Hazel and Holly

by Sara C. Snider

  Elder studied them for a long and critical moment. “All right. Come in and we can discuss it.”

  Holly squeaked and hopped up and down.

  “But,” he added, “I make no promises.”

  “I never trust anyone who does,” Hawthorn said.

  Hazel walked towards the coach. The silver scrollwork and stars caught the flickering blue lights on the walls, making them look as if they had been wrought from water.

  Verrin came up behind her. “I’m afraid there is one condition for this arrangement.”

  Hazel turned and Verrin held up a black strip of cloth. “You will need to be blindfolded.”

  Hazel’s heart quickened as her apprehension intensified. “And if I refuse?”

  “Then you are free to leave by way of the front door. That you have been granted access to the Sea of Severed Stars without first being initiated is a great honor—one that has been extended to you solely upon your father’s reputation and good standing with us. But our goodwill can only go so far. You will go blindfolded, or you will not go at all.”

  Hazel swallowed and nodded. She had come so far; she couldn’t go back. She turned around, and Verrin put the blindfold over her eyes and tied it snugly behind her head.

  With his help, Hazel climbed into the carriage and sat down on a soft, pillowy seat. The carriage smelled like anise seed and juniper berries. Verrin sat down next to her, and the carriage started moving.

  “The problem with your plan,” Elder said as they sat in his living room eating freshly made sandwiches, “is that you overestimate my influence within the Shrine. I could get you in but little else beyond that. As soon as they realized your intentions—which would be rapidly, I assure you—then you would be thrown out and I along with you. Orange trees are lovely but not if the cost is permanently losing my position in the Shrine, nominal though that position may be.”

  “Could you get us in without them knowing it was you?” Holly asked. This time Abby had made a selection of different sandwiches, and Holly grabbed one filled with honey and soft cheese.

  Elder took a bite of his own sandwich—spiced salami with marinated olives and fresh herbs and greens. “Possibly. But to what end? What are you going to do once in?”

  “Find Hazel,” Hemlock said, “and convince her to leave.”

  “And if it’s already too late?” Elder said. “What if she’s already made her vows? What if she’s not even there? She didn’t tell you she was going there, did she? You’ve just been working on that assumption. What if she came up with a completely different plan than what you’ve expected? So what I want to know is what do I do about the aftermath of this plan that might end up being a complete waste of time.”

  “She’s trying to get to the Sea of Severed Stars,” Holly said.

  Hawthorn covered his face with a hand. Elder choked on his sandwich. He set the food on a plate and took a big swig from his glass of sour cherry cider. “You shouldn’t even know about that.”

  “Then you should tell your fellow necromancers to stop drinking wine,” Hawthorn said. “They get entirely too chatty.”

  “And if she’s not at the Shrine,” Holly said, “then she’d be at this sea.”

  “Would it be possible for a new initiate to gain access to the sea?” Hemlock asked.

  Elder scoffed. “Possible? Yes. Probable? No.” He waved his hands at them. “I mean, you shouldn’t even know about it, yet you do, so at this point I’d say anything’s possible.”

  “We need a two-layered plan,” Hemlock said. “One that accounts for us finding Hazel at the Shrine and one that…” He cleared his throat. “One that doesn’t. If she’s not there—and she’s not at the inn—I think we should assume she’s found a way to get to the sea. And so we need to come up with a backup plan to get us there.”

  Elder shook his head. “Getting you into the Shrine is one thing, getting you to the Sea of Severed Stars is quite another. I cannot help you.”

  “We’ll make sure they’ll never know it was you,” Holly said. “We promise.”

  Elder chuckled, but it sounded forced and nervous. “You don’t understand. I’m not at all concerned with the other necromancers finding out. Not when compared with the real threat.”

  When everyone stared at him, he continued. “The Shapeless One. She will know I led you there. There aren’t any secrets in the world that she does not know. And I don’t think she will take kindly to my leading a band of trespassers onto her sacred grounds.”

