Once a Witch (16 page)

“He came into the bookstore one night over the summer. He asked for help in finding an old clock. A family heirloom. It had been lost, he said. In 1887.” Now there is no sound in the room at all. It's as if my mother is holding her breath.

“Why?” she says finally, anger threading through her voice.

“Why didn't you tell us?” Suddenly, I feel an answering flare of anger.

“Why didn't you tell me that I had a Talent? You must have known!” Two dark spots of color have crept across my mother's cheekbones. In one quick moment she gets to her feet.

“Your father should know this,” she mumbles, not exactly meeting my eyes.

“Wait a minute” And suddenly I know she's about to flick out of the room.

Without thinking, I surge toward her in my mind and silently scream, Stop. I stumble to my feet and we stare at each other. And once again my grandmother's long-ago words run through my head. Your daughter will be one of the most powerful we have ever seen in this family.

“Tamsin,” my mother says at last, and one hand goes to her throat. I'm sorry, I want to say, and also, Did it hurt?But instead my next words come out like perfect stones to skip across a lake: even and hard.

“Why did you lie to me all these years?” When my mother and I walk into the library, a small sullen fire is smoking in the fireplace, guarded on either side by the china firedogs. I swallow. Rowena used to make those firedogs sing in rusty yelps and barks and I used to laugh until I cried. My father is standing by the wall of windows that look out over the fields toward his nursery. As we enter the room, he turns, crosses behind the massive walnut desk that is cluttered with papers and books and pens and the bottles of ink that my mother still loves to use, and meets her halfway across the room. She tilts her head back and looks up at him.

“Tamsin just… stopped me from using my Talent.” My father gets this expression on his face that means he's probably wishing that he had something of my mother's gift and could transport himself back to his gardens instantly.

“She needs to know,” he rumbles at last, speaking directly to my mother.

“Althea, whatever she was doing, didn't feel the need to enlighten us, and now I say tell her.” The mention of my grandmother's first name stops me. My mother presses her hands to her temple, kneads for a minute, then wanders over to a small pink armchair by the fire and sinks into it. Finally, and without looking at me, she says,

“Tamsin, you do have a Talent. More than one, it seems.” I lean against the wall because it feels as though my legs have just turned into water.

“No one can use their Talent against you. It simply won't work. You can also stop anyone from using their own power even if they're not trying to use it against you.”

“Like I stopped Rowena today. From compelling Gabriel.”

“Yes. And from compelling James, too.”

“So then… whatever's wrong with Rowena, I can stop it.” And I can't keep the triumph from spreading through my voice. But my mother is shaking her head.

“That's different. You can stop something while it's happening to you or to someone else. And like I said, power won't ever work against you. That includes spells. But when it comes to someone else”–and here my mother shakes her head again–”you can't undo what's already been done.”

“How?” I breathe.

“How do you know this about me already? When I never even knew this stuff about myself!”

“When you were four or maybe five,” my mother begins,

“I found you in the stillroom. Somehow you had climbed up the shelves and found a whole basket of strawberry leaves that I was drying, and then you found your way into the strawberry juice that I was brewing” I have no memory of this whatsoever.

“It wasn't just strawberry juice, though. It was a very powerful sleeping spell.

Designed to knock a grown man out for days. Which is what Cathy Monroe had paid for.”

“Who's Cathy Monroe?” My mother waves her hand.

“She used to live on Hancock Street with her husband. Her extremely violent husband. She wanted a three-day head start when she left him.”

“Which you made for her.” My mother nods.

“Which you drank.”

“And?”

“And nothing. You stayed awake. I made another batch and Cathy Monroe had her three-day head start.”

“Did you see me drink it?” My mother permits herself a small smile.

“No. Not the first batch. The second and the third and the fourth, yes. Your father drank the second batch with you and slept through the third and the fourth.” I gaze at my father, who is now adjusting the logs in the fireplace with a poker.

“Okay, but how did you know that I could also–”

“Your grandmother has never been able to read your mind.”

