Once a Witch

by Carolyn Maccullough

  Thankfully, I don't have to weigh in, because just then the saleslady comes bustling into the back and coos and oohs until Rowena is glowing and I can sneak glimpses at my copy of Macbeth that I am supposed to write a five-page paper on for this Monday. In my opinion, the three witches are overrated. Maybe that'll be my thesis.

  When we leave the shop, a persistent wind is eddying random flyers, crumpled napkins, and a few stained coffee cup lids along the sidewalk. A waft of incense, burning so strongly that I can almost taste it in the back of my throat, lingers in the air. Glancing around, I pinpoint the source: a corner table where a man dressed in a bright multicolored robe is waving narrow purple and yellow packets and calling out prices to anyone who walks by. "Twodollars-twodollarstwodollars."

  I look upward at the clock tower on the Jefferson branch of the New York Public Library. With its red-brick turret it always looks like a castle to me, but apparently it was once a women's prison before it became a library branch. Close to six o'clock. The sun is already setting and I am all for edging my way back to the dorm, where I promised Agatha we'd go to the campus movie tonight. But then Rowena says, "Let's get a cappuccino. You can never get a good one at home."

  "Um ... I can't. I have to be somewhere."

  "You really do?" Rowena says, then adds almost wistfully, "I never see you anymore, Tam."

  I blink. "I'm home, like, every other weekend."

  "Yeah, but..." She frees a strand of blond hair that's caught underneath the shoulder strap of her purse and gives me a wry smile. "Only because you have to be."

  I consider lying and telling her I have to sign in at the dorm by six. And then I wonder if Rowena is possibly ever lonely up in Hedgerow now that I'm gone. In the next instant I'm scoffing at this. She has James, and she has Gwyneth (although who would want Gwyneth, really?). True, she doesn't have her own version of Agatha (Gwyneth does not count), but she has ... pretty much everything else.

  But right now she looks so eager to sit down and have a coffee with me that I don't have the heart to lie. "Okay. Le Petit Café is down the block," I say, hoping to myself it's up to Rowena's standards.

  "Great," she says with a smile that catches at me no matter how hard I try not to let it. "My treat," she adds, swinging me around with her and starting off in the direction I've indicated.

  Le Petit Café is predictably crowded at this hour. I find seats at last by the window, dust the crumbs from the table's scarred surface, and wait for my sister to return. When she does, she's balancing our drinks and a cookie plate somehow very gracefully.

  "The guy at the counter gave me these cookies for free. He said they were just baked." My eyes skip to the front of the room. Figures. It's the cute blond guy who I thought I had been flirting with successfully all last year. I hadn't seen him yet this term and I had come to the sad conclusion that he had gotten fired or quit. But no, here he is. Showering Rowena with desserts. I crunch into the biscotti my sister held out to me, pressing a sharp edge of the cookie against my tongue.

  "So, Tam," Rowena begins slowly after she has settled herself. "Have you given any thought about what you're going to do after you graduate from high school?"

  I take a sip of my iced mocha, tear the corner off a packet of raw sugar, and pour it into my glass.

  "I mean, will you come live at home or..."

  "No," I say, more vehemently than I should.

  Rowena's slender brows pull together. "Why not? Mom would love it."

  "And do what? I'm not like you, Rowena. I don't ... fit. Besides, I want to go to college."

  It's no secret that my mother and grandmother are grooming Rowena to take over the family one day. She'll be the one who everyone turns to when a decision needs to be made; she'll be the one to lead the rituals and rites every spring and harvest season; and she'll be the one to diagnose the town's men and women when they come after dark, tripping up to the back door in search of help. It's a good future, an assured and self-sustaining one.

  "Tam," she says gently now. "It's your home. You'll always have a place. James and I will always—"

  I stiffen. Already it's James and I this and James and I that. James and I want to build a website for Greene's Herb-als instead of using those old-fashioned mail-order catalogs. "Rowena," I break in. "Don't you ever want more out of life than..." I circle my hands high in the air. "Than our family and the house and..."

  "And what?" she asks, her voice perplexed.

