Three Witches

by Paula Jolin

  The coverlet above Gillian was torn, the cotton insides straining to jump out. Funny, she hadn’t noticed that before.

  “Besides,” Mums was speaking up again, “now is not the time to come to Trinidad. Don’t yuh get the news up there? There’s a major hurricane heading straight this way.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  MIYA STARED into the rushing water. Hard, pounding, and . . . cold. Very, very cold.

  Was she really going to do this? Of course not. But she sat down on the nearest boulder and started unlacing her black boots anyway. She’d been up all night, her thoughts tossing between Trevor and Luke. How could she get Luke to forget his brother if she couldn’t forget him herself?

  Wash away your past, the kitoshi had said. A greedy woman, that kitoshi, poised to psychic out all the cash she could, but that didn’t mean she was a liar. It didn’t mean she was wrong. These last few days, Miya had been researching Japanese mysticism every chance she got; she’d found plenty of web sites about pain and asceticism and purification.

  Miya pulled off the right boot. A sharp blast of cold curled her toes. She grit her teeth and tugged at her sock. Her bare foot shivered in the open air. A con artist would say anything to make a sale, true enough. But whom could it hurt? What if, a little cold water and Miya forgave herself? Became a purified body, a transparent human vessel, and Trevor came and did the forgiving for her? She’d be at peace, and for nothing more onerous than an early morning in the rain.

  She ripped off her other boot, other sock, let both feet dangle above the sand. People in Boston did this all the time, to toast the New Year. What were they called? Walruses or polar bears. They didn’t get frostbite or hypothermia. They wrapped themselves in towels, drank a little hot chocolate, and toasted each other on the morning news shows.

  Not a foot away from the boulder lay Miya’s backpack. She leaned over and pulled out a towel and a thermos. Then she pushed her butt off its stony seat, buried her feet in the cold, cold sand, and reached for the zipper of her jeans.

  Shiver, shiver. She was no Gillian Smith, but it was freezing. Bare bottom, bare thighs, bare calves. She shrugged out of her leather coat, lifted her pink-and-white V-neck sweater over her head—with all the ghostcraft research, there’d been no time to buy a white kimono—and sharp air gushed across the sensitive skin on her stomach. Click went the catch of her bra, and she was naked.

  Naked, shivering, and scared.

  Enough. Hadn’t the now-believed kitoshi said it was all about degrees, moving forward one tiny step at a time? Wasn’t exposing her backside enough for one day?

  Only if she could live with herself until tomorrow. Twenty-four hours of thoughts going round and round her head, that infamous sentence replaying itself like the message on a customer service phone. She kicked her clothes aside, walked through the sand till it gave way to gravel. Sharp, jagged pieces of rock poked her, prodded her a little faster than she meant to go. Two more boulders and there she was, at the stream.

  Dip your toes in . . .

  She eased both feet into the water and gasped as it closed over her toes, the tops of her feet, her ankles. Tiny drops of water from the waterfall sprinkled her arms and back, and she bent over to protect her chest and stomach.

  Take the plunge, Miya, or stop playacting and go home.

  She stepped through the stream and hesitated for one final second. Now or never, Miya. It was now. The freezing water pelted her shoulders, her lower back, her ass. Her hair, drenched, whipped around her neck like a wet towel. She was screaming, or was that her teeth, clenched and grinding down?

  Ten seconds, Miya, and holding. The pain shifted, her body shivered, her feet froze. Just when she was sure the waterfall would push her block-of-ice body down the stream and out to sea, something happened. The water was still cold, but no longer painful. She couldn’t see herself, she wasn’t flying, but she’d left her body behind. Again. She became more, not less, herself. She raised her icy hands in homage to the sun. Shine. Without limits, she shone.

  She’d assumed, she’d been sure, that this was all about Trevor, placating the dead, letting go. Only now did she realize: it was about holding fast. Her frozen body, her tortured mind—what importance did they have? Asceticism was the route to power. She’d read that somewhere, and it came crashing back to her, resounded with the rhythm of the pounding waterfall. In the glittering water, she caught the faintest glimpse of what it meant.

