Magic and the Modern Girl

by Mindy Klasky

  Well, everyone knew what curiosity had done to the cat. I made a silent vow that he would learn the full meaning of that adage if he tried to question me directly.

  I reached out for the flask, automatically twisting my fingers to avoid touching David’s. That motion made my wrist bend at a strange angle; he rotated his own grasp on the flask to keep it from falling. Like an awkward fool dancing sideways to pass someone in a narrow hallway, I contorted my own fingers, only to end up grasping his with full force.

  I sucked in my breath, as if I expected an electric charge to pass between us, but there was nothing. No residual glimmer of magic. No lingering sparkle of my contraceptive spell. No hint that anything had happened the afternoon before.

  My belly twisted and, for just a moment, I thought I might be ill.

  “Ready?” David asked, and his voice was calm and smooth, the steady baritone that had always anchored my magical workings.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, beyond caring if Neko suspected anything. “Ready,” I said.

  I set the flask of water on the high bookstand that occupied the center of the basement. A burlap sack sat in the center of the mahogany surface, the same sack that I had explored a week and a half before, with Melissa obliviously drinking mojitos in my kitchen. I tried not to think about the clay runes that I had enjoyed using, the smooth tiles that had clicked in my fingers as I shuffled through their smooth, glazed surfaces.

  Dust, now. Nothing but dust.

  I shook my head. “Let’s go,” I said to David.

  He eyed me for a long moment, and I wondered what he was thinking. Was he questioning my witchy ability? Was he wondering about our little diversion the day before? Was he doubting my dedication to my arcane arts?

  I’d never know.

  Without a spoken word, he ducked down. It took me a moment to figure out why he made the graceful motion, but when he stood, he clutched a silver dagger. I glanced at his ankle, unable to make out any sort of hidden sheath. Not for the first time, I wondered what other secrets my warder kept from me.

  So. David was going to treat this working as high ritual. He was moving beyond the ordinary spellcraft that he and I had practiced so many times here, in the comfort of my basement. He was elevating this magic to the limits of my witchy ability, making sure that we had the utmost astral protection.

  My throat was suddenly too dry for me to swallow. I had known this spell was important. I had understood that a lot rode on what we were doing. I had believed that my future as a witch would be determined by my ability to create an anima.

  But I had not truly grasped the seriousness of my endeavor.

  Or the danger. David rarely used his warder’s powers this blatantly. I had to assume that he sensed some very real threat to what we were doing.

  Or else, he was being his usual, paranoid, controlling self.

  Before I could decide if that last thought made me feel more or less safe, David inclined his head over the dagger and muttered a few words, too softly for me to hear. At the same time, Neko glided to my side.

  I felt my familiar magically as much as physically. He was like a highly polished bronze mirror, reflecting my own power back at me with a deep, steady glow. Neko might be a fashion king, and he might chide me far more than was fair about the makeup that I should or should not wear, but when arcane push came to magical shove, I could not imagine having a better resource at my side. I’d missed his astral companionship as we’d squabbled over milk and ice cream.

  David nodded when he saw that we were poised for spell-work, and then he extended his arms in front of him, holding the dagger steady before his eyes. “May Hecate watch over our working here and keep us safe from evil.”

  Neko and I responded as if we had rehearsed. “May Hecate keep us safe.”

  David walked a quarter circle, continuing to hold the silver blade high, like a dowsing rod searching for magical potential. I knew from past work in this basement chamber that he was facing due north. He bowed slightly, like a courtier acknowledging the presence of another haughty lord. “May the Lady of the North, the Lady of Water, watch over us during this working.”

  Once before, I had called upon the compass coordinates, the ancient elements, for protection. As my body folded into an automatic bow of respect, I remembered that other circle of power that David had trod with me, the night that I had rejected membership in the Washington Coven. The words rose to my lips without conscious recollection. “Lady of Water! We ask that you protect our workings and bless them in the name of our mother Hecate.”

