Third Time is a Charm

Chapter 1 Just between you and me, I actually like winter. It's my favorite season of the year. I know, it's not popular to say that. And don't say it because I used to play hockey. The hockey I had played was all indoors. It didn't matter what the weather was like outside. I skated when it was over ninety degrees outside, and I skated when it was thirty below zero. Inside the rink, it was all the same. But for me, there was nothing better than coming out of the locker room after an afternoon on the climate-controlled ice into a world filled with gently falling snow. The way it brushed against my cold-chapped cheeks was like a fairy's kiss. But when it's just the cold and the wind and no snow? I admit even I find it less than thrilling. And that's what we had had lately, cold wind and no snow. I probably shouldn't complain too much, it is more than a week away from Thanksgiving and far too early in the year for snow, but still. Who wants cold and wind but no snow? It was too cold for us to meditate in the backyard together like before. The cellar was warmer, what with the wood-burning stove and all, but getting to the cellar involved first going out into the yard. It didn't seem worth the effort getting into and out of coats and hats and gloves. So I mostly stayed inside the house. Which was strangely isolating. I mean, Sophie and Brianna were always there with me, but without a larger space, we never gathered together for more than meals. And Mr. Trevor, well, I very rarely saw Mr. Trevor. He was around, but in that invisible way of his, keeping the house tidy and the kitchen stocked with food without ever quite being seen beyond the occasional meal he shared with us. I was lonely. But I was also a bit frustrated. I was supposed to be learning magic, but that never seemed to be happening. "There must be a place we can work together," I said in one of the few moments when Sophie, Brianna and I were all in the kitchen at once. I had been frosting the batch of pumpkin pie cupcakes I had made to bring to Nick's grandfather when by some miracle both of the other two witches had come in for tea at the same moment. "The library?" I offered. "No," Brianna said. "I don't want to risk an unstable spell upending things. I have a specific arrangement that can't be disturbed." As far as I'd ever seen, her specific arrangement was to open every book at once and spread them out over every table, overlapping book on book, occasionally topped by a cup and saucer long since drained of tea. "I'm with Amanda on this one," Sophie said. "You did promise you'd show us some spells to do with our wands. I want to learn how to do that lightning thing." "That's a rather advanced spell," Brianna said. "So show us something we can start with," Sophie said. "The attic," I said. "Sophie, you dance up there. There's lots of open space." "Isn't it cold up there?" Brianna asked, a worried line forming between her brows. "Hey, if a Louisiana girl can take it," Sophie said. "All right," Brianna conceded. "I was taking a break anyway. I can spare a minute. But it really has to be just a minute." We trooped up the stairs together. The attic was indeed cold, probably because there were no heat vents. Some heat did rise up through the floor from the lower levels, but it wasn't much. I zipped my hoodie up a little higher, watching the clouds of frost in front of my face with each breath. "Oh, it's colder than I thought," Brianna said, frowning. "No worries," Sophie said. She raised her arms in a dancer's pose, drawing herself up on her tiptoes. Then she started to spin around, and I could see swirls of air forming after the motion of her sweeping arms. But it couldn't be air I was seeing. Was it the magic? Then I felt it; a warm breeze cascading over my body. It blew away the frost of my breath. It filled my nose with the smell of jasmine, with just a hint of fresh roasted coffee and… was that the smell of fresh baked croissants? My mouth started to water. Those croissants smelled good. I'd put off eating lunch and had refrained from sampling the cupcake batter, as I was planning on having an early dinner at Nick's apartment later, but my stomach only lived in the moment. And in the moment, I would kill for one of those croissants. "Ooh," Brianna said, turning her face into the warmth of Sophie's breeze. "That feels nice." "Thanks," Sophie said. "Of course, it's just my usual wandless form of magic." "Right," Brianna said, taking the hint. She pulled out her wand. It was a narrow slip of wood - I'm not sure what kind - polished until it glowed as if made of gold. It flashed in the air when she waved it about. It rather reminded me of an orchestra conductor's baton. "Okay, this is a pretty simple spell," Brianna said. I looked over at Sophie, and she rolled her eyes ever so slightly. I gave her a smile. Everything that Brianna said was simple always turned out far more complicated than expected. "You already know how to focus and channel your energy through the wand," Brianna said, starting to walk in a circle that I was sure was deliberately