Maya could hear Delali and Gabbie laughing from the living room. She opened her bedroom door.
“What the fuck are you guys laughing at?”
Gabbie and Delali both turned to her, Delali wearing a UNICEF T-shirt and a fake mustache she’d taken from the Sit Awhile set.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” Delali said in a fake deep voice, causing her and Gabbie to dissolve into laughter again. They paused laughing long enough for Delali to say, “Woah, I don’t remember sleeping beauty being just my type.”
“I’m just trying to practice breaking up with Dan,” Gabbie clarified once she’d recovered from her laughter. “He gets back tomorrow.” Faison had asked for space, then stopped responding to Gabbie altogether, even when she sent Maya to The Bar with apology cookies. But Faison avoiding her didn’t change the fact that Dan was the worst boyfriend on earth, a fact that seemed comically obvious to Gabbie now.
“I’m going back to bed,” Maya said. Every weekend since the Gathering, the girls had had a sleepover at Delali’s. It was a sort of replacement for their sessions with Alba, a way to mark the continued importance of their relationship. True laughter had only returned in the last two weeks—the first week had been dreary and exhausting. They’d only just started to use their powers again, still scared of everything they didn’t know about them. They kept waiting to hear from Nadia, but the banner never came.
Maya tried in vain to sleep for an hour, then gave up and decided to call Tatiana. Maybe she could come over and play the waitress in Gabbie’s breakup scene. As she searched her vanity for her phone, her eye flitted to the boldly colored stack on the corner—the perfect copies of the fashion books and magazines she had taken from their trip to the Archive of the Sphere. They were the only reading materials she owned besides her Kim K coffee table book, and she realized then that she’d never even opened them. Maya pulled one from the stack, taking in the cover image that had pulled her to the issue in the first place: three laughing witches draped in billowing black tulle, their eyelids covered in rainbow-colored geometric shapes that, in an endless loop, emptied of color and filled back up again. The words Augur Mag were written at the top of the page, in that script Maya had come to associate with the Sphere. She opened the magazine, flipping to a story about the Sphere’s growing aversion to the color white. There was a slight article written in subversive white text against a black background.
The Jury’s In—and White is Out!
By Davina Douglas Rune
23 January 1986
When the Betrayer wore a white caped gown to her trial earlier this year, trend forecasters weren’t sure what it would mean for your average witch. But just three months after the historic trial, dressmakers all over the Sphere have reported an absolute halt in sales of clothes featuring the color white. The reason? Sartorial expert Jenna-Plum Johnson says the color white has, like the Betrayer, come to signify greed, avarice, and cruelty. Ouch. The good news? Chic capes remain a Sphere staple. Take that, Betrayer!
For Augur Mag’s reporting on the event, see the September 7th issue (no. 338). Please be warned—the aforementioned article contains a Spherical photograph of the Betrayer.
Intrigued by the dress description, Maya touched the link, feeling a kick of excitement when Augur Mag no. 338 appeared on her desk. She opened the magazine, whose cover was just a morose sheet of mauve.
On September 1, 1986, Macy-Jo Watson, the Head Seer of Violet III’s Council, exercised an unprecedented act of betrayal against the Sphere. Just eight months into her appointment, the young witch, who is famed for her singular ability to see the future with 100 percent certainty, stole and released the magic of the Mothers.
It is reported that in the latest hours of the night, Watson slipped into the Mothers’ chamber in 33,26, where the magic of the Mothers has rested in a vessel since the original Executioner first harnessed them at the beginning of time. As Watson left the chamber, she was apprehended by Regent Violet III and Council-member Niellah Baker.
Watson is said to have deliberately dropped the vessel upon seeing the two. The vessel shattered on the ground and the magic of the Mothers escaped. An aide of the Regent reported that “the magic hovered momentarily, then separated into three distinct streams,” before disappearing into the night sky.
Watson was promptly apprehended. At her trial, Watson claimed to have had a vision of herself as Regent; she stole the magic of the Mothers in hopes of instigating political instability and taking the throne. She was sentenced to immediate Execution and excommunication to the typic world. The Execution, carried out by Exc. Natasha Nox, was only the second Execution in the history of the Sphere. Natasha would later describe the experience of using her power as “. . . devastating . . . the worst day of my life.”
WHO Doctor Alicia Tourmaline is quoted as theorizing, “Macy-Jo Watson is an example of a witch with a very unbalanced spirit . . . it is normal to see a witch with one disproportionate faculty—e.g., excessive love of self. For a witch to have two bloated faculties, and one very anemic one, is unusual indeed. There is little doubt, however, that she will find success in the typic world, where this manner of disfunction is often rewarded.”
Next to the text was a picture of a young Macy-Jo in what looked like a courtroom. Her hair was bigger, drawn off her face, and her mouth moved as she spoke her defense, then stopped, then started again. It freaked Maya out to know the real Alba—Macy-Jo—had never really left them. The same day she disappeared, she’d found her way back to them in the form of this magazine. Maya was turning the page when a banner dropped in front of her. She was confused for a moment—then she read.
Hey it’s Nadia —Nadia
Aura transported me to NYC —Nadia
Staying in Soho for as long as it takes for us to fix this —Nadia
It’s been a long fucking month —Nadia
Maya ran to the door. Gabbie was screaming in the living room.
“Oh my god,” Delali said. She ripped off the mustache. “Oh my god!!!”
NADIA! —Delali
AHHHHH —Gabbie
We’re at Delali’s!!! —Maya
She lives in BK!! —Gabbie
Yeah, Gabbie —Nadia
I know the coordinates ;) —Nadia
See you witches soon. —Nadia