by Ameriie
Sigrid wore huge sunglasses and a ratty tweed overcoat purchased at the estate sale of a rich, eccentric crone. “Cadaverous was how one man on the street described it.”
His smile was luminescent. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”
Sigrid tripped on one of the books piled at Thomas’s feet and stopped in her tracks. Gingerly, as though handling an ancient artifact, she picked up the navy hardcover. She held a gasp in her throat.
The book was so familiar to Sigrid, she could have drawn its cover from memory: a gold foil outline of Scotland’s northern coast, with a giant X floating in the far northeastern sea, just past the last island.
“Where did you get this?” Sigrid asked.
“Which?” Thomas looked up. “Ah. Rummage sale. Felt old in all the right ways. Why? What is it?”
“It’s Unnatural Troubles,” Sigrid said. “A biography of Alice Gray. I had this exact book as a kid—read it so many times I about had it memorized . . .”
“Alice Gray?”
She raised an eyebrow at Thomas’s confused look. “Of the Hether Blether expedition?”
He shook his head.
“Seriously?” Sigrid removed a stack of volumes from the other chair and sat on the edge, clutching the book in her lap. “Oh, but you’ll love this story,” she said. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard of it. That’s what you get for being born a Yank.” She cleared her throat, relishing the moment.
“It was about twenty years ago, right after McClatchkey introduced his theory of magical scarcity,” Sigrid began. “Alice was attending Pendle Hill at the time. She was an incredible witch, top of her class, had a position with the International Chamber lined up—the works. When the McClatchkey study proved that magic was a static resource being stretched disproportionately over a bloating population, everything was chaos. It was the end times—countries were hoarding magic, charlatans claimed they could create more.”
“This part I know,” Thomas said.
“Oh, you’ve decided to start listening in modern magical history?” Sigrid said drily. “Bully for you. Anyway, Alice started researching a legend from Orkney, near the northernmost bit of Scotland, about an all-knowing and reclusive sorcerer. Supposedly he lives on a mystical island called Hether Blether, which disappears most of the year. If any witch sets foot on the island, they can claim it, along with all the sorcerer’s wisdom.
“Omnipotence might come with some answers to the magical scarcity problem, or at least that’s what Alice thought. And she wasn’t alone. She got a group of eight other witches together, and they formed an expedition to go north in search of Hether Blether and its sorcerer. But something happened.”
Thomas leaned forward, listening. Sigrid’s cheeks flushed with the thrill of telling the story that had entranced her as a child.
“They ferried to Eynhallow, an abandoned island off the Orkney coast. According to legend, if you want to find Hether Blether, you launch from there. That was the last time anyone saw them alive.” She paused. “Weeks later, investigators found Alice and two others among monastic ruins on Eynhallow, laid out in an occult formation and covered in black markings. They hadn’t been killed; they died of exposure.”
Thomas’s eyes widened.
“Another three were found on the shore. They had internal wounds, but no soft tissue damage. It was almost like they’d been taken under the sea, crushed”—Sigrid pressed her hands together in the air—“and washed up on the sand.”
Thomas’s smile was gone, but his eyes glistened. Sigrid had his full attention. As she went on with the story, her vision darkened at the corners. A mist clouded her eyes. Thomas was so focused on her story he was imagining it in his—and now her—mind.
“The final three weren’t found for ages,” Sigrid continued. “Investigators thought maybe their boat had been taken up by tides, or that they’d gotten lost in the Orkney fog and were dashed on the rocks of another island.”
Thomas envisioned a steely grey haze over choppy whitecapped waves. Sigrid had read every account of Alice Gray and the Hether Blether expedition in her father’s expansive library, and she’d pictured Eynhallow’s shore much as Thomas did now: dreary with mist, a dark shadow hinting at a rowboat through the menacing fog.
She went on: “Eventually, they found the wreckage, at the bottom of the North Atlantic.”
Thomas’s vision shifted, dreamlike, under the waves into a murky netherworld. Sigrid’s skin bristled with goose bumps as Thomas imagined the brackish dim. His ocean floor held dark dunes of sand interrupted by crags thrusting upward like carnivore teeth. The boat lay on its side, nestled between two bloody-knuckled outcrops.
