The Lingering Grace (23 page)

Eva, it so happened, had brought a bottle of rosewater in her backpack.

“It’s a common ingredient,” she explained. “I have honey and mustard seeds in here as well.”

“It sounds more like we should be baking,” said Alice, who was actually relieved. After seeing spells that called for grotesque oddities like mouse eyes and muskrat liver, she was grateful Eva had set her heart on one that, even if more complicated than she would have liked, at least didn’t have any animal components.

“We need a gem—a real one.”

Alice jumped up and opened her jewelry box. “This is semi-precious,” she said, pulling out a dangly silver earring with a small sapphire at the bottom. Her dad had brought them home from his last business trip to India. Alice suspected his compulsive gift giving was his way of apologizing for being gone so much, but she wasn’t complaining.

“Perfect,” said Eva. Alice handed her the earring and she pulled a pen out of her backpack. Holding the cap between her teeth, she stuck the point of the pen between the stone and the silver setting.

“Wait!” Alice gasped. She had never worn those earrings very much, but that was only because they were heavy. Eva pulled the pen tip out and jammed it in again—harder. Alice cringed away, squeezing her eyes shut despite herself.

Eva recapped the pen but started prying at the stone with her fingernail. “What?”

“You’re going to break it!”

But Eva didn’t even pause. “Alice, you saw the instructions—‘no other materials.’ It has to be just the stone.”

“But—”

It was too late. The tiny sapphire popped out with a ping and flew across the floor. Alice and Eva both dropped to their knees, combing the carpet.

“It’s ok,” Eva said. “You have another earring.”

This was far from comforting. Although she knew Eva was right about the spell, Alice was still stung. What kind of person started destroying their friend’s nice jewelry without even a word of warning?

“Alice?” Eva stopped. She sat up and looked hard at Alice’s face. Then, shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry, Alice. I thought you realized.”

“Well, you could have asked,” Alice muttered, keeping her eyes on the floor.

“Don’t be angry,” Eva said. Her tone wasn’t a plea for forgiveness, but rather a command. Her lack of sympathy made Alice wonder if she really
had
been the one at fault. It also made her angrier.

Fortunately, at that moment, Alice found the sapphire.

“I’ll put it back for you, as soon as we’re done,” Eva said, taking it from her. “I promise—it’ll be easy.”

Alice had trouble believing that. The stone’s setting looked too badly mangled to be of much use, but who knew? Maybe there was a magical jewelry repair section somewhere in Eva’s book. And the offer mollified her, at least for now—almost enough to make up for Eva’s previous lack of concern.

The spellbook’s instructions were convoluted, and Alice wasn’t one hundred percent sure she had understood the method correctly. She would have liked to read over it longer, but Eva seemed so confident that Alice would have been embarrassed to ask for more time. She felt like the slow kid in class.

Alice had never been the slow kid before.

“Okay, I’m going to pour the rosewater. ‘Three thirds … three stirs’—that has to mean a third of a cup at a time, three stirs in between.”

She poured a third of the water into the glass bowl Alice had taken from the kitchen. Alice nodded along as though she were following perfectly. The pouring and stirring went on for a while, then, with a flick and a flourish, Eva dropped the sapphire in. Miraculously, it settled exactly in the center of the bowl.

“That’s a good sign,” Eva said. She was as focused as Alice had ever seen her, holding the book in one hand and brushing her hair out of her eyes with the other. “A good spell is aligned and symmetrical. And, if you do everything right, the pieces will fall precisely into place. If the stone didn’t fall in the center of the bowl, we would know that something was out of order.”

Eva began to rotate the bowl—three times clockwise, six counterclockwise, nine clockwise—and Alice held the book open so Eva could glance at the instructions. It wasn’t until she started to feel lightheaded that Alice realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled heavily as Eva set the bowl back down, and Eva froze.

“Alice, you’re disturbing the water.”

“Am I not allowed to breathe?” Alice demanded.