facing into Sophie's wind. It blew the hair back from her face like she was in a music video. "You're going to imagine something inside your mind, then you and the wand together will project it as an illusion. It has no physical reality, being just light, so it's a fairly simple thing to get the wand to channel for you. The more you work on it, the more intricate your illusions will become. But you'll also form more intricate connections between you and your wand. So when you need to actually manifest something real, it will come more easily to you. It's a good thing to practice as often as you can. Try to make a lot of different shapes and patterns." Then she stopped walking, standing in the center of Sophie's swirling breezes. She closed her eyes, then raised her wand up into the air, not like an orchestra conductor. More like the pose on the poster for Hamilton. She stayed that way for a long moment; then she started stirring the very end of her wand in tiny circles. The circles expanded, bigger and bigger, and I realized that she was creating something with the circles. Each full rotation created a brass wheel that floated up and away as the next started to form. The small ones spread wide under the peaked attic roof, but when the larger wheels formed they filled in the spaces between. Then I realized they weren't wheels. They were gears, their outer edges a series of fine teeth that interlocked when they came into contact with each other. And as soon as they were interlocked they started turning, big ones and small ones together, turning ever faster as more and more wheels joined in. Soon being inside the attic was like being inside the belly of some enormously complex clockwork, glinting in the light as the gears rotated, meeting each other at all sorts of odd angles but never locking up. "Wow," Sophie said, barely more than a breath. I couldn't say anything at all. I don't think I could even imagine such a thing, let alone create it. At last Brianna opened her eyes, looked around, and gave a little nod as if it just met her standards. That she waved her wand again, and the entire thing disappeared. "Who's next?" she asked briskly. I averted my eyes. Sophie sighed deeply, then took out her own wand. Hers was more roughly shaped than Brianna's, with little knobs on the sides that spoke of daughter branches long since stripped away. I'm not sure what wood she had used either, but she had stained it a deep dark color, a rich brown that was nearly black. She ran her fingertips over it softly, then held it up in the air. She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. I could see her focusing on her breath, going deeper into a standing meditation. The breeze kept circulating around us, and my stomach kept growling. I tried to focus on the jasmine scent. It really was quite lovely, as if from flowers that had just bloomed. Eyes still closed, Sophie began to move. She didn't spin or dance, just shifted her weight from side to side with her feet still on the floor, but it was very dance-like. Her arms moved in long sweeps, and her wand formed the very tail of that motion. I saw something on the very tip of her wand, at first just a blob of white. Then it started trailing off the end of her wand as if it got caught in the breeze. As it spooled out, I saw it was a long ribbon of silk, a brilliant snow-white ribbon. Sophie gave her wand a tight little spin, and the ribbon broke away to dance off on its own, floating on the breeze around the room. She made another silk ribbon, this one the bright yellow of buttercups. That too danced away across the room, moving faster as if trying to catch up with the other ribbon. She did this a few more times, until a rainbow of ribbons were all dancing around the room, spinning and twisting around each other, whirling around in delicate loop-the-loops. Sophie lowered her arms to the ground and opened her eyes. The sight of the ribbons dancing around seemed to catch her by surprise, and a delighted smile spread over her face. "Wow," Sophie said. "I didn't think that would really work." Brianna clapped her hands. "It's just lovely," she said. "Look at them; they're still dancing." Sophie reached out to touch one, and it disintegrated just in front of her fingertips, raining down to the ground in a thousand silky droplets. "Aw," she said. "It looked so smooth; I wanted to touch it." "Well, remember," Brianna said in a very teacherly voice, "this is just an illusion. We're not yet working on creating tangible things out of nothing." "When are we gonna work on creating things out of nothing?" Sophie asked, still grinning widely. "One thing at a time," Brianna said, then turned her attention to me. I looked down at the wand in my hands. I knew what wood this was. It came from a willow tree. I had cut the branch from the tree myself. My hands had stripped off all the bark and smoothed the wood, had rubbed layer after layer of stains and salves into it, some mundane but many magical. I had done a thousand other things that were supposed to help me bond with this little piece of wood. And