Arcane Wisdome

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  To make matters worse, Lucy’s brothers, Jason and Jacob, came hurtling into the kitchen, their faces agog as they stared at Melinda. Nearing thirteen, they both had a terrible crush on their stepmother. Their school uniform — khaki trousers and navy blue sweaters over white shirts — made them look even more alike than their twin-ness did. Jason’s brown hair was straighter than Jacob’s, and Jacob’s eyes were hazel instead of Jason’s blue, and because they were mirror-twins, Jacob was right-handed and Jason was left, but their resemblance was strong enough to cause confusion among almost everyone who knew them.

  “Hi, Melinda,” Jacob, the more demonstrative of the two, said for both of them; Jason was content to stare.

  “Hi, guys,” she answered, making them feel great because she didn’t call them boys. “The dining room table needs setting; it’s your night.”

  “Okay,” Jacob and Jason said together and went to pull placemats and flatware out of their drawers.

  Washing lettuce in the sink, the last of the salad ingredients, Lucy thought she might throw up. The way her brother’s carried on! It was worse than comedy families on tv, living with Melinda, she decided. “Do you want the tomatoes quartered?” she made herself ask, annoyed that Melinda hadn’t told her what she expected. “Or do you want them chopped up?" She wiggled the paring knife suggestively. “Which?”

  “Yes quarter them, please, if you would." Melinda said, accompanied by a sizzle as she set the chicken breasts to cooking.

  What a dazer she was, Lucy thought. Being reasonable and friendly, and all the time it’s uber-faux ... she doesn’t even know I can’t stand her. She thinks everyone has to like her. It was hard to talk to her because she was trying so hard. She’s always being nice, so I’ll get along with her. Eeeuw. Lucy took a chef’s knife from the knife block and picked up the washed tomatoes. She pulled the cutting board nearer and quartered and cored each of the four tomatoes, leaving them out on the board. When she started to slice the cucumbers, she felt each cut with satisfaction. “Almost done,” she announced, reaching for the scallions. She carried the sliced veggies to the salad bowl and dropped them in, then got the lettuce and began to tear the leaves.

  Melinda remained at the stove, watching the chicken breasts. “Lucy, about tomorrow — ”

  “What about tomorrow?" She tore off two leaves at once. This was the last thing she wanted to talk about — going to this new therapist her dad and Melinda were so sure she needed.

  “I’ll pick you up at school, and take you to Doctor Paige’s office,” said Melinda, pouring a cup of white wine into the sauté pan and stirring the contents slowly with a wooden spoon. “Once you know where it is, we can figure out a way for you to get yourself there.”

  “Do we have to talk about this right now? Can’t it wait?" Lucy snapped. She wanted Melinda to forget about the whole thing, but knew it was useless to complain about it — any protesting would only make Melinda more certain the therapist was necessary. She retreated into an edgy silence.

  “How was band practice?" Melinda asked a couple minutes later, her attention on her cooking, sounding as if she’d forgotten that she’d already asked. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Okay. I’m pretty bored with flute, you know,” Lucy told her, speaking the way the teachers asked her to talk in class.

  “But you’re so good at it,” Melinda said, and seemed about to go on, but decided not to.

  “Six years of lessons’ll do that,” Lucy finished tearing the lettuce and went to the sink again to wash her hands; she didn’t run the leftover bits down the garbage disposal.

  Melinda looked like she wanted to say something more, but she kept her lips closed, concentrating on the pan on the stove.

  Jason and Jacob came back into the kitchen to get plates and glasses and napkins. They both stared at Melinda before they went back into the dining room.

  Lucy did her best to ignore them as she did the last of the lettuce, and then rinsed her hands.

  “Do you have any plans for the weekend?" Melinda asked, as Lucy was about to leave the room.

  “I’m going to hang out with the Geeks, I guess,” Lucy said, feeling wary.

  Melinda frowned, but didn’t argue with her. “Jared and I were talking about maybe going to the folk concert at the Mondovi Center in Davis, if you’d like to come with us.”

