by K. G. McAbee
The late afternoon sun softened the glow in the bright kitchen, and now the shadows across my mother's pretty face darkened it somehow. The nose seemed jagged, her eyes sunken as she placed her hand over each card, then looked to me.
"This is you, Annie." One thin finger jabbed down at the Queen of Swords, almost hard enough to pierce it. "A young woman, influenced by fire, whose strength has yet to be determined. And this..." the finger moved over to the King of Wands. "Ah, this is interesting. This is a young man, one I haven't met yet. Strong in his convictions, wealthy, powerful in his own way. The element of air is all around him like a cloak. This one will prove to be a great influence on you soon."
My thoughts flew to Tommy, the one I had met this afternoon, the one who had saved me, and I swallowed. My mother's predictions often turned out to be truth, and I shuddered to think of the type of isolation and pain I would be bringing upon Tommy, who had been so eager to help me.
That's ridiculous. He doesn't know me, nor I him. He probably won't even remember my name tomorrow.
"The final one, the card I was seeking and for which the Goddess be thanked, is the Ace of Wands."
Ma's voice brought me back and I stared at the smile I think she intended to be one of triumph. Instead, it looked sinister to me.
"Wands?"
Ivy sighed and swept the cards back into the stack.
"Yes, Annie. Wands. Don't you remember anything I've taught you? It means the fitting tonight will go perfectly."
I nodded and glanced at the clock. It was already after four, and I knew I would have to start preparing for the magic of my fitting soon. "Speaking of which, I gotta get going, Ma. But..."
I bit my lip to cut off the question before it could escape any further. She and Evie had been waiting for this ritual to begin for months now. Picking out just the right pattern, just the right fabric for my robes. Although I didn't want to participate, I knew I would have to do so regardless of any decision I made later on, if only because they were both so excited, so pleased. The chair squeaked as I stood up and backed away from the table.
"See you then, Ma."
The sound of the cards shuffling once more was my only answer. I left Ivy to the other world she found for herself within the tarot.
***
Getting ready for a ritual, no matter how mundane, can take hours of preparation. Cleansing all the tools and getting in the proper state of mind is more exhausting than the working itself. The events of the day had added to my exhaustion by the time I was ready to join my aunt and Ivy in the living room, yet the relaxation I felt overpowered it. If I must do this, I was determined to do it right.
The first thing I noticed was the soft light of the candles around the table where the bolts of cloth were piled. The second was how the light seemed to fight back the rich shadows masking the ancient furniture in our biggest room. Ivy and Evie looked lovely in their own robes, each reflecting the elements they were known for.
My mother's element was water. Prolific and dreamy, calm but volatile, her robe reflected the ever-changing blue and violets and lavenders which could only come from the liquid. Aunt Evelyn was as solid as the earth she had come to represent. The robe fit her sturdy form and cascaded down to the floor in an array of browns and greens.
I shivered as I stepped into the circle they had already created.
The circle of protection is a barrier between the real world and the astral one we dealt with when doing any sort of spell work. Invisible to the naked eye, its thin layer was crucial to those of us who were calling upon the powers most humans dismissed as myths and fairy tales. I joined hands with the others in my family, my coven. The energy we were creating swirled within the boundaries of the circle, and I trembled from the power of it.
The words they spoke were said in unison. Rhyming and lilting, their voices rose and fell in a harmony that could only come with years of practice. I murmured my responses for fear of disrupting the beauty of the song surrounding me. When Evie dropped my hand, and Ivy did the same, I opened my eyes to watch as they blessed the fabrics and began to drape them over my form.
The red was rich, the yellow bright to represent the fire, my symbol at birth. Their hands worked to tuck and straighten, then smooth the material falling down to puddle around my feet. My eyes closed as I listened to their words until they were drowned out by something much more soothing.
A sound so sweet and clear, I felt the tears welling into my eyes before I could stop them. My hand reached out to brush those tears away from my cheek and I gasped as I heard a new voice within my mind.
