A Flicker to a Flame (Mosley Coven)

Two

TWO

CATO

S ome of the young ones call Mossville a cage. I would never, but I understand the sentiment. When Fiba and Robert cleansed the town with fire, they scorched our borders into the soil, marking everything beyond as a threat to freedom as new as baby teeth. It was a Mosley witch who suggested hiding our town from the world outside, but it was a decision the entire town made together. Anyone who disagreed left eventually so Mossville could survive in secret. Every now and again, there’s a debate about undoing the wards that keep us apart — and whether or not an undoing is even possible — but it never goes much further than a debate. Mossville is the hope our ancestors paid for in blood and we honor their sacrifice with our secrecy.

The way mama tells the story, the issue wasn’t so much about leaving as returning. In those first few turbulent years after The Rupture, the Founding Families let people come and go with minimal restrictions until some came back terrified, bedraggled, driven mad by the world beyond our wards. Some came back only to leave again, some came back too terrified to speak of what they’d seen, but the turbulence of those homecomings was always chaos. Eventually, the town elders agreed that goodbye should be final. Each day they spent away from home erased one memory until nothing was left. It was a gentler curse than others — a slow forgetting until ignorance took even the inkling that something had been lost — but devastating all the same.

Another Rupture if you will.

Not many people leave these days, but when they do, we grieve as if there’s been a death — mourning them in life, knowing we won’t be there to do so when the time comes.

The town is shaped like a long, jagged leaf with one long vein running down the center from apex to stem and dense, dark forests protecting the perimeter. Smaller veins give life to other neighborhoods and shops and farms, growing — as the Mosley home did — organically. Living.

Most Mosleys live in Fiba’s Hollow, set at the town’s southern edge where the forest is most dense. From our land, I head North, up the town’s main road. If I follow this path to the end, I’ll arrive at The Night Gate — the one place in town where the veil separating here from there, safety from danger, freedom from slavery is thin. As kids, my sisters and I used to dare each other to walk along that gravel road and step out into the unknown, but we never did. Maybe it was our mother’s careful attention or the protection of the Ancestors, or just our nosy Auntie Emma. The one time we tried for real, mama’s strong magic appeared in front of us, stronger than any stone or brick, and chased us home.

The trick to escaping is not to rush or hide. I walk past the tailor and the library and nod at everyone I see. I even wave at one of my uncles before he slips into Ms. Laurel’s apothecary. He waves awkwardly back. It’s a gamble to acknowledge him — and a gamble not to — but the shock written all over his face assures me that he won’t mention seeing me step into the woods if I don’t mention his visit to Miss Eugenia. Deal.

Mossville is old, but the magic in these woods is older. Stronger. Terrifying, if I’m honest. Once I step into the dense thicket of trees, I can’t hear anything but the soft hum of a preternatural stillness. A warning not to linger for longer than is necessary. There are no pathways in the woods. They built some a few years ago, only to have them disappear after the last stone was laid. It only took two times for people to realize that whatever was living in these woods would tolerate our presence, but only for a little while.

Thankfully, I know these woods as well as anyone can, which is how I know that The Night Gate isn’t the only veil in Mossville.

“You’re late,” Fredi says as soon as I push into the clearing where they’ve been waiting.

“He’s always late,” Billie says lightly.

My sisters are as different as night and day. Fredi, the youngest, is wearing a deep purple dress that hugs her curves. She’s swept the forest floor with her frantic pacing and now stands in a bed of dry, crumbled yellow and brown leaves, tapping the damp ground impatiently with the toe of her shoe.

Billie, on the other hand, is still as water, perched elegantly on a rock set to my right, her black skirt hiding her feet. She’s holding a book open in her lap, caressing the pages like an old friend, and looking up at me with mama’s deep, serious eyes. Billie has the look of a witch who knows far more than she lets on and always has.

One strong enough to See.

One strong enough to Speak.

One strong enough to Birth the world anew.

A prophecy

“I was talking to mama unlike you cowards,” I tell them.

Their twin dark eyes widen in shock, and Fredi looks around in fear. “Why’d you do that?” she whines. “She’s gonna know.”

“She doesn’t know,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I’m a better liar than you.”

“And I’m a better liar than you,” Billie interjects, “but I can’t lie to mama.”

“That’s ‘cause you think of it as lying.”

“And you don’t?” Billie asks, flattening her palm on the pages of her book, the many gold bangles around both wrists clinking softly in the night. She smirks up at me, waiting for my answer.

