by JB Caine
I swirled in front of the mirror, and the skirt billowed slightly, sending the strong aroma of incense in a breeze throughout my room.
Looks very becoming on you, said a voice.
I squealed and spun around, but there was no one there.
“Who are you? WHERE are you?”
I thought you and I should get to know each other better. There was clearly no one in the room with me, but it seemed as though the voice was very close. I turned back to the mirror and there was a mist covering my reflection, a face hovering above my own.
I knew I should be creeped out, but somehow I wasn’t. Somehow, I had been expecting her, though maybe not exactly in this way.
“Selene.”
She smiled. I’ve had many names. Selene will do. It was nice of Katherine to give that to you. I’ve always been fond of the color.
It took me a moment to realize who she was talking about, and then I remembered that Aunt Kitty’s full name was Katherine. “I have so many questions about what’s happening,” I told her.
The mist in the mirror swirled and flowed, but approximated a human form.
I have no doubt, she began, and your answers will come in time. I have much to show you, and you have much to learn. Change your clothes. We’re going to the beach.
“What?”
You can’t wear that to the beach. You’ll ruin it. She stared at me expectantly, offering no further information.
“Why?” While I had some trepidation about questioning a goddess, I also had a well-instilled sense of Stranger Danger.
I would never harm you, Lia. We are bonded, you and I. I have known generations of women in your family, and never harmed one of them. Quite the contrary, actually. Do not fear.
“Uh, yeah, okay…” I stammered, pulling off the gown and throwing my regular clothes back on.
Excellent. I’ll meet you at the car. I couldn’t help but wonder why a goddess would need to travel in a car.
Because your human body can’t travel by moonlight, dear. I started, realizing that I hadn’t asked that question out loud. If you don’t want me to hear your thoughts, she continued, you might not want to think quite so loudly.
I stepped quietly out of my room and, quickly noting that my mother had fallen asleep with the TV on in her bedroom, I slipped out of the house and over to my car.
Don’t worry, your mother won’t realize you’re gone, she assured me. Take us to the sea. I need to show you something.
Chapter 11
The full moon was glowing above us, alive and pulsing, as I walked from the parking lot toward the sea. I could no longer see Selene, but her voice still spoke in my head. It was nearly as bright as daylight, and the wind whipped at my hair.
Do you feel it? she sighed. The power? Strong enough to move the ocean, and that same power flows through you now.
“I feel it,” I replied. I felt myself being pulled toward the sea, felt the magic prickling along my skin, ebbing and flowing with the crashing waves, like a million tiny sparks crackling along my surface. I flexed my hands and stretched out my fingers. They felt heavy, thick, engorged with something that was not quite physical.
I will teach you to use it. That much power cannot be contained. It must be let loose into the world. How you direct it will be up to you. There was something in her voice that sounded like both a lesson and a test, all in one.
Two short sets of stairs led to the beach, and I walked in silence until I reached the shoreline. Waves crashed against the hard-packed white sand, which seemed iridescent in the pale light coming from above.
I raised my hands and looked at them, half-expecting to see tiny forks of lightning coming from the tips of my fingers. “What do I do with it?”
Let us start simply, she said, like a teacher beginning a lesson. I kicked off my shoes and tossed them back toward the car. Reach out to the waves.
“Do what?”
Reach out to them. Bend them to your will.
“I can control the ocean?” I asked, dumbfounded. I stood thirty feet or so from the waterline, where low waves swirled gently against the beach.
She smiled, as one might smile at a baby who found her toes for the first time. Not the ocean, no. That is not where your power lies. But you can commune with the tides.
I stared at the rolling surf. Slowly, I lowered my hands and faced my palms to the ocean. I closed my eyes and focused on the crashing all around me, and a funny thing happened. Not only could I hear the waves, I could feel them pushing and pulling against every molecule in my body. More, I thought, and pushed the crackling energy out toward the tide, giving it strength, giving it my power and having it bring that power back to me. I opened my eyes and stared at the ocean, filling my senses with nothing but the thought of more. A small wave rose above the others and crashed onto the beach.
Good, yes, well done, Selene whispered.
The power was surging around me and through me, and the small rolling waves began to foam and rise. They grew taller and crashed harder against the sand, and I felt the sea coming closer and closer, reaching out to me, seeking to engulf me. Indeed, as the intensity of the water increased, the edge of its reach crept closer and closer. The surf began to churn the way it does when a thunderstorm lingers just off the coastline, and the tide surged and crashed against the sand. I continued to pull it closer, my head thrumming with the power that swirled all around me.
The grey-black water clawed toward me, fighting to find me, pull me in, embrace me. I watched as a tall wave began to form, sucking the waterline back as it built strength. It peaked and raced toward me like a battering ram, curving and foaming as it came. With a final roar, it curled along the edge and submitted to the gravity and my power that pulled it toward me. It hovered for a moment, then slammed violently against the beach in front of me. The ground seemed to tremble at the impact, and the seafoam rushed all around my bare feet.
At the touch of cold water, I felt as though a dam had broken inside me, and I felt the power rushing out with the tide as it pulled back, back, back to where it had been when we first set foot on the shore. I fell to my knees in the wet sand.
