A Flicker to a Flame (Mosley Coven)

One

ONE

CATO

Light a candle

A in’t no need to make a deal with the devil when you already know the date of your death.

I guess I could barter for more time, but that’s not who I am. I’m a Mosley witch, and if there’s one thing I know about my bloodline, it’s that death isn’t an ending or a beginning, it just is — so why worry?

“Why worry! Why worry! You always say that like it means something,” my mother yells across the kitchen, even though it’s smaller than any other room in the house and her voice carries on a bad day. I could tell her not to holler, but apparently the only hollering she can’t hear is her own. Besides, I’ve got plans tonight and won’t be jeopardizing them to prove a point.

“Everything means something, mama. Ain’t that what you always say?” I shoot back, trying to pull together the threads of our conversation. When I come up empty, I turn my head to face her. Mama’s standing in front of the old wood stove with her back to me, her small body rocking side to side. She’s stirring the hoppin’ john in the tall pot she still calls her mother’s even though my grandmother’s been dead for nearly thirty years. I think.

It’s no matter that she’s not looking in my direction, I smile anyway, watching my mother work as I have all my life.

She shakes her head, sucking her teeth loudly. “You got that from your daddy,” she says.

“What?” I ask quickly. I couldn’t hide the eagerness if I tried and with mama, I never have to.

Her arm stops moving in a clockwise circle and she turns to look at me over her shoulder. It’s nearing dusk and this small kitchen is darker than the rest of the house, but I can feel the clarity and intensity of her gaze, always strongest here.

Once upon a time, this small room was the entire Mosley home, everyone crowded in here together. My Great Great Great — give or take a Great or three — Grandparents raised their three children here. Even when they could move, they didn’t. They simply built another room and then another, working sometimes by the light of the Moon, making a home to keep each other close. Even now, all these generations later, I can step out on the front porch, throw a rock, and it’ll land in some Mosley’s yard because we are a family who believes in keeping together through thick and thin, good times and bad, life and death.

But my daddy wasn’t a Mosley, and when I look in the mirror, I can hardly see a trace of him in my features, the Mosley blood as strong as our magic.

Mama pulls the towel slung through the apron ties around her waist and wipes at her damp forehead. “That smile,” she finally says. “He thought he could get me to do what he wanted with a smile too.”

“Did it work?” I ask.

“Not a day in his life,” she laughs, turning back to the pot.

The small wooden table and two chairs pressed against the only bare wall are too narrow and low to fit me anymore, but I squeeze my knees underneath because like almost everything else in our house, this table is full of history. My mama’s mama’s granddaddy carved it from an oak that fell the night of The Rupture, the only one brave enough to touch it. Sometimes in a thunderstorm, if I press my hand against the tabletop, I can still feel the magic coursing in the grain.

What’s my discomfort in the face of all this power?

I unfold an old newspaper on the tabletop and spill a small pile of shelled peanuts atop it. While mama’s attention is elsewhere, I grab a small handful of nuts in my palms and close my fist, the satisfying crack making me smile. Mama sucks her teeth as she always does while I dump the shards of my treat onto the paper and start happily sorting through the mess I’ve made. We used to make this a game, my daddy and me. I’d marvel at his big, rough fist crushing peanut shells whole and then he’d gently scatter them in front of me, knowing I would entertain myself for long, silent minutes looking for treasure in the wreckage. Even now that I’m grown and he’s long gone, I think of him while I pluck the fruit from the mess of shells I’ve made, popping them into my mouth with a smile on my face. A smile everyone tells me looks just like his. I wish I could see it.

“You and your sisters need to be more careful,” she says, jogging my memory back to the conversation at hand.

I move the shells to the right and the nuts to the center toward me with a sigh. “Can’t get more careful than Mossville, mama. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. Nothing here that can hurt us.”

I can feel my mother’s attention shifting toward me again, and when I look up, her eyes are boring into me in a way only she can manage.

“That’s the foolishness of youth got you talkin’ that way. Anything can hurt you. Anywhere. Even me.”

I pop a peanut in my mouth and smile as I chew. “You about the only thing in this town I’m scared of.”

“As you should be.” She smirks.

“But unless you’re about to send me outside for a switch, we both know you’re harmless.”

She sighs heavily. “Foolishness,” she says again.

“Mosley magic is a weapon that can’t be used against me,” I say.

“To harm you,” she corrects.

“See?” I ask insolently.

This time she glares in my direction. “Ears that big and you only listen when it suits you.”

I cover my ears at the jab as we both start to giggle. “I always listen,” I shoot back. “But I only quote you when it suits me.”

Her lips purse into a thin line as she tries to hide her smile before she turns away, shaking her head at the smart mouth everyone knows I inherited from her. I am nothing if not my mama’s favorite.

We sit for a few seconds in companionable silence. If my sisters were here, they’d be talking at the top of their lungs or pacing around the small room, asking mama for a little taste of dinner, chasing away the scraps of silence. I love my sisters, but sometimes it’s nice to have these peaceful moments with mama while I can.

After a while, she takes a break from the constant stirring to pull open the oven and check on the state of her cornbread, tapping her hand on the hot crust to check its doneness.

“Be careful,” I hiss.

