The Trouble With Magic

by Tania Hutley

  My blood wells, but my magic doesn’t. I can’t even feel it inside me.

  Bad sign.

  I stride over to the paint cans, where Agnes is watching. If I smear blood on her, picture her as human, and reach deep, maybe a miracle will happen and I’ll be able to pull the magic out again.

  But as I reach for the chicken with my bloody hand, Agnes dodges away, squawking and flapping her wings. She half-flies, half-claws her way up my curtains.

  “I’m trying to help you.” I clamber onto the back of the couch to reach for her. “Want me to change you back? You need to let me touch you.”

  My fingers barely brush her feathers when my land-line phone rings, making me jump. I lose my balance and fall, landing hard behind the couch. Crap.

  Groaning, I lift my head. Then I reach my unbloodied hand up to the table next to the couch and lift the handset.

  “Hello?”

  “What have you been doing, Sapphira?”

  I wince. “Nice to talk to you too, Uncle Ray.”

  “Has something happened to the binding spell? Did you just use your magic?”

  The best way to avoid his question is to deflect it. “I felt something weird,” I tell him. “A magical shockwave.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It almost knocked me off my ladder. And the Council’s binding weakened.”

  “What have you done this time?”

  “This time?” Sure, when I absorbed my mother’s magic, I accidentally destroyed a few things, but that was years ago.

  He sighs. “I didn’t mean it that way. But using your magic breaks Blood Council law. We can’t take that lightly.”

  “The binding failed. That’s not my fault. The spell isn’t supposed to wear off.” I can’t keep the edge from my voice. The council likes to think they’re infallible.

  “Regardless, you should have contained your magic.”

  “It was a tiny, harmless spell. No big deal.” I cross my fingers behind my back.

  “It felt like a lot more than that.”

  “Maybe what you felt was the shockwave.”

  He clicks his tongue. “Sylvia would have felt your magic too. I’ll discuss with her whether we report the incident to the other council members.”

  At least he’s not planning to ring Magnus before talking to Sylvia. I have confidence that she, at least, will be on my side. “Okay, Uncle Ray,” I mutter.

  When I hang up, I close my eyes for a moment, wishing the magical world would just leave me alone. Most witches ignore my existence, which is fine by me, except they still expect me to abide by their rules. It feels a little like having to pay rent for a house I’ve been locked out of.

  The sound of Agnes’s claws scratching against wood distracts me. She’s in the hall now, trying to figure out how to open the front door.

  It’s been a long time since I was a real witch, but even I know that turning a person into a chicken isn’t easy. I’m stunned I managed it, especially without runes, spell ingredients, a grimoire, or any kind of knowledge.

  It was a weird one-in-a-million fluke.

  The fact that I can’t turn her back doesn’t surprise me in the least. I study the cuts on my palm and thumb. Blood is smeared over my hand. It feels sticky. It also feels like mundane blood. There’s not the slightest whisper of magic in my ears.

  The council restraints have locked down my magic again. Right now, I probably couldn’t turn a cockroach into a dung beetle.

  Three

  Cleaning up chicken shit and throwing my expensive stereo in the trash become, briefly, my least favorite ways to spend my weekend.

  They only get bumped off the top spot on the Sucky-Things-To-Do-On-Saturdays list when I try to catch my annoying neighbor-turned-chicken. It takes a long, frustrating chase through every room in the house, and when I do finally manage to catch Agnes, she squawks like I’m taking her out to be killed for dinner.

  I wish.

  To keep her from gouging my flesh with her sharp claws, I grab her with both hands, pin her wings to her sides, and hold her well away from my body. It doesn’t stop her from craning her neck around, trying to peck my hands.

  Some blood has soaked through the bandages I’ve wrapped around the wounds on my hand, but it isn’t so much as humming. I’ve never felt so empty of magic as I do right now.

  At least I have a plan. Although, admittedly, it doesn’t start off well when I realize I can’t let myself out my front door without tucking Agnes under my arm where she can peck chunks out of my torso.

