Once a Witch

by Carolyn Maccullough

  She makes a stiff motion with her head that could be a nod.

  "Well," I say, because I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do when just told such good news. "But you said nothing's written in stone, right?"

  "Yes," my mother says on an exhale. "Yes, that's right. The future's written in water," she says firmly, as if reminding herself of an important truth. "Which is why you are staying far, far, far away from that man. Is that clear?"

  Uncle Morris materializes in the kitchen and we all jump, except for my mother, who seems to have regained her composure. She stands swiftly and tucks her hair behind her ears, a useless motion as it just springs out again in all its corkscrew-curled glory.

  "Wait here for me," she says. "Whatever happens ... if we don't come back ... I want you to burn the book."

  "What?"

  "If we don't come—"

  "You're coming back!"

  "Burn it if we don't. I'd rather it burn than fall into the wrong hands."

  "Has Rowena read it?"

  "Not since ... not since that time that I stopped her. So I don't know how much she knows. There are some things she doesn't know. There's that at least," my mother adds, almost speaking to herself. "But she will have told him about you. He knows ... what you can do." Then she presses her lips to my forehead and blurs out of existence. Running to the window, I am just in time to see her materialize in the driveway next to our brown station wagon that rarely leaves the barn.

  My father is already at the wheel and he lifts a hand through the driver's side window, waving in the general direction of the house as if he knows we're all watching from various viewpoints. I press my hand against the window, my fingertips coming to rest on the fine crack in the glass that's been there for years. I swallow the urge to call out after them, knowing they won't listen anyway. My father eases the car into a three-point turn, the tires dipping into potholes here and there, and then the station wagon chugs away, its taillights winking red in the dark.

  "Now what?" Gabriel says, sprawled on my bed, watching me smoke another cigarette down to the filter. I flick the butt through a hole in the screen, imagining too late my father's horrified face if he could see it land on his precious flower beds below. Then I wonder if I'll ever see him again, horrified or not.

  This is the kind of thinking that has led me to chainsmoke for the past half hour.

  "I don't know," I say, beginning to pace. Pacing and chain smoking together is making me dizzy so I'm trying to do each in turn. "How long have they been gone?"

  "Since you last asked me? Two hours and now six minutes." He takes a swig from the glass of water he's holding and the cords in his throat flicker briefly. "So let me get this straight." Gabriel has been saying that a lot tonight since I told him everything that I learned in the library with my parents. "Supposedly, we messed everything up by Traveling back to 1899 to get the clock."

  "Maybe not everything, but enough. I guess enough of the power leaked out to allow Alistair to use whatever he needed to on Rowena." A small trickle of flame twirls from my fingers. The edge of my bed sheet begins to burn.

  "Shit," Gabriel says and dumps the remainder of his water onto the flame. With a hiss the water extinguishes the fire, but the smell of scorched fabric fills the air. "Pyro, can you stop doing that? Please?"

  "Sorry. But it's not like I've had nine years to learn how to control this."

  Gabriel doesn't comment on that. Instead, he sets the empty glass back onto my dresser, then asks, "So why can't we just Travel back to the time right before that and not go for the clock?"

  I shake my head but keep pacing. "Because from the very little that they explained to me about Traveling, every time we do it, we unravel some sort of thread in the whole ... freaking pattern. Whatever that means. And plus we can't go back to a time when we could encounter ourselves again. It seems it's not possible to return to a time where we already exist—the theory being that matter is neither created nor destroyed but only changed. So we can't add to us by having a double us. Apparently, that would be very, very bad."

  "I don't know," Gabriel says contemplatively. "Two of you? Could be kind of kinky."

  "Please!" I stop my pacing, glare at him. "Is that all you can think about at a time like this?"

  Gabriel rolls up on one elbow and smiles at me. "I'm a guy. It's what I think about all the time. But uh ... some thoughts I should just keep to myself, right?"

  "Yes!"

  I resume pacing and Gabriel resumes being silent, thinking whatever he's thinking until he says, "But what about Aunt Beatrice? I mean, clearly you Traveled then. We did, since she apparently knows me, too. Why did we do that?"

