Once a Witch (18 page)

“But that's it, now. No more.” Somehow, I think she's said this before. Apparently, Aunt Beatrice doesn't seem too fazed, either, because she salutes Silda with

“Mud in your eye,” cackles, and slaps her cards face-up on the table. Everyone groans as Beatrice flings out her hands and scoops up a pair of earrings, a pair of cuff links, and several crumpled bills.

“No poker chips,” Gabriel explains as I walk over to stand behind him. I pick up what I hope is his beer and take a healthy slug.

“Everything okay?” I shrug.

“Not really. But keep playing,” I urge in a whisper as Jerom deals out the cards this time, his fingers an impossible blur. Gabriel sinks back in his seat.

“Want to play, Tam?” Silda asks, already inching her chair over to make room. I shake my head and remain standing.

“No, thanks.” Then with a grin I add,

“But you should probably know that Jerom just made a couple of cards disappear. My guess is that they're aces.”

“What?” my cousin says, his hands frozen over the table in the act of dealing a card to Aunt Beatrice.

“That's such a lie,” he insists, his blue eyes widening dramatically. Silda looks at him, her mouth pursed in a small button shape.

“Did you cheat again, Jerom?”

“I've never cheated,” her brother persists, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling as if seeking verification there.

“Oh, yeah? Well, what's this?” Gabriel says, reaching down around Jerom's foot and pulling up a thin rectangle of a card. The queen of spades seems to wink at us all.

“Jerom!” Silda cries.

“Oh, dear!” Aunt Beatrice says. She peers at the card closely.

“Is that the one… no, that's not what I lost” She sighs, slurps down most of her sherry, then begins waving her glass in a swooping arc above everyone's head.

Drops of liquid rain down across the table and cards, and everyone starts speaking at once.

“Aunt Beatrice!”

“Someone deal. Someone besides Jerom!”

“Well, isn't it amazingly convenient how Gabriel's been finding all of his cards just in the nick of time!”

“Hey! I just got lucky.” I reach over Gabriel's shoulder, snap up the pack, and riffle through it.

“Who changed all these to aces?” I ask as I flip over four aces and then five more staggered throughout the deck.

“I'm no poker champion, but I'm pretty sure there are only four aces in each deck.”

“Silda,” Jerom says, his voice heavy with disapproval.

“You? I can't believe you,” he finishes, shaking his head.

“Oh, shut up, Jerom. Like you weren't cheating the whole time.”

“I could use another drop or two,” Aunt Beatrice says, coughing delicately.

“And then perhaps Tamsin could deal. She can stop all this nonsense anyway.

Don't you know what she can do?” A small freeze settles over the table.

“Is it true, Tam?” Silda asks finally, her voice hard to read. She slides a look at me while spinning a beer cap between her fingers. For one instant it flashes into a diamond, then a sapphire, then a ruby, before she abruptly plunks it back onto the table as a thin disc of aluminum once more.

“Is it true that you can stop us from… using our Talents?” I open my mouth.

Silda and I have always gotten along on a peripheral level. Maybe because she's Gwyneth's sister, so we naturally bonded over the fact that we were both cursed with perfect older sisters who could apparently do no wrong. Some of my fondest memories are of stealing Gwyneth's and Rowena's things–a pair of crystal earrings or high heels– and then watching Silda quickly change them to marbles or muddy sneakers while our sisters howled the house down and called us thieves. But then when my own Talent didn't appear, Silda and I drifted far enough apart for me to avoid her like everyone else at family gatherings. Now I take a breath and wait until she looks at me again, then nod.

“Apparently.” I glance around the silent table. Aunt Beatrice meets my gaze, and I am startled by the sudden droop of her mouth, the tears filming over her dark eyes. I gulp and say swiftly,

“So… no more cheating, everyone. Because I'll know. That goes for you, too, Gabriel” I knock the deck of cards lightly on the back of his head and he smiles at me before taking the deck out of my hands. But he's the only one who does. I notice that Jerom and Silda suddenly hunch their chairs closer together.

“Right,” Jerom says.

“What about gin, then? Thirteen cards? I'm sick of poker.” His words are bright and cheerful, but I can't help feeling this awful sense of dread sinking through me. What did you expect, anyway? Gabriel's hand closes around my wrist in a warm squeeze, but I shake myself free as unobtrusively as possible.

