I stared at the fluffy white feather in my hand. Brenda stood over me, snapping her fingers rhythmically. It was supposed to help me concentrate, but to be honest I was finding it a bit distracting.
‘It’s all in your mind, Vania . . .’
She was swaying back and forth, her head thrown back, her good eye closed and her gold-and-green caftan shimmering in the candlelight.
‘When will I know to put it in the smoke?’ I asked, frustrated.
It was lunchtime, but the curtains were drawn and it could have been the middle of the night in the dark cafe. We had been there for over an hour, and I was nervous that my first spell-casting lesson was going to be a dud, and that someone would walk in and wonder what on earth we were doing with the large bowl of incense on the table emitting somewhat toxic smoky plumes into the air.
‘Focus, focus, focus,’ Brenda murmured, and I started to feel irritated. Focus on what? That I was in over my head and spun-out that she was expecting me to make this feather change colour, which was scientifically impossible? But I needed to suck it up and deal with it. It had been my idea to form a coven and do magic, after all. I knew I was lucky that Brenda was sharing the wisdom of her ancestors with me. Still, I wanted to throw the stupid feather on the floor and go to the beach. It was a hot, sunny day outside.
Dean was out enjoying it. Brenda had sent him on a hike through the hills to pick some desert sage – a herb his Chumash ancestors had used. It would have been the job of the shaman to gather the sacred herbs for the tribe. The Chumash had carried and burned desert sage for protection, and Brenda said it was beneficial for anyone new to magic to carry a piece. I wanted protection from Mr Barrow’s persecution so I hoped Dean would bring back a ton of it. Brenda had given him a thorough briefing on what it looked like and where he would most likely find it, as well as some sage advice about gathering his spoils from higher up on the plant, in case a dog had peed around the base. ‘You’ve got to be practical as well as magical,’ she had said brightly, sending him off carrying a lunch bag containing a sandwich and cookies. Talk about getting it easy.
Meanwhile, my mind was wandering and my butt was going numb from sitting on the wooden chair for so long, but Brenda kept insisting that I focus. She had also given me a sharp piece of purple amethyst crystal to hold to supposedly help magnify my magical powers, but as I gripped it harder and harder in frustration all it seemed to do was burn a hole in my palm.
I looked intently at the feather. White contains the seven colours of the light spectrum, so a different colour was in there somewhere – I just had to reveal it.
All of a sudden the front door of the cafe swung wide open and light streamed into the room.
‘Hey, Vania, are you in here?’
Bryce! His presence gave me a renewed jolt of energy.
I looked at the feather in my hand. It was now a pulsing flow of colours, like a fluffy rainbow – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet!
Bryce came to stand in front of me. ‘Awesome!’ he said.
All I could do was stare incredulously at the feather, my mouth opening and closing like my nickname.
‘Excellent, Vania,’ Brenda crooned. ‘Now you can wave it through the smoke.’
I passed the feather through the incense and saw it start to sparkle. There was a crackling sound as the sparks popped.
‘It’s not going to catch fire, is it?’ I asked Brenda, worried I was about to burn down her cafe.
‘No, Vania,’ Brenda said soothingly. ‘You have just harnessed the power in the ninety per cent of your brain that most of us generally don’t use. That noise you’re hearing is your own brain cells firing. The sparks are a visible expression of your inner magic. Everything is energy, as you know.’ With a flourish she whisked the feather from my hand and it immediately stopped sparkling and went back to its original colour.
‘Time for something to eat,’ Brenda said. She put the feather away in a drawer at the side of the cafe. Bryce and I sat there in silence – I think we were both in shock – as Brenda brought over some sandwiches and iced tea. She had told me before we started with the feather today that it was important to eat something after you did magic, to ground any excess energy so that it wouldn’t fly around and cause something weird to happen (as if making a feather look like it belonged in a disco wasn’t weird enough).
I was amazed – and thrilled – that I was able to make magic happen. And I hoped that the more skilled I became, the safer I’d feel, until I could forget about the tea-leaves omen, which had continued to pop in and out of my thoughts since the reading.