Welcome home, child.
My mother looked up at my gasp, and scowled as she nudged me to be still before she continued her work. It seemed to last forever, but when they finally finished and we closed the working, both Ivy and Evie were grinning as they rushed off to secure the sacred fabrics and compare what they had experienced.
I was once again alone.
The flames of the candles adorning the living room still danced as I walked around the room to blow each of them out. A good witch would make a wish with each candle, but I was too stunned by the ritual to think of such things. The final candle stood before me and I watched as it flickered.
Talk to it.
The voice in my head sounded just as sweet as it had earlier. I staggered back before shaking my head.
"Don't be silly," I said out loud.
Trust me.
The voice was soothing, but it was unnerving too, startling, even frightening. I wondered if the years of being exposed to my mother and aunt had finally pushed me over the proverbial edge. Resignation and curiosity set in as I stared at the final candle warily.
My movements were timid at first, reaching out with my hand to brush the tip of the flame with my palm. It responded, or so it seemed, blazing up at my touch. I pulled back for an instant, then leaned in, letting my vision become blurred by the oranges and yellows that lived within the flame and held me rapt. I swallowed back the feeling I was acting silly before I whispered.
"Did it all go well?"
The flame flickered and rose to a thin beam around the wick. I gasped again and stepped back.
It did...it all went very well, I heard someone—something—say.
Oh, my Goddess...it answered me...
The feeling of ridiculousness returned as I leaned in once more, cupping my hand around the flame to keep my breath from blowing it out.
"Was Ma right about Tommy Hopkins? Is he the King of Wands?"
The candle flame flared up in a violent display and the tip of it aimed toward me while a thin plume of smoke reached out and circled around my hands.
Yes...yes, she was and he is. And I fear I'll be the cause of much trouble for him, I'm sure of that.
I was surprised by the sadness overcoming me. I sat down on the floor before the candle. The flame had answered my questions but raised even more doubts. I stared into the orange light.
I had long known fire was a part of me, smoldering like coals just beneath my shy exterior. It was the element of all Leos, but mine was damped down, restricted and confined somehow. Perhaps it was all the self-doubt, the persecution I felt at being someone different in a town with no room for outsiders. But who knew fire in the physical world could respond in such a way? Who could tell me if my answers were truth or delusion?
The shadows I sat in felt heavy against my shoulders as a desperate wish grew within me. I didn't want to be so different. So alone. I made a wish, a wish would take away the loneliness. A wish the cards and the flames could be right about Tommy. There was a certainty in my mind that, if I asked, I could bind him to me forever.
Evie's sewing box and the remains left over from the ritual were still scattered across the coffee table where she had left them. I pushed them aside as I searched for the one thing I remembered fawning over when she showed me the makings of the robe. I could only hope she hadn't picked it up with the bundle she was going to use.
A t
hick silver cord, its ends now cut where it had been adjusted to serve as the sash to fit around my waist, lay just beneath the mess. I tied it into place over the pants I wore before kneeling back down in front of the altar. My eyes fell onto the flames as I began to create an imaginary romance with my thoughts. Tommy's face lighting up each time he saw me. His arms wrapping around me to pull me into a kiss. The feel of his fingertips on my skin. Every little detail I could imagine would occur between lovers flashed in front of my sight amidst the fire, almost as if I were staring into a mirror.
Sometimes, words are better off not spoken. Sometimes, they are dangerous. But with my actions being taken over by the spell, my caution indicators were shut off. I cupped my hands around the flame as I began to whisper, speaking dangerous words to make my thoughts reality.
"Fire of my birth, element of my soul, hear the plea of this Chosen One. Fill my life with the love I dream of. A love so strong it can never be destroyed here on Earth or on the Astral Plane. Give love your strength. Your resilience. There is a boy—a man—my heart desires. Make him mine. As this cord binds me, I bind Tommy Hopkins to me. May neither his love nor mine ever falter or fail. May our dedication to each other never fade, no matter what the coming days have in store for us. With harm to none, thus none shall pass, so must it be."
