by Annabel Lyon
Dexter’s room is tidy, like mine—we’re sisters, after all—and one wall is completely lined with books. But there the similarities end. First of all, the walls are pink. Pink! There’s a full-length tilting mirror on a fancy iron stand in one corner, ruffled curtains, tasseled cushions on the bed and three pairs of ballet slippers in a row under the window, silk ribbons tucked neatly inside. CDS line the sill. But the biggest difference is the closet. One door, its catch broken, swings slightly open, revealing Dexter’s greatest preoccupation of all: clothes. The closet’s stuffed, as stuffed and bulging as a burger on a TV commercial. These, surely, are her most cherished objects, but somehow I can’t imagine stealing and burying one of Dex’s umpteen sweaters. Maybe something smaller?
I’ve barely taken a step toward the closet when I hear voices.
“You know who is cute?” says a voice: Mean Megan. Oh no. “Tyler is cute.”
“He is not,” Dexter says. The voices are coming closer. Dexter’s middle school lets out later than my elementary. Mean Megan must have come home with Dex to hang out for a while. That means, usually, sitting on her bed, listening to music, having long private discussions and telling me to get lost.
“Is too.”
“Is not.”
“Is!”
“Not!”
The difference between friends and sisters, I reflect as I hurriedly tuck myself inside the closet—there’s nowhere else to go—is that friends enjoy the arguing.
“Close the door so my little brat sister doesn’t come poking her nose in,” Dexter says. They’re in the room now. I can’t see a thing, but I hear something heavy land on the bed. Knapsack maybe. “She is so annoying.”
“The next time she bugs you, you should steal her night-light,” Mean Megan says. They giggle. “Shred her precious peacock feathers!” Mean Megan says, as Dexter shrieks with laughter. “Poison her cat!”
That’s it. When I figure out my powers, these two are toast.
“Don’t make me laugh so hard,” Dexter says. “It makes my stomach hurt even more.”
“I know what you mean,” Mean Megan says. Half listening, I start quietly feeling around in the closet. Something small, I think.
“You know how to get someone to like you?” Mean Megan says. I hesitate. My hand has just closed over something hard in a coat pocket. “First, you need something of theirs, something they’ve touched or carried around a lot.”
WAIT A MINUTE HERE.
“And three candles and a small mirror.”
“Whatever,” Dexter says doubtfully.
Breathlessly, I stick the little hard thing, whatever it is, in my pocket. The clothes around me rustle with my movement, making the closet door creak.
“What was that?” Mean Megan says.
“Closet,” Dexter says. “It doesn’t close right. It always does that.”
“I know who already likes you anyway.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
“Not!”
“Too!”
“Let’s go get a snack.”
“Okay.”
OH FOR PETE’S SAKE, I think. What about the spell? And how does Mean Megan know a spell anyway, even if it is just a lame love spell? Still, I don’t have time to think about it now. As soon as I hear their voices fade off down the hallway, I slip from the closet, ready to make my escape. But then I hesitate again. On the bed, half unzipped, lies Mean Megan’s blue denim pack.
If that isn’t fate bopping me on the nose, I don’t know what is. A few long hairs cling to the straps like long black threads: perfect. I also take a bright red felt pen that, even capped, smells strongly of cherries. I don’t know if Mean Megan cherishes it, but something about “cherry” and “cherish” makes it seem appropriate enough. And (borrowing from the interesting new information I’ve just picked up) she certainly carries it around all day and probably touches it a lot too. My pocket isn’t big enough for the pen so I stick it in my sock, where it digs rigidly into my ankle, like a splint. I’m bending down to adjust the hem of my jeans over it when the back of my neck starts to prickle. Slowly, I turn around.
Dexter and Mean Megan are standing in the doorway, holding glasses of juice. Dexter is also holding three swirly-striped cupcake candles.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?” she says.
“LOOKING FOR DUSTY!” I say. Both of us tend to get loud when we’re surprised.
