Sorcery and the Single Girl Read online

  I stared at Neko for a moment, wondering if he ever had sat next to David Hyde Pierce. Or maybe David Hyde Pierce was just the hero of the moment. Maybe Neko dreamed of sitting next to David Hyde Pierce. Or maybe he was only making a rhetorical point. I turned back to my David. “So, is that it? She’s a famous person?”

  “Well, she is that. At least within the Covens. She’s headed up the Washington Coven for nearly twenty-five years. She’s served three terms on Hecate’s Court.”

  “How old is she?” I immediately aged Whistler’s Mother, pushing her into her nineties, to the outer edges of frail existence.

  He smirked. “Suffice to say, Teresa Alison Sidney got an early start on her career.”

  “Can you be a bit more specific? Is she in her sixties?” I redrew poor Whistler’s Mother again, easing her wrinkles and giving her a red hat and a purple blouse to brighten her day.

  “She’s thirty-five.”

  “What?”

  “She’s thirty-five years old.”

  “But you just said she’s headed the Coven for nearly twenty-five years.”

  “She has. She was something of a…prodigy. She’s got strong powers, and she knows how to use them.”

  I swallowed hard. Thirty-five years old and the leader of the group of witches I aspired to join.

  You know, I wouldn’t have worried if she’d been ancient. We were all supposed to respect the elderly, offer them our seats on the subway, laugh at their jokes. I had almost managed to convince myself that being summoned in front of the Coven would be no worse than dropping in on Gran’s Board meeting for the concert opera guild. I knew how to prove myself to people who were older than I was.

  But thirty-five years old? That was younger than Clara! Younger than my own mother. Barely five years older than I was!

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Why didn’t I tell you? David sounded exasperated. “I’ve been trying to tell you about the Coven for months. You’re the one who always changes the topic of conversation.”

  “I don’t change topics of conversation,” I retorted. “Just the other day, at work, Evelyn told me that I have the most stick-to-it-iveness of any librarian at the Peabridge. She said she was impressed by my developing a lecture series, and she’d like to grow it into—”

  David cocked his head to one side, sparing the half smile that I’d come to learn meant he was feeling quietly superior. “Not changing the topic of conversation?” he asked.

  “No. I was about to come back to Teresa Alison Sidney. And her age.”

  David frowned. “Does that really matter?”

  I looked down at my hands, realized that I had clenched them into tight fists. Consciously, I took a deep breath and relaxed my claws. “No!” I said brightly. “Her age doesn’t change anything at all!”

  “Very well, then. We should get started.”

  “What, exactly, are we starting to do?”

  David stood straighter. When he spoke, he used his “minister” tone, a deep, rumbling register that he saved for the most basic levels of my instruction. I imagined that this voice was the one he would use with preschoolers if he ever explained the ABCs, or with beginning library students when he set out the finer points of the Library of Congress classification scheme. Not that he ever taught anyone but me. Not that I knew about, anyway.

  “This meeting with Teresa Alison Sidney is really just an introduction. She won’t test you this time. You just have to offer up a suitable greeting.”

  “So, I need to learn the proper witchy handshake? Or is this more of a curtsy sort of thing?”

  He swallowed as if bitter wormwood coated his tongue. “Actually, the curtsy isn’t a bad analogy.” He took a moment to study me, starting at the crown of my head and not stopping until he’d reached my toes. My toes, in their grungy sneakers. My toes that had not seen a pedicure in too many months to count. I tried to curl my feet under the front edge of the sofa. “This will be your introduction to magical society. Your coming-out party, if you will.”

  I laughed. “So, I’m going to wear a white dress and get someone to pile my hair on top of my head? I’m going to have to scare up an escort?”

  “You’ve already got one of those.” He settled his right hand over his heart, as if he were about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I only wish that I was.” Again, with that head-to-toe survey. “The Coven takes these things very seriously. I’m not nearly as concerned about what you’ll wear, though, as I am about what you’ll bring.”