  She stepped out of the icicle shower and made her way back to the beach. The stones, ineffective now, made no imprint on her impervious feet. She hadn’t expected to feel, to be, this different.

  She was a whole new Miya, ready to take on the world.

  BY THE TIME she got to school, her hair was almost dry. She clutched a fat book under her chest: Asceticism, Pain and Power.

  “Hey, Miya, wait up.” Aliya popped up out of nowhere like Tinkerbell, but in a wool jacket and jeans. “Did you talk to Luke? What’d he say?”

  Miya dragged Aliya to the relative peace of the bushes at the side of the school steps. Would Aliya notice anything different about her? Sure, the fishnets were gone, the tottering heels, the bare-my-belly-in-the-cold tops, but Aliya’d never raised eyebrows at those before. It was the under-the-skin radiance Miya hoped shined through.

  “Well?” said one-track Aliya.

  Miya broke her silence. “I tried IMing you last night.”

  “My judba parents.” Aliya crossed her arms over her chest. “They took my cell phone, and now they’ve unplugged the computer, too. They think I’m going to the bad.”

  “Well, aren’t we?”

  Aliya gave a little laugh, like she wanted to take it as a joke but couldn’t, quite. “So what did he say?”

  He didn’t want me. Had he said anything else, really? She shifted her feet. Their scratched bottoms ached a little, brought back the rocky streambed, the screaming water. Reminded her that she—all of them—needed to deal with Trevor, help him find peace, before they did anything else. “He dragged me to the Handi Mart and I showed the clerk the photo.”

  “Did he recognize her?”

  “Luke certainly did. It’s his cousin Katelin.”

  “Oh my God.” Aliya clapped a hand to her mouth. “His cousin. But Trevor never mentioned . . .”

  “Luke said it wasn’t her at the Crescent, she was out with her boyfriend that night. I’m not sure I believe that; what are the chances Trevor was involved with two different redheads?” Only two percent of the US population had red hair, right? If you assumed Trevor knew two hundred people, and—

  Aliya tugged on her arm. “The clerk?”

  “He didn’t say much, just implied that the accident was Trevor’s own fault; he was wasting his miserable life on drinking and drugs.”

  Someone climbing the steps behind them called Aliya’s name, but she didn’t look up. “Trevor wasn’t miserable,” she said, her voice low. “He was with me.”

  “Right.” How could Miya have been so tactless? “What does the clerk know?”

  “Aliya!” The voice calling her turned sharp. Aliya arched her neck, Miya, too. A girl’s face, shaded by a scarf, hung over the side of the banister. “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Aliya. “Just a minute, Sherine.”

  The girl said something in Arabic, but Aliya didn’t answer back; after a minute, footsteps clicked upward, faded away.

  “You’re screwed now,” said Miya. “Talking to the school piece of trash. Wait’ll your parents hear. They’ll ship you back to Syria.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Aliya. Right away, not like she had to think about it. “Who cares if you had affairs with this one and that one—I don’t know why you’d want to, but that’s your business, not mine. My parents think every American girl’s like that anyway, no matter how many times I tell them different.”

  Nothing wrong with sleeping around, as long as you did it for the right reasons. Of course, to do that, you had to know what the
right reasons were. “Falling into someone’s arms because you couldn’t bear to be yourself one second longer” probably didn’t make the list.

  What the—Big, thick hands landed on her shoulders, jolting her out of contemplation. They managed to skim her breasts as they moved from her shoulders down to her waist.

  “Hey, kitten.” A voice she knew: Rodney. And here she thought he’d finally taken the hint when he stopped texting her. “Wow, you’re looking your fabulous self today. Like the perfect before-school snack.” He jerked his head in the direction of the parking lot, where his SUV, with those tinted windows, gleamed in the morning sun. “What do you think? Little pick-me-up to start the day?”

  Once, Miya would have made a joke of the whole thing, and wondered later whether the attention made up for the cackles in the hall.

  Now, she pushed his hands off with her elbows. “I’m not in the mood.”

