Arcane Wisdome

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Lucy? This is Melinda.” She was speaking in a hurry, her voice tight, a little out of breath. “I’m going to be about two hours late. I’ve already called your father, and he says to order something delivered; he’s still on his inspection, and he’ll pick up something on his way home for us to eat later. So if you don’t mind, you’re in charge of dinner for you and the twins. Chinese is better than pizza, but it’s up to you.”

  “Okay,” Lucy replied. “Is anything wrong?”

  Melinda hesitated, and that told Lucy that there was trouble. “Not really. Not for me. I witnessed a ... a traffic accident and I have to make a report to the police.”

  Lucy didn’t like the sound of that. When adults said not really, they often meant just the opposite, and police reports sounded serious. “So you’ll be home by when? Seven?" She winced at how much she sounded like Melinda. “Does dad know?”

  “Yes; I’ve called him. I should be home by eight at the latest. I’ll call if things go any longer than eight." She sounded tense and shaky at the same time. “Don’t worry.”

  “Okay,” said Lucy.

  “There’s money in the flowered jar next to the stove. Use your good judgment, don’t go overboard, but don’t skimp.”

  “Okay,” she repeated, and heard Melinda hang up.

  Lucy thought for a couple of seconds, then went into the family room. “Melinda’s going to be late. Chinese or pizza?”

  “Pizza!" her brothers crowed in unison, and each of them began to demand their favorite toppings.

  “What about Frank and Luigi’s half-and-half?”

  “Get an extra-large one,” Jacob ordered, and Jason grinned, and turned his thumbs up.

  So Lucy went and took out money from the flowered jar, called in the order, and while she waited, she decided to make herself a cup coffee, since neither her dad nor Melinda could tell her she shouldn’t have it.

  * * *

  After dinner, Lucy went up to her room, took A Witch’s Hornbook from its hiding place and opened it to the chapter on sendings. This was the strangest stuff of all, and she found it unexpectedly fascinating. She could see what had interested her mother in this part of the book. This looked like something she could turn into a program for the Gothic Geeks, because it was filled with formulas rather than the rituals of spells. Using a computer to do sendings seemed possible, if she could figure out how to work the math.

  But as she read, making notes as she went along, she decided she ought to try a spell, just to find out if one really worked. And that it should be something that could not be a coincidence or explained away.

  The thought came suddenly and unbidden — Nate Evers would take her to Ditch Day. Talk about something that wasn’t going to happen! She laughed out loud, but she turned back in the book for the section on spells, and began to take down notes.

  * * *

  By the time Melinda got home it was almost eleven and Lucy’s dad was really worried. He tried to cover it up, taking some time to help Jason and Jacob with homework and trying out a video game when they were done. He had got home at eight-thirty to the news that Melinda was still at the police station, and would not be home for another hour or more. He had banged about the kitchen throwing together a stir-fry, and after the twins were off to bed, he retreated into his office and logged onto his computer, where he spent the next two hours searching the Internet for names of lawyers. He was unaware that Lucy was still awake and working out the spell she was determined to cast the following night.

  5

  Throughout the next day, Lucy found herself thinking back to the instructions she had put together the night before, and alternately supposing she might try it on a lark, or that the whole thing was too ludicrous, too preposterous to attempt, even as a stunt. But on her way home she stopped at the big Walgreens drugstore on Jefferson and bought a rose-scented pillar candle, a bag of sea salt, and a whiskbroom with a dustpan. As she walked the last several blocks to her house, she came up with an explanation as to why she had made such unusual purchases, and was mildly disappointed when neither Melinda nor her brothers asked her about them.

  Melinda was preoccupied, and left most of the dinner preparation to Lucy; since Lucy had done this often enough before her dad had married Melinda, she was pleased to have that job again.

  “Are you going to have to go to court?" Jacob asked Melinda as she sat down to eat; he was excited about the possibility.

  “Yes." Melinda looked downcast.

  “That’s great,” Jason chimed in.

  “Three people were killed,” Melinda said quietly.

  Three people?" Lucy exclaimed.

  “This isn’t dinner conversation,” their dad told the twins. “We’ll discuss it later.”

  Which means maybe never, Lucy thought, and dug into her pasta with spinach-tomato-and-meatball sauce.

  * * *

  When she finally went up to her room, she discovered that she was filled with anxiety that someone might find out that she had considered something as ozwonked as magic to get Nate Evers’ attention by Ditch Day. What kind of dazer was she? She knew that witchcraft didn’t work. What was the use of trying anything so ozwonked as a spell? She glanced at the sheet of notes on her nightstand, trying not to contemplate what she might be able to accomplish with the materials and instructions she had gathered.

  But when she went back to the foot of her bed, she found herself picking up the bag of materials and opening it. “It’s not as if it’ll work,” she said to herself as she sorted out the things she would need to perform the spell. When it didn’t work, she could be sure that the whole idea was silly. And, she reminded herself, she could always change her mind if it turned out to be too weird.

  She took the notebook with the instructions she had written, and spread it out on the duvet where she could read it easily.