“Of course you can breathe.” Eva carefully placed the bowl on the floor and bent over it, checking the surface for ripples. “Just be
gentle
about it. Pretend you’re building a card house. If you even move too quickly, the whole thing could fall over.”

“But it’s okay, right? I didn’t mess it up?”

As far as Alice could tell, the water was nearly still. She bent over to get a better look at it.

“We’ll know if something’s wrong,” Eva assured her. “It’s fine.”

“How will we know?”

“We just will.”

It wasn’t the most comforting thought, and as she leaned back and readjusted the book in her lap, Alice took care to breathe as lightly as possible.

Eva sat back on her heels, her eyes never leaving the bowl. “Okay,” she said, in a voice so quiet that it was nearly a whisper. “I think we’re ready for the incantation. We’re going to have to do this in perfect coordination. If we don’t keep pace with each other, one of us will end up doing it alone—and I don’t think either of us would have the power. It’s both or neither.”

“Should we hold hands or something?” Alice asked. She was pretty sure she had seen that on a television show or read it in a novel—witches holding hands in a circle, chanting.

Eva tilted her head. “I guess we could if we wanted. But I don’t see why that would help.”

“Isn’t that how we combine our power?” Alice asked though she felt a little foolish. This was, after all, real magic—not
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
.

“We combine our power by reciting simultaneously. Hypothetically, two witches continents apart could do a spell together—
if
they were reciting the same spell at exactly the same time. I know that some of the Wicca covens even work together over live video chat. But they have to be really careful about time delays. It doesn’t work unless everyone has super high-speed Internet.” Seeing the surprise on Alice’s face, she added with a grin, “Just because they’ve been around forever doesn’t mean witches can’t adapt to new technology. Why would we still be sacrificing rats in the forest when we can enchant from the comfort of home?”

“I guess I never thought of it like that,” Alice admitted.

“All the movie BS can really get into your head. It’s okay. Like I was saying—the key is carefully timed recitation and effort.”

“Easy, right?” Alice said with a nervous laugh that she quickly muffled to avoid messing with the water.

“Sure. Easy as synchronized swimming.”

It took a little maneuvering to get themselves and the book positioned so they could both read it at the same time. Eva insisted that because this was an object-oriented spell, they both had to be as close to the bowl as possible. She couldn’t answer Alice’s questions about what the water was going to
do
, but seemed certain that something would happen.

They ended up lying side by side on their stomachs, faces toward the small bowl and the book between them; the binding was old enough that it lay flat without any need for weights.

“Can we practice once before we do it for real?” Alice asked. Her hands and bare feet were freezing though the room wasn’t cold.

Eva shook her head. She was skimming through the spell again, and the total confidence she had projected before was starting to ebb. Her foot tapped a quick rhythm on the floor. “Magic doesn’t know the difference between the real thing and a ‘practice round.’ If you’re going to try something, you have to try it for real.”

Alice remembered a painting class she had taken once. The teacher had lectured for hours on different mediums. “Oil is
not
forgiving,” she had told them. “If you are going to work in oil, you had better know what you are doing. Or at least be
very
good at pretending.”

Compared to magic, oil painting seemed like a soft, happy-go-lucky hobby.

“So we just … ?”

Eva nodded. “Yes, we just have to start.”

They were both silent for a minute, eyes locked on the words of the spell. Eva tapped her foot faster and Alice rubbed her hands together to try to warm them.

“Well,” said Eva at last. “Are you ready?”

“I guess,” Alice whispered. Her voice got caught in the back of her throat and she coughed into her hands.

Eva’s cheeks were a little pale. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. I’m going to count down from three then.”

“Got it.” Alice adjusted her arms, and stared at the first line, afraid even to blink.

“Three … two … ”

Alice coughed again, recovering just in time to throatily gasp out the first line. Maybe she had started ever so slightly after Eva, or maybe it was simply nerves, but from the very first moment this spell was unlike Alice’s other experiences with magic. Before, the power had rushed through her smoothly and swiftly, washing her from head to toe in a warm wave. But this time it was slower—and turbulent, as though she were sitting in an amusement park ride that was dropping her straight down fifty feet at a time. Her stomach lurched, then lurched again as a tingling heat filled her chest.

