Just after six PM, I showed Mrs. Grundahl out the door, accepting a cherry pie and fancy sugared almonds in exchange for ginger root tonic for her delicate stomach. I found Mary barefoot in the kitchen attacking a chicken chow mein hot dish. Any other day this would’ve been a grand offense to Magda’s tightly run ship and our mother’s spotless kitchen, but on Solstice, anything goes. It was a tradition, in fact. I grabbed a fork and squeezed in next to Mary. We were a matching set of Watry women with cream of mushroom soup and soy sauce dripping down our chins.
“Good, huh?” Mary said through a mouthful of noodles and chicken. “Mr. Berg brought it straight from home, still hot.”
I nodded but couldn’t manage words through the salty, creamy, crunchy noodles in my mouth. Mom slumped at the table with a mug of stale coffee and one hand over her eyes, looking for all the world like her mother. Magda was noticeably absent from our Solstice foraging, she who usually led the charge with a fork raised like a triumphant banner.
The counter in the kitchen overflowed with casseroles, pies, and bars; garden-fresh beets, cucumbers, green beans, leeks, greens, garlic, peas, radishes, rhubarb, and handpicked blueberries; packages of beef and pork ribs, roasts, and fresh sirloin steaks from the butcher, Mr. Pettrich. The casseroles and baked goods and meat would go in Dad’s enormous ice chest in the garage. We spent the days after Solstice pickling most of the vegetables and storing them for the winter, except the rhubarb and berries, which would be baked into pies.
There were also a handful of new feathered friends in residence in the chicken coop, and Mom somehow ended the day with a new kitten. The ball of orange fluff sat in her lap, stunned to be there, as Mom absent-mindedly held strings of beef jerky from a Tupperware container to its sweet pink mouth. Sam the cat, who operated as Mom’s ears around town, eyed the scene suspiciously from the top of the refrigerator, refusing to give up his perch while the interloper was in Mom’s lap. The kitten told Mom that his name was Fred, and his auspicious appearance on Solstice begged Mom to add another familiar to her clowder.
Mary strategically scooped all the crunchy noodle topping off half of the hot dish, then collapsed dramatically into a kitchen chair. Only when the pan was reduced to celery and cream clinging to the sides of the pan did I relinquish my own fork and set the pan on the floor for a special Solstice kitty treat for Sam and Mickey and the tiny orange newcomer.
As much as I wanted to rest with a coffee, I knew if I sat down for one spare minute, I might lose my nerve; I might never stand up to Magda. And if I didn’t, I might as well shut up like my mother, let John claim me, and let Magda pull the invisible strings of my life forever.
I trudged upstairs to dress alone in Solstice white, the better for calling water to the county that evening. I pulled a short white macrame dress over my head with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Let’s go,” I said to Mary as I breezed through the kitchen and out the side door, not waiting for her to catch up. I wanted to show that I still had some authority. I carried a backpack with a few things, intending to sleep over at Annie’s after I embarrassed Magda thoroughly in front of the farmers at the water calling.
Mary wore a sleeveless white macrame shift to match mine, gifts from the talented Mrs. Conlin. As much as Solstice was a time to wear white and set intentions for the coming season, it was also a time to honor youth and bare skin, to expose long legs and feet and shoulders to the moonlight on the shortest night of the year.
“Oh.” Mom made a small sound behind us.
I hesitated outside the kitchen door but couldn’t make the words come out. It was supposed to be you. You chose my future for me. You gave my heart away.
“We’ll see you there,” I said instead.
Mary walked beside me toward the inlet on the east side of town, even as I knew she must have felt the fire radiating from me. But she said nothing and matched my pace, our footsteps sounding like one against the sun-warmed asphalt.
The sight of the lake on our left, a blinding mirror under the magic-hour evening light, did little to calm me. I moved as if in a dream. The trees barely swayed; the wind out of the east had settled since morning, I noticed through my fog. A good night for a fire, as my father and his brothers would say. There were more boats on the lake than normal at that hour, making their way toward the inlet to watch the water calling as the sun slipped behind the tree line to the west. My fingers ached with anticipation.