  “Bring?”

  “It’s customary for a new witch to offer a gift to the leader of her Coven.”

  “And I’m guessing that a plate of Melissa’s Peach Melba Tartlets won’t get the job done.”

  “Hardly.” David looked around the room. “You have to offer up something unique to you. Something that expresses your true nature.”

  It wasn’t difficult to follow his logic.

  “One of my books.”

  He nodded. “And you’ll have to bind it up in magic.”

  “Gift wrap won’t do? Even if I make a pretty bow and smother it in curling ribbon?”

  He pursed his lips as he shook his head, and I knew that I was just asking questions to tweak him. To tweak him, and to smother the sudden pang of loss that I felt at the notion that someone—anyone—would get to keep one of my spell books. The books I’d discovered in the cottage basement when I’d moved in last year. How could I feel so possessive about things that I didn’t even know existed a year ago?

  I further delayed choosing one of my darlings for banishment by asking, “And what exactly do you mean by binding it up in magic?”

  “Each witch presents things in different ways, ways unique to her powers and her temperament. If the element of Air spoke to you, for instance, you might surround your book in a miniature storm. You’d temper the winds, so that they could keep the book safe, and you’d train them so that they let one specific person—Teresa Alison Sidney—gain access.”

  It was my turn to purse my lips. I was hardly an expert on Air. In the past year, I’d harnessed it for a handful of spells, but it didn’t sing to my powers; it didn’t speak to me in any meaningful way. Just the same, I couldn’t imagine weaving a magical box out of Water—not after my repeated failures with the kitchen-cleaning spell. And I was getting nowhere near Fire. Not with one of my precious books.

  Even as I thought of all the magic that I couldn’t work, that I wouldn’t work, an idea took hold in my mind. I spun it about for a moment, testing it mentally, poking and prodding to see if I was an idiot, or merely an idealist. When I still didn’t see any flaws, I dared to say, “Earth. Citrine.”

  David merely nodded as I walked over to the large box that held my crystals. I tried to brush dust off the lid without his noticing, and then I shifted the nested trays inside. I knew that I had three good examples of citrine. I liked its clear golden hue, and I was drawn to the steady warmth the stone emanated.

  There! The three specimens that I remembered. One was small but expertly cut. Another was almost absurdly large, but a whisper of a flaw shimmered in its depths, black and jagged. The third, though, was perfect—large enough to be set in a ring, or to serve as an eye-catching center of a necklace. The stone covered the nail on my little finger.

  I lifted it from its velvet-inlaid tray and turned it to catch the light. I could picture it centered above a book, spreading its crystalline power over the bound pages. Generosity, citrine said. Prosperity. Those were its ancient properties, its traditional symbolism. What could be more perfect as an offering to my new magical leader?

  I turned to David and said, “Okay. Show me. Show me how to bind a book.”

  4

  David looked at me critically, as if he thought I was not sincere in my enthusiasm for this latest chapter in my witchy education. I shrugged and said, “Seriously. Tell me how to start. I want to do this.”
/>   Still, he didn’t respond. I squirmed a little under his attention, barely resisting the urge to raise my fingernails to my teeth, to gnaw away the edge of my nervousness. Fortunately, my Code Red nail polish saved me. It had taken me months to grow my nails long enough to warrant the expense of Lancôme. I wasn’t going to suffer a setback just because David chose to play the part of inscrutable warder.

  “All right,” he said at last, and I wondered what sort of test I’d passed in his mind. “First things first. You need to choose a book. The binding that you create, the ‘gift wrap,’ will depend on the subject that you’re covering.”

  I looked around my basement sanctuary. I could still remember shelving each of the books, creating order from the chaos, applying all of my librarian skills for good instead of for evil. I had been working to heal a broken heart that day—those four days, actually—and I still took pride in what I had achieved.

