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“I think you two could use a nap.” Opening her pale palm, she blew sparkling dust at our cages.
The hurricane of sparkling filled my vision, and I was utterly mesmerized by the curtain of stars when my eyelids began to droop.
The cage’s gentle listing carries me over gentle waves into a strange mist. And then I fell through memory and time.
I land at my mother’s bedside and look into her pallid face. Her green eyes are as bright and beautiful as they had ever been, even more so if that’s possible. There’s a fierceness in them, an intensity that comes from almost being free of the body where she is imprisoned.
“In my chest, at the end of the bed,” she says. “My red cloak. Bring it to me.”
My spindly eight-year-old legs carry me to the giant trunk weathered by age and marred by a thousand dents and scratches. I return the cloak to my mother and gently lay it across her lap.
Red upon red.
“Do you remember what I told you about this cloak?” she asks, waxy fingers brushing over one of the gold buttons.
My throat aches, and my eyes sting, but I find the words.
“Red is the color of women’s suffering,” I recite. “It marks our entry into womanhood. It is the color of the portal through which life enters and exits the body. It is our birthright.”
“That’s right. That’s what we are given. The power over life and death. To create. And to destroy. That sacred power is yours now.” My mother’s hand is cold and clammy as it lifts mine and places it over the cloak. She says something in French that’s too quiet for me to hear. A slight sharp pain causes me to gasp, and I see a single ruby drop of blood well up on my fingertip. She presses it to the cloak, and it glows like a tiny star before disappearing.
“There now,” she says. Her smile is even weaker than before. “Take the cloak and hide it somewhere your father won’t find it. From this day forward, it will answer to you and you alone.”
“And why would I need to hide it?” I ask.
“The same reason we hide what you are and what you can do.” She strokes the back of my neck with fingers growing ever colder. “It’s not always safe to own power in a world like this. But if you can use it at the right moment, you might just change everything.”
The room grows darker as if filling with smoke.
My eyes opened, and I was again in the humid hovel.
Our hostess turned her back toward me, adding something to the cauldron that made a plume of green smoke rise from the bubbling brew. She tasted it and paused, tapping her chin with her finger. Then, reaching into her robe, she returned with a small blade.
What she did after that confounded me for the space of several moments.
Stepping to the side of the hearth, she shaved off a chunk of the wall and brought it to her lips to take a bite as she stared at her brew contemplatively.
How had I been so daft?
The cottage didn’t smell like cheese.
The cottage was cheese.
“That smells delicious,” I said, pressing my face to the bars.
Hanna’s red hair tumbled over her shoulder as she glanced back at me. “You think?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “The balance is so delicate. Nightshade. Agrimony. And adder’s tongue is a far under-appreciated ingredient if you ask me.”
Her expression brightened immediately. “Right!?”
“Everyone is always on about eye of newt and wool of bat like it’s what actual witches use. It’s ridiculous.”
“So ridiculous,” she agreed.
“I blame Shakespeare personally. It’s bound to happen when men write witches.”
Hanna heaves a disgusted sigh. “Don’t even get me started. The Weird Sisters?”
