Chapter 11
The week seemed eternal. Bryn gave up on her five-question quizzes; the stress of creating them was undermining her ability to focus and the kids hated them so much that she feared any of the evidence-based advantages would be lost. It felt like a defeat, though when she confessed that to Piper, they sagely inquired as to what she wanted her students to learn: stick with something that isn’t working because you can’t bear to change it, or realize that adapting plans is a natural part of life?
She had stuck her tongue out at them right before saying thanks and breathing a huge sigh of relief that she didn’t need to come up with twenty more quiz questions for the following day.
She had found no good excuse to go visit Amelia, and Amelia had not visited the cottage again, even though Bryn had done Pilates every single day just to tempt the universe to mess with her.
(Upside: she was already seeing the benefits of actually getting her workouts in.) They saw each other at meals, which was better than not seeing each other at all, even if there were times when Bryn thought it was an unhelpful tease.
But Amelia really had said she looked good in leggings and a bright pink top.
She had the text to prove it. She wasn’t making the whole thing up.
Not that it had been explicit, obviously.
Merely … No, not suggestive either. Complimentary?
Was she reading too much into a flirty smile and a silly text?
Perhaps that was the downside of seeing Amelia only at meals; she was always in Headmistress Mode in the refectory, never in …
in her other mode. Intimacy Mode. The mode Bryn wanted to see more.
The mode that made her feel a little bit giddy (and a little bit tingly in all the areas she did not want to be thinking about when sitting across from Mr Wicks at the lunch table—shudder).
On the following Saturday morning, Bryn met up with Amelia in front of the castle, where Circe was waiting for them.
Both Luke and Violet had host families in town and would be picked up on their way to the store, but Circe boarded at the school with about thirty other kids who were from far enough away to make it necessary, and whose parents could afford that option.
Bryn had always thought if she ever moved back to Grimoire town, she would herself happily host a student, especially one from a non-magical background. In fact, she thought (optimism at spending an entire day with Amelia tinging her outlook), today might be the first step in that direction.
Grimoire hadn’t exactly started out as a big settlement for witches.
It had started out as yet another of the many Spanish colonial settlements taken over by white colonial settlers who came from the east. The town had not been named for its witchy citizens, but by an enterprising woman of Irish descent who thought Grimoire sounded foreign and exotic and would attract people, which it did.
Early on, the township had boasted two general stores, which doubled as bars; two saloons, which doubled as brothels; and a number of livery stables so that people could rent or purchase their horses before heading to the gold mines.
As far as Bryn knew, no actual gold strikes could be traced back to Grimoire or any of its citizens.
The fanciful name, chosen by a woman who didn’t speak any form of French and delighted in correcting people’s pronunciations through her thick Irish brogue, ended up being a sort of signpost for either the right or wrong sorts of people, depending on your perspective.
Witches had already begun to settle in the area when an agrobaron, with dreams of a central coast vineyard dancing in his head, had bought the hillside and hundreds of acres around it to build his castle.
When the agrobaron’s aspiring empire had been felled by a series of bad harvests and worse investments, he’d finally sold the property in 1919 to a wealthy witching family.
They’d begun turning it into the academy almost immediately.
“Do you know much about Grimoire town?” she asked Amelia, who was driving her incredibly practical dark green Volvo. Bryn wondered if she’d used any of the “traveling convenience” spells from Bryn’s book on her car.
“I don’t think so. At this point, I’ve lived here for a lot of my life, but I’m ashamed to say I’ve never even looked into the background or the history of the town.” She glanced in the rear-view mirror. “What about you, Circe?”
Bryn craned around in time to catch Circe’s head shake.
“Hmm,” she said.
“Maybe we should do a walking tour, at the beginning of fall term,” Amelia offered. “For the first-years. Something about the town itself or about witches here. Or both?”
“I don’t know how much you can separate them.” Bryn thought about what she’d learned in her non-magical elementary school about the local area. “I’m not even sure the town would still be here if there hadn’t been a significant settlement of witches to sustain it.”
“What about sirens?” Amelia asked, eyes twinkling.
