The New Improved Sorceress

by Sara Hanover

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  NEW OR IMPROVED?

  EVELYN EYED ME closely. “You’re glowing. Did McHotty Carter finally give you a kiss?”

  “No and no. Don’t even think something like that.” I had no intention of telling her about that glorious moment. I intended to keep it close to cherish or until I had several other moments to accompany it. Plus, I was worried that once I started babbling, I might let a lot of other happenings out that should be kept top secret.

  She batted her eyelashes. “I do declare,” she said in syrupy southern tones, “you protest too much. So give it up. What happened?”

  “Nothing. As in, Not A Thing.”

  “Grumpy.”

  “Bad night.” I clutched my backpack closer. “Practice tonight, so am I still driving you home?”

  “Yup, and I’ve got gas money for you.”

  “I haven’t even had the car a week!”

  “True, but my mother insisted, and I agree with her. If you drive, you deserve gas money. Want it now or later?”

  “Later.”

  “Deal.”

  We separated and saw each other only sporadically during the day. Later, I saw only a glimpse of her at cheerleading practice while I went off to field hockey.

  I love the game. It gives me a chance to unwind, kick booty, and growl at people if I feel snarly—and I did. Hockey stick in hand, I ate dirt, made goals, and generally acted like Wolverine on a good day. After, I cleaned up and waited out front for Evelyn to show.

  Phone in hand, I looked at email and some old messages, including a belated “Happy Birthday” from Aunt April. I smiled at her choice of emojis, as it was obvious someone had brought her up to speed. I dialed her up and waited a few rings before her precise and crisp voice answered.

  “April Andrews, how may I help you? And if you’re calling to solicit remodeling, do us both a favor and hang up now.”

  My great-aunt, as daunting as ever. “Hi, Aunt April, it’s Tessa. Thank you for the birthday greetings and helping with my new car.”

  “You’re welcome, dear. Did you have cake and candles?”

  “Not enough, plus I think Mom is waiting for you to come by.”

  “Ruined the surprise. Tessa, I think you must be half-psychic. I had planned to visit this weekend.”

  “Great! Are we having chocolate or caramel icing?”

  “Some things must remain a mystery,” she said sternly. “How do you like the car?”

  “It’s great. I’m driving everywhere. Can I take you somewhere? To celebrate?” I listened while she thought a bit, and waited for my plan to fall in place.

  “A birthday should be celebrated with verve and vigor, not an old lady.”

  “Aunt April,” I told her sincerely, “few people I know have the verve you do.”

  She laughed. “What did you have in mind?”

  “How about going with me and Mom to that super casino? I hear they have an incredible Saturday night buffet?” Complete with elves. I held my breath.

  “Oh, that’s a bit of a drive. I shouldn’t.”

  “It’s a girls’ night out!” I wiggled my left hand fingers a little, in case my new mojo might help.

  A breathy reply, “I haven’t done that in a long time.”

  “Then it’s a date! We can all dress up and everything.”

  “What about the cake?”

  “We’ll have that first! You said it was a long drive.”

  “All right then. I’ll be over around three. Tell your mother.”

  Smiling, I put my phone away. Step one successfully completed. The boys might object, so they could follow us out in Hiram’s car if they wanted. And bring Scout. They wouldn’t want to do that, but Steptoe would understand when I reminded him about the feather and the pup’s nose. There’d be no sense in bringing out the elves without testing them to see if any of them had been involved in bringing down Goldie’s vacation home. As for Goldie, I would have to find a way to contact her. If she had found out anything, she’d reneged on letting me know. I hadn’t exactly kept her in the loop either but figured she didn’t need to know every detail of my life, just about the jewel, and I didn’t know much about that. Yet. Saturday night might just break the case open.

  Evelyn slid into my car smelling of that new herbal soap and shampoo she’d just bought, something pricey and with a fabulous odor, but she didn’t look inspired. Before I started the car, I glanced over.

