"Don't worry, doll," Bridget bubbled. "We're only on round one."
Abby looked forward to learning about remedies, but the upcoming party at Sorciére still consumed most of her thoughts. They only had a week before the party and Elda, who promised to give her details, had left to visit a coven in Canada where an old friend of hers was nearing death.
"Any news on Elda's return?"
Bridget looked up with a sly smile. "Excited about the party?"
Abby sighed and nodded.
"Yes, and nervous. It's just Sebastian is worried so..."
"So you're worried."
"Yeah."
"Well, let me help you," Bridget pulled a bottle from the shelf and set it in Abby's palm. The glass bottle, only half full, contained a mint-colored liquid.
"What is it?" Abby tilted the bottle on its side and the light green amoeba inside broke into tiny balls and floated along the glass.
"For your worries."
Bridget did not let on much. Though always friendly, chipper in fact, Abby knew little about Bridget who kept to the kitchen and greenhouse most of the time.
"These look just about perfect?" Bridget chirped, inspecting the contents of each bottle with a large magnifying glass. The glass was held in place by silver taloned claws that extended to a long spiraled handle. "Wanna see?"
She held the glass out to Abby who took it and peered at the contents of her headache remedy. Through the magnifier, the liquid became thousands of tiny particles zipping around the bottle, their colors and shapes each distinguishable.
"That is amazing," Abby whispered, staring harder as a heart shaped lavender speck jetted by.
"Yes, you can see every feature. You come to know how the energy dances. If the dance is off there is something missing from the potion."
"That makes the remedy useless?"
"Not useless," Bridget replied, placing Abby's tinctures on the shelves and making her heart swell considerably, "but not useful for the ailment. They can also be dangerous, which is why I check them myself."
"You've checked all of these?"
"Yes, every one."
Abby's eyes scanned the rows of tiny bottles, there were thousands of them. She shuddered at how long it must have taken for Bridget to examine every one.
After meeting with Bridget, Abby left the castle, welcomed by a fat, full moon dangling overhead. She wanted to wander the grounds. She had already spent a good deal of time getting acquainted with the large island that Ula inhabited, but the coven's grounds were deceptively large. She entered the cherry blossoms and veered off the path, stepping over the remnants of leaves and blossoms turned brown and brittle.
She pulled the tincture from her pocket and lifted the rubbery dropper from the top. Squeezing the tip, a small blob of sour liquid plopped onto her tongue and she swallowed it with a grimace. It tasted like rotten fruit.
From the blossoms, the castle looked as tall as the sky itself. The windows were small, orange orbs of light drifting in the low hanging clouds overhead. Abby had not been to any of the castle's highest turrets. They were used, as far as she knew, by Faustine and Elda only.
Sebastian had grilled Helena about them, but she pretended that nothing more significant than loud snoring went on in their high walls.
The thought of Sebastian made her heart hurt and she licked her teeth and gums and swallowed, wanting the entire worry potion to work its magic.
****
The days leading up to the Ball were harried and exhausting. Between last minute lessons, costume preparation, and Sebastian's concealment, not a single moment of down time could be found. Helena and Bridget were non-stop designing, sewing, plucking, and forcing all of the witches into their costumes again and again until everything fit perfectly. They had chosen to outfit Sebastian as a dragon, to complement the mythical Melusine's many figures, and Elda had spent a great deal of time casting the spells that would conceal his human identity. Abby had participated in nearly all of the spells since she would be the one most likely to give him away if something went awry.
Abby collapsed into bed each night with aching eyes and sore limbs. Her brain was full to bursting and she slept the sleep of the dead, having made an agreement with Sebastian that they would retire to their separate rooms for the week before the party to be fully rested.
On the morning of the Ball, Abby found all of the witches, save Dafne, in the dining room talking excitedly over plates of fruit and pastries. She grabbed a Danish and pulled a chair next to Oliver whose bronzed skin had been sprayed with a sparkly sheen by Helena the night before. He looked like a handsome Greek statue.
