Spellbinding

by Maya Gold

  Kate raises her hand again. “Blacklisting.” Ms. Baptiste nods her head, pleased, but a few kids look blank.

  “Kate? Definition?”

  “When people won’t speak to you, or let you work or live somewhere, because of the way they perceive you,” she says, adjusting her black-framed glasses on her face. I’ve always liked Kate, because she’s so matter-of-fact about being smart. But I’ve always felt too shy to reach out to her as a friend. “My grandfather,” she goes on, “got blacklisted in the 1950s because someone said he was a Communist.”

  “Was he?” asks Branko.

  Kate shrugs. “It didn’t matter. As soon as the rumor got out, he lost his teaching job.”

  “And that is what’s known as a witch hunt,” says Ms. Baptiste, and I feel a small shiver. She circles the words RUMOR, BULLYING, BLACKLISTING on the white-board. “Fifteen months after the witch trials started in Salem, Governor Phipps pardoned all the accused and released everyone who was still in prison.”

  I think of Sarah Good and Dorcas, stuck in prison for all those long months, and remember how Great-aunt Gail called me Dorcas yesterday.

  “Yeah, really big help if you’re already dead,” Samson Hobby remarks.

  “Everyone who was hanged had their names cleared,” Ms. Baptiste explains, “and their families received restitution. Essentially, the charges were all overturned.”

  “So no one was really a witch?” I blurt out. I’m almost a bit disappointed.

  “Not according to Governor Phipps,” Ms. Baptiste says. “But I think the real lesson of Salem is ‘Don’t always believe what you hear.’ Not even in history class.”

  When the bell rings a few minutes later, Ms. Baptiste asks me to stay behind. I’m nervous I did something wrong in my presentation, but when I approach her desk, she looks excited.

  “That’s quite a family history, Abby,” she says. “I think it bears looking into more closely. I’ll give you extra credit for any more research you do at the Salem Library.”

  The library. With a guilty pang, I remember the spell book I stashed in the back of my dresser drawer. I have to return that — it’s definitely an antique, and belongs in their local history room.

  Besides, if I go back to Salem, I might get to see Rem again.

  “I will,” I promise my teacher.

  “Good.” Ms. Baptiste gazes over the tops of her glasses as if she’s appraising me somehow. “I think you may find out some interesting things.”

  As I walk out to the school bus, passing the lot full of seniors’ cars, I can’t help wondering how I’m going to get back to Salem. If only I had my own car! I wish more than anything else on the planet I had enough money to buy one.

  A ring tone inside my purse startles me. Who could that be? Rachel’s a texter; and anyway, she’s got orchestra practice.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Abby?” The musical voice sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it. “It’s Dyami, from Spiral Visions in Salem? I wondered if you’d like to start working on weekends.”

  “Yes!” I exclaim so forcefully that she laughs.

  “Well, that’s unambivalent, anyway. How’s ten o’clock Saturday?”

  “Perfect,” I say. “I’ll be there.”

  I hang up feeling breathless. So now I’ll really have a reason to return to Salem. I can’t wait to tell Rachel, even though she rolled her eyes at Spiral Visions. I’m about to send her a text when my phone rings again. I see on the caller ID that it’s my cousin Roberto. Weird. Is he calling to say something about Dad’s new girlfriend? Does he suspect I wanted her sleeve to catch fire last night?

  “Hey, Abs, it’s Roberto,” he says when I answer. “I’m making a deal on this van, and they offered me half what my Jetta is worth on a trade-in. It’s got a few dents — okay, more than a few, but the engine runs great. I thought maybe you’d want it.”

  I sure do! “How much were you thinking?” I do a quick calculation. I can’t afford more than two thousand dollars.

  “I’d probably put it on Craigslist for twenty-six hundred, but cousin price can be two thousand even. If you don’t have it all in a chunk, we can work something out on installment. You interested?”

  I stand outside my school, grinning. “You bet I am. That is so nice of you.”

  “No prob,” says Roberto. “I’ll bring it by later this week, so you can give it a test drive. Congrats on your license, kid. That’s a big step.”

