56 Sophie
Sophie
“A what now?” Sophie can feel the disbelief rising inside her and nearly lets herself smile because surely this is a joke. But then she sees how serious Barbara is.
“A blood sacrifice.” Barbara’s voice is funereal.
“My chatty great-aunt used to tell a story about one of the girls who was initiated with her…and her fiancé. The fiancé was a miner. He had next to nothing. One day, he must have found the book. At the time, all the spells were right there, on the page. Anyone could see them. One of the spells he saw was bloodspell. He figured he could use it, take her magic for himself, and get rich.” She cuts off with a look of resignation. “Anyway, he tried to murder her.”
Sophie feels a violent roll inside her. “Oh my god.”
“That tough woman refused to back down without a fight. There was an axe involved, and the fiancé was killed. Blanche actually went to prison, something women didn’t often do in those days.
But I guess the crime was so brutal, self-defense didn’t cut it.
Anyway, from that point forward, the spells in the book were hidden.
All of them. And most of them, save for illusion, summoning, and healing spells, are hidden away for good, or at least I don’t know how to reveal them. ”
Sophie watches Barbara tear the tape from the butcher paper around a whole chicken. Through the window, lightning thrusts the backyard into momentary brilliance.
“I understand hiding bloodspell, but why hide the entire book?” Sophie has so many questions.
The chicken is in a deep pot now, and Barbara pushes pads of butter beneath its elastic skin. “It’s a great question. Protection is the only explanation I can think of. There are probably more spells in there that, if they fell into the wrong hands, would be catastrophic.”
Sophie picks up the peeler and slides it down a carrot.
“The secrets were passed down to me, not created by me,” says Barbara. “I only know that there is a way to reveal the rest of the book’s contents. I just don’t know what that is.”
“Quinn knew.” The carrot peels pile on top of each other like a nest of snakeskins. “In the journal, she says she unlocked the entire book.”
“Ah, well. They say once in a few generations a highly intuitive witch comes along…” Barbara dusts salt over the pale flesh of the chicken; then she lets her head sag.
Sophie thinks she’s going to keep explaining, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she pushes the heel of her palm into one eye, then the other.
She takes her time putting the chicken in the oven, then opens a bottle of wine.
Sophie traces a finger along the edge of the journal. “Do you think this could be like the book?”
Barbara frowns in response and then takes a long sip with her eyes closed.
“When I first found it,” says Sophie, “it was empty. There were no words on the pages. But now there are, obviously. Maybe it’s a similar kind of magic?” This explanation doesn’t feel quite right, but she truly isn’t sure.
The kitchen fills with the smell of cooking. Barbara taps her finger on the stem of her wineglass. “Did the writing appear slowly over time? Or was it all at once?”
“Over time.”
Barbara takes a sip, thinking. “It doesn’t sound like the kind of magic in the book. It would have been revealed more immediately. At least that’s my understanding of the old magic anyway. To me, this journal sounds like an illusion spell.”
Inside the oven, the chicken crackles as it begins to cook. “I thought about that, but an illusion spell only lasts for five years,” says Sophie. “It’s been fifteen since Quinn would have written in it, so wouldn’t the spell have faded years ago?”
Barbara toys with the stem of her glass. “Which could mean someone is updating the illusion spell every five years.”
There’s a low growl of thunder, and the lights above them flicker.
“Let me ask you this,” says Barbara. “Is there any way someone else might have gotten their hands on The Book of Aspens?”
“We haven’t seen it since Quinn died,” she says, shame making her spit the words out as quickly as she can.
Barbara inhales sharply. “Oh, honey, is that true? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”
“We couldn’t find it after Quinn died. She was the keeper, and then we just grew distant, and the book stayed lost. We should have looked for it.
We’ve been looking for it since we’ve been back, but we can’t find it.
This is bad, isn’t it? This is so, so bad.
” She is breathless. She knows the answer to her question before Barbara gives it.
“Yes, I think so.” She taps her finger on her wineglass. “If this journal has been hidden by an illusion spell for fifteen years, that means someone’s been updating it every five years. So, someone knows where the book is.”
Thunder reverberates off the mountains and through Sophie’s mind as she absorbs this. “Are you saying the illusion spell was never meant to reveal the words in this journal? It was meant to hide them?”
Barbara gives her a solemn nod. “I believe what we are seeing here is the fading of an illusion…because someone has yet to update it.”
Sophie’s next words are almost silent. “Which means I was never meant to see this journal. I was never meant to know what I know. No one was meant to.”
They both stare at the journal sitting alone in the middle of the table as if it will come to life and confirm that they are right.
The world tips, and Sophie feels an unmistakable plunge of fear.