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That was easy for her to say. I was the one who had to perform a level-four spell to prove my mastery of magic and ascend to high priestess. The pressure was getting to me.
She straightened her dress and met my eyes. “You have toallowthe magic to work. Level-four spells will challenge your ideas of science. If you cling to the rules of the physical world, you can’t expect the metaphysical world to swoop in. These spells require more than an incantation. You have to be able to believe that mysteries still exist before the magic will work. Some witches never accomplish it, but I know you can.”
Her faith in me was encouraging. I took a deep breath and blew it out. Gravity was perceived in the physical world, but I wasn’t bound to this realm. I was a witch like my mother. Her blood ran in my veins. She lived on through me.
I’m my mother’s daughter.
With my hands in front of me, I turned my palms up toward the sky and tried the incantation again.
“Is mise an ghaoth… Is mise an speir… Anois eitilt me.”
I am the wind… I am the sky… Now I fly.
Believe it, Ruby.
My feet levitated from the ground, and I laughed. “It’s working.”
“Maintain your focus,” Lillian coached. “Feel the magic snapping the bonds of gravity.”
I followed her instructions, and my body lifted higher above the parking lot. I spread my arms out. There weren’t words to describe the freedom of this weightlessness. I tilted my body slightly, trying to gauge the navigation properties of the spell.
“How do I make myself move?”
“Look at the ground you wish to cover and envision flying past it.”
She made it sound so simple. But there was an added level of difficulty to this practice right now, as it was still daylight. I couldn’t exactly go soaring over Essex Street in the middle of the day. All it would take would be for a tourist to pop a video on Instagram and we’d be in a mess that no spell could save us from. We’d heard stories over the years of the government experimenting on werewolves in an effort to develop super soldiers for the military, and I didn’t want to even think about what might happen if someone in the government figured out witches could really fly.
So I stayed close to the ground and flew to the far corner of our tiny lot. It felt wobbly and awkward, but I only had to whisper the incantation twice during my flight. Not bad for a beginner. When I got back to Lillian, I envisioned my feet touching down on the pavement.
And they did. Hard. My shoes slapped the ground, and I fell forward onto my hands and knees.
Lillian grinned, clapping her hands. “Nicely done. You’ve got a few more days to master it, but this is a good start.”
I felt light-headed, almost giddy. “That was amazing.”
She nodded with a knowing smile. “Your magic will keep expanding the more you tap into it. You’re going to be a fabulous high priestess.”
“I hope so.” I sighed, wishing I could tell her about Zeke. “I have enormous shoes to fill.”
“Pfft.” She swiped her hand through the air. “Nonsense. You’re a natural.”
I followed her back into the store. “Why did you choose me? Amelia is an Elemental, and her astral-projecting is much more powerful than my imitation of a baby bird back there.”
“Enough belittling your power, Ruby.” Lillian turned around, pinning me in place with the intensity of her stare. “I made a promise to your mother when you were a very little girl, but I think it’s time to break it.”
I shook my head. “Why would my mom keep anything from me?”
Lillian sighed. “I only agreed to it because I thought you’d remember when the time was right, but you’re about to ascend and you need to know who you really are.”
My pulse thrummed as anxiety tingled through my limbs. “What are you talking about?”
The bell rang on the door, and Lillian straightened in her chair. She patted my hand. “I’ll help them. I want you to think back to your childhood. There was night when you were small that your parents took you out to Spring Lake to go camping.” She narrowed her eyes. “Your mother saved you. She hid you in the forest. Try to remember.”
She walked away, leaving me in a cloud of confusion. I went into the back of the store and sat down, staring at my hands. They were shaking. Did my body remember something that my mind didn’t?
Spring Lake. I closed my eyes and reached out to my spirit guides. With the image of the sunlight shimmering on the water, I slowly filtered through my childhood memories until I found a whisp of a memory…
I had been wet and coughing.