  I hang up in a daze. The news is amazing, for sure, but what really floors me is the timing. One minute I’m wishing that I could afford a car, and the next minute I’ve got one. Plus a job. It really does feel like magic.

  I take out the spell book again before I go to bed. If I have to return it this Saturday, the least I can do is read through it first. Most of the spells require strange ingredients, like wolfs-bane, St. John’s wort, or hairs from the head of the spell’s intended; one even asks for a tooth or ground-up bone.

  Then I find one called “To Impel Objects to Move” that calls for herbs that I realize we must have in the spice rack or in our herb garden — calendula, rosemary, and hyssop. I’m supposed to mix those with birch root and a pinch of ground clamshell, which I can probably find in and around the house as well. Why not give it a try? I think with a tingle of anticipation. If I made that red cone move just by wanting it to — what might happen if I learned a spell to harness that gift?

  I dart downstairs to the dark kitchen, trembling a little. There, I shake stray leaves out of spice jars and tea bags, moving quietly. Dad and Matt are both upstairs sleeping, and they’d think I was even weirder than usual if they saw me rooting around for herbs and spices for a spell. Then I take a flashlight out to the perennial herb garden Mom put in years ago. There’s a white birch next to the hydrangea bush, and the clamshell is easy — our garden footpath is lined with shells Matt and I beachcombed on Cape Cod’s Skaket Beach when we were little. I bring all the ingredients back to my room.

  Somehow turning on my overhead light feels wrong. So I part my curtains and let the soft moonlight in. Using a mortar and pestle I swiped from the kitchen, I grind up the ingredients. Then, acting on impulse, I light a half-circle of seven candles I still have on hand from a blackout last winter. The candles seem like a nice magical touch.

  Then I sit and fold my hands, my pulse racing. Now to actually try the incantation listed below the recipe in the book.

  I feel more than a little bit foolish as I prepare to concentrate all my mental energy on … what? My laptop? What if the spell really works, and my laptop falls and breaks? I don’t want to jinx it. How about the framed science fair certificate over my dresser? Maybe I can make it fall off its hook.

  I gaze at its frame through the flickering flames of the candles. The seven small fires are hypnotic, casting me into a sort of a trance. Then I glance down into the spell book, and read out loud, my voice coming out stronger than I would have thought. I recite:

  “Still ye may be

  Quick may ye become

  I command thee to move.”

  A gust of wind rattles the windowpane, and the candles all blow out at once. I stifle a scream. All right, that’s pretty creepy, but it was the wind, not me. Right? And the science fair certificate’s still on its hook. Unless … was I focusing more on the candle flames in the foreground when I recited those words?

  I stare at the blackened, still-smoking wicks, and before my eyes, all seven of them burst back into flame!

  Every hair on my head stands up as I hear a voice deep inside my head — neither Rem’s not Aunt Gail’s, but a rumbling, deep bass that seems to come out of the earth itself — saying, Well done.

  I’m going crazy. I’m hearing voices and seeing things. Candles might blow out, but they don’t blow back on. And yet there they are, burning in front of my eyes, the flames reaching higher and higher, like fiery fingernails….

  This is freaking me out. Make it stop!

  And the candles go out
again.

  This time I really do scream. There’s no rational way to explain this.

  “Abby?” I hear Dad’s voice call out through his bedroom door. “Are you all right?”

  “Bad dream,” I manage to stammer. He’s heard that enough times to leave it at that. But this was no dream. I’m shaking and hugging myself. I stare at the curls of smoke rising from seven still-glowing wicks. The acrid burnt smell and melting wax are as real as that moon out my window. I turn my eyes back down to the spell book and know in my heart that I’m not going mad.

  I’m a witch.

  ALL WEEK, I FEEL LIKE I’M SITTING ON TOP of the world’s biggest secret. At school, I avoid Rachel, knowing that if we start talking, I’ll want to confide in her — but she’ll never believe me. I barely believe it myself. I text her that I got the job at Spiral Visions, but I don’t breathe a word about the spell book, or Danielle’s sleeve, or the voices I’ve been hearing.

