Gunn and I haven’t said a word since we left Parsonage. His sleek black car keeps popping as we cut through thick woods, and every jump and stall of its engine rattles me like gunfire. I’m riding with a man I presume to be a gangster, to a foreign city to prove that I’m one of the strongest sorcerers he’s ever seen, and I’ve got about two spells and one trick total to my name. I need to prove that I can brew sorcerer’s shine along with the best of them, and I’ve brewed shine exactly once. On the night of my mother’s death, no less. And by accident, since all I was really trying to do was banish my magic touch and bury it three feet underground. And there is no room for error; there is no option to fail. Ben and Ruby are counting on me.
It nearly killed me saying good-bye to Ruby back at the cabin. Telling her that Ben was going to watch over her, that I didn’t know where I was going, and that I wasn’t sure when I was coming back. Ruffling her wispy hair and leaning in close so I could take her smell with me, reminding her that she needed to believe she was strong enough to fight her “sickness” and get well. I picture her smell now, try and conjure it, wrap it around myself like a blanket. This is my charge, to make things right, I remind myself. I wouldn’t need to do this if I hadn’t gone and blown everything apart.
Around the signs for Richmond, Gunn breaks our silent standoff. “You learned your magic from Jed, I take it?” he says quietly.
I think about the best way to answer this and finally go with, “My mama showed me.” But Mama wanted no parts of me mixed up in magic. When I confided that I’d gotten the magic touch, told her I’d woken up one morning with a near-electric feeling pulsing through my veins, she reluctantly taught me a couple spells, only ones she felt necessary to survive in the world we were living in. Dark, powerful blood-spells she inherited from her family, ones that involve a sacrifice in the casting. Severing spells, like the ones she’d have to perform in secret on desperate farmers who came stumbling to our door late at night, where she’d sever a gangrenous toe off a foot to save the rest of the leg. Tracking spells, like the ones she’d cast on Ruby, where Ruby would ingest Mama’s blood so Mama could keep tabs on everywhere she went. And her caging spell, where you lock away a symbol of an evil and smear your blood over the lock in sacrifice, and ask the magic to imprison the evil forever—the same spell I somehow managed to use to banish my magic on the night that Mama died.
“Your mama was a sorcerer too?” Gunn interrupts my thoughts.
I nod. “Mama had a spells license from the government. She specialized in remedial magic—ran a spell room off our kitchen, sorcering legal antidotes and cures,” I say. “It did solid business before she died.”
Gunn nods, gives me the gift of not asking what happened to her. “What sorts of spells?”
“Kendrick family ones, like lavender and jasmine spells to ward off the common cold, or gingerroot spells for a mind’s health and clarity. Nothing out of the ordinary, I suppose, all stuff that falls under the Volstead Act concession for remedial magic.” I don’t mention the blood-spells to Gunn, since Mama warned me never to tell a soul about her family’s special magic, and I don’t think a gangster would qualify as an exception. In a time when sorcerers are public enemies, she always said, you don’t go showing the world a magic that would put the fear of God back in them.
“So you’re a spells expert?”
“I picked up a few things, but spells were never my strong suit.”
Gunn glances at me. “Then you must be a performer.” He says it like it’s a fact, not a question—though I suppose if I’m in his car, it should be a fact.
“That’s right.” I turn back to the window. I’m awful at lying, so I need to keep my answers short, and vague, at least till I figure out how the hell I’m going to earn a place in Washington. “Though truth be told, Mr. Gunn, I’ve never performed for a large audience. For as shined up as Jed always is, he’s still a prima donna when it comes to sharing his stage.” I stare at the dark trees on the side of the road, passing by in a streak of deep green, and add, “But sometimes I think it’s better not to show the world what you can do, at least all at once.”