“I don’t mind candles,” I told her.
She shuffled off, and I followed her levitating chair into the kitchen. Steam rose from a pot on the stove, and the smell of spices and herbs was more prominent in here. She summoned a plastic zipper bag from one of the drawers. It floated over to me as if riding a breeze. I snatched it out of the air and placed my handful of mint inside.
“You’re just in time for dinner.” Aunt Thyme stirred the pot on the stove. “You must be hungry. Would you like some soup?”
My stomach rumbled. “Yes, please. It smells great.”
“I know. Sit down.”
Aunt Thyme did everything with magic rather than inconvenience herself. The soup ladled itself into two bowls. Silverware and napkins flew out of the drawers and landed on the table. A pitcher of water emerged from the fridge and poured two fresh glasses. I ducked as the salt and pepper floated over my head.
Aunt Thyme didn’t blow on her soup or let it cool. She picked up her spoon and started eating as if impervious to the hot steam rising from her meal. “I thought you might seek me out after all that nonsense that happened last night.”
Unlike Thyme, I didn’t want to risk burning the roof of my mouth off, so I blew gently across my bowl before trying the soup. It was absolutely delicious, full of fresh vegetables from Thyme’s garden. The spice combination was unusual—I couldn’t place all of the ones Thyme had used—but each flavor complimented the others perfectly.
“You sat through the original coming of age ritual,” I said after a mouthful. “I’m in a bit of a dilemma. You’re one of the only witches that’s qualified to mentor me. I know you don’t leave your house often, but we can work it out if you’re willing.”
Thyme patted her lips with a white lace napkin. “You have another option in Alberta, do you not?”
“Yes, but Aunt Alberta is a bit—well, she’s nuts.”
Thyme smirked. “I suppose so, but she’s also quite the genius.”
“I have nothing against her,” I said hurriedly, “but I was hoping that you might consider the job. I won’t ask for much. I promise.”
Aunt Thyme summoned a bottle of wine from the fridge. It uncorked itself. “My dear, you are not overstepping any boundaries of mine. I would be honored to be your mentor.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I’m so glad—”
“However,” Thyme continued. “I’m afraid I must decline the opportunity.”
My relief vanished as quickly as it had arrived. “Why? Is it something Aunt Thelma said?”
“Goddesses, no,” she answered. She waved the bottle of wine away as it attempted to pour her several ounces more than the recommended serving. “My reasons for declining aren’t personal. Rather, I worry about not meeting your needs as a mentor. I’m not as sprightly as I used to me, dear. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much use to you.”
“That’s okay!” I assured her. “I don’t expect you to be at my beck and call. All I need is for you to complete the bonding ritual. We could do it here if you wanted. I won’t make you come all the way out to the Summers house.”
Thyme’s spoon clinked loudly against her saucer as she set it down. “You aren’t listening to me, young one. Throughout this process, your mentor will play a large role in how successful you are in completing your three tasks. You need someone who can be with you every step of the way. Unfortunately, that is not me.”
“But Aunt Alberta isn’t in her right mind,” I protested. “Please, reconsider this. I’ll get by just fine.”
“The original ritual is no game,” Thyme replied. “Each task presents its own fair share of danger. If you happen to get yourself stuck, I won’t be able to rescue you.”
“But you have your chair!” I insisted. “You’re completely able!”
She smiled sadly. “I am not just talking about my physical capabilities. I’m also not as sharp as I once was, and my skills are not equal to yours. I’m a master of spices and herbs, my dear. The tasks set for you will cater to your ability to speak to the dead. My culinary knowledge will do you no good.” She swirled her red wine in an attempt to decant it. “Besides, I wish your judgement of Alberta was not so quick. She’s a fine witch, and though her methods of communication are questionable, her abilities would serve you much more appropriately than mine.”
I crossed my arms and sat back. “How do you figure her pimple-popping potions are going to help me?”