“Tell you what,” Mean Megan says as I sidle toward the door. “If I see your buggy, mangy, flea-bag, rodent-breath cat, I’ll let you know. I’ll drown it in the sink and leave it on your pillow.” She pushes the knapsack onto the floor and sits down on the bed. So she hasn’t noticed anything. I feel the cherry pen slip over the knob of my ankle-bone and poke at my pants. Dexter is still glaring.
“Why do you have candles?” I ask innocently, to distract her. “Did Mom let you?”
It works. “If you tell, I will kill you.”
“Ooh.” I’ve made it out the door. “Scary.”
“I’ll bake chunky cat cookies and make you eat them,” Mean Megan says. I see her flip her long black hair over her shoulder just before Dexter slams her bedroom door. Although I can’t feel them, I know I hold a few of those same hairs in my tightly clenched fist.
Up in my room, Dusty lies dozing in a lozenge of sunlight on the quilt. “Wake up,” I tell him, dumping my loot onto my little desk. “You have to help me. You’re my familiar.”
Dusty gives his rumbling purr, a loud noise from a small cat.
“That’s right,” I say busily, getting organized. “You’re a witch’s cat now.”
The thing I pulled from my sister’s coat pocket turns out to be a tube of pink lipstick. This is strictly forbidden, so Dexter must cherish it very much to risk the kind of trouble she’ll get into if Mom finds it. I wrap the yellow hairs around it and knot them and do the same with the black hairs and the pen. Since I can’t go anywhere distant and secret to bury them, I settle on the garbage can by the back door. We empty the smaller kitchen garbage there as it fills up each day, until the men come to dump it into the truck and take it to the landfill.
That’s burial, even if it is a few steps removed. When it’s my turn to do the trash, I simply add the items, whisper “Oeil de triton” thirteen times (my own creation), dump the regular garbage on top and go back inside.
“Mom, I feel terrible,” Dexter complains the next morning at breakfast.
“You do?” I say intently. Dexter leans over to flick me in the head.
One night we go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for supper. Usually Grandma makes what Dad calls a royal spread: little dishes all over the table, using all kinds of ingredients I’ve barely heard of—tamarind, nori, pine nuts, jicama, saffron. Each thing is just one or two bites and is delicious, and you get to eat about thirty things before you’re full. Tonight, though, we bring supper with us: three large pizzas and two tubs of ice cream because Dexter and I couldn’t agree on just one flavor. Mom says we’re making things easy because Grandma is just a tiny, tiny bit tired. I think Mom is a tiny, tiny bit overdoing the nonchalance, which is a word I’ve recently learned that means pretending nothing is wrong. Pizza in Grandma’s house is the definition of wrong. But when Grandma opens the door, she just says we’re all darlings. The dining table is laid with knives and forks and wine glasses and linen and nice china.
“I’ve never eaten pizza with a knife and fork before,” Dad teases Grandma when we’re all sitting at the table.
“This is delicious,” Grandma says, ignoring him. “What do you call this kind?”
“Hawaiian,” Dexter says.
“Do you remember when we were in Hawaii, Harvey?” Grandma asks Grandpa.
We all stop chewing and look at Grandpa.
“Nineteen sixty-four,” Grandpa says. “We climbed a volcano and went surfing. Your grandma had a white bathing suit and sunglasses with big white frames, and everyone thought she must be a movie star.”
/> We all start chewing again.
“And this one?” Grandma says, taking another slice. She’s only had a couple of bites of her Hawaiian, but who’s going to tell her to finish it?
“Italian Meat-Lovers’ Special,” Dad says. This is his favorite.
Grandma slices off a tiny bite with her knife and puts it in her mouth with her fork. After she swallows, she says, “Isn’t that interesting. I don’t remember eating anything like that when we were in Italy, do you, Harvey?”
“Nineteen eighty-one,” Grandpa says. “All those stray cats in the Foro Romano. I tried to pet one and it bit me and we had to go to a clinic for a tetanus shot, and the nurses all looked like movie stars. At the restaurant that night we ordered white truffle risotto because my hand was so bandaged up I couldn’t hold my knife to cut my food.”
“Try this one, Grandma,” I say, pointing at the third box, my favorite. “It’s butter chicken.”
