Alba had never heard of Miss Lily’s 7A, the restaurant her vision had led her to. But when she stepped inside, she noted that the raucousness of the restaurant (the loud decoration, the dancehall music flooding onto the street) was the perfect cover for what she planned to do that day: spy on the group of girls she suspected to be witches. Alba had been a Seer her whole life, but she’d never had visions as puzzling as the ones that had been darting into her head over the past few weeks. When she was younger and stronger, her visions had followed the pattern that was common for most Seers. First, days or weeks or months ahead of an event, a hazy sketch of a vision would appear in her mind’s view. Then that same vision would return, again and again at more frequent intervals, each time becoming clearer and more vivid as the future decided on itself.
But over the last few decades, her visions had become strange; they were rarer, and when they did arrive they seldom moved past that initial blurry stage, or they predicted pedestrian events moments before they happened (e.g., when she was about to trip over the curb). The visions had started to exhaust her, too. Magic could be tiring of course, but her named power shouldn’t be, especially to the degree it was exhausting her now. She often had to sit when one of her useless visions appeared, or stay in bed for a day after, feeling like she’d just run a marathon while battling the flu.
Every now and then, though, Alba had a vision like the old ones. When the image of The Bar first swam before her eyes four weeks ago, she’d ignored it, assuming it wouldn’t ever return. But the vision had come again a week later, and several times after that, slowly solidifying in her head. She was struck by its strangeness. Had the visions shown three preteen witches making a mess of their powers, the appropriate next steps would have been clear: send out mentorship banners, arrange for an initial meeting, begin training immediately. But with this vision, with these witches who appeared to be long past the age of training, she was baffled, and she needed to be sure before she approached.
On the night of September 1st, Alba followed her vision to a streetcorner in the East Village, where she watched the scene play out exactly as it had in her mind. After that, she took to researching and following the girls, sometimes staking out The Bar, other times following the girls to work or school and back, desperately searching for confirmation that something was out of the ordinary. But the girls appeared to live normal—if boring—twentysomething lives. From what she’d seen at The Bar that night, the girls’ act of magic wasn’t entirely intentional. They’d looked surprised by the light that lassoed the phone, reacting the way a typic or a young witch might. They looked like novices. So today she looked not for the poise or elegance of a seasoned witch, but for undeniable evidence. She needed to catch the girls discussing their magic or, better yet, practicing it. Alba chose a table by the bathroom and propped a drink menu against the table centerpiece to obscure her face. Then she shook off her taupe quilted coat and waited.
“Hi, welcome to Miss Lily’s 7A. What can I get you?”
Alba looked up at the towering waitress. “Ah.” She glanced over the menu. She’d been so focused on watching the restaurant’s entrance for the girls’ arrival that she’d forgotten where she was. “I’ll get . . . the jerk chicken roti.”
The waitress scribbled onto her notepad. “Anything to drink?” she asked. Her accent carried an enchanting St. Kittian lilt.
“No, thank you. I’ll keep this, for now,” Alba said, nodding toward the drink menu. She gave the waitress a gracious smile before she turned, leaving her to watch the doorway over the top of her tortoiseshell sunglasses. Groups streamed in, gathering at the hostess stand, and then breezing to their reserved tables or huddling by the entrance to wait, but the three girls Alba had been following didn’t appear. The waitress came with her sandwich. Several parties that had arrived after Alba finished their meals and left, and she began to feel foolish. Perhaps September 1 was an anomaly, and she really couldn’t trust her visions anymore. Perhaps her powers were finally petering out.
She was just about to call for the check when she saw one of the girls from The Bar appear at the hostess booth. It was the square girl with the lovely twist-out, who Alba knew worked at PS 391. Alba closed her mouth tentatively around her roti, now cold, and chewed. The other girls were right behind her: the brusque one—who Alba gathered was famous—and the prissy one, the one who had dropped the phone that night. They followed the waitress to a four-top and shook off their coats as she swept away the fourth place setting.
Today was the first time Alba had seen all the girls together since that first night, but as they sat, she could tell there was a familiarity between them. They were a safe distance away, sitting by one of the big windows that faced Avenue A. From what Alba could see, they weren’t discussing anything particularly serious; they simply seemed like a group of friends having brunch. She watched the girls closely for nearly an hour, eyes trained on their every movement, before she realized with a pang of embarrassment that she might be wasting her time. The girls were not witches—and if they were, they were certainly putting on a successful show of being three ordinary girlfriends.