  "I've been thinking about that," I say slowly. "Because she was a Keeper. She must have been, Gabriel." Abruptly, I sit down on the bed.

  "And we tried to take the clock from her?"

  "I don't think it's a clock anymore," I muse. "It changes every time the Keeper changes. That's what my parents told me. And no one gets to know the identity of the Keeper. That's what makes it safe. So we must have tried to take it from her."

  Gabriel flexes his hand ruefully. "We tried that again? Why were we so stupid?"

  "We must have thought it was a good idea at the time. I don't know what made us think that."

  "Or what will make us think that," Gabriel says softly after a moment.

  "Who knows. Maybe we won't now. According to my mother, the future is written in water."

  "I doubt it," Gabriel interjects. "Not about the future being written in water. Everyone knows that."

  "I didn't—"

  "Tamsin ... you're not that ignorant. I mean, you must have attended some rituals around here. Enough to know the corresponding elements."

  I wave my hand as if to swat away his words. "Fine, but—"

  "Anyway, I meant that I doubt that we're not going to still do it. Because she already remembers it."

  "Ahh! This is making my head spin," I say, slumping against the headboard. I trace the carving on the bedpost knob that I did when I was ten. Rowena sucks. Gouged out in thin, defiant letters. Suddenly, I think I might start crying.

  "Come on," Gabriel says, standing up and holding out his hand. "Let's go for a walk. You can smoke another cigarette in the fresh air at least."

  I let him pull me to my feet.

  And then my cell phone hums on my night table like an overgrown bee. I snatch it up and sigh. "It's only Agatha." I press the talk button, then hold the phone away from my head. Noise spills out, loud raucous voices and a heavy bass guitar. Gabriel flexes his hand again, begins moving his fingers in what I can only assume are air chords. Guys are so strange sometimes. "Hello? Agatha? I can barely hear you," I shout back at the tiny buzz in my ear.

  "Tam? Is that better?"

  "Yeah, a little." I roll my eyes at Gabriel, who sticks his hands into his pockets and begins examining the items scattered on my dresser.

  "Tam, I'm at the Lion's Head Tavern. You know, the one on Mercer Street? The one we never go into?"

  "Uh-huh. Let me guess—you met a guy?" Well, at least someone's night is going well. And if she called to tell me about it, then she's probably not experiencing any residual weirdness from our earlier conversation.

  "No. It was so funny." Agatha's voice is looping in and out.

  "Are you drunk?"

  She giggles a little, her Agatha giggle—two high-pitched huffs and a gurgle. I have to smile just hearing it. "A tad. Can you tell?" Then she rushes on without waiting for my answer. "Anyway, I wasn't going to go out tonight at all and then it was so funny. Your sister called our room and I answered and she told me she was in the city and asked if I'd like to meet her for a drink."

  All of a sudden it feels as though there's not enough air in the room.

  "No!" I gasp, and Gabriel turns, giving me a what's up look.

  "She's so nice, Tam. I know you guys don't always get along, but she's really, really sweet. I mean, at first I felt kind of weird and I was like,
'I've got all this studying to do,' but then she was, like, so sweet and she just, I guess she just—"

  "Persuaded you?" I supply grimly.

  "Yeah! Anyway, I just decided to go for a little bit and then we've been talking and—"

  "What did you drink? What did you drink, Agatha?"

  Agatha giggles again. "Beer. And your sister bought all the rounds. I drank, like, three beers and she wouldn't let me pay or anything. She went and got them every time, too. It was so sweet of her."

  "Oh, Agatha." My voice breaks.

  Gabriel crosses the room, says in a low voice, "What's happening?"

  I shake my head, too numb. There is a burst of static on the line and then Agatha's voice returns. "Really sweet and—"

  "Is Rowena there now?" I interrupt.

  There's a pause in which I hear someone shout something unintelligible and then the music seems to grow even louder. "Um ... no. She went to the bathroom, I think. I don't know. That was a while ago." Mild confusion enters her voice. "I cut my arm," she says on an entirely different tack.

  "Is it bad? Maybe you should go to the hospital?"

