Fragile Magick (Descent Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  But Brynja was a genius at herbalism, so the somewhat cluttered appearance of the store didn’t put off her clientele. If anything, it added to the mystique. They kept coming back day after day, depleting her stock as if it were gold and taking her classes on the weekends as if she were the Messiah.

  I eyed the back wall — our expensive and rare herbs, safely behind the cash register. Stock was low, which explained the need for today’s Mystasis order.

  The back room was always ten degrees colder than the shop, so it wasn’t necessary to take off my khaki jacket, but I did remove the scarf and cap that had kept my ears warm from the late October chill. Two large boxes sat by the back door, a clipboard waiting on top.

  I dropped my gear on the desk and skirted the workshop table—nipping a box cutter as I did—to go kneel beside the boxes.

  I could pretend huff ’n puff at Brynja all I wanted, but the truth was, I enjoyed doing inventory and stock. I liked the practical aspects — weighing the herbs to ensure each sealed plastic bag had exactly sixteen ounces, ticking it off on our printed list, and making the tidy piles of each particular herb that I would then go dump in the giant glass jar where it lived.

  I passed two hours in total concentration, near meditation. The shop was busy, but on my third trip out — to dump four bags of heartsease powder into the jar cleverly decorated with two entwined hearts and the word ease — I saw that my cousin, Jerick, had showed up for his shift at eleven. On time, of course, proving that my family could be punctual.

  I waved at him with the empty bags in my hands, but his answering wave was hurried as he strode towards a waiting customer.

  By the time lunch rolled around, my dress sported tiny flecks of ashwaganda root, dried golden seal, uva ursi, and horny goat’s weed. I broke down the boxes, dusted off my hands, and grabbed the broom to clean up the dust and detritus.

  As I swept, I wondered if my mother had enjoyed these simple tasks as much as I did. She and Brynja opened Nature’s Magick together three months before she found out she was pregnant with me. For a year, they’d run the store side by side, much the same as Brynja and me now. Of course, my mother’s death had come too soon. Brynja became the sole owner, and carried the grief with her every day.

  I kept waiting for some grand gesture: for her to offer me a partnership in memory of my mother or something. Instead, she nitpicked me and chastised me and made me feel like the most immature, incompetent kid she’d ever known.

  Her actions probably weren’t malicious, but they definitely made me thankful for my Dad.

  * * *

  JERICK OFFERED ME A BEAR hug as I emerged like a once-cocooned butterfly from the back room.

  “Gitta! I missed you terribly.” He smacked a loud, wet kiss to my hair line. Common to all the Holtzer men, Jerick towered like a Titan in skinny jeans. His black braid trailed down the front of his purple plaid vest and his dark eyes were lined in black eyeliner. “Happy birthday, baby doll. You missed the most disastrous woman. The pants she was wearing… ugh.”

  Brynja rolled her eyes behind his back, but did so smiling. She’d offered my cousin the job out of deference to Mikhail last year. Jerick graduated college and needed “focus,” Dad said, or else he’d turn into a drifter and we’d lose him forever. His mother, my dad’s sister, wasn’t a bad parent; she just wasn’t very good at it.

  I didn’t agree with Dad’s logic because wild horses couldn’t have dragged Jerick away from his precious NYC, but I loved working with him. His ostentatious personality was a hit with our clientele, and he was the biggest “people person” I’d ever known.

  He was also an incredible healer. I called that into play with my next question.

  “Would you mind coming over tonight?” I asked him, reaching for the deli menu. “Dad’s not feeling so hot. Maybe you could make him a potion and run a healing spell?”

  “Sure thing, baby. What time you want me there? Ooh, are we having McClaskey’s for lunch?” He snatched the menu from my hand.

  “Six. We’re going to order Asian fusion for my birthday dinner, so bring an appetite.”

  “I need me an Asian fusion man, honey. You think they have those on the menu?” He winked at me over the deli menu and returned to his perusal. “Oh! Sprouts and greens on ciabatta. Yes, please.”