As we neared town, cars passed us along Lake Street on their way to the inlet. A truck with a handful of boys in the flatbed honked when they recognized the Watry-Ridder girls on their ceremonial progress. One of them, a boy who had been a year ahead of me, leaned out the window and yelled something unintelligible under the roar of the engine. I didn’t need to hear it; it was never anything good.
That familiar fire simmered below the surface. It was intended for Magda and my mother, but I impulsively raised a hand at the passing truck and flung my arm toward the lake. Baumöl, I thought. Chunsch, Baumöl. The truck skidded wildly, careening across Lake Street. There were no cars coming in the other lane, luckily, but the boys in the flatbed were thrown hard to one side.
Mary pushed my shoulder roughly and raised a hand to set it straight, whispering the words of protection.
“What the heck was that?” she asked, whipping around on me, incredulous, as the boys drove on.
None of them so much as looked back, so they must’ve blamed the driver and whatever beers they had certainly consumed in advance of the Solstice proceedings.
My power is infinite. I thought of that morning with Mrs. Andersen and the time with the raven’s feathers and all the times the words had materialized on my lips, that guiding energy in my hands. I was itching to test the boundaries of my powers, break all the rules of magic Magda had taught me. If I had all the wisdom and spells of generations of witches from the cedar chest at my disposal and the auspicious Solstice light at my back, I could do anything. There was nothing Magda or anyone could do to stop me.
“What?” I barked at Mary, burning with resentment.
Mary cut her eyes at me.
“I slipped,” I said, daring her to challenge me. She didn’t even know how lucky she was with a whole heart to give away.
Mary shook her head and started walking slowly, waiting for me to catch up.
“You can talk to me when you’re ready,” she said. “I have your back.”
I softened instantly. I wanted to take Mary’s hand, but I couldn’t make myself do it. We were born of different elements, and water and earth can only mix with fire for so long before the flame is smothered.
Another honking truck passed and broke the spell between us.
We crossed the bridge over the inlet that connected Clear Lake to the nearby Blackfoot River. The town beach and Harry’s Supper Club were on the other side, separated by a strip of swamp and scraggly trees. A small crowd had gathered along the edges, lining the banks of the inlet. It was mostly farmers, their families, other old-timers, and a handful of teenagers—Annie, John, and his basketball teammates among them.
They shifted before us, parting the way toward the place where the inlet met the lake as the sky streaked pink. Our father greeted us, beaming.
“Ready, girls?” he asked, glancing behind us. “Where is your mother? You didn’t come together?”
I shrugged and felt Mary’s eyes boring into me. “They’re coming,” I said flatly.
He turned away, distracted. “Well,” he said, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. “You’ve got a few minutes …” And then Dad was off, his attention turned toward shaking hands with his friends and the other important men in the agricultural fabric of Friedrich.
In the long golden minutes before sunset, the sky burned bright in shades of pink and red and orange. Mary scanned the crowd.
“I’ll be back,” she said, spotting Tim near a knot of boys impatiently waiting for something interesting to happen. Her hand went automatically to smooth her hair. “Wave me when Mom and Magda get here.”
Mary said Magda’s name softly, delicately, and I thought suddenly, I don’t know how or what, but Mary knows something.
I turned slowly in her wake, taking in the crowd—about eighty people so far—and letting them see me. To heighten the effect when I ran out on Magda, I needed everyone to know I was there, highly visible in my bright-white dress. I stomped through the long grass in my moccasins, as a few children, farm kids invested in the outcome for their parents’ sake, played tag between people in the crowd. The old-timers watched from afar, setting up folding chairs on the stable ground back by the road. I made sure they all saw me.
John was talking quietly with his father, his teammates nearby. After I had worked my way from one end of the marshy land around the inlet and back again, I focused my energy on John’s turned back, lassoing him effortlessly. He turned quickly, unsmiling. It took him a beat too long to find a smile for me when he saw me standing apart from the crowd. My heart caught in my throat. He knows he deserves better—like my father, and Grandpa Earl before him. I had a feeling that all the patriarchs in our family were used to settling for less, but John was starting to crack as he got a glimpse of his future that summer. And I couldn’t blame him.