“Curried pizza?” Grandma says. I think she’s gone a little pale, but by candlelight it’s hard to tell. “I’ll put a slice aside for my lunch tomorrow, Edie love,” she says. “I don’t think I could eat another bite right now.”
“India,” Grandpa says. “Nineteen seventy-six. We got parasites. We couldn’t for the life of us figure out why the bathroom had two toilets side by side, but we sure were grateful in the end.”
When I get it, I laugh and clap my hands. Dexter pushes her plate away. “Where were you, Dad?” I ask. “Did you get to go to India?”
“Not that trip,” Dad says. “But I remember lots of other great trips we took together. Mexico, New York, Australia.”
“Aw!” Dexter says, jealous.
“You were never in Australia,” Grandpa says, helping himself to another slice. He seems happy now, remembering. “That was just me and your Grandma. She had a white bathing suit and sunglasses with big white frames, and everyone thought she must be a movie star. We tried to go surfing, but the beach was closed because of a shark sighting.”
“I know!” Dad says. “I spent the whole morning on the beach with binoculars, trying to see the shark.”
“I’ll tell you who was with us that trip,” Grandpa says. “James. James was there. He would have been, what, about twelve? We had a good time, the three of us.”
James is my Dad’s name.
“Butter chicken,” Grandpa says with relish, taking another bite. “Did you say that was your favorite, Albert? Have to write that down. I think it’s my favorite too.”
Grandma excuses herself from the table. Mom goes after her.
After supper, Dexter and I clean up without being asked. The only downside to dinner in Grandma’s house is that you have to do all the dishes by hand because they’re too old and fragile and special for the dishwasher.
“Grandma was crying,” Dexter says. She’s washing.
“Maybe she’s sick,” I say. I’m drying. “She barely ate any supper.”
“Don’t be dumb,” Dexter says. “She’s exhausted. I heard Dad telling Mom. Grandpa keeps forgetting more and more things, and Grandma’s afraid to leave him alone in case he lets the bathtub overflow or forgets to turn the stove off and burns the house down.”
“That must be why—” I say, but then I remember to stop myself. Fortunately, Dad comes into the kitchen right at that moment.
“Ice cream!” he says. He’s doing that hearty thing again that makes his voice go all strained and funny. “What have we got?”
“Where’s Mom and Grandma?” I ask.
“Everyone’s in the living room,” Dad says. “I’m the ice-cream man, taking orders. You girls leave the rest and go sit with them. It’s my turn to do something. What do you think, a scoop of each for everybody?”
In the living room, Mom is looking through a photo album with Grandpa while Grandma watches. Grandma’s face looks fine, but she’s holding a tissue in her hand and touching it to her nose every now and then. She smiles when she sees us, and when I get close I see her eyes are red. Tired: that must be why she can’t cure Grandpa with a spell herself. Being tired probably weakens her powers.
“Look at this, Albert,” Grandpa says. He gives the photo album to Mom and reaches up to the shelf behind him for a little figurine. Grandparents’ houses are supposed to be all frilly and stuffed with old-fashioned furniture and lace curtains, but not my grandma and grandpa’s. Instead, their house is full of things they’ve collected on their travels: tropical wood furniture with carvings all over, masks, colorful pottery, brass elephants, rugs with geometric patterns, and little figurines everywhere, like the one Grandpa is showing me.
I take it from his hand: a tiny person carved roughly out of some black wood, about as long as my little finger.
“It’s from Haiti,” Grandpa says. “They use figures like this to cast spells on people. They burn them or stick them with pins. Your grandma didn’t want me to buy it, but I just thought she was pretty.”
“How do you know it’s a girl?” I ask. The figure looks unfinished and could be any sex or age.
“In my mind, she’s a girl,” Grandpa says. He rubs the little figure’s head affectionately with his thumb. “That was our honeymoon, your grandma’s and mine. My favorite trip of all.”
“I’m not sure about this,” Dad says, coming into the room with a big tray full of ice-cream bowls. “Cherry Garcia and green tea sorbet?” Everyone looks at me.
