Chapter 11 #2
“That’s Amelia Hexford,” Luna whispered, and despite knowing that it was almost impossible anyone had heard, Bryn still felt like the question was written in neon print above her head in a huge dialogue bubble that everyone in the universe could read.
“The headmistress, yes.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Luna eyed Amelia’s retreating back. “I get it, though. She is hot.”
Bryn smacked her arm. “Stop it. Don’t talk about that.”
Luna, eyes glittering in sisterly malice, pretended to zip her lips, then immediately spoiled the effect by saying, “Really, though, you’re going to make a move on her, right? You sorta have to. You missed your chance in school, and now here you are, together again, so …”
Noticing Circe lingering a little too close to the front desk, Bryn smacked her sister’s arm again and said, “I’m going to help my students.”
“Very responsible of you,” Luna called after her.
Bryn hadn’t known how long to plan for the store trip.
Twenty minutes? Two hours? How long did three witchy kids want in a spell shop for their first proper visit?
They were still browsing with considerable fascination at the end of the first hour.
It helped that Luna was walking around with them and genuinely seemed to be learning from their relatively limited knowledge of what all the things were for.
“I’m not a witch,” Bryn heard her explaining to Luke and Violet, “but my sister is, so that’s kind of how I got the job.
They needed someone, and I kind of had some idea what I was doing a little bit, or at least I could fake it.
” She glanced up, as if to make sure Bryn wasn’t listening, then accidentally caught Bryn’s eye instead.
She froze as if she’d just confessed to a crime, but Bryn only smiled.
It was a little bit heartwarming that her witchiness, which had seemed to only inconvenience her family, had finally come in handy.
It was genuinely nice to see Luna out in the world, not under their mother’s watchful eye.
No one knew better than she did how overbearing Mom could be, and Luna was still living at home.
They’d given each kid a budget of twenty dollars to spend on something. Bryn suggested it would be good to pick up something they could cast a spell on or with.
“Cast a spell on?” Luke had said dubiously. “What does that mean?”
Bryn had pointed her wand at a carved dolphin nearby, and it had immediately sprung to life and dived off the counter. She’d caught it before it hit the floor. Even Luna, who must have seen her do magic before, had gone all eyes wide and mouth agape.
“Whoa.” Luke, unabashed with his admiration, had taken it from her hands and then turned it over in his own, as if trying to feel where the spell had landed.
She’d lowered her voice confidentially. “Now, if the headmistress had done that spell, you could probably see a fading shimmer on the surface of the wood. That’s how powerful she is.”
He had immediately looked to Amelia to confirm this. “I don’t know about that,” she said, though she did not seem upset at the insinuation.
“You’re saying we can do that?” Luke asked.
Violet shook their head. “Absolutely not. We haven’t learned how yet.”
“We’ve learned some stuff,” he protested, still turning over the dolphin and searching for clues. Beside him, Circe also leaned in, so he held it out between them. Neither looked illuminated by their examination.
“You’ve learned plenty of things,” Amelia said.
“But how do you learn things like that?” Violet asked. “Unless you’re going to teach us how to turn wooden dolphins into toys that move. Is that in the curriculum somewhere?”
“Not exactly,” Bryn said. “Spellcasting is a language. You learn certain parts of it, and then you can piece those parts together in new ways. Roots, prefixes, suffixes, verbs and nouns and prepositions—this is similar. It’s not quite like you have to memorize every single spell.”
Circe looked up with such intensity that Bryn almost thought she might speak. Her eyes were narrowed in contemplation, then turned downward to the dolphin again, which she took from Luke’s unprotesting fingers.
He had already moved on, expression frustrated. “Wouldn’t that take forever, though? Learning a whole language just to make a thing do a thing?”
“It does take time. Maybe not forever.”
“But are we allowed to do that?” Violet demanded. “Would I get in trouble if I was sitting at lunch and like—” she mimed waving a wand “—summoned the salt?”
Summoning in a chaotic field was deceptively complex magic.
Bryn decided not to go into the details, though she suspected Amelia could tell she wanted to, because the woman was fairly twinkling at her.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t think you’d get in trouble, but all the same, the social skills you’d learn by saying, ‘Circe, please pass the salt’ would probably be more helpful to you than learning how to summon the salt. ”
Violet sighed. “That is a supremely dissatisfying answer, Professor.”