I felt the air go out of my lungs when I thought about the future that Magda had dictated for John too. He was as trapped as I was, and I was racked with guilt thinking that he would be stuck with me like I was stuck with Magda and the cedar chest and the house on Lake Street. Embarrassing Magda would mean embarrassing John too. Was the honor of being next to a Watry woman enough for John? Would he support me when I stood up to Magda? Or did he want her future for us too?
As I deliberately turned my eyes from John to scan the crowd, my heart ached for all the women before me who had carried the same terrific burden. Did Grandpa Earl know that Magda’s heart wasn’t for him? Did he mind? What about Dad? Does Mom get to love him with her whole heart? My insides burned at that thought—that Mom, even like she was, was free to love when I wasn’t.
Mary drew my eye through the crowd as she leaned into Tim’s side, their fingers entwined as they stood where the swampy land around the inlet gave way to the pebbled beach. I sighed, flaring further with resentment and hating myself for it. Mary’s heart was whole and hers to give. I found it devastatingly unfair that only one of the Watry-Ridder girls would know true love.
John found me as day faded into dusk. He glanced around to see who might be in the vicinity—my father and uncles, Mr. Weseloh, Father Kevin, or the many town gossips—then kissed me squarely on the mouth, marking his territory in front of all of them.
I looked away, distracted. “Thank you,” I mumbled after a moment, torn between feeling guilty about John being wrapped up in my family’s secrets and feeling uncomfortably like John’s prize.
“For what?” he asked.
“For being here. For everything,” I said, before choking up.
“I’m proud of you,” he said, blushing, the sweet, shy farmer-tinker who’d had the guts to steal his brother’s snowmobile peeking through.
I drew back and leaned my chin on top of his solid, warm shoulder.
“Mm?” I murmured, afraid my voice would crack if I spoke.
“You were so in charge today. Running the show. Like you’ve been doing it forever,” John said.
I have been doing it forever, I thought.
I didn’t answer John, as I spotted Mom and Magda making their way toward us. Magda, as always, looked like the queen of the Black Forest fairies—as intentionally far from that stereotypical Wicked Witch image as she could manage. Long white skirts grazed her ankles, and her arms were covered by a gauzy white blouse and stacks of silver and gold bangles that tinkled when she moved. Her silver hair fell loose down her back from under a white silk scarf dotted with red posies. Gold earrings of tiny rows of bells swung from her ears. My mother’s look—a flowing white tunic over slim white pedal pushers—was a bit more understated. But she too wore a number of bangles and let her long, blonde hair flow free.
I was practically twitching with nerves. I was about to stand up to my grandmother in a very public way to show her that I wouldn’t accept her future for me. I didn’t know how she would react—would she punish me? Would she decide, God forbid, to not bind my heart on the fall equinox after all? Would she let me go? I wasn’t thinking about the consequences. All I was thinking about was not doing what Magda wanted for once in my life.
I buried my face in John’s shoulder, breathing him in, thankful for his presence despite the guilt that threatened to consume me.
“Ready for a show?” I asked in a tight voice.
“Always,” he said, grinning.
An exuberant energy zapped through the crowd as neighbors greeted one another, sharing flasks of whiskey or cans of beer. I pressed John’s hand one last time, then turned to seek Mary. Across the crowd, she touched Tim’s arm lightly, completely unaware of the outside world, her face flushed with the pure joy of a first crush. I pulsed at her—It’s time. She looked up immediately, squeezed Tim’s arm once, and moved toward me.
My path up to that point had been determined for me by my mother and grandmother. It ended that night. I would choose for myself. As Mary cast one more look at Tim, an easy smile on her face, I slipped between groups of neighbors with their backs turned—and disappeared.
I had been practicing, but I didn’t know exactly how long I’d be able to hold my shield, so I moved quickly. It was more difficult to maintain than the sound shields I used when I drew John from his bed in the middle of the night. I was completely invisible, walking among my family and neighbors unseen.
