Daughter of Chaos (Red Magic)

by Jen McConnel

  “But I don’t even get why we have to pick our paths, anyway. Can’t I just practice magic and not worry about the color?”

  Dad exhaled through his teeth. “That’s a childish thing to say.”

  Mom shot him an inscrutable look. “Either way, her choice has been made.”

  I swallowed my irritation at Dad. They seemed to know more about what was going on than I did, and right now, I needed all the help I could get. “I don’t know anything about any magic but the Trinity paths. I’m scared. Should I be?”

  Dad nodded, and my heart sank. “The path you have pledged is challenging.”

  “And dangerous,” Mom whispered.

  “It is dangerous,” Dad echoed, “to others and to yourself.”

  Confused, I looked at both of them, searching for answers. It was Mom who began to speak.

  “The magic you will practice is ancient. And powerful. There is so much about it that is unknown, and so much more that seems like half-remembered myth. I don’t know enough to teach you anything.” Her face looked defeated, and I felt small and alone. My mother was brilliant and a skilled Witch; there had never been anything magical that she couldn’t explain to my satisfaction.

  Dad opened his mouth and the lights in the dining room surged brightly and then went out. I let out a startled shriek. Mom stood up, and I heard her rummaging around in the dark. I guessed that she was searching the junk drawer for matches to light the candles that sat unused on the table. The sulfuric smell of the match brought eerie illumination, and my mother’s head looked like it was floating in the darkness. Then the candles were lit, and everything felt normal, if somewhat quaint. We didn’t usually eat in candlelight, since candles served more of a purpose for my family than providing romantic lighting. Witches rely on candles to focus their magic for all kinds of spells, but the two that stood ready on the table for power outages were plain white tapers that had never been used for magic.

  Across the table, Dad shifted uncomfortably and gestured to the candles. “I don’t think we’re supposed to tell you anything else right now. Otherwise, the power would still be on.”

  His words made my skin crawl. “What do you mean?”

  “Someone is watching you, Lena,” Mom said, “and she’s not a goddess I want to cross.”

  That pushed me over the edge. I stood up so fast my chair toppled over behind me, and Mom jumped at the crash. “I need to know! This is going to be my life, and I can’t be ignorant!” I ranted, stomping around the table with pent-up anger. “I’ve been kicked out of school and now you two just told me that whatever it is I am is dangerous, but you won’t tell me how, or why, or anything. It’s not fair! None of this is fair!”

  A shadow moved in the corner of my eye, and Mom gasped. I turned and found myself facing a shimmering specter, a woman robed in blue. Her hair was black as ice and her eyes were cold. Her mouth was stained unnaturally red, and at first I thought she was some kind of vampire until I saw the halved fruit in her hand. Pomegranate seeds tinkled to the floor as she moved forward, and my mother bent her head in reverence. That’s when I figured out who this goddess was: she could only be the daughter of my mom’s patron. Dad hadn’t moved since the apparition had appeared; it was as if he was frozen.

  “Of course it’s not fair,” Persephone whispered. “If it were fair, would I have been forced to choose between my love and the light of the sun?” She clenched the fruit in her right hand. Juice squirted onto her blue gown, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You are a Red, girl, like it or not, and like myself, you are bound by forces beyond human conception.”

  I darted a panicked look at my parents. Mom still had her head bowed, her eyes turned to the floor. Frightened, I looked back at the goddess, not sure what she expected me to say or do.

  “I’m sorry,” I said lamely. Persephone didn’t answer.

  She considered me for a moment, and then her expression altered. She didn’t seem angry anymore, but I couldn’t tell what emotion now possessed her. She stretched her hand out to me.

  “Take a seed. Take three. Keep them. If you ever feel that you’ve made a devil’s bargain, you may eat them.” A smile played across her lips, but I didn’t think she was really happy. What did the seeds have to do with anything? Suspicious, I shook my head, and her eyes turned to steel.

  “Take them. What you do with them is up to you, but do not refuse a gift from the gods.”