  At the same time that I’d moved the books around physically, I had created a database, listing each one by title and subject matter, so that I could find them readily in a pinch. I was tempted to use my laptop now, to fire it up and browse through my records until I found the right gift.

  Neko, though, threw the brakes on that train of thought. “Here’s a good one! Teresa Alison Sidney should love this!”

  I took the volume that he offered, a hefty book bound in crimson leather. Ornate gold letters were stamped on the cover: On the Care and Feeding of Familiars. The book was relatively new—it was printed rather than handwritten, and the pages were made out of heavy, rag-cotton paper instead of parchment. There was a simple table of contents at the front of the book, outlining chapters on Binding a Familiar to a Home, and Forcing a Familiar to Do Your Will in All Things, and Punishing a Willful Familiar.

  Neko cocked his head at an appealing angle, looking up through his eyelashes with all the seductive aplomb of George Clooney accepting an Academy Award. He flashed me a brilliant smile, managing to convey that my happiness and satisfaction with his choice were the sole factors that motivated him to continue breathing.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “There’s too much valuable information in that book for me to give it away. Besides,” I said when Neko collapsed into a pouting heap, “I am certain that Teresa Alison Sidney’s familiar would be too well mannered for her to ever need a book like that.”

  Neko grumbled and returned the crimson book to its shelf.

  As I watched him scan the rest of my collection, working on some new ulterior motive, I tried to figure out a solution on my own. Teresa Alison Sidney truly wasn’t likely to need a guide on controlling familiars. Nor would she need any of my numerous treatises on preliminary spells, or basic crystal-work, elementary rune-reading, or introductory hexes.

  I shuddered to think about giving her anything that fluttered around the darker edges of magic. In the best case, she might use my gift to consolidate even more power over the Coven—and, by extension, over me. In the worst case, she might interpret my gift as a veiled threat. Besides, my collection had precious few resources on the bleaker side of my gifts, and I was loath to give away anything I might conceivably need in the future.

  No. I needed to find the witchy equivalent of a coffee-table book. A grand volume that sang of riches, of largesse, one that collected fine pictures and minimal text. A book that evoked the spirit of being in another place, of living in another way. A book that Teresa Alison Sidney could display with pride, could invite other witches to peruse, could use to inspire admiration, and maybe just a hint of jealousy from all the members of her Coven who weren’t lucky enough to own such a treasure themselves.

  “I’ve got it!” I said. I crossed to the far wall and knelt in front of the lowest shelf on the bookcase. I ran my fingers along the spines of three giant volumes, each too large to stand upright anywhere else in the collection. The bottom one was the prize I sought.

  I wrestled with it for a moment, fighting to free it from the weight of its cohorts. It was even larger than I remembered, and the cover was more spectacular. Green morocco leather stretched over thin wooden boards. It was stamped with an intricate design of pentagrams, circles and flames of spiritual fire. Decorative brass hinges cupped the spine, echoing the patterns from the book’s cover. The hinges were matched by a metal hasp that held the book closed, protecting the treasures within. The brass devices had been charmed magically so that they never tarnished; even now, they gleamed like warm gold, whorls and fillips drawing the eye.

  I levered the volume against my chest and staggered to my feet, taking care to set it gently on the book stand in the center of the room. David came to my side, automatically reaching out expectant fingers to touch the fine tooling on the leather cover. Even Neko decided to give up his pouting and show some interest.

  “What’s the title?” David asked, craning his neck to look around my familiar. There were no words on the spine or the cover.

  I worked the be-spelled hasp, admiring the flawless mechanics as the volume sprang open. Perfect rag-cotton sheets were bound inside; the librarian in me knew that some skilled laborer had spent days creating the smooth writing surfaces. I turned to the title page and read aloud: “An Illustrated History of Witches in the Mid-Atlantic Region, Comprising Maryland, Delaware, the Virginias, and the District of Columbia.”

  I said to David, “It’s local history. Especially appropriate for the Washington Coven.”

