Once a Witch Read online

  Before I can even think about smiling at him, Rowena and Gwyneth link arms with him and swing him away. So instead, I walk next to Aunt Beatrice, who keeps stopping to stare at the tips of her gold shoes as if she can't understand how these apparatus have found their way onto her feet.

  And even when we form a great circle around the stone altar, still, still I keep hoping that Gabriel will look my way, wink at me, something. To distract myself, I study the massive block of the altar, the blue-gray veins running through the dark stone, the thickly strewn summer flower petals, and the eight unlit candles made from the creamy beeswax of my father's hives.

  "Greetings," my mother says, and on cue the breeze vanishes and her voice rings out in the clear and beautiful silence. "Well met tonight as on all nights."

  "Well met," everyone choruses back. Except for me. I'm not in the mood.

  "Tonight is special," my mother continues, diverging slightly from the usual opening blah blah blah of these ceremonies during which I always tune right out. "Tonight we celebrate the union of two beloved people, Rowena and James." My mother pauses and beams in their general direction, as does everyone else. My eyes skip over faces in a distracted blur. "We also give thanks that two members of our family have finally returned home: Lydia and Gabriel. To honor them tonight, I ask them to light the eight candles."

  A soft murmur breaks through the air. I blink. This is an honor. I've never seen anyone besides my mother and grandmother light the tapers unless it's an Initiation Rite. Fascinated, I study Rowena and the slight flush rising in her cheeks. Then there's a general shuffle as everyone joins hands.

  Aunt Beatrice's hand finds its way into my own and I hold it lightly, afraid that too much pressure will crush her tiny bird bones. On my other side, my cousin Jerom envelops my hand with his much larger and unfortunately sweaty one. "Ow, not so tight," I hiss, wishing I could pull my hand free and wipe it down the side of my dress.

  Of course I get the quelling glance from my mother, who holds my grandmother's hand on one side and my father's on the other. As Gabriel and his mother step into the circle and approach the altar to the four elements, my grandmother begins the ritual prayer, her voice rich and full despite her wizened appearance. "Earth my Body, Water my Blood."

  I wonder if I'm the only one to note the hitch in her breathing.

  Everyone echoes her, Rowena's voice rising clear and true above the murmured responses. Gracefully, Lydia takes the first taper and lights West and South, then turns and hands the flame to Gabriel. I study his face closely, but he looks calm, relaxed, as if this is the most natural occasion, and with a sudden jolt I realize that for him it is. He's truly home now, in a way that I'll never be. I rest my eyes on a lone dandelion head that's been crushed in the grass next to my left foot. The sparkles on Aunt Beatrice's shoes blur as my eyes fill.

  "Fire my Soul and Air my Spirit," my grandmother says as Gabriel lights East and North.

  My lips move automatically in the shape of the words, but no sound can force its way past the block in my throat.

  "And now Rowena," my mother says. My sister steps forward as Gabriel and Lydia melt back into the circle. Rowe-na comes to stand before the altar, then pauses. The circle around me fills with a frisson of yearning. She opens her pretty bow-shaped mouth and begins to sing the words of thanks to the stars and heavens above us. With seemingly no effort, her voice lifts and carries, circling and spreading throughout the yard, the notes pure and sweet, the way a harp made of clouds and moonlight must sound.

  Everyone else's eyes are closed, but I stare at my sister's face as she sings on and on and on. And all the while her earlier words keep biting into my skin. Just because you don't have any Talent ... just because you don't have any Talent ... just because you don't have any Talent...

  And then, like a balm coating over the rough edges of those words, I remember Alistair's voice and the way he looked at me tonight. I just have this feeling that you really will be able to help me.

  And in that moment I don't care what it takes—I vow that I will find Alistair Callum's clock.

  FOUR

  "THREE, FOUR, FIVE, six," Agatha counts rapidly as we walk down Ninety-third Street. "There he is—that's your future husband."

  I look at the short, round man bobbing toward us. His briefcase swings out from his left side in a way that seems destined to clock someone in the shins, and his blue checked tie is flapping in the breeze as if trying to take flight. He wears a panicked expression as he fumbles through his pockets. If Gabriel were here he could tell this guy exactly where he left his BlackBerry. Even I can guess that's what he's searching for. Then I shake my head a little. There's no need to think about Gabriel.

