FIVE
The red hatchback that I had spotted in the parking lot the night before carried Jenny, Connie, and myself back to the house my grandmother had left me.
“Why there?” I asked when Jenny had told me where we were going.
“Because, it's got books and wards.”
“The wards didn't keep us safe last night,” I said, passingly familiar with the idea that a ward was supposed to protect things.
“Naw,” Connie said, “but it'll keep us from blowing up.”
Well, I thought, that was good enough for me. Besides, after deciding that I'd date both Dmitri and Alan, I needed to get out of the house. Just saying it had changed the way everything felt. Alan and Dmitri both looked at me as if I was...available. Wei did not. Neither did Peter, come to think of it.
Jenny pulled her hatchback into the parking spot and we all piled out. It was a nice night, colder than the one before, but the moon and the stars were out. The three of us headed in, and I felt a rush of guilt for having left the place so messy. The bags of candies and chips were still cluttered everywhere, mixing with the more organized clutter of my grandmother's home.
“So,” I said after I apologized thirty times and picked everything up, “what do we do?”
“Did you bring the book?” Connie asked. She was wearing a hoodie today, done in pink camo. Her jeans were torn in several places.
I looked at my purse, which was barely large enough to fit a paperback much less my grandmother's great big magic book. “Uhhh, no.”
“It's fine,” Jenny said, waving a ring-bedecked hand. She was wearing a denim blouse today, and a pair of dark slacks that clung to her legs. “We just need to go over the basics. We don't need a book for that.”
She knelt on the ground, and Connie and I did, too. The three of us formed a triangle, and I was reminded of the triangles that surrounded the pentacle on my grandmother's book.
“The only thing that separates a witch from a regular person is her ability to tap into the Weave,” Jenny explained, “Grandma told' ja about the Weave last night.”
I had a vague recollection. “The...um...the lines of magic?” I guessed.
“That's them. It's kinda like a big invisible grid stretched out over the whole world, but it's not a perfect one. In some places, the lines are close together, in some they are small, and others they’re thick. When you stand on one, it's easier to do magic. If you stand at a crossroads, a place where two touch, it's even easier.”
“Can anyone be a witch? Or do you have to be born one?”
“Don't matter. Grandma didn't look into witchcraft until after Paw-Paw died. Ms. Loretta helped her out there. Said that my grandma had a gift for it, even though she weren't born to it. I know it's easier if it's in your family...but not because of any hereditary talent...mostly because you just know about it growing up, I guess. Connie don't have any magic in her background.”
“Nope,” Connie agreed.
“Okay,” I said, pretty sure I understood, “So why the stones? Or the metal?” I asked.
“Makes it easier,” Connie said.
“Yeah,” Jenny agreed, “it sure do. Like...think of it like painting or something. You can do a fine sketch if you got a piece of paper and your number two pencil, right? But if you got the desk, the chair, the good paper and all the fancy pencils...you can do more. It doesn't mean that the art's gonna be much bettah' but it sure do help.”
That made sense to me. “Okay,” I said, “so your stones are like your...favorite medium.”
Jenny's face lit up like a firework. “Exactly! They are what works best for me, my style or whatever. Connie here is good with animals, dogs especially. Says it's because she basically a dog.”
“Am not,” Connie said with a smirk. She flopped back and flicked a hand across her ear as if she were a mutt scratching at her face.
“Are too,” Jenny teased back.
The girls giggled. After a moment, I did, too. Connie threw her head back and howled. A wolf somewhere on the mountain answered.
“See, if Connie wanted to, she could call a whole pack of dogs, and a lot of other critters to come and help her.”
“So, Connie's a Disney princess?”
It was Connie's turn to blush. “Phsaw.” She waved one hand, but I could tell she was pleased. I wondered if anyone called Connie a princess often or just recognized her as a girl. Both times I had seen her, she wore big clothes. Her riot of red hair was neither short nor long. She didn't wear make-up, and her boots were heavy. She looked, in my opinion, androgynous. Maybe that was the style she wanted. That was her choice.
“Hah!” Jenny let out a bark of laughter that dissolved into a series of whoops. “Oh yes, Disney princess, that's her alright.”
“Shut up,” Connie said, but she was smiling.
“So, we gotta figure out what you good with,” Jenny said, “and that can take a lot of time.”
“How will I know what I'm good at?” I asked.
“You'll know,” Connie answered.
“Yeah, you'll just...know. Some people say it's a warmth, others say it's a tingle. But once you recognize it...you just know,” added Jenny.
It sounded vague to me, but I was willing to give it a go. “Okay...how do I start?”
“Well, we are going to set out a bunch of objects, and you are going to try to summon the spirit out of them.”
“I'm going to do what now?” I asked, feeling like she had suddenly slipped into a different language.
“All things, man-made or natural, got spirit. Like...you ever touch something and it give you a chill, but you don't know why? Or just felt the urge to put your hand on a tree?”
I thought about it. “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, even though I wasn't completely positive.
“It's like that.”
The girls laid out a bunch of what they called “the regulars.” A small mirror, a candle, a cup of water, a match, a couple of herbs, and a few others.
