Page 2 of Muddled Magic

Or Cousins Rose, Lilac, or Dahlia. But it could be me.

Would it be me? I was only twenty-five, but Grandmother herself had told me I was the most powerful witch of my generation. It’s why I wore her old amazonite pendant, a crystal so strong it could absorb the power of my magical core many times over. They might call Marten talented, but I was a prodigy. No one else had a magical core inside them like a seed instead of a bud, my power stretching like a mighty oak, both canopy and roots, while the others’ bloomed like bursting flowers.

Beside me, Lilac suddenly linked her arm through mine, giving me a wink, and Rose bumped my shoulder with hers. Apparently they had their own guesses on who the new—and youngest ever—member of the coven would be.

Though, it really could be my brother Marten or even Uncle Stag, a powerful blond-haired witch with a smile for everyone who’d married into the family when he’d asked Aunt Peony to be his bride. He seemed more interested in the job than blue-eyed Uncle Badger, Aunt Hyacinth’s quiet husband, who currently maintained a position—though he often seemed more interested in being the manor’s magical handyman than a true spellcaster.

The coven would decide what was best, as it always did.

Hare shrugged out of his robe and gave it a little shake to release the petals of his garland that clung to the velvet. Holding it out by the shoulders, he looked diminished somehow, as if the robe itself had given him a strength that he no longer possessed.

I’d never seen his younger self in the flesh, he was far too old for that, but I’d seen the ochre-tinted pictures hanging about the manor of him at his archeological sites or by waterfalls and henges rumored to be visited by the Fair Folk. He was bearded then as he was now, but the hair was full and brown, not scraggly and white, his face unseamed. He’d always looked somber, as if that was to be expected of him as a Hawthorne, but his eyes had shone with excitement at his discoveries.

Hare cleared his throat, which turned into a coughing fit, his back hunched. It was startling to see him frail and Grandmother so hale, even though he was her younger brother. Perhaps his days of digging through the world’s buried history had taken a greater toll on him than the mere passage of time. The Fair Folk had been known to boobytrap their ringforts and knolls and other haunts, just so others couldn’t have them.

“Marten Tod Hawthorne,” Hare rasped in his strained voice.

Lilac’s arm tightened around mine as her full lips parted in a muted gasp.

Rose reared her head back like a startled filly, throwing her hands up in front of her. “What in the actual fu—”

“Marten Tod Hawthorne,” Grandmother repeated loudly, sending Rose a withering glare. My tall cousin snapped her mouth shut, but she still had her face scrunched up in indignant disbelief. “Come forward.”

Marten shot me a smug look and sauntered from where he stood with our uncles across the grass to one of the paved pathways leading to the patio.

I just stared, my mouth dry. My ears turned deaf to the murmurings of my cousins, to the drone of the bees, and the songs of birds. I didn’t feel the sun warming my skin nor the breeze wicking away the summertime sweat. Didn’t taste honeysuckle on the air nor scent the chickens Aunt Peony had set to roast before the ceremony.

My mind had gone blank, except for one thought: Marten? They picked Marten?

They picked the cocky and boastful Marten instead of Lilac, who was as tenacious as she was beautiful? Instead of Rose, whose enthusiastic joie de vivre was the epitomic heart of any green witch? Instead of Dahlia, quiet and reserved yet formidable when her family was threatened? Even Stag and his weather magic that made all the gardens flourish? Over… me?

I was Grandmother’s personal protégé, after all.

As the circle of robed elders parted to let Marten through to claim Hare’s robe, my eyes flitted from my father to my mother, to my aunts and uncles and cousins who were part of the official coven. Sympathy, resignation, compassion—that’s what I found there waiting for me.

They had known the outcome, every single one of them. Why hadn’t they bothered to say anything? To let me—all of us—down easy so it wouldn’t come as a shock? As a… betrayal?

Grandmother Iris had been grooming me for this for years. What had changed? Had I done something wrong?

Marten was only a year older than me, and his mastery of runes was nowhere near mine, nor his ability to unravel or subvert wards. It wasn’t like he had extra experience over me, so why him?

“Maybe it’s a balance thing?” Lilac whispered to me, either reading my thoughts via a previously undisclosed gift of telepathy or having the same exact thoughts herself. “Nature loves balance, so a male witch replaced by another male?”

“Gender’s got nothing to do with it,” Rose muttered. “It’s a balance of power. Which means our girl should have that spot. This is complete bullsh—”

“Circle of Nine and all Hawthorne witches,” Grandmother intoned loudly, as if she knew Rose had been just about to curse, “join together for the final blessing.”

My cousins pulled me forward on stunned legs as Marten, in his new robe, backed the few steps to integrate with the robed elders. Hare retreated on wobbly legs outside of the circle to the embrace of his old wife, Tulip, her frail body wrapped in a shawl even in the heat. From her belt, Grandmother Iris unhooked the chain of a golden censer the size of a golf ball and unlatched it with a long thumbnail. Inside was a glowing ember taken from the Hawthorne hearth. An incantation brought green flame to the ember, flame that shot straight up and ballooned into an umbrella of glittering green light above our heads.

Then as one, even though I stumbled over the words, we chanted our family’s creed:

“Nine wear the robes to make us strong.

When one fades, another finds they belong.

Maintain the circle, our family ties;

Only together will the Hawthornes thrive.”

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