  She blinked, and there she was again, emerging from the waterfall, blood frozen, skin razor sharp, self something altogether new. Blink, blink, and she was soaring over the dark and shifty forest, eyeing that shining girl below. How many years had Miya let her desperate need for approval boss her around? Trying to please her teachers, her mom, Rodney and every other horny boy in school, Trevor . . . She could be that shining girl. She wasn’t all the way convinced, but she wasn’t willing to let the possibility go.

  “Since when? Come on, I thought you were supposed to be the adventurous type.” He knocked back his head and laughed. “Remember the fountain in Town Center Park?”

  Miya had read Chapter 7, “Pain Leads to Power” twice.

  Now she rooted in her pocketbook—yes, here it was, the safety pin she’d dropped in her coin purse last week. “Haha,” she said to Rod. She unlatched it, took a deep breath. Drew blood. Ahhh . . .

  Was that Aliya, asking if she was all right? No matter. Gather your power, the book said. What did that mean? Miya closed her eyes, concentrated every ounce of thought on the pin. Stitch his mouth closed, she told herself. Her lips even moved. She saw the pin piercing, clipping, silencing. His bad luck; don’t let him speak again. Eyes opened, raised to the sky, she concentrated on her ancestors, the lingering dead of Japan. Used to spreading misfortune in their random way . . . Let them fall into line, spread bad luck and trouble at the feet—in the mouths—of her enemies.

  Seal the deal with the power of words, Miya. “Shut the fuck up, Rodney,” she said. Then she slapped him.

  His mouth dropped open and nothing came out. Nothing moved, not arm, not leg. He stood, stuck to the spot like the frozen twig he was, his mouth the only fluttering thing.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said to Aliya.

  They climbed over the banister as the final bell rang. “Wow,” said Aliya. “I can’t believe you slapped him. He’s a hockey player—they beat people up for a living, you know. He couldn’t believe it either. He looked stunned.” She turned around, leaned back. “ Ya Allah, he’s still there.”

  Miya swallowed, felt the hole in her sore thumb. Not playacting after all. She didn’t turn her head, though; she wasn’t about looking back, not anymore. “Of course he is,” said Miya. Her voice gave her confidence. “Didn’t you feel the spirits when I invoked their power?” Her breath came rasping, jagged; she tried to catch it but fell short. Unbelievable morning. Or maybe this was the toll that invoking spirits took: their starved souls lapped up her energy. She let herself think one last Am I crazy? Images flashed again: the waterfall, the rocks, a frozen body impervious to wind; a rush of power, the sense of New Miya. All these hours later, she still tingled. Not imagination, not insanity.

  She banished doubt forever.

  Aliya’s eyes widened. Miya could see her thinking What the . . . as they walked through the front doors. Inside, Ms. Martitius was hurrying people to class with snapping fingers. Gillian, pacing in front of the office, ignored her. “Sistren, yuh finally reached,” she said. “I’ve been waiting half an hour gone. Did you tell her about yesterday? Katelin? Luke? The hurricane?” To Aliya: “Why the hell don’t you ever return your messages?”

  Aliya was still staring at Miya. “No phone,” she said. “My parents took it.”

  “Well, thief it back.”

  Aliya shook her head. “What hurricane?” she asked.

  Miya had forgotten all about the hurricane and Gillian’s three phone calls, each louder and more frantic, last night. “There’s a late-season hurricane heading toward Trinidad,” she told Aliya. “And Gillian thinks it’s all our fault.” Last night, she’d soothed Gillian with talk about centurial shifts in weather patterns. But now, who knew?

  She sensed something behind her, a movement, a swish of air—a something so sad and forlorn, she whirled around. Do you really think I care if you drown? Her heart clutched, her breath came quicker. Here she was, thinking of Trevor again. “If we really want to contact Trevor, we need to do it at a place that meant something to him.” Chapter 10 in Asceticism. “The book I’m reading says spirits don’t draw their powers from the place where they died, but from the place where they lived. We need to hold the séance in Trevor’s house.”

  “Jeezan ages,” said Gillian. “Keep your tail quiet.”

