Magic Spark Page 8

  I sat down with a thump and leaned over, and again attempted to work my foot free of the smashed board. It was no use. All I managed was to smear red droplets into the hem of my jeans.

  I knew the house wouldn’t ever allow me to get hurt—not really—but it was frustrating how out of all of our family, it obviously cared for me the least.

  When we were little girls, Bradley had told me it knew I didn’t really like it.

  “But I do,” I’d insisted.

  “It says that you don’t.” Bradley had spoken the words in the matter-of-fact way that only a five-year-old could.

  I’d never understood why the house felt that way.

  “Marchland!” I yelled for my sister. “Marchland, a little help please!”

  Footsteps thumped inside, then the front door squeaked open.

  “Bradley? When did you get here?”

  My youngest sister shrugged, her sharp shoulder bones sticking out like pebbles from sand. “I came last night.” She continued to slouch in the doorway in her rumpled black sheath dress, watching with bored eyes as I struggled. “What did you do to piss it off?”

  “What did I do? Nothing. It’s just ornery.”

  Bradley rubbed the doorjamb tenderly, exactly as Granny had done year after year. “No. It’s sad. It doesn’t understand where Granny is and it is lonely.” She paused, her dark brows furrowing. “And for some reason, it isn’t too happy with you.”

  I raised my brows at my sis. “How do you know that?”

  Bradley shrugged again. “How do you know when it is going to rain?” She walked onto the porch—which didn’t so much as squeak—and without effort, worked my foot free of the hole.

  I flexed my ankle before standing.

  How do I know when it’s going to rain? I ran my tongue over my teeth. I’d never explained—not even to my sisters—how the feeling began in my mouth as a tingle and grew to an ache. How my temples pounded and my ears popped with the electricity of understanding. It was simply a sense with which I’d been born. I could better explain a canary’s song to a deaf person than explain how I understood the weather.

  I shrugged. “I just know.”

  “Well, when it comes to this house,” Bradley said as she turned and shuffled back inside, “I just know.”

  With one shoe, I hurried after Bradley, taking careful steps. I wasn’t sure if the house was finished acting out.

  In the front foyer Bradley abruptly turned to face me. She scrunched her nose and tapped me on the forehead with her index finger. “And Cheyanne, you should lay off the Botox. You are starting to look a little… done.”

  I winced. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” We walked through a short hallway to the kitchen, where I paused to check my reflection in an ancient, smoky mirror that hung over an antique wash basin. The pictures that decorated the wall behind me shown as if I weren’t standing in front of them. I tapped the glass. “Cut it out.” My reflection blinked into the mirror and I leaned in close and scrunched my brows. Maybe Bradley is right… I sighed and turned away from my reflection.

  The Botox had been Brett’s idea. He said it would help me to look “fresh” and “awake” on camera and had even made the appointment for me for my twenty-ninth birthday. Brett would never admit it to anyone, not even me, but I knew his knowledge came from personal experience. There was no way a man in his thirties with a serious tanning habit could have such a smooth forehead without a little help.

  I followed Bradley past the kitchen door to the attic stairs. My youngest sister was so lithe her steps were soundless. She was like an apparition with her frail frame, translucent skin, and dyed black hair.

  “March is already upstairs.” Bradley rounded on her heels to face me. “It’s just so… it’s like Granny isn’t dead, you know? All her stuff—the candles and charts—everything is right where she left it. Like she is gone to make groceries and will be back later.”

  I opened my mouth to comfort her but before I could speak she turned and ghosted up the stairs.

  “Hang tight to the rail,” she called over her shoulder. “The house is being weird about you today.”

  Chapter Three

  I jogged lightly up the stairs behind Brad, heeding her warning and keeping a firm grip on the banister.

  Bradley pushed open the attic door and we walked in to see Marchland digging through a cabinet, muttering under her breath.

