Page 39 of Big Little Spells

I call it a day for the studying and send the book back home with a little spell. What I want to do is cast it into the river, so it feels deeply virtuous that I don’t. I walk up the back hill toward the house, trying to get my simmering irritation under control.

I enjoy the warm sun on my face. The smell of spring, the opening of the earth. The bright yellow forsythia and deep pink redbuds have given way to the wildflowers that carpet the hill, and the last of what humans call Easter lilies—Ostara lilies for us—are still holding on, though they won’t be around much longer. The dogwoods have been putting on a pink-and-white show since I arrived, though now there are more petals on the ground beneath each hardy state tree than on the branches.

I loop around to the front of the house so I can enjoy Georgie’s crystals in the trees and the haphazard remains of my grandmother’s garden, and I’m only a little surprised to find Emerson heading toward the gate from the other direction.

“We don’t have a meeting tonight,” I say to her. If I had a hot Healer waiting for me, I certainly wouldn’t be haunting this mausoleum.

“Jacob had some work to do with his parents,” Emerson replies. “And I realized there was an action item for Beltane we hadn’t discussed.”

“I cannot tell you how much I detest the term action item.” But I hold open the gate for her and we both walk through it.

She ignores me because she’s holding out that damn binder I’ve been tempted to set on fire more than a few times—an hour—over the past two weeks. She flips it open and points to one of the bullet points under Beltane Prom.

A bullet point I have read numerous times myself, usually while making scoffing noises. I think we’ve both been avoiding it, hoping it might go away or be rendered moot. The former being my preferred course of action and the latter, of course, being the Emerson way—especially if she does the rendering.

“‘A dress approved by your parents, in the traditional manner,’” I read out loud, because that seems to be what she wants. When I look up, Emerson is giving me one of her looks so I hoot out a laugh. “What are we supposed to do? Track them down in the middle of their exciting and important decade of hiding in Germany and beg them to come back?”

Emerson only sighs. I realize she might have already considered this, but the fact she hasn’t, in fact, flown off to Germany means she’s thought better of it.

“I’m perfectly fine with them continuing to not show up for their daughters,” I say with more heat than is probably necessary. “They left you here, Emerson. Literally a shadow of your former self.”

My sister scowls at me. “I didn’t remember magic, Rebekah. I was still me.”

But I’m on a roll. “Mom called me like clockwork on every major holiday and my birthday, like a human, yet always managed to get my voice mail. Dad never bothered. For all they know, I spent the last decade in prison.”

“I’m well versed in what they did and didn’t do, thank you.” Emerson magicks the heavy binder away so she can give me that big sister look of hers, full force, like I’m midtantrum on the ground. “But if this is required, then we have to do something to meet the requirement.”

“Well, enjoy, because I have no interest in begging for Mommy and Daddy’s help.”

Emerson sighs heavily. “You don’t have to be dramatic about it. And we don’t have to flit off to Germany or beg them. We just have to figure out a way to send them a message that they can’t ignore. They’re as bound to doing what the Joywood want as we are. Maybe more.”

I want to look up at the sky and yell Fuck the Joywood until they show up for a real fight, but there’s no point in riling up the people who can literally kill me—and clearly want to—even if it’s tempting.

Before I can tell Emerson her plan sucks—because nothing we could send our parents would ever rate their attention when they prefer important magical people, thank you—the spring afternoon changes around us as we stand there on the path in the front yard.

A certain, sadly all-too-familiar dread begins at my toes. Then it sweeps over my entire body like the echo of an old flu. The air itself is different.

In a very specific way.

Emerson and I stare at each other. We feel it.

“They can’t be serious,” Emerson whispers as the wind picks up.

And then...there they are. Standing on the porch, an array of luggage piled prettily behind them, because appearances matter in all things.

Desmond and Elspeth Wilde. Our parents.

12

THE LAST TIME I saw my parents in person was that night ten years ago.

They look about as pleased to see me now as they did then. And they take their time with it, running their eyes all over me in a top to bottom to top again survey that takes in the whole package. They both get stuck on the belly ring and the septum below my nose, and I can see their mutual distaste. As bad as Ellowyn and I predicted. Given that I show my piercings off for the express purpose of annoying people in this town, I shouldn’t care.

But it turns out, I do.

Beside me, Emerson takes my hand and I curl my fingers into hers. I remember now as I’m looking at the two of them that even she could never quite earn parental approval either. Emerson tried hard to get it anyway, however doomed her attempts were. I worked harder to live down to their censure, which didn’t make any of us all that happy.

What I forgot, though, was that in the face of the Desmond and Elspeth show, us Wilde sisters always banded together.

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