The Sweetest Kind of Fate

by Crystal Cestari

  I cock my head to one side. “Difficult how?”

  “It’s not uncommon, really. Almost every witch goes through an experimental time, learning the boundaries of her powers. Some push the limits further than others, of course….” She trails off, and I do my best to bring her back.

  “Were her boundaries bad?”

  “Amber, witches don’t like to use labels like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ when it comes to learning magic. Mistakes are made. That’s how you learn.”

  I’m getting frustrated by yet another dead end. I know the Wicca community is tight, but this is some next-level conspiracy theory happening here. Everything she’s saying is so vague. What, does every witch get a He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-esque time period that all other witches must keep quiet?

  “So you didn’t know what she was doing?” I press. “That she was friends with Victoria?”

  Wendy flinches at the sound of that name. “Of course not!” she says, her voice getting loud. “Had I known Victoria was previously involved in your mother’s journey, I would’ve personally pulverized her.”

  I’ve never heard Wendy’s voice anything above a gentle melody, which causes me to say, “Wow, so it must’ve been really bad.”

  She takes a deep breath, resetting herself. From the kitchen, she floats the cocoa pot over, and even though I’m always around magic, it surprises me at first because Mom rarely uses her powers to do mundane tasks such as getting refills. She calls it lazy, but I’m guessing Wendy is trying to calm her chi by focusing on something else. She refills my mug without lifting a finger and then sets her attention back on me.

  “I know I’m not a witch, but I am her daughter,” I say. “I just want to know.”

  “The truth is,” Wendy starts, her volume returning to normal, “I really can’t say for sure. I know your grandma, my dear Edie, was worried about your mom back then. And Edie herself was a wild one, so for her to be worried was a concern. It was something she didn’t like to talk about, though. As her best friend, I could only sense that something was awry.” She places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  I slump back in my seat. Another dead end. “But what about my dad? Did you know him?”

  “A little. I went to their wedding. They were both enamored of each other.” She gives a sad smile. “But it was pretty clear from the start they wouldn’t be a match. Too bad you weren’t around then to tell them so,” she says with a wink.

  I thank Wendy for her time and exit as quickly as possible. It feels like I will never learn what my mom was up to when she was younger. My imagination starts dreaming up horrible nightmare scenarios, including puppy sacrifices and cities in flames, but my hellish landscape visions are interrupted by an equally chilling sound coming from the real world.

  A shrill cry from high above stops me in my tracks. I look up, but a streetlamp blinds my vision. The piercing call continues, soaring above, so I walk half a block away from the light and search the sky again, finding nothing. The sound circles around me, and it’s so sharp, I instinctively cover my ears to keep them from splitting. I look around frantically to find the culprit, but the pitch is so jarring, it’s setting my nerves on end.

  Instinct taking over, I start running, until a small dark bird lands before me on the sidewalk. A raven, menacing, stares at me with its beady black eyes, chest puffed out, almost daring me to take another step. I’ve held countless handfuls of raven feathers in my lifetime but never been in the presence of the bird itself. And why would I want to, seeing as how it’s a symbol of death? I slowly walk backward, wondering how one bird could be so intimidating. When it decides I’ve backed far enough off its turf, the bird lets out one final croak before taking off for the sky, and I watch as it soars over the neighborhood, until it’s circling one area in particular. I slowly walk under the raven’s tight flight pattern and realize where I am.

  This is Iris and Ivy’s street. This raven is claiming its turf.

  This is exceedingly not good.

  I can’t get the raven’s shriek out of my head. It has permanently speared my senses, leaving me on edge. Why was it looming over the Chamberlains’ street? Was that the bird that beaked Ivy? It’s not like ravens are native to Chicago, and an omen of death is not something to take lightly. I want to call Amani, to see if she can conjure up any visions of impending doom, but I don’t think she’s in the mood to come to my aid right now. I can’t let that keep me from checking in on Ivy and Iris, though. And since Ivy probably won’t accept my help, I should probably bring backup.

