Page 12 of Witch and Tell

It might also lead you into disaster. Since you are reading this letter, you must assume this is the case.

Not everyone who is powerful is also just. Oh, I know this isn’t news to you—or anyone—but knowing something and understanding it in yourbones are two different things. Experience makes instinct of intellect.

In our bloodline of witches, you and I have the mark of the most powerful. My grandmother did as well, and I remember the star-shaped birthmark on her shoulder showing when her collar slipped as she rolled pie dough or dug in the garden. Her gift was foresight, as is your mother’s. Combined with the force of her magic, Nana could delve far into the future, the reach of her abilities linked to the intensity of her vision.

I paused to feel the birthmark on my shoulder heat and tingle. I pressed a finger to it.

One vision came to her repeatedly. As a little girl, I heard her warning my mother not to have children after I was born. I wasn’t sure why. Would she die in childbirth? My mother respected Nana’s magic and through the use of herbs and spells didn’t conceive for years. Until she did. My mother thought she’d passed the time of life when she could have children, and she let her monthly enchantments slip. In the meantime, Nana died. I was nearly twenty when Beata was born.

Here again, I paused, this time remembering my mother mentioning Aunt Beata. I’d told her about my lapses in magic, and she remembered this relative I’d never heard of, an aunt who’d been banished from the family. She couldn’t tell me much, just that Beata existed and that some mystery surrounded her. At the same time, Mom, who was visiting me at the time, was disturbed by Babe Hamilton, and it had crossed my mind they might be the same person. But I wasn’t certain, and Babe and I had a good relationship. I had certainly never heard of Beata from my grandmother— until now, that is.

Outside my bedroom window, a crow cawed from the oak tree, and my breath quickened. I returned to my grandmother’s words.

At first it seemed Nana must have been mistaken, for Beata—named because of the unexpected blessing she was—was a beautiful child. It was impossible to see her smile from her cradle and not fall in love with her. I certainly did. We all loved her. Grocery clerks let customers pile up so as to have a moment to stroke her golden hair. Rooms shushed in admiration when my mother walked in with Beata, holding her chubby toddler hand. Even mean dogs whimpered and wagged their tails in her presence.

When Beata was five years old, the birthmark surfaced on her shoulder. We didn’t expect it. I had already inherited the mark, and it’s unusual for two such powerful witches to be born the same generation. However, Beata was marked, and it was already clear her gift was glamour, the ability to charm you, make you see what she wanted you to see. It wasn’t until she was older that her drive came to the surface. It wasn’thealing, as is mine, or justice, as yours. No, power drove her. The pure thrill of power— seeing people bend to her, give to her, do what she wanted—fed her life essence.

Beata was a monster.

She mastered her magic quickly and used it to destroy families and drive formerly sober people to excess. She could have anything she wanted. If you wore a dress she fancied, you found yourself pressing it upon her with the belief you didn’t deserve it. She had to be the most loved person in a room, which meant no husband was safe. In our town, Beata was worshipped and feared. She was absolutely drunk with power. The more she had, the more she wanted, and she didn’t care who she ruined to get it.

I have to take a break here, darling. What I’m about to write still burns as deeply as it did when it happened so many years ago.

Grandma’s writing filled only half of the page. I set it down and picked up the next. Rodney’s steady purring comforted me. I didn’t have my mother’s gift of foresight, but the tightness in my throat led me to dread the words to come.

You never knew your grandfather, but what a wonderful man he was. He could build anything, deconstruct any mechanical puzzle. And he was kind. When I met him, it was as if I’d always known him, as if I’d connected at last with thepart of me that would make me whole. He accepted my magic as easily as he accepted my habit of singing with the radio or taking early morning walks. Oh Josie, I hope you have this kind of love someday.

Here I had to set down the letter again.I had this love, Grandma,I thought. I had it and lost it. My gaze drifted to the window. Sam’s house was still dark. Where was he?

You will suspect what happened next. Beata couldn’t stand my happiness. Not only did she want it for herself, she wanted it taken from me. I warned her to stay away from us, but it only stoked her desire further. Your grandfather began to act as a man possessed. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t focus at work. No spell I cast could protect him.

One afternoon he disappeared, Beata with him. Three days later a motorist found him dead in his truck at the bottom of a ravine. I believe the struggle within him drove him from the road.

Beata glowed with victory. There was something else, too. I saw it in her eyes and sensed it in the slight changes in her body. My years as a healer made it as clear to me as the moon when the sun sets. She was with child.

I had to stop her. Oh, I wouldn’t stop her from giving birth. I couldn’t do that. But I couldn’t let her ruin a child’s life, not to mention continue to destroy the world around her. Her power needed reined in. I didn’t know if I had the magic to containit, but I was the only person who might. Fury and grief fueled my intention.

One night when the moon was full, I called her to the garden. She admitted to seducing your grandfather and, one hand on her belly, she laughed at me. She actually laughed.

Summoning every fiber of magic within me and within my garden, where over the years I’d infused the roses and herbs and every other plant with my energy, I cast a spell to contain her magic and to banish her from our town.

Beata resisted. Of course she did. We fought all night, throwing power against power. The sky became like a lightning storm, and my garden blackened to the ground.

In the end, I prevailed. At least, I did enough that I never saw her again. Every once in a while, however, I sense my sister. Some of her magic must remain. She’s out there. Somewhere.

Josie, my fear is she will appear in your life. You are the only witch now alive with enough power to break my spell of containment and release her full magic. If she can, she will find you, and she will use what glamour she has to entrap you. Be careful, my darling. Over the years she will have honed what magic remains to a deathsharp point. She will know you better than you know yourself, and she will not hesitate to destroy you.

I shiver as I write this, and I can only hope your strength and goodness will overcome her.

All my love, Grandma

I shivered, too. I slipped from bed and pulled down the window.

Not long ago, I’d had a terrifying experience in the abandoned Empress Theater. My grandmother had materialized as a young woman on the mildew-splotched screen. She’d been casting a spell, and it had chilled me to the bone. Now I knew the spell was to banish Aunt Beata.

Beata was out there, and she planned to use me. But how?

Chapter Seven