  I’m tempted every night to pull out that spell book and try more incantations, but I’m too terrified. I’m just living for Saturday. Somehow I’m certain that when I return to Salem, things will start to make sense again. There’s got to be some reason all this is coming together now. Right?

  My cousin drops off my new car on Friday night, and on Saturday morning, I drive it to Salem. When I reach the top of the humongous bridge, I’m filled with the same Technicolor buzz I felt when I saw Salem for the first time. The sensation is something that I’ve never felt in my life: I belong here.

  That sense doesn’t leave me as I navigate the old cobblestone streets, turn into the intersection in front of the church where I rescued Rachel from the oncoming truck, and sail into a parking spot that seems to be waiting for me, right in front of the Double Double Café. The only thing missing is Rem outside, sweeping the sidewalk. I peer through the front window, but he’s nowhere in sight. The pretty barista is foaming some milk for a customer.

  Swallowing my disappointment, I cross the alley. The door to Spiral Visions is locked, and I rap on the glass. Dyami comes out in a green embroidered caftan and silver sandals, flipping the sign on the door to OPEN as she lets me in. She looks at the flowery sundress and amber earrings I’ve chosen to wear, and nods her approval.

  Dyami’s idea of on-the-job training is as unique as her store.

  “Be a customer,” she tells me. “I want you to experience everything we have to offer, so you can internalize being a part of it.”

  Say what? It’s a good thing that Rachel’s not with me; she’d be rolling her eyes.

  “So I should just …”

  “Touch. Listen. See. Ask me questions. Once you know the store from the inside, we’ll go over all the terrestrial details.”

  Like running the cash register, inventory, and packing mail orders, I guess. You know, actual work stuff.

  It’s surprisingly hard to just be a customer all morning long, especially when real customers start trickling in, and I’m longing to pitch in and help. Luckily, there’s a lot on my mind as I browse through the books on the shelves, run my hands over silk scarves and kimonos, and examine the massive collection of magical objects. If a spell in a book can make candles go out and relight, is there something to all the rest of this stuff? Are the tarot decks, Norse runes, crystal pyramids, and statues of ancient deities more than just superstition and souvenirs?

  Spiral Visions is well stocked with incense and herbs. As I try to memorize what is stored where, I recognize lots of ingredients from the spell book. I’ll have to come back with a shopping list. I’m not planning on returning the spell book to the library anytime soon.

  It seems pretty clear that the sensible, skeptical, almost-invisible Abigail Silva is not at the wheel on this side of the bridge. And I’ve got to say, I don’t miss her. I’m enjoying this brand-new sensation that anything’s possible.

  I start exploring a shelf of “divination supplies” — crystal balls, wands, and amulets — when I find a small basket of pendulums. I pick one up, letting the crystal point dangle between my hands. I wonder how this is supposed to work. Do you ask a question and see how it moves, like a Ouija board? I’m about to ask Dyami when the crystal swings all by itself, so sharply it seems to point sideways. The hair on my arms stands on end, like a static electric charge, and I look where the crystal is pointing.

  Rem Anders is standing outside the Double Double Café, holding a push broom. He’s about to start sweeping the scatter of crabapple petals and dust when his broom seems to lift off the pavement.

  Toward me.

  His eyes follow, and when he sees me through the window, a smile spreads across his face.

  Good morning, Abby, I hear inside my head, and a shivery thrill runs all the way through me as I realize something eerie.

  I never told him my name.

  I drop the pendulum back in the basket, my ears burning. This is ridiculous. He still doesn’t know my name, and he hasn’t said anything. I’m the one who imagined his voice in my head, and since, duh, I know my own name, so did my version of him. The real Rem Anders is still standing outside on the sidewalk, pushing a broom back and forth with his back to me.

  Or maybe Rem has magical powers, too. I remember how he caught that coffee cup. Anything’s possible now, I remind myself.

  One thing’s for certain: He did really smile at me, before he turned away to start sweeping. That by itself is enough to keep me afloat through the rest of the morning, feeling more than a little off-balance, but in a good way.

  Dyami rings up a sale, handing a bag to an elderly customer. “Blessed be,” she says, folding her hands and dipping her head in a little half bow. Then she turns toward me and tells me it’s time for my lunch break.