Alba began to turn away from the girls, to go to the bathroom before she left, but as she moved, she saw something that made her pause. The prissy one’s glass was full, glittering with bright red liquid. When she’d looked away just now, it had been empty; she’d just tipped her head back to swallow the dregs of her drink. One of the girls had to have filled it with her powers. This was standard witch activity—Alba remembered doing the same with her girlfriends when she was younger. The prissy girl caught her eye, and when her face registered absolute panic, Alba knew she was the one who’d done it.
* * *
“You would think,” Gabbie clucked, “that if they wanted us to take these letters seriously, they would include a freakin’ return address.”
The girls were huddled in a teal leather booth, toying with their food as they spoke. After Maya got her sanction, she’d called a moratorium on discussing anything magic-related until morning, so they’d watched Save the Last Dance and fallen asleep together in her living room. As soon as they woke up, Maya suggested brunch. Delali suspected this was supposed to be a distraction, but now it only meant they were obsessing over their apparent powers in a newer, slightly louder location.
“Maybe if we keep doing ‘magic’ stuff we can get another letter,” Delali said through a mouthful of Jamaican festival. “Maybe then we can get to meet the Council or whatever, and they can explain what all of this means.”
“Why do we have to do anything? Why does this have to mean anything?” Maya asked. She pushed up the sleeve of her sheer white long sleeve. “Maybe we should just go on living our lives and it’ll probably just go away.” After the weirdness of last night, all Maya wanted to do was get drunk, flirt with their hot waitress, and finish off her plate of coconut waffles before going home to take a post-brunch nap. She would gladly trade all of this witch weirdness to go back to being her twenty-one-year-old self, whose only worry in the world was convincing her parents to up her allowance.
“Isn’t that what we tried to do last time?” Delali asked. “And then you turned into a construction worker in the middle of the street?”
Maya shuddered. “We need to get rid of them. It all seems like a weird accident.”
“Which part? All of us having the same birthday? Us being in the same place at the same time that night? The weird stuff that’s happened since?” Delali paused for a breath. “The letters that literally fell into our laps—there’s someone, somewhere, who knows about this. Who can explain all of it.”
Maya shrugged. She was feigning nonchalance, but she was terrified at the thought of there being more. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe those letters were meant to go somewhere else. I mean—we don’t have mentors or elders or all that other stuff the letter said.”
“Meant for someone else? Like some other girl with magical powers living in your apartment? In your room?”
Maya cringed. “We only moved in a few months ago,” she mumbled.
“Oh, did you think the magical sanctions letter was meant to be forwarded?” Delali turned to face Gabbie, who had been conspicuously quiet. She hadn’t even touched her virgin piña colada. “What do you think?”
Gabbie hadn’t been paying attention. She’d already learned to tune out when Delali and Maya bickered, which, so far, was all the time. More importantly, she and Dan hadn’t spoken since last night—no texts or anything—but in that time he’d posted two pictures on Instagram. The first was of a routine rooftop-bar cityscape with no caption, but the second, posted just twenty minutes ago, was a dark, low-exposure club pic. In it, Dan was sandwiched between two of the other English teachers at his school: a burly, dark-haired guy and a narrow-featured girl whose perfect blowout was draped over Dan’s shoulder—Kim. Her arm was slung around Dan’s neck and she was sticking her tongue so far out it was almost touching Dan’s cheek. Gross.
“Gabbie?” Delali said. Gabbie looked up.
“What?” she asked. “Sorry.”
“Our powers. What do you think they mean?”
“Oh.” Gabbie put her phone on the table, screen down, and sighed. “Honestly, I haven’t really thought about it.”
Delali sighed in frustration. “Of course,” she grumbled.
“Must’ve been too busy zooming in on your boyfriend’s Insta pics and close reading his tweets,” Maya sniped.
“Wait,” said Gabbie. “You can zoom?” She picked up her phone again.
“Oh my god!” Delali exclaimed. Maya and Gabbie turned to look at her. “Can you guys be serious for like ten seconds?”
“What’s the big deal?” Gabbie said, tapping away on her phone. “It’s not like we’re hurting anybody.”