  The attic was dim. The only light filtered through the grimy panes of the giant floor to ceiling window behind the old saw-horse table that had been Granny’s favorite place to work.

  The sunlight that felt gray and drained my complexion set March aglow like the Lady Guadalupe. My middle sister was beautiful, almost six foot, with wide hips and shoulders, and breasts I’d been jealous of since I was thirteen and she was ten. Her hair was a shade darker than my own, and burned the deep red of a sunset. Her ethereal image was completed by the halo of dust motes and cobwebs that twisted and moved like tiny dancers around her head.

  It made sense. If any of us Murphey women were an angel, it would be Marchland. I was driven, and Bradley was sarcastic, but March was kind and giving—the type of person that gave money to a bum even if she knew they were lying about why they needed it.

  If she weren’t my sister, I’d probably hate her.

  Marchland shut the warped cabinet and turned toward me and Brad with a closed mouthed smile, hiding her teeth. The gap between March’s front teeth was her one insecurity. Our Mama couldn’t be bothered with braces. Or couldn’t convince whoever she was screwing to pay for them—one or the other. Or maybe both.

  Me and Brad had lucked out but the space in March’s teeth had earned her the nickname “Jack”—as in Jack-O-Lantern—in middle school, and had left a scar that I knew still ached even now.

  I knew it was wrong, but I was thankful for that gap. It was what made my sister’s wild, effortless beauty bearable.

  “Cheyanne! You’re here.” Marchland stepped toward me, throwing her arms open wide. Under her feet the soft pine of the floor gave like a sponge, bouncing slightly with her heavy steps. Marchland paused, dropped her arms to her sides and pursed her lips. “If you let me fall, who do you think is going to help you, hmm?”

  In response the house sighed and then settled, sending drawers rolling open and doors bouncing ajar. The walls deepened to a rusty orange and the ceiling swirled with the purples and greens of a fresh bruise.

  On Marchland’s next step, the floor was firm once again.

  “As I was saying, you came!”

  “Of course I came. I said I was. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Marchland’s eyes met Brad’s with a quick glance, before both of their gazes darted away.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Brad’s voice was flat.

  “That look. Like you don’t believe me?” I narrowed my eyes. “I have always been here for y’all. Always.” It was true, too. I’d had no life in high school because I was too busy playing little-mama and didn’t even leave for college until I’d settled them with Granny and paid Mama to stay away. It had taken all the money I’d saved bagging groceries and cleaning houses instead of going to dances or football games. And how, even then, I’d been sick over it. I didn’t bring any of it up, because I shouldn’t have to. I made sacrifices and I didn’t regret them one bit, but I could do without the side eye.

  “Don’t deny it. There was definitely a look.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, cocking one hip to the side.

  “Nothing,” Marchland said, “it’s just that… it’s just like you’ve been slipping away. I wasn’t sure you’d show.”

  “I am not slipping away. That’s absurd. I’ve been busy, that’s all. If you haven’t noticed, I have finally been moving up at work.”

  “Oh we’ve noticed.” Bradley’s brows drew together. “I see your face plastered around town more often than in person. And what is with them airbrushing away your freckles and li
ghtening your hair, anyway? Doesn’t that seem a little misogynistic to you? I mean, they leave that sports guy’s gray hair and crow’s feet.”

  I flicked my wrist in the air, dismissing Bradley’s snark. She didn’t need to know I requested the airbrushing.

  “If working hard is a crime then I guess I am guilty. Now. Can we just get to work and find the book?”

  “Sure.” Bradley strode to the corner of the attic and brushed magazines off of the old sofa, then splayed herself over its cushions.

  Marchland rolled her eyes then reached for my arm. Bradley was Bradley, and we knew there was no point fussing with her.

  When Marchland’s fingers landed on my skin, she flinched. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  March moved her fingers from my wrist to the side of my face.

  “I can feel the unhappiness flowing through you. I know just what you need for peace—just the color and shape for tranquility. We could go down to the shop and I could—”

  “No, March.”