  “Something wrong?”

  She shrugged.

  I swiveled my head around. “No sign of Dean.”

  Her mouth tightened.

  Her bad boy seemed to be a sore subject, but, hey, if you can’t complain at a friend, who can you complain to?

  “What didn’t he do this time?”

  “It’s what he did. He came to practice.”

  “Ummmm. Okay. And then?”

  “He had eyes for every girl on the squad but me.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  That didn’t sound good, but I knew better than to express an opinion. “Mmmm.”

  She breathed hard three times before adding, “Maybe he just wanted to make me jealous.”

  Not like I didn’t already know the answer, but I asked, “Did it work?”

  Evelyn let out a short laugh. “Guess it did. What a fool.”

  Not being sure if she referred to him or herself, I decided it was best just to start the car and pull out of the college lot.

  “So how was your day?”

  “A few surprises here and there.” I kept my eyes on the road, the streets being perpetually crowded around the community college.

  “Any you care to share?” I shot a side glance at her. Evelyn gave a shrug. “Sometimes you are just really tight-lipped.”

  I hadn’t shared much with her lately, not that I had much I could share what with the magic business and all. I decided to give a smidge, despite my earlier self-promise I wouldn’t. I wiggled my head a little. “Maybe Carter kissed me for my birthday.”

  I expected a squeal and a “Birthday kiss!” retort and then examination but what I got was: “And the world turns on this, night to Day as Day to sun. You need the fire, not the ash. There are two, side by side, but neither is the same. Take care you pick the right one.”

  “Say what?”

  She didn’t answer. Her pale blue gaze seemed fixed on something out the window I couldn’t see.

  “Evie?”

  Evelyn gave a little shake and she returned from wherever she’d gone. “A birthday kiss! Was it brotherly or steamy?”

  “It was definitely an ‘I think you’re hot’ kiss.”

  “Strong or tender?”

  “Both. Strong chin but warm tender lips and no tongue but just a hint of an invitation.”

  “Nice. And you . . .”

  “Kissed him again!”

  “That’s my girl. For a while there, I was beginning to think you were backward.” Her arms unclenched and she looked a lot happier and more comfortable sitting in the passenger seat.

  We chatted about nothing else important until I dropped her off and I drove home, thinking. What had possessed Evelyn for that handful of words? I had no idea what she could possibly have meant.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  WITH GREAT POWER, GREAT RESPONSIBILITY, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

  I FOUND MY mom sitting in her study, bent over with her forehead resting on her closed laptop. I hesitated in the doorway, uncertain if I should continue barging in or back out quietly. She lifted her head before I could decide.

  “Tessa?”

  “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  She sighed and straightened, combing her hair away from her face with her fingers, before tilting her head slightly. “I’ve been given this semester and the spring semester. If I haven’t made subs
tantive progress, I’ve been warned I should probably look for another job.”

  “No!” I sank down on her extra chair. “How could they do that?”

  “Because they can. There is competition, always, for any tenured openings, and I haven’t earned the right to compete.” She gestured at her computer.

  “But you’re writing. And if you can attend the dissertation boot camps, even the monthly one, you can finish and have it in front of the committee after Christmas.”

  “If. If.” Her blue eyes, usually blazing, looked faded and tired. “I don’t think I can do it.”

  I wanted to object but decided to listen instead. “Why not?”

  “This,” and she fanned her hands out in front of her, taking in me, the house, and all the nearby surroundings. “I’m writing on magic realism in American history and literature and all this smacked me in the face. How can I write about magic as being surreal and largely subjective, subtly intrusive on the mundane, if influential, when it isn’t? It’s all around us, isn’t it? If the professor wanted to help, or even Steptoe, I could probably gain perspectives on our past no one could even dare guess. Proving it might be more difficult, but I’m certain the ideas are buried in writings, if I only knew where and how to look.”