Quickly, Selene hissed. Make a wish before the power is gone! What is your heart’s desire? Manifest your will!
I trembled with exhaustion and fell onto all fours, closing my eyes and digging my fingernails into the sand. I couldn’t form coherent thoughts, much less make a wish. Since my brain wasn’t working, my heart stepped in and Alex’s face swam behind my eyelids. I collapsed and rolled onto my back, panting.
So mote it be! Selene cried exultantly.
I slowed my breathing and forced my eyes open. The halo around the full moon pulsated as if with joyous laughter. I closed my eyes again and the now-distant waves now sounded like a lullaby. I gave in and fell into unconscious darkness.
I woke up to the sound of the alarm on my phone. I was lying on the floor of my bedroom with no memory of how I’d gotten there. My clothes were covered in sand, and my head was pounding. I forced myself up and lurched into the bathroom for a shower and some Tylenol.
Revived somewhat, I dressed and got ready for school. What had happened on the beach? Should I even be playing with forces this powerful? And how did I get from St. Augustine Beach to the floor of my bedroom?
All through math, I couldn’t concentrate on anything Mr. Nash was saying. All I could think about was the accidental wish that I had made the night before. I knew I’d be seeing Alex next period, and my mind raced, wondering if the wish would somehow manifest itself in English class. When the bell finally rang, I grabbed my things. I wasn’t sure if I should rush to class or the parking lot.
“What in the world has gotten into you today, woman?” Treigh asked, falling into step beside me. “Don’t tell me you still aren’t sleeping. Girl, I’m going to have to…”
“No, no,” I interrupted. “I definitely slept. I just...well, I…” How exactly was I going to explain my jumpiness without telling Treigh all about
last night? “I made a wish on the moon last night that Alex would ask me to Homecoming.”
Treigh stopped walking and stared at me flatly. “Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah…”
“Girl, if you don’t…” he blustered, unsure of how to kindly say to me that I was acting like a seven-year-old with a Disney-fied sense of destiny. “If you want to go with him, YOU ask HIM. If he says no, at least you’ll know. Wishing on the moon?” He shook his head and started walking again.
I couldn’t really blame him. He’d been hearing me gush over Alex for years, and seeing as he wasn’t really aware that I’d actually been befriended by the moon goddess, the idea of wishing on the moon probably sounded ridiculous.
“You’re probably right. Call it a moment of romantic weakness.” I smiled wanly, trying to convince him I wasn’t actually losing my mind.
“Pssh.” He dropped me at the door of my English class, leaving me to fend for myself. I crawled into my seat, making a mental note not to say anything like that to anyone other than Selene herself.
I waited on proverbial pins and needles for Alex to arrive. When he finally walked in, I whipped my backpack onto my desk and began rifling through it, trying to look busy while watching him out of the corner of my eye. He walked in and made a beeline for Gemma and Trina. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but as I focused on his presence, I felt tiny prickles of power against my skin.
I shook my hands as if I were trying to dry them, hoping to dissipate the building power. I felt like the most visible person in the whole world, even though I knew no one besides me was aware of the minor power surge I’d just had.
The bell rang, and I slid my backpack onto the floor as Mrs. West called for the class’ attention. I raised my eyes toward her, only to lock eyes with Alex, who was staring at me as if I’d just grown a second head.
Class was a blur, and at the end, he waited for me by the door. He told Trina and Gemma he’d see them later, and they looked from him to me and back to him, clearly confused by this unexpected development in the social order.
“Uh, hey,” Alex said not-so-eloquently.
“Hey,” I replied. “Everything okay?” I looked after Gemma and Trina, as they walked away, shaking their heads and talking animatedly to each other.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Where’s your next class?”
“AP Bio...Ms. Fletcher.”
“Can I walk with you?”
My heart was pounding so hard, I thought I might crack a rib. “Sure, of course! What’s up?” We started walking, and I clutched my backpack to my chest in a vain attempt to keep my pulse under control.
“Nothing, I guess. I just felt like walking with you. Is that okay?” He seemed genuinely confused about his motivations.
“Absolutely,” I replied, trying to think of something to say without sounding lame. “I...uh...I really like your shirt.”
The truth was that there wasn’t much remarkable about the shirt except that he was in it. It was a blue and black plaid lumberjack-turned-hipster type of thing. It was all I could think of to say in that nanosecond, though, and it had the desired effect. He turned his head toward me slightly and grinned, and I thought I might die on the spot. I smiled back, hoping I didn’t look like an insane stalker fangirl.
“Thanks. It...it was clean.” He smiled again, this time sheepishly. “So, um, listen...I was wondering if you were going to the football game Friday night?”
I hadn’t been to a single high school football game in my entire high school career. “I’m not sure...I mean, I hadn’t really thought about it yet. Why?”
“Well, I was wondering, like if you were going, if you might want to hang out or something afterwards. Like maybe go for pancakes.”
Pancakes?
“Well, sure, who doesn’t like pancakes?” I tried to give him my best flirtatious smile, but I’m pretty sure I looked like a crazed Chihuahua.
“Cool. Is this your class?”
“Yeah, thanks for walking me.”