With an eye single,

A single eye

Gazes forward.

It wasn’t until they got through the third line that something—she couldn’t tell what exactly—clicked into place. The power that had been surging through her in fits and bursts began to throb steadily; it was a fiery ball in her core that pulsed with every heartbeat. Her hearing was muffled, as though her ears were plugged, but she heard Eva’s voice in the very front of her mind, clear as chimes. Her breathing was perfectly in sync with the rise and fall of Eva’s shoulders.

I do not see all,

But what I see

I know.

I do not know all,

But what I know

I see.

A single blue eye

Spins in a vast bowl

Of nothing

And everything.

I ask for light.

Let there be

Light.

She was so caught up in the chanting that Alice didn’t immediately notice the glimmer. At first, she thought it was just a reflection from the sunlight, but it grew steadily brighter, and she looked up between lines of the spell to see what was happening.

An orb had formed around the bowl. Its translucent walls were a gentle yellow, and flickers of gold sparkled on the perfectly smooth surface. The tiny sapphire sat at its heart, radiating a silvery web of light that filled the orb with rippling swirls. The entire globe was expanding rapidly outward, but it was so lovely that its growth seemed more a blessing than a threat.

Alice had never seen anything so mesmerizingly perfect. Her breath caught and for a fraction of a second she forgot about the spell and Eva, about everything but the golden sphere.

By the time she realized she had been watching for too long, many seconds had passed—maybe minutes. Horrified, she tore her eyes away from the light. They hadn’t finished the spell. And if Eva had continued alone, that would ruin everything, wouldn’t it? According to Eva, it should have. And yet the light was still glimmering, which could only mean …

Eva was gazing raptly at the sphere; a gold reflection shone in her eyes. The sphere, in the meantime, had stopped expanding and was starting to shrink. Alice, afraid to speak and break the spell, afraid to even touch Eva, felt the warm glow inside of her beginning to fade as well. She closed her eyes, trying to focus—to hold it steady—but it slipped away like sand between her fingers.

No!

The word came so powerfully that she thought she must have spoken it. But her mouth didn’t move though her head echoed with the cry. Beside her, Eva jumped and turned to gaze at her. Her eyes were fearful.

We have to keep going.

Eva didn’t speak aloud either, but Alice heard her voice dimly ringing in her ears.

I know
, she answered.

They both looked back down at the page. This time Alice began to recite just a hair before Eva managed to join in. The magic in Alice’s chest began to quiver and ache; the glow from the orb grew suddenly brighter, then dimmer. Alice continued to recite the spell, but she had the feeling of someone crossing a very rickety bridge over a deep gorge. The magic was unstable, but she had to keep going forward because there was no going back. She would either make it to solid ground or tumble into the abyss.

Sun in my eye,

Moon in my heart,

Show me my way

Forward.

The last word of the spell rang in the air—or perhaps just in Alice’s mind. She couldn’t tell the difference. Eva’s voice had been getting softer and softer throughout the final lines and Alice hardly heard her whisper the final word. They were synchronized at least, but it wasn’t enough, and Alice struggled to bear the weight of the spell. It drew power from her with so much force that she could hardly breathe, and she fell to the floor and lay on her back gasping for air. A few inches from her head, the walls of the globe leaped forward. The gold light brushed her forehead; it tickled her skin like an electrical current. It was shockingly cold.

Beside her, Eva knelt on all fours, taking heaving breaths.

“Alice?” she rasped out.

Alice opened her mouth to answer, but the minute her lips parted, the untethered magic burst out like a geyser. What had only seconds ago been nothing more than a feeling came rushing through her lips in a very real, very visible pillar of silver flames. She arched her back, grabbing at her neck. She tried to force her jaw shut, but the magic was too strong and too wild to be restrained. Like a strange, living fountain, she flailed, flinging her arms around for something to hold on to, the silver light propelling itself out of her mouth and several feet into the air.