“Thanks,” the witch-hunter said flatly.
“He can do magic. He can understand Sabrina. He can do everything for Sabrina, better than you could dream. Doesn’t it burn you up inside? You have nothing a witch needs. You’ll spend the rest of your miserable mortal life knowing you touched magic and you can never get it back.”
As soon as she said Sabrina, the mortal flinched. He might as well put up a sign pointing out his weakness. He might as well show Prudence where to slide in the knife.
“Is that why you asked us to stay?” she asked. “Are you desperate for magic? Or are you desperate for company? How sad.”
The witch-hunter looked at her with his stricken, sorrowful eyes. “Wow. Who hurt you?”
Prudence wasn’t under a truth spell. She didn’t have to answer: A lot of people hurt me.
Instead she said: “Anyone who hurts me gets hurt back. I’m not staying for dinner.”
“Understood,” said Harvey.
Prudence sailed toward the door, before she could hesitate or weaken. She grabbed hold of Nick’s sleeve as she went. He resisted, then glanced at the mortal’s bowed head and let her pull him away.
Prudence aimed a parting shot at the witch-hunter from the porch before the three witches disappeared into the night and out of his life.
“Don’t you know witches are dangerous by now? Do you need another lesson? Remember this. I could kill you. Someday, I think I will.”
A witch never feared to walk through the woods alone at night. A witch in the woods was at home. Moonlight made the icy path a silver ribbon that guided my feet to the door of Ms. Wardwell’s cottage.
I knocked. As I did, I recalled she used to have a horseshoe hanging up over her door. It must have fallen off.
Ms. Wardwell threw the door wide open. Light burned behind her as though her cottage was home to a falling star, and the tail of her emerald satin dressing gown followed her like a snake.
“Is it you, my beloved?” she cried in a voice of thunder. Then her wide green eyes blinked and focused on my face.
The echo of her ringing voice faded away. The light behind her flickered.
“Oh,” she said. “Sabrina. Well. Forgive my outburst.”
She waved her hand, nails painted brilliant red, and the blaze of light behind her dimmed further. I saw now it was only the fire in her grate, sparks flying upward into the dark recess of her chimney. There was a stain on the floor near her armchair. She must have spilled some red wine.
Or, knowing witches, something else.
“I totally understand,” I told her.
I’d heard the rumor that Ms. Wardwell had a boyfriend who was a globe-trotter. Some people said that he couldn’t be much of a boyfriend, constantly leaving her on her own.
She must be waiting for him, hoping every knock on the door and footstep on the path might be him. I felt terrible for her. I knew how lonely it felt, to have love fail you. I hoped Ms. Wardwell’s boyfriend came back soon.
“Is this a bad time? Or can I come in?”
Ms. Wardwell swept a look over her shoulder at the emptiness of her cottage, then lifted the same shoulder in a graceful shrug.
“Why not come in? Sad to say, I am doing nothing at all. Life is a barren desert, and one wanders within it.”
The holidays must be lonely for people with no family. Ms. Wardwell was an excommunicated witch. She didn’t even have a coven to turn to. Perhaps she had no friends, witch or mortal.
I’d been feeling so sorry for myself about my mortal friends, but I still had the witches in my life. I should appreciate them more.
“Are you looking forward to going back to school?” I asked sympathetically.
There was a pause.
“Yes,” Ms. Wardwell said distantly. “Education is my passion.”
She twitched the ties of her dressing gown closer together, then swept across the floor and threw herself into the winged armchair. The green satin snake of her hemline hid the dark stain at her feet.
“But naturally your education is the most important to me, Sabrina. How, as your indispensable mentor in the dark arts, may I expand your knowledge of unholiness today?”
I sat down in the chair across from her, folding my hands in my lap. “Well, I accidentally attracted a bad-luck spirit called the Dwy Ferch Geg.”