  “Stop it,” I snap. “I’m taking you to my cousin’s house. She’ll be able to reverse the spell.”

  Sylvia’s not quite as zealous a council member as Uncle Ray, so hopefully I can convince her to keep quiet about the whole thing. After all, if she can turn Agnes back into her normal irritating, busy-body self, there really will be no harm done.

  Maybe Agnes doesn’t understand I’m trying to help her. More likely, she wants me to suffer. And seeing as she’s not co-operating, I can’t exactly drive to Sylvia’s place. Sharing the cab of my old pickup truck with Agnes would be giving her an invitation to peck out my eyes on the way.

  Instead, I walk fifteen minutes down the mercifully quiet Baltimore streets around Druid Hill Park to my cousin Sylvia’s place. I need to keep Agnes held out in front of me the whole way. I’m still covered in drywall dust, and probably have blood smeared on my face from swiping escaped strands of hair out of my eyes. Combine that with the fact that Agnes won’t stop squawking, and I’m not entirely surprised when a group of tough-looking men cross the street to avoid me.

  It’s a good thing Sylvia’s place isn’t far. She’s my father’s niece, but didn’t inherit the earth magic that runs on his side of the family. Instead she got her mother’s archival magic. She’s the custodian of centuries of magical knowledge, one of the few who can safely handle the oldest and most powerful grimoires.

  Her house is warded with the same kind of protection spells as mine, set to repel magical visitors who intend harm. My dad installed the wards around my house, and it’s a testament to the strength of his earth magic that they’re still holding, though I’ll have to find a way to shore them up again soon.

  Sylvia’s barrier is strong enough to make my skin vibrate and my teeth clench as I push through it, then climb the front steps of my cousin’s brick row house.

  Thanks to my job, my arms and shoulders are pretty much all muscle. Still, they’re beyond aching. Every time I let them drop closer to my body to give them a little relief, Agnes takes another peck at me. I know it’s my fault she’s a chicken, but the change sure hasn’t improved her temper.

  The doorbell is just low enough that I can stand on tiptoe and use one elbow to push it. This house used to belong to Sylvia’s parents and I’ve been coming here all my life, so when Sylvia doesn’t answer the door, I grit my teeth, stuff Agnes under my arm, drag my keyring out of my pocket, and fumble to fit the right key in the lock. I’ve done this a million times—minus the vicious chicken—because I feed Sylvia’s rat for her when she goes out of town.

  Though I steer clear of most people, I like animals. Ratticus the rat is picky about who he’ll let handle him. He’s a biter by nature, but comes running whenever he sees me. Since the explosion, when I was filled with my mother’s animal magic, critters of all kinds are naturally drawn to me. Locked down or not, the magic still attracts them, and even when I can’t feel it, apparently they can.

  Except for a certain chicken.

  I slip through the door and shut it behind me before letting Agnes go. Sighing with relief, I shake my aching arms out and glower at the chicken as she runs, wings flapping, down the hall. Hopefully she won’t crap on the carpet before my cousin can change her back into human form.

  “Sylvia? You here?”

  My voice is swallowed up in the silence of the house. Sound is absorbed by the plush carpet and the shelves covered in books. Hopefully Sylvia will be home soo
n. Maybe she’s at the library, although Saturday evening is a strange time for her to be at work. I left a message on her cellphone before I left home, and I’d be surprised if she hasn’t picked it up by now. Shame my magic turned my phone into a smoking ruin, so she can’t call me back.

  Still, I feel better just being here. As well as running the library, my cousin owns hundreds of magical books, and a few dozen seriously powerful grimoires. Her magic allows her to contain their spells–or to release them. Hopefully one of those books will have a reversion spell that will turn Agnes back into herself.

  The books on the shelves that line Sylvia’s hallway are the least magical in the house, but I’m careful not to touch them as I walk past, especially because my hand is throbbing under its bandage. I think I’ve re-opened my wounds.

  For some reason, the house feels creepy today. I’m not sure why, but the silence is thick. Ominous, somehow. And what is that smell? Could Sylvia have let Ratticus’s cage get funky?

