by Cate Martin
"But I am seeing two things," I said. "The silver light and that black glow from the crystal ball."
"You're young yet," Juno said. "You'll learn nuance."
"But what am I seeing?" I demanded. "I thought it was the interconnectedness of all things since I see the web forming the table and sofa just as much as it forms Mina or my own body. But you aren't part of it, and neither is that ball."
"Look again," Juno said. I was getting more than a little impatient with that tone of infinite patience.
I didn't breathe in this world, so I couldn't take a deep breath first, but I did sort of gather myself together mentally. Then I looked at the threads again, at the patterns they formed as they joined and diverged. It reminded me of something, an old story.
"Is it fate or something?" I asked. "The Greek goddess who weaves the cloth? Not Arachne. The one with the spinning sister and the cutting sister."
"Lachesis," Juno said, but then pressed me again. "Is fate really the word you're looking for? Think carefully."
I looked at the patterns again. Fate wasn't the word I wanted. It implied something preordained, unchangeable. And what I saw was happening all around me, slowly and in small increments, but without a blueprint. I don't know how I knew that, I just did.
"Story," I said. "I see stories?"
"And what do you need for a story to work?" Juno asked. "The single most basic thing?"
I threw up my hands. I had no more answers.
"Time," Juno said. "Things have to happen in a sequence, or a story makes no sense."
"Time," I said. "I see time?"
Juno gave a noncommittal shrug. "You see time as you perceive it. Let's go with that for now."
"So the crystal ball is a separate thing because it has no story?"
"But you see its influence. It's glowing, isn't it?" she asked.
"So what is it?"
"It's an object of great power; you already know that. But its power has been limited, because it's been taken outside of time."
"But people can touch it and it… does stuff."
"Indeed. Imagine the destruction if it were at full power," Juno said grimly. "But as it is, its influence is severely restricted. It exists, but only across an array of fixed points. But across that array, it exists at every point simultaneously."
"Why would anyone do such a thing?" I asked.
"To contain it," Juno said. Then added, "some witches have access to power far greater than they have finesse. This isn't the last example of a brute force spell you'll encounter, I'm sure."
I tried to study the glow from the ball, but it was too hard. It felt like an abomination; it made me physically ill to look at it too long. Which was weird, since I was pretty sure in that moment I wasn't even in my physical body.
I looked down and saw a form sprawled out on the floor, the web of intersecting lines that defined it splitting away, the knots growing dimmer. No, not in my body.
I looked up at Juno again, at how the web never touched her.
"What are you?" I asked. She didn't answer, just waited with that little smile on her face. "Are you outside of time as well?"
"Am I glowing darkly?"
"No, but you're not behaving normally either."
"What do I look like to you?"
"You have the same silvery light. You're made up of a web of threads that form intersections and knots and things, just like everything else. But you're not connected to anything else."
"No, indeed, I have been severed from everything," she said.
"Who would do such a thing?" I asked, reviled.
"We're not ready for that discussion yet," Juno said.
"Who could do such a thing?" I asked as my horror deepened. This was an abomination even more vile than the crystal ball.
"Amanda, you do realize that is you down there, your body on the edge of death?" Juno said, all but snapping her fingers to redirect my attention. "Time runs differently when you're in this perceptual state, but it still runs. It will run out."
"What do I do?" I asked, hovering over my own inert form. "Can I fix myself?"
"No. But I can."
"How can you? You aren't part of the rest of the world," I said. Which brought me back around to, "what are you?"
"I'm a friend," Juno said. "I gave you power before when you needed it, and I can give it to you again now. Power enough to save yourself from the poison. Power enough to do as you will with this meddlesome woman."
"I'm not asking for revenge," I said.
"I know," Juno said. "You turned it down before, with Helen."
"Helen was misled," I said. "So was Mina, by that thing in her hand."
"I don't think you know what it means to me, that you finally came into the world and came here, to where I am. You with your ability to see not just time but story. You understand all the elements and your compassion humbles me."
I don't want to say I'm not the sort of person who can take a compliment, but I am the sort of person who's maybe too aware that most people have reasons for doing things that very seldom come down to simply being nice.
And there was something deeply suspicious of someone praising your compassion who just the second before had offered you bloody revenge as if it were a treat.
I was being manipulated.
"Why didn't Miss Zenobia ever tell us she had a sister?" I asked.
"She never speaks of me," Juno said.
"Why?"
"Amanda, time grows short," she said, and indeed we could both see the scant threads that remained inside my body. They were fraying, pulling away from each other. Ending my story.
"You gave me power before without my asking for it. What's different this time?"
Juno said nothing.
"You could do it again. You don't need my consent. But I think maybe this time I could see it coming. I could stop you. I could turn down your gift."
"Don't," Juno said, her hands raised imploringly. "I need you."
"Ah," I said. "A bargain. Like the one, Mina made with that… whatever is in there."
"I can save you from the poison," she said.
"At what cost?"
"I can give you so much power you can set your friends free. You'll be so powerful there won't need to be three of you serving the call. They can return to their lives, to the work and friends and family and lovers they left behind."