  Had it been anyone but Melinda asking, Lucy might have accepted at once, but since it was her stepmother, she said, “Davis? It’s a two-hour drive. Each way.”

  “Well, your dad and I would be glad if you’d come with us. Think about it and tell me what you decide." Melinda turned the chicken breasts again, her face averted from Lucy. A couple of minutes later, she asked, “Would you mind getting down the red platter for the yams?”

  Lucy did as Melinda asked, her jaw aching with tension. “Are Jake and Jase going with you?”

  Melinda considered her answer. “I think so.”

  “And you’d leave me home alone?" she marveled.

  “You’d stay with the Conklins,” said Melinda.

  “The Conklins?’ Lucy burst out.

  “You like Kristen Conklin, don’t you?" Melinda said, sounding perplexed, and then suddenly lost her patience. She stared directly at her stepdaughter and spoke distinctly, her voice not loud but penetrating. “Look, Lucy, I know your mother’s death was hard on you. I get that. I’m even sympathetic, little as you may believe it. Eleven isn’t a good time to lose anyone close to you, especially your mother. I’m sorry you had to go through so much.”

  “Yeah,” said Lucy, in patent disbelief.

  “It’s only been six months since Jared and I got married, and as I told you then, I don’t expect you to accept me, not completely, any time soon, maybe not ever. But I’m not going to apologize for loving your father, and becoming a part of this family. And I don’t want to see you making things hard for yourself because you don’t want to be disloyal to your mother’s memory.”

  That last remark struck much too keenly. Lucy felt the sting of tears in her eyes and a knot in her throat. “You ... you don’t ... ” Words failed her. She exclaimed something incoherent and ran from the kitchen and bolted up the stairs to her room, making as much noise as possible stamping up the stairs. As she slammed the door closed, she gave way to the kind of horrible crying that she hadn’t experienced since her dad and Melinda got married, when she had been almost inconsolable. Dropping onto her bed, she grabbed her pillow and held it against her face so no one could hear her sobs.

  * * *

  About fifteen minutes later, Lucy’s dad knocked on her door. “Dinner’s on the table. You coming down?”

  “I’m not hungry." She hiccupped and pounded her pillow with her fist.

  “You need to eat, Lucy." He waited, then added, “We’re both worried about you.”

  She heard the anxiety in his voice and for just a second it made her feel happy — he cared about how she felt — but that gave way in the next instant to annoyance. “She’s such a dazer.”

  “Melinda’s offered to put your dinner in the fridge. You can heat it up later, when you — ”

  “Okay,” Lucy said, wishing he would go eat and leave her alone.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, and hiccupped again, feeling so miserable that she didn’t even want to go online or call any of her friends — all she wanted to do was to sit in the dark, wrapped in wretchedness, embracing her pillow and her despair, and for a time, that’s what she did.

  But after a while she reached under her nightstand and pulled out A Witch’s Hornbook and began to read, trying to feel her mother through the distinctive writing on the brittle pages.

  3

  Sometime after midnight, Lucy went down to the kitchen to have supper, and as she did, she mulled over all she had read in A Witch’s Hornbook — spells that read like recipes, herbals that listed all the things plants could be used for, festivals that marked the witches’ year, ways you could cause trouble withou
t being found out, all kinds of things that baffled and intrigued her.

  “It’s just silly,” she said aloud as she finished the last bit of yam and carried her plate to the sink. “That stuff doesn’t work." It looked good in movies, she thought, but that was special effects, not anything real.

  Yet could she be sure? Maybe there was something to it — her mother must have thought so or she wouldn’t have made those notes in the book. That alone kept Lucy from rejecting what she had read, unlikely as it was that there was anything at all to it. Lucy wondered about that as she went up the stairs to her room and a late, heavy slumber that lasted half an hour longer than usual. She rushed to get dressed and out of the house with the rest of the family, glad now that she had eaten dinner at one a.m. since she had no time for breakfast

  * * *

  Lucy nearly ran into Gweneth at the end of gym class as they rushed for the showers along with eighty other girls, all wrapped in towels and in a hurry to get washed and dressed — Gweneth was coming in from volleyball, Lucy from swimming, and both of them were in a hurry. “Hey.”