  If it weren’t for the fact we witches didn’t do drugs — because they compromised our powers — I would have guessed he was on speed every time I saw him. His brain moved fast, like a fly buzzing around a glass cage, looking for a way out. Jerick was Icarus on a one-way adventure to the sun.

  “I’ll go get lunch,” Brynja offered, her ass-length blonde hair hiding her face as she bent to retrieve her purse from beneath the counter. “I need a break from words.”

  “She acts like I talk too much.” Jerick made a face.

  “You do,” I responded sweetly. He rewarded me with a slap to the bicep. Considering I still wore my heavy khaki coat, I barely felt it.

  I wrapped my scarf around my neck. “Think you can handle this while I run for coffee?”

  Jerick looked at me, lips pursed over his smile. “Coffee, huh? Doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Chocolate Caramel is working?”

  I groaned as I tucked the ends of my scarf inside my coat. “For the love of Hades, please stop calling him that. It isn’t politically correct.”

  Jerick charged forward as if I hadn’t spoken. “Do you think his lollipop tastes like chocolate? Or caramel? Oh, I bet it’s salted caramel.” He smacked his lips.

  “I really, truly loathe you,” I told my cousin, trying hard not to laugh.

  A brisk wind met me at the door and followed me across the street. I narrowly escaped a vehicular collision — a daily threat in the city, as attested to by my mother’s untimely death — and bemoaned my choice of sandals as my toes turned to ice. It was probably time to give up the ghost on summer-wear.

  The glass door to the coffeehouse slid open with a mechanical swish, and a rush of coffee-scented warm air embraced me. The familiar bustle nodded to me like an old friend: milk screaming in steam pitchers behind the counter, customers chatting, slurping, and clacking away on laptops and tablets, and Drake at the cash register.

  He grinned, leaning on his elbows. The amber glow of the lamp above us did turn his skin to chocolate caramel, though I’d never admit it to Jerick. His honey-colored eyes weren’t too far behind, either.

  “What’s up, Gitta?” Drake offered his palm for a high five. “Isn’t it your birthday or something?”

  “Or something,” I joked, my palm tingling from the gentle slap. I tugged my wallet out of my coat — he already had my drink rang up the moment I walked in the door. It was that kind of place.

  He waved me away. “My treat today.”

  “You don’t have to do that-”

  “It’s not free. I have a condition.”

  “That makes it less of a gift and more of a bribe.”

  His grin always seemed so wide, so white. “Let me take you out for your birthday.”

  I flushed from roots to toes. We’d had a fun, flirty relationship for a year now, ever since he’d sidled into the coffeehouse for the first time in his black jeans and tight black t-shirt. But I was shy, he was hot, and I just kind of assumed he was unavailable.

  Flummoxed, I stammered, “I have plans with my dad.”

  Oh, yeah. So lame. Might as well pull out the picture albums and scrawl “Daddy’s Girl” across my face.

  “Not tonight. I mean, I’d love to take you out tonight, but I thought you probably had plans. I mean, Saturday. Dinner.”

  My stomach flip-flopped, but I couldn’t recognize nerves from indigestion. Did I want to go on a date with him?

  Fuck yes, you do, my inner diva barked. She had an oddly Hermod-accented voice, and the libido of a hussy. It was also easier to pretend she wasn’t me.

  Life with a human could never work. Not in the long-run — on the off-chance we would make a love match, Drake w
ould grow old and gray three times faster than I would. Love with a human was doomed from day one.

  Love isn’t sex, sure. Sex with humans came with no messy consequences. But I genuinely liked Drake, not just his obviously rock-hard abs, solid biceps, and probably-tastes-like-salted-caramel lollipop.

  Dammit, Jerick.

  “Sure. Yeah. That’d be great,” I finally said when his smile began to falter. I told myself I was just trying to play it off and not seem too needy.

  Not that I genuinely had misgivings over a date with the hot barista.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I fought with myself over telling Jerick about my date.