My concentration pulled me closer to the shadows as those same thoughts focused on the images I conjured in the candlelight. I'd only met Tommy once, but he had seemed so sweet. So reluctant to let me go. My lips parted in a sigh as I whispered those words of power once more, then lost myself in those fantasies of nothing which could become a vastly important something.
I stopped at last, words and images ceasing together as a thank you was whispered and the fire extinguished. I couldn't understand the sudden guilt making my heart so heavy until I realized just how selfish my actions were.
The sensible part of my mind was rejecting the images of his slow smile playing against my memory. How his voice sounded as he spoke to someone who should have meant nothing to him. No, it was the mystical side of me feeling the fear. The child in me, the one who had grown up to understand the power simple thoughts and simpler words could have, was screaming what I had done would influence, change, even harm Tommy. My sudden spell had constituted a powerful magic and thus, I was no better than my mother or aunt, who used their own powers so selfishly.
No. Maybe it didn't work at all. I'm no good at this. I've not followed it as closely as I should have. Surely the Great Mother will refuse the words of a selfish girl. A lonely one who doesn't understand the mystical powers She controls.
My room welcomed me, but my bed embraced me as I waited for sleep to come. The cold light of the moon danced across my threadbare quilt and the events of the day played at the edges of my dreams.
Don't be silly, Annie. What happened today...tonight...was nothing more than getting caught up in the moment. You can't influence anything. Anyone. You must know better than that. Besides, Ivy and Evie are masters at pulling you into their fantasies. Always have been.
But as I finally felt the heaviness of sleep, a single phrase flashed against my thoughts.
So now must it be.
Chapter Four
Tommy
"Weird people. Weird town. Weird day in general, I guess," I told Grand.
Well, after all, she asked me. What else was I going to say? That my first day at school in a new town had been a normal day? Not that I was any too sure what a normal day was, at least for me. Sometimes I wished I could have a life like other people: same house, same city, same country, waking up in the same room day after day after day. But there was no use hitting Grand with anything like that, at least not right now. None of it was her fault.
If anything, it was Dad's. I couldn't blame him; well, not really. Sure, we owned the biggest company in the world. Sure, WFG provided employment to about a gazillion people, from the U.S. to the tiniest little backwater in Chad—which I had to look up once because I never thought anyone would name an entire country a surfer dude's name.
But even if WFG did all this chewy goodness all over the world, did that mean me and my sisters and Grand—and Dad, of course—had to keep moving from place to place all the time? Oh, sure; I enjoyed it, lots of the time. But, for some funny reason, this little North Carolina town—even after only a single day, mind you—was starting to feel like...home.
And I wasn't sure if that was necessarily a good thing. Because, if there's no place like home—what happens when you have to leave it?
I tried to wipe all this from my mind. Grand had enough on her plate; why worry her about my newly-discovered homeboy-ness?
I laid my backpack on a little table near the desk in her big room up on the second floor, then sank into an armchair. I was exhausted, and I couldn't decide if it was all these new feelings, leftover jetlag, the usual hassle of meeting new people, or just the collective weirdness of the aforesaid people, town, school, day.
Not to mention my recent meeting with Anya. Who named a girl from North Carolina something like that? It so did not sound like any Southern name I'd ever heard. Bobbie Sue. Nellie May. Lula Belle. Savannah Courtney, even. But Anya? That sounded more Russian or at least eastern European. I wondered where her folks had come up with a name like that?
And that whole thing with Jordan and his bully-boy pack. Accusing a nice little red-haired girl of being a witch. What century did the guy think we were in?
I decided to ignore the strange feeling which had come over me when I had gotten a look at her eyes.