“Exactly,” Maya said. “What’s the big deal?” She grabbed her glass to drink, emptying it with a huge gulp. She moved to flag the waitress—they’d gone for bottomless, obviously—but as she did, her glass, still in her hand, began to fill with sticky red liquid. It stopped only when it reached Maya’s index finger. She looked up from the glass to meet Delali’s gaze, but instead her eyes landed just behind Delali. Her heart stopped. “Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“What?” Gabbie asked, whipping around.
“Don’t look!” Maya said.
“What is it?” Delali urged.
“I think that woman just saw me do that. Fill up the glass or whatever.” Maya ducked.
“What?”
“She’s staring at us,” Maya said, throwing her sunglasses case into her Balenciaga hourglass bag. “We need to leave.” Her voice tilted anxiously upward, as though she were asking a question, but she was already waving down their waitress for the check and digging around for her wallet.
“Are you serious?” Delali asked. She finally turned, and was struck when she saw who Maya must’ve been talking about: a petite, sinewy woman with a short blond afro, whose dark eyes were trained piercingly in their direction. She could see why Maya was startled by the woman—there was something kind of arresting about her.
“Come on,” Maya whispered, pulling Delali’s arm. But Delali didn’t move. There was something knowing about the woman’s stare, something almost soothing. Perhaps it was her tiny frame, or the pastel brown shift dress and matching paisley scarf that reminded Delali of a particularly chic grandma, but more likely it was the tiny smile playing at her lips. I’ve found them, the look seemed to say—and then Delali realized. That wasn’t what the woman’s expression said. It was what the woman thought—and she had just read a stranger’s mind.
* * *
By the time the girls had left the restaurant, Gabbie was the only one who wasn’t having a full-blown freakout. Delali practically pushed her onto the sidewalk and Maya was fanning herself frantically, as if it weren’t sixty degrees out. Gabbie zipped up her crossbody bag with a loud sigh, frustrated that she’d gone this long without knowing you could zoom on Instagram. So much for being a full-time content creator.
“Get a freaking grip, you two,” Gabbie said. “If that lady did see you refill your glass, what’s she gonna do? Call the cops and tell them she just witnessed magic or something?”
Maya smiled reluctantly and then took a few deep, calming breaths. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said finally, crossing her arms. “She doesn’t even know what she just saw anyway.”
Delali didn’t respond. She was pacing silently up and down the sidewalk, hands gripping the straps of her backpack.
“Relax, Delali. I’m sure it’s fine,” Maya reasoned. “And if anyone has the right to freak out, it’s me. I’m the one who had to look into that woman’s creepy X-ray eyes.” She faked a chill.
“Guys,” Delali said, cutting off their laughter. “I think I just read that woman’s mind.”
“Seriously?” Gabbie asked.
“Oh, great,” Maya said.
“Maya,” Gabbie said sternly. She turned her attention to Delali. “What did she say?”
“I think she said, or she thought, ‘I found them.’”
Maya pretended not to feel her heart lurch. “Well, that’s convenient.”
“Why would I lie about that?” Delali asked.
“Because you wish you were on an episode of Charmed or That’s So Raven or something? I don’t know!”
“Guys!” Gabbie looked around, making awkward eye contact with a white guy with dreads, who she was pretty sure was eavesdropping on them. “Maybe we can discuss this somewhere that’s not the sidewalk outside a popular brunch establishment? Like Tompkins maybe?” She looked pointedly at the park.
Maya clenched her jaw. She had been looking forward to reuniting with her bed and bingeing Real Housewives of Potomac. But then she looked at Delali, whose perfectly shaped eyebrows (probably courtesy of some Hollywood guru whose name she’d never reveal) were wrinkled so deeply it made Maya want to straighten them out with her fingers. Kind of refreshing to know she didn’t have preventative Botox, though.
“Fine,” Maya said, turning toward the park. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t know,” Delali said as they crossed the street. “Obviously that woman’s not going to call the police or anything, but I also don’t think that’s an argument for being reckl—” She stopped midsentence. She barely even felt it when Gabbie, head bent toward her phone, walked into her back and let out a yelp.
“What—” Gabbie started, but then she saw what Delali was staring at. The woman from Miss Lily’s was sitting on a bench—their bench—in the park, watching as they entered. Not just looking generally in their direction, but focused on the park’s entrance as though she’d known to expect them. As though she had been waiting for them.
“Oh my god,” Maya whispered. The tips of her coffin nails dug into Delali’s forearm. “Let’s leave,” she hissed.
“I’m getting seriously freaked out,” Gabbie added. “How did she get there so fast?”