I moved toward the lake, where the crowd thinned, positioning myself to watch the drama unfold. Behind me, the lake was dark and beautiful and dangerous. Like us. Like me. A hush spread as Mary joined Magda in the center of the marsh. A wall of people closed in around Mary and Magda, clamoring for the best view.
I watched, nearly dizzy with adrenaline, as Magda whispered to Mary with a forced smile on her face.
“Where’s Lisbett?”
Mary scanned the crowd.
“She was just here,” I read on her lips.
Mom seemed to notice that something was amiss and turned to look.
Please, be enough, I whispered to my shield from where I watched.
I felt Dorothy’s presence like a warm hand settle on my back.
It wasn’t always this way, she reminded me.
Magda’s smile faltered. “Your sister is supposed to lead the water incantation tonight,” she hissed to Mary. Suddenly I was Mary’s problem.
Mary kept her composure. “We walked over together. She was just with John.”
Magda’s eyes snapped to find the aforementioned Weseloh in the crowd, where he and the basketball team had started to push closer to the inlet.
Our neighbors were starting to notice.
“What’s the delay?”
“Where’s Elisabeth?”
“She was here, I saw her …”
“Is this part of it?”
“I don’t think so, look at Magda.”
The gathered crowd, silent only a moment before in hushed anticipation, broke out in scandalized whispers. Then they didn’t even bother whispering. Seconds stretched into minutes as Mary stood inert, faking a smile, waiting for Magda to decide what to do. Proceed? Cancel? Even in the dwindling light, I could see Magda’s eyes turn to ice. I was ecstatic.
John dared to stride forward, breaking the line of spectators. Magda glared, and Mary rushed forward to talk to him. John scratched his head and waved an arm where we had been standing. Magda was turning an unseemly shade of pink, almost as purple as her energy. It had worked. Magda was furious, and I was delighted. She deserved it after what she had done to me.
As full dark settled and the moon began to rise, Magda turned to face the lake, waving Mom and Mary close to her with raucous speculation at their backs. I stood on my tiptoes under my shield, waiting to see what would come next, overjoyed that I had made it so far. I thought I would watch Magda flail for a few minutes more, then slip away to Annie’s.
But then Magda began to cast out. I felt my shield waver. “She’s still here, I can feel it,” she hissed. Magda threw an arm out in a wide arc and whipped it above her head, setting aside all decency. She was incensed. The crowd exclaimed in surprise as the ever-poised Magda Watry absolutely lost it.
Before I could react, my shield split in half. There were gasps and hesitant exclamations from the people nearest me as I was suddenly visible next to them.
“Is this part of it …?” someone loudly wondered.
Magda’s head snapped in my direction.
“Elisabeth,” she said with an eerie calm, regaining her composure. “Come here right now,” she barked through gritted teeth, betraying how furious she was beneath the cool exterior.
“No,” I said, my feet solidly planted beneath me. “I’m done being your puppet.” Shock erupted from the crowd.
“Excuse me?” Magda snapped. “That’s enough. Let’s go.”
“No,” I cried, “I said no!”
I caught a glimpse of John’s face as it fell. With my defiance, he lost his special status and privileges. I was ruining his future too.
Magda waved away the fractured remnants of my shield and motioned for our neighbors, who watched us with bated breath, to stay back. Her hands kept working, the words unspoken beneath the surface of the ice floe. I felt a force unseen wrap itself around my feet and legs and hips and drag me forward.
“Magda!” I gasped. It was unthinkable to cast to control another individual’s movement, let alone that of a family member, another Watry woman. I threw up my hands to protect myself, unintentionally showering sparks down on the marsh. Magda met my sparks with a fiery rope around my waist.
Up to this point, our neighbors had been watching warily, shifting in place, unsure whether it was safe to move. At my shower of sparks, they exclaimed and shielded themselves with their arms, and a few started to edge toward the road. But our neighbors couldn’t tear themselves away from the scene entirely—they watched us with fascination and fear, a real-live family feud before their own eyes, wincing and exclaiming at every fiery charm. I felt John and my father and my uncles and Annie and Cousin Mildred nearby and shivered. All I wanted was to restore my shield and get away.