  “What utter rubbish,” Hawthorn said. “So now you’re suddenly pious when a few moments ago you were a skeptic?”

  “I don’t take chances where it concerns the Siphoner of Souls and neither should you. I think you should leave now.”

  “But you said you’d help,” Holly said.

  “I promised nothing.” Elder’s voice had taken a hard edge, but there was a tremor underneath the gruff that matched a slight tremor in his hands. “I’m sorry, but you are on your own.”

  Hemlock ran his hands over his face as they left Elder’s home. “This can’t be happening.”

  Nobody said anything for a long while. In the distance, the sky began to lighten with the coming of dawn.

  “I… might have an idea,” Holly said. “But you might not like it.”

  Hemlock shrugged. “At this point, I’ll try anything.”

  “Well… I have these potions…”

  The carriage didn’t jostle nearly as much as Hemlock and Hawthorn’s carriage. The thought of them brought a painful lump to Hazel’s throat. She coughed. “How far is it?”

  “That would be telling,” Verrin said. He sat close to Hazel, closer than she was comfortable with. Not that she was comfortable with much of anything in this situation. The carriage seats were soft and cozy. All comfort ended there.

  “You’d be surprised how much one’s perception of time is altered when one cannot see,” Verrin continued. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Hazel had absolutely no perception of time. Despite her frayed nerves, the gentle swaying of the carriage and the clattering of the horses’ hooves had lulled her into a slumber. She had no idea how long she had slept. Day had broken—given the cracks of light that seeped through the edges of her blindfold—but she couldn’t say whether it was morning or afternoon.

  “You seem young,” Hazel said after a long bout of silence. She didn’t want to drift off to sleep again; talking helped keep her awake. “How long have you been a necromancer?”

  “I was eight when I first started to learn, much like yourself, I assume. Don’t Grove warlocks and witches join their first school of magic around then?”

  “Yes, we get to choose our first discipline at that age. What made you choose necromancy? Or did you have a choice?”

  “Oh yes, I had a choice. Not all magic practitioners in Sarnum are necromancers.”

  “Only most?”

  He chuckled. “A fair amount, yes. The truth is we excel in necromancy. Those who are interested in the other disciplines are better off pursuing them in the Grove rather than in Sarnum.”

  “Except we don’t take in outsiders.”

  “You sure about that? You’re selective, yes, but it’s not unheard of for people to go there, make their case—ardently so, perhaps—and be accepted. It usually involves a name change to adhere to your quaint naming convention of trees and flowers. But I know of two people who have done just that.”

  Hazel frowned. “Who?”

  “That would also be telling. But surely you can’t be surprised by that. You know of people who have left the Grove for Sarnum, why wouldn’t it be possible for people to do the opposite?”

  Except it did surprise her, as obvious as it all now seemed. She had honestly never heard of people coming to the Grove who were not born there—she had never even considered it. Then again, she’d never been one for local gossip. She wondered if Holly had known.

  The carriage rattled on. Hazel dozed in fitful bouts of shallow slumber.
The light creeping in around her blindfold faded until everything was once again as dark as the sable fabric that covered her eyes.

  Holly, Hemlock, and Hawthorn stood in Holly’s room at Sensi’s Contemplation. She held out the box of potions that Odd had given her in what now seemed like ages ago.

  “What will they do?” Hemlock asked.

  “I don’t know,” Holly said. “Odd said they will show us the decisions we haven’t made and that they might help us change the decisions we have made.”

  “Wonderful,” Hawthorn said. “Except the only decision that needs to be changed is Hazel’s, and she’s not here.”

  “I told you that you might not like it.”

  “Let’s bicker about it later,” Hemlock said. “We need to try something.” He took a vial and, turning to Hawthorn asked, “You have any better ideas?”

  Hawthorn tightened his jaw and shook his head.

  Hemlock uncorked the vial and downed the clear liquid in one big swallow. He gave the empty vial back to Holly and sat down on the edge of her bed.