“That’s not all she’s capable of,” Thyme said. “You’d be surprised what kind of effects she can whip up.”
I heaved a big sigh. “So you won’t help me?” I asked one last time. “I’m ready to get down on my knees and beg.”
Thyme cupped her palm to my cheek. “My dear, I’m already helping you. Take my advice. Go to Alberta and ask her to pledge as your mentor. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Something tells me you’re not entirely correct on that front.”
“Then at least you got some nice soup out of this interaction.” She beckoned me toward her. “Show me your aura.”
Though confused by the request, I complied anyway, reaching into the recesses of my soul to find my craft. As my aura glowed, Thyme took my arm between her soft, leathery hands and examined the scar there.
“Nothing,” she murmured, more to herself than to me. “Not even a hint of the old magic. This is serious indeed.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She patted my arm, but something frightening hid behind the act of affection. “My dear, magic is a curious element. It does not conform to our ideals of it as much as we might like to think. You were a vessel for the ancient magic awarded to the Summers coven. That power has been taken away from you, but it was not redistributed.”
The scar tingled and itched. I dug my fingers into the rough skin. “I don’t understand.”
“A percentage of our power is gone because of what is happening to you,” Thyme explained. “I surmise it’s why we weren’t able to complete our spells at the spring equinox. We’ve been weakened, and if you do not succeed in your three tasks, we may very well never regain our full strength.”
The bitter taste of truth flooded across my tongue. “Thelma was right. I’m a threat to the coven.”
“Only if you fail.” Thyme tapped my nose. “And you are not so audacious to fail, my dear.”
Aunt Alberta’s small cottage perched crookedly on the side of a hill in the mountainous forest beyond the town’s border. It was painted a garish shade of orange except for the shutters, which were salmon pink. Half of the roof was missing on the second floor, though this oddity appeared intentional since the roof was not damaged in any way and the burnt orange glow of Alberta’s aura glimmered all around the missing piece.
As I stepped forward, the muddy ground sucked my sneakers into its depths. No matter how hard I yanked, I couldn’t unearth my feet. When I looked down, the earth had turned viscous and shiny, not like the average mud puddle. Curiosity got the better of me, and I stupidly stuck my finger into the goo.
Tendrils of the stuff clamped onto my finger, crawled up the knuckle, and soon enveloped my entire hand. I yelped and tried to wipe it off, but it stuck like a stubborn horsefly. I fell to my knees, and the substance wrapped itself around my thighs. I pulled from my aura and cast a defensive shield, but it was no good. The goo was too personal to shield myself from. I tried a repellant spell next, the one we used to keep mosquitoes at bay on damp summer nights. It worked to a degree. The substance lifted off my skin wherever I focused the repellant, but as soon as the sparks wore off, the goo continued along its route unbothered. It crept up my torso, snaked around my rib cage, and reached for my neck. I lifted my chin as it made its way toward my mouth.
“Help!” I screamed, officially at the end of my rope. “Alberta, please! Morgan will be totally pissed if this stuff kills me!”
The goo smacked itself over my mouth, rendering me mute, but it left holes around my nose so I could keep breathing. Then it glued my
eyes shut. I was at its mercy, immobile and mute.
There was a flare of light, so bright that it felt like the sun had made its way past the goo and directly into my retinas. The sticky, unrelenting substance pulled away all at once. It dropped from my skin and puddled on the ground once more, unassuming and innocent. I gasped for breath and checked myself for signs of harm. From the looks of things, I was fine. In fact, my skin felt smoother and softer than usual.
“Works wonders as a moisturizer, doesn’t it?”
Aunt Alberta had emerged from her cottage. She was a formidable woman, wide at the shoulders and hips. She had a square jaw and blocky cheekbones, as well as a full head of wild, curly hair that she continuously dyed orange to match her aura. Like Morgan, she had green eyes, but where Morgan’s were sharp and focused, Alberta’s irises hardly ever lingered in the same place. Her gaze darted from one object to the next, giving her the look of permanent paranoia.