Bryn laughed. “Oh, sirens go wherever they want, as long as it’s connected to water.” The history of siren migration patterns was also fascinating, or at least what she’d gleaned through talking to her sister seemed to be.
“I’m definitely intrigued by the idea,” Amelia said.
“Aside from the only quasi-historical sketch we get in our history classes with Professor Flowers, I don’t feel like I know much about witchcraft in the Americas at all.
We focused so much on the ancient stuff, and the European witch trials, and King James of dubious memory. ”
Bryn thought Amelia might have kept going, but then they pulled up in front of Luke’s house, and once he was in the mix, conversation did not return to distant history.
He greeted Circe cheerfully, then immediately launched into at least a dozen questions about where they were going, what they would see, and how long they’d be there.
He didn’t pause long enough for any of his questions to be answered, until Circe reached out and touched his arm.
“I don’t know why I’m nervous. Are you nervous?” he asked.
She smiled slightly and shook her head.
Luke took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll try to stop being nervous. Thanks, Circ.”
In the front seat, Bryn couldn’t help but feel warm and fuzzy. Circe didn’t need to speak to communicate, and Bryn was so glad she had at least a few friends who got her. After collecting Violet, they drove to Old Town Grimoire, where they parked on a side street.
“You can parallel park,” Bryn said, impressed. She hated parallel parking.
“I have many skills,” Amelia replied, glancing over. Her gaze was playful, but Bryn, distracted by just what Amelia’s other skills might be, couldn’t stop her face from flushing. They both looked away at the same time.
Noted, Bryn thought, smiling at her reflection in the car window and making a mental note to ponder various skill sets that did not involve parking later.
Of the kids, only Violet had been to the spell shop before, and only briefly with a friend from school.
Though they didn’t say it outright, Bryn had the distinct impression that she was delighted to be able to roam to her heart’s content.
There was so much to look at, and Bryn remembered feeling like she could spend an entire day in the store.
She held the door for Amelia and the kids, then stepped in herself, only to be pulled up short, staring at the girl behind the counter, who was in turn staring at her. “Luna?”
“Bryn?”
They both said: “What are you doing here?” at the same time, then laughed.
“I work here,” Luna explained, her tone only slightly tinged with the insufferable unspoken obviously tagged on.
She’d just turned eighteen, an occasion Bryn had marked by sending her a coffee mug with the Denver skyline on it.
She couldn’t remember the last time they’d actually talked to each other, though they texted on most days.
Still, her sister hadn’t mentioned the new job. “You work in the spell shop?”
Luna’s eyes darted over, to where Luke was tinkering with something on a shelf.
“He’ll probably be fine,” Bryn said, at least seventy per cent sure. “These are some students from the school.”
“Oh,” Luna said, her expression clearing. And this time, it was impossible to miss the way she looked at Amelia. “So this is like a colleague?”
What had she thought? That Bryn had secretly gotten married and adopted three teenagers?
“I’m the headmistress,” Amelia said. “Amelia Hexford, so good to meet you.”
“Wait, this is—” Luna broke off, seeing Bryn’s stricken face.
“Yes, this is the headmistress,” Bryn said quickly. “I’m sure I’ve mentioned her.” Meaning: If I’ve mentioned her in any other context, shut up right now.
Luna thankfully caught on. “Oh right, your friend from school. Well, make yourselves at home.” She leaned over the counter. “They’re not going to break anything, are they? I’ve only just started working here and I really don’t want to get in trouble.”
“If they do,” Amelia said, “I’m sure we can compensate you, but I don’t expect it will be necessary.”
Bryn added, “These are the kids who are from non-witching families, like me. I thought it would be cool if they could look around.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely.” Luna craned her neck, watching Circe drag her fingers along the spines of all the books on a lower shelf.
She straightened back up, seemingly reassured that no one was going to wreak havoc.
“And feel free to ask me if you need any more information on stuff, though to be honest, I don’t always know, but I can definitely look things up on the computer.
” She glanced between Amelia and Bryn. “And you guys probably know more than I do anyway, so we’ll be great. ”
“Thanks so much,” Amelia said, and walked farther into the store, leaving Bryn and Luna to chat awkwardly.