  "No, it's okay, s'okay," she says. "I needed to cut my arm—I remember now. Your sister—"

  Agatha's voice saws in and out of my brain as she babbles on and on about how my sister helped her to cut her arm in the bathroom and how the blood had slipped through the fine slash in her skin into this little vial that Rowena just happened to have. I close my eyes, trying in vain to drive away the picture of earnest Agatha, red-faced and probably still giggling, leaning against my sister or against some scummed-over bathroom wall while Rowena extracted her blood drop by drop like plucking a chicken's feathers.

  "Agatha," I blurt out, "you should go home right now. And lock the door, okay?"

  But she doesn't seem to hear my last words. "Wait... shit, I really am kind of drunk. She said to tell you that he's waiting for you. Who's 'he'? Your boyfriend?" she asks and giggles again.

  "Go home, Ag, seriously. I'll be there soon, okay?"

  "Okay, Tam. You're the best. And hey, maybe we can all have lunch tomorrow. You and me and Rowena."

  "Yeah," I say brightly. "That'd be swell."

  Luckily, Agatha is too far gone to register the sarcasm. She says something else and then the line goes dead.

  "Let me guess," Gabriel says. "More bad news?"

  NINETEEN

  ONE LIGHT IS SHINING from a small window in Lerner Hall as Gabriel pulls the car to the curb, wedging it between a truck parked in a no-parking zone and a dumpster. "How are we planning on getting in, exactly?" Gabriel asks as a woman clothed in rags and plastic trash bags pushes an overloaded shopping cart past the passenger side of the car. One plastic bag swishes away down the street and the woman stops, staring after it forlornly as though she's watching one of her beloved children depart forever. Then she moves on slowly, shaking her head in time with the squeak, squeak, squeak of a broken cart wheel.

  "We're not."

  "A stakeout?" Gabriel says, moving his fingers restlessly across the steering wheel.

  "No." I take a breath, turn a little in my seat to face him. "I'm going in. You've got to wait here."

  "No. No way," he says, and his voice is so even and emphatic that I blink. I had been prepared for shouting.

  "Please, Gabriel, it's the only—"

  "No, Tam." He twists in the seat, his knee jutting into mine. "You heard your mother. I shouldn't have even brought us back here tonight, but ... no ... you're not facing him alone. What if you die?" The words are stark and plain and they do have this sort of heart-stopping effect, which I try my best to ignore.

  "I'm not going to die."

  "Oh, really? The last time I checked, despite all your other Talents, you can't read the future. Or was I misinformed?"

  "Shut up. No, you weren't. But think about it. No, listen to me," I say, pressing my fingers over his open mouth. After a second he leans away from my hand but remains quiet. "He wants me alive. He wants me to find that ... thing for him. The clock that's not the clock anymore. The Domani. He needs that, for some reason."

  "So he can get his family's power back," Gabriel offers in a flat voice, as if he thinks I'm being idiotic. "Why you're going to help him, I'm not exactly sure—"

  "I'm not going to help help him," I say, frustrated now because I don't understand why he's not immediately grasping my hastily thought-out plan that has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. I stare out the windshield. A small shadow, almost indiscernible from the dark cobblestones, scurries across the street and disappears into the sewer.

  "Okay, so what is your plan, then?"

  "I'm going in there and I'm going to talk to him."

  "You're going to talk to him? That's it? That's the big plan?"

  My hand goes to my locket and I press the tiny catch. It opens with a soft snick. I close it, open it, close it again. I'm a little too aware that I threw pretty much the same question at my mother earlier this evening just before she left. And that she hasn't come back yet as far as I know—

  The sound of the car engine hacking to life smashes my reverie to pieces. "What are you doing?"

  Gabriel flips on his blinker.

  "Stop," I say, clamping my hand over his wrist.

  "You can stop me from using my Talent. I'm pretty sure you can't stop me from driving your ass back home."

  "Gabriel! Just hold on a minute, will you?"

  He leaves the blinker on but otherwise allows the car to idle at the curb. A quiet ticking, too reminiscent of the sound of a clock, fills the interior of the car.

  "He's ... dangerous."