Later, Bryce and I walked out of the Purple Raven together. It had been a long and intense afternoon.
‘That was mind-blowing, I can’t believe you did that,’ Bryce said.
I felt the familiar heart flutters. To distract myself I fingered the piece of amethyst in my pocket that Brenda had given me to take home and practise with.
‘It was no big deal, really,’ I said, trying to brush off his compliment.
‘Vania it is. Your powers are amazing,’ he said.
I took a deep breath – it was so hard to concentrate around him. ‘You know what’s weird?’ I said. ‘It only started happening when you walked into the cafe. I’d been sitting there for ages with Brenda and nothing had happened. Maybe you had something to do with it.’ I allowed myself to look directly at him and his clear green gaze bore into mine.
‘Maybe that why I feel we should be together,’ he murmured.
‘What?’ I was shaking. Hope soared in my chest. He felt the connection, too?
‘Magic,’ he said. ‘We’re better at it together than by ourselves. And that’s good to know; we should keep practising. It’s why we’re friends after all, isn’t it?’
My breath caught in my throat and I misstepped – he’d said the F-word again.
Recovering, I turned and raced off down the street. ‘Gotta go!’ I called out over my shoulder. ‘See you at school tomorrow.’
I didn’t wait to hear his reply.
The twins were waiting for me at the bus stop the next morning.
‘Vania, are you upset with Bryce?’ Alyssa asked as soon as I walked over to them.
‘No, not at all. Why are you asking?’
I kept my eyes averted. I often felt that when the twins looked at me in the eyes they were reading my mind, and I wanted to keep my thoughts to myself right now. We walked into school.
‘Bryce called us and asked if you were,’ Amelia said. ‘He’s worried he said something to offend you at the cafe yesterday.’
‘We heard about the feather. It’s so cool you could do that!’ Alyssa said.
‘I was starting to wonder if it was all in my imagination,’ I said. I was still trying to get my head around what had happened. Rationally I couldn’t believe it. But then again, in the last week I had seen a pen move by itself across a table, and apparently my eyes had changed colour that night we’d formed our coven. And now, the most unbelievable thing of all – Bryce had called the twins to ask about me. What guy did that? It seemed like anything was possible now, and I was just going to have to get used to crazy stuff happening.
‘Vania, you know, I think you’re too hard on Bryce. I mean, he broke up with Cassidy and started hanging out with us – you could give him some credit,’ Amelia said in her serious voice.
Even though the twins were identical in almost every way, Amelia could be bossy sometimes, and I resented her tone.
‘Just because you’re psychic doesn’t mean you know everything,’ I snapped at her – and immediately regretted it when I saw the hurt look on her face.
‘I’m sorry, Amelia,’ I said. ‘I’m not upset with Bryce, just confused. I like him, but I know we can never be anything more than friends. He’s from a different world to me – he’s from a prominent family so his parents are old-money rich, he’s hot, he’s popular . . .’
‘Well, he ditched all his old friends for us, so he must like you a lot.’ Alyssa smiled.
‘I don’t think he did that just because of me – I think he was fed up with their crap, just like we are.’
Alyssa nodded. ‘And that’s why we love him – and here he comes now.’ She did an about-turn and waved at Bryce, who was at the end of the corridor behind her. There was no way she could have seen him. Once again I was in awe of their psychic prowess.
‘Be nice,’ Amelia whispered to me as Bryce walked up to us.
‘Hi, Amelia. Alyssa.’ He nodded to them and then, looking at me, he added a little more cautiously, ‘Vania.’
‘Bryce.’
We all stood there in silence for an awkward moment, and I realised I was going to have to bridge this gap before it turned into an uncrossable chasm.
‘I’m sorry I raced off like that yesterday. I was stressing that my parents would ground me if I came in too late. You know I had to tell my mum I was working at the cafe to be able to go and hang out there all afternoon.’ He seemed to relax as I babbled.
‘No problem.’ He smiled. ‘My dad was annoyed at me for not getting home earlier, too – I was supposed to help him clean out the garage.’
‘Bummer you missed that,’ said Amelia and Alyssa, nodding.
