Once a Witch (8 page)

“It doesn't exist anymore. Even if it is the same clock as the one in that painting, it's still not what your professor wants. At least not currently.”

“Explain to me how it works.”

“How what–you mean how I find things?” And now for some reason he looks worried.

“I want to know,” I say simply. And for once I really do. Gabriel doesn't answer right away. But at last he says,

“Okay. It's like, when someone wants to find something, I can hear the object.”

“You don't see it?” He gives a quick shake of his head.

“No. And hear is the closest word I can think of, but it's more like feeling an echo. I feel this echo of whatever the thing or person or place that's lost is, and then I… follow it.”

“Even through time?” I whisper. Gabriel's face goes completely blank.

“Why would you ask that?”

“I don't know. No reason, really. I just thought it was . .”

I break off, staring at him, and even though his face hasn't changed at all, not even by one twitch, somehow I know.

“You can, can't you?” A siren wails past the front windows, blaring its warning into the dark. ”I've never told anyone that I could do that. I didn't know at first. It took me a couple of years before I figured out that yes, I could follow something through time. But…”

“But what?”

“We're not supposed to,” he says simply. And all of a sudden I feel the gulf in that we.

“Why not?”

“This has never been explained to you?” I look at him.

“Apparently, they do this at the Initiation Rites,” he adds. When a person turns twelve in my family, he or she has been Talented for four years. Four years is the general time that it takes for a person's power to fully strengthen. So on Samhain, the entire family gathers and celebrates the new Initiates. The year I turned twelve, two of my cousins did, too, so of course a big celebration rite was planned. The night of Samhain, I locked myself in my room. For once my mother didn't pop into view to confront me and Rowena didn't try to convince me with sugar-syrup words and my grandmother didn't order me downstairs. Alone in the suddenly silent house, I watched everyone troop out to the woods before opening my science textbook and trying to study for the quiz we were having that week on ecosystems. Later, I tried not to strain my eyes for the telltale ladders of smoke that would signal the bonfire had started. Instead, I colored the photos of arid deserts in my textbook a vileshade of green, not caring that I was defacing a school textbook, and tried to block the sounds of chanting from my ears, even as my lips moved reflexively in the four prayers. In my mind's eye, I can still see the stain of color spreading from the tip of my marker across the porous page. I'd have to say that ranks as my second worst birthday, only just behind the year I turned eight.

“I never went through those,” I point out, even though he knows this.

“Neither did I,” Gabriel answers, and I blink in surprise.

“You didn't? Why not?”

“Oh yeah, my dad would have loved that shit” His voice is mocking.

“Those were the years when my mom was pretending that we were actually normal people. The all-American family. We did normal Halloween things. My mom dressed up every year as a pumpkin or something equally stupid.” I try not to smile.

“Not a witch?” Gabriel shakes his head.

“Hell, no. Never that. That would be a little too close to home for my dad. No, I trick-or-treated until, like, thirteen, and then I went out with my friends and did the usual stuff–”

“I've read about that,” I say wistfully.

“Toilet-papering houses and shaving cream.”

“Stealing candy from little kids is more like it. That and lighting dog shit on fire.”

“Oh” I think about this for a few seconds.

“That's lame. And disgusting.” Gabriel shrugs.

“What can I say? I was thirteen.”

“So your mom never told you about–”

“She was weird about being Talented” He pauses, rubs one hand across the back of his neck.

“She had this mini altar that she took down every day right before my dad came home. Dirt from the backyard, flower petals. A dish of water. You know the drill.” I nod.

“Anyway, she still believed in everything, but it's like it went into hiding whenever my dad was there. This whole other person came out. And I could never figure out why.”

“Why what?”

“Why would she ever want to be with someone if she could only be a quarter of who she truly was in front of him? And I could never figure out why my dad accepted that–required that–from her. It's like being with someone and their arms or their legs are missing and you don't even notice. It was crazy” Gabriel shakes his head, then looks at me and grins.

“Okay, that's probably more than you needed to hear.”

“No, I . .” I adjust the strap of my sandal where it's pressing into the arch of my foot.