"You like?" he asked, leaning in and pecking her on the cheek.
She grinned and nodded.
"California girls, eat your heart out," she laughed, rubbing a finger along his forearm, but nothing streaked away.
"What? You think this is fake?" He shook his head, blond hair falling over his forehead. "This is the real deal baby. No tan in a can for me."
"Tan in a potion," Helena teased, miming a spraying motion.
"I think it looks awesome," Lydie said, shoving a handful of raspberries into her mouth. "I wish I had colored my skin."
****
"Don't be afraid," Helena told Abby and Sebastian as they stepped toward the mirror.
For a moment, they surveyed themselves in full costume. Abby's long darkish curls shone with bright red and green scales. Her cascading red dress revealed the black serpent's tail beneath and behind her, huge black vellumous wings rose from her back, casting her in shadow. Sebastian wore her counterpart--the dragon. He held the dragon's head mask in his hand. It covered his face, only from the nose up, and Elda had enchanted it to breathe fire when he coughed.
Sebastian gripped her hand and she felt a jolt of terrified energy at his touch. She envisioned a languid stream and cast the calming energy into his palm. His shoulders relaxed. They both stepped into the mirror and then the world vanished.
Chapter Six
A suffocating darkness took hold and Abby started to resist, pulling back toward the room that they had left. Before she could cry out, her body landed sweetly on the other side. Her feet found solid ground and Sebastian's strong hand materialized in her own. Their eyes locked and she saw the fear in her own reflected there, but also relief and maybe even glee.
Abby got lost in the throng of people pushing through the hall doors. Sebastian's fingers were in her own, light, barely grasping, and then they were gone and she held only emptiness. She did not immediately notice, caught instead by the dazzling foyer that she'd stumbled into on the heels of hundreds of other witches, whose costumes only added to the chaotic fervor of the moment.
She stared, mouth agape, at the soaring ceilings that did not end, but continued into a vacuum of space punctured by glittering stars that pulsated in a rainbow of silver and gold.
"Isn't it glorious?" Helena enthused, sweeping into Abby's path and steering her towards an enormous golden archway.
"Wait." Abby remembered Sebastian and felt the first pinpricks of panic at her empty hand.
But then he was there, white teeth gleaming from his face, sooty and red and colorful. His blue eyes were as enormous as hers felt and he laughed, squeezing her waist and leaning into her ear.
"Thank you," he whispered.
She clutched his hands and pulled him in for a quick hug before Helena dragged them off to another brilliant room. In the center of the space, streams of golden liquid fell from the sky. It spewed down and swirled onto the stone floor and disappeared. An orchestra stood on a star-shaped balcony twenty or more feet above the witches who danced and twirled below.
"Now we dance," Helena cried, linking her arms through Sebastian's and Abby's and whirling them onto the floor. The three of them danced, and then a witch who Abby did not recognize, clutched Helena from behind and pulled her into him. She laughed and waved and off they went.
Sebastian pulled her tight against him and reached a hand u
p, sinking his fingers into her glittery curls streaked with red and blonde and black.
"You are so beautiful."
She smiled and buried her face in his neck and allowed the ripples of gratitude to pour through her as he spun her again and again. Whatever had lain between them in the previous weeks vanished in an instant.
They danced for an eternity and then fell into the hallway, flushed and laughing. The halls were dazzling with iridescent bubbles gently floating from the ceiling, their bodies alight with candle flame and the magnificent colors of costumes. Raised platforms, sheathed in burgundy velvet, held golden tents, slightly parted to reveal a witch inside. Some of the witches consulted sparkling globes, others shuffled tarot cards, and Abby wandered awestruck along the aisle staring in wonder. Sebastian was equally amazed, his grip loose in hers and, when they came to a tent with the words Diviner of Dreams in black script along the platform base, Abby stopped.