  The corners of Marchland’s narrow mouth turned further downward. “But—”

  I held up a hand and Marchland’s mouth snapped closed. She wrapped her soft, tattoo-covered arms around herself and squeezed. “Sorry. It just hurts me to feel so much pain running through you. I wish you’d let me help.”

  I shook my head again.

  Marchland’s arms and legs were a maze of lines and swirls and flowers and shapes, and Bradley sported her fair share of March’s designs, but I didn’t like the idea of my sister’s magic soaking into my skin. I didn’t need a tattoo or symbol to find happiness—I could find it on my own.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Let’s just find the book so we can fix the house.” I walked to a bank of cabinets on the far side of the room and tugged at a door. It wouldn’t open.

  “I already looked in there,” Marchland said over her shoulder.

  I tossed my hands into the air, frustrated. “Was it stuck for you?” I knocked a fist against the thin wood of the cabinet door. It still refused to budge.

  Marchland shrugged. “No. Popped right open.”

  “Why is the house so pissed at me!”

  “What did you do now?” There was laughter in Marchland’s voice. I knew she was remembering the time when we were in elementary and I’d hit a softball through the kitchen window. The house had given me grief for a month, locking me outside and then out of the bathroom.

  I smiled at the memory. “I didn’t do anything. I swear.”

  Bradley, who’d been watching quietly from her spot on the sofa, traced her fingers along the grooved bead board of the wall. “It thinks… it knows you want to sell it.”

  I spun on my heels and stared at my youngest sister.

  “What?” Marchland asked. “Cheyanne? Is this true?”

  “No. Of course not. I’d never sell Granny’s house! It has been in our family for over a hundred and fifty years for godsakes.”

  Bradley’s lips were pressed into a tight line. She leaned down and pressed her palm to the dusty floor. “Brett put a sign in the yard right after Granny’s death. The house kept blowing it over and knocking it down. Brett finally gave up, but the house… it’s heartbroken.”

  “Bradley, I swear. I had no idea! And I am sure Brett wasn’t trying to sell the house. He’d never do that.”

  “Cheyanne,” Marchland spoke softly. “That does sound like something Brett would do. He always dropped those hints to Granny about how city lots on historic streets were prime real estate that went for top dollar…”

  “I know he said that, but he’d never put a sign in the yard. Never. The house is mistaken.” Tension knotted my jaw and shoulders. I remembered Brett dropping those same hints—but there was no way he’d go so far as to put a sign in the yard. Would he?

  “Bradley, I swear. And if he did put a sign out—which I can’t imagine he did—but if he did, I know there would be a good reason. Maybe just an experiment or something. It’s not like he could sell the place without our permission anyway, right?”

  Bradley’s gaze bore a hole through my forehead and Marchland looked as if she wanted to cry. I knew they didn’t care for Brett. They never had. No matter how he tried to win them over they’d always made it obvious that they could barely tolerate him.

  “You guys have never even given Brett a chance. If you knew him you’d understand.”

  “Give him a chance? Are you serious? Cheyanne, you have always had a blind spot for men. Especially bad men. And Brett isn’t even good at being bad!” Bradley’s voice rose as she gathered steam. “He is a joke, Cheyanne. A joke in bedazzled jeans and boy band hair. The only reason he is anything is because of who his parents are.”

  My heart rattled hard against my ribs. “That’s not true. I don’t know why you don’t like him, but you better get over it because I am going to marry him. And if you want to be in my life, then you will just have to accept it.” I blinked fast to keep tears from gathering in my eyes. Not over my sister’s words, but because I didn’t know if I was saying the truth or not. Would we still get married? Did he still want to put down roots with me and grow our life together?

  “Can you two just please stop fighting?” Marchland pleaded. “Let’s just remember why we came and get to looking for the book.”

  I turned my back on my sisters and continued to dig through cabinets and shelves.