  If David was proud of me for remembering the incantation, he gave no sign. I shoved down a nibble of annoyance. We had more important things to attend to than his pig-headed refusal to acknowledge my accomplishments. Or his stubborn determination to accept that we had slept together whatever his warder’s code of ethics might demand. Oops. I’d promised myself not to go there.

  As if to pull my mind back to the matter at hand, David strode another arc of the circle, planting his feet at due west. “May the Lord of Earth watch over us during this working.”

  “Lord of Earth,” I replied, “we ask that you protect our workings and bless them in the name of our mother Hecate.”

  South came next, with the Lady of Air, and then east, with the Lord of Fire. When David strode back to the northern start of the circle, a faint glow shimmered in the air, a silver curtain that separated us from ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties. I swallowed hard, sensing the tremendous power my warder had raised, even as my paranoid hindbrain whispered, “And things that go bump in the night.”

  Enough with childhood fears. I had woman’s work to do. Witching work.

  As Neko and David drew closer to the bookstand, I lifted the bag of clay dust. It felt heavier in my hands now than it had when I’d first picked it up, as if the destroyed runes could sense how I was planning to use them. Taking a deep breath to slow my pounding heart, I pulled the rope ties loose at the neck of the burlap sack.

  I started to shove my hand into the bag, but then I thought of the clay dust settling under my fingernails. I wasn’t the most fastidious of women, by any means, but I imagined those grains of clay, once they were animated, and my belly flipped at the thought of living flesh underneath my nails. Grateful that—for once—I’d thought of consequences, I tilted a generous pile of the dust into my open palm.

  “Earth,” I intoned. “For earth doth make us all.”

  “For earth doth make us all,” David repeated, and I was surprised; I had not expected any sort of call and response. Apparently, my warder thought otherwise, because he cast a sharp glance at Neko, who squeaked a belated, “For earth doth make us all.”

  All right, then.

  A giddy thought rose in my mind, that I could manipulate the pair of them, saying whatever I wanted to hear them say. Jane Madison is a powerful witch. I will do whatever Jane tells me to do. I will never, ever question Jane Madison again for as long as I shall live.

  Yeah. I was their witch, not their goddess. If I led them down such ridiculous paths, they’d snort themselves silly with laughter, however grave the atmosphere that David had created with his warding spell. I recognized my thoughts for what they were—my own mind’s attempts to keep me from focusing on the magic I was about to work. To keep me from focusing on the magic that frightened me. Terrified me.

  Because, if the anima spell failed, then I was through being a witch.

  Before I could dwell on that possibility, I clutched the flask of rainwater that David had brought. “Water,” I said, in a voice that was overloud. “For water doth bind us all.”

  “For water doth bind us all,” my minions repeated, and I forced myself to set aside my momentary pleasure at the thought that I had minions.

  I poured about a tablespoon of water into my palm, into the middle of the clay ruins. At first, the water floated on top of the red granules, sliding like a giant bead of clear mercury. But then, I poked at it with a
finger that wanted to tremble, and the water’s surface tension broke. It seeped into the clay, staining it, turning it the color of blood.

  Quickly, before I could frighten myself with that image, I kneaded the earth and water into thick clay. Drawing on kindergarten skills that I’d thought long forgotten, I shaped a very rough human form, pinched here for legs, there for arms, rolling a rough ball onto the top to form a head. My tongue caught between my teeth as I concentrated, but even that pressure wasn’t enough to keep my memory from straying to some contorted clay monstrosity I had made for Gran, as a Halloween treat long ago. I could still remember rolling my careful ball of clay, pinching a bit at the top for a pumpkin stem, and then stabbing eyes into my Play-Doh jack-o’-lantern, using a sharpened pencil to make perfect conical indentations. Gran probably still had the thing somewhere in her apartment.

  Again, I identified my wandering thoughts for the avoidance that they were and pulled my concentration back to the matter at hand. Body, arms, legs, head. I had done all that was necessary.

