Chapter Two

The future is alluded to.

Louise stood outside the studio booth door, hands tucked into her armpits in an attempt to keep them still. She felt the exact moment Aahana noticed her presence, the frisson of their empathic connection sparking dully. Louise was hyper aware of other people watching her, contemplating her, and of their emotions. That, the therapist said (her therapist, a voice in her mind supplied), was a magical manifestation of her anxiety; a type of empathic sense that doesn’t quite extend to, say, mind reading. Louise hyper-awareness was like hyper-vigilance, Dr. Langdon had said, and was a symptom of some kind of anxiety disorder. Which was great. Just fine. Not worrying at all.

 

Aahana glanced up briefly from underneath her blunt, black fringe, and nodded subtly to Louise through the room’s window.

 

“This last song is dedicated to Louise Cotton, our much loved Breakfast Show host, who I have had the great privilege of filling in for today. This is “Sign In The Window” by Article Overgrown. Remember, water your plants, be kind to children, take your meds, and try not to accidentally cause a rift in time and space that disrupts an entire afternoon of Potions exams in the Kikimora building. Yes, you. You know who you are. Have a good day, guys. Stay tuned if you’re at all interested in white noise and existential crises. I’m Aahana Gupta, and goodbye.”

 

Aahana switched the mic off and the opening strains of “Sign In The Window” filtered through the tinny speakers in the corridor. Louise rolled her eyes. Article Overgrown was a band that had originated in Louise’s hometown of Wellhedge. The lead singer was a complete prat. Aahana knew how good his band was really grated on Louise’s nerves. That wasn’t even the half of it.

 

When Aahana opened the door to the studio, Louise just leant forward and slumped onto her friend’s shoulder. With her hands still tucked into her armpits, she relaxed all her weight onto Aahana, who obliged by rubbing small circles into Louise’s back.

 

“I’m messed up, apparently,” Louise mumbled into Aahana’s shoulder.

 

“That’s fine,” Aahana shrugged and lifted Louise up by her biceps. She looked Louise in the eye carefully and said, “We can get drunk about it tonight if you want?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Aahana quickly grabbed her bag and then she and Louise left through the back door of the studio’s building. It wasn’t really the studio’s building, to be fair. It was mostly a collection of soundproof, kitted out rooms within a larger complex of sound development studios.

 

Aahana lit a cigarette in the alleyway off the tip of her finger, and obliged Louise when she leant in as well. The two smoked in silence for about thirty seconds.

 

“She wants me to take up knitting,” Louise said, darkly. Aahana snorted and Louise elbowed her softly. “It’s not funny.”

 

“I’m trying to imagine you knitting,” she replied. “Have you imagined it? It’s pretty funny. I picture you,” Aahana then waved a hand in front of her face in an imitation of a Seer, “getting so frustrated with knit purl knit purl that you actually commit arson.”

 

“First of all,” Louise began haughtily, “out of the two of us, you are way more likely to be an arsonist. Obviously. Second of all, I could so knit. I could be great at knitting. You don’t know.”

 

“You couldn’t even sew a button back on without stabbing yourself in the hand, like, eight times.”

 

Louise took a deep drag of her cigarette and shrugged. Aahana was right about that. She’d eventually resorted to some really shoddy seamstress spell that she had to repeat every few months when the button inevitably came off again. Still, it was better than nothing.

 

“And apparently, in order to deal with my homesickness, I need to join a coven,” Louise continued. “According to Dr. Langdon, because I come from a large family, I’m predisposed to needing larger groups of people around me.”

 

“Are you sure this woman wasn’t just paid off by your mum to convince you to be domestic and go back home?” Aahana asked, her eyes sparkling with amusement, without being unkind.

 

Louise shrugged again, “Maybe. I dunno. Covens are so old school and antiquated. I don’t know if I wanna be a part of that kind of scene.”

 

Aahana took a final drag and then burned the rest of the cigarette up in her palm so that it was just ash, tipped it onto the ground, and wiped her hands on her dark wash jeans.

 

“You could stand to have more friends,” Aahana suggested mildly. “Not that I don’t love you, but me and the rest of the radio people are hardly a welcoming bunch. I love you with all my heart, but I wonder if you get lonely sometimes.”

 

Louise turned and scanned her friend’s face with a small frown. Aahana wasn’t meeting her eye, instead looking off to the wall on the other side of the alley, where some graffiti was scribbled. Her profile was all fringe, long dark lashes, a sloping nose, and big pillowy lips, which were pursed, as if she was awaiting a negative reaction.

 

“Maybe a little,” Louise admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate you, or love you, or whatever.”

 

“Or whatever,” Aahana nodded, turned to Louise, and grinned a little. “Step one is, we’ll go out tonight with a big group of witches, get absolutely smashed, get you laid, and you can take up knitting tomorrow.”