“Never?” I think back on all the times I prepared empty-headed thoughts in case she was attempting anything.

“What about the time when Jerom broke his ankle? I felt her do it then.”

“You felt her try,” my mother corrects me.

“Did you also feel dizzy right after that?” I think back to the day I flew on my cousin's back and recall the sweeping head rush that came over me after I fell. I had always assumed it was a late reflex to the shock of plummeting through the air or from landing so hard. I nod.

“When we first start to use our Talents, it often takes us by surprise. Some of us get dizzy; others get tremendous headaches.”

“So glad I'm suddenly part of the 'we' and 'us' club now,” I say.

“The more you use your Talent, the more that effect lessens and finally disappears,” my mother says, ignoring my comment. She presses her fingers into her forehead so hard that it looks as if she's trying to rub holes in her skin.

“There's more,” my mother adds, as if wondering how much to reveal.

“Your grandmother thinks you can mimic other people's Talents.”

“What?”

“If someone uses their Talent against you, as in to harm you, it won't work. But if they continue to do it, you can acquire it.”

“How does she know this?” My mother shakes her head.

“That I don't know. She said she saw it, that she saw you do it.” I stare at my mother.

“When? I can't have… I never did that” I touch my locket necklace, twisting the chain in my fingers.

“Why… why did you keep it secret from me all these years? Why did you let me think I was… this big fat disappointment to you all? And why did Rowena get to know and not me?”

“Rowena will succeed your grandmother one day and needs to know certain things,” my mother answers. But I'm hardly listening, because that same tingling wave passes over me, like a chill across my neck, and I whirl and stare into the farthest corner of the room, where even the fire-lit shadows fail to reach.

Unthinkingly, I reach out with my mind and bam, Uncle Morris pops into view. His eyes shift away from me and he shrugs a little.

“Morris!” my mother cries.

“Forgot my spectacles,” he says jauntily as he strides across the room, making a show of searching on a small side table.

“Nope, guess they're not here.” His edges start to shimmer, but he remains very much in place. His eyebrows skip upward, but I don't relent.

“Tamsin,” my father says, but I ignore the quiet rumble of warning in his voice.

“If you want to leave, then leave the normal way,” I say, even though part of me flinches along with Uncle Morris. It's not his fault. He gives his goatee a little tug and then, moving faster than I've seen him move in a long time, he hurries toward the door. Pausing, he looks at me, opens his mouth as if to say something, then seems to think better of it. Opening the door, he slips out, and I am left with the look in his eyes. Hurt and bewildered.

“Is this why you didn't tell me? You thought I'd be stopping people all the time from being… themselves.”

“No,” my mother says quietly.

“No, we didn't tell you because your grandmother asked us not to. Because she said that although she didn't exactly know why, one day you would need what we could give you.”

“And what is that?”

“She… she never could say. All she knew was that one day you would need to make a choice and that to raise you the way we did would help you when the time came.”

“Who else?” I demand.

“Who else knows about me?”

”No one. Just your grandmother, your father, and I.” My mother tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

“And, of course, Rowena.”

“Rowena,” I echo. Of course. Perfect Rowena, who will take over the family one day. Even though I've always known this, I still can't stop this bitter spill of thoughts. In one small corner of my mind, all day I had been harboring this crazy, silly hope that now that I did really have a power, maybe I would be the damn beacon that my grandmother had foretold–whatever that meant. That for once Rowena wouldn't have the lock on being so Talented, so special. That maybe I would be the one to guide my family in… I shake my head to scatter those thoughts.

“I can't believe you went along with this,” I accuse my mother now. A low growl of thunder rattles past the windowpanes, and my father's expression, usually so mild and benign, much like a warm spring rain, has now shifted into something sharper.

“If that's you doing that, then stop,” I snap at him.

“Or I'll stop it for you.” Both of my parents stare at me as if I'm a changeling, but I'm past caring. My father opens his mouth, but I rush in.