  Nope. No need at all to think about him. Or the fact that we haven't spoken since Rowena and James's engagement party last week. He must have really decided to take my advice on steering clear of the family misfit.

  "Okay, my turn," Agatha says, taking a sip of her raspberry smoothie. "Nineteen," she says.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. "Shooting high?" Then I start counting as quickly as I can. "Fifteen, sixteen—ooh, too bad that one's seventeen," I say as a guy roller-skates right by us, his left arm brushing up against my shopping bag. Turning, I follow his progress, checking out the tight cords of muscle in his calves and arms. "Eighteen, nineteen. Hmm." This one is very clean-cut, with a square jaw and wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. Normally I don't like a man in a suit. But somehow this one seems to fit.

  "He looks like a banker," Agatha complains. She's more into the tall, skinny hipsters who wear thick-framed glasses and Ramones T-shirts.

  "You never know. You could have it all. The house with the white picket fence, the SUV, and two point four blond, blue-eyed children."

  Agatha makes a face at me. "That sounds perfectly hideous."

  I smile at her. Since her British literature class last semester, a lot of words like perfectly and perhaps have permeated her language.

  "What's your idea of the perfect life, anyway?" She weaves her way around a doublewide stroller and then falls back in next to me.

  I sip some of my strawberry banana smoothie, crunching the crushed ice between my teeth. "Now," I say.

  "Now? What do you mean?" Agatha is staring at me bemusedly.

  I wave my hands around me to encompass the bright air, the sidewalk cafés, the chatter and clatter and bustle of everything. "Now. This. This is perfect."

  She's squinting at me, a little the way she does at a particularly hard problem in her math book.

  "I mean, walking around, drinking smoothies, buying all these books, thinking about my classes this fall, and I don't know ... just being here, and this is all that's expected, this is all I can be."

  Okay, now I'm starting to sound like an army slogan.

  "My turn," I add brightly. "I pick number..." I say a little loudly, hoping Agatha will stop giving me that look. "Seven."

  "Seven it is," Agatha says. "One, two, three, four," she begins, and then, "Yum," she says as a guy wearing a bandanna and a dark blue T-shirt wanders by. "Too bad he's only number five." She puts her hand out and stops me from crossing the street. Agatha takes the traffic laws very seriously. Two bikers hurtle past us as we wait for the light to change. "Six, seven. Mmm," she says and smacks her lips in appreciation. With a not-so-subtle hand movement, she points out my next future husband.

  I nearly choke on my straw. Alistair Callum is crossing the street toward us, clutching a dry cleaner's bag and a sheaf of papers under one arm. I blink and then blink again, but no, he's really solidly here and not just a figment of my overactive imagination. A taxi cruises past and it seems as though he's about to hail it when all of a sudden he looks up and our eyes lock. I raise my hand and make a flapping motion that I hope he takes for a wave.

  "Omigod!" Agatha murmurs. "Your future husband is coming right at us. Look cute!" she instructs, swiping at my hair.

  "Um, listen, yeah, thanks," I say, batting away her hand. "I
know him. And by the way, he thinks my name is Rowena. Don't say anything!"

  "What—" And then thankfully she swallows the rest of her words as Alistair arrives.

  "Rowena," he says, shifting his papers from one arm to the other. "What a pleasant surprise."

  "Hi, Alistair," I say brightly, smiling up at him. A bus swooshes past and we all step back onto the curb. The gold-flecked stubble is gone, revealing a firm chin divided by a slight cleft. "Funny, running into you on the Upper East Side. You're a long way from NYU."

  "Yes, well, occasionally I do escape to other parts of the city," he says, nodding politely at Agatha. "Was my office too difficult to find, then?" A quick smile blooms on his face and I realize he's trying to make a joke.