  “Hi,” Gweneth responded. She had a bruise forming on the knuckles of her right hand.

  “Hurt yourself?" She pointed to Gweneth’s knuckles; they were scraped and red.

  “A little. Skinned my hand making a dive to return the ball, and fell trying." She frowned. “It didn’t work." She flexed her hand. “Nothing soft about a volleyball.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  They slipped into the steamy shower room, walking gingerly on the slick tiles, and taking adjacent stalls. The sounds of pouring water and the echo of girls talking were all around them.

  “I was stupid,” said Gweneth, raising her voice to be heard

  Lucy said no more, knowing Gweneth wouldn’t like explaining how she hurt her hand; she was a jock in that way. Both of them did a quick wash and shampoo, made sure the lather was all gone, then stepped out of the shower and wrapped their towels around them once again. Lucy was a couple of steps ahead of Gweneth and about to leave, when she heard Gweneth call to her. Lucy slowed down.

  “Hey, wait up." She was gathering up her shampoo bottle and her scented bar of soap, so her hands weren’t free.

  “Okay,” said Lucy, holding the door into the corridor to shrieks of disapproval.

  “So do you think Bruce is as much of a toad as I do?" Gweneth ask as they hurried back to their lockers to dress.

  “Maybe more,” said Lucy.

  “He’s joined the Chess Club,” said Gweneth in disgust. “He’s a good player, unfortunately.”

  “Too bad,” said Lucy as she finished wiping herself dry; she opened her locker and pulled out her supply bag, thumbing on her battery-operated hair-dryer while she ran a styling brush through her damp hair. Then she heard herself ask, “So Gweneth, what do you think about witchcraft?”

  “Witchcraft? What kind of witchcraft are we talking about? You mean Harry Potter and Disney and Charmed reruns? Or ancient goddesses? Or woman-moon-power?" She was peering into her locker mirror, reapplying her eye shadow and mascara.

  “No, I mean like spells and curses and sendings and stuff." Lucy answered over the whine of her hair-dryer.

  “Superstition and folklore. Real chauvinistic ox-crap if you ask me." She picked up her hair-dryer, flicked the switch, but nothing happened.

  “Want to borrow mine?" Lucy said as she fingered her hair, now almost dry. She held out the hair dryer.

  “Thanks." Gweneth took it, turned it back on, and went to work on her shiny black hair with a large, round brush. When she was done, she handed the dryer back just as the five-minute bell rang.

  Lucy swore and hurried to get into her black skinny jeans and her red walking shoes. “Witchcraft,” she resumed as she tugged her turquoise-and-cobalt top over her head. “You don’t think it’s anything more than folklore?”

  “Hardly,” said Gweneth.

  “Okay,” said Lucy, putting her things back into her locker, taking out her book bag, and slamming the door.

  “Why’d you ask?" Gweneth was hurriedly applying her deep-red lipstick, so the question came out slurred.

  “Oh, nothing really. I found an old book in the attic. About witchcraft and all kinds of stuff." She felt strange not admitting that the book was her mother’s, but she couldn’t bear to hear anyone speak against her mother’s memory, not even one of the Gothic Geeks.

  “Hum,” went Gweneth, buttoning on her tight, shiny blouse. ‘What’s the book like?”

  “It’s ... interesting,” said Lucy, swinging her book bag over her shoulder.

  Gweneth was a couple of steps behind her. “You don’t think there’s anything to witchcraft, do you?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I’m curious, you know?”

  “Sure,” said Gweneth.

  Inspiration struck Lucy so forcefully that she almost stumbled. “I was wondering if I might be able to make some kind of computer project out of it. For the Geeks. You know, a program that casts a spell." They had almost reached the place where Lucy would go left and Gweneth would go right. “Do you think they’d consider it?’

  “Maybe,” she said as the warning bell rang. “Maybe not.”

  “Think about it,” Lucy requested.

  “Sure. Okay,” said Gweneth, and almost sprinted away to class.