“So, summoning the spirit of something is just like this.” Jenny held her hand out over a rock. I didn't see anything. Nothing glowed or sparkled. The stone didn't leap to her hand, but there was an...energy. Like a hearty breeze without the wind.
“Is that...spirit?” I asked.
“Yup,” Jenny beamed.
“What...what's the point of it?” I wanted to know. “How does that...help?”
“Witches are about gettin' things to respond to them. They sort of...tug at magic to change the world. I could ask this here spirit if it will keep me from being hungry. It might bring me a pizza or, more likely, it'll plant me a garden that I have to take care of. Earthy things, like rocks, aren't big into the 'here and now' they are more about the long term.”
“Couldn't you be specific?” I asked.
Connie shook her head emphatically. “No. That's bad.”
“Why?” I wanted to know.
“Spirits don't like being told what to do...they like to be asked.” Jenny patted the top of her braids.
Okay, while it sounded weird, I could totally understand that. I liked being asked, too. It was sort of my big issue with life.
“Okay,” I said, holding my hand over the mirror, “let's do this.”
“Picture the item coming alive beneath your palm. Ask it to.”
I tried. I really did. I tried so hard my hand shook. Nothing happened other than a really annoying hand cramp.
“Not a mirror witch,” Connie said.
“Pro'ly for the best. Mirror witches can get really vain.”
“So, you change once you find the...medium?” I asked.
Connie shrugged. Jenny frowned.
“Sorta? Like...your personality and your medium kinda...match. You don't much change, but after it happens everything sorta clicks for you.”
“Okay,” I moved on to the candle, and then the match. An hour later, I had tested twenty objects and was no closer to clicking with any of them. All I had was a massive headache.
“It's okay,” Jenny said for the fifth time in as many minutes, “your grandma didn't know at first either.”
I wasn't sure if I was comforted by that or not. “How about you just teach me some more?”
They did. Jenny and Connie alternated between passing off bits and pieces of information that they knew, and I used my phone to save the notes. Who said a book of magic couldn't be digital? I learned that there were five basic European elements, but those elements were different once you got to countries that spoke Mandarin; Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The four of them combined to make Spirit, which was said to be the most powerful element.
It was not to be confused with spirits, which were usually associated with one of the four lesser elements. Witches could, once they woke up all that magic inside them, contact spirits and seek boons from them. Usually, they had to sacrifice something. Not a baby or anything terrible, but like...a piece of cake or a bit of jewelry or something.
Two hours after that, Jenny threw in the towel. She pulled a few books off the shelves and told me I ought to read them over the next few days. Oh goodie. I had homework. I was pretty much terrible at homework. There were always far more interesting things to do when I got home...like cleaning out my hairbrush or mowing the lawn. Laziness might not be the only reason I had dropped out of college.
“It's late, how bout we go to the drive-in?” she asked, now that homework had been assigned.
I sprang up, my legs quaking from having been in the same position for too long. “There's a drive-in? Like, an honest to god drive-in?”
Connie snorted. “One of the last ones left in America.”
“Oh, we are so totally going. I don't care what's playing. We are going.”
We piled into the hatchback. Jenny determined it was just cool enough that she could take off the top of her car, revealing that it had a T-shaped roof. It felt good, no it felt great, to drive around the mountain with the two of them, giggling as the wind did terrible things to our hair and heading towards the drive-in. We got popcorn and massive sodas, then settled in to watch the double feature for a couple of black and white horror flicks.
“Ooo!” Connie adjusted her seat so that it was nearly laid back. She folded her hands across her stomach, and the sleeves of her shirt slid up enough that I could see tattoos. “I like this one!”
“Oooo!” I said, reaching for her arm. “I like those. Can I see?”
She thrust her arm in my general direction, which I took to mean I could ogle. I loved tattoos. I didn't have any of my own. I was too poor and just a tad jittery at the idea of volunteering my flesh for needlework, but I loved the way they looked.
The tattoos on the inner arm of her otherwise freckled skin were, so far as I could tell, symbolic. Not the usual flowers or Celtic animals or butterflies that I was used to seeing girls get (no shame, by the way; pretty floral tattoos were nothing but win), but these were all hard geometric shapes layered on top of one another until they formed strange patterns that were hard for my eyes to follow.
“Neat,” I said with honest enthusiasm. “What do they mean?”
“Protection,” Connie answered in her usual succinct self.
I glanced over to Jenny for further explanation.
“Our biggest enemy is corruption magic,” Jenny said, her own eyes following the inky patterns on Connie's skin. “It.well, corrupts the very world around it. The rumor is, even though we can't prove it, that corruption is what helped magic fail.”
“Oh,” I answered, my brows drawing together. “Why can't we prove it?”
Connie snorted. “Because it's all magic.”
I didn't understand exactly what that meant, but Jenny seemed okay with the answer. Besides, the movie was past the credits now and was getting into plot. I tossed my legs over the center console, and Jenny curled up in her seat like a cat.
Somewhere in between creature-feature one and creature-feature two, I realized that I had made not one, but two friends in twenty-four hours. It was not a bad way to start a brand-new life as a witch.