finger pokes through the black earth.

  By dawn the burnt carcass of the factory is nearly hidden by leaves and roots and reaching tendrils, as if several wet springtimes have passed in a single night. By noon there is nothing left of the building except the occasional right angle poking through the vines, a scattering of burnt nails among the tall grasses. Birds roost among thick twists of green, and the leaves hum with wingbeats and small, scuttling things. A sign is scratched into a bare patch of earth: three circles, twined together like snakes.

  The workers gather nervously at the perimeter, muttering and scowling and crossing themselves. Several of them tilt their caps back to squint up at the thing that was once a construction site—the three-leafed ivies where the scaffold once stood, the tendons of wisteria where the brand-new punch-clock once sat with its stingy second-hand and cold heart—and stroll home, whistling off-key. One of them—a big, brash man with a bronze pin on his chest—begins to hack and slash at the green-grown mountain, shoving his way inside it; he does not emerge, and no one goes looking for him.

  The next morning there’s a black-suited officer waiting beside Mr. Malton at the mill. The girls are asked to turn out their pockets and shake out their aprons before entering, “in light of recent events.” Agnes complies, unhesitating, and a scattering of seeds spills into the alley, some tufted white and some dark and shining as beetle’s eyes.

  “Flower seeds,” she says innocently. “For my window box, sir.” She sweeps her lashes low over her eyes in a way that has always made men very stupid. The officer waves her inside.

  Three days later Agnes is sweating on the corner of Thirteenth and St. Joseph, squinting at the folded square of paper in her hand: August S. Lee. The Workingman’s Friend.

  She thought at first “the workingman’s friend” was some sort of title or tiresome motto, but Annie informed her it was a place: a barroom on the upper west side frequented by socialists, unionists, populists, Marxists, libertine college students with wispy mustaches, unemployed men with beards, and every other species of malcontent.

  “August’ll be there, stirring up trouble.” Annie shakes her head. “He was throwing bricks through bank windows before he could talk, his mother used to say.”

  “And yet he refuses to meet with us.”

  “He wishes us all the best, but says he has ‘serious matters’ to attend to—like drinking the town dry, I suppose. Well, you know how they are.” Agnes did.

  But she also knew that Mr. August S. Lee was in possession of words and ways that she wanted very much, and that young men in dim barrooms were not known for their reticence, especially if there was an admiring young lady looking up at them through her lashes and saying, “Oh! How shocking!” at regular intervals. Agnes coiled her hair like a sleek black adder atop her head, allowing a few strands to wisp artfully around her face, and chose a half-cloak the precise color of her eyes, before going to find The Workingman’s Friend.

  It proves to be less of a barroom and more of an unswept basement. She descends a narrow set of steps and finds the air blue with cigar smoke and fumes, the summer evening sun replaced by the yellow hum of electric lights.

  There’s an easy rumble of talk in the room—the comfortable conversation of men with cheap beer and nowhere in particular to be—but it falls quiet as Agnes steps forward: a woman, alone and young, her cloak parted around a pregnant belly.

  She approaches the bar and asks for a Mr. August Lee. The barman points to a high-backed booth with a slightly helpless expression, like a cornered spy betraying his comrade’s location.

  Four men are seated at the table, blinking up at her with expressions ranging from mild terror to smeary delight. Agnes smiles sweetly at them. “Hello, boys. I’m here to speak with Mr. Lee.” They blink at her with varying degrees of inebriation and she adds, gently, “If your name is not Mr. Lee, shoo.”

  Three of the men shoo. They leave behind a long, rangy man with summer-straw hair and a suspicious squint. His face is young but hard-edged, with a skipped-meal sharpness: arrowhead cheeks, knife-blade nose, scarred jaw. Agnes might have noticed that he was handsome, if she had any time for handsome men.

  Mr. Lee looks up at her. She sees his eyes perform the usual up-anddown over her form, pausing only briefly on her swollen belly, before resting on her face.

  He offers a grin that’s clearly supposed to be dashing, but the scar along his jaw pulls it crooked and wry. “Do I know you, miss?”

