Chapter 26 #2
I stomp out past the lighthouse to Mist Point, the stretch of grassy cliff that overlooks the jetty and the gray-green water of the coast. It’s a little choppier than it was before, which makes sense with whatever storm is brewing on the horizon, and I think to myself we need to get this finished before that storm breaks on shore.
“Right, let’s do it,” Hazel says. Her eyes are bright with excitement, and the wind whips up around her. “We’re going to call the corners first. I wrote out everybody’s parts. Follow the script. We’ll put everything we collected inside our circle of protection, and then we’ll finish the ward.”
“Seems easy enough,” Rose says hesitantly.
“Yeah, that’s because you guys are natural witches and you do all this stuff all the time without having to think about it,” Hazel says.
“So you’re considering some of the highest-level magic that I can find in this damn book that we somehow managed to work when we were little.
And now we have to expect it to work again.
Okay, so just, like, excuse me if I can’t get this to work because I somehow disassociated so hard when I was, like, four years old from my magic—”
“Stop,” I tell Hazel. “It’s going to work. You’re freaking out. Enough.”
Authority rings in my voice for the first time all day. I’m certain I can feel the magic as it strengthens.
“She’s right. You feel it.” The raccoon that waddled out behind Hazel chitters at all this angrily. “Of course it’s gonna work,” it says, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. “Don’t worry. She’ll have magic when she needs it. This is the place.”
“Oh, so you do talk,” I tell it, delighted.
“Yeah, I talk,” the raccoon says. “A lot better than you idiots.”
Gunner shoots it a dirty look where he sits at my side. “Rude.”
Posey’s ferret gives me a long, knowing look. “This is actually polite for him.”
“Sounds terrible,” I say.
“All right,” Caleb announces, bringing the basket we put all of our collected assigned ingredients into. “How do we do this?”
“You don’t do anything,” Posey tells him.
“Oh. Okay, fine. I will do anything for love, but I can’t do that” he sings.
I snort.
He backs off with a laugh, and Posey rolls her eyes at him.
“We need to put all the ingredients in a certain order,” Hazel says, all business. The fat raccoon next to her plops down, nods, and rubs its jiggly stomach. I try not to stare at it. “This is where we want to stand, right around it. I vote we set up just like the picture.”
“All right,” I agree.
“Let’s do this.” Rose puts her hand up for a high five, and Posey fist bumps her palm. “You couldn’t even high five me this once?”
Posey shrugs. “Don’t wanna jinx it.”
Hazel lists out the order of ingredients, and we do as she says, taking our time, getting them a little to the left, a little to the right, closer to the other one.
“How do you know where to put it all?” Posey asks her, squinting. “You’re being so bossy.”
“What do you mean, how do I know?” Hazel frowns. “You mean you don’t know the order?”
“Told you she’d find her magic,” the raccoon says.
“If her magic is like being a bossy middle manager—” Posey scoffs.
“That is possibly the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Hazel tells her. “Now move your stone closer to the sea glass.”
Posey gives Hazel a dirty look but does as she asks, moving the lump of crystal slightly closer to the green sea glass we found yesterday.
The brass bell goes next to the red twine, something we picked up at a craft store, and the eucalyptus is lodged between some other wildflowers it looks like my sisters collected earlier this week, from the way they’re slightly browned and wilted.
“There,” Hazel finally says.
Her eyes are glowing slightly red, and I try not to stare at her, but between her and the raccoon jiggling it’s stomach, I don’t know where to look. Rose nudges me with her elbow, and it’s clear that Hazel does have the magic that she’s always wanted, just locked up deep within her.
And it’s clear that raccoon has not be underfed.
“Better late than never,” Posey mutters to me.
“All right, each of you stand in the corners like the last time we did this.” None of us argue with Hazel’s order.
The magic is building, a pressure now, and I can’t tell if it’s coming from inside of me or has something to do with the way that that storm is looming on the horizon.
Maybe both.
Hazel lifts her hands, voice steady in a way I’ve never heard before.
“We call the corners,” she says. “We call the circle. We stand as we once did, and we stand again.”
The air seems to still around us, the wind off the water pausing like it’s listening.
“Take your places,” Hazel says.
We don’t argue. We don’t question. We move.
I step into my place, the others falling into theirs, the shape of it familiar in a way that makes my chest tighten.
Hazel turns slightly, eyes bright, glowing with unspent power.
“North,” she calls.
I read off the script Hazel gave me, the words tight and sprawling and somehow moving on the paper.
“North, hold us steady. Root us deep. Let nothing that means us harm pass this line.”
A low hum settles into the ground beneath our feet.
“East,” Hazel says.
Posey exhales, her voice softer but no less certain.
“East, carry our breath. Let our words be heard. Let our magic move as it should.”