Ms. Wardwell clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Oh, Sabrina. You do hurl yourself into the oddest situations. I suppose it’s inevitable. What girl of spirit can stay away from demons? I know of the Dwy Ferch Geg. It’s amusing for witches to see a former witch-hunter as a hell-bound spirit. As I remember—from my extensive readings, you understand—she became the handmaiden of a prince of hell.”
“A prince of hell! Which one?”
I wanted to conjure, banish, and defeat Satan one day so I wouldn’t have to do his bidding. Yet ever since I signed the Book of the Beast, it was as though I could always feel power brimming within me, as if I was nothing but a vessel full of dark liquid.
Whose could the power be but the Dark Lord’s? I wasn’t ready to face him. I didn’t think I could face down a prince of hell either.
I was full of doubt these days. Sometimes I even found myself doubting Ms. Wardwell, which was terrible. She’d been so kind to me. She was my father’s disciple. My father would want me to listen to her.
Ms. Wardwell was silent. She seemed to be thinking. The dancing sparks and shadows of the hearth fire fell across her dramatic bone structure, making her face look skull-like for a moment.
“I … don’t recall. No doubt she’s left her lord to meddle with the affairs of mortals.” She sounded unutterably weary. “We all grow tired of being a handmaiden at times.”
The shadows ebbed away, the light warm on her face. It’d been a shock for the entirety of Baxter High when Ms. Wardwell showed up one day, living the fantasy of the mousy secretary who takes off her spectacles and lets down her hair to some va-va-voom music, and becomes a total bombshell. Many football jerks had got a single look at her tailored skirt-suit-with-dominatrix-flair fashion, and her newly loosed wild tumble of dark hair, and instantly began discussing how they wanted an authority figure to take advantage of them.
Her new look was amazing, but it hadn’t occurred to me before now that it meant she was unhappy.
Maybe she’d transformed herself so the man she was waiting for would be dazzled.
Who was I to judge a woman in love? Changing up your style was a lot less extreme than bringing your boyfriend’s brother back from the dead.
Ms. Wardwell studied me. “What are you thinking of, Sabrina?”
I hoped she didn’t think I was judging her.
“Nothing, really. Your hair looks nice tonight,” I said awkwardly.
Ms. Wardwell twirled a glowing chestnut curl carelessly around her finger. “One of Satan’s greatest gifts to me. I rather like your new ’do. Since you signed the Book, it seems as though your halo of gold became a crown of bones.”
Someone had described me as wearing a bone crown once. A dark spirit. Ms. Wardwell couldn’t know that, but I still found myself shivering.
“Who knew Satan does great blowouts? But I doubt the Dark Lord wanted to give me a makeover,” I said. “I wish I knew what he had planned for me.”
The shadows were dark on Ms. Wardwell’s face again, but her voice was light.
“Who can know his mind? To address the issue at hand, the Dwy Ferch Geg is a spirit whose power depends on malicious words, so when banishing her, you mustn’t listen to her. Whatever she says, you must complete the ritual.”
“I thought she was a bad-luck spirit.”
The crackling of the fire sounded like a muttered warning, not quite heard.
“What is bad luck but the wind turning against you and blowing ill your way? A whisper can be the most destructive thing in the world. If everyone believes the worst of you, doesn’t it become true?”
“No,” I whispered.
Ms. Wardwell smiled war
mly at me, though her eyes were distant. “You’re young, Sabrina. When you’re old enough to wear your story like a shadow behind you, we’ll see how you feel. I’m sure you think you’re powerful enough to banish the dark spirit by yourself, but the Dwy Ferch Geg’s connection to a prince of hell makes her dangerous. You should tell your family. Even though I know you hate to worry them, even though they will be so disappointed in you, you shouldn’t risk defeat and death.”
“Thanks,” I told her as I got up.
I didn’t promise anything. She didn’t ask me to.
Ms. Wardwell turned her head to watch me go. In the firelight her cascade of brown hair burned gold, as though she was the one wearing a crown.
“For what?”
“For your help,” I said. “Not just with the dark spirit. I know you meant it for the best, having me sign the Book of the Beast. I know you’re looking after me, because it’s what my father would have wanted. My family is great, but you always help me do what I want.”