  “Whatever,” Bradley said finally. She rolled off the couch and landed on her knees. She leaned down, her chest almost touching the dirty floor, and reached under the old sofa. The tip of her tongue peeked from between her teeth as she felt blindly, then pulled free a leather bound book. It was old, worn and thick. Very thick. The cover was cracked and the Murphey family’s crest was faded, barely visible where it was embossed against the dark leather.

  “You knew where it was the whole time? While I was up here digging around?” Marchland’s face scrunched with confusion. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  Bradley shoved half-burned candles and folded paper out of the way with a sweep of her bony arm, then dropped the book onto Granny’s makeshift table. “If I’d have told you I knew where the book was, there was no way I’d have gotten you all here.” She nodded toward me.

  I smirked. “So you just wanted for us to all be together? I knew you cared.”

  “Don’t get a big head over it. The house was pretty persistent about needing all three of us. Even you.”

  “Even me? Gee thanks.”

  Marchland opened the book and began to finger through the delicate pages. “Never mind that. It takes all of us to do the spell. Always use three.”

  Bradley disappeared to the back of the dusky room and reappeared with three bundles of dried herbs wrapped in white muslin. “Not really. I looked over everything last night. I think all that is needed is a good smudging.” She tossed the bundles onto the table and then pulled the book across and closer to her. She carefully turned the pages to the back of the giant tome. Over the course of its life fresh, blank pages had been added to the book. It was always rebound with the same cover. The most recent entries were in Granny’s slanty, scratchy cursive which wouldn’t have been legible to many, but we had grown up deciphering the handwriting. “I just thought it important for you—both of you—to see what the house is going through.

  “Granny took detailed notes on the house. Apparently this isn’t the first time it has gone ape-shit. She lists the herbs that worked best for re-centering the house’s soul: sage, of course, and oak moss, and sweetgrass. You know, her entry isn’t that old. She must have figured this would happen…” Bradley tossed her hands into the air as her words trailed off, and she turned away from us. Marchland gently grabbed our younger sister’s wrist and traced the intricate knot she had inked in cobalt blue into Bradley’s flesh soon after Granny’s passing. Marchland mumbled a series of words, barely audible, and Bradley’s shoulders rolled forward as she exhaled a deep sigh.


  Marchland’s ability to calm with ink and touch and words had always made my skin crawl. “Well,” I said, growing uncomfortable. “I guess that’s good news. I will get the salt.”

  We’d learned smudging back when I still had my baby teeth. While we’d been taught to have a healthy respect for magic—especially conjuring and casting—and the tragedy it could wreak, smudging was safe. Many cultures had varied forms of the practice, including our Celtic ancestors. The ceremony was engraved in who we were—a part of our identity, passed down from grandmothers and great grandmothers the same as our thin lips and red hair.

  I loved the ceremony. I loved the smell of the herbs, the humming of the salt. I loved the way power thrummed through me as I lit the candle and invoked divine light, pulling from my toes, curling them and standing the tiny, blond hairs of my arms on end. It wasn’t something I experienced often, but when I did, I felt connected. It reminded me that there was more to my history than a shitty upbringing.

  The house sighed and settled as we chanted and walked from room to room. The walls became their usual shade of turquoise and the rooms arranged themselves into the correct order, at least for the time being. It was night by the time we were finished and outside, I spread the smoke under the moonlight, the grass sticking to my bare feet as the vines slithered back to the fence and the walkway straitened itself. The camellias remained dried husks, but hopefully there would be something in the book to help them bounce back.

  The final room that we attended was the same place we’d began. The attic. When the incense reached the last corner of the house, it let out one last lingering sigh and groaned against the cypress beams that held it in place.

  “Thank goodness that was easy,” Marchland said, grabbing her purse from the attic table. She looked at Bradley. “Can I give you a ride back to your apartment?”

  My youngest sister shrugged. “I don’t need one. I am going to live here now. I think one of us should, don’t you?”