SNOWFLAKES

Emotions must not be engaged nor understood, only recognized and silenced.

Binders’ Training, The Book of the Binders

Anna went back with Effie and Attis to the house. All was quiet; Chinese takeaway half-eaten on the table alongside a bottle of wine.

‘I see Selene’s already had a feast to herself. How nice,’ Effie huffed, shovelling a leftover spoonful into her mouth.

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said Anna, heading upstairs. It was time. She had to speak to Selene about the curse mark. Selene had always been such an advocate of her magic and she didn’t want to disappoint her, but she knew no one else could help and she couldn’t ignore it any longer. The static of the phone screens crackled in her mind. Something was wrong with her magic – her family’s magic – and whatever it was might contain the truth about her mother’s death.

‘Selene?’ The bathroom door was ajar again, steam escaping, anointed with deep herbal scents. Anna smiled and pushed the door open. ‘I was just hoping to – oh—’

Selene was not alone. Another head rose from the water next to her. A young and pretty head.

Selene laughed and lay back in the water. ‘Anna, would you like to meet my new bath toy?’

The man nodded, mildly embarrassed. ‘Henry. Good to meet you.’

‘Er—’ Anna panicked but, halfway out of the door, not wanting to be rude, she stopped. ‘Anna. Good to meet you. I’m, right, well, have fun …’ She pulled the door shut and could hear them laughing behind it.

She trudged up to the roof. Attis and Effie were lying in deck chairs, the sky was piled high with clouds, full of wintry promise. It was a fiercely cold February night and even Attis’s fire failed to warm up the surrounding air. Anna settled onto the sun lounger next to them.

‘Speak to Selene?’ Effie asked.

‘She was occupied.’

‘Has a new man, does she? What’s the spec, old and gentlemanly? Middle-aged and married? Young and fawn-like?’

‘A young fawn in the bath with her.’

‘That’s my mother. Never there for you when you really need her.’

‘Yeah.’ Anna tried to hide her disappointment. ‘Maybe we should go in? It’s freezing.’

‘Nonsense, it’s beautiful. It smells like snow,’ said Effie.

‘Anna’s right,’ said Attis. ‘You’re both shivering and I can’t make the fire any hotter than it already is without it melting the container.’

‘Warm me then,’ said Effie, reclining yet further. ‘Anna, Attis has this magical trick of warming you—’

‘I’ve shown her before,’ said Attis.

‘Oh. When?’

‘At the house party.’

‘It was when I was outside, after Peter left me,’ said Anna quickly.

‘Well, do it again,’ said Effie with a frozen smile.

‘What?’ Attis asked, confused now.

‘Warm Anna again.’

‘I thought you wanted to be warmed.’

‘Guests first.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Anna, stilling her shivering with effort.

Effie ignored her. ‘Warm her.’

Attis wandered over to Anna’s chair and sat down on the edge. Anna felt trapped between them.

‘You have to take your jumper off,’ Effie instructed. ‘For him to get to your skin.’

‘He can just do it on my hand,’ Anna protested.

‘Take your jumper off,’ Effie insisted, clearly in her most obstinate sort of mood. The grey sky pressed overhead. Anna yanked her jumper and long-sleeved shirt off – she was wearing a vest top underneath. She put her arms around herself, unable to stop the shivering now.

‘Come here,’ said Attis, eyebrows meeting. Anna moved down the sun lounger towards him and presented her arm. Attis took it, his hand so warm against the cold air it felt as if it were burning her. With the other he drew a concise pattern on her arm and she felt the warmth of it spread like a ripple across and down her body. She stopped shaking almost immediately.

‘Better?’ he said.

Anna nodded, fingers brushing against the spot where he’d touched her. She reached for her jumper and shirt and pulled them back on, crossing her arms around her knees.

‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ said Effie. ‘Come, Attis, warm me all over.’

She pulled up her top revealingly. He shook his head and then sat down beside her and drew a mark on her goose-pimpled skin.

‘Works every time,’ said Effie. ‘Now you can keep me warm the old-fashioned way.’ She shuffled forwards so there was room on the chair behind her. Attis sat down behind and wrapped his arms around her. Anna could still feel the warmth he had generated circulating around her body, as if his arms were around her too.

They sat that way for a while until Effie jumped up suddenly. ‘It’s snowing,’ she announced, delighted as a child. ‘Hail to Mother Holle, I love snow!’

Anna looked up and saw the flakes falling, as if the sky had grown so heavy it had shattered. Effie spun round, grabbing at them. The only time Anna ever saw her this excited was when she was doing magic. The snow suited her, settling on her black hair like fallen stars; her cheeks were turning pink. She’d never looked so young.