  A bad feeling starts tiptoeing down the back of my neck. “Sylvia? Are you okay?”

  Suddenly I feel like I’m watching myself walk down the hall, past the study and hall closet, like I’m in a horror movie and something’s about to jump out at me. I glance sharply behind me. Then up, because nobody ever looks up in horror movies, and the scariest things always drop from the ceiling.

  There’s nothing there, of course. The silence must really be getting to me. I can’t even hear Agnes. Where could she have gone?

  At the end of the hall, I turn into the living room. Its tall bookcases are filled to the brim with books of power. They seem more potent than usual, because my skin is tingling, and their covers are trembling with the effort of containing their magic.

  A scuffling sound makes my heart leap into my throat, but it’s just Ratticus in his cage on the sideboard. He’s frantically running back and forth, and his food bowl has tipped over, spilling rat food through the bars of his cage onto the floor.

  What could have freaked him out? Hopefully it wasn’t Agnes flapping around. I still can’t see her anywhere.

  “You okay, Ratticus?”

  Opening his cage, I place his food bowl back where it’s supposed to go. Ratticus normally runs to me, but this time he shrinks back against the other side of his cage.

  “Did Agnes upset you?” I ask. Hearing myself talk makes me feel a little less creeped out, as though I’m not really alone. “Where’d that mean ol’ chicken go, anyway?”

  His cage doesn’t look dirty enough to account for the bad smell, although there is something red on his water bottle. What on earth is that?

  I’d lean in for a closer look, but I can feel rat pellets under the soles of my Doc Martin boots and I’m grinding them into the carpet. When I step back, I notice a dark stain on the carpet. Sylvia must have spilled something, but it’s not like her to leave a mess.

  I bend and touch the stain. The instant my fingers brush it, a hot, buzzing shock jolts up my arm and I know exactly what it is.

  Blood.

  My heart pounds and I jerk around. “Sylvia? Sylvia?”

  I spin in a circle, frantically searching the room. There are more stains. Why didn’t I notice them before? Droplets have splashed the carpet and hit the spines of some of the books. No wonder they’re trembling.

  “Sylvia?”

  I creep forward to peer into her kitchen. Nothing. Everything there is neat and in its place. Down the hall to her bedroom. Nothing there either. Or in her spare room, or the bathroom. Where could she be?

  The only bloodstains are in the living room, and when I return, I notice the biggest stain is directly in front of the bookcase.

  My body chills.

  The bookcase is the entry to Syliva’s athenaeum, the secure room where she keeps her most dangerous grimoires. Her athenaeum is somewhere outside of the mundane world, not in normal space. When Sylvia tried to explain to me where exactly that was, my brain wanted to turn itself inside out.

  The grimoires she keeps in there are the ones that have become so powerful, there have been cases of them being able to activate their own spells. Sylvia’s archivist power protects her, and the athenaeum has wards and spells to suppress their magic.

  I haven’t been inside the athenaeum since before my parents died, but I clearly remember its bookcases, which were a lot less packed than the one in front of me. Even with all her safeguards, Sylvia kept the grimoires precisely spaced, giving each book room to cast its shadow so it didn’t quarrel with its neighbors.

  I’d have thought it would be impossible for one of the grimoires to hurt Sylvia, but if it did, she could be trapped in there with it. I can’t just leave her there.

  Heart pounding, I pull out a book from the bottom shelf of the largest bookcase. It looks like the only ordinary novel in the case, a battered copy of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe.

  The surge of magic that pulses from the book makes goosebumps break out over my skin. When I flip the pages open, a low buzzing noise announces something’s about to happen, right before the bookcase shimmers and dissolves. In the empty space where it used to be, the air glows.

  Pushing through the glowing air feels like walking through jello. I step through it into a black space. Another step and the room lights up. One more, and the wall seals behind me, enclosing me in Sylvia’s athenaeum.

  All the grimoires are in their places, neatly spaced in the bookshelves. All except one, on the table.

  My stomach clenches.

  Sylvia is lying face down on the floor. Blood has pooled around her, and kneeling in it makes my magic surge.