 

“I can’t be out too late,” Louise reminded her. “I have to be up early for work.”

 

“So do I,” Aahana countered.

 

“Yeah, but you’ll be back at the soundboard, and I’ll have to talk like I haven’t spend an evening swallowing fire.”

 

“Among other things,” Aahana said, wiggling her eyebrows, even though they weren’t really visible under her hair.

 

Louise giggled, flicked her cigarette to the ground, and shoved Aahana’s shoulder.

 

“C’mon, let’s go nap forever.”

 

“But we’re going out tonight, right?” Aahana confirmed as they wandered to the nearest bus stop. “We’re gonna have an actual life, yeah?”

 

“I don’t want a life. I just want to sleep,” Louise groaned. When Aahana pouted, Louise sighed. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get hexed beyond belief,” Louise said, obligingly. “You hungry? I got this weird granola bar thing for free this morning we can split. I don’t want to eat it alone in case I die.”

 

 

Scout followed Diana home, which wasn’t following so much as sitting on Diana’s handlebars as they sped through downtown Estersage towards the woods just off the university’s campus.

 

Estersage was a university town, consisting of mainly of the campus, the downtown shopping area, and various residencies. There was a small population of non-students, but those were mostly covens that had existed in Estersage since the university’s construction about five hundred years prior. Mrs. James, the woman who owned the bakery Diana and Scout worked at, was one of those old-blood witches. Most of the non-student neighbourhoods were uptown, by the river, whereas most students lived downtown by the woods. Diana was one of those students.

 

She didn’t live by the woods, though. She lived in the woods, which Scout always found hilarious.

 

As Diana peddled up the dirt road that led to the cottage, she was only half listening to what Scout was saying about some singer they were going to marry. Her mind was instead occupied with all the work she still had to do that day, which wouldn’t give her any time to properly hang out with her familiar, Bonnie, or spend time in the garden trying out her new brews for succulent genetic manipulation.

 

“He’s going to be in the city in a few weeks for a concert,” Scout said, and Diana’s attention shifted back.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yeah, we need to go. We haven’t gone out anywhere that wasn’t here or the bakery in a million years,” Scout pouted. They pulled up at the front of the cottage, and Scout hopped off the handlebars gracefully. Diana swung one long leg over the side of her bicycle and quickly rotated her ankles around. The pedals were enchanted to make it take no effort to peddle up hill, or with Scout’s extra weight, but Diana still felt the remnants of it in her bones for a few hours after each ride.

 

“Yeah, sure,” Diana said agreeably, convinced that by the time the concert rolled around, Scout would be over this singer guy and back to mooning over some pretty person in one of their Literature classes.

 

“These rosettes are looking good,” Scout said, crouching down to touch the succulents that were potted outside the front door.

 

“Thanks,” Diana grinned. The cottage had belonged to her aunt Rosemary, who had no children of her own. When she passed away, the old place had been given to Diana in her will, and it had been the final piece in the puzzle of her parents allowing her to move to Estersage in the first place.

 

Diana came from Woodwell, which was about three hours south by broom, and longer by anything else. Woodwell, like Estersage, had old blood covens. The Burghleys, Diana’s family, were a part of one of the oldest covens in England. They were not pleased with Rosemary moving to Estersage, and they were even less pleased with Diana taking over the property.

 

Contrary to Scout’s playful jabs, Diana never intended to inherit anything from Rosemary. She’d hardly known the woman. In fact, Diana had been completely ignorant to her aunt’s existence until she fell ill, and her dad finally admitted that they should maybe go visit his older sister. She was estranged from the family for leaving Woodwell, becoming a bit of a hermit, and most of all, for being non-magic. Back then, it was called being a sansmain. Without-hand. Not being able to cast was like missing a limb.

 

It wasn’t that non-magic people were entirely shunned, nowadays. It was just an old blood thing. A stupid prejudice. Magic, even though it felt innate to her everyday life, didn’t mean everything, Diana thought. Rosemary, in her final days, had taught Diana all the various non-magic uses for the native plants that grew around the cottage. Those days played a huge part in Diana’s pursuit of Botanical Magic, and Rosemary hadn’t even needed a Spark to utilize the world around her.

 

Like a man who’s been blind his whole life, Rosemary never felt the lack of magic everybody expected her to �" never understood what it was like to see, and so never missed it. This was difficult for her brother, Diana’s father, to understand, as was Diana’s desire to move to Estersage, and take over the cottage. They let her, of course. They helped her pack and everything.

 

Despite being old fashioned, her parents really did want her to be happy. It wasn’t what they wanted, but they understood. Or at least they said they did.

 

“Do you have anything for a love potion?” Scout asked, as Diana opened the front door and let them in.