  She offers another honeyed smile. “May I sit?” She wedges herself into the booth without waiting for a response. “My name is Miss Agnes Amaranth. I’m here to ask—”

  A sudden suspicion crosses his face. “If you’re a teetotaler, you’re wasting your time. That Wiggin woman has already come around twice this month, and I’m not interested in salvation.”

  “Oh! I’m not here to talk about your vices or faults, Mr. Lee.” Agnes imagines it would be quite a long conversation.

  The dashing grin reappears. “Glad to hear it.”

  “I’m here,” she says pleasantly, “to talk about witchcraft.” The smile freezes, hanging half-formed on his face. “I represent the Sisters of Avalon. You may have heard of us?”

  It takes a beery two seconds before his eyes widen. “Oh hell. You’re that women’s club Annie’s been on about.”

  “Oh, you have heard of us! How lovely. Well, I’m here because we’ve heard the most fascinating rumors about the Pullman Strike in Chicago.” His face stiffens when she says the word Chicago, and he rubs at the scar along his jaw. Agnes pretends not to notice, fluttering on with girlish innocence. “Some people said work was delayed by means that were . . . uncanny. Rusted machines, furnaces that never burned hot, timber that rotted overnight.” She leans forward conspiratorially, looking up at him through the long black of her lashes. “We were hoping you might be willing to tell us more about it. Share some of your ways and words.”

  Mr. Lee watches her for a long, considering second before settling back in his seat, one arm flung along the back of the bench. He sips the foamed gold of his beer and asks neutrally, “Was that your girls, at the Square Shirtwaist Factory? And St. George’s Square?”

  Agnes, who feels vaguely that it would be unwise to confess criminal activity to a near-stranger, merely smiles.

  He lifts his beer in a mocking toast. “Quite impressive. Showy. I’ve seen your sign all over town.” Agnes has seen it, too: three circles drawn in soot on alley walls or scratched into the sides of trolleys; three flower wreaths hung together in a shop window, their edges overlapping; three loops embroidered into the tags of sweatshop shirts. The Sign of the Three had spread through New Salem like the underground roots of some great, unseen tree, tunneling beneath the cobblestones and surfacing in every mill-house and kitchen and laundry room.

  Agnes tries to hide her too-sharp smile with an airy “Yes, it has gotten some attention, hasn’t it?”

  “And there’s your problem, Miss Agnes Amaranth.” Mr. Lee’s tone is so perfectly condescending Agnes thinks he must have taken lessons. She pictures whole classrooms full of young, handsome men practicing their pitying smiles. He continues, “See, in Chicago we weren’t interested in attention. It wasn’t a damn stage-play. It was a war. Not a show.”

  Agnes permits herself to imagine his expres
sion if she were to grab his beer and toss it in his smug face. She bends her lips in another simpering smile. “Still, Mr. Lee. Surely it wouldn’t be too terribly taxing to spend an evening or two in consultation with us? We would be very grateful students, I promise.” Agnes thinks of Juniper, who might show her gratitude by permitting Mr. Lee to leave the premises on two feet rather than four, and fights back a laugh.

  Mr. Lee is still sprawled against his bench, unmoved. He cocks his head at her. “Does all this”—he waves his beer at her, indicating everything from her eyelashes to her pinned-up hair—“generally work for you? Sweet looks and wiles?”

  Agnes straightens very slowly, her simper flattening into cold appraisal. “Generally, yes.”

  He shakes his head ruefully. “I’m sorry to disappoint you. Annie said you were a hell of a looker”—Agnes feels a sudden rush of warmth toward Annie—“and hard as a coffin nail”—the warmth subsides substantially—“which is frankly more interesting. I sympathize with your cause, truly I do. There were women standing on the train tracks in Chicago, too, and we were grateful. But it comes down to the laws of nature.”

  “What laws, precisely?” There’s no honey in her voice at all, now.

  Lee takes another drink, thumbs foam from his upper lip. “Women can’t work men’s magic.”