I tried to tune her out, to think, but I felt a stab at her words. Brianna and Sophie had given up so much to be here. I had given up nothing at all. And if my magic truly was based on time…
"Together we can do more even than that," Juno went on. "We could save your other friend as well. Linda Olson. We can change those events. If we destroy that anomaly in Mina's hand, we can change all of it."
"I don't know much about magic," I said. "But I do know something about time travel. Changing things that already happened is never a good idea."
"Anything can be changed," Juno said. "No one will remember but you and me."
"You," I said. I was so close to putting it all together it was maddening. "You. Miss Zenobia's sister. Whom she never…"
But she had. She had mentioned a sister. Only once, and not directly. What had she said? When she was demanding that we three swore to protect the time portal, to stand guard over it.
"Time is short," I said, remembering. "That's what she said. She had made the time portal stable, but she could not collapse it. It will stand for all time, and we will guard it for what span of years are ours."
"Amanda," Juno said, pleading.
"I am a witch," I said, taking out my wand. Touch was strange here, but I still felt the warmth of its wood on my nonphysical palm.
"Amanda, please. Time…"
"Is short?" I finished, pointing the wand at her. "That's what Miss Zenobia said. Then she said - with such pain and such regret - she said, 'oh my sister.'"
"Amanda."
"She's the one that severed you from time," I said. "Isn't she?"
&nbs
p; Juno fled.
I didn't pursue her; I just watched the wake as she moved through the world, never part of it. I saw the world as time, but not as distance. I knew the moment she returned to the school, to the backyard.
To the spot where the time portal was anchored in our time. She settled in among the binding spells and weavings that Brianna and Sophie had shored up so strongly, but they hadn't been able to see what I could see. They couldn’t see Juno, and without Juno there was no portal.
I had to get home. I had so much to tell them.
Chapter 22
My body didn't look good. There were still threads running through it, but one by one they were dimming. I was becoming less a part of that world.
I was suddenly certain that if I shifted my consciousness back to my physical form, I would promptly die.
I looked down at the wand in my hand. Was there something I could do to fix things?
I could feel the texture of the wood, the warmth that was more from my own hand warming it as I gripped it tight. It was the one thing I could feel in this web world.
And yet it wasn't connected to me. None of its threads interlocked with mine. It was supposed to be an extension of my own being, and yet I could see clearly that it was completely separate.
I shifted its position so that it was laying across both my palms, resting on them without me gripping it. Then I focused on its threads, but I couldn't move them. They didn't even twitch.
I briefly regretted not taking Juno's offer of power. Then I shoved that thought aside. Not helpful.
Instead, I focused on my own threads. I focused on everything that was me, that made me who I was especially in this place that was supposed to represent my own view of magic. And then I just flowed into the wand.
The wand took my energy thirstily. Then it started pulling more and more out of me, like a vampire growing stronger as it pulled my lifeblood out of my neck. I don't know if it makes any sense to say so when I didn't actually have a head at the time, but "lightheaded" covers the feeling pretty well.
Then, just as I was too drained to remain conscious, it all started flooding back into me. All I had poured in and more, flowing through me. It coursed through every inch of my body, filling me with a sense of power.
Then, most beautiful of all feelings, it started to circulate between me and the wand I had created. The wand I had sanded and polished, the wand I had brought into being from a single branch of the tree that had sheltered my father in his last minutes.
I felt like I could see him like I was floating over him. Then I sensed my mother as well, staggering in pain from the accident that had just happened and the birth that was only beginning.
And I sensed myself, new to the world.
Then the power settled into a rhythm between me and my wand and the other sensations faded.
I guessed we were bonded now.
I looked down at my body and then pointed my wand at it. I didn't have any idea of what sort of spell I could cast in this place or how to do magic of any sort. I just kind of asked my wand to take care of it.
The power flowed through me, through my wand, and through my physical form. It wasn't a smooth flow. There were a lot of glitches and bottlenecks, and finally, I had to give up. It was never going to be smooth and perfect, but it was enough. I could get back into my own body without dying now.
I looked over at Mina, still standing over me with the crystal ball in her hand. Juno had said that I didn't want to destroy it, and I didn't think I did want to, but on the other hand, could I trust Juno?
Perhaps taking it from Mina would be enough. I reached out, but my hand couldn't grasp it. I didn't pass through it; it was more like my arm arced around it, although I was sure I was moving it in a straight line. Still, affecting it from here was going to require skills I didn't have.
I let go of my consciousness, of my awareness of the world of silvery webs.
And I opened my eyes.
Mina was still dangling over me with an air of triumph that turned to something like fright as she sprang away the moment my gaze met hers.
"How?" she demanded as I got clumsily to my feet.
"Come on now, Mina Fox," I said, pulling the wand from my back pocket. "You know I'm a witch."
Mina threw her arms up to protect her face, dropping the crystal ball as she scrambled for the cover of the sofa. I let her run. She was a secondary concern.