  I generally told Jerick everything. Probably too much considering what a loose-lipped ho he could be when his needs suited. So, withholding such a juicy tidbit as my upcoming date with the salted caramel lollipop felt like a gross injustice.

  An injustice proven true when Jerick set out to retrieve his afternoon coffee and heard the secret straight from the lollipop’s mouth.

  Jerick hustled to the register and smacked his cup to the counter. Pale, sweet coffee sloshed out of the lid and puddled on the wood. “I cannot believe you didn’t tell me the minute you walked back into this store!”

  No need for him to clarify. I reached for the paper towels beneath the counter and set about cleaning up his sticky mess. “It’s just dinner.” I dabbed at the spill and glanced at the customers near the front of the shop. I lowered my voice. “Plus, he’s human. It’s not like we’re going to get married.”

  “You never know. Look at my mom.”

  “Your mom is watching her husband die,” I reminded him.

  “Better than fighting with my dad all the time.” He slurped his coffee thoughtfully, ignoring the fact I’d just cleaned up his mess. “When is your date?”

  “Stop calling it a date. That word feels weird. We’re having dinner Saturday.”

  “It’s dinner and it’s on Saturday. That’s a date, baby girl.” Jerick hauled a new box of plastic sales bags onto the counter and reached for a box cutter. “It feels ominous to start a new relationship the day after Samhain. Don’t you think?”

  “It’s a waxing moon. It’s the perfect time to build a relationship. But that’s not what it is.” I swiped the box cutter from his clumsy hands and slammed the end to the counter, exposing the sharp blade. Every time I handled the damn thing, I thought how easy it would be to kill a person with it. Or yourself. A couple little slices, and goodbye mortality.

  Witches were a bit harder to kill than that.

  “But it’s the dark of the year,” Jerick argued, accepting the razor without comment. He sliced through the packing tape.

  “It’s been the dark of the year since June. Are you telling me we shouldn’t embark upon any new endeavors for six months of the year?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Jerick, I don’t believe the way you believe. The Wheel of the Year is a beautiful metaphor to explain the waxing and waning of seasons, but it isn’t real. We can’t not do things just because a fairy tale says so.”

  Jerick turned his winning smile onto an approaching customer, and our conversation halted for the time being.

  I always got mad at myself for talking religion with Jerick. I didn’t disregard any religion — on the contrary, if religion gave someone something to live for, then I was all for it.

  Maybe I was sick of the fading line between witches and Wiccans. It wasn’t Jerick’s fault he’d been raised by a Wiccan High Priest who managed to nab himself my father’s sister — a real witch who could set a couch on fire with the snap of her fingers.

  I piled the plastic bags in their designated drawers around the room while Jerick scooped an ungodly amount of sage out for a woman in overalls.

  He concluded the sale, and the moment the door slammed shut behind her, he whirled on me. “All mythology has its roots in truth.”

  “Mythology, Jer. Mythology has roots in the truth. The Wheel of the Year isn’t mythology. It’s a story that was written last century by a bunch of crunchy hippies to give flare to the waxing and waning of seasons. Mythology is…” I searched my memory for a good example. With the “waxing and waning of the seasons” on my mind, I spoke the first that popped into my head. “Persephone.”

  “Persephone?”

  I nodded. “Hades fell in love with her. She was Kore, goddess of spring — as much life as she was destruction. But Demeter, her mother, would never have agreed to a marriage between Persephone and Hades. So Hades abducted her.”

  “Hello, shades of rape.” Jerick made a face.

  I ignored him. “Demeter threatened to destroy the world if Persephone wasn’t returned. It was the sun god, Helius, who finally told her what happened. He tried to convince her Hades would be a good mate — he was Zeus’s brother, after all. But Demeter shunned Olympus and roamed the earth for a full year, refusing all plants and crops to grow. The famine affected everything worldwide, and Zeus eventually came to the conclusion that he had to stop it. He demanded Persephone be returned before everything died. Hades tricked Persephone into eating a pomegranate seed before she left. An underworld rule stated if a person tasted of Hades’ fruits, they had to remain in the underworld.”

