Page 19 of Practically Witches

Mom sighs and she’s found her anger. “This all started with the grimoire, didn’t it? When was Rowen hurt?”

We’d found the grimoire a few weeks ago and had started using it a couple days after. It was a few days after that when I’d picked a spell to turn in. It was another week before Rowen’s magic was taken by the syphoner.

It couldn’t have been the grimoire that activated the syphoner’s magic or need for it.

I shake my head because I convinced myself it couldn’t be true. “No. We found the grimoire way before. A couple weeks.”

“This book was never yours.” She sighs. “Show me the spells that you’ve used.”

“A cleaning spell, the fire spell, which was by accident…” I clear my throat and look away then back at Mom. “I accidentally did a heart’s desire spell because I transposed a couple words.”

“A heart’s desire spell.” She nods like it’s the answer. “Whose heart?”

“Mine, I guess. I ripped a shirt off of Zane.”

She looks away, then back at me as if my words have only just registered. “What?”

“I tried to do the cleaning spell from memory and I transposed part of the phrasing and his shirt ripped off.” Her face pinches and I continue. “It was the other night when I came into the house and you thought I was lying about being in the yard and I swore to you I wasn’t.” Now my lips purse. “Turns out, Iwaslying about being in the yard. I went to the bookstore and Zane was there.” I tell her the rest of it.

“Do you know what you’ve done, RJ? Do you have any idea?” Her voice is little more than a whisper but there’s enough anger in it that it could be a scream.

Obviously, she’s found a way to make all of this my fault.

“Syphoners haven’t been seen in this area in centuries. Something you did…” She shakes her head and shoves the grimoire to the floor, away from her. “Obviouslywhatyou did, with this goddamned thing, brought them back. You’re reckless. Deceitful. Where did you learn such things?”

I pull a pen and her notepad from the drawer in the table beside the sofa. “Did you want to list my faults alphabetically or in order of importance? I imagine someday you’ll get dementia and forget. You’re going to want to have them all written down.”

She breathes in deeply enough that her nostrils flare as she stares at me. She’s trying not to kill me. I imagine it’s quite a testament to her parenting skills that I have survived this long, from what she says anyway. What she’s always said.

I’m still holding the pen and paper out like an offering, and I lower them because she gives methatlook—the narrow eyed, mouth pinched, brow furrowed glare of anger. I’ve seen it before and I’m unphased by it now, but I’m also not going to push her much further. She’s at her limit and I don’t want to test those parenting skills.

She looks at me, wary in a way I haven’t seen from her in years, since I first became a teenager and started testing limits and boundaries. “I need to think this through.”

As do I. I drop the paper and pen onto the table and walk to my room. I, too, have things to work out before I can make sense of any of this.

Chapter

Ten

Being in my room is my choice, and there’s a reason I want to be in here. Normally, I would go to Aimee’s room, which is always cleaner and more comfortable, but I cleaned my room the day Mom grounded me. And I don’t want Aimee to see what I’m doing. Don’t want Mom to bitch about us ignoring the rest she thinks we need. I want to write down the details of everything that happened, everything I can remember.

Auda rubs his side against my leg and purrs as I sit at my desk. I reach down to give him a rub but I continue filling the pages of my Advanced Potion notebook with everything I remember about the syphoner.

I also write that I think that the syphoner was familiar in a way I can’t explain, like I’ve seen her face before somewhere, but I can’t figure where no matter how hard I try.

But I keep writing about all of it, the ropes of light, the popping and crackling sounds, the way Aimee had writhed and moaned and cried out in pain. I write about the sky and only now recall the swirling clouds, the flicker of the lights further into the park, and the rein of sparks when one blew.

Margery Faulkner. She’d fallen when the syphoner saw Aimee and me, and the syphoner had gone straight for Aimee. It makes me wonder if she could sense that Aimee was stronger than I would ever be. I don’t know if she chose Aimee because of her proximity and dumb luck, or if she saw something in Aimee that she didn’t see in me.

How’s that for fucked up? I’m concerned because a syphoner wanted Aimee more than she wanted me. Although she did come for me when she finished with Aimee.

I don’t dare write that thought down. Not taking that kind of chance. What is written, even if it’s erased or shredded to pieces, can be discovered.

I’ve got seven pages written when Aimee walks in and sits on my bed. She doesn’t try to peek over my shoulder, but stares down at her fingernails. She usually keeps them manicured, sharpened to a hard point, but now they’re bitten down and without a sliver of paint.

I close the notebook and put the cap on my pen. It’s not the order I would usually do it, not that it matters, but I don’t want her to see how I described what happened to her.

But she doesn’t even try. She sits motionless, no foot tapping, no slow, semi-loud sigh, no fidgeting. Aimee is still.

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