Parties & Potions #4 (3 page)

Miri and I don’t talk much while we eat it; we have too much listening to do.

They gossip about people they know.

“Did you know that Mitchell Harrison got married last week?” Aunt Rhonda says, and then whispers, “To a
notch.”

“No!” the table cries.

I don’t know who the notches are, but to fit in I put on my “That’s unbelievable!” face. I’m not sure if it’s unbelievably good or bad, but clearly it’s unbelievable.

“Yes,” her husband says. “Last week.”

“That is so sad for his parents,” Wendaline’s mom says with a loud sigh.

Unbelievably sad, apparently. I shake my head to commiserate.

“It’s his life, and he can do what he wants,” Wendaline says indignantly. “If he’s happy, you should be happy for him.”

I stop the shaking and start nodding and then decide just to keep my head still and focus on my salad before I accidentally bite off my tongue.

They talk about politics.

“The witch union is just so useless these days,” Aunt Rhonda says.

“Seriously,” says one of the relatives. “Is there anyone in charge over there?”

Miri squeezes my knee under the table. She is soaking it all up, enjoying every second. At least until Wendaline’s mom
ganolios
up the main course, veal Parmesan. I look worriedly at my vegetarian sister. “What are you going to eat?”

She prods her main course with her fork.

“If you zap your meal back into a cow, no one here would be too surprised.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Yours is tofu, Miri,” Wendaline tells her. “It’s all good. I know you don’t eat meat. It’s on your Mywitchbook profile.”

The happy look returns to Miri’s eyes. These witches sure know how to throw a dinner party.

We both dig in.

“Will you girls be doing your Samsortas this year?” Wendaline’s mom asks us between bites.

“Sorry?” Miri squeaks. “What’s a Samsorta?”

Mrs. Peaner’s eyes bulge.

“Your coming out!” Aunt Rhonda cries. “You’ve never heard of Samsortas?”

We shake our heads.

“It’s only the biggest social event of the calendar year,” Cousin Ursula says. “You’ve never been?”

We shake again.

“It’s on October thirty-first,” Aunt Rhonda explains. “New witches from around the world are announced to witchcraft society. It’s a tradition.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Wendaline says. “It’s like a debutante ball for witches.”

“It’s gone on since the Middle Ages,” her mom adds.

“I know,” Aunt Rhonda says. “I was there.”

A “huh” escapes my lips.

She nods. “It was six lives ago, but I have an excellent memory.”

Um …

“That’s where Halloween comes from,” Wendaline ex-plains. “That’s why notches and norlocks dress up. They come out like witches, and they don’t even know why!”

Okay, I have to ask. “What are notches and norlocks?”

“Oh! Nonwitches and nonwarlocks,” she says.

If only I had a laptop to take notes on. Maybe my dad will get me one for my birthday? That would be so cool. “So what happens on October thirty-first?”

“All the new witches gather in Zandalusha, the old witch burial grounds, and perform the Samsorta ceremony.”

A cemetery? On Halloween? Sounds creepy. “Is it in New York?”

They all chuckle.

“Here in the New World? Hardly,” Aunt Rhonda says, turning up her nose. “Zandalusha is on a small island in the Black Sea, off Romania. It’s where all our foremothers are buried.”

A witch cemetery in Romania. Creepy to the power of a gazillion.

Wendaline must see my “ick” expression, because she hurries to say, “It’s really beautiful. I went to Ursula’s Sam a few years ago and it was the most amazing thing. Really spiritual. You’re given away by an older witch who was already Samsorted, and you add a lock of hair to the Holy Cauldron, and there’s a candle ceremony, and you perform a spell that came from the original spell book in Brixta.”

Is the original spell book
A
²
? It comes in Brixta, too? It’s tough enough to read in English, never mind Brixta. There are way too many sections.

“I am so excited for mine,” Wendaline continues. “I started training last month. Oh, you guys should do it too!”

“Um …” A cemetery on Halloween with a bunch of witches? Thanks, but no thanks. “We’ll see,” I say. But what I really mean is “no way.”

During dessert (Chocolate cake! Mini crème brûlées! Fancy exotic fruit tarts!) Wendaline asks me lots of questions about JFK.

“Is it huge?”

