Something in the puzzle didn’t fit. It made sense that Goran would gift her the wand and the wand reminded him of his mother and she appeared. But she had appeared to her, to Ana, not to Goran. That didn’t make sense at all. Why would Goran’s mother not want him to know she was still here?
Ana pulled the key to her aunt’s house out of her pocket and unlocked the front door. No one was home. Veronika usually hung out with friends if the sisters didn’t have an appointment with Goran, and Aunt Olga was still at work. Ana kicked her shoes off at the door and unloaded her backpack on the kitchen table. She padded down the hall to her room and flopped on the bed before pulling the carved willow wand out of her pocket and staring at the faint blue letters on the side she couldn’t read.
She tried Breda’s trick of sliding the words off into the air with limited success. They weren’t as clear and bright as hers had been, but they were there, and when she nudged them up with the wand tip, they got bigger. There was her name again. Why was the name of the witch so important?
She slid off the bed and went back to the kitchen to find her tablet to look up the meanings of all their names.
It struck her then. The names didn’t matter. It was about the wand, about what the wand wanted. She left her tablet on the table and waited for Veronika to get home.
The hours dragged through dinner and chores. Finally, after the dishes were done and Aunt Olga had curled up in front of the television with a glass of wine and a book, Ana dragged Veronika into her room and closed the door.
Veronika was still put out with her, but it didn’t matter.
“I need your help with a spell.” Ana watched Veronika’s face to see if she would be excited or scowl at her.
“What kind of spell?” Veronika was cautious, almost sly. Ana was going to owe her something for this.
“I need to make a magical thing tell its secret.” Ana pulled the wand out of her front pocket and showed it to Veronika, balancing it on the flat of her palm.
“That’s what Goran gave you?” Veronika leaned in closer to read the strange writing.
Ana nodded. “I want to find out what it says on this side.”
“I’ve never seen writing like that before.” Veronika ran her finger down the wand over the letters that were blue, but they didn’t light up for Veronika. She stood back up straight. “I’ll look through my books tonight and see if I can come up with anything.”
“Thank you.” Ana stuck the wand back in her pocket and got ready for bed.
The sisters rushed home together the next day. Aunt Olga had said she would be especially late and they were on their own for dinner.
Veronika looked tired after a night poring over her books and a full day of school. Ana had slept soundly, but she’d been restless all day waiting.
The sisters sat on the floor in Veronika’s room. Veronika pulled her altar out from underneath her bed. It was a large square board covered with black cloth. Ana had seen it before when she’d been snooping in Veronika’s room, but she’d never been brave enough to take the cloth off. She had been sure Veronika would know.
Veronika removed the cloth, lit a candle, and arranged the items around a large, shallow dish made of clay and finished with a matte coating that made it look like it had been burned. Her sister opened one of the books she had been gifted from her first teacher’s library. The spell she was working from looked like it had been written by a drunken chicken, but Veronika didn’t seem to have any trouble reading it.
The older sister pulled a small wooden crate from under the bed and took out two glass vials and a green Radenska water bottle stopped with a cork. She poured the liquid, which looked like water but moved thickly, into the bowl and then scattered dried herbs from the two vials over the reflective surface of the substance.
A mist appeared above the water and shimmered faintly in the candlelight. It seemed to breathe within the confines of the bowl.
“Can I have the wand?” Veronika kept her eyes on the bowl but put her palm out toward Ana.
Ana handed over the wand, reluctantly.
Veronika passed the wand through the mist. The mist stuck to the wood like candy floss.
“Hm. That’s unexpected.” Veronika leaned in to look at the wand a little more closely.
Ana didn’t like unexpected things when it came to spells. She’d been on the receiving end of one of Veronika’s first experiments, and it still gave her nightmares.
The mist wrapped more tightly around the wand, like bandages, and as it tightened the wand started to glow the same blue of the letters. The mist completely covered the wood, as close as paint, and the blue got so bright the two girls turned their heads away.
The wrappings of mist exploded off the wand, burning Veronika’s hand. She dropped the wand into the bowl, and the mist disappeared back into the water. The sisters looked at each other over the altar. Veronika had a black smudge on her face, and her eyes were a little too wide. Ana wanted to laugh, but the situation really didn’t call for it.
Before everything had blown up, Ana had heard the small voice of the wand. The words on the other side spoke of pain and revenge but they weren’t meant for her.
After cleaning up the mess and treating Veronika’s hand with some aloe vera, the two sisters sat on the edge of Ana’s bed. Aunt Olga hadn’t come home yet. They’d opened all the windows to air out the house, but it still smelled strongly of singed tea roses—the signature of Veronika’s magic. Ana wondered if her aunt were really that thick or if she just didn’t want to know what the girls were actually up to.
“You need to take that thing back to Goran. It’s dangerous.” Veronika handed Ana the wand.
Ana nodded, and when she took the wand she got the clearest image of handing it back. The wand would be very happy about it, but Goran wouldn’t. She looked down at the spindly stick. There was a different word etched in the shimmering blue letters where her name had been. She was sure it said “Goran.”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Goran heard the brass bell on the shop’s front door jangle against the wood as someone entered. He got up from his paperwork and stood in the open door that led to his office and the less-public part of his shop. He watched as Ana closed the door behind her and turned back around. She took a deep breath and started walking forward before she looked up and saw him. Whatever had brought her there had either taken some courage or needed some resolution.