It wasn’t Ms. Wardwell’s fault if I’d gone too far.
“Your family loves you,” said Ms. Wardwell. “They want to protect you.” She paused for the barest second. “And of course, so do I. But I have a duty to encourage you to become the independent witch I know you can be. Your father would want you to be strong.”
Sometimes I thought I liked Ms. Wardwell better before I knew she was a witch, when she was my lonely and timid teacher. She seemed kinder then. But I guess that’s part of growing up: learning people can be cruel, and love can betray you.
I want to grow up. I want to be strong. My new world is exciting, and beautiful, and I chose to be here.
It’s only that the whole world seemed kinder before I signed the Book. Sometimes I miss the old world so much.
The whispers were loose on the wind, and Rosalind Walker was dreaming her cunning dreams that told the future. She walked in the woods on a summer’s day, by the side of a crystal-clear pool that reflected a bright blue sky.
In the sky was not a single cloud. Instead there was a flock of black birds, all burning, yet somehow still flying. In the pool was a rock, and a frog sitting upon the rock as though it were a throne. As Roz and the frog watched, a black feather enveloped by flame tumbled through the air. The feather twisted in the breeze, then fluttered down into the pool and was swallowed by its waters.
My prince will come! cried the frog, very suddenly.
Roz peered through the trees. Her vision was sharp, every detail of every leaf on every tree clearly defined, but she couldn’t see anybody coming. She was all alone, the wind sighing words into her ears.
The witches, the witches, said the wind. The Spellmans are witches.
Roz turned, and as she turned the wind changed and spoke with a new voice in her ears. Her father’s voice, ringing as it did when he spoke from a pulpit.
You know they are witches! Soon the world will know.
The tall trees hemmed Roz in, the shadow of every tree a dark line across her vision, like the bars in a prison window. The feathers fell like black snow, burning and drowning.
If the witch banishes the handmaiden, the frog sang out, then the prophecy will be fulfilled. The river will run red with blood when my prince comes to me!
Roz sat bolt upright in bed. She reached for her phone to call Sabrina, but she misjudged the distance and knocked both her phone and her glasses on the floor. She cursed with the sheer frustration of her own body betraying her, hitting her knee with her fist. Then she searched for her phone among the scattered clothing on the floor.
She was going to spend her whole life fumbling in the dark. Because of magic. She could accept it if her blindness was natural, but this was happening because an evil witch wanted to spite her family.
She couldn’t accept this. She shouldn’t have to.
A dark thought unfurled within Roz, like a worm turning in the apple of knowledge, rot born in the heart of a rose. She swayed slightly, as though she was straining to hear a secret whispered in her ear.
If the whole world found out about witches, would that be so bad?
Roz bit her lip. If she did call Sabrina, what could she even say? The cunning had sent her a dream with a whispering wind and a talking frog. The dream made no sense. Was she supposed to call Sabrina and say, “Hey, whatever you do, don’t banish a handmaiden?”
If her grandmother were alive, Roz could consult her about what the cunning meant, but her grandmother was gone. Roz felt lost.
Roz didn’t call Sabrina. She was tempted for a moment, but she didn’t call Harvey either.
Roz texted Susie, asking if Susie wanted to hang out tomorrow. Then she went back to sleep.
On the way back to the Academy of Unseen Arts, Prudence made Nick explain himself. Then she made him explain again, because her ears couldn’t comprehend that level of stupidity the first time around.
When they entered the Academy, Prudence paused to lean against the stone statue of the Dark Lord. She felt she needed support.
“So you went against the High Priest’s order and left unholy sanctuary to risk your own life by protecting a witch-hunter from harm. Because Sabrina Spellman asked you to.”
“Yeah,” said Nick.
He was carrying a sheaf of notes in a black leather folder under his arm, his expression indifferent and his tone faintly superior. He seemed like the boy she knew.
“Then you approached the witch-hunter for relationship advice.”