“I like talking to you about this. It's… nice,” I finish lamely.

“I never talk to anyone about their… Talent.”

“Why not?” ”I. .”

My fingers press into the worn spot on my skin until pain pricks across my nerve endings.

“It hurts too much,” I say finally. I can't look at him as I continue.

“I feel like my family tolerates me but that I'm a constant failure to them.

“And instead of saying things like

“You're not a failure” or

“That's not true,” Gabriel says nothing at all but rests one hand on my arm. Heat pours through my skin.

“Things… weren't supposed to be like this,” I add. We're quiet for a while, listening to the house creak around us.

“I'm sorry we moved away,” Gabriel says. And then his hand tightens on my arm until I look at him.

“Why didn't you write me back?” he asks.

“I… felt weird” Like you wouldn't like me anymore.

“Even with me?” I shrug.

“Even with you.” Our faces are close enough for me to observe that his eyes are not as dark as they first seem. Instead, there are tiny flecks of green radiating from his irises. And then the grandfather clock in the hall strikes the half hour and I'm jolted back to what I need to be jolted back to.

“Okay, what if I want to find that object there?” I say and point toward the painting on the wall.

“Forget about this piece of paper. What if I want to find the clock in the painting?” ”Somehow, I knew you were going to say that” Gabriel sighs and leans back away from me.

“And what if I want to go with you?” And now I'm holding my breath, too afraid of what he'll answer.

“Whoa! Who said that I would even go in the first place?”

“Please” I wedge my feet on the bottom stairs.

“I know we're not supposed to tamper with time or whatever the rule is, but–”Gabriel's brows twist.

“It's not just that,” he says in a way that makes me think he cares little about breaking rules.

“It's dangerous. I've read enough about time to know that it's not a good idea to mess with it on the whole.”

“What if we were really, really careful? And we did it just this once. And no one has to know, right?” Inwardly, I imagine the looks on my mother's and grandmother's and Rowena's faces when I bring home the payment that Alistair will give me after finding his clock. I could drop the money onto the table.

What's this? Oh, just a little something that a customer gave me after I–The stairway creaks a little as if weighing in and I jump. Thankfully Gabriel doesn't seem to notice. He's too busy staring off at the painting.

“You know,” Gabriel says thoughtfully,

“my mom never really explained that rule to me anyway. It was one of those conversations that we had to have on the down low,and my dad came home in the middle of it and we never picked it up again.”

“And no one's ever explained it to me, either. I mean, why would they bother?” I say, making my face as innocent as possible. Gabriel puts one finger to his chin in an overly thoughtful pose.

“So no one's actually forbidden us to do this or explained why it would be a particularly bad idea?”

“Nope” I shake my head sorrowfully.

“No one.” We grin at each other, and suddenly he stands up and pulls me to my feet. Off balance, I rock close to him for a minute. Close enough to learn that he smells like clean laundry. His hands linger on my arms a second and I try to step back, but he tightens his grip.

“Do you really want to do this?” His voice is low and all traces of his grin are gone. I nod.

“Do you promise me that if we do this, you won't touch anything? That you will follow my lead at all times?” I would salute but he's pinning my arms to my side, so I settle for nodding again. But Gabriel looks unconvinced, so finally I say,

“Yes, I promise.”

“Okay” He releases me and steps back to study the painting again.

Surreptitiously, I rub my arms. I can't help but stare at him. He looks so intense, so determined and otherworldly, that I'm having a hard time rememberingthat this is the person who used to play sock puppets with me when he was six and I was four. Then he turns, holds out his hand. I give him mine, feeling the strong close of his fingers.

“You ready?” No! I want to say suddenly. And by the way, will it hurt? I want to ask. As if I've spoken out loud, Gabriel gives my hand a little shake.

“We don't have to do this, you know.”

“I want to,” I answer.

“I really want to.” He nods, looking back at the painting. He closes his eyes, so I close mine, too. All of a sudden I have that feeling you get on a roller coaster, just at the moment when the car has inched all the way up to the highest peak of the track and is poised, waiting to plummet and hurl down, down, down.