“A hole had been drilled into it,” Sigrid said, her voice eerily distant. “From beneath.”
Thomas imagined a hole on the boat’s damaged bottom, pristine and circular.
“The final three witches were found nearby.”
They appeared, vivid as Thomas’s smile had been to Sigrid just moments ago: skin grey and bloated, wispy hair floating up from lifeless heads. Their feet were buried in the ocean bed’s ashy sand, bodies twisting in the current like tangled seaweed.
“So much worse.” Sigrid pushed back against the pull of Thomas’s vision. “They’d been there for ages.”
Under her influence, the witches’ skin lifted away, peeling off their necks and arms. Their faces came into sharper focus, eyes open to reveal milky-white irises. Vaguely, Sigrid registered Thomas grabbing her hand.
“They’d been branded, too,” Sigrid said, pressing into Thomas’s perspective and projecting pentagrams of warped scar tissue on the witches’ chests. “Before they died.”
Thomas squeezed tighter and tighter, folding the bones of her hand in his fist like a bundle of sticks. “Sigrid,” he said, voice strained.
Just as quickly as it had appeared, the vision was gone, replaced by the dim light of the clubroom. What remained was a splitting headache.
“What was that?” Thomas said, releasing her hand. “You were changing images in my head . . .” He exhaled like he’d been holding a breath for days. “Have you always been able to do that?”
“I’m not sure.” Sigrid clutched her throbbing head. She thought of all the times Thomas had foisted visions on her in the last three years. “Doesn’t feel quite right, does it?”
Thomas adjusted his shoulders as though shaking something off. “Do you think Alice found him? The sorcerer?” Thomas asked.
“If she didn’t,” she said, “then what the bloody hell killed her?”
Thomas looked away. “So what happened to the next team?”
“What?”
“The ones who tried it next. What came of them?”
“Thomas, everyone in the Hether Blether expedition died. Horribly. People weren’t exactly lining up to repeat their mistake.”
“Mistake?” Thomas said, stunned. “They knew exactly what they were doing—trying to save magic. Being brave is a risk, not a mistake. They wanted to be extraordinary. To embrace all that they were capable of. To be legend.”
Descriptions of Alice Gray’s body filled Sigrid’s mind. Her skin sucked tight around her bones, scarred with symbols no expert had been able to interpret. “Why be extraordinary if that’s the cost?”
Thomas grabbed her wrist. “Because of the cost of doing nothing.” He met her gaze with a challenge. “People die either way. If you act, at least their blood isn’t on your hands.”
Sigrid shook off his grip and stood. “Alice might have owed the world some magic. I don’t think she owed us her life.”
“Sigrid!” Annabel swept into the room. “Time to get your head out of those books, Sig, ol’ girl.”
“You’ve no idea,” Sigrid agreed. She grabbed her bag and turned her back on Thomas. “I need a break from him.”
“Who?” Annabel threw an arm around Sigrid and steered her toward the billiards table in the other corner. A group of scraggly boys were getting ready to start a game. They twisted cha
lk on their cues and watched the girls approach. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Annabel said. “We’re going to watch these wankers play pool, bet on the one with the cutest arse, and by the end of the night we won’t care about who’s won, or applications, or London, or any damn thing.”
Sigrid looked back and saw Thomas stuffing his satchel with books. She could see the disappointment in his eyes.
Sigrid was easily seduced into Annabel’s world of casual fun. When Annabel was around, it seemed so simple to knock off and enjoy things. To ignore the part of her brain that buzzed with anxious thoughts, focusing instead on a drink, a flirt, the possibility of comfort and peace. In time she could learn to mimic the easy cadence of Annabel’s crowd, Sigrid told herself. She could be happy.
The billiards table was crowded with Pendle Hill’s finest. They stood close, jostling and throwing insults, alive with laughter. Sigrid wondered when, exactly, they’d all grown so comfortable with one another. Annabel leaned against the wall, talking to a student whose name Sigrid couldn’t recall. Blake, maybe, or Blair, or Blaine. They were talking about positions, of course.