  Everything, I want to say, but of course I can't. Who would want more than to be Talented the way she is, the way everyone is except for me. "Nothing," I mutter. I glance around the crowded café, desperately hoping to change the subject, and that's when I see Alistair Callum reading what looks like student papers, a white mug at his elbow.

  He raises his head, turns slowly, and smiles at me.

  Oh, nooooooooo!

  ELEVEN

  INSTANTLY, I DUCK behind my tall skinny iced mocha, some part of me knowing that it's futile to hide, and not just because a tall and skinny glass does not provide much cover.

  "Tam," my sister is saying, and I get the feeling that she's been saying this for a while. Alistair is pushing back his chair now, gathering up papers and stacking them neatly in his briefcase.

  "I ... know that professor." I stand so suddenly that I knock my chair into the table behind me, where a young mother is cooing into a red bullet of a baby stroller. She glares up at me.

  "Sorry," I whisper, straightening the chair. Turning, I angle my body outward with the half-formed idea of reaching Alistair before he arrives at our table.

  But I am too late.

  "Rowena," Alistair says to me, and even though he is tall already, I get the sudden impression that he could touch the ceiling if he stretched out his arms.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rowena swivel her head from Alistair to me, then back to Alistair, her lips parted in surprise.

  "Have we—" she says.

  "Professor Callum," I cut in, striving for the formal. "I always seem to be running into you. I didn't realize you came here," I add, realizing too late how inane this sounds.

  "Yes, well, sometimes being in my office gets too ... quiet."

  I can't really see how that's funny at all, but of course my sister laughs, her famous one-look-at-me-and-you'll-lose-your-heart-forever laugh, and right on cue Alistair does look at her.

  "And this is my sister, Rowena," I say, focusing on the pattern of Alistair's tie, red diamonds on a black background, until it makes me slightly nauseated. "Rowena, Professor Callum." Alistair shifts his briefcase from one hand to the other, looks at me through the prism of his glasses, then angles his head toward my sister. All the hum and chatter of the café seem to have fallen away at this moment, leaving a hollow ringing in my ears.

  "How lovely to meet you, Rowena," Alistair says at last. Her name curls, falls slowly off his tongue, the three syllables so sharply distinguished that I lift my eyes to stare at him.

  Rowena makes a motion to rise, and of course Alistair makes the reciprocal motion to indicate no, don't get up, so she doesn't. She extends her slim hand. "How nice to finally meet one of Tam's professors," Rowena says, as if I have been deliberately squirreling all my teachers away from her.

  "He's not my—"

  But Rowena is already saying, "Please, sit," to Alistair.

  "Oh, no, Professor Callum, we don't want to keep you," I interject, but he has already pulled back a chair.

  "So formal," he chides me gently. "And here I was sure that we were on a first-name basis, Miss Greene." And he bares his teeth in what could pass for a smile.

  Swallowing, I pull my chair out, careful not to bump into anyone this time. I sit, studying the flecks of cinnamon in my iced mocha.

  "Are you also a student at"—here Alistair pauses and looks at me for confirmation—"New Hyde Prep, was it?"

  Rowena laughs merrily and I see two guys at a neighboring table look over at her. I trace my spoon through the muddy dregs a
t the bottom of my glass. "Oh, no. I'm older than Tamsin," she says, leaning forward a little as if revealing a secret.

  "Indeed?" Alistair says politely. "I couldn't tell who was older."

  "Thanks," I say.

  Alistair looks amused at my tone. "You're far too young to be worried about looking old, Miss Gr—oh, yes, Tamsin." He and Rowena smile at each other and all at once I want to kick his chair.

  "I just happened to be in the city and Tamsin was helping me shop for my wedding dress," she informs him as if they're old confidants. I give the ice cubes in my drink a stir with my straw, hard enough so that they rattle audibly.

  "Oh, yes? When is the happy event?"

  As Rowena chatters on about details and Alistair makes the appropriate noises here and there, I study him covertly. He looks tired, and his fingers are trembling slightly as they grip and flex around his mug of tea, like mine do when I've had too much caffeine.

  "But I'm afraid we're boring Tam," Rowena's voice cuts into my thoughts. "She doesn't find wedding dresses all that fascinating. Or dresses in particular." I stare at her. So much for the sisterly camaraderie she's been foisting on me for the past two hours.