Then everything shifts and swirls past me and I feel as if I'm standing in the ocean, the sand beneath my feet disappearing under my heels, leaving me balanced on air. My eyes snap open. Focus, I think desperately, clinging to Gabriel, the bones of his hand solid and real. I concentrate on watching the shadows skim across the hardwood floors to pool in the corners of the foyer. A breeze is coming in from somewhere. There must be a window open and now it's making the candlelight flicker and sway. Candlelight?I turn my head.

Branches and branches of candles line the wainscoted walls, their lights dancing and bobbing. Somewhere above our heads music is playing, violins andmaybe a piano.

“You did it!” I say, and Gabriel grins.

“Is it always like that?” Gabriel raises one eyebrow at me.

“Did the earth move for you, too?”

“Oh, shut up!” I snap. Then I take a second look around.

“Gabriel, this is Aunt Rennie and Uncle Chester's house” I gaze up at the familiar ceiling covered in polished tin that rains pieces of light all along the white walls.

The windows are large and arched with wooden shutters pressed closed across the bottom halves, and the floors, polished to a gleaming mahogany, are interrupted here and there with the same Persian rugs that look decidedly newer in this century than in ours. And the life-size metal knight that's usually on the second floor now stands like a sentinel at the foot of the stairs.

“Alistair said his family lost the clock in a card game to another family. It must have been ours and–”

“Really, Miranda,” comes a voice from somewhere to our left.

“I think you're being quite ridiculous. He's only the most eligible bachelor in town.

It's natural that I danced with him.”

“Yes, but you danced three times with him and you know that's not allowed by Mama's dance rules and–”

“Quick,” Gabriel hisses in my ear, and we dart toward a closet. Just in time we press together into the small dark space that smells overwhelmingly of mothballs.

Leaving the door slightly open, I try not to breathe in too much. Two girls sweep into view and I can't help but wishthat Agatha could be here to see their dresses–she would die. I feel a quick pinch of sadness that I'll never be able to tell her about this. They're both wearing long white trailing gowns made of some silky material. One has her dark hair sculpted in elaborate swirls, and a large white feather curls over the left side of her face. She is the taller of the two, definitely more beautiful, and from the look of things the other girl seems to know this. Her gown is just as elaborate, but it doesn't seem to fit her body, which is shorter and stubbier. In a wheedling tone, the shorter girl says,

“Yes, but I wanted to dance the waltz with him. You know the waltz shows me off perfectly, and you deliberately took that dance.” The first girl gives a light laugh that snaps off abruptly, like breaking icicles.

“I did nothing of the sort. Did I fling my dance card at him? No, he approached and asked for that dance. What would you have me do? Tell him”– and here she puts on a sweet falsetto–” 'No, my little sister would care to have that dance with you, and I must condemn you to that experience of missed steps, bruised toes, and insipid conversation'?”

“Oh!” The younger girl balls her hands into fists, and then quick as a flash she reaches up, snatches the feather from her sister's hair, and shreds it.

“You little wretch,” the older girl exclaims. Suddenly, the pieces of feather in the younger girl's hand burst into flame and she drops them with a little cry. She sucks onher fingers, regarding her sister through narrow eyes. But before she can retaliate, an older woman enters the foyer. I can see her assessing the scene rapidly before the feather scraps disappear in a puff of smoke. She advances slowly on the two girls, the skirts of her blue taffeta dress rustling with every step.

“Mama,” the younger girl wails,

“Lavina did it again.”

“She started it,” the older girl murmurs. She passes one long hand over her hair as if to make sure it's all still there.

“Girls, what have I said about using Talents against each other?” Their mother's voice is low but forceful, and even I feel like taking a step back in the closet.

“There's been enough division and strife as it is between us all and you have to turn against each other like that? Has our history taught you nothing?” The two girls look down at the mahogany floor, the picture of guilt, and eventually their mother's face softens.

“Now, they're about to serve dinner. Lavina, Mr. Collins is waiting to escort you in” A blaze of triumph spasms across the older girl's face before she quickly composes her features into a bland mask. Her sister is not so skilled, because she looks up, her mouth open in a mute wail.