Still pulling my sleeve down over my hand, I bent and picked up the crystal ball. I remembered the black glow it had in my other worldview, but I didn't sense it here. It had a different feeling here, more… human?
"Mina," I said, and she gave a soft cry from behind the sofa. "Tell me true. What's in this thing? Is it a spirit or what?"
"You'll never understand it," Mina said.
"Humor me," I said. "It makes bargains and wants revenge and all sorts of human things. Is it human?"
"It is beyond anything you know," Mina snapped.
"I kind of doubt it," I said. I walked around the end of the sofa until I was standing over her, cowering on the floor. I didn't like that. It made me feel ugly. Like when an abused dog cowers away from you, a person who never ever hit dogs. Who never would.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I said.
"That's not what the spirit in the crystal says," Mina said. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Has it just been the two murders, then?" I asked. "Linda Olson and then me?"
Mina stared at the floor sullenly.
"Why?" I asked. "I know not money, but I don't believe it was simple revenge either. I've met your mother. How could she have raised anyone so angry as you?"
"You met my mother when she was very young," Mina sneered.
"Oh, so you know about that?" I asked.
"She changed," Mina said. "Long before I was born, she changed."
I looked at the ball in my hand. I couldn't see anything but darkness in its depths. But it had done so much evil in the world. Was I sure I didn't want to destroy it?
"I'm so sorry," I said. "I'm new at all this witch stuff. I think if we had encountered each other later in life, I might have done better."
"All you were supposed to do was die," Mina said.
"Mina," I said, dropping down on one knee but carefully holding the ball behind me, out of her reach. "This thing whispered to you. It made a bargain with you. What did it promise you? It was more than revenge."
"Power," Mina said. "Oh, why did it take so long?"
"What sort of power?" I asked. "You were already rich. Killing Linda Olson made you richer. But that's not the sort of power you mean, is it?"
"I wanted real power," Mina said. "To never again be helpless."
"To control time, maybe?" I asked.
"What?" Mina asked, and I could see that she wasn't faking surprise.
"That sort of power?" I persisted. "To move through time, go back to your own childhood or your mother's or even your grandmother's and change things?"
"Can you do that?" she asked, barely a whisper.
"No," I said, shocked. "Mina, I'm not offering you anything. I'm asking what this thing was offering you. Anything like that?"
She looked at me, genuinely puzzled. Clearly, we were speaking at cross purposes.
I sighed then got back to my feet, taking a step away before bringing the ball back around in front of me where I could look at it again. I had wanted to be sure that it wasn't some other aspect of Juno speaking to the Fox girls through this conduit. I didn't think it was. Surely changing the timeline would have been what she offered to Mina just as she had tried to offer it to me.
But I don't think I ruled it out. I didn't know what I was holding.
"You speak of bargains and offers and deals and what not," Mina said, pulling herself up onto her feet with the support of the back of the sofa. "You don't understand it at all. That entity inside the crystal ball isn't some separate thing from me. It's a part of me. We are as one. It gives me power. It summoned my
grandfather's mother's hat pin from across time because it knew the symbolic power of using that to murder the last of that family's descendants."
"How did that happen?" I asked. "Did you go to the orchard behind the charm school?"
"No," Mina said, confused. "My mother had told me about it. Her most prized possession. And when the ball and I were planning the murder, I suggested it. I thought it was ignoring me, but when I went to the house to kill that woman I had a gun with me. I was going to use it, inelegant as it was, but then the ball told me to look at the dressing table in the master bedroom. I crept up the stairs, and there it was, exactly as my mother had described it. The hat pin."
"Okay," I said, interrupting before Mina could tell me the gruesome details of the murder itself. I didn't need to hear them. "What did you do with it afterwards?"
"Dropped it in the yard and walked away," Mina said. "Just as the crystal ball told me to."
"And have you gotten your power?" I asked with a tired sigh. I don't think I had succeeded in removing the poison from my body. I had fought it back, a little, but the numbness was coming back. I was, once more, running out of time.
"That will grow within me once I move into the house," Mina said. "The ball and I will become as one."
I looked down at my hand. My fingers were starting to shake. Soon Mina would notice. I didn't fancy laying inert on the floor while she taunted me for a second time.
"You and the ball are as one," I said musingly.
"We always have been," Mina said. "That was how I found it. It called to me. I was barely eight, but I knew the moment I held it that it was like me. It understood me. It was like we shared a soul."
"Well," I said, looking at the ball resting on my sleeve-covered palm. "That would explain why it keeps feeling kind of familiar to me. Here."
I tossed the ball towards her. She jumped in surprise, then realized that the ball was falling towards the floor and lunged forward to catch it.
For her age, she was amazingly athletic. She straightened up; the crystal ball cuddled close to her chest like an infant. She smiled down at it with a repulsive fondness.
Somehow, my wand and I, we just knew what to do. We sensed the threads without moving to the other world and knit them together. Mina was right, they were meant for each other. Like interlocking blocks, the square peg in the square hole. Keeping them apart would have been harder than fitting them together was.