“I’m after one with Manchester United,” BlakeBlairBlaine said.
“Wow!” Annabel said. “That’s on.”
“Wait—what?” Sigrid said, sharp. “You’re a witch. You know that, right?”
“Right?” he said. “What of it?”
“You can do magic. And you want to work for a football club?”
“Not just any club, is it?”
Sigrid shook her head, incredulous. “Who cares? You’d never be able to use your abilities. You’d be forever hiding what you are.”
BlakeBlairBlaine shrugged. “It’s not like I’m saving the world, levitating small objects or hexing stains out of my loafers. Parlor tricks.”
“Exactly,” Annabel laughed. She tossed her gleaming hair. She was flirting, Sigrid realized, and with that unevolved cretin.
Sigrid longed to retaliate somehow, to decelerate the billiard balls until they retraced their trajectories. Maybe send the whole room back to a few minutes before the game had even started. Show Annabel and all the rest a fraction of the power they so casually dismissed. But she’d been so careful to keep the extent of her powers under wraps; just because she wanted to prove a point didn’t mean she suddenly trusted her classmates.
In that moment, Sigrid understood that being extraordinary wasn’t something she could curb forever. There was no opting out.
Parlor tricks.
“Right.” Sigrid turned to Annabel. “Want to get out of here?”
Annabel hesitated. Sigrid’s stomach dropped. Her face flared red at the sight of Annabel’s pitying expression.
“Well,” Sigrid said. “It’s been a gas.”
Annabel twisted her mouth up. “Oh, come on, Sig. Don’t go.” Her fingers grazed Sigrid’s, lightly.
Sigrid drew back her arm. “ ‘Don’t go’ is not the same as ‘stay.’ ” She pulled the satchel strap over her shoulder. “Have a good life,” Sigrid said, stepping away. “You deserve it.”
That Sunday morning, like every other, Sigrid waited for Thomas at the kebab stand by the river, across the Thames from Parliament. Thomas’s approaching form was unmistakable: shoulders curled under a wool camel coat and a short-legged gait slightly off for his limber frame.
“Kebab?” His eyes brightened at the food cart’s rotating slab of lamb. Thomas always offered, and Sigrid always refused. They fell into an easy stride, pacing side by side. They’d been taking these walks since the first term. It was here that Thomas had admitted no one in the States knew he was a witch. He hadn’t been back to visit in three years, so far as Sigrid could recall. And it was where she first admitted out loud that she’d been holding back in lessons, afraid to show anyone all that she was capable of. It felt like whispering secrets into a forgetful wind.
They sat on a bench just off the walkway, under a dogwood tree. The sun peered from behind clouds, falling on the river’s choppy surface like flashing diamonds.
“So—Alice Gray,” Thomas said. “I’ve been researching her and Hether Blether. Her diary was in the school library. Hadn’t been checked out in a dozen years. She was top of her class, brains beyond reason. Awash in banality, striving to be great.”
“I know.” Sigrid knew the diary. She knew all the books Thomas must have devoured in the last few days. The story of Hether Blether had consumed her for years. Now it was all coming back again.
Thomas ran a hand through his hair, leaving spikes in its wake. “She’s you,” he said.
“What are you on about?”
“She’s you, Sig, I swear it. She was extraordinary, and looking for a mission worthy of her talents. Saving magic.”
“Fat lot of good it did her, or any of her friends.”
Thomas shook his head. “That isn’t the point. They were willing to try.” He paused. “And anyway—there are theories.” Sigrid squinted at him. Thomas continued: “Things they could have done differently. There are legends from Iceland and Norway about what travelers can do to ward off the sorcerer’s influence, or to stay mentally agile in his presence. He poses riddles, apparently, some kind of clever ultimatum, and those who answer are magically bound by the outcome.” He nudged her gently with his elbow. “There’s also the fact that we’re far more powerful than Alice was.”
“We can’t know that.”
“If Alice or any of the witches in the expedition were as powerful as we are, she would have noted it.”
“What are you saying?”
