“It’s overwhelming,” I said, more to myself than to Emmet.
“This is good for you, Mercy,” he said. “This power you feel overwhelmed by. It is only a tiny fraction of what’s surging inside Oliver, Iris, or Ellen. Even Connor for that matter. And when you compare it to Maisie’s power, it’s nothing. Nothing.” He let the word sink in. “Tell us, Mercy, how does it feel? Does the power frighten you?”
“No,” I said. I stopped and considered how it really felt to have the energy flowing through me. “I feel alive, I feel like a picture coming into focus. It feels good.”
“You are a mystery, Mercy Taylor, to all of us,” he said. “The power slides into you with none of the ill effects that we would have expected to witness in an average human. You fit the power like a glove. It fills you beautifully, as if you had been made to hold it, but still—”
“But still I never did,” I finished for him.
“You do today,” he said. “And now you must show yourself worthy of this gift. Whatever magic you work today, you must work on your own. We wish neither to impede any action your conscience allows you, nor to give you ideas that might distract you from your intuitive course. You are a natural vessel, and the magic is merely awaiting your command.”
TWENTY-THREE
Standing in my room, I could still sense the bit of wood vibrating in my hand. When I looked down at it, it was visibly quivering and giving off faint blue sparks. Everything about me felt changed. No, not changed—heightened, intensified. I tested the power I felt surging through me, using it to bore a small hole in the tip of the shim so that I could wear it as a pendant. I watched as the wood pulled itself apart, cell by cell, leaving a perfectly shaped circle through which I strung some hemp. I knotted the hemp a few times to make sure it would hold, and then pulled the loop around my neck. The string was long enough that the tip of the wood rested near my heart. As the wood slid between my breasts, the vibrations spread all over my body.
Liquid fire coursed through my veins. I slid my hand over the pendant and looked at myself in the mirror, amazed at the self-assured face that was reflected back at me. I felt like a fish that had been tossed into water for the first time after somehow managing to survive its entire life on dry land. I had been waiting for this feeling my entire life. For once, I felt like I could truly breathe.
I was saddened by the knowledge that this power was only borrowed. Tomorrow I would be back to floundering on the shore, even though the river would continue to flow right next to me. One second I regretted ever taking the power into me, and the next I wondered what I’d be willing to sacrifice to hold onto it. The memory of Jilo’s words plagued my conscience. I pulled the necklace up over my head and tossed it down onto the table. I tried to walk away and leave it there, but my hand reached out of its own volition, my fingers hovering over the wood, wanting so badly to touch it, to hold it. I wondered how it would change me if I let it fill me for even a day, if I let myself see the world through the eyes it gave me.
“You need this,” I heard Ellen’s voice. She had been watching me from the doorway. I wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but I was sure it was long enough. “You need to feel the magic, if only this once. I know you’ve always wanted this experience, and the other families might not allow it again. This is a special dispensation. This is your opportunity to walk in a witch’s shoes, Mercy. It may make it easier for you to understand your family and forgive us for our gargantuan shortcomings.”
I could have been angry with her for spying on me, but I wasn’t. I was glad that someone was here to share this with me, to be my confessor. “I’m afraid,” I said. “I don’t want to feel this good, this powerful, knowing that I’ll never experience it again. It’s worse than a drug.”
“No, it isn’t a drug at all. It’s the power that naturally flows through a witch…and you sense that it should be flowing through you.”
A few moments had been enough to convince me that my hunger for magic was too great for me to withstand. “But this is too strong,” I still said. “I can’t let it fill me today only to leave me tomorrow. I won’t be strong enough to let it go. I won’t be strong enough to go back to being me after I’ve been…”
“Maisie. After you’ve been Maisie,” she said, and I acknowledged the truth of this statement with a nod of my head. Tears had begun to well up in my eyes, and I couldn’t find my voice.
She reached out and took the necklace, opened the loop wide, and hung it over my head. She lifted my hair up over the cord and then let it fall gently down my back. The wood touched my heart, and once again I was part of the magic and it was part of me.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to let this go,” I said again, but my will to protest faded before I even finished the words. I looked away from Ellen and back at my own reflection. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed that an odd shimmer was dancing around me. Concentrated around my heart, it flitted between red and green, with bits of black speckled throughout. It was as if I were enveloped by a field of living color.
“Try something, anything,” Ellen said. “See how it responds to you.”
I was heartsick for Maisie. I missed her desperately, and I had to let her know that I forgave her for what had happened during the drawing of lots. I needed to see her for myself; I needed to know that she was okay. I held out my hand and touched the mirror. It rippled for a moment and then the reflection changed. I could see Maisie talking with a dark-haired woman I didn’t recognize. I caught the woman’s notice instantly, and with a wave of her hand she broke the connection.
“Amazing,” Ellen whispered. “You shouldn’t have been able to create a portal to Maisie. How did you do it?”
“I just thought of her and how much I wanted to see her,” I said.
“And with a simple thought and only a jigger of Oliver’s power, you were able to reach into another world, another dimension.”
“Dimension?”
“It was felt that it would be best to move Maisie out of contact with the line while she works things through.”
“Who was the woman?”
“Woman? She is less of a woman and more of a force of nature,” Ellen said, the corners of her mouth pulling downward. “She’s the anchor with whom Maisie is training. It would be best for you not to draw her attention again, sweetie.” She smiled at me, but the smile seemed forced. “So what are you going to do today?” she asked, quickly changing the subject. “Surely you aren’t going to waste it by standing in front of the mirror.”
Her question caused me to focus on the red and dappled green aura I had noticed earlier. I hesitated, but then said, “I think I’ve made a mistake,” pointing at the concentration of vibrant colors that hovered near my heart.
“Yes,” she said, stepping closer. “I can scarcely make it out, but I can tell that there is a magic there that’s at odds with your own.” Ellen reached out and brushed away the pendant to place her fingers over my heart, her touch gentle. “This is artificial magic. This is not witch magic.”
I knew we were both sensing Jilo’s spell. I also knew that I needed to use this day to rectify the wrong I had committed by going to her. I needed to find a way to end the spell she had placed on me even if it meant breaking Peter’s heart. I had to believe it was better for him than living a lie. “It’s Mother Jilo’s magic,” I confessed.