  My first instinct is to turn Sylvia’s face up and push her blood-matted hair out of the way so I can see her eyes. As soon as I touch her, I know it’s too late. Her body is cold. The eye I reveal is soaked with blood, open and staring at nothing.

  But, no. It can’t be too late. There must be something I can do.

  My mother could use her animal magic to heal people. Maybe I can figure out how to use it to save my cousin.

  I push my hands under Sylvia to lever her over. If I can just get—

  The thought disappears as I roll her onto her back. There’s a ragged hole in her chest. It’s a sight I’ve seen once before. A sight that still gives me nightmares.

  I need to scream. I need to throw up, to get up and run. To do anything other than sit here and stare down at Sylvia’s chest. But I can’t move. I can’t breathe.

  Where my cousin’s heart should be is a gaping chewed hole, like some unseen monster has eaten through her clothes and bone and skin.

  Exactly like the wounds that killed my mother.

  Four

  I must have managed to drag Sylvia out of her athenaeum and into her living room, then call the police using Sylvia’s land line, though I barely remember doing those things.

  There’s a buzzing in my head, too loud to hear anything else. I’m sitting on the floor, my arms wrapped tightly around my knees, trying to hold myself together. It feels like pieces of me are trying to break away, to fly into the air, and I have to clench my arms tight so it doesn’t happen.

  When someone touches my shoulder, I jerk backward, instinctively trying to get away from them, until I remember where I am. A man in a uniform frowns down at me, and I see him studying the blood on my hands and arms. I recognize that expression.

  They’re wondering just what happened here, and how I fit into it.

  A part of me is telling me to run, that I’m going to end up in trouble again, but it’s like it’s from a long distance. Everything feels muffled, indistinct.

  The police officers ask questions and expect me to answer. They move around, looking through Sylvia’s house, examining her body. But I can’t watch, I can’t talk. My chest is still tight and I’m fighting to breathe. They seem very far away. Unimportant. The only thing I can see is Sylvia.

  The gaping hole in her chest. The blood, the terrified expression on her face.

  The fact that the spel
l that killed her is unmistakably the same one that killed my mother.

  It’s all I can think about. Like there’s a tunnel connecting both deaths, past and present, and I’m trapped between them. All I can see is my mother lying dead with her chest torn open, and Sylvia with the same tears in her flesh.

  I’ve been trying to figure out what killed my parents for a long time, and now this. But Sylvia’s death raises more questions than it answers.

  “Are you hurt?” Another man crouches down beside me. In spite of the question, he doesn’t look concerned about my health. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are narrow. He’s studying me intently.

  “Are you hurt?” he asks again, his tone impatient.

  The invasiveness of his scrutiny brings a stab of anger to the surface. Instinctively I grab hold of it. Anger is better than the numb shock that’s keeping me frozen.

  “No.” My tone is curt. “But my cousin’s dead.” As if he doesn’t already know that.

  His jaw tightens. “I need you to get up and come outside with me, ma’am. There’s an ambulance arriving.”

  The way he says ma’am irritates me. He looks only a few years older than I am, maybe late twenties. He’s wearing a suit, like an office worker, though he must be a policeman.

  “It’s too late for an ambulance,” I snap. “She’s dead.” Then I realize the ambulance is meant for me, and look down at my filthy hands. Though they’re covered with blood, my magic has fallen silent. Thank god.

  “This is Sylvia’s blood, not mine.” My cousin’s blood is in my hair and clothes, and it’s soaked into the bandages on my hand. “I need to get clean. I need a shower.”

  “Not yet.”

  “But I need to—”

  “First you’ll be photographed and examined. You can shower once that’s done.”

  I swallow. Like a recurring nightmare, I remember all this from when my parents died. There were three of us there when it happened. My mother was found in our living room with her heart ripped out. My father in the hall, killed by an unexplained explosion. I’d just arrived home and had barely stepped inside when I was knocked out by the blast. Numbed by shock and grief, it took me a while to realize the police were treating my parent’s deaths as a double homicide with me as their only suspect.