The Secret Witch
Page 40
“Yes, but with discipline, you can focus on the spell you need. At the very least, you’ll be able to quiet the thunder to an actual whisper.”
“I didn’t know that,” Gretchen murmured. To be fair, she hadn’t thrown herself into learning the history of the witching world like Emma had.
Mrs. Sparrow led them back inside to her personal study. The shelves were stuffed with books and jars of evil-eye rings and rowan berries and was far less tidy than expected. The desk was sturdy and simple, nothing like the scrolled and gilded desk her mother preferred, with its curved legs and gold-leaf accents. Mrs. Sparrow did not sit down. Instead, she picked up a worn leather-bound journal the size of folded letter paper.
“I think you should have this,” she said, handing it to Gretchen.
The leather cover was faded and soft and the pages were thick, uneven parchment. Some were stitched with red thread; one had a silver triangular cap on one corner from which hung a tiny bell. When she opened the book, a pressed violet drifted to the carpet. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. And it was, in its own tattered way. Someone had loved this book until the bindings were reinforced with gold thread. “What is it?”
“It’s a grimoire,” the headmistress replied. The sun fell through the window beside them, falling on the white streak at her temple. The rest of her hair was so black it absorbed the light. “It’s a magical journal,” she elaborated. “Full of spells and bits of folklore. Most families have one they pass down through the generations.”
Gretchen looked up from the book. “Is there a Lovegrove grimoire?”
Mrs. Sparrow shook her head. “Your aunt told the Order that Theodora Lovegrove burned it.”
That Emma’s mother had destroyed a family heirloom stuffed with priceless magic gathered over centuries in one of her mad fits was no surprise at all. Still, it was disappointing.
“I found this one in a bookshop in the goblin markets. I don’t know who it belonged to, but the information is sound. If you study and memorize the uses of plants and stones and colors, it will make it much easier to identify the kinds of words you should be listening to when the witches whisper spells in your head.”
The pages were the color of tea, with ink that was faded but still legible. Sketches of tree leaves and flowers, and rhymes written in a sweeping hand, crowded next to lists of colors, stones, and herbs and their attributes. There was a drawing illustrating how to gather Saint-John’s-wort on Midsummer Night and a rhyme about mullein leaves, and hundreds of symbols and sigils. Gretchen felt a bubble of excitement in her chest. She might not love studying, but she did love having a purpose, a way to stand up to the pressure of this new magical world that threatened at any moment to sweep her and her cousins away. The sting of the embroidery needle’s pinpricks on her fingertips suddenly felt like battle scars.
“The other side of your gift is what allows you to create new spells,” Mrs. Sparrow told her. “Witches are always attempting them, with various degrees of success and no small danger. But as a Whisperer, you’ll be able to hear what others have done.”
“Is that why it goes silent when I’ve found something that works?”
“Yes, the spell memories fall away because you don’t need them. Creating spells requires many elements: symbols, harvesting flowers and plants at the proper hour, the alignment of planets, the theory of colors, and so on. A good deal of which you will find in that grimoire.”
“I really am dismal at sewing though,” Gretchen admitted.
“You’re dismal because you don’t take it seriously,” Mrs. Sparrow replied blandly. “You refuse to practice. But knowing what you know now, does a little embroidery still seem like such a hardship?”
“I suppose not.”
“Don’t fight your own self.” The headmistress looked sad for a moment. “It’s a battle you’ll never win.”
Gretchen tilted her head. “Can I still fight the lads of Ironstone?”
Mrs. Sparrow smiled. “In fact, I would consider it a great personal favor.”
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About the Author
Alyxandra Harvey lives in a stone Victorian house in Ontario, Canada, with a few resident ghosts who are allowed to stay as long they keep company manners. She also lives with assorted dogs (at least one corgi) and her husband. She likes vanilla tea, tattoos, and books. She is sometimes fueled by literary rage.
She is the author of the Drake Chronicles, Haunting Violet, the Witches of London Trilogy, and Red.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Alexandra Harvey
Cover design by Ian Koviak
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5531-4
This edition published in 2018 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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