Watch out! Dorothy urged.
Before I knew what was happening, Magda’s fiery rope dragged me to my knees in the mud. I floundered, trying to work my hands free as Mary let out a shriek. She instinctively threw out a hand toward Magda, but stopped short of actually touching Magda or casting. Even in her fear, Mary knew better than to get in the middle of it.
Magda pulled me toward her, and the weeds whipped my bare legs like knives. What was I thinking, wearing a dress? came the ridiculous thought in the back of my head. What are you doing? Fight back! I told myself, letting all the rage and resentment of the past weeks break through to the surface. I finally broke one of my hands free and let it rip.
I had never dreamed my grandmother would dare to physically cast on me, nor that I would cast sand and wind and rain back at her—let alone in front of the whole town. But as I struggled to my feet, the words leapt to my tongue unbidden. I threw charm after charm at Magda, anything to make her release me. I heard exclamations of shock and fear from our neighbors.
Magda cried with surprise, “How dare you!” She threw up her arms to drag me down again, and I dug my moccasined feet into the silt.
“That’s enough!” Mary yelled above the din as my father looked on in horror.
Magda snapped her head to glare at Mary but kept her hands trained on me.
“You stay out of this, girl, or you will regret it,” Magda hissed.
I tried to shield myself in that moment, but Magda kept going. She was throwing fire at me, and I knew I had made a grave mistake. I feared for my very life.
The crowd scrambled away from us, giving us as wide a berth as the narrow strip of land around the inlet afforded, when Magda threw a charm that took my feet out from underneath me. I fell to my knees again.
Mary made a sound of distress but didn’t move, leaving me to deal with Magda alone once again, and in that split second I saw any future for myself outside of Friedrich slipping away. Magda was never going to let me walk away from the future she’d chosen for me. If I wanted a different future, I was going to have to take it for myself.
Get up, Dorothy whispered.
I had never cast the words before, but with the enormous solstice energy, adrenaline, and Dorothy’s presence around me, I felt unstoppable. I felt out of control. I cast fire at Magda, and she threw it right back.
“Lisbett!” Mary cried above the gasps and screams, her voice full of fear. I didn’t see her. My eyes were only for Magda.
Our fire charms met in a violent burst above the inlet. A gust of hot air flattened the weeds to the ground, and the lake, serene moments before, was whipped to a frenzy behind us from the wind and flame kicking back from our charms, each larger than the last. There were terrible screams from our friends, family, and neighbors as our energies met in the middle and exploded in a brilliant tower of fire, shooting gaseous green flames a hundred feet high, an enormous flare in the night sky through the narrow gap in the tree line. I thought I heard John’s voice in the din cry out, “What are you doing?” But I couldn’t stop it.
“Oh shit.” The words tumbled from my mouth reflexively.
The column of fire stood between me and Magda, blocking her from view. The only thought I had in that moment was to get out of there. I didn’t want to fight Magda, but she’d attacked me first. I didn’t want to risk hurting anyone else. But there was no stopping it; it was too late. I threw up a shield and made a run for it.
I didn’t get far, though, in the chaos of the moment. The fire sent people running, shoving and scrambling over each other to get away from the eerie green embers raining down on the swampland. The heat was immediately unbearable. I had already lost track of Magda, Mary, and my parents, leaving them somewhere behind me. My only thought was to get away before I antagonized Magda further and risked my friends and family in the balance. But it was slow going in the sudden crush of bodies seeking safety on Lake Street. I inhaled sharply, starving for breath in the smoky air.
Time seemed to slow down as I looked over my shoulder from where I was caught, unseen, in a group of old-timers from the VFW clambering their way toward the beach and Harry’s. The column of green flames was surely visible for miles in any direction; if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would have thought there was a nuclear bomb dropped on Friedrich. I felt guilty for the terror ripping through my friends and neighbors, especially in a time when everyone feared nuclear war with the Soviets. Would they blame me? Or would they blame Magda? She’d cast first, after all—but did our neighbors see that?