  "What? Oh, no, no, not at all!" Great. Now he thinks I don't want to help him after all. "No, I just got back yesterday and today was our first day of classes and then I had to buy all these books," I say, hefting my bag into the air as proof. "I swear I was coming to see you this week," I add, all too aware of Agatha's fascinated scrutiny in my peripheral vision. "By the way, this is my roommate, Agatha. Agatha, this is Alistair Callum."

  "Charmed," Agatha says, and I try not to roll my eyes. She must be giddy that he's British.

  Alistair smiles at her. "A pleasure, Agatha." Then he turns back to me. "You still will?" The note of hope in his voice is too much to handle.

  "Of course. I have back-to-back free periods Wednesday. Are you—"

  "Perfect. I have office hours on Wednesday from ten to twelve. I'm in Lerner Hall. 245 Waverly Street. Do you know where that is?"

  "No. I mean, yes, I can find it." I pinch the end of my straw between two fingers. "Wednesday," I repeat, because he's looking worried again. "245 Waverly Street. Trust me, I'll be there."

  "Wonderful," Alistair says, bestowing a smile on me and another on Agatha. "Back to the office for me now. No rest for the weary and all that," he says, and turning, he plunges back into the whirl of people. I watch as he navigates his way, his dry cleaning flung over one shoulder, the plastic sleeves now curling up in what seems like a jaunty manner.

  "Just out of mild curiosity," Agatha begins.

  Okay, here it comes.

  "Why, pray tell..."

  More Briticisms. Will they never end?

  "... did your future husband call you Rowena?"

  "Um ..." I put my straw to my lips and drink half the smoothie in one gulp. A few feet away, a tiny old man stoops over a trash can on the street corner and begins rummaging through it. He fishes out a soda can, shakes it fiercely, then tucks it away in the pocket of his tattered black sweatpants.

  When I turn back to Agatha, she's still waiting for my reply. Her eyes behind her green cat-framed glasses are narrowed, possibly against the sun, more likely against me. "He's this professor at NYU and he ... came into the bookstore over the summer and he thought I was Rowena."

  "Ooh," Agatha coos excitedly. "A professor at NYU. He looks so young to be a professor. But I knew he was one of those intellectual types." Then she gives me a pointed look. "Wait a minute. Back up here. He thought you were Rowena and you didn't tell him otherwise because...?"

  Because he thinks I'm a witch who can help him recover a lost family heirloom using my Talent and the Talents particular to my family.

  "Just because," I say miserably, ducking my head a little. Agatha reaches over and scrubs my head affectionately with her knuckles.

  "You've got issues. Your sister is not all that, okay? And what does he want with you anyway?"

  I shrug. "I mentioned my interest in medieval art and he wants to lend me some books." The lies leave an oily taste on my tongue and I gulp down the rest of my smoothie.

  Agatha nods. "I bet that's not all he wants to lend you," she says with an exaggerated wink. I sputter, just managing to keep from spraying my smoothie everywhere. Agatha bats her lashes at me before continuing in her normal voice. "Maybe he could write you a recommendation letter. Don't you want to go to NYU?"

  I want to go anywhere as long as it's not back to Hedgerow.

  Two days later, I exit the overly air-conditioned subway car and enter into the din of the station. I climb countless stairs blackened with old chewing gum and finally emerge on the corner of Bleeker and Lafayette. After wandering through a tangle of streets while peering hopefully at any building that displays the purple NYU flag outside its door, I finally make my way into Lerner Hall.

  My eyes skip across the hall and a little thrill shoots through me. I could be a student here next year. I assess this skinny guy who is propped up against the wall outside a closed classroom door. He's wearing cutoffjeans and flip-flops. Several dragon tattoos spiral up and down his arms, all in various shades of gold and green. On a roll, I decide he could be my boyfriend next year.

  He sees me looking, returns the once-over, and then makes a motion to unhook the earphones of his iPod. I give him a regretful smile as if to convey that I really am pressed for time and move away, my heart beating a little too fast. I'm always good at the initial part. I'm not so good at the closing. But like most things, I figure it's just a matter of practice.

