Once a Witch

by Carolyn Maccullough

  "Rowena will succeed your grandmother one day and needs to know certain things," my mother answers.

  But I'm hardly listening, because that same tingling wave passes over me, like a chill across my neck, and I whirl and stare into the farthest corner of the room, where even the fire-lit shadows fail to reach. Unthinkingly, I reach out with my mind and bam, Uncle Morris pops into view. His eyes shift away from me and he shrugs a little.

  "Morris!" my mother cries.

  "Forgot my spectacles," he says jauntily as he strides across the room, making a show of searching on a small side table. "Nope, guess they're not here." His edges start to shimmer, but he remains very much in place. His eyebrows skip upward, but I don't relent.

  "Tamsin," my father says, but I ignore the quiet rumble of warning in his voice.

  "If you want to leave, then leave the normal way," I say, even though part of me flinches along with Uncle Morris. It's not his fault. He gives his goatee a little tug and then, moving faster than I've seen him move in a long time, he hurries toward the door. Pausing, he looks at me, opens his mouth as if to say something, then seems to think better of it. Opening the door, he slips out, and I am left with the look in his eyes. Hurt and bewildered.

  "Is this why you didn't tell me? You thought I'd be stopping people all the time from being ... themselves."

  "No," my mother says quietly. "No, we didn't tell you because your grandmother asked us not to. Because she said that although she didn't exactly know why, one day you would need what we could give you."

  "And what is that?"

  "She ... she never could say. All she knew was that one day you would need to make a choice and that to raise you the way we did would help you when the time came."

  "Who else?" I demand. "Who else knows about me?"

  "No one. Just your grandmother, your father, and I." My mother tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "And, of course, Rowena."

  "Rowena," I echo. Of course. Perfect Rowena, who will take over the family one day. Even though I've always known this, I still can't stop this bitter spill of thoughts. In one small corner of my mind, all day I had been harboring this crazy, silly hope that now that I did really have a power, maybe I would be the damn beacon that my grandmother had foretold—whatever that meant. That for once Rowe-na wouldn't have the lock on being so Talented, so special. That maybe I would be the one to guide my family in ... I shake my head to scatter those thoughts. "I can't believe you went along with this," I accuse my mother now.

  A low growl of thunder rattles past the windowpanes, and my father's expression, usually so mild and benign, much like a warm spring rain, has now shifted into something sharper.

  "If that's you doing that, then stop," I snap at him. "Or I'll stop it for you."

  Both of my parents stare at me as if I'm a changeling, but I'm past caring.

  My father opens his mouth, but I rush in. "Who is this person? Alistair Callum?"

  My mother sighs. "Long ago," she begins, overriding whatever my father was going to say, "long ago there was a war."

  Somehow I have a feeling I'm not about to hear a lecture on the American Revolution.

  "A struggle, really, between our family and another much more powerful family. This other family believed in things that ... our family did not." She pauses as if contemplating those things, then continues hurriedly. "We captured their power and managed to isolate it into one object—it's not clear exactly how," she says, obviously anticipating my next question. "Our history tells us that four members of our family acted together to work a powerful spell and that they made a great sacrifice to do this."

  She stops, clasps her hands, and recites, "One stood for North, and one stood for South; one stood for East, and one stood for West. North summoned Air, and South carried Water; East called Fire, and West bore Earth. And all were bound together."

  I stare at her. "Um ... that tells me nothing," I say at last and am rewarded with a reproving frown from my mother before she continues.

  "Anyway, that's what we call the Domani—where all this other family's power remains. Anyone who was and is linked to this family through their bloodlines was and is affected by this spell. And of course we hid the Domani very carefully."

  "Why didn't you just destroy it?"

  My father clears his throat. "Don't you go to school?"

  This seems like a particularly odd question to ask right now. But he continues. "Science class?" Now this is beginning to make more sense. My father loves science. Einstein, Newton, Mendel—they're all his heroes. Whenever possible, he interjects science into the conversation. Never mind if no one's in the mood for it. "Remember the rule that matter can neither be created nor destroyed? Well, that applies here."