"This one. Let's do this one." She stared at the tent with a sudden urgency that she did not understand. The witch at the table wore a long hooded, black robe and her eyes did not shift from the black lace tablecloth before her.
"Yeah?" Sebastian asked quizzically, glancing along the row. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather have your tea leaves read?" He gestured to a tent, two platforms down, that smelled of chai spices. The witch inside threw her head back and laughed while pouring a cup of steaming tea for an older male witch whose enormous flowery cape barely fit in the tent.
"You go there. I'm going to try this one," Abby insisted, letting go of his hand and stepping onto the platform. She gave Sebastian a quick wave and ducked inside, ignoring the look of uncertainty that had settled on his handsome features.
The golden flaps closed behind her and she sat carefully into the chair across from the witch who did not look up. She started to clear her voice, but then the witched lifted a finger, slowly and held it to her lips.
Abby studied her face--pale white, chalk white, but her lips were red as if bloody. She looked both very young and very old, skin soft and smooth, but milky saddened eyes and thin gnarled hands. Her head hung heavily on her shoulders and the bit of hair that Abby could see beneath her robe was a silvery gray.
After minutes that resembled hours, during which Abby felt less like a witch and more like an adolescent waiting in the Principal's office for punishment, the witch looked up and settled her cloudy eyes on Abby's face. Her lips parted, as if dry, and she began to speak.
****
After their readings, Sebastian gushed about his tea leaves. His reader saw a miraculous future for him, rich with love and family and magic. Most of all, Sebastian loved that the witch did not know him to be a 'mere mortal' - his words. When he asked about her own reading, Abby lied. She did not know why she lied, only that Sebastian's joy meant more to her than any desire to disclose the terrifying mystery that the witch had laid before her. That, and she feared speaking it aloud might make it real and in that moment, with the world more magical than she'd ever known it, she chose silence.
She danced with Sebastian and then Oliver, and then witches she did not even know. Sebastian was stolen by Lydie and cut in by Bridget and when Abby finally stumbled into the hallway to refill her champagne, it had been nearly an hour since she'd even seen her dragon companion.
"Food now," Oliver whispered, surprising her from behind and guiding her towards another space. They walked out into an open garden where witches lounged on wooden benches and sat at wrought iron tables heaped with small round cakes, each stamped with a cross. Every inch of stone-wall crawled with vines, heavy from the bloated purple and blue flowers that clung to their skinny bodies.
"I'm starving," Abby told Oliver, reaching immediately for one of the cakes, already salivating at the smells of ginger and cinnamon emanating from it.
"Nope, not those," he laughed, pulling her hand back. "Soul cakes. Those are for the dead."
She momentarily recoiled.
"Are you serious?" She shot a glance toward the night sky almost expecting to see swirls of ghostly faces watching from above.
He grinned mischievously
"It's All Hallows. Tonight everyone's invited to the party."
He kept laughing as he steered her toward the long buffet tables draped in glittering pink linen.
"Will spirits come tonight?" she asked. "Really?"
He smiled and she could not tell whether he was laughing at her or not. Clearly they both knew that the subject of the dead returning was nothing to scoff at in the mystical realm. On the other hand, Oliver found few subjects that he couldn't joke about.
"Yes, they come. But you don't always know it. They're usually tricksters and you're none the wiser until you're engaged in some deep conversation and they just disappear."
"Honestly?" she asked, taking a bite of a baguette.
"Swear. Scouts' honor." He held up two fingers and then three. "Never a scout."
"I figured."
They ate and watched the spectacle of witches dancing and drinking. Their costumes offered a promenade of fantasy and fright. There were witches on fire, witches with glowing, iridescent skin, and some who wore drab gray robes and kept mostly to the periphery, watching, but not engaging in the festivities. They were young and old and everything between. Their costumes masked their ages, but not nearly as well as their witch youth. If Elda was hundreds of years old, there might be witches at the Ball who were in the thousands. She smiled as she tried to imagine a young man dressed in the silvery robes of a sorcerer as having lived for centuries.