  Holly studied him a moment, but nothing seemed to be happening. She turned to Hawthorn. “You next?”

  He shook his head. “If we’re going to be experimenting with suspicious, gnomic concoctions, I think one of us should abstain and keep a sober eye on things. You go ahead.”

  Holly nodded. She took a vial and drank its contents, then sat next to Hemlock.

  She waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Holly frowned. She got to her feet, intent on finding Tum to yell at him about the untrustworthy nature of gnomes, when the walls rippled like raindrops on water. She lost her balance, and Hawthorn caught her before she fell to the ground.

  “You have to hand it to us,” Hawthorn said as he helped Holly back onto the bed. His voice sounded oddly distant, as if he were at the bottom of a deep chasm and not right next to Holly’s ear.

  “Things are never dull around here.”

  The carriage was still moving when Verrin reached behind Hazel’s head and untied the blindfold.

  She blinked, but the interior of the carriage was too dark to see anything other than Verrin’s shadowed silhouette. “What’s happening? Are we there?”

  He reached over her and pushed aside the curtain covering her window, and Hazel gasped.

  Night had returned to blot the sky in an inky blackness. Stars filled the void, and along the shadowed ground hundreds of soft, flickering blue lights stretching to the horizon echoed the ones in the sky.

  “There is nothing like it,” Verrin said quietly. “Witnessing the sea for the first time. I envy you.”

  Hazel opened her mouth to reply, but her throat clenched shut. The beauty of the softly glowing lights gnawed at her heart, exposing a raw longing she hadn’t known existed. “Are those souls?”

  “Depends who you ask. Some fervently believe so and that these are sacred grounds to the Keeper of Stars. Others will argue it is merely a natural, though unique, phenomenon.”

  “What do you believe?”

  He was quiet a moment. “I believe not everything needs to be explained.”

  They fell back into silence. She had so many questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask them. Not here. Here, surrounded by starlit sapphires, speaking seemed like a perverse intrusion. She folded her hands and leaned back in her seat, letting the cool lights pass across her gaze until it was as if she floated among them, weightless and unseen.

  Ripples warbled across the walls of Holly’s room. It was as if the sea on the wall bearing the pirate ship of cats had spread itself beyond the confines of its painted surface. Concentric lines extended and then contracted across every visible surface, again and again, hypnotic yet strangely anchoring.

  She leaned back on her bed, nuzzling down in the covers as she tried to get more comfortable, when the rippling walls stilled for a fragile moment before they shattered.

  She was back in the Grove, lying in a patch of grass outside the cottage.

  “Holly!” came her mother’s voice from inside the house.

  Holly’s breath caught in her chest. She sat up, and the world rippled again. In the corner of her vision, a little girl ran by. No, not running. She was blurred, as if constantly in motion even though her pace to the cottage was measured and even.

  Holly followed her inside, and her throat constricted when she saw her mother alive and well and as beautiful as Holly remembered her.

  Willow folded her hands as she looked down at the little girl. “We will be going to the Circle soon. Have you decided on your discipline?”

  “Hearth,” whispered Holly. She remembered this moment, when she had picked her first magic discipline upon her first visit to the witches’ Circle.

  But the little girl said, “Weaving.”

  Holly frowned. She had been so excited in the weeks prior to her first visit to the Circle that she hadn’t been able to decide on her first discipline. Hazel had become a Weaving witch, and for a while Holly had thought she’d do the same. But when her mother had asked her, she had blurted out, “Hearth,” surprising herself though perhaps not her mother.

  Willow’s eyebrows arched upwards at the little girl’s response, but she simply nodded and said, “Very well. Be ready to leave within the hour.”

  The walls rippled like a rock thrown in a pond, then they gave way and Holly stood in a grove of trees. Another version of herself stood nearby, blurry like the little girl had been but clear enough to see that she was a few years younger than Holly was now. This other Holly held hands with a freckle-faced young man, and Holly gasped.