We all laughed as Dean came running up.
‘What am I missing out on? My bus was late,’ he panted.
‘Nothing spectacular, just household chores.’ I looped my arm through his.
He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to me. I looked at the spidery tendrils of silver-grey foliage in my hand.
‘Desert sage.’ He smiled.
I had been dreading chemistry class all day. It was such a drag that the subject I had loved so much had become torturous because of Mr Barrow. It had occurred to me to speak to the principal about it, but what would I say? That Mr Barrow had it in for me for some unknowable reason? Besides, the only potential solution she could offer would be to transfer me to a lower class, which would look bad on my report card. And then my parents would come down on me . . .
I sighed as I took my seat. The only person who could solve this problem was me. I tried to focus on positive thinking, and magic being the art of changing things with will. I had no choice but to sit here in the same room as him for the next hour – so I decided I would make the best of it by trying to at least learn something.
Mr Barrow walked into the classroom. I fingered the desert sage in my pocket, hoping it would work and he would be even just a little nice to me – or simply leave me alone.
‘Open your books to page 40: “The Principles of Thermal Radiation”,’ he said. I began to read.
Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation generated by the thermal motion of charged particles in matter. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation.
‘Thermal radiation can be measured by colour, as light is a form of visible thermal radiation – although the light we see with our eyes is really a very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. That is, a rainbow shows the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum,’ Mr Barrow said.
I thought about the feather changing colour in my hand. Maybe it hadn’t been magic at all – just science again, like the penny changing colour. Taking a deep breath, I stuck up my hand.
‘Mr Barrow, could the human body’s electromagnetic radiation cause an object to change colour?’ I asked.
‘Are you telling me you have witnessed an object change colour in your own hands, Vania Thorn?’
A chill went through me. Did he know about the feather? Who had told him?
‘No, sir, I’m not,’ I said quietly.
A couple of students laughed at my obvious discomfort.
I hid behind my study book for the rest of the class. No matter how much I tried to use positive-thinking magic, Mr Barrow’s overwhelming negativity was like a dark cloud that completely smothered it. I was obviously going to need more desert sage.
Matt Rock was hot. If there was one guy in school who distracted me from Bryce, it was Matt. He was in the year above me and hung out with a cool gang that surfed a lot. He had thick blond hair spiked up into a Mohawk and blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled.
I had started catching a different bus home from school – the same bus Matt took. It dropped me a kilometre from my house, but it was worth it so I could avoid Cassidy and have some space from Bryce.
Spending my bus rides watching Matt had given me an idea. I was still not entirely convinced that what I’d done with the feather was magic. Although Barrow had shut me down in class, the more I read about electromagnetic radiation, the more I felt I needed different proof that what I was experimenting with was magic. I wondered what else I could practise my so-called powers on – and that was when the crazy idea started to formulate in my mind: maybe I could make Matt pay attention to me. And if he liked me then maybe Bryce would get jealous, and see me as more than just a friend with stringy hair and fish lips.
After mulling this over for a few days, I finally decided to go for it. I stared at the back of Matt’s head, willing him to turn around and look at me – not that I had any idea what I’d do next.
I stared and stared, but nothing happened. I had to up the stakes. Then I remembered the amethyst in my backpack that Brenda had given me. I felt a bit guilty as I removed the lustrous purple stone from its black velvet pouch. Brenda had made a point of telling me not to use it for frivolous means. In fact, I was only supposed to use it alone at home for a week, until I saw Brenda again for my next lesson.
I held the stone in my left hand and concentrated on the back of Matt’s head again.
Matt, turn around and look at me, I commanded silently.
The amethyst in my hand started to feel really hot, but still Matt didn’t move.
Maybe the magic (if that’s what it really was) that had changed the feather had come from Bryce and not me. I was kind of disappointed, but then again perhaps it was better if I didn’t mess with this stuff too much on my own anyway. A vision of Bryce filled my head instead, his eyes so clear and green it was like I was looking at him in real life.
Then I snapped out of it and realised I wasn’t looking into Bryce’s eyes – I was looking into Matt’s.