  Um, break from what? I’ve just been browsing for three hours.

  But she says it’s time, so it’s time. My first thought is to go and eat at the Double Double Café, but as soon as I think about ordering lunch from Rem, I feel tongue-tied and self-conscious. Witchy powers or not, I’ve got a lifetime of shyness with boys to get over.

  Instead, I walk a few blocks toward the wharf and around the corner, ducking into a funky local deli called Ugly Gus Chowderhouse. I push open the heavy wood door and walk straight into Rem, who’s just bought a sandwich to go.

  “Lunch break?” he asks with a smile.

  Oh, those eyes. And those dimples.

  I can’t seem to find actual words, so I nod.

  “Want to join me outside?” he asks.

  I’m about to mumble a quick no, like my usual gawky-and-embarrassed self would, but I realize that I actually do want to join him, a lot. And he’s already done all the work. All I have to do is say, “Sure.” It rolls right off my tongue, as if it’s every day I make lunch dates with gorgeous boys who have hypnotic green-and-blue eyes.

  Rem turns to the heavyset man behind the counter. “Hey, Gus, you make Abby a wicked good sandwich, you hear?” I can feel my heart pounding all over again.

  So he does know my name.

  Rem brings me down to a small, grassy park overlooking the harbor. “I never eat inside at this time of year,” he says, settling down near the base of an oak tree. “Salem is full of cool places for picnics.”

  “Did you grow up right here in town?” I ask, trying to find a comfortable perch on one of the tree’s exposed roots.

  “Born and bred,” he says, watching me unwrap my ham and Swiss. The ciabatta roll is stuffed so full of meat, cheese, tomato, sliced onion, and shredded lettuce that I can’t imagine how I’m going to get my mouth around it without squirting mustard all over my dress.

  Rem flashes a knowing smile. “There is no polite way to bite into a Guswich,” he says, peeling the foil wrapper back from his chicken parm grinder. “You just have to go for it.”

  He takes a big bite, angling in from one side and coming away with a long string of red sauce and cheese between his teeth and the roll. I can’t quite make out what he says with his mouth full, but I think it’s “You see
?”

  I do see. Smiling, I take an undainty bite of my own dripping sandwich. It’s actually kind of a perfect ice-breaker. It’s hard to be too self-conscious around someone when you’ve shared a deeply messy lunch and the laughs that go with it.

  “Final score: mustard: three, marinara sauce: five,” he announces as we crumple up our sandwich wrappers.

  I point to his ear. “Make that six.”

  “No way. On my ear? Oh, man, that’s undignified.” He swipes at the spot with a napkin. “Did I get it?”

  “Most of it,” I tell him, laughing. He’s even cuter when he seems embarrassed.

  He pats at his ear. “But the sandwich was worth the mess, am I right?”

  He is right. “Delicious,” I tell him. We talk about favorite foods — his is watermelon — and I confess to him how much I love making up recipes. He seems impressed by that, and I blush. We compare what’s on our iPods, discuss our kid brothers (Rem has two), our jobs, and anything else that comes into our heads. When I’m not looking into Rem’s eyes, I feel something that I’ve never felt around any guy — certainly not around Travis. I feel at home, like it’s okay to just be myself.

  When I am looking into his eyes, it’s a different story. I feel as if some hidden spark deep inside me is starting to glow like an ember, and I’m no longer sure who “myself” really is. Someone who can cast spells, who might be able to make things move just by thinking about them, and someone — the most magical feeling of all — who can share a connection with a guy like Rem and not shy away from it.

  I come back from lunch feeling dazed, in a spin of happiness and total confusion. What I feel for Rem feels completely different from a crush. My crush on Travis is a breathless, fluttery, don’t-get-too-close-or-I’ll-faint kind of thing; with Rem, it’s more how do I already know you so well?

  I wonder if psychic Dyami is picking up on how confused and giddy I am right now. But she’s reading a customer’s palm at the small table next to the register, so I busy myself rehanging a group of dream catchers that someone’s picked over and left on the counter.