  I’m working on a strawberry glaze to drizzle over animal body parts I can’t even name during a particularly slow night at the Black Phoenix. Standing next to me in silence is Marcus, who is deveining shrimp with extreme care. I don’t want to disrupt his concentration, but we’ve been working here for hours with so few orders and even fewer words. I can’t take it anymore.

  “Hey, Marcus?” I venture. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  He turns to me with a look that reads “how dare you?” but then melts into an unresisting “sure.”

  “I have a friend who could benefit from your expertise.”

  “Which is?” he asks, all downtrodden.

  “Cooking, obviously.”

  This elicits a tiny smile. “Okay, I suppose.”

  “Specifically, I need some recipes that require little to no chewing.”

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “It’ll make sense when we get there.”

  Once the kitchen closes, we snag a few leftover ingredients Marcus needs. He describes a pumpkin squash soup so rich and creamy, I plan to snag a slurp for myself.

  The cab ride over is slightly awkward; crammed in the backseat with a heaping bag of supplies, I can feel Marcus sneaking quick glances my way, and I need to be conscious of his crush. I don’t want to do anything that could be construed as flirtatious or cute, although I didn’t think I was doing those things before, and he developed feelings for me anyway. I try to think of neutral, non-heart-swelling topics.

  “How ’bout them Bulls?” I randomly blurt.

  “Um, I don’t really watch basketball,” Marcus says, staring at the back of the driver’s seat.

  “Yeah, me neither.” I rearrange my scarf to give myself something to do. The cabbie’s incoherent talk radio fills the space.

  “Amber,” Marcus says softly. “I don’t want you to feel weird around me.”

  “Oh, I don’t feel weird—”

  “You do, I can tell.” Damn werewolves and their body-language-reading abilities.

  “No, Marcus, it’s just that…I don’t have a lot of friends, to be honest, and after what happened at the bakery, I don’t want to lose you from my life.”

  “I don’t either,” he replies. “The poem; it was too much.” I start to reply, but he adds, “Please don’t let it mess everything up.”

  “I won’t if you won’t.”

  “Deal.” He leans back in relief.

  “So what we’re about to walk into…it’s gonna be a little strange,” I say.

  “Oh?”

  I give him some background just as we pull up to the Chamberlains’ brownstone. I eye the sky for the raven, but the menacing bird is nowhere to be seen. Ivy answers the door after several rings.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks in her usual disapproving tone.

  “Special delivery!” I singsong.

  “You brought me…a man?” she asks. Marcus shifts uncomfortably, looking for an escape route. “Is this some sort of new matchmaker service?”

  “Huh? No! He’s not for you; it’s what he can do,” I say. “Can you let us in and show us where the kitchen is? It’s freezing out here.”

  “I guess,” Ivy says. She closes the door behind us and leads the way into one of the most gleaming, most modern kitchens I’ve ever seen. I start unloading our foodstuffs on the counter. Marcus, back in his element, starts searching through the cabinets for the kitchenware he needs.

  “
What are you guys doing?” Ivy asks. Having fallen from her previous siren standards, she looks like a complete disaster: barely brushed hair, faded T-shirt, sweatpants. Not to mention the bird bruise. It’s more than obvious that being a caretaker is taking a toll. Of course, by Amber standards, she looks like a Tuesday.

  “We’re making dinner for you and Iris. I figured you could use a break,” I say, whisking some whole milk to prep for a banana pudding dessert.

  At full strength, I’m sure Ivy would brush off our offer, making some sarcastic remark about not eating food prepared by peasant hands, but she’s so emotionally spent she just sinks into the closest chair and rests her head on folded arms. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs, and Marcus and I share a quick look of panic. Do I go over and comfort her? Or is prepping the food comfort enough?

  Before I need to decide, she picks her head back up, wiping away the evidence. “God, Amber,” she starts, “how can you be like this?”

  “Like what?” I ask, slicing bananas.

  “This!” She gestures toward our efforts. “I have been nothing but horrible to you. How can you even be here right now? Is this, like, a witch thing? Putting positive energy into the world so that similar energy comes back to you?”

