by Fiona Horne
The book emphasised that there was a big advantage when people formally bonded to do magic – a group could become more than the sum of its parts.
Forming a magical club might seem like a lofty aspiration, but my motives were actually pretty basic. Having been rejected by the cool clique, I thought we could create our own – a magical one. Then we could kick the cool clique’s butts . . . metaphorically speaking. We didn’t need them. Maybe our club could magically help me find out why Mr Barrow had it in for me, too. So far I was completely clueless.
Brenda came over with a jug of homemade lemonade and a selection of cookies.
‘These blue ones are for enhanced communication,’ she said, smiling. ‘It looks like you guys are having a meeting, so I thought they may come in handy.’
‘Another recipe of your gramma’s?’ I asked.
‘Yes. You might be able to taste sweet basil – it loosens the tongue.’
‘This place is really cool,’ Amelia said, looking around appreciatively as Alyssa nodded her agreement.
Bryce and Dean were gripping opposite ends of the table and looking at me expectantly. It was time to come out with it.
‘Well, I’ve had an idea. Now that Cassidy and co officially hate our guts at school . . . I just thought we might as well completely embrace the freak factor and have our own club.’
I hesitated. No one looked too resistant so, encouraged, I continued. ‘It would be a club with a specific purpose. That is, it could be a little bit . . .’ My voice trailed off.
‘What?’ Dean urged me on.
‘Magical.’ I almost whispered the word, waiting for their retorts and ridicule. But everyone was silent. I looked at their faces and they all appeared thoughtful.
Brenda appeared again with more cookies. We had already devoured the first lot. ‘These ones are for enlightenment,’ she whispered in my ear, ‘infused with lemon and sage.’
I nodded and offered the plate around the table.
‘If it’s a magical club, maybe we should call it a coven?’ Alyssa said.
‘Aren’t covens evil?’ Dean looked nervous.
‘No,’ Bryce said, ‘covens are just people who get together and do magic and other stuff like that.’
‘How do you know that?’ Dean looked at Bryce warily. I think he was still getting used to the fact that the best-looking and coolest guy in school was hanging out with us motley crew.
‘Uh, I think I read it in a book. You know, I think Vania’s idea is great.’
He turned to me and smiled in that dazzling way, and for a second my heart fluttered. But then I folded those wings. Guard your heart Vania, you’re just friends, I admonished myself.
Brenda came over with a jug. ‘Would anyone like refills?’
We all nodded.
She poured the lemonade carefully, and I noticed that there was a large clear stone in the bottom of the jug.
‘What is that?’ I asked.
She smiled. ‘Quartz crystal. I use it to cleanse and empower whatever I place it in.’
‘That’s weird,’ Dean scoffed.
If Brenda was offended she didn’t show it. ‘Well, consider this,’ she said pleasantly. ‘There is quartz in watches, silicon in computers – there are crystals conducting energy in many common things we see every day.’ She stopped before adding cryptically, ‘And some things we don’t see.’
Brenda was so cool. I had a feeling I could learn a lot from her.
‘Maybe you could teach Vania more about that kind of stuff,’ Amelia and Alyssa said. Yes, they were most definitely psychic.
‘Would you like that, Vania?’ Brenda’s unblinking eye turned in my direction with a piercing gaze, and I felt a shiver of anticipation – and apprehension. If I said yes, who knew what could happen? I knew I was drawn to magic, and I was starting to think I had some in me, but the memory of the tree and that blackness in me made me worry what might be unleashed.
I sat there in silence until Bryce said, ‘Come on, Vania, this was your idea anyway.’ He turned to Brenda. ‘And while you’re teaching her spells, maybe you can throw in the recipe for these amazing cookies!’ He took a big, exaggerated bite and everyone laughed. He was hot, but he wasn’t afraid to be a dork sometimes – which, I had to admit, was adorable.
‘I would love it if you’d teach me some things, Brenda . . . thank you.’ I smiled.
Brenda nodded graciously and then turned to the others. ‘So what are the rest of you going to do?’
The twins immediately spoke up, ‘We’re interested in psychokinesis.’
‘Moving things with your mind – very cool,’ said Brenda approvingly.
Dean was next, and he shifted in his seat self-consciously. ‘Uhh, I don’t know exactly. I liked it when Vania made that penny turn gold. I thought that was magic, but it turned out to be science. I like magic, but I think I still have a lot to learn about what it is exactly. Maybe
I could just help her?’ He looked at me questioningly. ‘Could I be your assistant, Vania?’
I nodded. I had a feeling we would work well together. ‘For sure, Dean – you can help me until you decide what you want to do.’
And that left Bryce, who was sitting back looking very self-assured. ‘I know exactly what I want to focus on. Communicating with ghosts,’ he said decisively.
‘Is that possible? Are there ghosts?’ Dean said nervously. He looked around the room as if something were going to leap at him out of the dark shadowy corners of the cafe.
‘Only good ones here,’ Brenda said reassuringly and Dean relaxed . . . slightly.
‘Okay, so we are officially a coven,’ I said. ‘Um . . . people will give us a hard time if we talk openly about our magic. We have to swear to secrecy.’ I looked at Brenda.