Delali pulled her arm from Maya’s grasp. “I’m gonna talk to her,” she said, and started toward the woman. She was vaguely aware of Maya and Gabbie’s protests, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t until she stood in front of the bench, looming over the tiny older woman, that Delali realized she didn’t know what to say. They looked at each other for a long time before the woman flashed her an encouraging smile. It was so quick that, a few weeks ago, Delali would’ve thought she’d imagined it. But she was beginning to realize her reality was far beyond anything she could’ve made up.
“I thought,” Delali said hoarsely. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I thought I heard you say something to me and my friends,” she finished. It was vague enough that the woman could easily dismiss Delali as crazy, but she didn’t do that. Instead, she broke into a smile.
“I didn’t,” said the woman. “But I suspect something else happened. I suspect you read my mind.”
Delali took a step back and let out a long breath. Of course, she’d known that’s what had happened, but she hadn’t anticipated how good it would feel to have someone else confirm it.
“I think I did, too,” Delali said.
The woman sat back and crossed her legs, pensive. “So, you can’t control what you hear?”
“Should I be able to?” Delali asked. She couldn’t believe she could finally voice the concerns that had been nibbling away at her since that night at The Bar.
“Well, it takes some witches longer than others,” the woman replied. “But with the proper training you should be able to effectively filter. And, most importantly,” she paused, giving Delali a knowing smile, “you’ll learn how to keep your head yours, and yours alone.”
“Heeey,” Gabbie said carefully, appearing at Delali’s side. In the next second, she felt Maya on her other side. “Let’s talk.” Gabbie took hold of Delali’s arm and gently led her away. “Just a moment,” she said to the woman politely. The woman gave Gabbie a placid smile and waved her away, as if to say take all the time you need.
Delali let herself be guided away from the bench, still lingering on the woman’s words. Some witches, she’d said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. As though Delali should’ve known all along.
“Um, what are you doing?” Maya hissed once they were out of earshot.
“You guys,” Delali said, ignoring Maya. “We’re witches.”
Maya let out an exasperated laugh.
“That woman pretty much just said it, and,” she said forcefully, continuing before Maya could interrupt her, “it wasn’t like she thought it was crazy or scary or anything. She said it like she was one, too. A witch,” she clarified.
Maya pressed her hand to her forehead as the park tilted around her, which could’ve been a reaction to Delali’s words or to her many glasses of rum punch—she wasn’t totally sure. A witch? Sure, she read her horoscope and sometimes captioned her Instagram posts with the crystal ball and magic wand emojis, but the idea of calling herself a witch was absolutely ridiculous. She drew the line at saging her apartment.
Gabbie looked from Delali to Maya and back again before pulling her phone out of her back pocket. She’d caved and commented on one of Dan’s pictures—just the heart-eyes emoji on the club pic, nothing too crazy—and he hadn’t commented back, DM’d her, or even liked the comment.
“That’s it from you?” Maya asked. “A blank stare and another scroll through your boyfriend’s Instagram? Don’t you ever get tired?”
Gabbie looked up from her phone, biting her tongue. If you don’t have anything nice to say . . . she thought to herself as she chose her words.
“I guess I’m just not that shocked,” Gabbie said finally. She pretended not to notice the look Delali and Maya exchanged and clicked her phone off, realizing her new notifications weren’t from Dan but from the C&C account. “This whole thing has been giving magic sisterhood vibes from day one. It makes sense.”
Maya had just opened her mouth to respond—something venomous on the tip of her tongue, Gabbie was sure—when she closed it again. The woman had stood from the bench and was walking toward them slowly, rummaging in the depths of her cognac leather bucket bag.
As she reached them, she pulled out a small white card. “I’m sure you all have a lot of questions,” she said, handing the square to Delali. “This can answer all of them.” When the paper made contact with Delali’s palm, she recognized it to be of the same ilk as the sanctions letter. Fine purple lines bloomed and swirled across its surface until they settled into letters and numbers: an address, a date (next Sunday), and a time. Delali traced the words with her finger before flipping the card over. The name “Alba” looped across the back of the card in the same broad cursive.
“I do hope to see you again,” Alba said, and then she drifted away and out of the park, the “don’t walk” light changing just as she arrived at the corner.
Maya
Maya
Maya
Maya
Delali
Delali
Gabbie
Maya
Delali
Gabbie