“Oh, I love gin,” Aunt Beatrice cackles, her cheery mood seemingly restored by the word association of fresh alcohol.

“And sherry,” she says pointedly to Silda, who ignores her. Grateful for the distraction, I pull the glass from Aunt Beatrice's unresisting fingers and cross to the sideboard, tipping out a small amount of sherry. Tears are pricking along the edges of my eyelids and I take a deep breath. As I give the glass back to Aunt Beatrice, she looks up, her eyes bright and beady on me.

“I know you, dear,” she says, her hand frozen in midmotion.

“You can stop people, can't you? You stopped me,” she whispers. She takes the glass from me, downs the contents in a single swallow, and presses her tongue to the corner of her mouth.

“And then I lost it. I lost everything” Her voice sharpens into its usual keen.

“I lost it and I wasn't able to find it again. Ever.”

“Aunt Beatrice,” Silda says, making a motion for me to take away the old woman's glass,

“I really think you've had enough.”

“No!” I say sharply.

“Have some more” I dash over to the sideboard, snatch the bottle, and slosh a full amount into Aunt Beatrice's glass.

“Tamsin!” Silda says, her voice filled with shock.

“Seriously, Tam. It's not pretty when she gets drunk,” Jerom mutters. But Aunt Beatrice swallows without evident pleasure, her eyes mournful again.

“When was this, Aunt Beatrice?” I ask, leaning down so that she has to look at me. Her mouth trembles, seems to slacken for a few seconds, and then she sits up straight, her head nearly smashing into my face in the process.

“In 1939. Oh, the parties we used to have.” She claps her hands together once, then again, as if delighted with the tinkle of her crystal bracelets.

“Here?” I exchange a look with Gabriel, who has put down the cards and is listening intently.

“No. Not here, of course. I didn't come here until later. Much later. After my Roberto died.” Her mouth softens.

“At Uncle Chester and Aunt Rennie's,” I say slowly.

“My house,” Aunt Beatrice says grandly.

“It was my house then. Still is,” she adds with a quaver in her voice, and I'm afraid the melancholy will take hold. But then she aims a radiant smile at us and says,

“New York City. It was beautiful. And I was so young then. So strong,” she whispers. She holds up her thin bird-claw hands and looks at them.

“One move and I could freeze you. But not you, dear. I couldn't. You, yes,” she says, swinging her head toward Gabriel. Gabriel's eyebrows slant up and he points one finger toward his chest as if to ask, Me?” Well, that's just silly, Aunt Beatrice,” Silda snaps, then says to me,

“She's wandering. She thinks you're someone else.”

“I know her,” Aunt Beatrice insists.

“I know who she is. Why did you do it, Tamsin?” she asks me softly, and her voice is filled with such sadness that I swallow, shake my head.

“I'm sorry,” I whisper, and Silda juts back her chair and stands.

“That's enough, now,” she says briskly, but her hands are gentle as she pulls Aunt Beatrice from the chair.

“Let's get you to bed. Jerom? A little help here?” Jerom throws down his hand, giving Gabriel a look.

“Next time you're not going to be so 'lucky,'” he says before moving around to Aunt Beatrice's other side.

“Whatever,” Gabriel replies cheerfully as he begins to stack the cards again into one neat pile.

“I'm fine,” Aunt Beatrice says, batting at Jerom, but he ducks, lifts her into his arms, and moves toward the door with Silda trailing them. For an instant, Silda looks back at me.

“Tam, don't take anything that she says to heart, okay? She's… well, you know how she is.” And with a shrug she closes the door behind them. It's only then that I notice just how cold the room is. The earlier rain seems to have seeped into the walls and left a damp, musty air behind. Shivering, I move toward the fireplace, stack wood from the basket onto the hearth, and sprinkle a fair amount of kindling on it before lighting a long taper match. The flame smokes and hisses before it licks the wood and begins to grow. I sit back on my heels as a chair scrapes behind me and then Gabriel hunkers down next to me. He is still holding the deck of cards, face-up this time, and he automatically shuffles it over and over. The snap of the cards is punctuated by the slide of logs as they settle deeper into the fire. Half-light plays across Gabriel's hands, softening the flat features of the jack of spades, the king of hearts, the queen of diamonds, as they spin in an endless jumble before my eyes.

“Did you know?” I whisper at last.

“That I had a Talent?”