“We could do it, Sig. You and me. By claiming the island and gaining all the sorcerer’s knowledge, we could save magic.” Thomas turned to her, his face cast in mottled shadow under the flowering tree.
Thomas leaned back against the bench, eyes shut. “The day I learned that the word for what I am was ‘magic’—that was the best day of my life.” As he spoke, the velvety white petals of the dogwood tree’s flowers began to unfurl. “You can’t tell me this is all life is. Just another way to wear a suit and work till we expire.” The petals began to shimmer, filling with blues and reds and purples. “Alice wanted the world to open for her, to show her something incredible and new. She saw the chance to be a legend and she took it.”
Sigrid felt a shiver as the idea bloomed in her mind, wild and absurd and—somehow—inevitable. Sigrid’s heart kicked into overdrive. For the first time, she let herself envision the future that would unfurl from going north to face a great unknown.
Gently, she placed a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. He opened his eyes. Sigrid nodded up at the tree. The dogwood’s flowers had blossomed in fluorescent hues, gleaming like gently folded rainbows. Thomas blinked and every petal released, fluttering down around them like natural confetti. Flecks of lavender and fuchsia and goldenrod settled in his hair and on his shoulders, brushing his lapel like a telltale kiss.
“Alice Gray never found that new, incredible thing,” Sigrid said.
“She died trying,” Thomas said. “That’s more than most of us will die doing.” He searched her face. “You’re more than Alice Gray could have ever hoped to be.”
Sigrid thought of Annabel’s wide eyes and easy smile. She imagined leaving a mind-numbing position in the city to catch drinks with Annabel at a pub, hoping half-witted hooligans would pay their tab, waking up with fuzzy heads the next morning, the greatest hope being a repeat of the previous day.
The thought that she could learn that rhythm was a lie she could no longer stomach.
“For all the witches hiding their power. For magic.” Thomas’s hand grazed her cheek, thumb wiping away the single tear that fell there. “For Alice.”
Sigrid rested her hand on his arm. He gave a surprised shout as she pinched him, hard.
“For ourselves.”
They wasted little time. Monday morning, they were at the train station. Thomas was a wreck. He couldn’t figure out the ticket machine or navigate the station. He became so overwhelmed th
at Sigrid eventually told him to shut up and follow her lead. The moment she deposited him in the train cabin, he folded a new leaf of khat in his mouth, sank low with his head against the windowpane, and began to snore. Sigrid sat on the bench across from him and bit her nails, watching London recede in their wake.
Her pack sagged at her feet, stuffed with survival equipment and magical tools. She’d brought an iron stake—according to legend, a must for any traveler hoping to come upon the hidden island—and a carnelian stone to help point the way. Several small cloth bags were filled with various gemstones and crystals: healing and amplifying, heart-opening and evil-warding. These items, and matches, and their wits.
Hours later, Thomas woke.
“Hello,” he said, groggily righting himself.
Sigrid stared at him. “What are we doing?” she asked. “Alice and the others were prepared. They planned extensively. They’d been circling together for weeks before they left—knew each other’s magic, inside and out.”
“You know my magic,” Thomas said. “You know everything.” He reached for Sigrid’s feet, propped on the bench beside him.
Sigrid drew them back.
He sighed. “You’ve been preparing for this your whole life.”
As they chugged farther into the Highlands, the world became over-saturated in the eerie blue-green of a dense forest, or of leagues under the sea. A curve in the tracks revealed a wide, churning river outside the window. The train soared over it on a bridge so thin Sigrid felt like they were flying.
He was right, of course. Every kilometer they traveled felt like it was bringing Sigrid closer to where she was meant to be—or, perhaps, where she could not have avoided ending up.
Ferrying a boat to Eynhallow was difficult. It was the off season, and local fishermen were superstitious about the tides. Finally, they found an ancient mariner swathed in a cloak, eating canned fish beside a rusted trawler. They had to repeat their request three times while the man gummed sardines with golden teeth, but eventually he’d nodded. Neither Thomas nor Sigrid dared ask any questions when he immediately ushered them onto his boat and untied it from the dock, its sputtering engine jettisoning them away from shore.