  Miya looked over her shoulder and down the hall. Kids were rushing by. One girl read a textbook as she walked, two had headphones in their ears, a couple of guys argued about who was hotter, Belinda or Stephanie. No one even glanced their way. “What difference does it make? Who cares what they think?” Her confidence stepped up another notch. Nobody can stop us now.

  “You seem awfully sure,” said Aliya, who never seemed sure about anything. Miya tugged on her hair. Was she crazy after all? What did she know about magic, about mysticism? Their mothers had fed them belief with their breakfast milk, wrapped up with the chickpeas and hot sauce for Gillian’s doubles, fried with the fava beans for Aliya’s falafel. All Miya got was a faith in information and the little black dress. Religion, especially Christianity, was a waste of time said Mom. But Mom wasn’t always right, was she? With all her sighing and Oh Miya, if you’d just junk the glasses and wear contacts . . . and look where that got her.

  “I am sure,” said Miya. No more doubt, remember? She kicked its conniving little butt right out of her brain. “We can reach Trevor, I just need to think a little more about—”

  Quick steps came up behind them: somebody suddenly paying attention. “Okay, girls, move along now,” said Ms. Martitius. “It’s time for class.” When the girls didn’t stir, she flapped her book of detentions against her thigh. “Let’s get going. Move those legs like the athletes I know you are. Ms. Chonan,” she added, recognizing Miya with surprise, like she was a movie star in sunglasses. “I’ve been looking for you. Come into my office.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Text me,” Gillian mouthed, as she and Aliya moved off down the hall. “As soon as you can.”

  Ms. Martitius held her door open. As Miya lifted her hands out of her pockets, her thumb clung a little where it had bled against the lining.

  If Ms. Martitius said anything she didn’t like, well, Miya would put a stop to it.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ALIYA WAS GROUNDED. No cell phone, no computer, no car. Except they couldn’t take her voice, which she used to ask Gillian for two dollars, and they couldn’t take her feet, which ran down the long hallway leading to the cafeteria, jumped the chairs piled up in front of the janitor’s closet, and snuck out the back door. A whole building away from where Mariam was waiting for her, probably fixing her lipstick or gabbing with Sherine while she scanned the crowd of high schoolers.

  They couldn’t take her hands either, which gave the bus driver the bills and received her seventy-five cents change. She stuffed the quarters into the pocket of her jeans and didn’t bother to find a seat. Good thing Miya the Google goddess had tracked down Katelin’s address and paper airplaned it to Aliya on her way to the library.

  Then again, Miya owed her. The only reason they’d lost the
stupid picture was because she had it all up for that Luke. “But you could have any guy in the school,” said Gillian over lunch, which the three girls brown-bagged in the darkest corner of the caf. “Why him?”

  “You could have any island in the world,” said Miya. “Why Trinidad?”

  Gillian would have actually answered the silly question if Aliya hadn’t jumped in. “What happened with Ms. Martitius, Miya?” Miya launched into a wild story, one she seemed to believe, saying that Martitius admitted Miya had the highest grades and the best essay, but she couldn’t compete for graduation speaker because she didn’t have a “moral reputation.” So Miya pricked her finger and channeled the power of the spirits—yes, she actually said that—and Martitius shut herself up and didn’t say another word.

  “Pricking your finger?” asked Gillian, sounding even more irritable than usual. “There’s no pricking your finger in obeah.”

  “You are totally messing with us on this, right?” Aliya shouldn’t have had to ask that, but Miya looked so serious, she did. Miya didn’t answer either of them, just went on about how Ms. Martitius looked a little dizzy, then came to. “Ah, Miya Chonan,” she’d said. “What can I do for you?” Then she’d looked up with a quizzical tilt to her head and reached for a pencil.

  “Not perfect,” conceded Miya. “I need more practice. But if I work hard, discipline myself, anything can happen. Wait till Friday night.”

  “You talking nonsense, girl,” said Gillian.

  “Ask Aliya, she saw me shut Rodney up this morning.”

  True, Aliya had seen. Quite remarkable. After Miya stuck her hands in her pocket, Rodney had stood there, tongue waving, either mute or an idiot. Of course, Miya had also slapped him, a very surprising, unMiya thing to do. Maybe Rodney was in shock?