“Not too big.”

“I’m so afraid I’ll get lost.”

“Don’t worry. Lots of people get lost on their first day.” Not me. But lots of other people. Fine, I got a little lost. How was I supposed to know that room 302 was on the second floor? Does that make any sense? No, it does not.

“I’m sure I’ll get lost. I’ve never been to school before.”

“You mean, you’ve never been to
high school
before.”

“No.” She bites the corner of her bottom lip. “I’ve never been to school. I was homeschooled.”

What? “Seriously?”

She laughs nervously. “Yeah. A lot of witches are home-schooled. So our parents can balance our witchcraft studies with our notch studies.”

Poor girl! “But … where do you meet boys?”

“Oh, you know. Mixers. Parties. Teen tours.”

Is she kidding me? Teen tours for witches? Where do they go, from cemetery to cemetery?

“But you’ve never been to any type of organized school before?” Miri asks.

Her eyes are rimmed with worry. “No.”

“Don’t worry,” I say, taking another bite of cake. “I’ll show you around. Why don’t you meet me at the opening assembly? I’ll walk you to your homeroom class.”

“Really?” Her eyes shine. “Thanks, Rachel. You’re the best!”

Why, yes, I am. I can be, like, her mentor. Follow me, little one. Just call me Obi-Wan. I’ll take her under my wing. Show her how to use a lightsaber.

Or at least the school ropes.

“How cool is Wendaline!” Miri exclaims. Our arms are linked and we’re kind of half walking, half skipping home. Sure, we could have zapped up our brooms, but we’d rather walk, gray-style. What can I say? That’s how we roll.

“So cool,” I say.

“I like how she says ‘It’s all good.’ You forgot to take your broom? It’s all good. You brought us a candle even though we already have four thousand? It’s all good.”

“You don’t remember your past lives?” I say. “It’s all good.”

We giggle and I squeeze her arm against me.

“Are you glad you came?” she asks.

“I am one hundred percent glad. It’s like a whole different world over there, huh?”

“I know! They’re so sophisticated and witchy!”

“I can’t believe that’s where Halloween comes from!” I love Halloween. It’s my absolute favorite holiday. And I in-spired it! Well, not me exactly, but my kind.

“I know!” She stops in her tracks. “Maybe we should do it.”

“Do what?”

“The Samsorta!”

“Seriously, Mir? Why would you want to do that?”

“Because! Why wouldn’t you?”

“First of all, because it’s creepy. Second, because we don’t speak any gibberish.”

“You mean Brixta,” she corrects, poking me.

“Whatev. And third, because Wendaline said you need someone to give you away. And unfortunately, Mom didn’t have a Sam—”

Wait a samsecond! She lied about her name. She never mentioned Brixta. Or notches. Or norlocks. Or anything at all. I turn to Miri. “Do you think Mom had a Samsorta?”

We run the rest of the way home.

The Way We Were

We face my mom on the couch. Glaring. My sister and I have matching crossed arms.

“Mom!” I begin. “We are very disappointed in you. You never told us you knew Wendaline’s aunt. You never told us you had a Samsorta. You never even told us your real name!”

Now I understand why she let us go to some stranger’s house for a Full Moon dinner in the first place. They weren’t strangers; they were childhood friends.

“Are you even our real mother?” Miri asks, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.

Mom squirms in her seat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You know I don’t like to talk about all that. It’s in the past.”

“You better start spilling in the present!” I order, slamming my fists into the pillows.

She sighs. “Hold on. I have something to show you.”

She disappears around the corner. I check my watch. It’s already quarter after ten. I have to get to sleep soon so I can look my best for day one of
The Sophomore Spectacular!
Under-eye circles are not part of the plan.

Mom returns with a small black leather book. “Do you want to see my Samsorta album?”

Is that a rhetorical question? “Yes! Why have we never seen this before? Where was it? Do you have some sort of in-visible bookshelf in your room?”

She squeezes in between us on the couch. “It was in the one place where you two never dare go. The cleaning sup-plies closet. Behind the Windex.”

“We have a cleaning supplies closet?” I ask.

“Exactly.”