  David nodded, raising his eyebrows in appreciation at the lush, hand-colored illustrations that filled the pages. “It looks impressive. It’s rare. It’s highly unlikely that Teresa Alison Sidney has a copy in her own collection, at least not with all the plates tipped in. I think this is the perfect gift.” Involuntarily, I grinned at the praise. “Now, for the wrapping, the binding you’ll create. Go ahead and get the citrine.”

  I dug back in my box of crystals and extracted the stone, resisting the momentary urge to replace the perfect specimen with one of lesser value. If David was right—and I had no reason to think otherwise—if we truly were negotiating my debut in the professional and social world of witchcraft, I didn’t dare cut a single corner.

  The citrine was warm in my hand as I turned back to the book stand. Neko came to stand beside me, and I opened my hand so that he could see the crystal on my palm. He exhaled as he bent closer, almost shuddering with the force of his own breath, and when he inhaled, it sounded like a purr.

  The stone glinted, catching every stray light in the room, mellowing it into a soothing glow before casting it back at the three of us. Without extending my senses, without drawing on a shred of my powers, I could feel the waves of emotion streaming off its cut surfaces—warmth, and calm and goodwill.

  David moved to the far side of the book stand, pausing to nod when he was centered in front of me, in front of the heavy green-bound volume. “Excellent choice,” he said, and the stone’s warmth blended with his approval, washing over me like a chamomile-scented bath. He nodded, and then he said, “All right. Center yourself for your working.”

  I was familiar with the process. I’d done it often enough in the past ten months. Neko sidled closer; the heat of his body radiated against mine. I shifted the citrine to my left hand and folded my fingers around it. Forcing myself to concentrate, to shut out all conscious awareness of the two men in the room, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  It felt good to breathe so completely, to stretch my chest, to expand my lungs to their full capacity. It felt even better to exhale, to expel all of my stress, my tension, my worry about Teresa Alison Sidney. I repeated the breathing, again and again, each time pulling myself closer to the quiet core of my powers, to a place where I couldn’t be worried by mundane details. My final exhalation was long and slow, controlled, emptying my body and my mind of everything that wasn’t directly related to the spell I was about to cast.

  “Very good,” David said, and now he had set aside his minister’s voice, using a whisper instead. A distant part of my mind n
oted his approval, beamed at his compliment, but I remained composed, poised on the magical edge of spellcraft. “Now offer up the purity of your thoughts.”

  I raised my right hand, letting it drift toward my face as if it were separate from the rest of my body. I touched my brow and felt my physical self settle a little deeper into the cavernous space of magic.

  “And the purity of your speech.” I touched my throat and sent myself deeper into trance.

  “And the purity of your belief.” I touched my heart.

  I was deeper than I’d been in any of our training sessions, more calm, more poised. A tremendous well of magical power gaped beneath me, buoying me up as if I floated on a supersaturated saltwater sea. I knew that Neko stayed by my side. He was already serving as my familiar, gathering up my centering and reflecting it back at me. He deepened my trance, driving me further and further into my powers.

  “Excellent,” David whispered, and I knew that when I was through with this working, when I came back to myself, I would have to examine this feeling, this complacency, this totally enraptured sense of well-being. “Now. Center the citrine on the book.”

  I seemed to have developed special vision. Even with my eyes closed, I could see the stone precisely. I could measure the dimensions of the bound volume more accurately than any craftsman with a ruler, with a jeweler’s calipers. A tendril of my powers drew from Neko’s magnification; I confirmed that I understood the book, the stone. Filling my lungs again, I moved the citrine to its precise place, and when I set the crystal down, I exhaled until my fingers tingled.

  The stone fit on the book. The moroccan leather reached up somehow, embraced the crystal, accepted it, melded with it. Intellectually, I knew that they remained separate, that they remained gold and green, stone and leather, mineral and animal, but my witchy senses told me that they had become more, that they had merged, that they had bonded. Next to me, Neko shivered, and I knew that he sensed what we had accomplished as well.