The wind stirs, curling around us, tugging at our clothes and hair.
“West,” Hazel says.
Rose nods. “West, give us strength. Let our will burn bright. Let us stand and not break.”
Warmth flickers through the circle, a pulse of heat that licks at my skin.
“South,” Hazel finishes.
She closes her eyes for a moment before speaking again, voice low and resonant.
“South, bind the tide. Hold the water. Let the circle stand against what comes.”
The sound of the ocean seems to deepen, waves crashing harder against the jetty.
Hazel lowers her hands slowly, looking at each of us in turn.
“The corners are called,” she says.
I feel it then — real and undeniable — the press of something building, tightening, waiting.
I lift my chin, heart pounding.
“The circle is closed,” I say. “Let the ward hold.”
The air snaps tight around us.
I step back, the sheer will alone unable to keep my place as the northern corner, the bitter taint coating my tongue.
Lightning streaks across the sky, and thunder rolls in the distance, closer than before, but somehow within the sphere of the magic we’ve created, it seems further away than ever, almost as if we’ve created our own little world.
To my left, Posey’s eyes are wild, going to deep green. To my right, Rose’s eyes glow a soft blue, the color of the sky in springtime. But Hazel — Hazel’s eyes are red.
There’s determination etched across her face, a look I’ve never seen on my littlest sister. The raccoon familiar she somehow gained sits calmly at her feet, observing, striped tail twitching back and forth like a cat.
Gunner’s growling slightly at my side, and behind Hazel, in the distance, a sinuous tentacle breaks the surface of the water.
The circle we’ve created is unnaturally quiet, and the hair raises on the back of my neck, goosebumps rising all over my skin, though it’s no chillier than when we began.
Hazel lifts her hands again, higher this time, her voice ringing out with a clarity that doesn’t feel entirely like hers.
“We call the ward,” she says. “By blood and by bone, by memory and by place, we bind what is ours to keep.”
The wind shifts, sharper now, circling.
“Stand fast,” she tells us.
We do.
She nods once.
“North,” she says.
I swallow and step into my position. The ocean roars in my ears, like it lives beneath my skin.
“North and Sea,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “Guardian of the deep, keeper of what waits beneath. Rise and watch. Let the tide answer me. Let the water remember my name.”
The ocean answers. Not in words, but in a pull, a pressure, something vast turning its attention toward us. Something with tentacles and teeth; something that knows me.
“East. Sky,” Hazel calls.
Rose lifts her chin, her hair whipping in the wind.
“Sky above us, wide and watching, carry our will. Let nothing pass unseen. Let the air bear witness and turn aside what would break us.”
The wind snaps, sharper, colder, alive.
“West. Land,” Hazel says.
Posey presses her palm to the ground, her voice low and certain.
“Land beneath us, hold us fast. Root us, keep us, do not let us be moved. Let what we build here stand.”
The ground hums, solid and steady.
Then Hazel inhales.
“South. Fire,” she commands.
Her voice drops, deepening, something flickering behind her eyes that makes my stomach twist.
“Fire that burns and fire that protects,” she says, slower now, like she’s listening to something we can’t hear. “Answer me. Come forward. Stand with us.”
We clasp hands, palm to palm, the sound loud enough to compete with the thunder echoing in the distance. It reverberates in my chest and seems to settle all the way at the base of my spine.
The ingredients we spent the last week gathering begin to dance along the grass, the ground underneath our feet trembling, at least that’s what it feels like at first. I swallow hard, gripping my sisters’ hands as though they can anchor me as the ground shakes faster.
Except it’s not the ground. It’s the objects that are swirling in the middle of our circle now, whatever our magic did causing them to float and move and flicker in a tornado of motion that quickly becomes something more than I can bear to look at.
So instead I watch Hazel’s face, grim set to her mouth, the fire flickering behind her eyes, steam seemingly rising from her very skin.
And then it’s done.
The ground ends its shaking. A lantern made of sea glass and brass and all the things we’ve collected sits in the middle of the circle where the ingredients once were.
Posey sucks in a breath, and at first I think it’s in response to the fact that we’ve all created this strange object sitting in front of us.
Then the movement catches my eye.
The snake coiled around Posey’s ankle, fangs bared, forked tongue flickering.
She squeezes my hand.
“Don’t move,” Hazel hisses, and it sounds as if the sound came from the snake itself.
“Don’t move,” she says again, and this time it’s directed at Rose.
A huge, inky black bird swoops through the circle, claws out as it lands on Rose’s shoulder. She cries out but doesn’t falter in any other way, her hands shaking in my palm.
“Don’t move,” Hazel says.
And all I can think is that this is where everything is going to go wrong.
This is my vision come to life.