  "Just changed," my mother adds softly.

  "Can it change back?"

  My mother takes a breath. "You mean, can they recapture it and reawaken it?"

  I nod and the fire pops and hisses just as she answers, "Yes," so the word is lost in the shadowy recesses of the room. "We think it already has reawakened. Somehow."

  That somehow goes ringing through me like a cold clanging bell. And then I hear the man in the frock coat's words again.

  You really don't know what you've done, do you?

  SIXTEEN

  "THE CLOCK. The clock that he wanted me to find. That was the Domani, wasn't it?"

  My mother puts her hand on my father's arm as he stares at me and explains urgently, "Tamsin's met him before. He came into the store over the summer and asked her to help him. He's a professor. Or so he claims," she finishes.

  "At your school?" my father says, startled.

  "No, Rowena's school," I say sarcastically. Then I bite my lip. "Sorry. At NYU, actually."

  "But I don't ... why did he ask you for help?" my father asks.

  "Thanks," I say.

  "Tamsin," my father says sharply. "That is not at all what I meant. What I meant was, why would he come into the bookstore if he knows anything about this family at all and expect you to help him?"

  "What you don't know is that there's a spell of protection cast over this family. It doesn't extend very far," my mother adds weakly. "Not far beyond the borders of this town." I think on this for a second. That explains my mother's deep dislike of anywhere that's not Hedgerow. "And of course, the spell wouldn't work on you anyway. Which is why he was able to approach you in the bookstore."

  I scrunch my toes together. "I pretended to be Rowena."

  "You what?" my mother and father say at the same time, both of them staring at me.

  "He thought I was Rowena and I ... just went along with it. Later he found out that I wasn't." I decide not to mention how much later.

  "How did you find it for him?" my mother asks. "The clock? How?"

  "I saw it. In a painting. At Uncle Chester and Aunt Rennie's house. And then I ... went there and got it."

  "You can Travel?" my mother gasps.

  The fire bites into a log with a particularly loud snap.

  "What's that?" I ask blankly.

  "Nobody's been able to Travel in this family for generations. Not to mention that it's not allowed," my mother says, even though this doesn't answer my question at all.

  I shrug. I'm not about to give up Gabriel. "How would I know that? It's not like anyone tells me anything around here." Thunder snarls again and I stare at my father before adding, "I mean, maybe if you explained what Traveling is..."

  "Traveling," my father begins in a ponderous voice, "is an old Talent that seems to have been lost over the years. No one has been Gifted with it for generations." Then he swivels his shaggy head and stares at me. "No one that we know of."

  I try not to squirm. "And it's bad?"

  My mother sighs. "Let's just say it's not good. Time is—"

  "Delicate," my father supplies, and she nods.

  "Yes. To put it mildly. Time is fragile, really. If you touch even one thing, disturb the past, then it could have consequences for the future that are—"


  "Bleak." My father seems to reconsider and adds, "Disastrous."

  "Oh," I say in a small voice.

  "When did this happen?" my mother finally asks. "Before Rowena ... got sick?"

  I nod and this minor movement seems to confirm my mother's worst fears, because her hands fly to her face.

  "What's going on?" I plead into the silence.

  "We think some of the power of the Domani escaped when you Traveled back to it. Did you ... did you touch it at all?"

  My father begins to pace by the windows, his arms swinging loosely, his hands twitching a little, as if he wants nothing more than to pull up this situation by its roots. "Of course she touched it. She's the only one who could have. Was there someone guarding it? A man or a woman?"

  "A man." I decide to omit the part about him throwing fireballs at me. "Who was he?"

  "The Keeper," my mother says. "The Domani changes every so often, as does its Keeper. No one knows who the Keeper is. It's a way of protecting the Domani."