  Glancing quickly at David and Neko, who wore matching implacable expressions, I raised the little figurine toward my mouth. Pursing my lips, I breathed onto it gently. “Air,” I whispered, as if I were afraid to upset the balance I was building. “For air doth lift us all.”

  “For air doth lift us all.”

  I cradled the clay form on one palm and touched one free finger to my head, my throat and my heart, completing the familiar offering of my thoughts, my words and my spirit to the powers of the arcane universe. Before I could wonder if I’d built up enough of a magic reservoir, before I could ask myself whether I had the power to work the spell I’d chosen, I whispered:

  “From the darkness, light will spring

  Out of nothing, something bring.

  Gather power, dark take wing,

  Flames will crackle, fire sing.”

  I breathed a silent prayer to some unnamed entity that I had enough magic stored. I prayed that I could empower my anima.

  Empower The Arts. The phrase came to me unbidden, yet another attempt by my deceitful mind to shy away from the working at hand, from the arcane and sexual tension that filled my basement. In a flash, I could see the Tempest poster hanging in Starbucks, picture the commanding Prospero’s face. That face, which was so much like David’s.

  That was the wrong thought. Suddenly, I pictured David and me together, sprawled across the bed in his Pottery Barn perfect room. I remembered how he had brushed my hair back from my face, how he had looked at me with eyes that seemed to see me truly, differently than he had ever looked at me before.

  I shuddered and forced my mind back to the present, to the now. Energy was flowing across the bookstand, pooling in the center of its mahogany surface. I spread the fingers of my empty hand and closed my eyes, summoning the full power of the spell, even as I pushed down the memory of the illicit time I had spent with my warder, pushed away my hurt and shame and confusion. Empower The Arts, I thought again, then pushed away the words. This was more than art I was empowering. This was magic.

  A tiny bud of fire burst from the surface of the bookstand, burning without consuming the wood.

  It was nothing to be proud of. Nothing that the most powerful witch on the eastern seaboard—if my warder was to be believed—should boast about. Nothing that any sister of the Washington Coven couldn’t do with her eyes closed and one well-manicured hand tied behind her back.

  But it worked. And it was mine.

  The rosebud of fire spread across the wooden bookstand, no larger than the span of my fingers. It flickered—crimson and magenta and sunshine-orange—miniature flames that gave off heat but consumed nothing. Nothing but magic.

  Not knowing how long I could maintain the bewitching, I settled my clay doll in the middle of the flames. “Fire,” I said, and I was surprised to find that my breath was raspy. I had drawn more power from my dwindling stock than I’d thought. “For fire doth enliven us all.”

  “For fire doth enliven us all.”

  I stared at the figurine, saw that the magical flames were already baking it into a solid, permanently misshapen form. As I watched, I suddenly feared that I did not have the strength to continue, that I could not awaken the spirit of my creation. I had already poured so much into her—too much into her. I did not have the power to complete what I had begun.

  Before I could step back, though, before I could surrender, before I could collapse on the cracked leather couch and beg David to let me try again, try with something simpler, something easier, something that I was capable of finishing, Neko glided to my side. He leaned against my shoulder, or I leaned against him. He tilted his head toward mine.

  I sensed my fragile witching strength multiplied by his physical presence. Like a car windshield that magnifies the heat of the sun on a summer day, Neko was collecting the final strands of my power, beaming them back toward me. I wasted a moment, basking in the energy that he gathered together.

  There I was, in a magical space, outside the normal flow of time, of energy. My Georgetown basement was separate and apart, like an island lost in a tropical sea. The books that lined my shelves had belonged to famous witches, to powerful women. I was like Miranda in The Tempest, awed by the secret volumes, by the library on her enchanted isle. I was Miranda. Separate and apart from Prospero. From David. Miranda. Alone.

  And that thought gave me the focus to continue.