‘Come, Anna, come,’ said Effie, pulling her up. They tilted their heads back to the snow, laughing. It felt as if it was reaching them first and the rest of London after. Attis lay back on the sun lounger, watching them.

‘Check this out.’ Effie caught a snowflake on the tip of her finger. ‘It’s beautiful, right?’ Its intricacy seemed almost impossible, a pattern of six little trees joined together – a tiny forest of ice.

‘How’s it not melting?’ said Anna, entranced.

‘Magic. You try.’

‘I haven’t really nailed the magic with my mind thing yet.’

‘This is as easy as it gets. Just hold out your hand and believe the snowflake won’t melt. Feel it.’

Anna put out her hand, finding it easy to sink into magic under the open night’s sky in a snowstorm. She felt her thoughts shift from the logical world to some other hazy place. My Hira is needle and thread. She drew the strands together – the night and the snow, her palm a frozen landscape, but the snowflakes continued to melt. Feel something …

She looked at the sky and felt a yearning, a yearning for something of beauty in her life and the sadness that came with it. She pulled at the strands of feeling and wove them into the spell. She couldn’t have said how much time passed amidst the gentle ticking of snowflakes before one landed on her palm and remained – a pattern of everything she’d felt.

‘I’m doing it!’ she squealed.

Effie caught her own snowflake and they held their fingers together, excitement jumping between their eyes. Effie peered more closely. ‘They’re identical …’

Anna studied them. It was true. The snowflakes on their fingertips were a mirror of one another – every ridge, curl and frond.

‘Impossible,’ said Attis. ‘There are over a trillion water molecules in a single snowflake, meaning there are almost an infinite number of potential arrangements.’

‘Well, smart-ass, get up out of your chair and look,’ Effie rebuked him.

Attis jumped up and walked over. He scrutinized the snowflakes but Anna found her magic couldn’t fight the heat radiating off him and her flake melted.

‘See,’ said Effie, letting hers melt too.

‘They were very similar,’ he conceded.

‘Men are infuriating, never willing to believe what they deem impossible even when it’s in front of their eyes.’

‘You’re right.’ Attis nodded. ‘I just hate science.’

‘Whatever. Let’s go out,’ Effie pleaded. ‘I know a club in London that reflects the weather outside. We can dance in the snow.’

‘I can’t,’ said Anna, wanting nothing more. ‘If Aunt found out …’

‘She’d what? Lock you in your bedroom for a few days? Trust me, it’ll be worth it.’

‘She’d do a lot worse than that.’ The words slipped out. Anna had been careful to reveal as little as possible about her life with Aunt.

‘What do you mean? What would she do?’ said Attis, rounding on her.

Anna laughed lightly. ‘Well, I might never be let out for one thing.’

Effie moved closer, studying her face. ‘Does she hurt you?’

Anna wasn’t sure if it was the snow or the way they were looking at her, or the fact she was desperate to talk to someone, but something made her sit down on the sun lounger and put her head in her hands. She tried to hide her tears.

‘Anna.’ Effie sat down beside her. ‘You have to tell us.’

Anna pulled at the Knotted Cord in her pocket. ‘She does have her little punishments … but it’s not the physical stuff. How do you say no to your own mother when they’ve planned their whole lives around you?’

‘She’s not your mother,’ said Attis sharply.

‘She’s as close as I’ve got. She has my whole future mapped out. She pretends to give me choices but I don’t see I truly have any. I know she’s going to make me become a Binder.’ As she said it she was sure of it. Aunt had never given her a choice before – why start now?

‘What’s a Binder?’ said Effie.

‘Selene never mentioned them?’ said Anna, surprised.

Effie shook her head.

‘They’re a grove my aunt belongs to. They don’t agree with magic – believe it will bring the downfall of all witches. When you become one, your magic is bound.’

‘What the fuck?’ Effie cried. ‘That’s insane. Wait there, I’ve seen your aunt cast …’

‘The Senior Binders have their magic released. They believe they need it, in the name of duty.’

‘How convenient for them,’ Effie snapped. ‘They sound like maniacs. You can’t join them, Anna. It’s madness to remove your magic.’

‘Is it? I don’t know. Aunt can lock my mouth shut, stick me with needles like a pincushion, and I can deal with it, but she has other ways of convincing me she’s right, that there’s only one way. My mother’s death …’

The words were coming up now, spilling out of her.

‘What do you mean, stick you with needles?’ Attis dropped to the ground next to her. ‘What does she do to you?’

