Magic and the Modern Girl (21 page)

Gran shook her head. “That coven was nothing but trouble.”

“They were,” I agreed. “But we won’t be. We’ll have our own rules. We’ll set our own limits. We won’t be like them.”

Clara wasn’t concerned about our social organization; she was still dwelling on having a familiar. “It’s like meditation.”

“What, dear?” Gran was starting to sound a bit annoyed. For the first time in ages, though, I felt a rush of love toward Clara.

“Exactly!” I said. “It’s like meditation. The more you center yourself, the more energy you draw into yourself, the greater you become.”

Clara picked up the figurative ball and ran. “And it’s like yoga!”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said, pushing aside images of my collapsing Eagle Pose. “But, anyway, I asked David to find familiars for you. He’s brought them here tonight.”

Gran continued to look uncertain, but Clara’s eyes swept over to the mysterious boxes. “There?” I nodded. “And they’re cats? Like Neko?”

I looked at David. I didn’t actually know what form the newcomers would take. He cleared his throat before he said, “No. Each witch awakens a familiar uniquely suited to her. Sometimes it reinforces her personality. Sometimes, the familiar is a complementary force.” He hefted one box and brought it to Gran, then deposited the other in front of Clara.

Both women looked from the containers to David to me. “Will you do it?” I looked from Gran to Clara and back again. “I wouldn’t ask if there were any other way. I need you.”

Gran harrumphed. “Well, of course, dear. Of course we’ll help you.” Clara nodded as well.

I suddenly remembered Christmas mornings when I was a little girl, when I’d stared at Gran with all the expectation—and the barely smothered greed—that a good girl could muster. I grinned at the image and waved toward their boxes. “Go ahead, then. Take them out.”

The containers weren’t taped closed. Instead, they had lids that lifted off smoothly. Gran and Clara moved with an eerie synchrony, as if they’d practiced their motions in another age, another life. Both boxes were filled with mundane packing peanuts, white curls that billowed to the floor. Neko wriggled closer, and I half expected him to pounce on the cushioning material.

Gran freed her familiar first. It was a wooden statue, the length of her forearm, painted in brilliant colors—crimson and yellow and cobalt-blue. Shrewd eyes peered out above a curved black beak. A scarlet macaw.

Clara lost no time rooting around in her own box. Her familiar tumbled into her hands. It was carved from wood as well, but the artist had let the statue’s natural colors shine through. A long, prehensile tail curled around four legs. A white ruff framed a fine-featured face. Clara’s familiar was a capuchin monkey.

Neko had leaped to his feet as the packages were opened. He started stalking around the couch, viewing the statues from all angles. I knew him well enough that I could read his inquiry, understand the questions that he was asking as he sought to understand the magical powers unwrapped before him.

A macaw. A parrot. Long-lived and intelligent, bonding with its humans over decades. A perfect match for Gran.

And for Clara, a monkey. Inquisitive. Willing to explore anything, and capable of infinite distraction. Trouble-some—although that probably wasn’t a trait that David had screened for.

But Clara was already falling in love with her familiar. Or at least with the notion of having one. She looked up at me, awe in her eyes. “What do we do?” she breathed.

I glanced at David, but he merely extended a hand, inviting me to respond. Neko came and settled by my side, warm and comfortable. Apparently, my shrimp bribe had worked completely. All was forgiven. “There’s a spell,” I said. I settled my fingers on Neko’s shoulder, and the words came back to me, as clearly as if they were written on a page before my eyes. “For Neko, I said,

‘Awaken now, hunter, dark as the night.

Bring me your power, your strong second sight.

Hear that I call you and, willing, assist;

Lend me your magic and all that you wist.’”

Gran and Clara nodded. They weren’t the best-trained witches, but they could sense words of spellcraft. They could remember chants that conveyed energy. Strength. Power.

“But we’ll have to change it,” Clara said. “Change the first line to match our own familiars. Right?” She looked to me for guidance.

I nodded. The spell that had awakened Neko had been laid out for me by his old owner, by Hannah Osgood. The book had been waiting for me—or some other unsuspecting witch—to work the magic. The basic shape of the power remained the same for any awakening, but Gran and Clara would need to tweak the spell to their own ends.