  Lucy moved only a little more slowly, but that was because the other students around her weren’t going fast enough — or so she told herself.

  * * *

  The afternoon slid by, and then school was over for the day. True to her word, Melinda was waiting for Lucy in front of the school, her car idling, her expression strained. As Lucy got into the passenger seat, she said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Melinda pulled carefully into the confusion of cars and students, making for Washington Avenue. She was concentrating on her driving, but finally said, “I hope you’ll find Isadora Paige helpful, Lucy. I don’t want you to think that seeing her is a punishment.”

  “Why would I think that?" Lucy asked, much too sweetly.

  “Don’t make this harder than it is,” Melinda said, almost pleading. “We’re doing this because you need it.”

  “I didn’t think it was hard for you, making me see her. I think you think it’s necessary." Lucy managed a big sigh. “You and dad aren’t comfortable with me. I get it. I really do.”

  Melinda started to say something else, then thought better of it, and drove the four miles in silence.

  * * *

  “So what kind of ‘ologist are you?" Lucy asked, staring at Isadora Paige in a way that she hoped showed how little she cared.

  “I have a PhD in psychology,” came her unflustered answer.

  “So I have to call you Doctor Paige?" Lucy scoffed, making sure that the psychologist realized she was scoffing.

  “You can, if you like. I’d rather you call me Isadora." Her manner was friendly but reserved, so this answer was unexpected; Lucy wasn’t used to adults being so quick to make such an invitation.

  Lucy blinked. “Okay." She wondered if she’d be able to, now that she had been given permission. “Isadora.”

  She was a neat woman in her late thirties, her dark-brown hair done up in a French twist, sleek and simple. She wore tan wool slacks and a cashmere sweater in a muted shade of iris. There was a framed photograph of an owl on the wall above her. No wonder Melinda liked her, Lucy thought as she took stock of the woman, who finally said, “Well?”

  “Shi — ” said Lucy, daring to use one of the worst words she knew. That should keep the woman from ‘secting her.

  Isadora seemed unfazed by Lucy’s language. “I assume you know why you’re here.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?" Lucy challenged, not wanting to volunteer anything to the therapist.

  Isadora opened a spiral-bound notebook. “Your mother died four years ago; your father remarried last year. In the last nine months, your grades have dropped, you have become depressed and moody, you have been associating
with outsider-type kids, you haven’t wanted to practice the flute or take music lessons, you have become alienated from your family and — ” She stopped. “Would you agree with most of that?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And I’m the fifth therapist you’ve been sent to during that time."

  Lucy tried not to fidget in her chair, but she disliked the keen stare Isadora turned on her. “I guess.”

  There was a long silence. Then Isadora sat forward. “I’m not going to force you to talk to me, Lucy. For one thing, it wouldn’t help, and for another, both of us have better things to do with our time.”

  The previous four therapists Lucy had seen had tried all kinds of things to get her to “open up,” as they put it. They cajoled, they pleaded, they lectured, they scolded, but they never had put the decision about therapy in Lucy’s hands. Caught off-guard, Lucy muttered, “It’s hard. Hard to talk about.”

  “I would think so,” said Isadora. “Otherwise you’d have worked something out by now." She sat back in her comfortable chair. “You’re a smart girl. You understand what goes on around you.”

  “Being smart isn’t everything,” Lucy said, almost sulking. “If you’re smart, people always expect you’ll be cool, that you’ll work hard, that you won’t let anything turn you ozwonk or into a dazer — that you won’t get into trouble.”

  “What people?”

  “Oh, you know. People,” Lucy frowned,

  If Isadora noticed the frown, she didn’t show it. “So a lot’s expected of you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because you’re smart,” Isadora said.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, a hesitant note in her voice now. “That, and other things. You know?”

  “You’re the oldest, aren’t you." The way Isadora said it, it wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah. Jake and Jase are two-and-a-half years younger than I am." She looked toward the windows that faced the wooded slope of San Felipe Hill where ferns, live oak, and a few coast redwoods made for deep shadows. “They’re twins. You know what twins are like.”