  A Drawing Spell for an invitation

  1) Lock the door. Secure a level space at least six feet in diameter. Make sure the space is clean and free of any contaminants, furniture, rugs, or carpets. Place all the items needed for the spell near the center of the clear area, except for the ring, which should be worn on the middle finger of the right hand. Turn off all sources of distraction, including the computer.

  2) Using the salt, enclose the cleared space with the salt in a circle, putting yourself inside the unbroken perimeter before the salt is poured. Once inside the circle, do not move beyond the salt until the spell is cast.

  3) Recite the first quatrain of the spell.

  3) Place an unburned candle at the center of the circle of salt. A pillar-candle works best for this purpose.

  4) Place the cup next to the candle on the left of the candle as you face north. Tie the red ribbon around the candle near its base and light the candle.

  There were three windows in her room: two faced west and one faced north. She’d have to be sure there was room enough for a candle on the sill, and it would probably be wise to tie back the curtains. On impulse she took a couple of scarves and pulled the curtains to the sides of the window, showing a wedge of night sky. Not that she was really going to do the spell, she reminded herself, but to see how much she’d have to do to her room to try.

  5) Recite the second quatrain of the spell.

  6) Take the two test tubes and unstop them. Pour their contents into the cup while reciting the third quatrain. Stir the contents of the cup with your ringed finger.

  7) Name the one you wish to draw to you, and what you want of that person. Be specific in your requirements.

  8) Take the contents of the cup and pour them on the candle to extinguish it.

  9) Recite the last quatrain of the spell.

  Lucy picked up the paper with the spells and glanced over the quatrains, trying to decide if she would be able to read them cold, or would she have to memorize them — assuming she’d do anything as ultraviolet as attempting to cast the spell, that is.

  10) Break the circle of salt using the finger on which you wear the r
ing. Remove the cup from the circle and place the ring in the cup.

  11) Sweep up all the salt and dispose of it within an hour at a place at least a mile away from where the spell was cast.

  12) Place the extinguished candle on a north-facing window sill and light it, letting it burn for twenty-four hours, then dispose of it by leaving it along with the ring in the cup with your instructor.

  It all seemed pretty odd, now that she looked at it, and maybe even silly. Salt circles. Beribboned candles. Rings. Cups. Quatrains. “But I can do it,” she said to the walls. “I could. If I wanted to.”

  * * *

  For three hours she wrestled with Geometry, American History, English, and Cyber Science, and again she wondered if it had been a good idea to take two science courses in the same semester. Not that it mattered. The schedule was set and she would have to deal with it. Environmental Science was important, just like Cyber Science. She was fairly sure that she didn’t want to take an eight o’clock class in the fall, but that was when all the electives were given, and she wanted to take Culture and Folklore. This year her eight o’clock class was Spanish II and she didn’t think she wanted to take Spanish III just yet. Mister Martinez taught Spanish III and he was known to be a hard grader, boasting that he only gave one A per semester. She stopped musing and carefully moved her bed over about four feet, leaving the center of the room open. Next she rolled up the rug that lay there, and set about whisking the floor clean, then went over it with a dusting cloth, just to be sure. By the time she was ready it was almost midnight, and she felt ready to give it a try.

  Lucy took the instructions and put them on the floor, then gathered up everything she would need and set them inside what would be the circle. She put on the ring, noticing that it felt unexpectedly warm and faintly tingly. Making sure she had a small box of matches in her jeans pocket, she took up the container of salt. There was about half a cup of salt she could use, so she began very slowly and carefully to outline the salt circle on the floor. When she was finished, she picked up the paper with the quatrains of the spell on it. She cleared her throat and read out, just above a whisper:

  Rise the wind and rise the sea

  Let the withes run out and through

  Find the one I seek in omneity

  Draw him hither without ado.

  Not very good poetry, she thought, and was glad she’d looked up omneity — it meant allness, everything, totality. And withes meant strips of willow. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but she decided she might as well finish the spell now that she had begun it, and see what happened. She placed the cup and the candle, taking care to face north as she did, then she crouched down to tie the ribbon around the candle’s base and to light it; the flame flickered into life, then rose straight, with hot blue at its heart.

  The drawing starts, the candle glows,

  The summons runs with wind and air

  So will it bring him whom I chose

  And draw him hence from anywhere.

  She stifled a giggle, thinking this quatrain seemed as forced as the first, but Lucy read it just as written; there was something about doing this that was — she had to think of the word — arousing, maybe, or exhilarating. She felt energy welling in her almost like the flame was inside her as well as in the candle. Of course that didn’t make much sense, but she enjoyed the sensation it created. She picked up the two test tubes, removed the stoppers and held them over the cup as she hunkered down again, taking care not to spill any of the viscous liquid while she read:

  From the nearest, from afar

  These insubstantial bonds will draw you

  And you will know the guiding star

  And bring you to the one who calls you.