‘Nothing permanent, don’t worry.’ She looked away from him.

‘What about your mother’s death?’ Effie asked eagerly. ‘At the Library, you said you wanted to learn more about your family. What do you want to know?’

Anna took a deep breath, calming herself, wondering how to relate something she’d never related to anyone but herself. ‘Well, supposedly my father killed my mother because she found out he was having an affair. Aunt always says it was love and magic that truly killed her, led her on a path, as if my mother’s magic was somehow wrong, dangerous.’

‘Your psychopathic aunt would say that – she thinks all magic is dangerous,’ Effie spat.

‘But what if there’s something there? What if there’s more to my mother’s death she’s not telling me? What if there was something wrong with her magic and it’s the same thing that’s wrong with Aunt and … me? Is that why Aunt hates and fears magic so much? You’ve both seen the curse mark …’

Attis paced away from them.

‘Curses can run in families,’ said Effie.

‘It’s extremely rare,’ said Attis, his voice strained with cynicism. ‘Anna, I know it’s not what you want to hear but it’s much more likely your dad was simply a murderer.’

‘Maybe,’ Anna replied, taken aback by his resistance. He was normally so open to all possibilities. It riled her up even more. ‘But I’ve spent my whole life accepting what I’ve been told. I’m tired of it. Isn’t it my right to finally question it? Why does Aunt tell me so little? Why is Selene so cagey? Why did neither of them tell me my parents died in the house I live in now? Why did my parents not tell anyone I existed? Why was my mother researching curses? Why did she go to a curse witch called Nana Yaganov?’

Attis span round. ‘Who?’

‘The man in the Library said he knew my mother, that she’d gone there searching for something and that she’d found this woman, Nana Yaganov. So I’m going to find her.’

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘A crazy man in the Library claims he knew your mother and then gives the name of a potentially crazier old bat. None of that makes any sense.’

‘Nothing about this year makes sense, but maybe I have to follow the patterns.’

‘You’re chasing shadows that aren’t there.’

‘It sounds suspicious to me,’ said Effie.

‘Everything sounds suspicious to you,’ Attis retorted.

Anna dried her tears in the wind. ‘I just feel like, even if there’s nothing sinister there at all, if I can understand what happened, who my mother was, then it’ll give me the strength to become a Binder, or … to find a way out.’ I have to find a way out.

‘I’ll find this Nana,’ said Effie, fired up. ‘I know a lot of witches; I’m sure someone will have heard of her. You’re not becoming a Binder. Your aunt will have to go through me first.’

Anna smiled briefly. She looked at Attis but he had stalked away to the edge of the roof. Effie rolled her eyes. ‘Attis, go and get us a drink. Something strong.’

He nodded and disappeared down the stairs into the house.

Effie’s mouth curved. ‘I knew there was a lot more to you than meets the eye, Anna Everdell.’

Anna didn’t know how to respond to that. ‘Well, you know, it could be nothing, but I can’t ignore the curse mark any more.’

Effie caught some more snow in her hand. ‘Ignore Attis. He just needs time. He has this thing about protecting people. He’s probably just annoyed that he didn’t see it sooner – how frightened you are of your aunt. I saw it the first time we met, but, Mother Holle, I didn’t know how bad it was or what she’s planning to do to you. You can’t let her—’

‘It’s not that easy,’ Anna interrupted.

‘It is.’

‘No. She’s not like Selene. You can’t just get your way with someone like my aunt.’

‘You think I get my way?’ said Effie, irritated. ‘You don’t get your way with Selene; she just makes it feel like you do.’

‘But Aunt took me in, raised me, I can’t just—’

‘You’re in so fucking deep you can’t see how deeply fucked it is.’

They sat breathing heavily, cradling their own hurts.

‘Look. Let’s just start with Nana and go from there. I’m not giving up on you yet,’ said Effie forcefully.

Anna nodded, glad of Effie’s strength. She would need it. ‘But can we just keep it to ourselves for now? Don’t tell the others.’

‘Your secrets are safe with me.’ Effie twisted an imaginary key to her lips as the sound of Attis’s footsteps came back up the stairway.

He put their drinks down on the table. Effie picked hers up and swallowed most of it in one go. ‘Thanks,’ Anna said to him, taking a sip.

‘Come out with us now,’ said Effie, jumping to her feet. ‘It’ll cheer you up. I promise.’

‘Ah. I don’t think so – I’m going to head to bed.’

Effie looked as if she would argue but then nodded with something like understanding. ‘Come on then, Attis. Let the snow take us!’