She turns over the black front cover, and Miri and I gasp at the close-up of my mom’s adolescent face. It looks just like Miri’s! But it’s my mom’s! It’s my mom with a totally un-wrinkled forehead! And dark black eyeliner! And an updo! “It’s Teen Mom! And your hair is brown!”

“Of course it’s brown.”

“Well, I’ve never seen your natural color before. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any kid photos of you. I’ve seen college photos and wedding pictures, but no kid photos. Let me guess: you had to hide them from Dad and then you forget all about them?”

“Exactly,” she says.

How sad—she had to bury her entire childhood in the back of a closet so the man she was married to would never see it.

“But witches don’t take too many pictures anyway,” she adds. “It’s not part of the culture. There’s a superstition that getting photographed steals part of your soul.”

“Gee, thanks, Mom,” I say. “There are only like a gazillion photos of me out there. Way to warn me.”

“I don’t believe it, obviously. I had these taken, didn’t I?”

My mom, the rebel.

It’s super-weird to see my mom as a young girl. I can’t picture her as a teen. I can’t imagine her as a real person without kids. Isn’t she on this planet to be my mom?

“You were pretty,” I say.

“ ‘Were’? Gee, thanks.”

“Are
pretty,” Miri says. “That’s what she meant.”

“Totally. That’s what I meant.”

In the next photo, I get a better look at the outfit. Mom’s wearing a long-sleeved purply satin dress. The neck is low and shows off her—

“Mom! You had boobs! How old were you when you had your Samsorta?”

“Thirteen. Miri’s age.”

“But you’re huge. Did you pad? You so padded.”

She giggles. “I may have padded a
little
bit.”

The bodice of the dress is tight, and the skirt flares into ruffles. She’s looking off into the distance. Behind her is the Eiffel Tower.

“You had your Samsorta in Paris?” I ask. “I thought they held it in Romania.”

“No, it was in Romania. We just popped by Paris for pictures.”

Popped by. La, la, la, I think I’ll pop by Paris on my way to school. Pick up a baguette.
Merci beaucoup.

She flips over to a two-page spread. On the left is Teen Mom with Today Mom. No, that makes zero sense. Unless she’s Time-Traveling Mom.

“Is that Grandma?” Miri asks.

Ah. So clever, that little one.

“It sure is.”

“She looks just like you do now,” I say. “Except for the black hair.”

“Yeah, she had gorgeous thick black hair. I got mine from my father.”

“Is he in any of the photos?” I ask.

“No.” Sadness creeps into her voice. “He stayed out of the witch stuff. Didn’t want to get in the way.”

At least he had the opportunity to get in the way. Unlike Dad.

Imagine if Mom had told him—had told all of us— about her Samsorta years ago, when we were still one family. The four of us, cuddled together on the couch, flipping through the pictures, teasing, laughing, sipping hot chocolate by the fireplace—

“Hey, Mom,” Miri says, interrupting my trip down Alternate-Reality Lane. “Does
mogul
mean ‘grandma’?”

“It’s
moga,”
she answers.

“That’s what I said.”

“You said ‘mogul.’ ” I snicker.

“Did not. Next picture, please.”

The next page is Teen Mom … with a boy. A boy who’s looking at her adoringly.

She gets a girlish smile on her face. “That’s Jefferson Tyler.”

Reeeeeally “And
who
is Jefferson Tyler?”

“My very first boyfriend,” she says.

No way “You had a boyfriend before Dad?” I squeal.

“Yes, dear.”

Miri and I study the picture. He has short, curly dark hair and a big smile. “He’s cute,” I say.

Miri asks, “Is he a warlock?”

“Yup.”

This is all too much. “Other men, other name…. Who
are
you?”

Mom clucks her tongue. “I did have a life before you were born, you know.”

Apparently! “How long did you go out with him exactly?”

“I don’t know … about five years?”

“What?” I shriek.

“We met a few months before my Sam, and we stayed together until I was about eighteen.”

“That’s forever,” Miri says, folding her legs underneath her. “I can’t believe you never told us about him!”

“Have you seen him since? Did you love him? Did you guys—” I’m about to say “make out,” but I decide I don’t want to know the answer to that. At all. Yuck. So instead, I say, “Break up?” which makes no sense. Obviously they broke up.

Miri snorts. “No, they got married.”

