Once A Witch Part 16

"You. Lied. Too," he exclaims, his finger pointing straight at me.

"If you had told us what you did for this man sooner, then maybe your sister wouldn't be-"

"I did!" I shout. The flames in the fireplace flare silently in response and I stare at them, distracted for a moment by the pulsing feeling in my palms. Then I force myself to continue.

"I told Grandmother that he came into the store one night and asked me to find something and that I did. I did find it." Both of my parents are staring at me, but it's my mother who recovers first.

"You told her?" my mother whispers.

"When?" Then her face seems to lengthen and grow pale in the shadows of the room.

"When you called home." I nod.

"I didn't tell her everything. But I told her that I found something that I didn't think I should have found" I pause, thinking back on my grandmother's words.

"And she told me that since I started this, I had to see it through. That she didn't see any other way for me. Or for any of us" I shake my head.

"I didn't know what she meant. I thought it was just. ."

I shrug and let my words trail off.

"But if she knew who he was, why would she tell Tamsin to *see it through'?" my mother asks. Her question doesn't seem to be aimed at me, so I look at my father, but he seems equally lost. Finally, he says, "Because Althea must have foreseen something worse if Tamsin didn't help him."

"Who is he?" I whisper.

"He's one of the Knights. That was their family name. The Knights," my father says heavily because my mother seems unable to answer. She's staring down at the book, squinting occasionally as if something lingers just outside the boundaries of her vision.

"Oh" Knights conjure images of s.h.i.+ning armor and bright s.h.i.+elds embossed with gold and green. Jousting and-"They were never content with what we had."

"'We'?"

"Oh, yes. At one point there was no division between us. Between any of us. We were all Talented. We came to this new country seeking a place to start over.

We had been persecuted in other countries. You learned about witch hunts in school?" my father continues, his hands clasped behind his back. He really should have been a professor in a college somewhere. I nod.

"That was us?"

"Well, some of us. History doesn't always have it right. But yes, we were persecuted until we came here."

"But there were witch hunts here, too. I remember we studied the Salem witch trials and . ."

And then Leah Connelly and Melanie Nightingale cornered me in the girls'

bathroom during recess, turned on the taps, and tried to force my head under the sink to see if I wouldn't drown like a true witch. They were planning to do the p.r.i.c.k test, too, until I split Melanie's lip open.

"Yes," my mother agrees, lifting her head finally and rubbing at her eyes.

"But by then we had learned how to mingle, how to disappear into society."

"Really?" I ask.

"Um ... did we forget how to do that now? Because we're not so great at mingling and disappearing." My father makes another rumbling sound, but this time it sounds more like laughter. My mother shrugs.

"Oh, that. Times are different now. Anyway, back then some of us chose to use our Talents to heal and others chose to use our Talents to farm. Peaceful choices. Except for the Knights. Over time they began what they had started doing back in the old countries. Always they had to explore the deeper and darker realms of their Talents, pus.h.i.+ng them past their limits until their Talents turned. Warped" My mother's voice falls away on the last word and she presses her hands to her eyes again for an instant.

"Some of their ... explorations involved other humans. They found ways to extend their natural life span by draining away the life force in humans."

"How?" I whispered, but my mother shakes her head.

"We've never known. They used spells, the origins of which we never could understand. Spells that involved their victims' blood." All at once Rowena's black umbrella blooms in my mind and I see again the long red scratch on her hand. And Alistair dabbing away her blood with his handkerchief. My father clears his throat and says, "At first they were content with using Talentless people. But then once they had mastered that, they began to move on to Talented people. Now instead of extending only their life span, they extend their powers as well" He begins pacing again, pauses.

"You studied parasites in school?" A brief lesson on whales and their various barnacle guests comes swimming back to me.

"Um ... yeah?"

"Well," my father says, leaping back into lecture mode, "think of a parasite and how it leeches everything away from its host. Sometimes without the host knowing."

"Or knowing after it's too late," my mother interjects.

"Rowena," I whisper.

"Her wrist," I blurt out.

"He's ... taking her blood?"

"Yes. Being part of the Knight family, this man would know the spell. He may not have been able to use it all these years, but he would have been ready and waiting for just the right time, when enough of the power of the Domani had escaped." My mother turns the pages of the book again with shaking hands, as if hoping the answers will suddenly appear.

"He's in her blood now, like a fever. Or like an addiction. One that's very, very hard to break."

"Can't you just... kill him?" My father regards me gravely.

"We've thought of that. I would take another person's life gladly in this case."

My mother puts her hand on his arm.

"Even though life is sacred, as you know," she says.

"But there's another aspect to this spell. There's a mirror effect. Whatever you do to the spell caster reflects back onto the enspelled," my mother whispers as if quoting a text by heart.

"Three times over."

"What if I ... Traveled, then?" I whisper.

"Back to the time when ... when ..."