  Agnes feels invisible thunderclouds rolling nearer. “No?”

  “It’s no insult. It’s just the way we’re made. A man would make a mess of women’s witching, wouldn’t he? All those fiddly charms for housework and keeping your hair just so . . .”

  The thunderclouds crackle closer, raising the hair on her arms. “Have you ever tried it?”

  He looks mildly affronted, as if she’d asked whether he sometimes wore corsets and lace. “Of course not.”

  “Give me a man’s spell to try, then, right here and now.”

  Her tone cuts through the indulgent laze of Mr. Lee’s expression. He sits a little straighter in his seat, his eyes on the iron line of her mouth. “Does your father know where you are?”

  She gives him a cold shrug. “Dead.”

  “Your husband?”

  Agnes raises her left hand and wiggles her ringless fingers.

  “Huh. What about the baby, then? Are you sure a woman in your condition should be—”

  Agnes lowers all her fingers except one, causing Mr. Lee to snort into his beer.

  He mops the splatters with his sleeve, grinning in a helpless, boyish way that makes him seem suddenly much younger. He looks at her and mutters something that might be sweet damn.

  Agnes feels an answering smile tugging at her lips, but she hammers it flat. “I have a proposal for you, Mr. Lee.” There is a voice in her head telling her this is a very stupid proposal; she ignores it. “If I can perform a spell of your choosing to your satisfaction, you will agree to assist us however you may.”

  Mr. Lee crosses his arms and adopts an unconvincing expression of reluctance. Agnes would bet a week’s pay that he was the sort of boy who never turned down a dare or backed down from a bluff. “And if you fail?”

  “Then I leave you in peace.”

  “Seems a shame. I don’t care much for peace.”

  “What, then?”

  His eyes flash wickedly. “A kiss.”

  She isn’t surprised: he’s a flirt and she’s a woman with demonstrably questionable morals, and in her experience there’s rarely anything else a man wants from her. But she’s surprised to feel a flicker of disappointment—that he’s so predictable, perhaps. Or that she’s tempted.

  She folds her hands primly. “I’m afraid my kisses are not for sale, Mr. Lee.”

  “Then what do you propose?”

  She pretends to consider. “I could refrain from telling your cousin that you propositioned a young lady in such an uncouth fashion, if I lost.”

  The humor fades slightly from his face. Annie has come to work on several occasions with bruised knuckles; Agnes suspects there’s a short temper beneath her kerchief and apron. “A compelling counter-offer,” Mr. Lee murmurs. “I accept.”

  He drains his beer and stands, setting the glass back on the table with a showman’s flourish. He winks. “Watch closely, now.”

  He fishes in his breast-pocket, produces a single green-tipped match, and holds it over the empty glass. He chants a string of foreign-sounding words—Agnes thinks they might be Latin or Greek—and snaps the matchstick.

  There’s a delicate ping as the glass cracks and splinters, fissures running through it like frost. It remains standing, held together more by habit than anything else.

  A few men are watching from the bar now. They grunt approval. August presents his matchbox to Agnes as if it’s a bouquet.

  She unwedges herself from the booth and stands. Her fingers brush his as she selects a match.

  She clears her throat and says coolly, “The Sisters of Avalon meet at the South Sybil boarding house, Mr. Lee.” His eyes kindle with admiration. “Knock at Number 7 and say the word hyssop.” It’s the secret code she and her sisters used as girls: hyssop meant all’s well; hemlock meant run and hide.

  Agnes holds the match above the fractured glass and stumbles her way through the words. A flicker of heat licks up her spine. She says the words a second time, pouring her will into them: her aching feet and her heavy belly, her hope and her hunger, her bone-deep weariness with handsome young men who barter for kisses like coins. Heat scorches beneath her skin, fever-hot. Her daughter kicks hard in her belly—Sorry, love—

  She closes her eyes and snaps the matchstick.

  A cracking, shattering sound fills the bar, followed by several unmanly yelps and a great deal of swearing.