Nick nodded.
Prudence sucked in a deep, fortifying breath. “Oh, Satan’s red high heels.”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Does Satan have red high heels?”
“He might,” said Prudence. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything! This whole mess is happening because you weren’t raised properly.”
She’d grown up in these woods, between these walls. She remembered the day Nick arrived at the Academy. She was sitting on a high stone wall with her sisters, watching from above as the strange boy came stumbling down from the mountains and through the woods. The boy was covered in blood and snow, his clothes rent by claws.
From high up on their perch, Agatha whistled. “Wow. Clean him up, then bring him to my bed.”
In those days, before Prudence talked Dorcas into truly believing they were the fiercest witches of all, Dorcas stammered when she was nervous. She’d said: “He is d-d-dishy, but what do you think happened to him?”
The boy turned out to be Nick Scratch, who’d been presumed dead for years. Perished with his parents whose bodies were found, long ago and long dead. Nobody searched for Nick. Everyone believed the child’s corpse was eaten by animals.
Nick never talked about what had happened to him. He got right into the swing of things at the Academy. A week after he arrived, he’d read half the books in the library and laid half the witches in school.
Father Blackwood said the Weird Sisters should be grateful to the Academy for setting their feet on the correct cursed paths. Prudence hated when he said that, but perhaps he was right. Without early training, witches went astray. There was clearly something badly wrong with Nick Scratch.
Nick strolled away and up the stairs. She followed him, clutching the baby.
“That’s where you’ve been getting the bizarre notions about liking her and thinking she’s beautiful,” Prudence sneered. “People can hear you when you say these things! Aren’t you embarrassed?”
“No,” said Nick.
“Well, you should be! Have some self-respect, Nicholas. Watch me.”
At this opportune moment, Ambrose Spellman was passing by, running lightly down the steps as they climbed them.
“Hey, sexy,” Prudence called out. “I don’t care if you live or die.”
“Evening,” drawled Ambrose, with a hint of a smile.
Nick’s lip curled. “I’m not saying that to Sabrina.”
“That line is a surefire winner,” Prudence murmured absently.
She was watching Ambrose leave. A
mbrose was wearing a red silk waistcoat with no shirt underneath. It was almost unbearable.
Having a crush on someone was like being buried alive and swallowing a vast quantity of grave worms, then feeling them wriggle around in your stomach all day long.
When she wrenched her gaze away, she found Nick watching her with a measured amount of sympathy. “Maybe you should tell him how you feel.”
“How dare you, Nick Scratch,” said Prudence. “I have never felt anything in my whole life! I’m not the one who’s gone ’round the twist on a broomstick and is dining out at a mortal’s house. Tell me you at least test the food before you eat it!”
Nick sighed. “I didn’t fly up with the last shower of sparks. I’m being careful.”
They reached Father Blackwood’s chambers. Prudence unlocked the carved oak door and went into Judas’s chamber, laying the baby down in his ebony cradle. Prudence slept on a settee close by the cradle, waking when he did. Usually Judas slept fretfully, but as she covered him with blankets embroidered with pentagrams and stars, he barely stirred. He was exhausted from his day out. Prudence knelt on the red velvet hassock with its upside-down crucifix that she’d placed beside the cradle, remembering her own terror when she saw her baby brother in a witch-hunter’s arms.
“You’re being so reckless.” She whispered so she wouldn’t disturb Judas’s peaceful slumber. “Have you ever even spoken to a mortal boy before, Nick?”
She turned and found Nick standing under the stuffed alligator that swung from the ceiling. His face was calm, his hands in his pockets, and above his head were jagged gleaming teeth.
“Three of them.”
She was beginning to think she had more chance of reasonable conversation with the alligator.
“Three,” Prudence repeated. “Terrific. While you were getting traumatized in the snowy mountains, I became an expert in mortal boys. Let me share my expertise with you. This is how things work with mortals. First, they fall in love with you and bring you flowers.”
Daughter of Chaos Page 11