“We’ve never had it before!” I say. “I was curious!”
While they’re all leaning forward to take their bowls, I put the figurine in my pocket. When it’s time for us to leave, I don’t put it back.
Over the next few weeks, I improvise more. I decide a spell’s power comes from the person performing it, not the formula. If you’re a real witch, you can invent variations to suit your purposes. But if you don’t have it in your blood, all the toads’ tongues and bats’ fillets in the world won’t help you. And I’m convinced I have it in my blood. About a week after my first success with Dexter, I learn that Mean Megan’s parents let her miss an entire day of school for the very same reason: cramps. Dexter explains this to Mom as though it’s very significant and she should be taking notes.
“Different people are different” is all Mom will say, but privately, I rejoice. I start collecting ingredients that might come in handy for future spells—spices snuck from the kitchen, a handful of early fall leaves from the schoolyard, black wool and pins from Mom’s sewing box, a couple of clean chicken bones left over from supper and, yes, candles from the kitchen drawer next to the knives and forks. My own little cupboard slowly becomes a trove of such odds and ends. And I practice, though not always with success. I crayon a picture of Timmy Digby and poke it full of pinholes. But instead of coming down with chicken pox or bubonic plague, there he is at school the next morning, as grinning and hateful as ever. I have to satisfy myself with the thought that he might have suffered horrible pains at the time I was mutilating my drawing, but went on to a full overnight recovery. For a change, I try a good spell. Carefully, I tip pinches of nicer-smelling spices, like nutmeg and cinnamon, into a spiral seashell I collected from the beach two summers ago—a cherished object of my own. I add one of my own brown hairs and throw it in the garbage, whispering “Dusty” thirteen times. This, I decide, is a spell to keep me out of trouble. And it works too, or seems to. Of course, it’s also possible that I’m getting in less trouble these days because I spend all my time in my room, burning through my homework so I can get on with my private studies. It’s hard to know.
Other spells are flat-out flops. I completely fail to make Mr. Chen get sick the day of our math test. But that might be because I felt so guilty about taking the piece of chalk from his desk that I put it back the same day without using it at all. I doubt Mr. Chen cherishes his chalk anyway. I fail to make myself invisible. And, after the first time, I fail even to give Dexter more cramps. The whole situation is starting to get frustrating, when Grandma and Grandpa come for another visit.
&n
bsp; When I get home after school, I see the familiar chocolate brown station wagon in the driveway. Grandma is sitting in the kitchen with Mom, having a cup of tea.
“Here’s my Edie,” Grandma says, giving me a hug.
I have a lot of questions. But somehow I don’t know how to start asking, especially not with Mom sitting right there.
“Edie’s very quiet,” Grandma says. “What is it, Edie?”
“Where’s Grandpa?” I ask.
“Watching TV,” Mom says.
“When is Halloween?” I ask.
“Three weeks,” Mom says. “Have you picked a costume?”
“Witch,” I say, looking straight at Grandma. But all Grandma says is “Hello, Dexter, dear.”
Dexter stands in the doorway in her leotard. “You can’t be a witch,” she says. “Megan and I are doing costumes together this year. She’s going to be a bad witch and I’m going to be a good witch. We already asked, didn’t we, Mom?”
I feel panicky. “I have to be a witch!” I say. Halloween is the one day of the year when a spell worth its salt should work, and I can’t imagine curing Grandpa dressed as a fairy princess or a pop can or something. And the worst thing is that I can already imagine how perfect the two of them will look together: Megan with her black bad witch’s hair and angry black eyes, dressed all in black, and Dexter, the good witch, with her blue eyes and pale yellow hair, dressed in white. The idea is so right, I know no one will be able to resist.
“I’ll be a different color witch from them,” I say, thinking fast. “I’ll be a blue witch. And I won’t go trick-or-treating with them or be seen with them.”
“Trick-or-treating,” Dexter scoffs. “We’re too old for that. We’re going to a party.”
I look desperately at Grandma.
“What a lot of witches this year” is all Grandma says.
