Page 114 of Big Little Spells

It’s our mother who does not merely stand, but has shot up from her seat to hover in the air. Cold, elegant Elspeth in all her ferocious glory.

Defiance radiating from her.

“Any fool can see that my daughters are two of the most powerful witches in St. Cyprian history,” Elspeth continues in her precise, polite, and utterly vicious way. I look for my father, but he’s nowhere to be found. “They always have been, yet they have graciously subjected themselves to your childish humiliations since Beltane without complaint. So the question I must ask, Carol, is why, exactly, the ruling coven has not celebrated them as such? Then or now? Is it that you find them a threat to us—or to you?”

30

I WISH I COULD tell the angry teenager I was once upon a time that things would end up like this. That Elspeth would defend us. She wouldn’t have believed it.

“Pardon me?” Carol is so visibly taken aback she might have clutched her pearls if she had any. Or sent out one of her vicious power slaps—if she could get away with attacking Elspeth Wilde like that, out here in front of everyone.

I almost wish she would, and not because I want my mother hurt. But so we can all stop pretending.

“The power they’ve displayed is off the charts,” Elspeth says, and for the first time, it crosses my mind that while my father likes to play at being a diplomat if it means he gets to smoke cigars in rooms where powerful people are, my mother really is one. It’s the way she speaks to Carol. It’s her clear expectation that Carol intends to correct herself at any moment, and possibly apologize while she’s at it. I’ve never thought of her as a particularly powerful Praeceptor, but now I wonder. “It doesn’t fit the proscribed test, but it shouldn’t. They’re not in their eighteenth year. It is a power appropriate for adult witches a decade on and, I’d argue, far more impressive than many witches a few hundred years beyond that.”

Carol tries out a sigh. “You’re their mother, so of course you want to spin this to their advantage, Elspeth.”

“I didn’t last time,” my mother says coolly. “But this is different, isn’t it? We’ve all seen what they’ve done tonight. We all remember how hard it was to achieve balance at our pubertatums, I’m sure. My daughters played with it.” She’s throwing her voice wide, making sure every last person here can hear her—and well. “These are not spell dim women. These are not dangerous women. These are powerful witches, and this is not Salem. We exist to lift up powerful witches, or why are we here at all?”

I still can’t believe this is our mother saying these things. Our mother, who I would have sworn could never and would never set a foot wrong, openly challenging the Joywood? In public?

“Sit down, Elspeth,” our father calls out, morbid embarrassment infusing every word.

“Desmond,” she replies, her eyes hot but her voice cool—and loud, “why don’t you do what you do best? And shut up.”

I hear reactions to that, choked laughter and maybe a small cheer, but I am too shocked to say anything. To do anything at all but grasp Emerson’s hand. Emerson, who looks as wide-eyed as me.

“You’ve had an emotional day, Elspeth,” Carol says soothingly. “Losing a sister, and now this unfortunate judgment. No one will blame you if you need to go lie down.”

I feel the push of power behind her words. And there in midair, my mother shows the first sign of wavering.

“But she’s right,” comes another voice. It’s Holly Bishop. She shoots up above the crowd. “We all know Emerson somehow broke your obliviscor. We also know Emerson isn’t warped or wrong. Everything she does is for this town, for us. This isn’t right.”

Ellowyn’s mother shoots up too. “Rebekah showed you power that night, the one you put in your little movie. Anyone can see that.”

“She used dark magic on the bricks to almost burn the town down,” Felicia returns with malice. “And me with it.”

“It’s still power,” Ellowyn’s mother says, no fan of the principal who made her daughter’s life hell. “You can say it was rebellious power, but that’s power. The pubertatum was never supposed to be about having the right kind of power. It’s supposed to be about whether or not you have any. Enough to call yourself a witch. They both clearly do.”

“There are rules,” Gus Howe, the grumpy antiques dealer and an insufferable Praeceptor in his own right, says from another seat. “These are the rules, like it or not.”

“Really, Gus?” my mother asks crisply. “And who wrote those rules?”

That feels like a great moment for Nicholas to show up, but he doesn’t. Instead, the audience of adult witches begins to divide into sides. Some support Emerson and me, but some, like Gus, are either supportive or afraid of the Joywood.

But they all break down along the lines I expect them to, just as I’ve been reporting to Emerson. Corinne Martin, chef at the Lunch House, stands next to Holly, while the tedious Joanne Walters sidles up to Gus. But as people move around, talking among themselves, it’s not clear which side has more.

“All right. All right,” Carol says, calmly zapping everyone into silence—even though this can’t be how she thought this would go. The rest of the Joywood are muttering to each other, Maeve Mather shooting daggers at my mother with her eyes like she used to do to my grandmother. “It makes sense that something so...challenging, and out of the norm, would get us all worked up, but let’s not forget what tonight is about.” She smiles beatifically at all of them. “It’s about our young people. The future of St. Cyprian.”

I want to punch her, but Emerson squeezes my hand.

“We’ll all take a breath, calm down, and think about what’s best.” Carol looks at us with mild distaste, but inclines her head in a manner that must look gracious if you’re farther away. “Let’s let these young ones take their tests, then come back to the thorny issue of the Wilde sisters.”

Then she pushes the six of us back to our seats with a harsh magic no one else sees.

Though it stings. And I can feel her power crawling all over me, like ants.

The six of us exchange unsure glances as we sit there. Obediently. Or maybe not so obediently, but I feel a little too winded to check to see if I can get up. On our own channel, Ellowyn says, Did the immortal forget what day it is?

---