  Alistair smiles politely and turns to me. "So," he says, "have you had any luck with the ... project?"

  My fingers tighten on my straw. "Yes, but why don't I come by your office tomorrow and—"

  "Oh, but if you found it, then why not—"

  "What's this?" Rowena breaks in, leaning across the table. "Is this a homework assignment?" she asks and gives another one of her delicate laughs.

  "I just told you he's not my professor," I say. Underneath the table, I try to mash my foot down on hers but end up kicking the table leg instead.

  "You haven't told your sister?" Alistair says to me now, and I give up all hope of getting out of this situation alive.

  "Alistair asked me to find something," I burst out.

  "To find ... oh!" Rowena gives a little gasp as if she just got burned. "But ... Tam..." I stare at her, wishing that one of her gifts is telepathy so I can scream silently at her to shut up. "How would you even manage..." She trails off, and now I feel like reaching across the table and slapping the look of confusion off her perfect face.

  "I found it," I hiss at her. Her jaw doesn't exactly drop, but her eyes go wide, and I try to memorize the moment since it's probably all the satisfaction I'm ever going to get.

  Alistair pins his gaze on me. "You have?" he asks quietly. His fingers are trembling again and he pushes the mug away from him.

  I nod, suddenly reluctant to speak.

  "What is it?" Rowena asks and then, toying with the sugar packets on the table, adds, "Of course, if you'd rather not..."

  "No, no, that's fine. After all, you are sisters," Alistair says, and there is something in the way that he draws on the word sisters, similar to the way he said Rowena's name, that makes me suddenly sit up straighter. "I mean, it's the family business and all, right?"

  "I'll bring it to you tomorrow. Do you have office hours?" I watch as the features in his face shift to accommodate this. "Yes, but—"

  "Why not now?" Rowena interjects. This time I do connect the blunt edge of my sneaker with her shin, but she barely reacts. "Your dorm's close by, isn't it?"

  "No. And it isn't at the dorm," I say through clenched teeth.

  "Where is it, then?" Alistair asks, leaning forward a little.

  "Yes, where is it, Tam?" Rowena echoes. Then she puts it together. "Oh, at Uncle Chester's house."

  "Your uncle's house?" Alistair prompts with the perfect amount of confusion in his voice, and of course Rowe-na supplies the answer.

  "Yes, our aunt and uncle live in the city. On Washington Square Park. In this wonderful old townhouse that's more than one hundred years old. I always think it should be a museum in its own right."

  "Really?" Alistair leans back in his chair, his eyes on Rowena's face. "Perhaps you know that I am a professor of art history. Medieval objects are my specialty, but I do love art and artifacts from the Victorian era as well."

  "Wonderful," Rowena says. "Medieval art is so fascinating!"

  I stare at her. I can't help myself. "You don't even know how to spell the word medieval."

  There is a little silence and then Rowena smiles graciously, leans forward, and puts her hand on Alistair's arm. "Forgive my sister. Our parents did raise her correctly, but sometimes it doesn't show." She extends one wrist and checks her gold watch. "I've missed my train, of course," she says serenely. "And now I'll have to wait for the next one, which is more than an hour away. Perhaps we could show Dr. Callum the house and retrieve his object for him. I'm sure you've kept him waiting long enough, Tam." My sister gives me what I like to think of as her poison-apple smile.

  How did we get here? I had planned to bring the clock to Alistair tomorrow in his office. And to ask him a few questions. I don't know what I expected to accomplish, or why Alistair would be able to shed any light on the mystery of why I was able to touch the clock and not Gabriel. But with Rowena along for the ride, there would be no light shedding tonight.

  TWELVE

  "AND HERE IS AUNT RENNIE'S collection of inkwells. She has a fascination with them that no one really understands."

  I trail after Rowena and Alistair as she leads him through the house room by room, pointing out each treasure. She's at her best, her most charming. Her voice has flexed and stretched into that honey smoothness. She could be discussing the ingredients in Wite-Out and anyone would be absorbing her every word as if it were a drop of gold.

