by E J Elwin
It was the most bizarre thing I had yet seen, but more than anything, I was touched. I looked from Jessica to Jasper, and then to Harriet, and was moved by the effort they’d put in to do this for me, and for the children of Wineville. I would have to think of something nice to do for them in thanks. Something extra nice for Jessica, I thought, watching her act her heart out in that grotesque costume.
**
That evening, Jessica surprised us all by announcing we were having a bonfire party out on the beach in front of the house. She said it was a victory party of sorts for our defeat of Deidre and the Patriarch, but also a celebration of the lives of my mom and the kids from Seaside High.
“I would’ve done it already,” she said, “but I wanted to wait for Jasper to be up.”
“Good call,” I said with a smile.
Jasper grilled up some cheeseburgers out on the balcony while the rest of us gathered some plastic beach chairs. Jessica picked up a boombox while Harriet levitated a cooler full of drinks, then we marched through the trees in front of the house and down the hill to the shore. The tide rushed soothingly against the sand as we gathered around a large pile of firewood.
“Arthur, if you would?” asked Jessica cheerfully.
I put out my right hand and sent a jet of flames at the wood, painting it like I had my bedroom door. In seconds, there was a roaring bonfire in front of us.
“I’ll never get tired of seeing that,” said Harriet.
Jessica waved her hand at the boombox and it blared out the opening of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones. Jasper joined us a short time later with a large tray of freshly grilled burgers and bags of potato chips. We ate contentedly, watching the fire and the ocean as the sounds of The Rolling Stones danced in the salty air around us.
When the burgers were gone, I hiked up to the kitchen to get us some ice cream. I pulled the carton from the freezer, then glanced at the sliding glass door which Jasper had left ajar. I walked toward it and stepped out onto the balcony where the grill was still smoking.
I edged around the table where we usually ate brunch and looked out over the railing at the beach. Harriet and Jessica were absorbed in conversation while Sylvie, Lizzie, and Hortensia danced around the fire with their drinks, looking oddly like they were conducting some magical ceremony. I smiled down at them and then looked out at the sea, at the stars and crescent moon above, thinking of Connor and wondering what it looked like where he was now…
“Hey,” said Jasper. I looked around and wiped my eyes as I saw him standing in the sliding glass doorway. He held a large case of beer in his arms that I assumed he’d been about to take down to the beach. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking concerned.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I’m fine.”
He regarded me for a moment before he spoke.
“You know, Arthur, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he said.
“About what?”
“About what happened in the cemetery,” he said. “I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“Thank you,” I said. He set the case of beer on the wooden table and then sat down. I put down the carton of ice cream and sat across from him.
“I wasn’t much older than you when my mom died,” he said. “Within a year, my dad found someone new and moved across the world away from me and Jessica.” I watched him intently. I’d learned so much about his and Jessica’s mother but not their father. “He kept in touch and visited when he could, but less and less every year. Then, ten years ago, when I left Beatrice behind and became Jasper, he cut off all contact with me completely. Said that I was disgusting and so was witchcraft.”
I stared at him, appalled, but he spoke calmly and showed no signs of being upset.
“Jessica was hurt,” he continued, “but she refused to see or talk to him if he wasn’t willing to accept me. She told me that he’d finally shown us who he really was. So we left him in the past. I had Jessica and our Auntie Harriet and that was enough. But my opinion of most of humanity was through the floor. I could see people so clearly for what they were. Cruel. Hateful. So quick to hurt and even murder someone simply for existing. I stopped wanting to be around them, stopped enjoying anything that involved crowds. I lost faith in people.”
I looked into his steady green eyes. On the beach below, I heard the girls’ laughter.
“The other night,” he said, “you had the chance to drift off into peaceful oblivion, but you walked away from it. You could’ve left all the pain and sorrow of this world behind to be with the person you loved, but you chose to come back. You saved lives in that restaurant and then so many more by banishing Deidre and the Patriarch.”
“Well, I… I just did what I had to,” I said.
“You did a lot more than that,” he said. “You saw things in that cemetery that would have broken a lot of people. Then you fought. Hard. You faced your own father, minutes after losing your mother, and won. You stood with your sisters and took down a demon. You harnessed powerful magic to banish your mother’s killer from this world. And you’re still here. You still smile. You still love. And that’s beautiful. It’s transcendent. It represents the very best of us. The very best humanity has to offer. You give me hope, Arthur. You make me have hope again.”
Hot tears streamed down my face, and then I felt his heavy hand on my cheek as he leaned forward and kissed me gently on the forehead.
“Also,” he said, “in case it wasn’t already abundantly clear, we’re inviting you to live here. This is your home if you’ll accept it.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I’m honored.”
“Hey, Arthur, get down here!” came Sylvie’s voice from the beach.
“Ready to get back to the party?” asked Jasper. He smiled at me, and I smiled back. I picked up the carton of ice cream while he picked up the case of beer, and together we walked back into the house and back down to the bonfire on the beach.
**
Our long black cloaks swished over the ground. Saddle Mountain was dark and deserted but we still wanted to be as unnoticed as possible. At Hortensia’s spirited insistence, we had each donned our black conical hats from the Wardrobe Room.
Harriet led us through a thick forest of pine trees for several minutes before we came out onto a wide field of wildflowers. Jessica made them dance and sway for our amusement.
“I think this is a good spot,” said Harriet.
“I agree,” said Jessica. “Jasper?”
Jasper closed his eyes and turned his head up at the starry sky. “I don’t see any helicopters coming by anytime soon,” he said.
Harriet raised her gnarled broomstick and addressed me, Sylvie, Lizzie, and Hortensia.
