Born Wicked

I laugh and muss Tess’s hair. “We all know that’s you.”

“I’m serious. Maura’s started adopting the way Elena talks, and all her little mannerisms. She’s desperate to impress her. But I suppose it makes sense. I’m Father’s favorite. You were Mother’s.” Tess says it matter-of-factly. “She wants someone all her own.”

I’ve never once thought of it like that. “How did you get to be so clever?”

Tess giggles, falling back next to me. “It’s not clever. It’s just paying attention to people.”

Whatever it is, I wish I had her talent for it.

“Time for lessons,” I declare, sitting up.

“Wait.” Tess sits up, too, her hair tickling my arm. “Where did you learn new spells? Mrs. O’Hare said you went to the bookshop—did you find something about magic there?”

The story of the prophecy can wait. “No. I learned them from Sachi Ishida.”

“Sachi Ishida is a witch?” Tess whisper-shouts.

I laugh and tell her how Sachi and Rory ambushed me over tea. Then I gather my energy. I think of Elena’s ultimatums, letting my anger feed the magic but keeping it at an even, steady boil.

“Agito,”I say, and Tess’s ragged old teddy bear, Cyclops, soars into the air.

“Desino.”It thumps back on top of her pillows like a kite without wind.

Tess stares at me wide eyed.

I’m surprised, too. I didn’t think I’d get it on the first try.

“You just learned that today?” she asks.

“I did.” I hold my breath, expecting her to say it’s impossible. To call me a liar.

“That’s marvelous!” She bounces on the bed. “May I try?”

“Absolutely. Just—”

“Be careful,” we say in unison, and I laugh. Am I that predictable?

Tess focuses on Cyclops’s placid, one-eyed face. He lost one of his black button eyes years ago, but she wouldn’t let Mrs. O’Hare replace it. She said it made him more interesting, and changed his name from Barnabus.

Tess takes a breath and lets it out slowly.“Agito,”she says, but nothing happens. She tries again, scrunching up her face. Her expression is just like Father’s when he’s translating a difficult passage.

“It’s more difficult than illusions,” I explain. “You have to sort of—harness your energy. I felt like I could nap for days on the way home.”

Tess pouts. “You made it look so simple.”

“It’s not. It took me an hour to move a teacup. Rory said it took her weeks.”

“Then I’ll have to keep practicing, won’t I?” From this angle, her jaw is shaped like mine. Pointy and stubborn.

“Let’s practice together. You can help me with my silent spells, and I’ll help you with animation. Give us a few weeks, and we’ll be the cleverest witches in New England!”

Tess grins at me. “You don’t ever do things halfway, do you?”

I suppose I do not.

The following afternoon, after our lessons proper, Tess and I closet ourselves in Father’s study to practice again. I suppose I’m feeling rather bold, breaking the no-magic-in-the-house rule Mother set, but now that Father’s gone and half the inhabitants of the house are witches, it doesn’t seem quite so dangerous.

Tess sits dwarfed in Father’s leather desk chair and I lie on the curved red-velvet sofa. We take turns trying to float different objects from Father’s desk: paperweights and pens, stamps and sealing wax. We both show marked improvement. I manage half a dozen silent spells under Tess’s tutelage, and she hovers Father’s copy ofThe Metamorphosesa good six inches off the floor.

Tess is pleased with our progress, but the rapidity of it worries me. We’ve both picked up animation much faster than Sachi and Rory said they did. Even casting silently doesn’t seem so difficult for me anymore. I always thought myself a poor witch, but now I wonder whether my lack of progress was due to lack of interest rather than lack of skill.

Perhaps it’s the difference in our ages, but there’s no jealousy, no sense of competition between us. It helps that although Tess is the far better scholar—better at piano and chess, too—we seem evenly matched in our magic. It’s actuallyfun. I only feel guilty that it took me this long—this threat of losing her to Elena—to make me appreciate Tess more. To start seeing her as a friend, not just a baby sister.

A rap on the door interrupts us. “Miss Cate, Mr. McLeod is here to see you.”

“I’ll be right there, Lily.”

Tess dances over to the settee, poking me with the fountain pen she’s just floated up to the ceiling. “Are you going to marry Paul? Lily and Mrs.

O’Hare were gossiping about it in the kitchen when they thought I wasn’t listening.”

I swat at her. “I don’t know. What did they say?”

Tess chews on the end of the pen. “They think you’ll have to. But they don’t know about the Sisters, of course. What they really are.” “Do you think—” I push my doubts aside for the moment. If it’s what Tess wants, what Maura wants, I’ll have to give in. “Do youwantto go to New

London and study with the Sisterhood? You can’t formally join them until you’re old enough to declare an intention, but Elena says they accept girls as young as ten in their school. She said their libraries are amazing, and they’d let you read whatever you like.” “Elena told me about the libraries. They do sound tempting,” Tess admits. I give her a tight smile. Elena did, did she? But Tess shakes her head, braids flying. “Still, I think I’d rather stay home and study with Father, and bake with Mrs. O’Hare, and take walks in the garden. Elena tries to make New London sound fun, but it just seems—noisy. And crowded.”

“Well, you have years to decide yet,” I assure her, though I don’t know if it’s true. If we are the three sisters, will the Sisterhood let her stay home until she’s seventeen? “It’s only Maura and me Father’s worried about. Well—mostly me.”

“Just wait until it’s Maura’s turn,” Tess says. “You know how she changes her mind. Even if she goes to the Sisterhood early, she’s likely to get to New London and decide she wants to marry a sailor instead. With you, at least we all know that once you make up your mind, you won’t change it.”

“I want to stay in Chatham, especially if that’s where you’ll be,” I admit. “It’s just a matter of figuring out how. I could try to persuade Paul to stay here with me, but—”

Tess throws her arms around my waist. “Do you think he would? I don’t want you to go. It’d be so lonely without you, Cate.”

I hug her tight. “I don’t want to go, either.”

“But you might have to.” She pulls away, her little face woebegone. “If you’re his wife, you’ll have to go and live with him wherever he wants.”

Tess is right. I could be packed up and moved to the other side of the world if my husband wanted it. I’d have no more say than the footstool.

“Do you really think Paul would drag me off kicking and screaming? That’s what he’d have to do, to take me away from you.”