"No," my mother says sharply. She comes around the desk and seizes my upper arms.

"You cannot Travel again. Do you understand?"

"No," I say, trying to s.h.i.+ft out of her grasp, but her fingers dig into me too deeply.

"There have been horrible consequences already from your Traveling-don't you see?" my mother hisses.

"But why can't I just go back and fix it?" My mother gives me a little shake.

Enough to make my back teeth rattle.

"Ow, Mom-"

"You cannot just *fix it' as you so blithely call it, because Time, as we have been telling you, is extremely delicate. Once you pull one thread, you warp something else in the pattern."

"Okay, but-"

"Promise me you will not do this. Promise" My mother's eyes are narrowed points of light boring into my skull.

"Okay, okay." Finally, she releases me and takes a step back and the blood starts returning to my arms.

"Tell her," my father says softly behind her, and the color seems to drain out of her face.

"Tell her why."

"Rowena can ... can read the future, too."

"Of course she can," I mutter. And really I'm not surprised. Rowena is the most powerful one in our family, next to my grandmother. I've always known this, accepted this. Until today. But abruptly I tune back in to my mother, who is adding, "And she's ... she's read some of it. Before I caught her. Before I stopped her."

I feel myself grow very still.

"And she told you what she read?" I whisper.

"She read ... she read where you Traveled and you didn't come back. You couldn't, for some reason." I press my lips flat as if that can contain the trembling. It doesn't work.

"Please, Tamsin," my mother says, and then her voice cracks.

"I don't need to lose you and your sister both."

SEVENTEEN.

I FIND GABRIEL in the downstairs parlor, playing cards with my cousins Jerom and Silda and Aunt Beatrice, of all people. I let myself in quietly and shrug at Gabriel in response to his raised eyebrows. His hands flick cards around the small walnut table, and they are either exchanged by the players or folded away in what seems to be a discard pile. Occasionally, Gabriel allots a few more from the deck that rests in the center of the table next to three beer bottles and a tiny crystal gla.s.s of what looks like sherry. No doubt who that one belongs to. In one swift movement Aunt Beatrice knocks back the contents, then bangs the gla.s.s staccato style on the table until, rolling her eyes, Silda gets up to retrieve a decanter from the sideboard.

"Here, Aunt Beatrice," she says and dribbles a little more amber liquid into the gla.s.s.

"But that's it, now. No more." Somehow, I think she's said this before. Apparently, Aunt Beatrice doesn't seem too fazed, either, because she salutes Silda with "Mud in your eye," cackles, and slaps her cards face-up on the table. Everyone groans as Beatrice flings out her hands and scoops up a pair of earrings, a pair of cuff links, and several crumpled bills.

"No poker chips," Gabriel explains as I walk over to stand behind him. I pick up what I hope is his beer and take a healthy slug.

"Everything okay?" I shrug.

"Not really. But keep playing," I urge in a whisper as Jerom deals out the cards this time, his fingers an impossible blur. Gabriel sinks back in his seat.

"Want to play, Tam?" Silda asks, already inching her chair over to make room. I shake my head and remain standing.

"No, thanks." Then with a grin I add, "But you should probably know that Jerom just made a couple of cards disappear. My guess is that they're aces."

"What?" my cousin says, his hands frozen over the table in the act of dealing a card to Aunt Beatrice.

"That's such a lie," he insists, his blue eyes widening dramatically. Silda looks at him, her mouth pursed in a small b.u.t.ton shape.

"Did you cheat again, Jerom?"

"I've never cheated," her brother persists, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling as if seeking verification there.

"Oh, yeah? Well, what's this?" Gabriel says, reaching down around Jerom's foot and pulling up a thin rectangle of a card. The queen of spades seems to wink at us all.

"Jerom!" Silda cries.

"Oh, dear!" Aunt Beatrice says. She peers at the card closely.

"Is that the one ... no, that's not what I lost" She sighs, slurps down most of her sherry, then begins waving her gla.s.s in a swooping arc above everyone's head.

Drops of liquid rain down across the table and cards, and everyone starts speaking at once.

"Aunt Beatrice!"

"Someone deal. Someone besides Jerom!"

"Well, isn't it amazingly convenient how Gabriel's been finding all of his cards just in the nick of time!"

"Hey! I just got lucky." I reach over Gabriel's shoulder, snap up the pack, and riffle through it.

"Who changed all these to aces?" I ask as I flip over four aces and then five more staggered throughout the deck.

"I'm no poker champion, but I'm pretty sure there are only four aces in each deck."

"Silda," Jerom says, his voice heavy with disapproval.

"You? I can't believe you," he finishes, shaking his head.

"Oh, shut up, Jerom. Like you weren't cheating the whole time."

"I could use another drop or two," Aunt Beatrice says, coughing delicately.

"And then perhaps Tamsin could deal. She can stop all this nonsense anyway.