“I would love to get you juice. I would pull the moon from the sky so you could use it as a silver plate to eat your dinner off.”
We all stared at him. Harvey beamed and leaped up to get my juice. I hardly dared look at the girls, and when I did Susie’s mouth was hanging open. Roz was still staring at her plate.
“I know he’s being a little goofy,” I said in a very low voice.
“He’s always a little goofy about you,” said Susie. “This is something else.”
I searched hopelessly for an explanation and offered at last: “I think he’s having a weird week.”
“Clearly!” said Susie.
“When is a week in Greendale not a weird week?” asked Roz. “Harvey is creeping me out.”
There was a bitter edge to her voice that made me and Susie exchange uneasy glances.
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Susie said slowly.
Roz bit her lip.
“Sorry,” she said in a stifled voice. “I had bad dreams last night, and I have a headache.”
Roz has more and more headaches these days. I mix up soothing teas for her, but it was time to start talking to Aunt Hilda about making a full witch’s potion for her. I could fix this.
“Rest over the weekend, and let me bring in a tonic for you Monday. It’ll make you right as rain.”
The strained tautness about Roz’s mouth did not ease. “I appreciate it, Sabrina, but I’m fine. And hey, Harvey being a goofball is better than him being all mopey like he was yesterday, right?”
She smiled then, and Susie nodded energetically. We all smiled. It was better. Magic made everything better.
When Harvey walked me home, he kissed me three times at the gate. “I don’t want to be parted from you,” he said, his hands in my hair.
“I feel the same way,” I told him, and pushed him back a little. “But I have homework to do. You know I don’t approve of leaving homework until Sunday! If you do it on Friday, the weekend’s free.”
“I do know that about you, yeah.” Harvey grinned fondly. “I’m still doing mine last thing on Sunday like the Lord intended. See you tomorrow?”
I looked at him blankly.
“The fun fair,” Harvey prompted.
In the excitement of spellcasting and my worries about this last summer, I’d almost forgotten that Harvey and I had plans to go to the county fair. People called the day of the fair the Last Day of Summer.
“Oh, right! Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Harvey kissed me again and left me, and I watched him walk away through the woods.
The fresh earth heaped on the grave in our front yard was undisturbed. Aunt Hilda takes longer and longer to rise from the dead these days. Aunt Zelda says it’s pure laziness.
I went to the kitchen and got myself a snack. Then I came back outside, perched on a nearby gravestone commemorating a long-ago Spellman familiar, and waited.
It didn’t take long before a clenched fist broke the earth, and then a head and shoulders, surfacing from the ground like a swimmer from the water. With a soft grunt and a wriggle, Aunt Hilda rose from the grave.
I wiggled my fingers at her in an awkward greeting. My aunt smiled and gave me a wave back, her face a mask of mud. She tried to brush the earth from her filthy pink dress, but that was a lost cause.
“Why did Aunt Zelda do it?” I asked.
What I meant was, Why does Aunt Zelda do it? As if Aunt Hilda might produce a really good reason to temporarily murder your sister.
Aunt Hilda just shrugged. “No harm done, love.”
She spoke as if it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. This was the sort of thing I should get used to, after my dark baptism. Witches dealt in death and the dark arts.
My aunt wiped the mud off her face, gave me a bright smile, and put her arm carefully around me, squeezing me tight without getting mud on me. Aunt Hilda doesn’t have a cold, fickle heart, I know that much, but Aunt Zelda often says Aunt Hilda isn’t much of a witch at all.
“Let’s go inside, shall we? What do you fancy for dinner?”
Her voice was completely cheerful, and her steps sure. I swung myself off the gravestone and followed her up the steps to our house. Aunt Hilda was absolutely right, and she was absolutely fine. Magic fixes everything.
Aunt Hilda went to bed early. She always says dying tires her out. Aunt Zelda said she was being a baby, but she made her a soothing brew and brought it upstairs. I heard her lecturing Aunt Hilda to drink it. I think that might be Aunt Zelda’s way of apologizing.
I sat alone at the kitchen table for a little while, then climbed up the stairs to the attic to find Ambrose.
There was a huge ancient-looking map floating in midair in his room, on paper so old it was yellow and drawn in ink so old it was brown. In gold lettering on the top of the map was written the words MAPPA MUNDI. Map of the world.
Pebbles twinkling with mica were flying over the map like tiny stars, pinpointing destinations. In front of the map stood Ambrose, dressed in his red velvet dressing gown and gesturing expansively for the pebbles to move, as though he was a conductor and the pebbles his orchestra.
“Hey, Ambrose.”
He flicked a smile over his shoulder at me, then returned to contemplating his map. There were places with the high slopes of mountains sketched out, marked Here Be Dragons. There were seas marked Here Be Serpents.
I strolled into his room, keeping my voice casual. “What’s this all about?”
“I miss espressos in Italy, I miss tea in China, and I miss orgies! Have I mentioned I miss orgies?”
“You have mentioned that occasionally.”
“That’s because I really miss them,” said Ambrose.
I made a humming sound. Witches are dedicated to decrying the false modesty of the false god, and surrendering to all sensual pleasures. I know all that. I just don’t know much about it.
I stared at the map.
“If you could be anywhere in the world,” I asked, “where would you want to go?”
Ambrose flung his arms out wide. The pebbles scattered wildly across the room, a contained explosion of brightness, a tiny, trapped Milky Way in an attic room.
“Oh, anywhere but here.”
Here, with our family. Here, with me. I’ve lived my whole life in this house, since my parents died. Since before I can remember. Greendale’s always been home. I love it, and I’m scared of losing it: of losing all the things home means to me.
But to Ambrose, my home is a prison.
Ambrose’s gaze slid from the map to me, eyeing me sidelong. “How is that spell with Harvey working out?”
“Oh, fine, fine,” I said hastily. “Yeah, great. Really good.”
“Fantastic,” murmured Ambrose.
His voice was absentminded. Clearly, he didn’t care much. He made another gesture and the sparkling pebbles re-formed, tracing a new path as Ambrose plotted the escape he would make out into the wide world if he could.
“What was the last line of the spell you used?” I asked Ambrose abruptly. “I heard the rest of it, but I didn’t catch the last line. What did you say? What did it mean?”
“Oho.” Ambrose’s mouth curved. “Not able to translate every word of Latin you hear? Off your game, Sabrina? What’s next for our usually flawless little spellcaster? If you aren’t able to tell the difference between mistletoe and deadly nightshade, Auntie Z. will be berry disappointed in you!”