Before I could finish the thought, the wind changed, picking up unexpectedly. Maybe it had been there all along and I hadn’t been paying attention, as focused as I was on breaking Magda’s charms on me. It happened so quickly that I couldn’t have stopped what occurred next if I wanted to: across the sand, Harry’s Supper Club ignited. My eyes followed the embers carried on the wind to Harry’s roof, which was quickly engulfed in an unnatural green inferno as cries of shock and one long wail went up around me.
“Oh God,” I cried aloud.
A few heads turned in my direction, but for the most part, all eyes were on Harry’s, watching the blaze. I racked my brain—had there been a wedding planned for Solstice? I strained to see—was the parking lot full? I couldn’t tell through the growing smoke. I felt like I might be sick. God, what have I done?
Mary appeared, tearing down the beach toward Harry’s. Magda trundled after her, her duty to the community ever the priority, even after attacking her own granddaughter in front of them. I felt nauseous. I defied my grandmother, unprovoked, in front of our neighbors. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. My whole body began to shake where I was frozen in place beneath my shield, eyes glued to the flames licking through Harry’s roof as tar paper and shingles ignited and flew off.
This wasn’t part of the plan. I had wanted to embarrass Magda, put a kink in her grand plans for me, show her she couldn’t control me. I should’ve known how hard she’d fight to keep me in my place. I hadn’t meant for it to go this far.
Even in the mad dash toward cars and the beach parking lot, people stopped to watch Harry’s burn. The sound of shattering glass—the patio windows that looked out onto the lake—was audible above the roar of the fire. The fear on the faces of my neighbors in that moment told me: all their worries about us over the years had come to fruition. Their lake, Friedrich’s agricultural lifeblood, and Harry’s, their social epicenter, were on fire, and I was solely responsible. I was afraid. I had to get out of there before I was blamed.
I couldn’t wait to see if Mary and Magda were able to control what seemed like an uncontrollable fire. I pushed through the crowd, fervently whispering the words of my shield like a prayer and letting the press of people carry me down Lake Street away from Harry’s.
But someone caught my wrist in the crush. I looked up to see my mother’s profile illuminated by the green flames. I hesitated, wondering for a split second if it could be fixed, if I didn’t have to run, if there was any world in which I could feel at home in my family knowing what Magda had done and now knowing what I had done. But looking at my mother’s face in that light was like looking at a future version of myself. How can we be so alike and so different? I thought in a daze. It will only get worse.
And in that moment, looking at her like I was looking at myself, I knew I was always going to walk away. I had to find out who or what I could be away from the Watry-Ridder house, away from Mom and Magda and their secrets and that stupid cedar chest. I hadn’t meant for my departure to so explosive, but now that I had fought so publicly with Magda and set the town on fire, I had no choice but to go.
I wasn’t surprised that Mom saw through my shield, even if I didn’t know how she did it. I had seen that look in my mother’s eyes before; she was guided by something more primal, ethereal. She grasped my wrist with a strength I hadn’t thought possible.
“Elisabeth,” she said, a plea in her voice.
The tears I had been holding back for days broke free, stinging my eyes. “It was supposed to be you,” I spat back, saying the words I had thought so many times, intending to hurt her. “Why wasn’t it you?”
Mom dropped my wrist suddenly, as if my skin had burned her fingers. We were pushed together by the crowd on all sides, uncomfortably close in the blazing heat. Every retreating back was clear as day in the night sky glowing green. I could see the fear in stunning detail on each passing neighbor’s face, but no one noticed us; my shield had at least done that.
“I … we … Mother …,” she stammered. “We did the best we could.”
“You gave me away. You let Magda take my heart, and you spared Mary.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know what she was like back then,” my mother said. Her tone was defiant, even as I could barely hear her above the roar of the fire.
But I had heard enough half-truths from my family. I shook my head. My mother’s thin arms hung limply at her sides, and her entire body heaved in a sigh. I saw then that she would give me up, again. I burned with fury—why won’t you fight for me? Why didn’t you help me? I tore myself away from her, sparking with rage and disappointment.
“I had to protect at least one of you,” I heard my mother say to my back, finding her voice as I shoved through the last of the crowd unscathed, the flame and ash and smoke parting around my shield.