  She walked up to him for a closer look. He didn’t react to her in any way; his attention remained fixed on the other Holly, who shifted between solidity and impermanence like crystalizing clouds.

  She recognized the boy—a warlock named Oak who practiced Weaving and Wild magic. He wasn’t conventionally handsome—not like Hawthorn—but he had a strong nose and kind eyes, and when he smiled, his face would flush, which made his freckles stand out in a curiously endearing way. Holly had never noticed that about him before. She only knew him as a quiet and somewhat awkward young man. She’d never spoken to him—had never seen a reason to.

  “What am I going to do?” Other Holly said as tears streamed down her cheeks. “What am I going to do without Mother?”

  Oak put his arms around her, and Other Holly rested her head against his shoulder.

  “You’re going to let me take care of you. We’ll marry. Everything will be fine.”

  Other Holly nodded and held on to him. Then her blurriness intensified, and she split into three different people. Each form wavered as if about to dissolve, only to coalesce together again like flesh-bound smoke. Each form walked in a different direction. Oak faded into nothingness, and Holly felt a stab of panic on which form she should follow. Each figure looked the same, and none seemed to be headed anywhere specific. So Holly picked the closest one and followed.

  The sky clouded over, the air in front of her rippled, and Willow’s decrepit cottage came into view. Holly cried out and stumbled back. She didn’t want to be there, not now. But her blurry reflection kept on walking until she rounded a corner and came upon Hazel, who sat on a pile of collapsed stones that had been overtaken by vines.

  The other Holly solidified again, so much so that she looked just as real as Holly herself. “Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “You did everything you could.”

  “It wasn’t enough,” Hazel said. “It’s never enough.”

  “You’ve done more than anyone would dare ask.” Holly’s counterpart smiled. “I heard you were invited to the warlock brothers’ Mid-Ascension party. Hemlock and Hawthorn. Did you go?”

  Hazel scoffed. “Why on earth would I ever go? I’m only thankful you weren’t around to drag me to the nonsensical affair. I heard everyone had to wear masks. Can you imagine?”

  “I bet it was magical.”

  “I bet it was headache inducing.” She eye
d Other Holly. “Don’t tell me you’re bored with married life already?”

  Other Holly beamed. “Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I’m still not fond of a good party.”

  “Well, I’m fond of a quiet evening alone. And on that thought…” Hazel rose. “I should get home.”

  “You should come by for dinner sometime. You’re little Willow’s only aunt.”

  Hazel gave a tight smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I will. Soon.” Then she left.

  Other Holly’s form wavered again. The sky continued to cloud over until there was only darkness. Holly’s own breath rattled in her ears, thunderous like a roiling storm. Wisps of breath plumed from her lips, the only thing visible in the blackness that surrounded her. The breath clung to her, then spread out into the shadows, turning the darkness into light and the light into a snow-wrought world.

  Holly stood at the cottage she shared with Hazel in the waking world. But the windows stood dark, the chimney cold despite the freezing air. Holly walked up the steps and through the door, and the air inside was just as frigid as the air without.

  Sheets were draped over the furniture; a layer of dust coated the floor. Holly walked into the kitchen, but the table stood empty, the oven cold and unused for some time, judging by the dust that coated it along with everything else.

  She headed upstairs to Hazel’s room, but Hazel wasn’t there. Instead, a woman sat on the edge of Hazel’s sheet-covered bed. At first Holly thought it was her mother, but this woman was a little too old. Then familiarity crashed into understanding: this was the other Holly—some future version of herself that she had yet to live through.

  Someone came through the door downstairs.

  “Mama?” called another woman’s voice.

  Footsteps came up the stairs, and a young woman walked through the door. She looked to be around the same age as Holly was now—the real Holly watching these events unfold—new to womanhood and all its complications. She also looked strikingly similar to Holly. She had the same golden hair and round, rosy cheeks, though this girl had freckles dotting her fair complexion that Holly lacked.