“Goran.” She stopped and took another breath he could see in the rise and fall of her shoulders. “This wand doesn’t want to be with me.”
He cocked his head at her. “And how do you know that?”
“A witch doesn’t need a wand, but sometimes a wand needs a witch.”
Goran’s stomach sank, and his hands went cold. “What did you say?”
“A witch doesn’t—”
“I heard you. Where did you hear that?”
“I think it would be easier to show you.” She crossed the remaining distance between them and took his hand in hers. “Close your eyes.”
He did as he was told without really questioning why he should listen to this girl.
“You can open them now.”
Goran gasped. His mother, looking older than he had remembered, stood next to Ana with her arm around the girl’s shoulders. They were all still standing in the back of the public portion of the shop, but not. The colors were muted, and the ambient sound had been dampened by whatever Ana had done.
“Your pupil is adept at slipping Inbetween.” His mother smiled at him, but her eyes were sad.
Goran couldn’t speak. He kept looking from Ana to his mother, unable to form a statement or a question.
Ana handed him the box that contained the wand he had gifted her. “This wand isn’t finished with you. Breda gave me a hint, but I had to figure it out on my own.” She looked down at her shoes for a moment in an uncharacteristic display of shyness. “I did have some help from Veronika. She’s OK, though.”
He would have to inves
tigate that statement later. He took the box from her and opened it. He had forgotten the small voice he had heard when he had possessed the wand all those years ago. Now it was incessant. He started to take the wand from the green cloth, but his mother stopped him. The script shifted from blue through indigo and purple and started to grow into a hotter, bright red that quieted when he moved his hand away again.
“Close it.” His mother reached for the box.
Goran handed it over, still puzzled as to what all this was about.
“Fifteen is a hard age for a young man. I wish things had been different. I wish I had listened to Bettine about taking you with me, but I thought it would break your father. And I wasn’t sure what it would have meant for you.”
If his mother was trying to explain something to him, she was doing a poor job. He was only growing more confused.
Breda noticed and started her tale again. “When I disappeared, it was Bettine who took me. But to safety. The police were going to arrest me. It’s a long story and of little consequence, but a displeased customer’s public complaints led to a visit from the police. They visited your father first at his work and then showed up at the shop. They insinuated there had been other complaints about my ‘activities.’”
“I don’t understand. Then why did the Observers take you?”
“I thought the police were sniffing after ties I had with the black market, but Bettine was convinced they were looking for something entirely different. She offered, insisted, I let the Observers and the Board get me out of the country away from whatever investigation the police were mounting. I thought we’d hidden your abilities better. But she knew and demanded I bring you with me. I refused. I knew you had enough training to continue on your own and that though your father didn’t exactly approve of what we were, he would protect you.”
Goran leaned against the door jamb. It was a lot to take in.
“I left while you were at school. Bettine would have had to make a scene to collect you, and that would have made it more difficult to leave. I’m sorry.”
“But what happened to you? Where did you go? And why did you never contact us?” Goran stood back up, renewed by the anger and bitterness that washed over him as the tight ball in his gut he’d spent years trying to ignore unwound and expanded.
“She took me to Vienna first and then to Zurich. From there I was sent to the Faroes. There were others, but we were cut off from the world. The Board’s idea of protection is closer to imprisonment.”
“When did you die?” The ball exploded inside him, and every cell in his body wanted to lash out at her, at Ana, at every stick of furniture in the shop, and especially at Gustaf Lichtenberg who was probably in his flat at that very moment.
Goran reached out and attempted to snatch the box from his mother before she could answer the question.
Ana jumped between them before he could wrest it away from Breda.
“No.”
The girl’s determination stopped him cold. He was reminded of her screams the night her sister’s plans for revenge had gone horribly wrong, and a wave of cold shame washed over him, quelling his rage.
“We have to destroy this.” Ana stared at him unblinking.
Breda nodded. “She’s right, but it won’t be easy. Or pleasant.” She walked toward Goran and opened her arms for him to embrace her.
He engulfed her, so different than the last time he had hugged her and she had been the one encircling him. Goran let go first and stepped back to look at his mother again.
“You aren’t going to help us do this, are you?”
She shook her head. “This is something you and Ana must do.”
“You didn’t answer my other question.”
“About when I died? Time is funny thing in the Inbetween but I think it’s been about 20 years.”
“And you didn’t come to me, look for me?” A lump tightened in Goran’s throat.
“That isn’t your gift. I am here now.”
“And when this is over, you’ll cross into the Next?” He had thought she was gone for so long, but now that she was there, he couldn’t bear the thought that she would be gone again.
“I don’t know what fate the Moirae have planned for me, but I am ready for the next adventure.”
Goran closed his eyes in a long, exhausted blink, and Breda was gone. He and Ana stood in the shop, the sounds of the building washing back in.
He took a deep breath. “Kiddo, we’ve got some work to do.”