I stumbled backward as Alberta approached me. When she reached the puddle of goo, she fell to her knees and shoved her arms into it. Once she had sunk in all the way up to her shoulders, she let out a relaxed sigh. The goo, which had responded so violently to me, loved Alberta. It wrapped up her shoulders and around her back like a gentle hug.
“King Arthur,” said Alberta.
“What?”
She squinted at me, her eyes flickering up and down to take all of me in. “King Arthur. Lady of the Lake. Lancelot. Morgana.”
“Morgan’s not here,” I told her. “She’s probably home, where I should be, but I had to come looking for you.”
“Not Morgan,” Alberta said in a tone that implied she was frustrated with my inability to understand her weird code. “You. King Arthur.”
“I’m not King Arthur.”
“For the love of the yew tree.” Alberta rolled her eyes as she withdrew from the sentient pile of mud. She shook off the leftover goo and snapped her fingers as if trying to recall something. “Galahad, Gawain—”
“Guinevere?” I guessed.
“Aha!” Alberta pushed herself to her feet and stroked my cheek. “Yes, that’s what it is. Guinevere.”
“My name is Gwenlyn,” I said. “It’s Welsh.”
Alberta pursed her lips and nodded, solely to placate. “Sure, Guinevere. Come inside, won’t you? How is the enchantress?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Morgan le Fay.” Right as I was about to step over the threshold and into the cottage, Alberta slammed her palm against my chest and knocked the wind out of me. She pointed down, unaware of my discomfort as I gasped for breath, and added, “Watch your step, Guinevere.”
A dark rectangle of space—which I’d originally dismissed as a welcome mat—loitered on the threshold. It was an entrance to a void of Alberta’s making, an “unwelcome” mat for unwanted visitors.
I leapt over the void, the thrill of adrenaline in my veins. I hated to think who’d fallen into the unwelcome mat before.
The interior of Alberta’s cottage did not match the exterior. It was far larger than the outside suggested, courtesy of an expansion spell, and every square foot was covered in crap. Cardboard boxes, odds and ends, random antiques, broken furniture. If you could find it at a garage or estate sale, you could find it at Alberta’s house. The only place clear of rubbish was the kitchen. The counters, sink, and breakfast table were all impeccably clean. The dishware was stacked neatly within the cabinets, as were the spices on a spinning rack. Not a speck of dust or a crumb of food could be found. However, every burner on the stovetop was occupied by a large soup pot. All four pots bubbled and frothed with a different potion.
I sat at the breakfast table, as far from the stove as possible so as to not inhale whatever Alberta had cooking. She took the lid off the largest pot and wafted the scent of the potion inside toward her nose.
“Ahh.” She closed her eyes and pressed her entire face into the pot. When she emerged, pink dewdrops clung to her skin. “Would you like to try?”
“No, thank you,” I said firmly. “Aunt Alberta, I came here for a reason. Do you mind sitting down?”
“Sitting is for the exhausted,” she declared. “What do you need, Guinevere? Out with it. Or would you prefer a truth serum? They’re quite harsh on the tongue, but it might be worth the ease of candidness.”
“I’ll pass,” I said. “I need someone to mentor me for the coming of age ritual. You and Aunt Thyme are the only witches in the coven who completed the original version of it, and Aunt Thyme won’t mentor me because she thinks she’s not able. You’re my last hope.”
Alberta wiped the dew drops from her face with a steaming hot towel. “You mean I’m your only option and your last choice? How flattering.”
“Your yard just tried to swallow me whole,” I reminded her. “You have to admit you’re not the easiest witch to get a hold of.”
She vanished the towel. “I suppose you’re not wrong. The ritual, eh? Has your first task been assigned to you yet?”
“No, I have to complete the mentor-mentee bonding spell first,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. Will you do it?”
She dipped a finger into one of her other potions and licked it clean. “Why should I?”