Matt’s eyes were a deep blue, and I felt myself being sucked into them. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, until he made a sound like he was clearing his throat . . . and spat in my face!
I slowly reached up to my cheek, wiping the spit away, my eyes still locked with his. I started to feel the black, boiling fury deep in the pit of my stomach and I knew I had to control it before something really bad happened, because right now I wanted to hurt Matt Rock.
The bus came to a stop and I grabbed my bag and made for the door.
‘Freak,’ Matt called after me.
I watched the bus pull away. I knew who the freak was, and it wasn’t me. What a loser. Clearly looks only went so far. I wiped my hand on the grass to get rid of the spit. Matt Rock was a creep who deserved to be punished.
I started to plot my revenge.
As soon as I got home I called Dean.
‘Dean, what are you doing?’
‘Just messing with the computer,’ he said, sounding preoccupied. I could hear the sounds of World of Warcraft in the background. That was another thing I’d learned about Dean: he was a total video-game nerd.
‘Good. After you kill your next demon, do me a favour and google infatuation spells. I need something that will make a person worship the ground I walk on.’ I giggled a little but was deadly serious.
‘Are you sure? Brenda told us not to get spells from the internet until you know how to cast them properly.’
‘She’s changed her mind,’ I said. I felt bad lying to Dean, but I really wanted to get back at Matt and this was definitely the best way to do it.
‘Why do you need an infatuation spell anyway?’ Dean asked.
‘Because Matt Rock spat on me,’ I answered.
‘No way! Why?’ Dean said, his voice full of horror.
‘He’s just an arse and I’m going to get him back,’ I said angrily.
‘Got it. But why do you want to do a love spell on him then?’
‘Because he should know how it feels to be embarrassed in front of everyone. Trust me. I know what I’m doing,’ I said decisively.
There was a pause.
‘Um . . . okay . . . I’ll see what I can do,’ he said at last.
The next day at school Dean slipped me a piece of paper.
‘If this backfires don’t blame me,’ he said.
I read what he’d printed out.
A SPELL TO POSSESS ANOTHER’S HEART
Procure thus:
A lock of hair from the head of your love –
their thoughts be only of you
A handful of soil from the print of their foot –
they shall follow only you
Place these treasures in a bag with blood
drawn from your palm
And you shall hold their heart in your hand
Forever
‘Yikes. I have to draw blood?’ I’d had enough of people’s body fluids.
‘I spent two hours researching this, Vania, and from what I can tell that spell is the most powerful.’
‘Sorry, Dean. I really appreciate you going to all this trouble for me. I’m sure this spell is perfect, and I totally trust you.’ I fixed an innocent smile on my face. ‘Which is why I’m asking you to get the soil from his footprint. I’ll get the hair.’
‘Vania, he’s a senior. I can’t follow him around – he’ll beat me up!’
‘I don’t think he’d go that far. And he spat on me, remember? Please help me?’
‘All right, all right,’ Dean said.
A rush of goosebumps came over me.
‘Awesome! You rock, Dean. Let’s not tell the others. Brenda told me it’s fine to do stuff like this but that talking about spells is like planting a seed and then digging it up to see how it’s growing. We have to keep this on the down-low for now,’ I said. I felt a brief pang of guilt for lying to a friend but ruthlessly squashed it. This would teach Matt to be a nicer person, so it was for the greater good, wasn’t it?
The following afternoon I was waiting for Dean at the cliffs above the beach after school. There was going to be a full moon later, and The Sixth Sense and Us said this was when spell casting worked best.
Dean hurried towards me, a plastic bag clutched to his chest.
‘What’s up, Dean?’ I called out. I could see him sweating profusely from twenty feet away.
‘I just had to run for my life,’ he spluttered. ‘I hope sand’s okay – I couldn’t get dirt. I followed him to the beach; they’re surfing. I had to run through a group of his friends to make sure I got the right footprint. They called me gay and chased me back to the car park. One of them tripped me over, but I got away.’ He held out a grazed elbow.