“Who is this person? Alistair Callum?” My mother sighs.

“Long ago,” she begins, overriding whatever my father was going to say,“long ago there was a war.” Somehow I have a feeling I'm not about to hear a lecture on the American Revolution.

“A struggle, really, between our family and another much more powerful family.

This other family believed in things that… our family did not.” She pauses as if contemplating those things, then continues hurriedly.

“We captured their power and managed to isolate it into one object–it's not clear exactly how,” she says, obviously anticipating my next question.

“Our history tells us that four members of our family acted together to work a powerful spell and that they made a great sacrifice to do this.” She stops, clasps her hands, and recites,

“One stood for North, and one stood for South; one stood for East, and one stood for West. North summoned Air, and South carried Water; East called Fire, and West bore Earth. And all were bound together.” I stare at her.

“Um… that tells me nothing,” I say at last and am rewarded with a reproving frown from my mother before she continues.

“Anyway, that's what we call the Domani–where all this other family's power remains. Anyone who was and is linked to this family through their bloodlines was and is affected by this spell. And of course we hid the Domani very carefully.”

“Why didn't you just destroy it?” My father clears his throat.

“Don't you go to school?” This seems like a particularly odd question to ask right now. But he continues.

“Science class?” Now this is beginning to make more sense. My father loves science. Einstein, Newton, Mendel–they're all his heroes. Whenever possible, he interjects science into the conversation. Never mind if no one's in the mood for it.

“Remember the rule that matter can neither be created nor destroyed? Well, that applies here.”

“Just changed,” my mother adds softly.

“Can it change back?” My mother takes a breath.

“You mean, can they recapture it and reawaken it?” I nod and the fire pops and hisses just as she answers,

“Yes,” so the word is lost in the shadowy recesses of the room.

“We think it already has reawakened. Somehow.” That somehow goes ringing through me like a cold clanging bell. And then I hear the man in the frock coat's words again. You really don't know what you've done, do you?

“THE CLOCK. The clock that he wanted me to find. That was the Domani, wasn't it?” My mother puts her hand on my father's arm as he stares at me and explains urgently,

“Tamsin's met him before. He came into the store over the summer and asked her to help him. He's a professor. Or so he claims,” she finishes.

“At your school?” my father says, startled.

“No, Rowena's school,” I say sarcastically. Then I bite my lip.

“Sorry. At NYU, actually.”

“But I don't… why did he ask you for help?” my fatherasks.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Tamsin,” my father says sharply.

“That is not at all what I meant. What I meant was, why would he come into the bookstore if he knows anything about this family at all and expect you to help him?”

“What you don't know is that there's a spell of protection cast over this family. It doesn't extend very far,” my mother adds weakly.

“Not far beyond the borders of this town.” I think on this for a second. That explains my mother's deep dislike of anywhere that's not Hedgerow.

“And of course, the spell wouldn't work on you anyway. Which is why he was able to approach you in the bookstore.” I scrunch my toes together.

“I pretended to be Rowena.”

“You what?” my mother and father say at the same time, both of them staring at me.

“He thought I was Rowena and I… just went along with it. Later he found out that I wasn't.” I decide not to mention how much later.

“How did you find it for him?” my mother asks.

“The clock? How?”

“I saw it. In a painting. At Uncle Chester and Aunt Rennie's house. And then I…

went there and got it.”

“You can Travel?” my mother gasps. The fire bites into a log with a particularly loud snap.

“What's that?” I ask blankly.

“Nobody's been able to Travel in this family for generations. Not to mention that it's not allowed,” my mother says, even though this doesn't answer my question at all. I shrug. I'm not about to give up Gabriel.

“How would I know that? It's not like anyone tells me anything around here.”

Thunder snarls again and I stare at my father before adding,

“I mean, maybe if you explained what Traveling is…”

“Traveling,” my father begins in a ponderous voice, “is an old Talent that seems to have been lost over the years. No one has been Gifted with it for generations.” Then he swivels his shaggy head and stares at me.