“First of all, the coven might be in trouble if you don’t.” I lifted my arm to show her my scar. “All the ancient power I had is gone, and the coven won’t be able to recover it, according to Aunt Thyme. Over time, the coven will weaken and fall out of favor with the yew tree. You don’t want that, right?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “But don’t pretend all of your intentions are so noble. You’ve always had a bit of a selfish streak, Guinevere, not unlike our fearless leader herself. What do you get out of our union?”
I held my tongue until I could formulate a less acerbic reply. “I get to stay with the coven. I’ve lived with the Summerses for almost ten years. Yew Hollow is my home, and all of you are my family. If I don’t complete the ritual, I’ll be banished from here with black salt, and I can’t fathom a life beyond the borders of this town. I’d rather die than be separated from the people who finally taught me how to love.”
“That’s a strong sentiment.” At last, Alberta left her potions to bubble and sat across from me at the table. Her erratic gaze steadied, and a sense of calm settled over the kitchen. “You know what I’ve always liked about you? You go after what you want, and you don’t care who judges you during the process.”
“I care,” I assured her. “Morgan’s judgement matters to me most of all. If she hadn’t taken me under her wing when I was younger, I’d probably be stuck in an asylum or dead by now. I owe her everything, and that includes winning the coven’s ancient power back.”
Alberta stared at me without blinking for so long that I feared her eyelids might dry up and fall off. “All right,” she finally said. “I’ll be your mentor on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“We do things my way, Guinevere.”
“It’s Gwenlyn,” I said. Alberta’s eyes bore into me. “Fine. We’ll do things your way.”
6
Alberta refused to accompany me back to the Summers house in order to complete the bonding ritual right away. She claimed she had to prepare for the honor, and doing so would take at least a couple of hours.
“Meet me at the yew tree around midnight,” she’d instructed me as I gave the unwelcome mat a wide berth on my way out. “We can perform the bonding spell and receive instructions for your first task. Oh, and take this.”
She’d handed me a mason jar full of one of the potions she’d been brewing on the stove. I had no choice but to bring it with me. As I walked home, I kept the jar at arm’s length, terrified of whatever might be inside it. Morgan greeted me on the front porch of the house.
“You’re back!” she said, rushing across the lawn to meet me. “What is that?”
I carefully handed the jar of potion over to her. “I have no idea. Aunt Alberta asked m
e to bring it home. I’m assuming it’s some sort of horrid concoction.”
Morgan unscrewed the lid of the jar and warily sniffed the contents. “It’s soup.”
“It is?”
“Yup.” She offered it to me so I could smell it. “Potato and leek. What were you doing at Alberta’s? You didn’t step on her welcome mat, did you?”
“Thankfully, I avoided the mat,” I said, “but not her mud puddle.”
Morgan snorted and replaced the lid of the jar. Just because it was potato and leek soup didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. Alberta was unhinged. “When I was a kid, Alberta used to put that crap in my juice. She said I talked too much.”
“I asked her to be my mentor.”
Morgan stopped short on the porch steps. “You did what?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I said. “I went to Aunt Thyme first, but she refused to do it. She said Alberta was the better choice.”
Morgan clapped her palm to her forehead and muttered under her breath. “Oh, this is a disaster. I don’t trust Alberta. I don’t trust her one bit to get you through this.”
“That’s really helping to calm my nerves. Thanks.”
“You know what this means, right?” Morgan asked. “You’ll be linked to Alberta for the next two weeks. She’ll have a certain amount of control over your craft. She’ll be able to manipulate how you cast your spells. The link is supposed to be helpful, but if a mentorship goes bad—”
“Can the warning speech.”
Morgan gave me a stern look for my demanding tone.
“Sorry,” I added. With a grand sigh, I flopped onto the swinging bench. “Look, I get it. I know the risks, but what other choice do I have? Besides, Alberta can’t be all bad. At the very least, she agreed to do it.”
Lost Magic Page 7