‘I ain’t saying nothing!’ She smiled and walked back behind the counter.
I stretched out my hands. ‘Let’s make a pact,’ I said.
Bryce immediately took my hand. I trembled and prayed that he didn’t notice. Alyssa took my other hand, then Dean and Amelia closed the circle.
It felt appropriate to say something, but I wasn’t sure what. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, hoping to summon up something profound. Magic is the art of creating change with will. As I remembered those words from the book, suddenly the right words just poured out of me.
‘For the good of all and with harm to none, I now declare the magic’s begun,’ I said.
I looked around and saw that everyone’s eyes were closed. I could feel my hands tingling. The energy grew stronger and stronger, moving through me, coming and going – like a stream of light was being whisked around us by a giant egg beater. I could hear buzzing in my ears.
Alyssa gasped. ‘Can you feel that?’
The twins’ fiery red hair was floating up and away from their shoulders. They started laughing.
‘Awesome,’ Bryce said.
The slightly nervous look on Dean’s face had transformed into a big smile. ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed.
‘Vania, your eyes have changed colour,’ Bryce said, looking at me with a shocked expression.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They’re brown.’
‘No way,’ I said, dropping everyone’s hands and running over to the mirror above the cash register.
They were plain green, same as always.
‘That’s not funny,’ I said. ‘They’re green like they always are.’
‘Actually, they did change,’ Brenda said, coming to stand by me. ‘You just broke the spell when you got distracted. And if that’s what you kids can do on your first meeting, I can’t wait to see what you get up to next.’
That night when my mother and I were washing up after dinner I noticed that the pot of herbs she had on the windowsill were growing like crazy. Normally I would look at the pot and wonder why Mum bothered to have it there at all. Usually there was a sad little plant struggling to stay alive. But now the rosemary was cascading over the sides,
almost like an alien life form.
Mum had seen what I was looking at. ‘That rosemary just started growing all of a sudden,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘I seem to have suddenly developed a green thumb! ’ She laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
I thought of the fertility cookies I’d bought her for her birthday. After what I’d just experienced in the cafe, I had no doubt they were truly magical. I went to the pantry and there was the box. I took a peek inside. All the flower-shaped cookies were gone. Yes, the magic had definitely begun. Now it was time to put it to use.
It was Thursday afternoon, the day after our meeting, and we were in our group elective class. The group elective course was actually pretty cool, especially because it meant that the coven could hang out together and get graded for it. This semester the elective choices were ‘Solve a Mystery’ or ‘Survive a Disaster’. We were all drawn to the mystery topic; we just had to choose one. We already had a mystery to solve, of course – working out what Mr Barrow was up to – but I didn’t think we’d get any marks for solving that one.
‘What about the woman of Queen’s Cross?’ Bryce asked.
‘Sounds interesting. Who is she?’ I asked him.
‘Well, according to this article from the Summerland Star, she died fifteen years ago in a house-fire on Queen’s Cross Road. No one has ever been able to solve the mystery of who she was or how the fire started.’
‘Ooh, you could use your ghost-communicating skills with this one, Bryce,’ Amelia said.
‘You know, I think we could cream this mystery with some magic,’ said Dean enthusiastically.
We scanned the article. The photocopy was smudged and some words were hard to read, but the overall gist was that this woman hadn’t been in Summerland very long and was living alone when she’d died. No relatives could be contacted upon her death, and no one came to claim the body. The newspaper report said there were ‘mysterious circumstances’ but didn’t elaborate.
‘You don’t have to be psychic to know that we need to find some more of the original newspaper reports to get more information. This article is pretty average,’ sniffed Alyssa.
I nodded in agreement. ‘Let’s start there. Dean, you and I could go to the newspaper offices after school today and ask if they have archived copies.’
‘Deal,’ he said.
‘I could come with you, Vania,’ Bryce said.
I hesitated, and from the corner of my eye I could see the twins exchange a glance. They knew about my feelings for Bryce. No matter how far I tried to cram them inside of me, their psychic fingers managed to find them.
‘It’s cool, thanks Bryce. Dean is officially my assistant, after all.’ I smiled at Dean, who nodded in return, looking a little smug.
Bryce seemed disappointed, and I wondered for just a moment if he may like me as more than just a friend. But right at that minute Cassidy walked past wearing a super-short skirt, and his eyes turned towards her. I quickly dropped my head so that my hair shielded my face, hiding my disappointment. The universe wasn’t going to let me forget there would always be a prettier and cooler girl for him than me.
‘Hey, check this out,’ Amelia and Alyssa said in unison. I looked up and saw that the pen in front of me was slowly moving across the desk . . . and no one was touching it. ‘We’ve been practising!’ Amelia said.
‘How are you doing it?’ Dean was impressed – we all were. And it took Bryce’s attention away from Cassidy.
‘We’ve been researching psychokinesis. If you visualise an object as being weightless, and if enough people believe the same thing at the same time, the object will move where you want it to go,’ Alyssa said in a rush, her eyes never wavering from the pen.