Grand finished the letter she'd been typing on her laptop and hit 'print'. Her laser printer hummed and spit out three pages. Grand didn't even glance over them, just signed her name on the last sheet and slid them into a big manila envelope from a stack with address labels stuck to them.
Just one of the many things I admired about Grand. Me, I always have to read over anything I've written at least three times to check for errors. Grand, on the other hand, produces nothing but perfection on her first shot. Whoa, if I could do that, it would seriously cut homework time in half.
She slid back and turned her desk chair to face me.
"Weird?" she asked.
"And not in a good way either."
"Well, it is a new town. Something to get used to. And, Tommy, you do realize we're in the South now, right?" She grinned at me, her head turned to one side, her pale blue eyes sparkling. "The South is like no other place on earth. Just ask any Southerner."
I laughed as I reached for a cookie on the tray Brent always brings Grand at three every afternoon regardless of where we are. Only the contents changed. Sometimes coffee, but usually tea, and always an interesting range of cookies. I've been filching cookies from Grand's tray ever since I was tall enough to reach it.
This particular cookie had a weird—that kind of a day, remember?—look, almost translucent, with darker spots in it. I bit into it, chewed, stopped.
"Wow," I said around a mouthful of utter bliss, "what's that?"
"Pecan praline and don't talk with your mouth full," Grand said automatically. "I guess Brent is going all southern on us."
"Hope he keeps it up then," I said. "If this is a sample of the cooking here, I think I could get used to it, and fast," I said as I grabbed another chunk of joy.
"Don't spoil your supper," Grand said, another automatic response I'd heard a bazillion times. "Your father should be here in time to have it with us, with any luck."
That sent a chill through me. Not enough to spoil the cookie, though. I finished it, dusted off the crumbs and sat up straighter.
Don't get me wrong. I love my dad; he's a great guy. He's fair and impartial, but at the same time, he'll give me or my sisters anything we want, no questions asked. I've tried not to take too much advantage of his generosity. The twins, now; I can't exactly say the same about them. Once Jax wanted a pony. She got one, then cried when we had to leave it on yet another move. That taught me a lesson, and I'm gu
essing her too: Be careful what you wish for, cause when you get it, and you love it, you can lose it. And it hurts.
So, like I said, my dad is a great guy. It was just, lately, Dad had been acting a little, well, weird. He seemed to be moving us around a lot more than just a few years ago. His best friend and our uncle, an Englishman named—and how much more English can you get?—Zachariah Pringle, hadn't even been to visit us in close to ten months, which was about nine months longer than usual. All my life, before my mom died and after, Zachariah always spent holidays with us, but lately Dad seemed to, almost, be on the run from his brother-in-law. But the strangest thing of all was, Dad kept dropping hints about something big coming down the road expressly for me, something important, something that would "change your life, Tommy."
Now that was scary. I can't say I was perfectly satisfied with my life as it was—especially with all these new feelings coming on even before we got to Manning—I wasn't looking forward to some kind of big earth-shattering change either.
Of course, maybe Dad just wanted to discuss college or something. But I didn't see how it could be that. I knew where I wanted to go—Oxford—and what I wanted to study—history. The Hopkins were English originally and had all gone to Oxford until my grandfather, who'd been born in the States; he'd gone to Harvard and a couple of other colleges, at one of which he'd met Grand. Dad had gone back to the old way, studying modern languages at Oxford—he spoke about six—and he'd already told me I could go there too. So I wasn't too worried about it. One thing did bother me, though; Dad naturally wanted me to go into the family business, just like he and his father and grandfather and even further back all had. That's why my last given name is Matthew.
"Matthew Hopkins is always in charge of WFG Ltd." That was the family and company slogan.
But I had other plans, plans that didn't necessarily include sitting on the board of WFG. And why wouldn't Dad agree? He's always let me have anything I wanted, right?
Somehow, I wasn't too sure about it this time. The company meant something to Dad. I'm not saying he loved it or anything, but he wanted it to succeed.