 

“You know I don’t do that stuff,” Diana laughed. “Bonnie! I’m home!”

 

“I know you don’t,” Scout replied, sly, “I asked if you had ingredients. I could make my own love potion. I got a B in Potions in high school.”

 

Diana sighed, and took her hair out of its long ponytail, nudging off her boots with her toes. Bonnie, the enormous Maine Coon cat, came running in from the living room to rub herself on Diana’s legs.

 

“I’m not giving you ingredients for anything,” Diana said. “But I can give you pasta? And maybe some stuff for your sunburn.”

 

Scout gasped, mock-offended, and pressed a hand lightly to their burned chest.

 

“Excuse me, we can’t all be bronze goddesses,” Scout huffed, crouched down and picked up Bonnie, who was enormous and hairy in their arms. The cat mewed, and Scout mewed back. When Bonnie replied in turn, Scout grinned.

 

“She loves me.”

 

“She hates you,” Diana corrected. “Put her down.”

 

 

While Diana sat and read over notes, with Bonnie a heaping, purring, furry mass between her crossed legs, Scout sat on the floor, arranging their crystals in a pentacle.

 

Amethyst, naturally. Scout whispered to the crystal, “Praesagitio,” and then placed it carefully in the centre of the symbol.

 

The five corners were made up of apophylite, for truth; rose quartz, for love; a rare piece of Shiva lingam from India, for male and female sexuality (which made Scout laugh a little bit, privately); schrol, to remove tension and block negativity; and some dark red cuprite to connect and balance the heart and root magics. The amethyst was Scout’s favourite stone. It was big and jagged and a kind of dusky, cloudy purple that came from being pulled raw. It was also the key to focusing their divination abilities, and they’d had it since they were a kid.

 

Scout sat cross-legged in front of the pentacle and hummed, “Praesagitio, futurus, posturus, ardor, praesagitio, futurus, posturus, ardor…”

 

They could feel the premonition humming in the room. Bonnie felt it too, mewled unhappily, and got up to run to the garden. Diana, unfazed, turned the page of her notes and sat back on the sofa. Then, Scout inhaled sharply, opened their eyes, and spread their fingers wide, hovering over the pentacle.

 

The amethyst glowed. Diana turned a page of her notes.

 

Scout’s eyes, which were glowing a bright, blind white, flickered around the room for a moment, before they dulled and flickered shut. With one deep inhale, and a long, slow exhale, Scout opened their eyes again, hummed noncommittally, and started collecting up the stones.

 

“Anything interesting about your beau?” Diana asked from the sofa.

 

“Nah, nothing new,” Scout shrugged, placing their stones into each specific silk pouch. “Some interesting stuff about you, though.”

 

Diana looked up, her thick eyebrows knitted together and her mouth turned down in a pout.

 

“Me?” she asked. “You know I don’t like hearing the future.”

 

“I’m not telling you the future,” Scout huffed, and stood up. “I’m telling you I saw something interesting. And there were some other people I didn’t know. And the singer was there! Fisher Vincent Finn,” Scout sighed, dreamily. “But only, like, tangentially.”

 

Diana snorted. “His name is Fisher?”

 

“I like it,” Scout smiled. “Reminds me of the legend with Percival.”

 

“Wasn’t he, like, an impotent weirdo? He couldn’t even do magic,” Diana said, but then felt immediately bad about it. Even if the guy was fictional, not being able to do magic was a serious thing.

 

“That’s only one version,” Scout corrected her. “Sometimes there’s the Wounded King and the Fisher King. The Fisher King is his son, or grandson. And he gets healed with magic anyway, so…”

 

“Then they find the Holy Grail, yeah, I know,” Diana grinned a little. “What’s that band called again?”

 

“Article Overgrown,” Scout replied. “Much like… well, everything about you.”

 

“Hey,” Diana said, stretching the word out, and pretending to be offended.

 

Scout fiddled around with their various pouches, tightening the ropes and placing each one carefully inside their larger velvet bag, before zipping that velvet bag into their backpack.

 

“I’ll play you one of their songs,” Scout suggested, moving over to the old speaker system that Diana had plugged into her laptop. “They’re actually good, you know.”

 

“You and your indie noise,” Diana shook her head, eyes scanning the chapter on division magnoliophyta and trying to concentrate.

 

Scout clicked around for a minute before the strains of a vaguely familiar song started filtering through. There was some rough guitar, a slow beat in the back, and then some deep, raspy voice singing, “Take a look, the valley’s deep, the glass pane shimmers in your sleep, the sign in the window kept you up all night, but baby it’s playing for keeps…”

 

“Wasn’t this on the radio in the kitchen today?” Diana asked, offhand. Scout shrugged.