‘Yeah, and we thought if the Egyptians could move stones with their minds to make pyramids, we could easily move a pen,’ Amelia said, her eyes focused intently like Alyssa’s.
I struggled to imagine those huge pyramids being built with the power of thousands of workers’ minds instead of with ropes, pulleys and animals. Even though I was exploring magic, my practical mind still held sway over my thought processes.
But I couldn’t deny that the pen was still moving – rolling back and forth across the desk as the twins stared at it.
‘You guys had better stop that in case someone sees,’ I whispered as, with dismay, I saw Mr Barrow striding across the library floor towards us. The pen shot off the table onto the floor.
‘What are you lot up to?’ Mr Barrow said in a suspicious tone.
‘Nothing, sir,’ Bryce said. ‘Just researching a topic for our elective.’
‘Well, that’s not nothing, is it?’ Mr Barrow sneered.
His eyes swept slowly around the library table. ‘I’ve got my eye on all of you,’ he said before walking away.
‘What a creep,’ Dean muttered under his breath.
‘What a weirdo!’ said the twins.
I just sat there mutely, feeling quite disturbed. He was getting worse and worse – but why?
‘So, why did your family move to Summerland?’ I asked Dean as we walked into town to visit the newspaper offices. I realised it was the first time he and I had hung out by ourselves. I didn’t know all that much about him.
‘We have land here. I’m actually part Chumash Indian, and our tribe were the original inhabitants of Summerlandhundreds of years ago, before the Spiritualists came.’ He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and let out a long sigh. ‘And my dad’s an alcoholic, and we had to get out of Los Angeles. There were too many temptations there for him. So when the opportunity came to move onto the family land here, we decided to take it.’
I had no idea what to say. I felt bad about Dean’s dad, but I felt worse – guilty – thinking about his people and what must have happened here when Indigenous people had been displaced. ‘I’m really sorry, Dean. Ummm, is your mum . . . ?’ I hoped my tone sounded sympathetic and not patronising.
‘My mom died when I was little,’ he mumbled.
I felt really guilty now. Dean had been at Summerland High for almost a fortnight now and not once had I asked him about his home life – I’d been too caught up with my own little dramas. Now I realised how good my life was, really.
‘Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dump all that on you,’ he started to apologise, but I cut him off.
‘Dean, please. I can’t believe how selfish I’ve been,’ I said. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m used to it, to be honest, and I prefer being here in Summerland to being in Los Angeles – people are so fake down there. Dad is definitely better up here. We’re both just trying to get on with our lives. And I like being back on the land of my ancestors. Sometimes I think I can feel it, a – I don’t know – a sense of coming home.’
He stopped and turned to look at me. ‘I’m really glad we met, Vania. I appreciate how you came up to me that first day – and you’re really easy to talk to. I’ve never had such cool friends before.’
‘Well, you do know we’re officially not cool, right?’ I said.
‘We’re our own kind of cool,’ he said, and we both laughed.
‘I actually think it’s really interesting you’re part Indian,’ I said. ‘Do you know much about your origins?’
‘To be honest, not a lot. I know the Chumash lived off the land around here and were completely self-sufficient, though.’
‘That’s pretty awesome. Hey, maybe that’s something you could focus on as a part of our coven.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I don’t know, finding out about how the Chumash Indians lived off the land and their legends and myths. I’m sure the Chumash were pretty clued in to things. Like the Indigenous Australians. I think many of the original tribes of the world had ideas about magical knowledge.’
‘You know, I like that idea. I’m going to check it out.’ Dean was smiling and looked confident. It was good to see.
By now we had reached the Summerland Star offices. The building was really old and
leaned precariously over to one side where the street sloped down the hill.
‘I hope the whole thing doesn’t fall over while we’re in there,’ I said, walking slowly up the front steps.
Inside, it was like we had stepped back in time. The walls were wood-panelled and the furniture looked like it was out of the thirties. The golden afternoon sun shone rays of light through the slatted windows, illuminating flecks of dust floating on the air. An older woman with her hair in a tight bun and wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her pointy nose sat behind a large desk with an ink fountain and an ancient typewriter on it. It was obviously only for show, though, because she was typing on a computer.
The lady glanced up but didn’t speak.
Dean cleared his throat. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am. My friend and I are wondering if you keep archived copies of the newspaper here.’
‘We do, but they are very precious. What do you children want with them?’ she said in a cold, disapproving tone.
‘We’re researching a school project about the death of a local woman that occurred about fifteen years ago.’ I smiled brightly. This woman was the gatekeeper, so we needed her on our side.
She looked me up and down. ‘You’re not from here, are you? Where is your accent from?’ I seemed to have captured her attention.
‘Australia.’ I kept the smile fixed on my face, and to my relief I saw one break out on hers.
‘You sound like Olivia Newton John! Have you seen Grease?’ Incredibly, she actually giggled, making the glasses on the end of her nose wobble.
‘Yes, ma’am, it’s one of my mum’s favourite movies.’ I said in relief. Things were starting to go our way.
The woman came out from behind her desk, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Mrs Pilkington, the custodian. The new offices of the Summerland Star are up the street, but we keep the archives here. I’d be happy to show you what we have.’