  “Sounds like dear old Hades played dirty. In more ways than one.” Jerick cackled.

  I rolled my eyes. “So Demeter had to work out a deal with Hades. Six months of the year, Persephone would remain above ground with her, where the sun shone warm and everything burst with life. But the other six months of the year, she would descend to stay with Hades, while the earth died and the light faded until she returned.”

  “Girl, what does this have to do with anything?”

  “They say mythology is based on truth because all mythology teaches a lesson,” I said patiently. “A real lesson told by metaphor that withstands time. The Wheel of the Year is just a pretty story.”

  “Persephone’s descent sounds like a pretty story, too.” Jerick grinned.

  I stared at him. “I guess you have a point.”

  “Girl, sometimes,” Jerick leaned close and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, “you just gotta believe.”

  * * *

  NEAR THE END OF MY shift, I perched on a stool reading a new arrival: Herbalism Done Right, by a good friend of Brynja’s. Jerick swept the floors, humming a tune under his breath, while Brynja stood at the wall opposite, clipboard in hand as she took note of what herbs were getting low. Inventory never died at Nature’s Magick.

  The bell over the door dinged to indicate we had a customer.

  I looked up, pasting on my “Welcome!” smile. I didn’t have a chance to open my mouth. Brynja held up a hand, her gaze on the man who stood inside the door.

  I hesitated, frozen by the unreadable look on her face as she gazed at the newcomer.

  The man loomed in the doorway, sunlight from outside haloing his monstrous shoulders and abnormally thin hips. He lumbered forward, arms swinging, a paisley scarf draped around his black jacket. “Brynja. I require a word.”

  His formal tone held a note of something exotic: northern European, maybe Norwegian. His coloring would indicate my guess to be true, with his pale blond hair and paler skin. I realized as I noted these things how similar he looked to Brynja.

  She glanced at me and Jerick, who had paused his sweeping to stare, mouth slightly agape. Brynja clucked, turned on her heel, and stalked toward the back room, clutching her clipboard so tightly I could see the whites of her bones.

  The stranger nodded at us he passed. His ponytail hung all the way to his waist. Before the door slid shut behind him, I heard Brynja hiss, “You have exactly one minute to tell me what the hell you’re doing in this country.”

  The door shut, cutting off any further eavesdropping.

  “What was that?” I whispered, stunned.

  “Did you see how long his hair was?” Jerick spoke up at the same time. “He has to be a witch. No man in his right mind
would let his hair get so long.”

  It was widely believed in the magickal world that cutting one’s hair reduced one’s power. The shorter your hair, the lesser your powers. So, it wasn’t uncommon for us to keep our hair long. Brynja’s braids hung all the way to her hip bones, and my wild curls, when straightened, went well past my belly button. Even Jerick, fashion diva himself, kept his single black braid long and often woven with feathers as a nod to the Native side of the Holzer family.

  My mother’s Scottish blood was too alive in my veins for the Native to peek through.

  “Who do you think he is?” Jerick asked, glancing at the door to the back room.

  I put a finger to my lips and tiptoed to the door. Jerick trailed behind me, still clutching the broom.

  I put an ear to the door. Sound was muffled, but it was there. I traced a gentle sigil on the wooden surface with the very tip of my finger — three half circles, nested together. Sound.

  As if I’d turned on a radio, the conversation beyond turned up.

  “ — they’re going to vote him in, Brynja. I can’t stand for this. I’ve worked too hard.”

  “You’re a fool for coming here. He’ll kill you.”

  “Not if I kill him first.”

  Jerick and I looked at each other, baffled by the dark turn.

  Brynja’s tone turned cool. “I can’t let you do that.”

  Footsteps, and a moan — Brynja’s moan, but not the kind of sound I’d ever heard from her.

  Jerick’s jaw dropped open, and then he grinned, waggling his eyebrows at me. My cousin could carry an entire conversation with his face.

  “You’ll let me do whatever it is I want to do,” the man continued gruffly. “Gods, I’ve missed you. What are you still doing in this godforsaken country?”