  And yet not Alistair. He's making all the right motions—nodding here, smiling there—and I have no doubt that Rowena is completely convinced he finds her irresistible. But there is a stillness to him that's deceiving, an ice-thin stillness that might shatter at any minute.

  As we troop back into the foyer, I deliberately keep my eyes turned away from the painting that once held the clock. "I'm sure you want to see what Tam has found for you," Rowena says at last. As do I, I can almost hear her add.

  "Well," Alistair says a little dazedly, as if this thought did just cross his mind. "This has been fascinating. What a wonderful old house. How lucky you two are to have it." Then he turns to me expectantly.

  "Okay," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "It's in here." I lead the way toward the kitchen. The clock is sitting on the table where I left it last Saturday.

  There is a sudden breathless pause from Alistair as he moves forward and takes the clock in his trembling hands. "Wonderful," he says, and he touches the tip of the hour hand with one finger. "Simply marvelous." His eyes skip over the clock and then his voice takes on a heavy heartiness as he says again, "Yes, marvelous."

  "This is it?" Rowena asks, and I smile to myself. I can almost hear her thinking, What is so special about this?

  "Where did ... how did you find it?" Alistair turns to me, eyes blazing strangely, and my urge to smile slides away.

  "Oh, well, I can't reveal my sources," I say, striving to make my voice light. A brief spasm twists across his face and he looks entirely different. But it happens so quickly that I almost doubt myself. And then Alistair looks like Alistair again. But this time I am not fooled.

  Who are you? And what do you truly want? It's obviously not the clock, no matter how pleased you pretend to be. I don't know how long we might have kept the staring contest up, but Rowena breaks in with a delicate laugh. "Well, I have to say it's certainly a beautiful piece. I'm so glad that Tam was able to find it for you. And so glad that you were able to find us. Not everyone knows the right way to ask."

  "Yes," Alistair says slowly. "I realize how lucky I was." He turns to her, smiles, and then checks his watch. "I believe your train will leave without you unless you hurry."

  "Yes, of course. And my fiancé will be wondering where I am."

  I roll my eyes. Rowena has a love affair with that word. She even affects a slight French accent when uttering it.

  "Shall we share a cab
, then? You're headed to Grand Central, yes? Unless you were planning to take the tube?"

  "The tube?" Three curved lines appear on Rowena's forehead and then vanish like words written on water. "Oh, you mean the subway! Oh, no! I'm not too proud to admit that I've never ridden the subway before." She wrinkles her nose impishly. "The unwashed masses," she mock-whispers to Alistair.

  "You should try it sometime," I say loudly. "We don't smell that bad."

  Rowena hardly spares me a glance. "Of course we can share a cab," she says graciously and then, "Tam, can we drop you anywhere?"

  "No, I'll walk," I say shortly. We bustle out of the house into the light rain that has begun to fall.

  "Oh, dear," Alistair says. "I'm without my umbrella."

  "Some Englishman you are," Rowena teases and reaches into her oversize black bag.

  "He's not English," I mutter. "He's—"

  "Here it is," Rowena says triumphantly. She has produced a small black umbrella and is now attempting to loosen the catch as the rain begins to patter more swiftly. "Of course, it's stuck. I can't—"

  "Allow me," Alistair says eagerly, as if he's been waiting all his life to be at her service. He puts his long fingers over hers and they both struggle with the umbrella for a second before it suddenly bursts open.

  "Oh!" Rowena gives a small cry of distress, which clangs in my ear like a bell. It's the first genuine sound she's made since Alistair sat down at our table. She shakes her hand in an oddly graceless gesture, then stops to examine it. From where I'm standing, I can see a thin scratch of blood blooming on her skin.

  "Oh, I am sorry," Alistair says, his voice smooth.

  A chill travels across my skin that has nothing to do with the rain.

  A flash of blue appears in his hand and then he's pressing his handkerchief against Rowena's hand, the same handkerchief that he pressed against my wrist in the bookstore. "It's my fault entirely."

  "Thank you," she murmurs as he dabs at her hand, then tucks the handkerchief away. "It's better now."

  "Rowena," I say, my voice raw and full of warning. But when she turns to me, the words strangle in my throat. The unease in my mind is building, but I can't articulate anything right here and now. "I ... nothing."