  My jaw dropped to offer an answer, but I couldn’t come up with one. After a moment of stammering, all I could come up with was: “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Well, it is, kinda. I discovered the professor, and then everything else just sort of fell in place with him.” I had come in to tell her about our date with Aunt April, but it seemed to be adding insult to her injury at this point. “Maybe you’re just a little bit outdated.”

  “Outdated? No. I’d say I’m completely in the wrong. I should give it up.” She took a deep breath, but before she could launch another sentence, I put my hand up to stop her.

  “It’s not your fault. We know how hard the other side has worked in not being revealed. So we’re not seeing, observing, properly. No one has been able to. They have no transparency, they don’t believe in it, in fact—just the opposite. The more that gets revealed, the more dangerous it is for them, the other side. They have always been veiled. Hidden. And what we’re getting now is still not an open viewing. It’s like . . . like . . . like . . .” I stumbled to a halt.

  “Like seeing it in a mirror. A dimmed and cracked mirror. Hmmm.” And she sat back in her seat.

  “Ummm. Yeah. Maybe not quite that diminished but, yeah.”

  Her eyes lit up. “But you can extrapolate from a mirror’s view. Imagine the world turned out and opened up, if you had the vision. If you cultivated it. If you knew what to accept and what to discard.” She opened her laptop. “It’s not surreal at all. It’s coded, encrypted. And you know what you know because they reached out. And then you brought me into it.”

  Actually, they hadn’t reached out at all; I had tripped and fallen face-first into it. “Could be. And all you’d need is to be able to interpret it—”

  Mom threw up a hand to stop me. She began typing furiously. Whatever it was, it sounded promising.

  I stood up. “Okay, leaving now. But, um, Saturday we’ve got a date with Aunt April. Going to the new casino for dinner and fun. Maybe seeing elves, if they’re out and about, gambling.”

  She did not look at me as she repeated, “Saturday, casino, Aunt April. And elves.”

  I wasn’t sure if she’d even heard herself over the soft clack of laptop keys and my leaving the room.

  * * *

  • • •

  Fourth quarter. My jersey clung wetly to my torso, my shin guards felt like they were on fire from the heat, and my elbow throbbed. I threw the last of my cup of water into my face, hoping for a cool-down. Most of the team stood close enough to provide even more heat and sweat.

  “I need some blocking,” I stated. “That big girl, number fourteen, is all over me.” I stared across the field where Abby Jablonski put her head down and glared back.

  “All over you? The entire team is all over me.” Jheri poked me in the foot with the toe of her soccer shoe. “I can only block so many shots.”

  I grinned at her. “The number of shots you can block is infinite, so don’t try and throw shade. We’re covering you.”

  “Mmm-hmmm. How about stop feeling sorry for yourself and start scoring?”

  I looked up at the scoreboard. 2-1. Or, more accurately, 1-2. “I scored.”

  “Not enough from where I stand.” And Jheri shrugged inside her goalie padding.

  “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. What about the rest of you guys?”

  “They,” Kristy pointed out, “obviously know who our best striker is.”

  “Well, then, they obviously have me covered.”

  The coach returned from the sidelines where she’d been conferring and stuck her face into our circle. “Break’s almost over. Made any decisions yet?”

  “We’re gonna win this. I just don’t know how yet.” I swung my stick around in my hands. I looked back over my shoulder where gigantic number fourteen waved at me from her sidelines. Or maybe she was sending obscene hand gestures. Something occurred to me that I should have seen oh, three quarters ago. And the coach, too.

  “Almost all their coverage is on me.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Shut your mouths and listen. I can pull them just about anywhere I want because they’re all over me.”

  “So . . .”

  “So one of you has to hit the goals. If I pull them, there should be a hole somewhere.”

  “I wondered when one of you would figure that out.” Coach beamed. She is not a real hands-on athletic teacher; she likes to let us learn the hard way so that we’ll remember it better. This time, it might have been too late.

