“I can only imagine,” she quips and chuckles, shaking her head. “Now, into the house, my darling. It appears you’ve had an eventful day, and we have much to discuss.”
“That’s one way of saying it,” I mumble, following her into the house.
After shedding her coat and purse when we enter, she busies herself making tea, her ankle boots clicking as she walks around the kitchen. Evening is starting to crawl over the overcast sky, so I flick on the overhead lights then slump into one of the kitchen chairs. I lean forward with my head in my hands and elbows resting on the table.
“Why were you in Portland today?” I question casually, nodding when she holds up a second teacup to ask if I’d like one too.
“Business. Even as I do work for the Council, my duties as matriarch aren’t suspended,” she replies, which tells me nothing. Before I can get her to elaborate, she counters with, “Care to explain what happened today in school?”
Groaning, I cover my face with my hands and confess through my fingers, “I overheard these girls saying awful things, and I got so mad that I confronted them about it. Then I may have said something like ‘everyone needs to stop talking,’ and they did…as well as the whole school.”
“Closer to the whole town, I imagine,” Mildred corrects, filling up the teapot with water and putting it on the stove. “At minimum, you silenced all the way to city hall, according to Neva.”
“At least it wasn’t the whole state of Oregon?” I point out, the statement turning into a question as my voice rises in pitch at the end. “And I fixed it right after. Everyone isn’t mute, and no one remembers… Well, except for Neva apparently.Whyis she the only one who remembers anyway?”
She gives me a look. The one that says I’m focusing on the wrong point of the discussion, but answers anyway. “Neva is the leader of the coven, which awards her an amulet of protection, remember?”
“Oh, right. The one fueled by the magic of dead witches,” I seethe, wrapping one of my hands around the stone of the Volkov family necklace hanging around my neck. “If all coven leaders have one of these amulets, does that mean you have one too?”
“You’re wearing it,” she answers simply, reaching up into the cupboard for tea. Mint for me and Earl Grey for herself.
Leaning back into the chair, I frown down at the necklace and shake my head. “That can’t be right. I don’t sense any magic in it other than my own.”
There’s a ring of pride in her voice when she explains, “That’s because we don’t gift our magic to a stone. We gift our magic to our daughters, strengthening our bloodline for the next generation.” Setting the tea tins down, she leans against the counter and elucidates, “The protection isn’t quite the same. Spells can still be cast upon us if they’re strong enough, but it cannot be stolen, and the sheer power accessible to a witch of the seven bloodlines is a deterrent in itself.”
Relieved that I don’t have generations of sacrificed witches hanging around my neck, I ask, “So what happens when someone has two daughters like you and Mom? Do they split their magic somehow? Gift it to the favorite? And what happens if a witch dies suddenly? Is the next generation just SOL? What does gifting their magic even mean?”
“That is a lot of questions,” she replies, her voice sounding oddly strained. “And I’ll do my best to answer them in due time, but I want to focus on today’s events first. Specifically, you casting spells unintentionally and then erasing people’s memories to fix it. Memory erasure is something that has to be handled delicately. It can have far reaching and irreversible consequences if done incorrectly.”
I shrink into my chair, chewing on my lip. “Did I…did it hurt anyone?”
Mildred takes her time before answering, putting together a tray of all the things needed for our tea, including a small plate of scones with jam. “From what I gathered from Neva, there hasn’t been any fallout from your spell. You were very lucky no one happened to be having surgery at the time, or any other activities where forgetting five minutes could have endangered a life.”
“I didn’t think about that,” I murmur, ready to sink through the floor.
“Yes, well, in the heat of the moment, it can be difficult to consider the possible consequences of our actions,” she sadly whispers, hinting at maybe some of her own regrets, then comes back to herself, squaring her shoulders and giving me the parenting eye. “However, we still have to try. For you, this means learning to control your magic when you’re emotionally compromised. It’s important that when you use magic, it’s intentional and done with care. Magic needs guidance when practiced, you know this.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, shrinking into myself.
She sighs and walks over to me, running her hand along my hair. “I know you are, my darling, but if you don’t get your magic under control, one of these times, sorry won’t be enough. I don’t want that to happen to you. I know this will be difficult, but I think we need to add private lessons during the week. We’ll work together to teach you control when you feel out of control.”
My heart skitters and I swallow heavily. “Does that mean… to practice control, do I have to be… as you put it, emotionally compromised?”
“Not intentionally, no, but it does mean working toward a place where you can be vulnerable without immediately reaching for your magic,” she answers, gently dropping a kiss to the top of my head. “Some of it will simply be learning meditative practices and such, but I don’t want to teach you to suppress your feelings. The last thing I want is for you to feel like you have to remain calm all the time because you’re afraid of what will happen if you’re not.”
“That sounds a lot like me being ‘emotionally compromised,’” I reply with finger quotes.
“Yes, well, I did say it wasn’t going to be easy,” she states with a tired sigh.
The kettle releases an ear-splitting scream, announcing the water is boiling hot, and my aunt finishes preparing the tea. She looks out the window with a resigned expression, her reflection visible within the glass. Releasing a deep breath, she turns from the window and carries the tray holding our tea and things over to the kitchen table. She sits across from me with her hands folded in front of her.
“Callie, I have something I need to tell you,” she informs me, her gaze soft as she looks at me, “but first there are a few things you need to understand. One being how witches have a very… unique connection to magic that shapes us in ways that are different from other supernatural creatures.”
“What do you mean?” I inquire, pulling my feet up into the chair so I can wrap my arms around my knees. My mint tea sits untouched, its steam rolling in lazy patterns into the air.
Mildred’s lips pinch together, causing small wrinkles to crease around her mouth, while she places her teacup in the center of the table. She then places bits of silverware from the tray to make four even wedges around the cup.
“Imagine the tea is pure magic and each of these spaces represent the natural elements—earth, air, fire, water,” she explains, motioning at the tea first then pointing at the empty wedges around the cup. She then grabs sugar cubes from a small bowl on the tray and places them in various locations within the wedges, some resting on the silverware itself. “These cubes represent witches, the closer they are to the tea, the stronger their magic.”