“How could I know?” Gabriel says.

“You didn't even know yourself until today.”

“My parents knew,” I say darkly.

“And my grandmother. And Rowena! This whole time. But somehow they –oh, and they told me that I could pick up other people's Talents. If they try to use them against me enough times.”

“How many times?”

“I don't know.”

“Tam,” Gabriel says slowly.

“That man in 1899. Didn't he try to throw fire at you three times? Do you think . .

.”

We stare at each other. I take in a ragged breath, examine my palms. They still look ordinary to me. Slowly I raise one hand and aim it at the fireplace. A gust of blood flares brightly under my skin and then a sphere of flame shoots from my palm, exploding with a soft whoosh into the fireplace. The actual fire that I built a few minutes ago blazes in response before dying back down to its feeble light.

Trembling, I gaze at my palm. The skin is unbroken and cool to the touch, but my whole hand is ringing like a bell that's been struck.

“That's why they told us…” Gabriel says softly, his voice trailing away. I whip my head toward him.

“Told you? Told you what?” He meets my eyes directly and this comforts me. But his next words turn me cold.

“Right before I left, I remember your mother gathering a bunch of us–kids, mostly– and telling us that you were… probably not going to have a Talent at all. So we should be extra careful when using our Talent in front of you. And that we were never, ever supposed to use a Talent against you. I didn't think anyone would pay attention to that. But then your grandmother came in and gave us all that look. You know that look? And it was as if Rowena took it as her personal mission to make sure we all followed this law.”

“I bet” Fire gushes from my palm again, slams into the fireplace. A log cracks in the sudden onslaught of heatand a shower of sparks flies up the chimney. I want to burn something else, but I hold back.

“But why would they do that?” Gabriel flips through the deck of cards.

“Maybe they were afraid you'd get to be… too powerful.” I blink, blink again, but not fast enough to stop the tears leaking from my eyes.

“Hey,” Gabriel says softly. He tucks long fingers under my chin and turns my face until we are inches apart.

“Why didn't you tell me this before?” I dab at my cheeks with my fingers.

“I mean, wouldn't you have wanted to know? If it were you?”

“Yeah” He looks down at the pack of cards, then sets it aside.

“I probably would have told you. If I'd stayed. Or if we'd stayed friends earlier.

I'm sorry, Tam,” he whispers. He reaches out and skims one finger over my cheekbone, brushing away my tears. His hand slips down to trace the outline of my mouth and he leans forward. I close my eyes.

“What the hell?” Gabriel exclaims. Opening my eyes, I see him leap up. I turn. A flutter of white flies past the window, then bumps up against the glass with a gentle thunk. I stumble to my feet, yank the sash up, and lean out. The wind is gusting fiercely now and something long and knotted slaps at my face. I draw back, then look up. A twisted rope of sheets hangs from the upstairs window.

”Shit,” I say, and Gabriel elbows me out of the way, catching at the rope. We turn to each other.

“Rowena,” I cry.

“My mom,” he says at the same time. We turn and peer out the window again.

The crescent moon sheds enough light for us to see that the long driveway is empty except for potholes and gravel and gloomy shadows. She's gone.

“NO,” MY MOTHER says for the third time, her face very white under the glare of the kitchen lights.

“You will not go near this man. Ever again.”

“But he wants–”

“I don't care what he wants, Tamsin. He is extremely dangerous. Extremely dangerous,” my mother repeats, as if making sure I really hear her. She knots a dishtowel until the cheerful print of roses and tulips mangles under her hands, then wrings it out, hanging it on a wooden peg by the stove.

“Your father and I will deal with him.”

“What are you going to do?” I say.

“We will talk to him.” I snort.

“Yeah, that's going to work.”

“I'm so sorry, Camilla,” Aunt Lydia says for the third time from her chair at the kitchen table. A mug of tea sits before her, but I don't think she's taken even one sip. Her eyes are red rimmed and swollen. ”It's not your fault,” my mother replies automatically, also for the third time, her eyes skipping restlessly over the kitchen walls.

“It couldn't be helped.” Apparently, Rowena woke up an hour ago, feigned sleep until Lydia's head was turned, and then began compelling her. She persuaded Lydia to keep silent and still, except for when she required her help to knot the sheets.

“I couldn't even do anything but watch as I tied the sheets together. And all the time I just thought it was the most natural thing in the world to do what she said.