  "He said that! The man in the coat. He was the Keeper. He said the power had passed," I say excitedly.

  My father is nodding as if this now confirms his greatest hypothesis. "It must have. Fortunately, whatever you gave this ... professor wasn't the Domani any longer."

  "So then it's okay?" I ask hopefully, even though I know it can't possibly be. Not with both of my parents looking as ashen as they do.

  "Just the fact that you touched it means some of its power escaped. Enough to—"

  "Enough to give Alistair what he needed to get Rowe-na," I finish numbly. Somehow, thankfully, there is a chair near enough for me to sink into, because I don't know if my legs can hold out much longer. Rowena, I think, and my mind rolls back to the night when Alistair stepped into the cab after her and they drove off. That was the last time my sister was ... my sister.

  My mother rises slowly, walks over to the desk, and opens a heavy brown leather book lying on the green blotter. "Have you ever seen this book before?"

  I feel as if I'm moving through dense, brackish water as I get to my feet and walk over to stand beside her. With one finger I trace the worked leather scrolls and leaves that cover the spine. My mother seems to be holding her breath. I shake my head.

  "This book is very valuable. It contains the history of our family and also a glimpse of the future as it might happen."

  The heat from the fireplace begins to flicker across my ankles and bare feet like some obscure kind of warning: turn back, turn back. I hesitate. For so long I have told myself that I don't want anything to do with my family's Talents and all its complications that I seem to have almost convinced myself. Another wavering second and then I step closer, stare down at the page.

  Lines and lines of dense dark writing cover what looks like very old vellum. But every time I try to read anything, the words skitter away from me. Without thinking I lower my fingers to the page as if to pin the words in place. But they all slide into the spine of the book like water seeping through a crack.

  My mother flicks the pages until she comes to a blank one. In a trembling voice she asks, "Can you see anything? Anything at all?"

  The page remains a clean sweep of empty space. "There's nothing to see," I say.

  My father sighs. "It was worth a try, Camilla."

  My mother's eyes look suspiciously wet and a second later she dabs them against her sleeve.

  "I thought you said ... I was immune to spells."

  "There isn't a spell on this. Well, yes," my mother corrects herself. "There is a simple locking spell on the book itself to keep prying eyes away. It's something of a rite of passage for everyone to try to unlock this book and—" Her voice falters as she encounters my stony look.

  "I wouldn't know," I say dryly.

  "This is a Talent. To read the future."

  "Like the way you read the future in all those women's teacups and all those—"

  "Not their future. Nothing like that. Our future. The future of this family. I thought maybe since you have other Talents like Traveling..." Here she gives me a hard, searching look, but I refuse to let my face shift one iota, not one particle, until she looks back at the book. "I thought you might have this one."

  "So who can read this?" But I know the answer.

  "Your grandmother," my mother confirms. "It takes a tremendous amount of Talent to be able to decipher the future. And then it's often frustrating, as the future can change like that." My mother snaps her fingers together, making me jump a little. "Still, whoever can read this book is the one who guides our family. It's always been this way."

  "So, whatever Grandmother reads in here influences her decisions?" When my mother nods, I can't help adding, "So she read something that made her want to lie to me all these years?" I stare at the book again until the page billows into a white shimmer.

  "Your grandmother doesn't lie," my mother says severely.

  "Spare me, Mom," I mutter. "You all lied. It doesn't matter if it wasn't exactly in words." There is a small, nasty swell of silence among us all and then a clap of thunder so loud that it makes both my mother and me jump.

  My father paces toward me. "You. Lied. Too," he exclaims, his finger pointing straight at me. "If you had told us what you did for this man sooner, then maybe your sister wouldn't be—"

  "I did!" I shout. The flames in the fireplace flare silently in response and I stare at them, distracted for a moment by the pulsing feeling in my palms. Then I force myself to continue. "I told Grandmother that he came into the store one night and asked me to find something and that I did. I did find it."

