CHAPTERONE
MINNIE
The glass penglides along the thin, almost translucent paper. I dip the glass nib into the ink once more, finishing up the detailed margins of the magic circle. Amber sits across from me on the floor, a pastel braid between her eyes as she bends her back to watch me work. I finish up the design and set down my pen. Amber reaches to grab the paper and check my work but I touch her hand.
“It’ll glow red if I did it wrong,” I remind her. She’s my teacher, but I still remind her.
“I want to study your work. You understand this summoning stuff better than me.”
It sounds contradictory, that Amber could be the one teaching me summoning spells while I’m the one who understands the material best.
I smile at her. “You’re better at plenty of other magic.” I nod to the array of plants on her windowsill; rosemary, parsley, ivy, and others I’ve forgotten the names of. “Except for that one time your magic seed pod exploded and knocked us both out.”
Amber snorts. “And mom thought we were just stoned out of our minds.”
“Which is funny, since neither of us smoke.”
She looks over the magic circle once more before setting the paper back down on the floor. “Alright. Go for it.”
I hover my hand atop the piece of paper, whispering an incantation. The ink goes from black to glowing blue. The runes and circles disappear, burning the paper as they leave. The remaining paper folds in on itself as embers lick at its edges, eventually burning out and leaving nothing but ash.
Amber and I both look up from the paper at the same time, smiling like we’ve pulled a fast one on her mom. In a way, we have. Usually magic is taught by family members, but seeing as all the would-be-witches in my family are dead, I’ve had to learn bits and pieces from Amber. It’s a safety issue. The more people who know magic, the more chances there are for someone to slip up and make a scene. It doesn’t take a historian to know magic is frowned upon by those who lack it.
“If I had included an offering–”
“You would have summoned something.” Amber nods. “A gnome, I think?”
“You think.”
“Maybe a pixie. A fae of some sort. You summon it, give it a task, and when it’s done–POOF!Back to its original plane.”
I tilt my head. “What… sort of offering do I need in a spell like this?”
“Depends on what you’re summoning. Fae like sweets, I know that. I think someone said celestials like parchment and flowers.”
“What about devils?”
Amber makes a face I wholly expected: a nervous mix of a grimace and a frown. “Nasty shit. Blood and bones and viscera. But I think devils also accept precious metals and gemstones.”
I can make that work.
There’s a knock at the door, and Amber and I scramble to hide the evidence, her putting the glass topper in her bottle of magic ink and me shoving the parchment under her bed. Once we’re settled, Amber calls, “Come in.”
Her mom opens the door and doesn’t say a word. Her braids are strung with bright wood beads and piled high atop her crown. She puts her hand on her hip and shoots us a soft, closed-mouth smile. “Just like high school. You two, hanging out doing who knows what.”
“It was usually studying,” I remind her, very intentionally avoiding the detail of what subject we would study together during our sleepovers.
“Amber, I need some help preparing for the coven meeting tonight,” her mom says.
She stands up, “Alright. I’ll be there in a second.”
Her mom, the coven Supreme, frowns.
“Minnie’s package came in,” Amber explains. “It would be bad customer service to have her leave without it.”
“Fine. Make it quick.”
We leave Amber’s childhood bedroom and head out of her family apartment, down the steps that lead to the store. Some kids had a childhood playground, but I had Lucky Witch Readings, a metaphysic shop in the heart of Highland Park. The shop is filled to the ceiling with everything a witch could ever need: incense, oils, crystals, prayer cards… Sure there are some lay customers, but most of them are coven members.