Ana followed him silently into the back of the shop.
Goran pulled down a different volume than the one that contained his mother’s concoctions for prosperity and cures for common illnesses in people and animals. This book was bound in dark brown leather and was much thinner. His mother had not worked much with hexes and curses.
He flipped to a working designed to destroy magical objects. His mother had made notes in the margin, so she had used this formula at least once.
Ana stood silently inside the door, her gaze glued to the book.
“Come, read this to me.” He motioned her to the workbench.
Ana read out the ingredients as he scanned the more organized shelves for the necessary items. She traced her finger around the groove of the circle carved in the tabletop as she tripped over the unfamiliar words.
“What is this for?” She looked up at him as he lined up the jars and bottles in the order they would be needed.
“To hold the salt. It will contain whatever presence or magic is in a spell so it can’t hurt you.” Goran scanned the instructions again. The timings weren’t complex, but simple spells could be deceptively simple.
“Does it always work?” She looked dubious.
“Almost always. Things can go wrong with a spell just like they can go wrong making a cake.”
“A cake doesn’t usually try to kill you, though.” She stepped back toward the door.
Goran turned and looked at her. He saw then the eleven-year-old who had suffered for a magical mistake, who had lost both her parents in a horrible night of tragedy. And he saw her fear for the first time.
He squatted down in front of her and searched her face. “Ana, you don’t have to stay for this. You can go over to the teahouse, and I’ll come get you when I’m done.”
“I want to stay.” She had her brave face on.
“You really don’t have to.”
“I do. I need to see this.” She walked back to the bench.
Goran turned back around more aware that Ana was a child, despite her capabilities, and began the spell.
He took a shallow, carbonized bowl from underneath the bench and set it in the center of the circle. An undone task nagged at him, and he stood motionless trying to remember it.
“You should light a candle for Morana.” Ana looked up at him. “Breda said we should have asked her to help us with the spell that Veronika and I blew up.”
Goran nodded. He hadn’t been very consistent in his devotion to the old gods and goddesses, but maybe it was time to pay attention to that. He pulled out a black candle and lit it for the goddess of life and death, the goddess of the witches, and asked her to preside over their endeavor. He added a silent entreaty to his mother as well.
With the candle lit, he filled the bowl with rainwater and asked Ana to hand him the ingredients, starting with black salt to fill the groove on the table top.
As Ana read the names again, he sprinkled each of the herbs into the bowl and watched them swirl in the water.
“Angelika. Dišeči koromač. Lovor. Ciklamen. Česen. Heliotrop. Črni teloh. Bela omela. Kopriva. Bor. Rožmarin. Rutica. Sporiš.”
He lit a cone of pine resin incense and added a chunk of black tourmaline to the bowl.
“Hand me the wand, please.”
Ana opened the box and gingerly plucked the stick from the fabric. She held it out to him like it was a live snake.
He took a deep breath, read the Latin from his mother’s book as steadily as his voice wo
uld let him, and dropped the wand in. He jumped back as the water hissed and spat.
Ana plastered herself against the door and shielded her eyes with her forearm.
Goran watched, fascinated, as an inky black cloud of smoke exploded from the bowl. The rainwater had been superheated into mist, and the air smelt of charred herbs. The ring of salt kept everything in a bulging column that reached the ceiling before it rained bits of wood and tourmaline back into the bowl and onto the desktop.
Ana took her arm down and stared at him. Her pupils were huge, making her eyes look black. “It worked.” Goran couldn’t tell if she was incredulous or disappointed.
Goran looked up at the ceiling, where a perfect black circle the same size as the one on the workbench had appeared. “Hm. It will be a good reminder.”
“That’s it? It’s over?” She was surprised. “The salt thing worked?”
“I have a bit of a mess to clean up, and I’m going to have to have someone make a new bowl for me.” A large crack had appeared in the one inside the salt ring.
“All the bits, are they still dangerous?” Ana peered over, not yet willing to approach the bench again.
“I’ll sweep them up and put them in the river. That should dispel any lingering magic.” He turned to the candle, its flame having survived the spell’s shockwave, thanked the goddess for her help and guidance, and snuffed the wick with wetted fingertips.
Ana still seemed unsure about the whole thing. She closed her eyes, Goran thought to calm or reassure herself that the thing was done and she was safe, but it was more than that. He could sense that Ana wasn’t there though her body very much was. Had she slipped Inbetween?
As the moment dragged on and he began to worry, she opened her eyes. “Breda said to remember there is a difference between taking revenge and defending yourself.”
Goran nodded at his student, sure of two things: Ana wasn’t a witch, but something far beyond him, and his mother hadn’t returned just to help him with a troublesome fancy stick.
About the Author
Victoria Raschke wrote her first short story at 10. Her mother said it was brilliant but pointed out she had written “cereal” instead of “serial.” She still can’t spell but did manage an M.A. in English from the University of Tennessee and a Culinary Arts degree from Nashville State Community College. Extensive travels in Eastern Europe led to spending a year in Slovenia, where her daydreams and the Voices of the Dead series are set. Victoria lives in Knoxville with her cats and human family who really appreciate that culinary arts degree.
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