  Hesitantly, I held out my palm and three jewel-like seeds dropped into it. I closed my fingers cautiously, almost as afraid of crushing the gift as I was of accepting it. Persephone seemed satisfied.

  “The Red is the blood. My blood was virginal when I was taken from the springtime, but now I am neither of this world or that. The blood changes, but the blood compels. Remember this lesson, and obey your own blood.”

  With these strange words, red light filled the room and I blinked. In that instant, the lights came on and the goddess who had stood in our dining room was gone. I looked at Mom, then down at the pomegranate seeds clutched in my hand. Mom looked at Dad, who was blinking in the suddenly bright light, and I realized he had no idea what had just happened. Mom shot me a warning look and I nodded. We wouldn’t say anything about this to Dad for now.

  I tucked the seeds carefully into my pocket, my mind racing. What had Persephone meant about blood? I was sure that her presence had something to do with Red magic, but I wasn’t sure what to make of her words. She hadn’t given me advice, exactly, but she had given me the seeds. I just didn’t know what she wanted. Dad was watching me warily, and I tried to remember what had happened before the power went out. Oh yeah, my outburst. I righted my chair and forced an apologetic smile.

  “I’m sorry I got upset.”

  Dad smiled faintly. “This has upset all of us, I think. Maybe we should call it an early night.”

  Mom nodded, but when Dad looked away, she pointed upstairs once. I understood. We would talk about everything later, away from Dad. I nodded, wondering what she would be able to tell me alone that she hadn’t said at the table.

  When I headed to bed after loading the dishwasher, Mom followed me into my room and closed the door.

  “Lena.” She choked on my nickname, tears threatening to well up in her eyes. I looked at the floor and waited, and in a minute she continued. “Persephone is, well, she is the daughter of my patron, Demeter.” She paused, sorting things out in her mind before speaking. “Maybe,” she paused, “her presence might mean that Red magic isn’t as different as I thought. Maybe the things I’ve heard—” She broke off with a nervous glance at me.

  “Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, right?” I interjected. Mom nodded, relieved to have the conversation back in familiar territory. “And she lost her daughter to the lord of the Underworld, right?”

  “Hades. He broke through the earth and took the girl, kept her in his kingdom against her will and broke her spirit.” Mom recited the words like a well-learned lesson, but her eyes looked uncertain. The goddess herself had seemed to allude to a different version of the tale.

  “And then she ate the pomegranate seeds and was forced to return to the Underworld.”

  Thoughtfully, Mom nodded. “But from what she said, it sounds more like the seeds caused some kind of balance, not entrapment.”

  Our eyes turned to the three pomegranate seeds I had set on my dresser.

  “Not yet,” I whispered. “She said to eat them if I ever felt like I’d made a bad choice, but right now I still don’t understand the choice I’ve made. I need to know more.”

  Mom looked into my eyes and I felt her strength filling me. “I thought blood magic was just about death and chaos. But now I think there is more to it, and I know that if Demeter’s daughter is involved, I must be involved, too. I will try—” Her voice cracked. “I will try not to be afraid anymore of what I think you have become.”

  Her words startled me. I had realized my parents were upset, but I hadn’t thought they were afraid. What forc
e could make a mother fear her own daughter? And twice now I’d heard that word: blood. Persephone and Mom had both called Red magic blood magic. What had I gotten myself into? I sank down onto my bed and looked at Mom in confusion.

  People had always said I looked like my mom, but I didn’t see it. She was beautiful, with her long hair flowing down to her shoulders. She’d never colored her hair, yet women were constantly asking her what product she used; no one believed that rich reddish-brown color could be natural. But if Mom’s patron was indirectly involved in Red magic, maybe I was more like her than I thought.

  As if echoing my thoughts, she said, “Persephone would make a nice patron. Maybe you should consider—”

  “I don’t want to take a patron yet. I don’t even understand Red magic; how am I supposed to know who the Red gods are?”

  Mom pursed her lips. “Lena, it would be good to have help, and a patron can provide you with more help than your father or I can.”