"See anything you like?" Oliver teased, pinching her forearm.
She rolled her eyes.
"I already have a date, thank you," she told him. "Speaking of Sebastian, where is he?"
She craned her neck and turned full in her seat, but had no real hope of spotting him in the crowds pulsating in and out of the castle doors.
"Don't worry. He will appear at the perfect moment. Come dashing through in that fire breathing get-up that Helena's got him in, and sweep you off your feet."
He downed a glass of champagne as he spoke and smirked at her, but she heard aching in his words. Was Oliver jealous of Sebastian?
"Isn't it miraculous?" Elda appeared mysteriously from behind two witches and sat at their table with a flutter of emerald skirts. It was the first time that Abby had seen her since the party began.
"It's unreal," Abby agreed, stretching back in her chair and breathing deeply the mingling scents of fruity desserts, night-blooming flowers and a thousand incense all wafting in some perfect symphony of sweet, sugary bliss.
"I remember why I look forward to this all year," Oliver added, snatching another glass of champagne as a tall slim waiter passed them by. All of the waiters were skinny men dressed in black silken tuxedos. They wore little expression and Abby found she felt slightly unnerved by them.
"They're not real people," Elda told her.
Abby turned to her, wondering if she had read her thoughts.
"Not real? How so?"
"They're animals. Cats to be exact, though lord knows why Andromeda insists on using her cats. I've seen them get quite beastly at these things."
"Wait, cats?" Abby stood to watch the back of the waiter who'd just passed them by. She looked at Oliver to see if they were playing a joke on her.
"Andromeda," Oliver butted in, "is kind of like a crazy old cat lady in witch world. She has spent most of her one hundred and fifty years on earth creating spells to make her cats human. I'm convinced it's so that she doesn't have to pay to crate them when she flies...."
"Oh, phooey," Elda laughed swatting at him. "She did it to protect her coven originally. Of course, that was well over fifty years ago."
"Cats?" Abby asked again, watching as another waiter hunched to the ground and began gathering the shards of a broken plate.
"Wait. Look at that one." Oliver elbowed her and she turned to the buffet table just in time to see one of the waiters scoop a finger-full of tuna p
ate into his mouth.
"See," Elda sighed, smiling. "Cats."
****
Abby wandered back into the castle in search of Sebastian. She had expected him to appear on the veranda, flushed and hungry, but then she realized that the castle boasted at least half-a-dozen banquet halls, indoors and out. She spun as she walked, eyeing the crowds for signs of his fiery garb and ran smack into a furry witch.
"Victor," the black fox told her, thrusting his hand into Abby's and boring into her with intense dark eyes, brown, but almost black.
"Abby, or Melusine tonight," she told him with a shallow curtsy. She was unnerved by his eyes.
"Melusine, my favorite of all the water goddesses. Quite a frightful choice though. Will you be turning into the serpent tonight?"
She pulled her dress up to reveal the scaly fins beneath and grinned. "Perhaps..." She started to add that her dragon half was around here somewhere, but he pushed a finger to her lips.
"Shh. Do you hear that?"
She listened. She heard everything and nothing. Her ears caught witches deep in conversation, laughter, falling water, clinking glasses, and on it went.
He laughed, tilting his head back and let his laughter carry high in the sparkling room. The ceiling glittered with constellations and darting spirits. Not real spirits, but phantoms conjured by the coven of Sorciére who, according to Helena, was putting on the best All Hallow's Party to date.
"Listen right here." He pressed two fingers against the space just above and between her eyebrows--her third eye or, as Elda called it, her pineal gland.
When he did so, she felt a slight jolt and suddenly she did hear something. Laughter, low and haunted, echoed in her ears.
"The laughter of the dead," he told her, leaning in so that his lips brushed her ear. She trembled and rubbed her arms against the goosebumps prickling.
Sorciére Page 7