  “Consider it figured. Okay, I’ll draw them, but not too obviously. You’ll have to thread your way through. Kristy, Beth, you got this?”

  “Got it.”

  We all high-fived each other with the battle cry of “Sky Hawks Soar!” ringing in our ears and prepared for battle.

  Number fourteen had badgered me so much that my concentration had frayed. Uncertain of what my newly obtained and untrained sorcery streak could do, other than explode tires on F-150s, I had restrained myself on field. I didn’t want to be responsible for concussions or broken limbs and hadn’t been as in her face as I could have been. I told myself that I hadn’t held back in practice and nothing had blown up or otherwise disintegrated. Odds were that the stone in my palm and whatever it had absorbed this time knew my boundaries and couldn’t transcend them unless I forced it. I was in control.

  Nice illusion if I could maintain it.

  The whistle blew and we were off.

  The ball dropped, and I went after it, blocked immediately by Abby, who bared her teeth at me as I tried to flank her and could not. Big she might be, but she was fast as well, and fearless. I, on the other hand, couldn’t quite get over the idea that I might snap her legs in two if I thought about it too hard. I pivoted around and dropped to the back field, momentarily giving up. She and another back followed on my heels. We jostled a bit, sticks clacking against one another, the ball angling away from all three of us. I feinted to go after it, drawing Fourteen and two more of her teammates after me. I thought I saw Kristy’s heart-shaped face grinning as she darted by, but no time to keep looking. I fake dropped behind in the lane for a pass that I could never have taken successfully because of the coverage on me.

  The stone throbbed in my hand under my gloves, responding, I hoped, to my keen desire for a goal and hopefully not to any whims I might have. Like watching Fourteen get a mouthful of dirt when I evaded her so neatly that she would lose all sense of balance and face-plant. It wouldn’t happen—she was quick on her feet and at cornering for a tall girl—and if anyone was likely to face-plant, it would prob
ably be me, thinking too much for my feet to keep up with me.

  I whirled around and retreated rapidly, still trying to keep up the charade that I expected a backhanded pass annnnny second now.

  Lisanne streaked downfield, with only one defender on her, and bam! She took a forward pass and made a shot, so quickly that it had to be seen up close to be believed. I could only see the goalie react to it, bouncing into motion and position—too late.

  Goal! And the score stood at tied, two all.

  Abby bumped into me solidly as we dropped into line-up for the ball drop. She muttered, “Won’t happen again.”

  What wouldn’t? The bump? The coverage? The goal? Think again, my pretty.

  Beaming, I moved into my position and waited for the official to put the ball into play again.

  She was right, though. Nothing came easy after that, and finally Beth called a time out, winded, her hair plastered to her forehead, her hand reaching for a drink. We paced on the sidelines.

  “They’re on to us.”

  “At least we’re tied,” grunted Jheri. She shook her head, raining drops on all of us from her kerchief-bound curls. Her dark skin glowed.

  “All we need is one more.” I ran my hands up and down my hockey stick.

  “Running out of time,” the coach warned.

  “We know.”

  I made a circling motion with my hand, and they gathered in to listen. “Okay. I’ve been faking it for almost the whole quarter. They figure they’d got me cornered. Well, I’m breaking out. It may cost me another penalty, sidelining me, or I’ll get through. Look out, I’m coming.” We covered each other’s hands. “And break! Sky Hawks Soar!”

  The ref positioned to drop the ball. It fell onto the battered grass.

  Greta bounded past me, calling, “This won’t be pretty,” and she angled right at Abby who had the ball, dribbling it down the field toward our net and Jheri.

  She hooked sticks. In and out so quickly that the foul, if there had been one, couldn’t be seen but heard as wood clattered. She pivoted around, and her shoe struck the ball. It shot out of the hole. I only saw it because I was looking. Staring, actually. Greta bobbed her head, ponytail of streaked blonde celebrating, and she was off.