House Of Ivy And Sorrow Part 12

"Yeah, uh, that is not even close to what we'll be doing."

I pull back to see him better. "Wait, you already have it planned?"

"Of course." Winn puts on his heart-melting smile. "Do you want a preview?"

The hairs on my neck p.r.i.c.kle. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know where this is going, especially when his face is so close to mine. "I like previews."

"Good." He leans in more, so close that I can feel his breath on my cheek. My heart pounds as I wait, and I hope kissing will be as awesome as people claim. At the last moment, Winn pulls back and holds up a piece of paper. "Because I'm really excited about this coupon-two for one at the diner!"

I grab the coupon and hit him with it, even though we're both laughing. "You jerk!"

"Hey!" He scoops me up so we're right against each other, and suddenly it's quiet again. "I just don't want you to feel pressured. Of course I want to kiss you, but that's not the only reason you're my girlfriend."

I suck in a breath. It's the first time he's said "girlfriend," and it feels incredible. "You know you said the G word, right? Are you sure?"

He nods, but the tiniest flicker of doubt shadows his eyes. "Unless you don't want to be."

"Winn." My cheeks hurt from smiling so much, but I can't seem to help it. "Of course I do! I've been dying to call you my boyfriend."

He's going to kiss me. I can feel it in the air, in the way he looks at me, in the way my heart beats at my rib cage. He leans in again, and as I begin to close my eyes there's a loud knocking on the window. We jump apart, and I whirl around, finding a disturbingly happy face. Maggie.

I let out an irritated sigh. "Guess that's my cue."

"Who's that?" Winn asks as I grab my bag.

"My cousin. Her school gets out a little earlier, and she's visiting for the summer." I open the door. "Maggie, this is Winn."

She swoons over him. "My, oh, my. You done good, Jojo. You done good."

Winn gives me this look like he's not sure if she's for real, and I cringe because she totally is. "See you tomorrow," I say.

"I'll call you later." He reluctantly lets go of my hand, and I force myself to get out and walk up the path with Maggie, who keeps looking back at him.

"He's the most beautiful boy I've ever seen," she says when we get inside.

I slide down the front door, wis.h.i.+ng I'd had a few more minutes with him. "I know."

Kat appears from the living room. "Are you done sucking face?"

"We didn'-"

That's when my dad decides to come down the stairs. We stand there, silent, and he stares at us. "Were you talking about me?"

"Nope," I say, and all three of us burst out laughing.

He raises an eyebrow, clearly unsure of how to deal with a gaggle of teen girls. "Okay . . . well, Dorothea put me in charge of dinner, so you're warned. I'll have something barely edible for you in about half an hour."

I pull myself up from the ground. "Sounds good. We're going up to the histories, since I can finally talk again. Whatever you do, don't come find us when the food is ready."

"Why?"

I look up at the stairs, which from this angle seem to lead to mystery. "Trust me: you don't want to know."

Kat and Maggie follow me to the iron, spiral staircase that leads to the tower's third story. The railing is cold on my hand and slightly rough. At each step, the air gets thicker; the heat seems to pool up here as if it's attracted to the concentration of magic. It tastes earthy and powerful on my tongue.

We stand in front of the door, which is gilded in spells. Gold-dust filigree-studded with bone carvings and preserved forget-me-nots-dedicate this place to the lives of the past and remind us that the information we've gathered must not be lost. In the center of the door hangs a heavy braid laced with s.h.i.+ny beads-a braid containing every Hemlock witch's hair since we began.

I remember the day Nana pulled me up the stairs to add my mother's. We were still in mourning, and I sobbed as I watched my grandmother lace sapphire beads onto my mother's black lock. She weaved it into the other strands, sealed it all with the purest olive oil, and then rebraided the whole thing, officially adding Mom to the long list of the dead.

I put my hand to a sapphire bead. I haven't been up here often since that day-only when Nana makes me try to open Mom's history or to write in my own. I should probably read the histories more, but I trust Nana to tell me what is necessary. Besides, no one could possibly get through them all.

"Kat, when we get inside, don't touch anything," I say.

"Seriously," Maggie whispers. "Nothing. It's too dangerous."

Kat nods, her gulp audible in the ancient silence.

I put my hand to the bra.s.s k.n.o.b, and the spell calls for me to undo it. I push the required magic into the metal.

Click.

TWENTY-ONE.

When the door creaks open, we're greeted by a surly boa constrictor. He coils around the nearest chair, eyeing us as if he's famished. His tongue flickers in and out, and then his eyes glow hot purple. Kat grabs my sleeve, and I laugh.