“He wanted to get married,” Mom says. “But I wanted to go to college.”

“No way,” I say. “I can’t believe another guy proposed to you before Dad. At eighteen. Yikes.”

“Things were different back then. Witches got married young. I wanted to excommunicate myself from the world of witchcraft; he wanted to get more involved…. My mother wanted me to marry him, of course.”

“Why?” Miri’s eyes are wide.

“She wanted me to avoid the problems she’d had by marrying a norlock. That’s a—”

“We got it,” Miri says with a nod. “Nonwarlock.”

“Right. But I wanted to explore my options.”

“Then you met Dad,” I say.

“Then I met your dad.”

None of us speaks. We’re all thinking, And look how well that turned out. At least, that’s what I’m thinking. For all I know, they’re thinking about padded bras. Or about what ever happened to Jefferson Tyler, because how cool would it be if after all these years they met up, fell back in love, and got married?

So cool.

Yeah, yeah, I know she’s had a serious boyfriend for five months now—so serious she even told him our witchy secret—but still. It’s soooo romantic.

Must find Jefferson Tyler! Maybe he’s on Mywitchbook.

“Back to the Samsortas,” Miri says. “How did you know what to do? Did you have a tutor?”

Mom groans. “I had to take these horrible lessons. At Charm School.”

I laugh. “It was actually called Charm School?”

“No, the official name was Charmori, but everyone called it that.”

“Wow,” says Miri wistfully. “Where is the Charmori? In New York?”

“In Switzerland.”

“You never told us you’ve been to Switzerland,” Miri grumbles.

“Miri, she never told us anything. She was a witch! Of course she’s been to Switzerland. She’s probably been to every country on the planet.” I refocus on the subject at hand. “Did you do any skiing?”

Mom laughs. “I wasn’t there to ski; I was there to learn.”

What a nerd. “Was there chocolate? I bet there was really good chocolate.”

“Do you speak Brixta?” Miri asks. “Say something in Brixta.”

“I doubt I remember anything,” she says.

“Oh, come on,” I tell her. “Say ‘hello.’ You can say ‘hello.’ ”

She closes her eyes.
“Kelli. Fro ki fuma imbo oza ge kiro?”

Shut up! I squeeze her arm. “What does that mean?”

“Hello. Can I have another piece of chocolate?”

See? I knew it.

“Cool,” Miri says.

“A waste of time, actually. I spent over a year learning Brixta. I’ve never used it again. In my opinion, the entire Samsorta ceremony is pretty useless. You don’t get any more powers or rights. It’s not like getting a driver’s license. You’re not any more of a witch. It’s just a public spectacle.”

“So why do people do it?” I ask.

She shrugs. “It’s a way to make yourself known in the witch world. To network with other witches.”

We silently flip through the rest of the pictures. It might be a big waste, but she sure looks glamorous. The gorgeous dress, the thick black eyeliner, the fancy updo.

I want to look that glamorous.

Do I want a Samsorta?

I want to get dressed up. I want to get my makeup and hair done and have a boy look at me adoringly. But the boy I want to look at me adoringly is Raf. And how can he possibly come to my witch party if he doesn’t know I’m a witch?

He can’t. So really, what’s the point?

Anyway, do I want to learn a new language and then have a weird candle zombie ritual at a cemetery on Halloween?

Not so much.

I look at my watch again. It’s almost twelve! If I don’t get to bed soon, I’m going to
look
like a zombie tomorrow. “Don’t hide these away in your secret closet,” I tell Mom, motioning to the albums. “I want to check them out again. But I need sleep. Miri, have you prepared
your
first-day-of-school outfit?”

She rolls her eyes. “Unlike you, I am not obsessed with how I look. Speaking of which, did you change my comforter back to its original color?”

“What? Gotta go!”

“Rachel! It’s hideous!”

What a whiner. “You won’t be able to see it in the dark.”

“You have until tomorrow,” Miri says.

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll zap your shirt off and you’ll be wearing a comforter.”

“Oooh, big talker.”

Mom stretches her arms above her head. “Why exactly is your comforter a different color? What did your sister do?”

“Shhh.” I kiss Miri on the forehead and my mom on the cheek. “It’s all good.”