  As she finished the last line, a queasiness took hold of her, and she steadied herself, thinking that there must have been a little quake or something like it, to shift her balance so abruptly. To be certain she was doing it right, she read the instructions one more time, and stirred the contents of the cup with her middle finger. There was no mention of how many times to do it, so she swept her finger around the bowl ten times, just to be sure. Still holding onto the cup she said, quietly but firmly, “Nathan Evers, you will invite me to Ditch Day and you will take me to Ditch Day." She gave herself a couple seconds to be sure that covered it, and then she poured the contents of the cup over the candle; it sputtered and went out, a winding tendril of reddish smoke rising from the blackened wick.

  The drawing spell is truly set

  Fire, earth, and air agree,

  Water seals the spell to let

  The one I draw to come to me.

  Lucy held her breath, almost standing on tiptoe, but nothing strange happened beyond an odd chill that made the hair stand up on her arms. Feeling a bit disappointed, she bent down and broke the circle with her ringed finger, widening it to about five inches. Satisfied that the break was sufficient, she worked the ring off her finger and put it in the cup, as the instructions told her to do. “Where do I put this now?” she asked aloud — the instructions didn’t say where she was to put the cup or the ring. “I hope it doesn’t matter much,” she whispered, as if she thought she might be overheard. Looking around the room, she decided to put the cup with its ring in her nightstand drawer. She stepped outside of the circle and went to stretch across her bed to set down the cup.

  Feeling a little breathless, and a little floaty as well, Lucy took her whiskbroom and dustpan out of her sweater drawer and set to work sweeping up the salt, pouring it into a plastic shopping bag. She looked at the clock: twelve-twenty. She had to get the salt swept, the rug unrolled, her bed moved, and leave the house within the next twenty minutes. This time, the sensation of uneasiness that enveloped her had nothing to do with the spell, but with being alone on the street by herself at this hour. The neighborhood was considered safe, but she’d never put that assurance to the test before, not really. Working steadily, she had her bed in position and the rug in place by twelve thirty-five. Pleased with her effort, she took her anorak from her closet, thrust the bag of salt into the pocket as she pulled it on, and let herself out of her room as silently as possible.

  At the back door, she unlocked the deadbolt, and making sure she had her key, slipped out onto the deck, locked the door, and hurried down the side stairs, along the breezeway into the blowing night.

  6

  “What bothers you so much about Frankenstein?" Isadora asked Lucy; it was an overcast afternoon, low clouds spread like canvas over the sky. There was almost no wind, so that the trees on San Felipe Hill looked like a computer-generated backdrop, not living trees. It was two days since she had cast her spell, and so far nothing had happened.

  Lucy dragged her gaze away from the trees. “It’s just such a ... such a moral story. Messing with the mysteries of creation can only backfire. The construction of a human must lead to disaster. It’s heavy-handed and obvious.”

  “Do you think it might have seemed otherwise when it was first published?" Isadora asked. “Think of what Europe was like right after Napoleon was finally banished. War had ruined a lot of commerce; roads and bridges were wrecked. Technology was in its infancy. Most people weren’t thinking about such matters as manufactured humans.”

  “Probably not,” Lucy conceded.

  “Then Frankenstein could be considered pretty radical, especially coming from a teenage girl.”

  “Maybe." Lucy took a sip of her tea to buy a little time to think. “Mister Faccio keeps calling it the first real science fiction story, and that might be true, but it’s still heavy-handed. Science gone wrong. Men trying to play God. Science as another kind of magic. The monster wanting to die. Come on. Star Wars is more sophisticated than that. Batman is more sophisticated.”

  “What would make the story better, do you think?" Isadora asked.

  This question surprised Lucy. “More uncertainty. More questions, not about the morality of the thing, but about the functionality. Can you really build a human being out of sp
are parts? If it’s not a human being, then what is it? An android? It’s not a clone. And since it isn’t human, and theoretically, not an animal, then ... ” Her words trailed off as her burst of thought came up against concepts she had never had to express before.

  “You could do a paper about those questions, couldn’t you?" Isadora asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said slowly, a faint smile dawning. “That’s a good idea. Thanks, Isadora.”

  Isadora returned the smile, then asked, “How’s everything else going?”

  “Okay,” said Lucy, turning toward the window.

  “That doesn’t sound very positive,” Isadora remarked, but didn’t prod.

  It took Lucy a little while to sort out her thoughts. “Okay, something’s bothering me, but." She shook her head. “It seems so ... trivial.”

  “What seems trivial?”

  “Oh, it’s not really important.”

  “If it isn’t important, then why don’t you tell me about it?" Isadora waited, her notebook open, her pen at the ready.

  Lucy sighed. “It’s Ditch Day. I told you about it. It’s coming up, and no one’s asked me to go."

  “Who would you like to have take you? Tom Foster?"

  “Tom isn’t going. He says it’s a waste of time. He’s going to the Tech Museum in San Jose instead. The school’s all for it." She sighed again. “And it is. A waste of time. He’s right. But, I don’t know, it sure feels important."

  “What would you like to do about it? Will you go if you don’t have a date?”

  “I guess so. That’s what Niki’s doing, and Kristen Conklin." She rubbed the sides of her tea-mug. “I hate it that there’s nothing I can do about it.”