  I turned over, pressing my face to my pillow. “I don’t even know if I want a patron.”

  “You’re young. You don’t understand how wonderful it is to work directly with a god.”

  I looked up at her curiously. Mom had never talked about her relationship with Demeter that much, and I had never asked. “When did you swear to Demeter?”

  Her eyes got misty as she remembered. “When I was fifteen.” She noticed my startled expression and laughed self-consciously. “We did things differently back then; the patron and the path sort of came together.”

  I counted on my fingers. “So you’ve been a Green Witch for—”

  “A long time.” She laughed. “And since day one, Demeter has been there to guide me.”

  “Does she appear all the time? How do you work with her?”

  Mom hesitated. “She appeared to me during my Dedicancy ceremony, but other than that, it’s mostly been a long-distance relationship.”

  My mouth dropped open. “And that’s what you want me to get myself into? How can she help you if she isn’t here?”

  “It’s hard to explain. But my powers have sharpened because of her presence in my life.”

  “Your green thumb.” Mom could grow anything in the thick clay that pretended to be our yard, and the neighbors were always amazed by her garden.

  She shrugged modestly. “That, and other things. Trust me, Lena, a patron is a huge blessing.”

  “Who’s Dad’s patron?”

  I couldn’t read her expression, but her tone was tense. “That’s a question you’ll have to ask him.”

  “You know he and I can’t really talk anymore.” It was true. Once, I’d adored my dad, but then he’d grown overbearing and distant. He’d always been the one to dole out punishment, but it was as if he stopped going easy on me all of a sudden when I hit high school. There were days that I hated him, although I’d never say something like that out loud.

  Mom sighed. “Your dad loves you. It’s just hard for him to understand you. Remember, he was never a teenage girl.”

  I snorted. “You can say that again.”

  “Think about what I’ve said, Lena. If you worked with Persephone, maybe I would be able to help you.”

  “You can help me even if I don’t have a patron, right?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice, but she heard it.

  “I will always do everything in my power for you.”

  It wasn’t really an answer, but it would have to do. I forced a smile. She touched my cheek softly before she left my room, but her eyes looked troubled.

  I lay back on my bed, staring up at my ceiling. Instead of thinking about what Mom had said, I found myself wandering through childhood memories.

  My parents used to take turns reading to me every night before bed when I was younger. I don’t know how old I was, but I must have been old enough to go to school. I hadn’t always attended Trinity. My parents had started me out at a public elementary school. Most Witches didn’t mix with Nons, but because Mom and Dad were Greens, or maybe just because of their personalities, they weren’t inclined to segregate themselves. I don’t know when they would have sent me to Trinity if I hadn’t run into a narrow-minded teacher at the public school. Maybe they’d planned to keep me with Nons as long as possible, or maybe they would have sent me to Trinity that year anyway. I’d never thought to ask.

  The night everything changed, Dad and I were reading together before bed. I remember we were reading the story of Rapunzel for about the millionth time. Right after the witch cut Rapunzel’s hair, I turned to my father.

  “Witches are nasty, right, Daddy?”

  He looked down at me for a second, stunned. “What makes you say that?”

  I pointed at the book. “It’s true! Ms. Brenamen said so today in class.”

  My father frowned. “Witches are not nasty, sweetie.”

  I was confused. “But look at what the witch did to Rapunzel! That’s mean.”

  Dad sighed. “Magic is powerful, so you have to be careful to do the right thing.”

  I giggled. “You’re silly, Daddy. Magic isn’t real.”

  He closed the book and looked at me with a serious expression. “Darlena, you are a Witch. So am I, so is your mother. This doesn’t mean we are evil. It just means”—he snapped his fingers and the candle beside my bed dimmed and then flared up—“that we have to be careful with our magic.”

