Chapter Ten #2
“So you know that you can’t do that kind of spell at college, right?” I say nervously. “I’m not judging—”
“Sort of sounds like you are,” Bastian says sharply.
“Of course I’m not, you just saw me shift,” I say, trying not to match his tone. “They kick people out for doing ancient witchcraft unsupervised. Believe me, I know.”
Professor Wallace was very clear with me after Elizabeth’s death about what the consequences of me “attempting similar levels of magic in the future within college” would be. Forgetting entirely, it seemed, that I can’t do magic at all.
“Well, I’m not going to tell them.” Bastian gives me a steady look. “Are you?”
“No,” I say. “But I don’t love you doing that kind of spellcraft around me without asking first.”
“Prejudiced much?”
“No, the last time any witch did ancient witchcraft, a spell of that strength around me, she died,” I say with emphasis. “Just ask next time.”
“Well, I would have if you had been conscious,” he says crossly. “But you weren’t. Because you shifted, which might not be Golow Taranis but was a fucking huge magical moment, and it’s not like you asked my permission to do that—”
“I didn’t even ask my own permission to do that!” I snap at him. “Do you think I like having uncontrollable magic? You don’t think I would have chosen literally any other time to shift form than when we were knee-deep in boggart negotiations?”
“Okay, fine!” Bastian nearly stumbles and we both list sideways, trying to keep our balance. “Fine. Just … forget it even happened.”
I give Bastian a long look and wonder, for a moment, exactly what kind of person I have got myself tangled up with.
In my life, I’ve seen more wild, raw magic than most witches.
I remember the one time my father powered his study with his magic during a blackout, his hands glowing with pulsing light while he read and worked, so intense it spilled out from the door and down the stairs.
Witches are different. Before Elizabeth and the cave, I had never seen a witch channel so much power in their ring.
Now, when I look at Bastian, I don’t just see a smart, studious young man.
I see the witch who stood over me, pulsing blue light out of his ring with a spell I’ve never seen before.
I am not sure if I like it. I wonder, suddenly, what it will look and feel like if we do get to the resurrection spell, if I have to watch Bastian use my own blood to bring Elizabeth back to life.
I get a horrible shiver down my back and can’t stop from shuddering. Bastian looks at me.
“What?” he asks.
“Do you think the spell will work?”
“I don’t know.” He sounds like he might have been thinking about it, too. “It’s a good sign that we could get the boggart’s name. Hopefully, it means the other parts of the spell aren’t out of date.”
“But the actual resurrection,” I begin, trying to put words to some of the anxiety that is flooding my mind with all kinds of images and terrors. “Do you know exactly how it works? Like, will she appear where we are or, I don’t know, go back inside her body? Christ, will we have to dig her up?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Bastian says, and he doesn’t sound nearly as worried as I feel.
“We can only go by what old accounts of resurrection spells teach us and they’re pretty diverse.
Some of the ancient stories imply people walk out of the coffins, some that a new body is built by magic; that seems most likely with everything I’ve looked at in the spell—”
“Okay, okay.” I try to breathe through my dizziness, which I don’t think is coming just from the sudden tumble down a ravine. “But she could … she could be a different person? Like, look a different way?”
“Maybe, it depends if the magic rebuilds a replica of her old self or not,” he says. “But we’re very far away from all these things.”
“Right,” I say faintly. I have several horrible images in my mind.
One is of Elizabeth’s hand, thrust through freshly ground earth, zombie-style.
Another is of a person standing in front of me, made of magic, looking nothing like Elizabeth but with her eyes, not recognizing me, all love between us lost beyond the grave.
Is that what I want? I wonder. To have Elizabeth back, even if she doesn’t love me?
But even if she stopped, at least no one could blame me for her death anymore.
I don’t know right now if that’s enough, and I feel the painful weight of guilt shift nauseously in my belly.
“It was weird, your shift,” Bastian says, jerking me out of my reverie. “I’ve always heard that shifters change fluidly, but yours was all in one burst and then you just … stayed unconscious. Do you remember anything about it?”
“No,” I lie, thinking about what I did see, the strange dream of the past that I don’t understand.
My head is a bit dizzy and I’m horribly thirsty, like I always am after a shift.
But Bastian is looking at me with an interrogatory glance and I feel I have to say something, so I lie.
“I had a weird moment when I came back round. I thought you were a suffragette.”
“A suffragette?” He laughs. “That’s odd, although … I guess sort of fitting for the setting.”
“Why?” I look around at the dark trees and green slopes.
“Because there was a suffragette gathering here, ages ago. Emmeline Pankhurst’s daughter was here and she was chased away by antisuffragette protesters. I read about it when I was doing my boggart research.” Bastian gives me a sharp look. “But you knew that.”
“Yeah. Of course I did.”
I did not. My mind starts running. I try not to breathe too heavily or suspiciously with the racing of my pulse.
Panic is swirling inside me, because nothing makes sense.
How can I possibly explain that when I shifted I had a vision or dream of the past?
That it felt so real, like I had lived it?
As we walk along the path, I recall those rowdy voices and the sweaty press of women’s bodies all around me.
For a split second, when I look up and catch the moon peeking brightly out from behind a cloud, I can imagine it is the burning sun, roaring down on me in the middle of July. I do not know what is wrong with me.
“It makes sense your mind would imagine something associative,” Bastian says. “Brains are strange that way.”
“Yeah.”
I can’t be comforted by this. Brains might be strange but mine is clearly competing in the Mystifying Olympics.
It’s not just that I’m possibly having weird hallucinations of the past, it’s the whole thing.
Hanging out with this kind of witch, trusting him with my life, and putting myself in harm’s way to protect him, too.
Is this what Counselor Cooper would call reckless endangerment?
“Hey.” Bastian puts a hand on my shoulder and I jump, so tangled in my thoughts I’ve forgotten he’s here. He withdraws his hand slowly, like I’m a dog that might bite. “I just … wanted to encourage you. We’re one step closer to the spell.”
I nod mechanically and try to push all my fears and worries down. This is all that matters, after all, not the hallucinations or Bastian’s magic or shapeshifting for the first time since Elizabeth’s death. This is all that matters: I am one step closer to getting her back.