I glanced at the middle-aged woman selling the quilts and cast my senses quickly to see if she was a witch. I picked up nothing. "Is it Wiccan?" I asked so only Hunter could hear.
He shook his head. "More likely just a Pennsylvania Dutch hex design. It's pretty, though."
"Beautiful." Again I ran my fingers gently across the cotton. The next thing I knew, Hunter had pulled out his wallet and was counting out bills into the woman's hand, and she was smiling and thanking him. She took the small quilt, barely more than four feet square, and wrapped it in tissue before putting it into a brown paper bag.
We headed back to Hunter's car. "That's really beautiful," I said. "I'm glad you bought it. Where will you put it?"
We climbed into his car, and he turned to me and handed me the bag. "It's for you," he said. "I bought it because I wanted you to have it."
The air around us crackled, and I wondered if it was I magick or attraction or something else. I took the bag and I reached my hand inside to feel the cool folds of the quilt "Are you sure?" I knew neither he nor Sky had much income—this quilt must have put a huge dent in his budget
"Yes," he said. "I'm quite sure."
"Thank you," I said softly.
He started the car's engine, and we didn't say anything until he dropped me at my house. I climbed out of the car, feeling uncertain all over again. He got out, too, and coming around to the sidewalk, he kissed me, a soft, quick meeting of the lips. Then he climbed back in Sky's car and drove off before I could say good-bye.
5. Flicker
May 17, 1970
Spring has finally sprung in Wales. Here in Albertswyth the hills are a new bright green. The women of the village are in their hands and knees, setting plants in their gardens. Clyda and I have been walking over the hills and among the rocks, and she's been teaching me the local herb lore and the properties of the local stone, earth, water, and air. I've been here six months now, on one of life's detours.
Since I found out about Clyda Rockpel from one of Patrick's spelled books, I was determined to find her, to learn from her. It took two weeks of camping on her doorstep, eating bread and cheese, sleeping with my coat pulled over my head before she would speak to me. Now I'm her student, taking knowledge from her like a sea sponge absorbs ocean water.
She's deep, dark, terrifying sometimes, yet the glimmers of her power, the breadth of her learning, her strength and guile in dealing with the dark forces fill me with a giddy exhilaration. I want to know what she knows, have the power to do what she does, have control over what she controls. I want to become her.
— SB
On Tuesday, Mary K. and I once again spent the morning working on my room, touching up messy spots on the walls and painting the woodwork. In the afternoon I persuaded my sister to come shopping with Bree and me. The lure of hanging out with us had outweighed her disapproval of our destination: Practical Magick, an occult store up in Red Kill, ten miles north.
"The good thing about Christmas break," Bree said as she drove through downtown Widow's Vale, "is seeing all the poor saps who have to go to work."
"We're going to be poor working saps one day," I reminded her, watching people weaving in and out of the shops on Main Street. I picked at some speckles of paint on the back of my hand and adjusted the heater vent of Breezy, Bree's BMW.
"Not me," Bree said cheerfully. "I'm going to marry rich and be a lady who lunches."
"Gross!" Mary K. protested from the backseat.
Bree laughed. "Not PC enough for you?"
"Don't you want more than that?" Mary K. asked. "You could do anything you want."
"Well, I was kind of kidding," said Bree, not taking offense. "I mean, I haven't figured out what my life calling is yet. But it wouldn't be the worst thing to be a housewife."
"Bree, please," I said, feeling a shade of our old familiarity. "You would last about two weeks. Then you'd go crazy and become an ax murderer."
She laughed. "Maybe so. Neither of you wants to be a housewife? It's a noble profession, you know."
I snorted. I had no concrete idea what to do with my life—I'd always thought vaguely about doing something with math or science—but I knew now without a doubt that the majority of my life would center on Wicca and my own studies in magick. Everything else was optional.
"No," said my sister. "I never want to get married."
Something in her tone made me crane around from the front seat to look at her. Her face looked drawn, almost haunted, in the gray winter light, and her eyes were sad. I glanced across at Bree and was touched by the instant understanding that passed between us.
"I hear you dumped Bakker in a big way," Bree said, looking at Mary K. in the rearview mirror. "Good for you. He's an ass."
Mary K. didn't say anything.
"You know who's cute in your class?" Bree went on. "That Hales kid. What's his name? Randy?"
"Just plain Rand," said Mary K.
"Yeah, him," said Bree. "He's adorable."
I rolled my eyes. Trust Bree to have scoped out the freshman boys.
Mary K. shrugged, and Bree decided not to press it. Then she pulled Breezy into a parking spot in front of Practical Magick, and we piled out into the chilly December air.
Mary K. looked at the storefront with only faintly disguised suspicion. Like my parents, she strongly disapproved of my involvement with Wicca, though I'd talked her into coming to a party here recently, and she'd enjoyed it.
"Relax," I said, taking her by the arm and pulling her into the store. "You're not going to have your soul sucked out just by looking at candles."
"What if Father Hotchkiss saw us?" she grumbled, naming our church's priest.
"Then we'd have to ask him what he was doing in a Wicca shop, wouldn't we?" I answered, grinning. Inside, I let go of my sister's arm and took a moment to get my bearings. I hadn't been to Practical Magick since I'd come with Hunter to confront David Redstone, the owner, about using dark magick. It had been profoundly horrible, and being in the store brought back the memories in a wave: Hunter questioning David; David's admission of guilt, wrenched from him against his will.
It hurt to associate those memories with this place, the place I had come to think of as my refuge, a lovely, scent-filled shop full of magickal books, essential oils, crystals, herbs, candles, and the deep, abiding peace of Wicca, permeating everything.
Looking up, I saw Alyce, a gentle sorrow still showing on her face. David had been a dear friend of hers. He had turned over the shop to her, a Brightendale blood witch, when he'd had his power stripped from him. She owned the shop now.
She walked toward me, and we embraced: I was taller than she, and I felt bony and immature next to her womanly roundness. We looked into each other's eyes for a moment, not needing to speak. Then I stepped back to include Bree and Mary K.
"Hi, Alyce," Bree said.
"Nice to see you, Bree," Alyce replied.
"You remember my sister, Mary K.?" I asked.
"Certainly," said Alyce, smiling warmly. "The one who was so taken with The Fianna." The Fianna was a Celtic band that Mary K. and I both loved. Alyce's nephew, Diarmuid, played in it The only way I'd gotten Mary K. to come to the party here was by luring her with promises of The Fianna playing.