I knew it had worked. The wand had saved my life. In that other place where I could see the webs connecting all things, I had seen that the wand was part of me. But I wasn't in that place just now. And the wand felt very distinct from me. "Go ahead and try, Amanda," Brianna said. "Yes, give it a try," Sophie said. "What's the worst that could happen?" "Nothing could happen," I said. But I closed my eyes, feeling the wand in my hand, not just through my fingertips but also sensing its presence with my mind. So far, so good. I didn't know what illusion I should try to make. It made sense that Brianna would create something of intricate complexity. I was pretty sure she was just showing us the routine workings of her own mind. And it made sense that Sophie had created something beautiful and dancing. That was the essence of who she was. But what about me? How was I supposed to sum my own self up? I guess I didn't want to try. I didn’t want to make anything that complicated. I just wanted to make something. A little spark of light. That would be enough. I concentrated, seeing sparks of light in my mind, something like fireworks but smaller. I pictured them as hard as I could, squeezing my eyes tightly shut. I focused on the feel of the wand in my hand, imagining the light flowing from me into the wand. Then I raised my arm, holding it up like the Statue of Liberty holding her torch. That would be me. I would be the Statue of Liberty. I couldn't hear Sophie or Brianna. If I was doing anything, if they could see it, they weren't giving me any indication. No feedback at all. At last, I just had to open my eyes and see for myself. It wasn't much. Something was coming out of the end my wand, something like a little bit of a spark, but it was more like dull embers than fireworks, and they just fell out of the end of it, turning to bits of ash before disappearing entirely when they hit the floor. "Well," I said. I could think of nothing more to say. "It was a good start," Brianna said. "Please don't get discouraged." "No, of course not," I said. "Why don't you try again?" Sophie said. I looked down at the wand in my hand. I strongly suspected I would get better results without an audience, even though Brianna and Sophie were both being super supportive. I wanted more practice, but I wanted to do it alone. "Not right now," I said. "Brianna probably wants to get back to whatever she's working on, and I should really start getting dressed." "Wearing something special?" Sophie asked in a teasing voice. "Trying to impress grandpa?" "Don't be silly," I said, feeling my cheeks heat up. "It's not that big of a deal." "Meeting his family is always a big step," Sophie said. She looked to Brianna to back her up, but Brianna just looked confused. "What's going on?" she asked. "Amanda's date night," Sophie said, giving Brianna a playful nudge with her elbow. "Keep up." "It's not a date," I said. "It's just dinner with his grandfather. I guess he's worried that Nick isn't socializing enough since coming home from Afghanistan. I'm just there as proof Nick's not becoming a recluse." "That, or you're just not calling it a date because you're keeping your options open between two time periods," Sophie said with an arch to one eyebrow. Poor Brianna looked more confused than ever. "What do you mean?" "I mean Edward," Sophie stage-whispered. "Oh," Brianna said. I would swear she was exaggerating her sudden understanding for effect if I didn't know for a fact that Brianna never dabbled in sarcasm. The look she fixed on me was dead serious. "Edward is nice, but I think you should confine your dating to people living in the present." "I'm not dating anyone," I insisted. "Honestly, I have enough on my plate mastering this magic thing. I don't need more complications in my life." "And yet," Sophie said, "life always makes more complications." "Not if I can help it," I said, tucking my wand away. "It's just a dinner with an old man who's worried about his grandson. It's a favor for a friend. That's it." "I didn't mean to upset you," Sophie said, and I took a deep breath. "I'm not upset," I said, although that was half a lie. But there was a wistful look in Sophie's eyes, and I remembered that unlike me she had had a life that she had left behind to come to Miss Zenobia Weekes' School for Exceptional Young Ladies. A life that had included someone she was close to. "I'm not upset," I said again, and this time I did mean it. "But I am going to be late. Brianna, I'm totally going to practice more on my own later." "Let me know how that goes," Brianna said, but her voice had that faraway quality that told me she was already thinking about whatever she was about to return to in the library. "And have fun on your not-a-date," Sophie added. "I will," I promised, then ran down the stairs to my bedroom to change into something a bit dressier. My whole body was tingling. If I had been a dog my ears would be pricked up, waiting for the sound of the doorbell that would mean Nick was there to walk me over to his apartment. Who was I kidding? It totally felt like a date.