Gran looked up from her scarlet bird. Her face was a little pinched, and I wondered what promises she was about to extract, what demands she was about to make. She surprised me, though. “Can we say it at the same time? Can we work our magic together?”

I glanced at David. “Of course,” he said. “If that would make you feel better, there’s no reason that you can’t free your familiars simultaneously.”

Clara snapped her attention back to me. “What do we do, Jean—Jane?” Her remembering my current name was a symbol of how much she wanted my instruction.

“Set the spell in your own mind. Figure out how you’ll change it for your own familiar.”

Gran might have been more timid about her magic, but she was a veteran crossword puzzle worker. I wasn’t surprised when she nodded before Clara.

Even though I would not be doing any actual working, I settled my hand on Neko’s shoulder. I’d wanted him here—needed him here—because he could center me, anchor me in a storm of magic. “Then take three deep breaths,” I said. I could see Gran’s tension flow away with each exhale, even as I recognized Clara’s energy sharpening. “Now, offer up your thoughts.” I touched my own forehead, demonstrating the motion. “And your voice.” I touched my throat. “And your spirit.” I settled my hand over my heart. “And recite the spell.”

They started together. “Awaken now.” I heard Gran’s words first, her recitation as steady as a nurse reading out a patient’s chart. “Winged one, soar like a kite,” she said.

At the same time, Clara intoned, “Mischief, witty and bright.” Then their voices joined together for the rest of the spell.

“Bring me your power, your strong second sight.

Hear that I call you and, willing, assist;

Lend me your magic and all that you wist.”

I felt the familiar flash of darkness with my entire body. The world disappeared, swallowed in a wave of nothingness. Before I could register Gran’s bit-off cry, Clara’s gasp, everything sprang back into existence, sharper than before, clearer than ever.

A buxom woman stood beside Gran, her bright red hair contrasting sharply with the lemon-yellow of her blouse and the overdyed indigo of her jeans. Her nose was long and pronounced; her face looked as if it should be stamped on some ancient Roman coin.

And a child crouched beside Clara, a young boy with the delicate features of a child, but the snow-white hair of an ancient man. Even as I watched, he twitched in his clothes, scratching at his long-sleeved chestnut-colored T-shirt, tugging the garment out of the waistband of his matching corduroy pants.

Gran reached out to her familiar first, stroking the woman’s sleeve with tentative fingertips. Distantly, as if from across a canyon, I felt energy arc between them, the magical power of witch acknowledging familiar. When Clara reached out to smooth down her boy’s cowlick, I felt the magical action a little more.

Nevertheless, the magic was between my relatives and their familiars. It had nothing to do with me. It did not begin to restore my own depleted strength.

I glanced at David, afraid to ask the questions that bubbled to the top of my brain. Had anything happened? Had we gained anything at all by awakening two familiars? He offered the faintest of shrugs, apparently unable—or unwilling—to acknowledge my concerns. My disappointment tasted like lemon juice as I swallowed hard.

Neko seemed utterly unaware of my worry as he settled one hand on his hip. “Well, girlfriend, you definitely made one huge mistake.”

“What?” I said, reluctant to look away from the newcomers. My heart beat fast with the notion that I’d done something wrong, something that would endanger our magical future.

“With two more mouths to feed, you should have ordered a lot more food.”

11

C
lara’s little boy turned out to be named Majom. The woman who perched near Gran was Nuri. Even without Neko’s or David’s clarification, I knew that both creatures were tied closely to their witches, bound much more tightly than Neko and I had ever been connected.

Give me credit for something—I’d checked the calendar before I decided on this desperate working. I’d made sure that Gran and Clara wouldn’t duplicate the first witchcraft mistake I’d ever made. They had not awakened their familiars under the liberating gaze of a full moon.

No, Majom wasn’t going to be wandering the streets of D.C., with his deceptively innocent little-boy fingers getting into trouble. We’d still have our hands full—Clara’s familiar had already excused himself to use the bathroom and taken the opportunity to go through every drawer in the tiny room, dumping my makeup onto the floor. He’d been ready to add shampoo and conditioner to the mixture—just to see what would happen—when I’d walked in on him and cut short his fun.