She pulls her hand back leisurely. “Few more minutes to go,” she mutters to herself before shutting the oven closed and latching it again. There’s a small timer set on a shelf above the stove, and she snatches it up, winding it then replacing it. The familiar soft ticking instantly fades into the corners of my mind.

Now that that’s done, she walks to the table and grabs up all the nuts I’ve collected with that same hand from the oven. I can feel the warmth still on her skin. She shakes the hard kernels in her hands. “What trouble you getting into tonight?” she asks and then pops her stolen peanuts into her mouth.

I purse my lips at her while she chews, swallowing whatever smart thing I was about to say. I know my limits and mama’s too. “When have I ever gotten into trouble?”

Her sharp bark of laughter fills the room. “Since the day you were born. Well, day after. You were an angel from one Sun up to the next.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about?” I say, bringing a smile to her face.

She pats my shoulder and turns away. I watch her take slow, careful steps to the sink where she grabs the kettle and fills it with water from the tap before turning back to the stove.

I pop the last peanut into my mouth and dump the shells onto my newspaper placemat. Gathering it all up, I toss the whole crumpled mess into the trash can next to the back door before making my way to the deep cast-iron sink where I wash my hands, looking out at the woods behind our home.

My gaze follows the length of a brick path from our back door through a wide yard. It ends at the garden my sisters and I have been tending all our lives and mama has tended all hers. No one remembers the names of the Mosleys who cleared this land, but we see them everywhere we look. I imagine them walking the path to the garden set a few feet back. In the right light, I can see them bending over to smell the flowers and herbs we’ve been planting here for generations. I bet they dig their fingers into the soil to make sure everything’s alright just like daddy taught us to do. And if everything’s not alright, well… “Rain’s always on time,” he used to say.

I shut the water off and snatch the towel from the bar next to the sink to dry my hands. “Smells like thunder,” mama says.

I laugh. “Smells like cornbread to me.”

She smirks again, but her eyes are serious. “You and your sisters are safe here,” she says. “Remember that. Remember you can always come home, Junior?” I can tell a lot by the way my mama says my name, and when she calls me Junior, I know the message — she can’t lose me too.

“I don’t plan to get up to any trouble, mama. And I’ll see you in the morning.”

Mosley magic is an enigma; no one knows all its contours. I’ve lived all my life surrounded by my mother’s magic — it’s as familiar to me as my own — but I still don’t know if she can tell when I’m lying, and for the first time in my life, I don’t care. If I don’t try this tonight, I might never have the chance again.

The very first Sight I received revealed the day of my death. I know when I’ll die, but not how, and if I’m honest, it doesn’t matter. All the days between now and then are precious; it’d be a shame to waste them here in Mossville.

What exactly my mother knows or not is a mystery, but it’s not mine to solve. We let the silence envelop us again, this time with the sound of the timer set on the shelf above the stove ticking off the last few minutes until the cornbread is done.

“Alright,” she sighs, turning back to her black-eyed peas. “Just be careful.”

I walk across the kitchen to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m always careful.”

She laughs again, as light as before. “Every time you open your mouth, nothing but fairy tales fall to the ground.”

I kiss her cheek again and step away. “That’s how I keep you on your toes, mama.”

Her laughter follows me into the living room, where I sit on the couch to slip my shoes onto my feet. I check my reflection in the mirror hanging above the fireplace, just like daddy used to do. I look the same as always: dark skin, wide nose, too-big ears. I look exactly like my sisters, and we are the spitting image of our mother.

I’ve dressed up a little — a smart ironed blue shirt the same color as the sky at midday and midnight blue slacks that accentuate my height. There’s a gold chain around my neck, but I tuck it under my collar and out of view. Not dressed up enough to pique mama’s interest, but good enough to make an impression.

Once I’ve approved my outfit, my eyes flicker over my right shoulder. For the past few months, every time I’ve looked at my reflection there’s been something there — something smudged in the shadows, shifting the air around my shoulder, something I can barely see out of the corner of my eye. It’s not death — that date is far off in the distance — but it’s mine. There’s no running from whatever’s coming and no rushing it either. Whatever’s begging for my attention will present itself in time, and until then, I’ve got a shortened life to live.

Before I leave, I step to the right. There’s a floor-to-ceiling alcove built into this wall by Grandpa Robert or some other ancestor, with shelves irregularly placed along the height. Each shelf is its own universe, a dozen or more tributes to all the Mosleys that came before. But it’s the shelf right at eyesight that I turn to. I reach for the box of matches always there — no idea, still, who keeps it full — and shake one loose. I pull the matchhead along the side of the box and set it to flame, staring into the fire for a few seconds before blowing it out in one long breath.

The world may be hard

But this land

Soaked in blood

Will always give a Mosley a soft place to land

Daddy used to say those words before we left the house each morning. It wasn’t until he didn’t come home one day that I realized this spell was a reminder for us; it didn’t apply to him. But I say it now as an offering, a reminder of him.

I toss the match into the burn bowl on my father’s altar and turn toward the door.

“Alright, mama, I’m leaving,” I call. Not yell, call.

“Stop yelling in my house, boy!” she yells back. It’s as close as I’ll get to goodbye.

I pull the front door closed behind me with a gentle shake of my head.