  He kissed my cheek and tucked me in, but I still didn’t believe in magic. It wasn’t until later that week, when my parents pulled me out of the public school and enrolled me in Trinity, that I began to understand what he’d been talking about. At first, it was really cool, like falling into a fairy tale. But Trinity didn’t believe in using magic unnecessarily, and soon I felt more stifled than before. I’d always hated the fact that I could do magic, but I wasn’t supposed to use it all the time. What was the sense in that?

  ***

  When I finally fell asleep, I plunged immediately into a dream. I was walking along a dark, stone corridor, feeling my way with hesitant steps. In the distance, I could see a dim glow. As I walked, the glow brightened and I realized the light was tinted red. I hesitated, but a gust of wind swept down the tunnel and forced me forward. I stumbled and reached out to catch myself, but my hand grabbed something fleshy and soft. I shuddered. When I looked, I was relieved to see that I was gripping a rotten pomegranate, not something human. My hand was stained red from the juice, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with an urge to lick my fingers. Before I could, I heard a crash in the corridor ahead of me and dropped the fruit, distracted.

  I took a few more hesitant steps down the corridor, rounding a bend. The red glow grew blinding. As I struggled to see, a shape began to form in the red light. A figure stood before me, robed in black and engulfed in flames. I felt my skin prickle, and all of a sudden I realized that I was looking in a mirror. I was the one burning.

  ***

  I woke with a thump. Startled and disoriented from my dream, I couldn’t quite figure out why I was staring at a pair of glowing green eyes. As my awareness returned, I realized that I was on the hardwood floor of my bedroom. I must have fallen out of bed as I struggled to escape my nightmare, and Xerxes was eyeing me with something approaching interest. The old gray cat had never seemed to care about anything that wasn’t tuna, but clearly my new sleeping habits were intriguing. He stretched languorously and touched his cold nose to mine. The cat and I both flinched at the static charge that zapped us. He looked at me, offended, before turning tail and stalking into my closet.

  I stretched my tired muscles and touched my face. No burn scars. I exhaled in relief. My dream had seemed so real.

  As I sat up, I noticed the stack of newspapers sitting by the foot of my bed. The yellow sticky note winked up at me, and, curious, I reached for the first paper. I skimmed the headlines, wondering what kind of chaos I was supposed to be looking for: robberies, terrorism, natural disasters; what did Hecate want me to see? The headlines on the first page were gruesome: a bomb in th
e Middle East, flooding in the Caribbean, and a high schooler in the Midwest who brought a gun to school. Those all sounded pretty chaotic to me, but I kept turning the pages. I made it more than halfway through the paper before I found any stories that weren’t about chaos. By that point, I was too depressed to keep reading.

  Tossing the paper aside, I picked up the next in the stack and began skimming. Once again, it seemed like the only news stories were about horrors around the world. Announcements of births and weddings and interviews with interesting people were buried in the back. Why did the press insist on sharing only the bad things that were going on? Surely these articles couldn’t represent the ratio of misery to joy in the world, could they?

  “Now you see why your choice is so valuable.” The voice made me jump. A woman had materialized out of thin air and was leaning against my dresser. Her hair was like a black waterfall across her shoulders, and she wore a red floral dress that set off her caramel-colored skin. Her eyes were glistening amber, like the burning embers of a fire. I stared at her, stunned.

  “The world feeds on the chaos generated by Red magic. Without it, what would people read in their paper each morning?” Her voice dripped with power, and I wanted to shrink back against the bed to avoid her reach. She went on, oblivious to my revulsion.

  “You have chosen to be a keeper of chaos. You will remember to honor me as you keep the balance.” She smiled like a cat, and my hair stood on end.

  “Um, I don’t want to be rude … ” I paused, searching my mind frantically for some clue about this goddess. I was terrified of being incinerated, but my mind was completely blank. “But I don’t know who you are.” I cringed, waiting for her reaction.

  The goddess growled. It sounded like a rumble, as if the entire house were on the verge of collapse.

  “I am Pele. You will not forget me, girl. It is my fire that creates your realm.”

  “I don’t understand.” I scrambled to my feet, spreading my hands in an apologetic gesture. At least she hadn’t killed me yet.