  I shrug, trying to focus on the task at hand. “Nah, I mean, yes, that is a witch thing, but I wasn’t thinking that. I’m not a witch, remember? And I don’t know. You are definitely the worst, but you’re also going through the worst time ever. And anything is better with pudding.” Marcus smiles as he stirs the beginnings of his soup, and Ivy accepts my answer without reply.

  Once everything’s ready, we take a tray up to Iris, who is in almost the exact same spot where I left her days ago. She makes no acknowledgment of our presence and barely blinks as we set up next to her. Marcus approaches her carefully, like a dog sniffing out a stranger. Even though I explained the situation beforehand, it’s much different seeing a human compost pile than hearing it described.

  “So this is what a person looks like without free will?” he asks, watching her closely. He gets the same stern look on his face I’ve seen on him when he’s trying to figure out a new recipe: lips pinched, brow furrowed. He’s clearly horrified but doing his best to keep his expression in check.

  “I guess so,” I say. I brush a strand of her blond hair back, to no reaction. He brings a spoonful of soup to her lips, and Ivy was not joking: Iris doesn’t move to slurp it down, even with how delicious it smells. We have to physically open her mouth and guide it down, letting her throat muscles take over from there.

  Marcus is so gentle with her, taking his time with a painstakingly slow process, and I am filled with gratitude. “Thank you for doing this,” I say.

  “I’m happy to help you,” Marcus admits. “I’ve seen a lot of things, working at the Phoenix, but nothing like this.”

  “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen? Before this, obviously.”

  He scoops another bite. “Hmm, probably the time a random vampire got staked. It was nuts. Vincent lost his mind.”

  “Yikes.”

  “But even that was not as intense as this. That vamp had it coming. This girl doesn’t seem like she would deserve this.”

  “She doesn’t,” I say, but have to wonder: Do any of us deserve our battle scars from love? How often are the innocent damaged just because they opened their hearts? Even Marcus, fresh off a rejection, must be still licking his wounds, and yet he’s here, working beside me. Why do we do these things to ourselves?

  The two of us wander back downstairs and start cleaning up the kitchen. Ivy is collapsed on the table beside us, her soup bowl licked clean. There’s a trail of drool coming from her mouth, and while the past me would’ve taken a picture for future blackmail, the current Amber lets it slide. She seems to be in the world’s most uncomfortable position, and yet she’s sleeping soundly, so we let her lie. Until, that is, we hear the front door click open and shut.

  “What was that?” I ask Marcus, my skin instantly prickled in goose bumps.

  He too is on sudden high alert. “I don’t know,” he says, barely moving, like a guard dog trying to detect danger.

  I tiptoe out of the kitchen, peeking around the corner. Did Ivy’s parents come home early? Or maybe the butler is dropping off groceries? “Hello?” I call out into the darkness.

  After no reply, Marcus picks up a rolling pin, and the two of us venture farther into the house. He walks ahead of me, reaching back every so often to make sure I’m there. Room after room is filled with silence. The less we find, the more imaginary spiders crawl up and down my spine.

  “We didn’t imagine it, did we? That sound?” I ask, voice shaking. “Someone came in the house, right?”

  He nods, keeping the rolling pin raised liked a sword. “Or left it,” he adds. We lock eyes for a split second and then bolt up the stairs to Iris’s room.

  “Iris!” I call out, flinging open the door. But she’s not there. Minutes ago, she couldn’t even feed herself, and now she’s disappeared. “Iris!”

  What just happened? How could she suddenly get up and walk away? Victoria told her not to leave until the full moon. Did the magic wear off? Did her free will come back? What is going on?!

  We run back downstairs, and I shake Ivy awake. “Ivy! Get up! Iris is gone!”

  She snaps up, bewildered, practically falling off her chair. “Huh? What? What do you mean she’s gone?”

  I don’t have words—I don’t know what’s happening. But Ivy must see the fear in our eyes, because she jumps up, and the three of us grab our coats and boots and tumble out the door.

  We run around the block, trying to pick up Iris’s trail. It’s getting late, and it’s pretty cold, so it’s not like there are tons of people crowding up the sidewalks.

