The Once and Future Witches - Alix E. Harrow Page 0,108
of the light through the windows. She finds the bread and cheese but takes it outdoors to eat, resting her spine against the sun-warmed stone of the tower.
She thinks of Agnes, back at some loom, head bowed. Of Frankie and Victoria and Tennessee and all the others stuck in the workhouse, caged like crows. It doesn’t sit right, that Juniper should be here beneath the twisted boughs of Avalon, hurt but now healed, while the women of New Salem are left to cower and creep, undefended, with nothing but their wills to protect them . . .
So give them the words and ways. It’s like someone whispers it in Juniper’s ear, in a voice like rose-leaves rustling. Juniper wonders if the Deeps shook something loose in her skull, or if the tower is haunted, and then decides she doesn’t care because the ghost has a damn good point.
She wanted the Lost Way to be a miracle-cure, a waved wand that turned every woman into a witch. But if there isn’t any such thing as witch-blood—if none of them are born for greatness and all they have are moldering stacks of books and an overgrown tower just south of somewhere—perhaps they have to make the miracle themselves.
When Juniper comes clattering back up the stairs and announces her intention to slip back into New Salem and spread the good word of witchcraft among its women, like Johnny Appleseed if he had a bag of spells instead of seeds, Bella is not especially surprised. Juniper has always been the wild one.
Bella feels the spark of her spirit burning in the line between them, white-hot—the line which shouldn’t exist, which is the subject of several pages of Bella’s notes and queries and theoretical musings—and knows she will have to lock her sister in the top of the tower if she wants to stop her, and even that would merely delay her; Juniper isn’t the sort of maiden to wait around for rescue.
“This is a very bad idea.” Bella says it mostly out of the dim sense that she would like to have the opportunity to say I told you so after the dust settles. “The witches of Old Salem called back the Lost Way and started slinging spells and cursing enemies left and right, and look how that turned out.”
Juniper shrugs. “So I’ll be more careful than they were.”
“You don’t have a reputation for careful, June.”
“Why did we do all this, exactly? Why did we call back the Lost Way?” Juniper’s hands are on her hips, her head tilted, defiant. The skin around her neck has a raw shine to it and her voice is lower and smokier than it used to be, as if she keeps a hot coal in her mouth.
(At St. Hale’s they taught Bella that pain was the greatest teacher; how is it that Juniper never seems to learn?)
“To save you,” Bella answers. Beside her, Quinn adds something beneath her breath that sounds suspiciously like you ungrateful wretch.
A guilty blush rises in her cheeks, but Juniper’s hands remain on her hips. “Sure, yes. But I meant—why was I in the Deeps in the first place?”
“Murder?” Quinn suggests, and Bella lets out half a laugh before she catches it.
Juniper waves a harassed hand at the pair of them. “They threw me in the Deeps because we were stirring things up. We were reminding this city that we were witches, once, and might be again.” Her voice husks lower. “And it was working. People were listening. More than listening—how many names are written in your notebook? Nineteen arrests, you said. Should we hide away while our Sisters suffer for our sins? Are we such cowards?”
The word coward wraps tight around Bella’s throat, a blouse that no longer fits. She meets Quinn’s eyes. I beg you not to deceive yourself.
“No,” she says steadily, “I am not.”
Quinn exhales. “Well, that’s good. Seeing as I have already supplied the Daughters with at least half a dozen spells.”
Juniper cackles while Bella gapes. “You already—but—” She feels old and stuffy and librarianish—and a little betrayed.
Quinn sobers. “I didn’t tell anyone where I got them, or how to find us. I think my mother at least suspects the Lost Way is no longer lost, but you have no need to worry. We know all about secrets on the south side.”
“I . . . see. Well.” Bella draws a deep breath. “It’s hardly fair to favor our Daughters over our Sisters. Shall we even the score?”