 

“Maybe? You insist we listen to that NPR s**t so I barely pay attention.”

 

“I listen to the uni radio because they make announcements,” Diana corrected. Which was a lie. Really it was because Estersage University Radio was the only wavelength she could access here in the cottage, and rather than go for new stations when in town, Diana preferred to stick to what she knew.

 

The song continued, filled the room and bounced off the red brick walls. The cool stone that made up the cottage’s structure and foundations kept the place nice and insulated in the warmer months, but during winter got almost unbearably cold. Diana had to cast two warming spells a day just to make sure the more sensitive potted flowers wouldn’t die.

 

Diana observed Scout as they mouthed along happily to the lyrics. Their hair was a blunt crop of auburn, reaching mid-neck, parted deep to the side, and exposed dark brown roots that needed to be tinted. Scout’s skin, fair and almost milky, burned bright red on their exposed sternum where the neck of their tshirt dipped, and also a little bit on the bridge of their nose.

 

When the chorus hit, Scout turned to face Diana and sang along in earnest, “The sign in the window’s calling you, calling you! We’re open for business, where are you, where are you!”

 

Diana waved her hands in an attempt to quiet Scout, and her backing track. “Okay, okay, we can go see them,” Diana conceded, turning back to her notes. “I have an exam next week, but I’m free after that.”

 

“I’m gonna go home and nap,” Scout suggested, as if to the air. “Been up baking since four! Not a good place to be.”

 

“Nap? Why don’t you just go to sleep for real?” Diana asked, looking briefly at the old clock on the wall that said it was nearly 5pm. It would be nearly six by the time Scout got home, and they’d have to be up at three to get to the bakery anyway.

 

“Uh-uh, honey,” Scout shook their head, swinging their backpack on and slumping down on the sofa beside Diana to lace up their shoes. “I’m going clubbing tonight with the boys.”

 

“Ah,” Diana nodded. “Just don’t stumble in to the kitchen at four in the morning and try to drunk-bake.”

 

“Mrs. James doesn’t care, like,” Scout shrugged. “She knows I come up with the best muffin ideas when I’m off my head anyway.”

 

It was true. Last time, still high on whatever they’d smoked, or drunk on whatever they’d guzzled, Scout had baked about twenty-five different spicy vegetable muffins. It sounded ridiculous at the time, but they were actually delicious. Still, the oven door got broken and the entire kitchen was a disgusting mess of coconut flour, diced red pepper, and spilled egg whites. Diana had shown up for her shift at around six-thirty and spent a while trying to coordinate various enchanted cleaning utensils so they could work efficiently while she opened shop. Scout drunk-baking was not ideal.

 

Diana perked up, remembering something, and quickly trotted to the nearby cupboard.

 

“I almost forgot! I made you some of that herbal shot sober remedy, since last time,” Diana called back to the sofa. “Now’s a good a time as any to experiment.”

 

She pulled out a small vial of thick, green gel. With the pen pulled from behind her ear, she quickly scribbled SOBEROUS: ONE (1) TSP UNDER TONGUE. Scout made grabbyhands at the vial and Diana dutifully tossed it to them.

 

“Brilliant! Does it work?”

 

“Should,” Diana shrugged. “You’re my guinea pig. You know I don’t really drink, so…”

 

“You should come out tonight. It’s just me and Jimmy and Cole and Mazza and--”

 

“I’ll pass,” Diana interrupted them with a hand in the air, like a stop sign. “Not that I don’t like your mates, but…” she trailed off, and Scout shrugged.

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Scout smiled. “But, uh, if you feel like getting out of the house tomorrow between classes, here.”

 

Scout unzipped their backpack again and found a flier, waving it out in front of Diana like a temptation. Diana took it, and scanned the page.

 

“A knitting circle?” she asked, incredulously.

 

“It could be fun!” Scout suggested, hopping up, and checking their wristwatch. “You like knitting and all that crafty nonsense, it’ll get you out of the books and out of your house n’ stuff. Meet some new old ladies with huge amounts of money in their wills. That kind of thing.”

 

Diana folded the paper in half. “I’ll think about it.”

 

“Nuh-uh, no thinking, you’re going,” Scout corrected, nudging Diana’s arms open into a goodbye hug. “I need a scarf for winter. This early autumn sun won’t be lasting forever.”

 

“Alright, alright, I’ll go,” Diana mumbled into Scout’s hair, embracing them tight.

 

“On that note, off to nap-land. You still got my old broom here? Don’t feel like hoofing it,” Scout asked, glancing around.

 

“By the coat rack, I think,” Diana waved towards the door.

 

Scout left with their broom, leaving behind the flier, the soft hum of magic still in the air, and a joyous laugh from outside, where they took a running start as their old broom unsteadily lifted into the air and out of sight.