I’m the oldest, but Billie is the strongest. I remember peering at her through her crib, looking into those big, glassy dark eyes and feeling her power even then. If she were a different person, she might have held that over us, but Billie is as good as she is strong, and that’s why one day, she’ll be head of our family.

One day, but not today.

“Mama worries too much and telling her where we’re going would only make it worse, so I tell her what she needs to know. I’m protecting her.”

“And bullshitting yourself,” Fredi says, sucking her teeth.

Billie smirks at our sister’s words, but her eyes stay trained on me. Sometimes Billie looks at me as if she’s taking me all in, seeing me for everything I am and everything I want to be. I can sense she wants to say…something, but she doesn’t. Me and Fredi sometimes joke that the only person in Billie’s full confidence is herself. Whatever she’s thinking about saying stays with her.

“We’re gonna be late,” she says, pulling the bronze piece of satin she uses to mark her place through the pages of the book, closing it with care. “Let’s get to gettin’.” Billie stands from the rock and holds her book in both of her upturned palms until it disappears.

“Are y’all sure this is going to work?” We turn to Fredi.

“It will,” I say. “I wrote the spell myself.”

My sisters groan.

“Well, let’s hope we get to where we’re trying to go and don’t end up somewhere in Africa just ‘cause you wanted to wax poetic,” Billie sighs sarcastically.

“Now hold on a second, I wouldn’t mind that,” Fredi says, an excited smile brightening her face.

“Of course, you wouldn’t. Come on.” Billie beckons her to stand next to us.

“There’s a soft spot in these woods,” I tell them. “Somewhere where the magic has grown thin over time. Can you feel it?”

My sisters close their eyes. After a few still seconds, I feel their powers reaching out, probing the boundaries of the magic seal, but my mind goes straight to it, looking for an absence surrounded by so much power.

“Oooh,” Fredi hums. “How’d you find that?”

I duck my head and stare down at the forest floor, breaking the powerful connection with my sisters. This soil has gone black from decades of fallen leaves and flowers decaying in layers to feed these ancient trees. I use the contemplation to keep my nosy sisters from following the trail of my thoughts to the day I discovered this place. I think of a bright morning Sun. I think of those peanuts and our father’s strong hands. I think of tomorrow’s chores, anything to stop from remembering that night: moonlight bouncing off David’s cocoa-colored skin, his hot, trembling hand under my shirt, wet tongue lapping at my throat. If I let that image form in my mind, it won’t be just mine anymore, and neither will the heartache.

When I muster the strength to raise my head, Billie’s eyes bore into me. I can feel her searching for the soft spot in my soul, and I bury this one where I’ve placed all the others, too deep inside me for anyone to find. Too deep inside me for me to ever be free.

“You ready?” she asks in a soft voice.

I nod silently, too afraid to speak just yet. It takes a few moments to collect myself and step back in line with my sisters. “Focus all your attention on the spot,” I say in a hoarse voice.

“Obviously,” Fredi mumbles under her breath.

“Shh,” Billie says, and the forest goes quiet.

I lick my lips and forget David, focusing only on the power flowing in my veins.

Young magic in its prime

Grown weaker with age.

Fredi gasps. “That’s not how it works.”

“Shh,” Billie hisses again.

I have to shake the sound of her voice from my ears to set my mind back on track.

Open doors that once were closed

Let out what once was shut in.

Rip this veil keeping like and like apart

So kin can meet kin.

I spent a month working on that spell, pouring my broken heart and soul into it, weaving each word together precisely to undo the ancient magic our ancestor set in stone. I’m not Billie, but I’m as much Catherine Mosley’s child as my sisters, and what Billie can do with her mind, I can do with words. I never thought it would be easy, but I knew it would be possible.

At least, I thought it would be. The stillness is complete, not even the birds are flying, but nothing happens for agonizing minutes, and I can’t help but worry I’ve made a mistake. Long moments pass with us three staring into a dark hedge, the invisible barrier between Mossville as intact as before.

The sigh that falls from my mouth is pitiful. Defeated. Shame licks at the back of my neck.

“Was that all of it?” Fredi asks.

I purse my lips together and roll my eyes. “Maybe I need to say it ag?—”

“Wait,” Billie whispers, and I freeze.

Fredi gasps again as a small pinprick of that old shield combusts into the tiniest flame I’ve ever seen. We watch, open-mouthed, as it burns a bright, ragged hole through the brush.

“Oh my word,” Billie whispers in awe, stepping forward while Fredi shies away.

I reach for both of my sisters’ hands and rush forward. “Now or never,” I laugh with them, lungs filling with new air for the first time in our lives.