I suddenly felt terrible. What was I doing? I didn’t even really know how to do this spell, and I’d put my friend at risk of being made into mincemeat by a bunch of morons. But this ball was rolling now, and there was no way to push it back up the hill.
‘Ouch, sorry,’ I said. ‘At least you got away, though. And if it makes you feel better, I had a horror experience getting Matt’s hair, too.’
‘What did you do?’ Dean sat down next to me on the rocks, wiping his forehead with an arm of the jumper he’d tied around his waist.
‘I grabbed his hair gel from his gym bag. He was on the field playing football and I snuck into the locker room. His coach caught me and nearly ripped my arm out of its socket. He said I was trying to steal stuff. I told him I was looking for my brother and he eventually let me go.’
‘You don’t have a brother.’
‘I know! I only got three hairs out of the gel, but it’s better than nothing.’ I dug my hand into my pocket and took out the tissue in which I’d wrapped the precious hairs.
‘What do we do now?’ Dean looked over his shoulder nervously, no doubt expecting a pack of surfing hyenas to come running up the path at any second.
‘Well, I checked the moon chart and it’s supposed to rise at exactly 5.55 p.m. So I guess when it does I’ll cut my hand and put everything we’ve collected in the bag.’
I pulled out a steak knife and a drawstring silk pouch that had once contained a bottle of Britney Spears Curious perfume – a birthday gift from my mother that I’d quickly disposed of. I hadn’t had the heart to tell her it wasn’t my style; that I’d have preferred a perfume called Smart, but no one made one. I had a feeling that what I was doing now wasn’t that smart anyway.
‘Are you going to disinfect the knife?’ Dean asked. He looked queasy.
That hadn’t occurred to me. ‘Let’s get a fire going,’ I said, walking towards a pile of dried-out branches under the scrubby bushes hugging the crest of the cliff. I knew I could disinfect the metal in that.
Half an hour later Dean and I had a cosy circle of flames crackling away. It was mellow and peaceful and we sat in silence, gazing at the grey waves that curled and foamed, breaking gently on the sand below. Eventually the sun set in glorious swirls of pink and orange before sizzling away to a glowing red band stretched taut across the horizon.
When the moon began to rise from behind a craggy ridge in the far distance, I carefully poured the sand Dean had collected from the plastic bag onto a flat stone. I unfolded the tissue revealing the hairs.
‘Gross,’ said Dean.
‘Uh huh.’ I nodded and grabbed the knife. ‘Here goes.’
‘How are you going to draw blood?’ Dean asked.
‘Quickly,’ I said, and he looked even more uncomfortable.‘Don’t worry, Dean, I have the desert sage you gave me in my pocket. It will protect me, right?’
‘Not from septicaemia,’ he said dryly.
I smiled and held the blade of the knife over the flames. I felt the handle start to warm as I watched the flames flicker. They were mesmerising, and a heavy, calm sensation came over me.
‘It’s time,’ Dean whispered.
I looked up and the moon had revealed herself: an enormous luminescent pearl floating up over the mountains.
‘Dean, can you please hold the bag open for me?’
He grabbed the bag and stretched the neck wide.
I scooped up a handful of the sand from the stone’s surface and let the grains slowly trickle in. The hairs were harder to get in there because they were sticky. In the end Dean helped me scrape them off the tissue with a stick.
All that was left to put in was my blood.
Focus.
I looked at my right palm, and as quickly as I could I drew the knife across the edge of it.
It didn’t hurt – I felt like I was in another world as the blood oozed up.
I held my hand over the pouch and watched the blood drip in as a tingling sensation started to pulse from my feet, moving up my legs and through my body.
I looked to the moon, which was now really bright, and took a deep breath. ‘Matt Rock is in love with me,’ I said solemnly.
I wiped my hand on my black jeans – the bloodstain wouldn’t show. Dean handed me the bag and I pulled the drawstring shut tight.
We sat in silence until I heard Dean sniggering.
‘What?’ I said.
Dean just laughed harder and collapsed to the ground, holding his sides. ‘Vania! This is nuts!’ he said between fits of laughter.
I burst out laughing, too. Was it nuts? Tomorrow would tell.