"Don't worry; it's an illusion." I pluck a few eyelashes and flick them at the image. It vanishes in a pink smoke, leaving a pleasant scent like peaches. "Of course, it would have killed you if you didn't know how to get rid of it."

"Ours is a giant boar that will gore you to death if you don't give it enchanted mushrooms," Maggie says.

I groan. "I hate that thing. It's creepy."

Maggie rolls her eyes. "It's a pig."

"I'm beginning to understand why you didn't take me up here when you were mute." Kat's hands are glued to her body, like any sudden movement will send a scythe at her head.

"So," Maggie says as she scans the rows of shelves, all filled with Hemlock tomes. They look intimidating even to me, hidden in the dim lighting. At least Great-Great-Grandmother Agatha took care to put them in order from oldest to newest. Having a timeline should help us find things more easily. "What exactly are we looking for?"

"Hmm, that's a good question." I shake my head, trying to clear it. I always forget how intense the magic is up here, history after history enchanted with its own spells. It's like being surrounded by thousands of math problems your brain is begging to answer, except if you get one wrong you could grow a huge wart on your face. Or get covered in frog slime. Or lose an ear. It depends on if the witch had a sense of humor or a dark side.

"What are those?" Kat nods at the three old desks, each with a heavy leather book on it.

"My history, my mother's, and Nana's," I say as I point to each desk. "I should probably get mine up to speed at some point. I think the last time I wrote in it was a year ago."

Maggie shakes her head. "Aunt Pru says it's our duty to keep a detailed account of our lives, what we learn about magic, and the changing world. She'd have my head if I neglected mine so much."

I walk to my mother's desk and read her name, neatly carved into the front. "Maybe she'd understand if Tessa were dead."

She bites her lip. "Sorry."

"It's fine." I'm too focused on my mom's history to be mad. Hers is the one we need-all the answers are probably right here between the pages. I reach my hand out. If I could open the cover . . .

A shock of electricity shoots through my arm before I even touch it. I recoil, mad at myself for not being able to come to terms with her death like I should.

"Maggie can't open it?" Kat asks. It's only then that I realize she's beside me.

I sigh. "No, only a Hemlock witch can-one who's prepared to read what's inside. After I open the books, anyone can touch them, though."

Maggie puts her hands on her hips, surprisingly serious for her. "So if we can't read Carmina's, what do we read? Where do we even start?"

"Well, we're looking for clues about these male magic users, how they came to be," I say. "So that means we need to read about the times our family has been hunted and Cursed, or anything else that seems out of the ordinary for witches in general."

Maggie nods. "Yeah, that narrows it down. A little."

"We should split up," Kat says. "Someone should start from the beginning, someone at the middle, and someone near the end."

"That could work, but . . ." I tap my foot. There has to be an efficient way to do this. I snap my fingers. "Okay, Kitty Kat, you start at the beginning, since you have a lot to learn anyway. Mags, you find the Salem incident-that's when things got pretty bad for all witches in America. Maybe something will stick out. And I'll start with Agatha, who built this house. If someone wants it, maybe she'll have clues about who."

They both nod.

"This way." I lead them down the narrow aisle between shelves. The histories take up the entire attic. The farther we go, the more tattered the books become. We try our best to care for them, but we can't stop time. At least I don't think so. If we could, I bet we'd have to do something terrible like sacrifice people. No thanks.

A few books hiss or wail as we walk by, which has Kat even more on edge. She squeaks when a ghost girl with no eyes comes oozing out of one. "What pretty eyes you have," the girl sings to Kat. "Give them to me, and I will show you my secrets."

"Jo . . ." Kat backs into Maggie, who shoves her right through the ghost to me.

"It's okay. Witches can make ghosts. Way easy defense because they have always freaked people out."

Maggie smiles wickedly. "Plus it's fun."

"That, too." I reach into my satchel for the common items I grabbed. Eyes. It's like every spell requires them.

The ghost reaches out to Kat, brus.h.i.+ng Kat's bangs away with a pale, translucent hand. "I've never had green ones before. Perhaps they have special powers. . . ."

"Here," I say, holding out two pig eyes in a plastic baggy. "I think these suit you better."

The ghost takes them happily, and then she's sucked back into the journal she came from. I take it from the shelf, since I had to go to the trouble of unlocking it anyway. Mary Hemlock, 1634a1698. "Hey, lucky us-she was alive during Salem!"

"Really?" Maggie looks at it. "Shoulda guessed, trying to freak us out with such theatrics."

