The Witch with No Name

I felt a light pull to the right. I couldn’t even tell you what it was. The scent of ozone, maybe? The faint vibration of an uninvoked circle? “Here,” I said, following my nose past open windows all the way to the end of the hall. The sound of surf became louder, and quite unexpectedly the outer side of the hallway opened up to a sun-drenched corner room.

“Wow,” Trent said as we slowly crossed from the carpeted hallway back onto tile, the floor a beautiful mosaic of white, black, and teal laid out in spirals and circles. It would be my favorite room just for that, but it got better. Several benches, each having an overhead rack or fume hood, gave it the look of a lab. There were several built-in burners, a waste zone, and one corner devoted to live plants. One tinted-glass cabinet against the interior wall held herbs, and another books. I assumed the ley line stuff was in cupboards. An open, ultramodern-looking hearth took up a corner. From the hook hanging down from the high ceiling it was functional, but I think Takata used it as a place to sit more than my mom to stir spells at by the number of magazines piled up beside the pair of comfortable chairs between it and the wall. There was an empty coffee cup on the table between them, and a sheet of music half hidden under the rug.

“This is fantastic,” I said, fingers running enviously over the magnetic chalk-ready slate counters as a smile of delight eased the tension from my forehead. I could tell there were no electrical lines, no pipes, no phone, no TV, nothing to break a circle. It was a fortress by way of lack, like an island.

“So, you think you can work here?” Trent said, beaming at my awe.

I nodded, eyes on the open notebooks with works in progress carefully detailed in my mom’s handwriting. She was spelling again, and it made me feel good. “Absolutely.”

Trent went to the spelling library, his fingers running over the spines with the fondness he reserved for the horses in his stable. “Rachel, your mom has been sandbagging. She has a fabulous collection.”

I fingered the key in my robe pocket, knowing that anything I could ever want would be here. Trent knew the charm, and I could tweak it so Ivy could invoke it as needed. The rest would fall into place. Finally something was going our way.

“It’s going to take some trial and error, though,” Trent said, surprising me anew with his stubble and disheveled appearance.

Smiling, I leaned against the counter, hardly able to wait to get started. It was a beautiful room, a pleasure to work in. “Maybe we should get dressed first if we want to save the world.”

Trent’s grin was wide as he came back, tugging me to him. “And a shave, maybe. Sounds good to me. I love watching you work.”

I swayed into him, my eyes on Takata’s little piece of the room and wondering if Trent was going to claim it, but by the gleam in his eye, I thought not.

He was going to help, whether I wanted him to or not, and that was the best feeling in the world.

Chapter 13

The sound of the water through the open windows echoed my intent as I sat cross-legged atop the slate counter within a protective pentagram and carefully etched an ever-smaller spiral into the bottom of the tiny bottle. I barely breathed, my entire world cycled down to the golden glow of glass and the thin tracing of silver flowing from the stylus. The shushing of the waves was the heartbeat of the world, ever present, seldom noticed, and linking every moment together from before there was life to now.

To say it felt as if I was connected to the all, to everything, was an understatement.

I reached the center. The stylus lifted, but I didn’t want to move. I was content, still, and I knew with an unshakable certainty what was important and what wasn’t.

Ivy, I thought, and a stab of fear broke through my muzzy peace. A drop of silver quivered at the tip of the stylus, and I held my breath as I moved the pen from the bottle.

“I thought I lost you there,” Trent said, startling me, and I looked up, smiling even as the silver dripped onto the counter.

“I should take a break,” I said, handing him the bottle. Beside me were over a dozen rejects making me feel guilty about using my mom’s silver ink. It wasn’t exorbitantly expensive, but we couldn’t melt the silver down and reuse it either. They had to be trashed, bottles and all.

Saying nothing, Trent put the bottle under the scope modified to look at odd-shaped things. I stretched for the ceiling. My back cracked and my legs protested as I slid to the edge of the counter and my feet hit the tile floor. The sun was past its zenith, not close to setting but still making a bright glare on the water that reflected in with a wavy, relaxing pattern. “Good?” I said around a yawn, and he pulled back from the scope. I rather liked his smile.

“Looks good on the scope,” he said, taking the bottle out from under it. “Let’s see if it resonates.”