“A broomstick,” she said, “is a powerful magical object. Throughout the ages, it has carried our kind from place to place, and out of many tight spots along the way. It is a symbol of our power as witches, of the freedom that we have in being able to take to the skies using an object that non-witches deem worthy only to clean their floors. Flying can be dangerous and even deadly if done carelessly, but remember that it is your birthright. Trust in the broomstick. Trust that it will support your weight and your life. Think of it as an extension of your body. If you mount a broomstick with complete trust, you can bet that it will catch you in the unlikely event you lose your grip and fall off.”
“I know at least one of us who doesn’t have to worry about that,” said Jessica, smiling at Sylvie.
“Go ahead and mount your brooms,” said Harriet.
I mounted my broomstick, feeling like a child playing make-believe. Even as I held the gnarled wooden handle in my hand, it was hard to believe that it was about to carry me into the sky. On either side of me, the girls mounted theirs, Hortensia shaking with excitement.
“Point the broom upward,” said Harriet, “and very slowly push off from the ground…”
I trust you, I said silently to the broomstick as I gripped its handle. I pressed my foot again
st the ground like I would have pushed the pedal on a bicycle, then gasped as the wildflowers fell away from beneath me. I saw Harriet, Jessica, and Jasper smiling at me from about twelve feet below. Lizzie and Hortensia had faces of pure exhilaration as they hovered next to me. I looked around for Sylvie but she was gone. Then I heard a hooting noise from above that sounded like an owl. It got louder and louder until something shot past me with the force of a speeding car, and my cloak billowed around me.
“Show-off!” Lizzie called, as Sylvie flew around us in a wide circle.
“What do you expect from the Master of the Air?” I asked.
Sylvie came racing back to us and stopped right at our level with impossible grace. The broomstick was almost fluid in her grip and looked like it could be another limb on her body.
“This is so cool!” she said. “It’s a totally different vibe than flying solo!”
“Ooh, that reminds me!” said Lizzie.
She vanished, broomstick and all, then reappeared a second later with a wide smile.
“You’ll be flying unseen death the next time the Brotherhood attacks!” said Sylvie.
“That means I can—” Hortensia began, then she shot toward the pine trees in the distance. We watched her whiz through the trunks of trees as easily as if she were a projection being shined onto them. She hurtled back toward us, and I was sure she was going to crash into me, but she passed right through my body and then Lizzie and Sylvie as if we weren’t there.
“Sweet!” said Sylvie, putting out a hand to high-five Hortensia.
Then, as if the use of their powers while flying had suddenly taught them all they needed to know about operating a broomstick, Hortensia and Lizzie flew high into the air, and Sylvie followed them. They soared above me like excited fluttering birds. Harriet, Jessica, and Jasper appeared all around me, hovering effortlessly on their own broomsticks.
“I knew you’d all take easily to flying,” said Jessica, looking up at the girls.
“Aren’t you going to join them?” asked Harriet.
“Your first flight as a coven!” said Jasper.
I looked up at my sisters, then down at my broomstick. I trust you, I told it again, before I pointed its handle upward and willed it to rise. The cool night air blew across my face as I soared into the air, the pine trees and open fields of Saddle Mountain expanding before me like a darkly colored painting. I reached the place where the girls hovered and they flew playfully around me.
“Let’s fly!” I shouted.
They settled into position on either side of me, and then we all bolted up into the sky. It was a feeling unlike any I’d ever had. I saw the world spread out beneath me, the lights of Seaside in the distance, twinkling like scattered diamonds, then the dim Pacific Ocean beyond. The place where it met the sky was clearly delineated by the vast sparkle of stars. The crescent moon above us felt incredibly close, the way the magical moon in the Halfway Place had.
The wind roared in my ears as we sped over the expanse of Saddle Mountain, the three-thousand-foot summit rising above the rolling hills and stretches of pine trees.
“How is thing staying on?!” shouted Hortensia, gripping her conical hat.
“Magic!” Sylvie shouted back.
We dived down the side of the mountain, skimming the tops of pine trees, before zooming back up into the stars. The girls shouted rapturously into the night, and I joined them, fully alive and fully embracing the power and freedom that Harriet spoke of. For a long time, I hadn’t been sure of who I was or where I belonged. Now, soaring through the sky with my sisters, I finally knew.
I was Arthur Atwood, Burned Witch of the Sacred Four. Resident of Seaside, Oregon.
I had known love with a boy named Connor Ellis, and one day, I would see him again. I’d also had a mother once, and I was sure I’d see her again someday too. Because no suffering was forever. I was lucky enough to find a new family, and a world full of adventure and magic.
Evermore, the Sacred Four.
Dates
Arthur Atwood – b. August 4, 1990
Hortensia Huerta – b. September 4, 1990
Sylvie Sayers – b. October 4, 1990
Lizzie Levine – b. November 4, 1990
Harriet Hargrove – b. October 30, 1946
Jessica Appleby – b. February 9, 1977
Jasper Appleby – b. May 10, 1973
Lana Appleby – b. June 14, 1946 – d. June 10, 1991
Florence Hargrove – b. January 8, 1922 – d. December 24, 1957
Ursula Urry – b. April 4, 1590 – d. April 4, 1648
Connor Ellis – b. July 7, 1990 – d. March 30, 2007 & April 13, 2007
THANK YOU FOR READING!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E.J. Elwin has always preferred fictional worlds over the real one. He was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied English Literature. The Secret of the Sacred Four is his debut novel. He lives in West Hollywood with his chihuahua, Herbert.
Connect with E.J. on:
Twitter: @EjElwin
Instagram: @ejelwin