"She was probably the head of the house at the time, since the trials were in 1692." I look at the book spines nearest Mary's. "Here's Emily Hemlock, who is probably her daughter . . . and Charlotte comes next, oh, and Teresa. Looks like Emily had a few daughters."

"So your family was fertile at one point." Maggie already has Mary's book open. She flips through the pages slowly, and I get the sense that she enjoys histories much more than I do.

"Shut up." Most witches struggle with infertility, having one child or two. Three is extremely lucky. Nana says that's how it is. She tried for a decade to have Mom, and apparently Mom was with Dad for a while before . . . Okay, stopping that image now. "Just because the Crafts are having a couple fruitful generations doesn't mean you're immune. It happens to all families at one point or another."

"Do you guys always talk this openly about fertility and pa.s.sing on bloodlines and other reproductive topics?" Kat asks.

I laugh. "Yeah, pretty much."

"It's really important," Maggie says. "My mom might make me wait until I'm old enough, but making babies is how we keep our magical lines going. How could we not talk about it or want it or look forward to it?"

Kat nods slowly, seeming to mull it over. "Fair enough."

After I open the Salem histories for Maggie, I head for the oldest books, which Kat will have a fun time reading. They are from twelfth-century England, and pretty crazy. "I'll dispel the first three for you. Call if you get through them all."

"Okay." She takes a deep breath. "They won't kill me after they're unlocked, right?"

"No." I smile at her worried face. "Actually, I thought it'd be worse. Seems like most of them have touch spells; so as long as you don't b.u.mp anything, you're good. And I'm right here if you get clumsy."

She nods. "You already saved my life once today."

"True." I look down at my hand, which has significantly improved thanks to Nana. I can still feel some pain, but it appears to be normal at least. "And I'll save it as many times as I have to."

"You're like a superhero."

"Yeah, if superheroes used the powers of darkness."

I pull out the very first history-Golde Hemlock, 1153a1201. Hers I have read, and it's fascinating how she was born with magic, though her mother didn't have it. That happened occasionally-still happens sometimes-when a mother-to-be gives birth in a place br.i.m.m.i.n.g with magic. The dark power takes the child for its own. Golde slowly discovered her powers, and then one day she found another witching family, the Sages, who took her in and taught her their ways.

The Sages were also afflicted with the Curse, even then. Nana told me that their family died out from it right before many witches left for the Americas to escape it. Sometimes I wonder if that's why it's also followed the Hemlocks so often, because Golde learned from the Sages.

The lock is simple to break: just a heat enchantment dispelled by blowing magic onto it. I hand it to Kat, and she carefully opens the leather cover. Inside, the parchment is yellow and slightly brittle. Then she tilts her head. "Uh, is this English?"

"Middle English." I pull out a piece of gla.s.s that's round like a monocle, but without the chain. "This is a translator. Look through and it'll make sense."

She takes it from me. Now I can tell she's excited, because she's already reading. "That is amazing."

"It only took about a hundred animal tongues to make, so don't break it."

She cringes. "Lovely."

I open the next two books for her, and then head back to the newer histories. Agatha's isn't very far from the reading area in the round tower portion of the attic, which is well equipped with plush chairs and silky pillows. What little light we get under the freeway streaks through the windows. I take her history off the shelf, surprisingly nervous to read it firsthand. Nana has told me the story many times, so I never bothered to look up the source. Immediately the book sticks to my fingers, like the best superglue in existence. Funny. You'd definitely know who took it.

I rummage in the satchel for a vial of enchanted slug mucus. As I pour it on my hand, I realize I should have brought antibacterial wash, too. Oh, well. I settle into a deep red recliner and crack open the book.

Agatha's journal is fairly boring early on. She lived in New York as a child, near the Crafts, which isn't too surprising. The Hemlocks had a good piece of magical land up there that we stayed on for hundreds of years. It gets interesting when Agatha gets older-she's restless and wants to travel, so she takes a long trip to Europe and visits some of the most magical sites in the world. That's when it gets bad.

August 31, 1890 Nice, France f.a.n.n.y wrote me today with distressing news-Mama has been Cursed. They don't know how, but she has been complaining of weakness, of not being able to hold magic like she used to. I feel as if it's my fault somehow, for leaving the house. But then why am I not the one Cursed?

It makes no sense, but I must return home. I will miss my travels. Being penned into that house scares me almost as much as the Curse, but it seems I'll be head of the house sooner than I ever wanted, now that Mama has been sentenced to such a harsh fate.