They wound back into the warmth of the house. Anna went to the spare room and listened to them leaving, unsure if divulging her secrets had made her feel better or not. As soon as her head touched the pillow she fell asleep. She dreamt of snow – her and Effie catching snowflakes, all of them beautiful and identical, Attis reaching inside his heart and pulling out a shard of glass, Effie eating it, blood running down her chin, then the snowflakes growing darker, a flurry of black spots which Anna realized were flies – clouds of flies, like static, forming patterns, seven circles …

Anna woke, thrashing around the bed. It was four in the morning. She crept into the hallway making her way towards the bathroom.

Noises stopped her. Giggling, insistent giggling, and then heavy breathing, knocking – something falling – a moan of pleasure. Anna rushed into the bathroom and shut the door. Had the noise been coming from Effie’s room? Was Attis in there? Or had it been upstairs? Selene and her fawn?

She quietly poured herself some water and sat on the edge of the bath trying not to imagine Effie and Attis together. It was hard not to; they were already moulded to one another – two halves of one whole. I don’t belong to either of them.

Anna woke early. She pulled up the blinds and saw that snow had settled across the roofs and dusted itself across the roads; the trees clutched at it as if they too had been hands reaching for snowflakes all night. Someone was battling with a half-frozen car windscreen.

Effie’s door was shut and there was no sign of Attis. She checked his forge but it was empty, the ash of the fire still twinkling with old heat. She could smell him in the smoke. She walked to his shelf – to the jar of keys – but the white key was not in it any more.

When she got back home the house was cold and empty. She sat down with a cup of tea and looked out across their ordered garden. Anna wondered if Aunt had left her somehow incomplete, like one of her plants, snipped and sheared into submission, moulded into a shape of her choosing – growing more inward than outward, the secrets between them buried under thirty feet of snow. Aunt would ask her about her evening and Anna would lie, as always. She’d become adept at filtering the truth of her visits. She would not mention the drinking, or Selene in the bath with a man, or catching snowflakes on the roof, and she was careful never to mention Attis at all.

Restless, she threw her coat back on and headed for Cressey Square garden. It was a fairy tale today, ringed by a frozen iron fence, snow wreathing the bare hedges and bracken of the flower beds, the air frosted and fresh compared to the sterility of the house. Anna made her way down the path to her usual spot, past the water fountain turned off for winter to the small patch of trees at the end. She put her coat down on the ground and sat beneath the old oak tree. Despite the cold, she could somehow feel the warmth inside of it: life trickling deep within its thick and sturdy trunk.

She picked up the bones of a leaf from the floor, remembering her spell the night before. It had been a small spell, small as a snowflake. It felt so right. She took two red cords from her pocket and tied them together with a loop in the middle: the Ankh Knot, Life Knot.

She focused on the leaf and envisioned it bursting back to life – uncurling, growing strong, reclaiming its brightness. The knot in her hand quivered with sudden, unknown energy. She pulled it free, feeling a release. Anna gasped. The leaf was whole again: green and fresh as a summer’s day. She held it up like a trophy – it blazed green against the green leaves behind.

Anna turned slowly around. The entire oak tree above her was green. The floor beneath her feet was swathed in grass. She spun around to find the other trees of the garden swaying green in the breeze, the bushes cloaked with leaf, the flower beds an eruption of colour. The water fountain had sprung to life. The entire garden was in the throes of summer. A bird began to sing above her.

Beyond the fence it was winter still. The contrast could not have been more stark, or noticeable. Her magic was plain for all to see.

The neighbours! And Aunt! She’s due home any minute …

Hands shaking, Anna formed a Choke Knot. She tightened it, trying to constrict the magic she’d released, but the tree remained stubbornly tree-like. Please!

She sank to the floor, chanting, tying, pleading to the Goddess of the Dark Moon and every other kind of moon. She couldn’t have said how many minutes of terror had passed when, to her sudden, unbearable relief, the leaves began to fall …

She pulled the knot tighter and the garden slowly died around her: rotting, freezing, the snow beginning to fall over it once more, covering the scene of her crime.

Thank you. Oh thank you, Goddess.

She scanned the neighbourhood – all was quiet – and then she made for the house, unable to shake off the cold or the fear of what she had just done. As she approached, a movement caught her eye in their own house. The curtain of the top-floor window. The room on the third floor. Anna stopped in her tracks and stared up at it. Had the curtain moved? But all was perfectly still, the room dark as always. Just a trick of the light – or I’ve finally cracked.

Still, Anna found herself hurrying inside, to the safety of the house that was no safety at all.