  Both of my parents are staring at me, but it's my mother who recovers first. "You told her?" my mother whispers. "When?" Then her face seems to lengthen and grow pale in the shadows of the room. "When you called home."

  I nod. "I didn't tell her everything. But I told her that I found something that I didn't think I should have found." I pause, thinking back on my grandmother's words. "And she told me that since I started this, I had to see it through. That she didn't see any other way for me. Or for any of us." I shake my head. "I didn't know what she meant. I thought it was just..." I shrug and let my words trail off.

  "But if she knew who he was, why would she tell Tamsin to 'see it through'?" my mother asks. Her question doesn't seem to be aimed at me, so I look at my father, but he seems equally lost.

  Finally, he says, "Because Althea must have foreseen something worse if Tamsin didn't help him."

  "Who is he?" I whisper.

  "He's one of the Knights. That was their family name. The Knights," my father says heavily because my mother seems unable to answer. She's staring down at the book, squinting occasionally as if something lingers just outside the boundaries of her vision.

  "Oh." Knights conjure images of shining armor and bright shields embossed with gold and green. Jousting and—

  "They were never content with what we had."

  "'We'?"

  "Oh, yes. At one point there was no division between us. Between any of us. We were all Talented. We came to this new country seeking a place to start over. We had been persecuted in other countries. You learned about witch hunts in school?" my father continues, his hands clasped behind his back. He really should have been a professor in a college somewhere.

  I nod. "That was us?"

  "Well, some of us. History doesn't always have it right. But yes, we were persecuted until we came here."

  "But there were witch hunts here, too. I remember we studied the Salem witch trials and..." And then Leah Connelly and Melanie Nightingale cornered me in the girls' bathroom during recess, turned on the taps, and tried to force my head under the sink to see if I wouldn't drown like a true witch. They were planning to do the prick test, too, until I split Melanie's lip open.

  "Yes," my mother agrees, lifting her head finally and rubbing at her eyes. "But by then we had learned how to mingle, how to disappear into society."

  "Really?" I ask. "Um ... did we forget how to do
that now? Because we're not so great at mingling and disappearing."

  My father makes another rumbling sound, but this time it sounds more like laughter. My mother shrugs. "Oh, that. Times are different now. Anyway, back then some of us chose to use our Talents to heal and others chose to use our Talents to farm. Peaceful choices. Except for the Knights. Over time they began what they had started doing back in the old countries. Always they had to explore the deeper and darker realms of their Talents, pushing them past their limits until their Talents turned. Warped." My mother's voice falls away on the last word and she presses her hands to her eyes again for an instant. "Some of their... explorations involved other humans. They found ways to extend their natural life span by draining away the life force in humans."

  "How?" I whispered, but my mother shakes her head.

  "We've never known. They used spells, the origins of which we never could understand. Spells that involved their victims' blood."

  All at once Rowena's black umbrella blooms in my mind and I see again the long red scratch on her hand. And Alistair dabbing away her blood with his handkerchief.

  My father clears his throat and says, "At first they were content with using Talentless people. But then once they had mastered that, they began to move on to Talented people. Now instead of extending only their life span, they extend their powers as well." He begins pacing again, pauses. "You studied parasites in school?"

  A brief lesson on whales and their various barnacle guests comes swimming back to me. "Um ... yeah?"

  "Well," my father says, leaping back into lecture mode, "think of a parasite and how it leeches everything away from its host. Sometimes without the host knowing."

  "Or knowing after it's too late," my mother interjects.

  "Rowena," I whisper. "Her wrist," I blurt out. "He's ... taking her blood?"

  "Yes. Being part of the Knight family, this man would know the spell. He may not have been able to use it all these years, but he would have been ready and waiting for just the right time, when enough of the power of the Domani had escaped." My mother turns the pages of the book again with shaking hands, as if hoping the answers will suddenly appear. "He's in her blood now, like a fever. Or like an addiction. One that's very, very hard to break."