  "All the more reason you're not going in there alone and—"

  "He seems to be aiming at everyone in my life. First Rowena, now Agatha. I can't let you be the third casualty."

  Gabriel snorts. "I'm pretty sure I can take him."

  I punch his shoulder, probably harder than I should. "Would you not be such a guy about this? You can't 'take' him because he's not ... normal, really. He's evil. I shouldn't have to explain this to you, of all people." I take a breath. "Please. I don't want him to know that you're ... important to me. He can't know that."

  The engine mutters and skips beneath us and I stare at the green blinker light flashing on the dashboard. And then without warning Gabriel turns to me, grips the back of my neck with one hand, and pulls me to him. He kisses me hard, briefly, on my mouth. "Ten minutes," he says, and his voice is husky. "You've got ten minutes and then I'm coming after you. And I'm walking you into the lobby at least."

  Coming to a standstill before the huge darkened doors, I peer through the smudged glass. A security guard is slumped over the front desk, his head lolling on his folded arms. "She's in there, right?" I ask for the fifth time, and to his credit Gabriel doesn't point that out.

  "She hasn't left," he says quietly.

  As if his words conjure her up, Rowena comes skipping into sight. She is alone. I rap on the glass and she smiles, waves at me as if we're playing a game. She crosses the floor and leans over the security guard, her lips curving close to his ear. He turns his head in his sleep, and although his eyes never open, he fumbles at his belt, holds up a shining ring of keys, selects one, and hands it to her. My sister smiles again and says something else to him, at which point he buries his head in his arms and seems to pass out again. She looms brightly toward us, unlocks the heavy doors, and swings them open.

  "You made it," she says, as if she were the hostess of some spectacular party. "Alistair will be so pleased to see you. Not you, though," Rowena adds with a frown that is still somehow charming. "He said only her," she says cajolingly to Gabriel, flexing one finger at me.

  "Stop it," I say briefly. "He's not coming in with me so don't waste your time."

  "Well!" Rowena huffs in an entirely different voice. I lean closer and examine my sister. Despite her relatively good spirits, she looks even paler than before and the whites of her eyes have taken on a yellowish tinge. S
he's still wearing the black dress, only now it's sporting a long muddy streak down the right side and a ragged chunk of the hem is missing.

  "You look like shit, Ro," I say matter-of-factly. "And that's saying a lot."

  "I'm in love," she replies haughtily, her fingers flying to her cheeks.

  "What about James?" If he's lucky, he's still comatose to this nightmare, tucked away somewhere in one of the house's many bedrooms. I look around the foyer of Lerner Hall. One fluorescent light buzzes and drones above the sleeping security guard's head. Other than that the building is dark and quiet.

  Rowena hesitates, her lips parted. Then something within her seems to stiffen and she pirouettes, moving away in bobbing steps like a balloon being pulled on a string. "He's waiting," is all she says. I put my hand on Gabriel's arm—he looks distinctly unhappy.

  "Ten minutes," he reminds me pointedly, and I nod.

  "Ten minutes," I repeat, and for a second I wonder if he's going to kiss me again. Or if I should kiss him. But he doesn't and I don't. Instead, I follow my sister, the back of my neck prickling.

  It seems like years since I walked down this hallway during that first week of school, so determined to show my family that I wasn't useless after all, so hopeful that I would find whatever Alistair wanted. Or what he said he wanted.

  All too soon we approach his office. My sister raises one white knot of a fist and gives the door more of a caress than a knock. I roll my eyes—only for my own benefit, I know, but being snide gives me something like courage. Which I need now more than ever.

  The door opens under Rowena's hand and we proceed into the room. Alistair is seated behind his desk. In contrast to my sister, his skin glows with health and his glasses gleam as if he's just polished them. A simple brass tray holding two crystal glasses and a cut crystal decanter of some murky brownish-red liquid waits in the vicinity of one pointed black-suited elbow. My eyes skip over the tray quickly, scan the walls, then return to his face, which holds a politely patient expression.

  "Tamsin," he says softly, and I try not to visibly shudder at the quiet exultation in his voice. I think back to the last time I was here and how well he played the part of the anxious professor.