At least Nuri, Gran’s parrot familiar, was a little easier to control. She held herself aloof for the most part, perching on the arm of one of the sofas, casting her head at a curious angle as she watched us talk to each other long into the night. When asked a direct question, she would croak an answer in a voice that was curiously loud, absurdly harsh—like a lifetime smoker working out a fear of public speaking.

We soon realized that Neko had not been entirely facetious when he’d said that the familiars needed to eat. Both were famished; I had no idea how long they had been held in their inanimate forms. I waved Neko toward the kitchen, telling him to have a ball with the cabinets and the fridge. After all, emergencies were emergencies. And I didn’t have any expensive delectables stored away. Gran and Clara followed the familiars, looking like they’d never seen a kitchen before.

I turned to David, trying to keep a note of admiration out of my voice. “Where did you get them?”

“Target,” he deadpanned.

“David—”

“I know people who know people.” He shrugged. “I spend my days cataloging arcane collections. I’m bound to come across a few valuable tidbits.”

“But what happened to their own witches?”

“They have witches. Your mother and grandmother.”

“David—” I started to warn again.

“Do you really want to know?”

A shiver crept up my spine. A familiar stayed tied to a witch for as long as she was able to work her own magic, for as long as she proved her arcane value to her Coven, to herself. But if a witch lost her power? If she died? This was all skirting a little too close to my own story. I swallowed hard. “Just tell me this. Do I need to worry about anyone coming after them? Is someone going to try to take them away?”

“No.”

I stared into his eyes for a moment, measuring the stark truthfulness written there. David didn’t lie to me. David had never lied to me. The steadiness of his gaze made my heart pound, and I wiped my palms against my sides. “What about a warder?” I asked, as if I were changing the subject. “Are any dark, mysterious strangers going to show up pounding on the door?”

A hint of a smile crooked David’s lips. “That’s all taken care of. I took the liberty of entering my name into the records. As far as Hecate’s Court is concerned, I’m responsible for all three of you, and your familiars.”

“Can you do that?”

“I did, didn’t I?”

Oh. Right. There was still that nagging thing about his knowing all the politics of this witchcraft stuff while I stumbled through, making it up as I went along. He was infinitely better prepared for an arcane life than I would ever be.

“I didn’t mean are you allowed to,” I said, although I had meant that, at least in part. “I meant are you
able
to. Won’t it be too difficult for you to track three rogue witches, and all the spells we cast?”

“I somehow think your mother and grandmother will be a bit easier to manage than you are. Were,” he amended, as I started to protest. “You got better. A little. We’ll see what happens when they come into the full bloom of their powers, but most witches don’t generate quite as much chaos as you’ve managed. You’re exceptional that way.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and his tone was so dry I could not tell if he was teasing me, or merely being excruciatingly polite.

Was this really what I wanted? To be enmeshed in warders and familiars and rules that I still didn’t fully understand? A quiet life of mundane librarianship was sounding pretty damn good.

“Ja-ane!” Neko’s singsong spared me the need to reply. “Were you going to do anything with this frozen cheesecake?”

“Aside from eat it, you mean? At a party? With a dozen other people?”

“That’s what I thought,” Neko purred. “I don’t suppose you have enough magic to work a thawing spell, so that we can have it now?”

“Or better yet,” David said quietly, “teach your mother and grandmother how to work the spell. Build their power and feed your own.”

“I don’t know how to teach—”

“No time like the present to learn,” he said, and then he took my arm and led me into the kitchen.

I thought about protesting. I thought about saying that I’d never worked a—a what?—a thawing spell. Why would
anyone
work a thawing spell?

But then I looked at Gran and Clara, saw the excitement on their faces. And I glanced at Majom, read the mischievous curiosity in his darting almond eyes. I gazed at Nuri, saw that she was absorbing facts, sponging up information, even as she cocked her head at a critical angle. I remembered the scant droplets of power that had coalesced in my arcane well when Ariel had spoken to me. Sure, I hadn’t felt anything just now, when the familiars awakened, but maybe, just possibly, I could change that.