“Totally. I’ll catch you later.” And with that, he turned around and walked off in the direction from which we’d come.
Oh, sweet sunshine.
I had a date. With Alex. On Friday.
Chapter 12
I dropped my books on my desk and whipped out my phone, desperately trying to text Treigh. The result was something that looked remotely Russian. Hard to text when your hand is shaking like you’re sitting on a jackhammer.
Class started, and I reluctantly slid my phone into my backpack. It’s fair to say that I absorbed absolutely no AP-Bio-related information that day. When the release bell for 4th period rang, I stood up to find Treigh already waiting at the door, looking testy and holding up his phone.
“What, may I ask, is this shenanigans?” he asked in his best accusatory tone. “I’ll tell you what it’s not: it’s not English. Sis, I thought you’d been kidnapped and you were signaling for a rescue.”
I laughed. “That, sir, is me attempting to text you while freaking completely out.”
He made an impatient gesture with his hand as we began to walk. “About…?”
“Alex asked me out. For Friday.”
Treigh stopped walking. “Say what now?” I grinned like a lunatic, and his eyes got huge. “GIRL. Finally! After all this time, he finally got smart!”
“I know, I can’t believe it worked.”
“What worked?”
“My wish! I can’t believe it worked.”
“Are you serious right now? You think he asked you out because you wished on a star?”
“The moon,” I corrected.
He stared at me. “You done lost your mind.”
I realized how crazy I sounded. But if he had only known about the abilities I’d been developing, all the things Selene was promising to teach me, and had taught my aunt and grandmother before me…
“Look, Treigh, I know it sounds nuts,” I began as he nodded vigorously, “but there’s a lot you don’t know. A lot I have to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
“I can’t. Not here. Too many people.” It was lunchtime, but I wasn’t sure this was a conversation I could have on our bench. I wasn’t supposed to tell people, according to Aunt Kitty, but I couldn’t go on without Treigh knowing.
“You are freaking me out, Lia. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, I promise, I’m more than okay. I just...it’s not a public conversation.” We started walking again, and despite my assurances, Treigh was eyeing me with concern.
“Alright. Privacy. Come on.” He grabbed my hand and dragged me around to the small seating area outside the guidance office. At this time of day, most of the administration area was deserted. “Now talk.” He plopped onto a bench and pulled me down beside him.
“Okay, soooo…” I took a deep breath and spilled all of the top-secret-crypto information I’d been holding onto for the past week. I deliberately didn’t look at him as I was talking, because I was afraid I’d see him dialing the authorities to come and get me. After several minutes, I finished my tale and slowly raised my eyes. He was staring at me. Like really staring. Then he burst out laughing.
“Oh, girl...you had me going…aaaahhh…” And then he realized I wasn’t laughing. “Wait. Are you serious?” I nodded slowly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were on some kind of crazy designer drug. You’re seriously serious?”
I took a deep breath and pointed at an empty chip bag that had been carelessly tossed into the grass. I concentrated hard on it, and it trembled, then rolled about six inches. Treigh raised an eyebrow and looked at me doubtfully.
I took a deep breath and thought about how much I hated litter. Magic was intent plus energy. I focused on how much I wanted that bag not to be in the grass. After a moment’s intense effort, I picked it up, floated it rather awkwardly over to the trash bin, and deposited it. When I looked back at Treigh, his eyes were the size of dinner plates.
“Uh, no. Uh-uh. Listen,
Lia love, I know my ancestors are island people, but this is a bit out of my area of expertise. I’ma have to take a minute to process this.” He stood and walked back toward the main courtyard, looking as serious as I’d ever seen him.
I didn’t know what to say to him. This was Treigh, my BFF, my partner in crime, and he was frightened...of me. My eyes stung with tears, and I couldn’t find words as I watched him walk away from me. He thought I was a freak. This was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me, and it was going to cost me my best friend. I felt myself beginning to tremble.
He had gone maybe 30 feet when he abruptly stopped.
“Aaargh!” He spun around and walked back to where I was sitting. I almost couldn’t see him through the tears filling my eyes. “I want you to know that I am extremely heebie-jeebied by this. You’re lucky I love you, dammit!” He looked down at me, trying to appear tough, but I leapt up and threw my arms around his waist, sobbing. He put his arms around me and rested his chin on top of my head. “Now you just cut that out. You knew I wasn’t going to abandon my best friend just because she’s gone all Sabrina or whatever.” He hugged me tightly, and I snuffled into his chest. “C’mon, sis. It’s all good. Well, not good, but it’ll be okay. Don’t get mucus on my Gucci. It’s okay.”
And just like that, all was right in my universe again.
Chapter 13
I wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette was for attending a high school sporting event, but Treigh’s official advice was “like school, but amped up”, whatever that meant. For me, it meant more sparkles with my black. I settled on a strappy black tank top that was embellished with tiny jet beads. It rather reminded me of the bodice of a black wedding dress, and I decided that that was at least putting positive energy into the date. I found my favorite ripped jeans and rolled up the cuffs enough to show off my Docs. I added a red blazer with black lapels, since I didn’t want to get cold or mosquito-bitten. Ah, Florida.
