SOFI
It was over. The odds had been against us every step of the way, and we’d failed. Our magic wasn’t enough, and six more people had just been condemned to death. An empty, hopeless feeling twisted in the pit of my stomach.
“The magic of Vaikesti is real.” My father’s voice boomed through the microphone as he shouted to be heard over the roar of the crowd.
“Our town has been blessed by the earth; the magic of our ancestors returned to us, and it is up to us, to all of us, to use the gift we’ve been given to pave the way for our children, our children’s children. Will you join me?”
The crowd cheered, the clamor so great I couldn’t pick out any individual voices. The pit in my stomach grew, threatening to overwhelm me.
“Join me in a spell,” he called, his voice full of promise. “A spell to bless our fields. If we all join together, we can use the gift we’ve been given to ensure the greatest harvest of our time.”
More cheers. My skin was cold, my hands clammy.
“Everyone who has agreed to participate should already have their spell pages. You can start pairing up.”
His words faded into a drone in the background of my spiraling thoughts. This was it. I couldn’t see the crowd, but my mind’s eye filled in the blanks. A hundred volunteers. And when it worked, the rest of the community would join in. My sisters would pair up with their husbands, their children watching as their parents’ souls withered and died. My grandmother. My aunts, my cousins. Marta Kask and Liz Koppel and Anna Saar. My whole community, everyone I’d known my whole life long could be lost in the blink of an eye, all because I hadn’t been able to stop it.
“Get up, Sofi. Come on, child.” Mirtel’s voice was coaxing, her hand soft on my arm, and only then did I realize I’d fallen to my knees.
I stumbled up with her help, my cheeks wet with tears I hadn’t known I’d been crying.
“It’s not too late,” she told me, her hands against my cheeks, drying my tears. Her eyes were soft, but I couldn’t quite read her expression.
“You’ve done your best, Sofi,” she told me. “You should be proud.” Her wrinkled hands cupped my face as her eyes searched mine. “But there’s still a chance left; we can still stop this, but I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
My head bobbed in a jerky nod. I trusted Mirtel to the ends of the earth, but what did she mean? We’d tried and failed. What else could we possibly do?
“Aggie?”
The girl was already there, standing by Mirtel’s side, her face set in grim lines.
“It’s time,” Mirtel said.
Aggie gave a quick nod, and threaded her arm through Mirtel’s. The older woman couldn’t have felt anything, but she squeezed Aggie’s arm nonetheless, and the pair turned, stepping a little distance away from me before facing each other. Though I knew they couldn’t touch, it almost looked like they had linked hands, Mirtel’s skin paper-thin and pale, Aggie’s bone-white with a luminescent transparency.
Darja had appeared by my side. “What are they doing?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Mirtel said—”
“Is everybody ready to make history?”
I jumped at the sound of my father’s voice through the loudspeaker, the raucous response from the crowd drowning out my words.
Mirtel and Aggie had started to speak, eyes locked together as they chanted in unison. Finally the crowd quieted and I could hear their hushed voices.
“Õnnistus maa peal, esivanemate võludest...”
Their voices overlapped, twining together, and my breath caught. What was this spell? What were they doing?
A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I turned to see Stephen. A flush rose quickly to my cheeks as I remembered the feel of his mouth pressed to mine, the intensity in that brief kiss and my surprise at how much I had liked the sensation, but the expression on his face pulled me up short. He still had his camera on his shoulder, but his face was devoid of all color, mouth open as he stared in horror toward Mirtel and Aggie.
I took a step toward him. “What—”
Once again, my words were cut off by the noise of the crowd. But this time, rather than cheers, their voices were raised in unison, a wave of sound as hundreds of voices chanted together in the old tongue.
No.
I took a step toward the crowd, wanting to see, feeling like I was being pulled in too many directions at once.
“Sofi.” I only heard Darja’s voice because it was right in my ear, and I turned again, following her gaze back to Mirtel and Aggie. I could feel it, the power they were drawing, feel it thrumming through the air like a plucked wire.
A seed of hope took root inside me. What was this spell? Could it really work? Did we still have a chance?
Their mouths closed, their spell finished, and a second later the magic released, a blast of power that dwarfed anything we’d ever used before. It shot out in a great burst, with Aggie and Mirtel at the epicenter, and flooded the crowd, an enormous wave of magic. I turned in awe, following the invisible wave of power as it swept outward, crackling like electricity. My feet carried me forward a step as if I might run alongside, keeping pace with the magic as it swept through the entire town. I’d never felt anything like that before.
The voices of the crowd wavered, finishing their spell and then dissolving into a hushed murmur of confusion and speculation.
“Well now, folks, let’s everyone keep calm.” It was my father again. “Obviously the spell didn’t work, but I’ll have to confer with the Council to figure out what happened. Don’t lose heart, everyone.”
The seed of hope in my chest bloomed, suffusing my limbs with joy.
It had worked? It had worked. They had stopped the ceremony.
I spun to face Darja, my breath coming out in a gasp. “Oh God, Darja, we—”
My words shriveled and died at the sight that greeted me.