  “She couldn’t have gotten far,” I say, more to convince myself than anything else. “I mean, right? She hasn’t been mobile in days.” We look ahead a few blocks in every direction until we spot her, headed west on Webster Avenue. She glides like a ghost, her white coat and blond hair shining beacons in the dark, and we sprint toward her.

  But just when we’re getting close, a familiar shrill fills the air, and the raven dive-bombs us from seemingly nowhere. Like a scene from the Hitchcock film, the bird attacks me, digging its claws into my shoulder. I scream in pain, and Marcus whacks it away, but within seconds, the raven circles back for more, pecking my ears and neck with its beak. It feels like the tip of a cheese knife: not sharp enough to break my skin but pointed enough to do some damage. I swing my arm blindly and connect. The bird squawks and moves on to Marcus and Ivy—relentless. Ivy screams in fury as the bird tangles in her hair, nearly scraping her cheek with its talons.

  Then, out of nowhere, the raven backs off, soaring up into the sky in Iris’s direction. We pause to catch our breath, but even before we’re fully restored, Ivy charges off again toward her sister, and the bird suddenly swoops in for an extra round.

  “Wait a minute,” I say to the sound of Ivy’s shrieks. “Ivy! Just hold still for a second.”

  “What?” she screams, blond hair flying among black wings.

  “STOP MOVING TOWARD IRIS!”

  “Why?” she cries, but does as she’s told. The second she stops, the raven detaches from her and flies off after Iris again.

  “I think…the raven is protecting her, or something,” I say, watching it hover above Iris like an evil bodyguard.

  “How could it possibly be protecting her?” Ivy snarls.

  “I mean, it’s watching over her. It seems like it’s trying to make sure she gets to wherever she’s going without interference. Every time we try to get close to her, the bird circles back, giving a warning swoop.”

  Marcus, who’s been relatively quiet, looks at me and adds, “I think you’re right. That raven is on a mission.”

  Ivy shakes her battered and bruised head. “So, what, we just let her disappear into the night with this bird babysitter?”

  “Ma
ybe we can get Iris to come to us instead,” Marcus suggests.

  Keeping a safe distance, we each take turns yelling Iris’s name, but she never looks back, never stops walking forward. Although we can’t get close, we keep her in our sights, while trying to stay out of sight from the cracked-out bird.

  While we continue ducking around corners and crouching behind parked cars, Ivy starts to cry, a mix of exhaustion and terror taking over her. Marcus wraps an arm around her, assuming the role of pack leader. “I don’t understand,” he says as calmly as possible. “How can she choose where to go without free will?”

  “Well, there’s no way she’s choosing this,” I say, glaring up at the black devil in the distance. “No rational person starts heading off in the night into the middle of nowhere with a kamikaze avian accomplice.” I turn to Ivy. “Was that the bird that attacked you?”

  She wipes her nose, huffing. “Yes. That vile piece of feathered garbage! What is it doing to her?” She gestures ahead toward her sister. “How is she just following it blindly?”

  This has Victoria written all over it, and even though I don’t want any more harm coming Iris’s way, trailing her may help us learn more about what that crazy witch is up to. Having a siren as a puppet is a scary weapon indeed; when you manipulate the ones who can manipulate others, is there any greater power than that?

  WE follow Iris to a dirty tunnel under the expressway. The dark entrance swallows her white outline whole, while the villainous raven swoops in behind. I’m surprised, really, that the evil thing doesn’t set up shop outside like a surly bouncer, making sure no one follows in. But I guess it is a birdbrain, after all. Once Iris disappears, Marcus, Ivy, and I slump down next to a trash can that looks like it hasn’t been emptied in years. Our tired faces are covered in shadows.

  “Now what?” Ivy asks, resting her forehead on her knees.

  Rationally, I know none of us should follow Iris in there; Gods only know what’s waiting on the other side. A vampire den? A demon nest? Calling for backup or heading for the hills would be the smartest choice, but there’s no time for either, because if we can gather even a crumb of information that will help us later, jumping into the unknown will be worth it. “We keep following,” I respond with dread.