  I had already done the hard part, summoning the elements, combining them into a form. Now all that was left was the naming. Well, the naming, and the final transformation.

  Thinking of Shakespeare’s spirit, I extended my hand over my baking clay creature. Empower The Arts, I distracted myself one last time. “Ariel,” I said. “I name thee Ariel.”

  I closed my eyes and gathered together the four strands of power that I had raised—earth and air, fire and water. I wove them into a garment, into a skin, into living, breathing flesh. I reached down to the very bottom of my arcane reservoir, reached through the remnants of magical strength that I had fed with cleansing and heating spells. With the magic of sex. I drew on the memory of all the spells that I had ever worked, crystals I had ever charmed, potions I had ever brewed beneath the power of a full and silver moon.

  “Ariel,” I whispered again, and there was finally the familiar flash of darkness, the all-absorbing expansion of complete and utter lack of sight, followed by a gradual clearing, and a return of all my normal faculties.

  And when I peered at the bookstand, the figurine was gone.

  In its place, crouching at the bottom of the mahogany structure, was a fine-boned woman. Her skin was so fair, it looked carved from ice. Delicate rivers of veins branched just beneath the surface. Her hair was as dark as a farmer’s fresh-turned field. She was covered by a gauzy length of silk, as if she had converted the fire of her birth into a garment.

  I had created an anima.

  I nearly staggered—as much at the thought of what I had accomplished as by the feeling that I was empty, bare, stripped of all my magical power. The anima spell had taken more than I had thought I had to give; it had excavated deeper into my scant store of power than I had thought possible.

  This must be how I had felt every day, before I awakened Neko. Before I knew I was a witch. Hollow. Hungry. Alone. Desperate for a solution that I scarcely believed existed.

  I glanced at David and caught a pleased look on his face, a prideful smile that reminded me of how much he had invested in my witchy education. Neko, on the other hand, was clearly nervous about the newcomer. The newcomer I had made. The newcomer crafted from the last of my arcane ability.

  She stirred, stretching out one foot from beneath her delicate blanket. Neko leaped away from my side, shuddering like a cat caught in a sudden rainstorm. Once we were no longer touching, I could only feel his presence like a memory, like a phantom of an amputated limb.

  My Ariel sat up, clutching her silk with a grace that I could only imagine possessing. Sh
e turned around the room slowly, scarcely registering the presence of Neko and David. Instead, she focused on me, taking a single, tottering step toward me before she inclined her head. Witch, she said.

  Except she didn’t say it.

  She thought it.

  She thought it directly inside my mind.

  I looked quickly at my warder and familiar, but they seemed completely unaware of the communication. I let myself fall back into the snare of my creation’s sky-blue eyes. Anima, I thought. Ariel.

  What would you have me do, Witch?

  Her words oozed the smallest drop of power—a hint, a whisper. A memory of the magic that had once been mine dropped into the very core of my magical self.

  It was something.

  And she was talking to me. She was asking me for direction. This must be the way the spell was supposed to work. This must be the way that I was supposed to rebuild my strength. Pour it into my anima, then have her leverage it. Multiply it. Feed it back to me, purified and increased beyond recognition.

  Clean, I thought to Ariel. Those crystals, first. Each one in the box. I gestured toward my stash in the corner.

  I can do that, Witch. I will call their earth to me. I will cleanse them with my water.

  Just be careful with your fire, I thought, trying to make a joke, to lighten the formality of her speech. I sensed her confusion, her perplexity. Call their earth, I thought quickly. Water is fine.

  Yes, Witch. As you command.

  Another pure drop of power coalesced inside my mind, the product of our exchange. I wanted her to speak to me again. I wanted her to return my power faster. I wanted her to fill me with the astral energy that was mine. But I knew that I needed to practice patience. I knew that my aching loss was part of a larger plan.

  Ariel crossed the room on legs so graceful that she seemed never to touch the ground. She knelt beside the wooden box that held my crystals, opened the complicated hasp with smooth and confident fingers.