In the background, at the edge of her peripheral vision, Bryn saw her sister mouth Professor with a big grin, which totally derailed her train of thought. She was sure she was about to say something smart and to the point. Almost certainly.
“Not all witches care to invent spells,” Amelia said, picking up the conversation. “But if you do, it’s all there to learn. Now, what are you thinking about for your spell object, Violet?”
The three of them finally decided on their new witchy treasures, and Amelia paid. Bryn hoped the money came from the school’s accounts, though she suspected the headmistress was probably using her own money.
They then sprung for desserts from the local ice-cream parlor and dropped Luke and Violet back at their homes before returning Circe to the dorms. Since Amelia and Bryn had walked her up to her building, they walked on to Bryn’s cottage together.
They were united in a strange mix of friendship and camaraderie, and then something else—some thread of desire that Bryn definitely felt running through her, and suspected Amelia felt as well.
“So, what do you think of my field trip idea?” she said, as they walked through the gardens.
“I think it went very well, good instinct.”
Bryn tried not to flush with the compliment. Was she pleased because it was praise from the headmistress or because it came from Amelia Hexford?
“And I think you were right in general. This is why we need a broad and diverse teaching staff. It never would have occurred to me that our witchy kids from non-magical families have never been to a spell shop before. It’s obvious now, but I didn’t think about it.
I really want to lower those barriers.” She sighed.
“If they let me keep being headmistress.” After a moment of contemplation, she brightened again.
“It was so cool that we got to see your sister.”
“That was so weird, but also great,” Bryn said. “I can’t believe I didn’t even know she was working there.”
“It does seem like a strange thing for her not to tell you.”
Bryn shrugged. “When I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t that strange.
It’s kind of how we were raised; we weren’t supposed to be close.
Sirens are super independent, like any kind of interdependence is a weakness, which we definitely both internalized.
But now that we’re adults and I’m back in town, however temporarily, I would like to see Luna more than I have. ”
“Then our outing was useful in more than one way,” Amelia said, lips curving.
Their hands brushed against each other and Bryn realized that, maybe subconsciously—maybe a little more consciously than that—she was holding her arm in such a way that would ensure they’d brush against each other again. Amelia, if she noticed, did not step away.
They had, by mutual silent agreement, taken the longest way through the gardens, but the walk could only last so long, and they were rounding the final corner now.
“Have you gone swimming in the grotto since you got back?” Amelia asked, her voice teasing.
“Am I allowed to?” It immediately sounded ridiculous, but Bryn couldn’t help feeling shocked by the idea. The grotto was so off limits to students that she couldn’t even remember tall tales of people having found a way inside.
Amelia laughed. “Of course you are, silly. You’re staff.”
“Ugh, but what if I go down there and Mr Wicks is there or something? Ew, what if he was wearing Speedos?”
Amelia held up a hand. “Okay, first of all, no. And second of all, we will respect whatever bathing uniform any of our teachers would like to wear.”
“But third of all, also no?” Bryn prompted.
“Also no.” Amelia relented, with a little shake of her head. “I don’t think anyone uses it. I’ve been down there maybe twice, but it’s always empty.”
The idea of Amelia alone in the grotto, fairy lights playing along the bottom of the pool, the sound of water, the darkness … “Is it as strange as everyone used to say?” Bryn asked to distract herself from the mental image, slowing her steps as they approached the cottage.
“It’s actually lovely. Humid, because it’s warm and wet, but the pool itself is painted this very dark blue, and the tiles are all blues and grays so the lights twinkle, throwing these beautiful reflections everywhere.
And whoever charmed the lights in the water did something I don’t understand, keeping them forever at the edges of your vision.
” She glanced over, her hand grazing Bryn’s again.
“You should probably see it one of these days, for research purposes. Could be interesting spell applications in there.”
“Indeed,” Bryn said with mock seriousness. “Research is very important.” They were nearly at the cottage now and she couldn’t think of anything to prolong the walk more than they already had.
“Very, very important,” Amelia agreed.