  I wander down the hallway, past offices with their doors mostly open. Inside, professors sit looking professor-like, examining pieces of paper with grave attention or making furious notes in the margins of a book or talking emphatically on the telephone. In one office, a girl is sitting with her back to me, her posture needle straight, her voice ragged as she says, "But if I don't take this class this semester, the whole sequencing for my major will be thrown off. You have to understand that!"

  At the end of the hallway, I come to a partially open door bearing the nameplate alistair callum. I raise my hand to knock but pause instead, and study the name again. Something about the letters catches at my memory, then flickers away before I can grasp it. I shake my head and knock firmly before pushing the door open.

  "Come in—oh, hi! Hello! Yes, welcome," he says, scrambling to his feet. "How—how are you?" He runs one hand along his face as if checking to see if he shaved that morning. Judging from the faint scritching noise that follows, he didn't.

  The small square of his office is taken up mainly by a massive desk and a large green leather chair, the arms of which are embossed with tarnished brass rivets. His desk is full of papers and books, some opened to marked passages. Several framed photos and sketches line the walls of his office, and as I move farther into the room, I step onto a worn antique rug. I smile to myself. It's as if someone looked up the term professor's office in the dictionary and then decorated according to the definition found there.

  "Tea?"

  I shake my head. "I'm fine." We observe a small moment of deeply uncomfortable silence, and then, as if prompted, Alistair says abruptly, "Sit down, sit down," and points me to a smaller black chair before settling back into his green one. "I'm so glad you came," he says simply.

  I have to tell him, I have to, have to, have to. How is another matter entirely.

  He steeples his fingers in the classic professor's pose. It makes me wonder if they teach that little gesture before you're allowed to get a PhD.

  "I have to ... tell you something."

  "You can't help me?" Alistair says, the dismay in his voice so vibrant that I stare down at my hands, twisting the chunky silver ring on my left thumb over and over. I can't do it. I can't tell him. Not just yet. Later, I promise myself. When I find the clock for him. Then he won't care that I lied.

  "I ... yes. I just wanted to ask you if you know anything about how we ... find things?"

  He shifts in his chair, one long finger circling a brass rivet. "I didn't want to ... appear ... unseemly," he says at last. "It's magic. Something like that."

  I smile. "Something like that," I agree. "Although we don't call it magic in our family. We call it Talent. As in, we all have certain Talents." I swallow. Now it's my turn to look uncomfortable, and my chair has no brass rivets to fiddle with. I settle for twisting my hands in my lap. "I can
help you, but it may take a while. I'm not—"

  "Are you sure you won't have tea? I know I'd like a cup." He's looking seriously nervous again.

  "Sure."

  He springs to his feet, clatters through a drawer, and pulls out two dusty-looking mugs. "Back in a sec—there's hot water in the faculty lounge," he explains and practically runs out of the office. I lean back in my chair, and from this vantage point I can see pockmarks of blistered paint on the wall next to the radiator.

  This is exhausting. Granted, the subject of Talent makes all normal people feel odd if they even believe you at all and don't give you the there are places for people like you to get help look. Although I've never really tried explaining my family to anyone ever since third grade, when Denise Winters told the whole class that my house was actually a mental asylum and that they let me out only to go to school. Not that I blamed her. I've had a similar impression over the years.

  "Here we are," Alistair says, coming back in with two steaming mugs and a dish of lemon wedges. "English Breakfast is acceptable?" he asks, and I nod. With his back to me, he busies himself adding tea to the cups and stirring. "Sugar, lemon?"

  "Sugar, please."

  He turns around, hands me a mug, and adds lemon to his own. "I have sugar here. I'm afraid I'm not a fan of white sugar," he says in a confidential manner, his eyes sliding away apologetically across his desk, as if presenting this small piece of information about himself is almost too shameful. From another desk drawer he produces an open box of sugar and hands it to me with a plastic teaspoon.

  "Thanks." I take some and add it to my cup, watching as the raw crystals swirl and sink slowly into the tea as I stir. "So," I begin again after a moment, "this clock that you want me to find. Can you tell me a little more about it?"

  Alistair sets down his cup of tea, pushing it slightly away from him. "It's been in my family for three hundred years. It was quite a handsome piece. A wall clock, inlaid with mother-of-pearl and with rubies for the hours."