  Agnes keeps her eyes shut tight, swaying slightly, smelling a sudden green scent like fresh-cut tobacco.

  When she opens her eyes she finds a gray wool vest several inches from her nose and two arms held high on either side of her face, shielding her. The heat fades and leaves her cold and dazed, terribly tempted to press her forehead into the heat of that gray wool vest.

  Mr. Lee steps back with a slight crunch of glass beneath his boots. His eyes are very wide. A red line gleams across his cheekbone, and another two or three score his forearms. Shouts and grumbles rise around them as men wave the shattered handles of beer mugs at them in an unfriendly fashion.

  Mr. Lee dusts splintered glass from his hair and meets her eyes. “Well now, Miss Agnes Amaranth. What was that address?” He smiles as he says it, wry and crooked and a little abashed. The smugness has been replaced by an intent gleam in his eyes.

  “South Sybil Street. Come after dark and keep quiet in the hall—the landlady disapproves of gentleman callers.”

  She turns to leave, picking her way through glittering shards and spilt liquor, and he calls after her, “May I bring flowers?”

  Agnes does not look back as she leaves, so that he cannot see her smile. “I’m sure you may bring whatever you please, Mr. Lee, so long as you bring magic also.”

  Juniper is sitting cross-legged on the bed, tossing a slightly wizened apple from palm to palm while Bella reads from one of her dustiest and most dull-looking books, when Agnes returns to South Sybil.

  She’s sweaty and cross, with glittering specks caught in the dark swirl of her hair. “Any luck?” Juniper asks her.

  Agnes gives a dark ha. “I found Mr. Lee, if that’s what you mean. But there’s nothing lucky about him—he’s arrogant, feckless, probably criminal—not nearly as handsome as he thinks he is—” Agnes is frowning at her own reflection in the cracked shard that serves as her mirror. She tugs and fusses at her hair, dissatisfied in some unfathomable fashion.

  “To hell with him, then,” Juniper says mildly. “We’ll find some other boy to teach us men’s magic. Somebody’s bound to have an uncle or a brother—”

  “No!” Agnes’s voice is several degrees sharper than is strictly warranted. “That is, Mr. Lee has already agreed to help. He’ll be here soon, maybe tomorrow evening.” She cas
ts a disgruntled look around the room, eyes lingering on the tumbled piles of papers and books, the frayed lengths of black cloth, the herbs strung in drying bundles before the window, and the Mason jars rattling with seeds and bones. South Sybil bears an increasing resemblance to Mama Mags’s house.

  “I’m going out,” Agnes announces.

  “What for?”

  Agnes gestures vaguely behind her as she sweeps out. “A vase.”

  Juniper watches her go with her jaw slightly slack. She looks at Bella and finds her eyes crimped behind her spectacles. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. It’s just—our sister has always had low taste in men.” Juniper finds this so baffling and absurd that she can think of no response.

  She changes the subject instead. “I saw Cleo here earlier. What did she bring us?”

  Bella blushes. Juniper has noticed lately that she blushes often at the mention of Cleo Quinn. “Oh, I asked if she could find us anything about Miss Grace Wiggin. Since you continue to insist that she’s a wicked witch of nefarious powers.”

  “She is a wicked—”

  “Miss Quinn made some inquiries. Grace grew up in the Home for Lost Angels—the orphanage,” she clarifies, in response to Juniper’s blank stare, “before she was adopted at sixteen by an older gentleman who had no heirs and a generous inheritance from an uncle. A gentleman who is now a member of the City Council.”

  “Who?”

  “A Mr. Gideon Hill.”

  Juniper puzzles over this for a while, wondering if it clarifies anything or merely obscures it further. “So. She’s just campaigning for her daddy? Writing to the papers and waving banners and making a nuisance of herself ?”

  Bella shrugs.

  Juniper returns to her apple-tossing, whispering words to herself, only some of which are profanities. Sometimes she pauses to inspect the apple closely, as if looking for worms, then resumes her whispering. She touches the apple with various objects—coins and bones, red strings and crow feathers, to no discernible effect.