A Flicker to a Flame (Mosley Coven)

Four

FOUR

CATO

One small beacon

A Mosley alone is powerful.

Two Mosleys together are a hassle.

But three? Us three? A force to reckon with.

We walk across the clearing to the front door of the establishment. I open the door for my sisters but then hesitate, thinking I should go in first.

“I’m stronger,” Billie says, walking inside before I can stop her.

“And I’m the baby,” Fredi says, bouncing in after her.

“Mama’s gonna kill me,” I mutter to myself before following them inside. For what it’s worth, I walk confidently across the threshold, but my spirits flag as soon as I’m inside and see the state of The Witch’s Snatch.

“Oh dear,” Fredi breathes, voicing my exact thoughts.

With a name like The Witch’s Snatch, I was expecting debauchery, or at the very least a little racy fun. The reality is a room so smothered in gray-brown shadows and silence as to make me want to cry.

“We left home for…this?” I ask, pressing a hand to my chest in disgust, confusion, and a dozen other emotions I can hardly name.

The Witch’s Snatch is a saloon, obviously, and the room we walk into is somehow full and empty at the same time. Low square tables frame the perimeter with smaller round tables cluttering the center, all half-empty. But it’s the silence that confuses me. There are enough people at the tables and sitting at the bar to cause a polite ruckus, but the room is eerily silent as if someone cast a spell for a little peace and quiet.

“Strange,” Fredi whispers.

“Filthy,” I echo as my eyes catch on the thick layer of dust covering all the surfaces the eye can see — the bottles along the bar rack, the mirror behind the bar atop frames with paintings darkened by grease and grime. Mama would take one look at this place and run.

“I just wanna open every window in this place and air it out for a year,” Billie whispers. Fredi and I nod in unison.

If not for the fact that we’re standing in this room surrounded by people, I might’ve thought this place was abandoned. Truth be told, I can’t be sure it’s not scheduled to be torn down in the morning.

“It does look derelict, don’t it?” Billie whispers.

“Stop reading my damn mind,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” she spits back.

“Is this place…safe?” Fredi asks softly.

I squeeze her hand and straighten my back, pulling at the frayed threads of my confidence in this plan. “We’re magic. Nothing here can hurt us.”

Billie tsks softly at my words. “Magic, but not invincible. Never forget that,” she says gravely.

“You sound like mama,” Fredi whispers.

“Good.” Billie pulls her hand from my grasp and steps in front of us, putting her back to the room. Over her shoulder, I can see some eyes have turned toward us, but most people haven’t even seemed to register our presence at all. This place might be one strong windstorm away from falling down, but the anonymity is a welcome reprieve. We’d never get that in Mossville.

I shift my gaze back to my sister. The dim light of the room accentuates all the high points of her face — the apples of her cheeks, the round end of her wide nose, and full lips. Billie is generations of Mosley matriarchs honed into one dark, shining figure, and not just in her looks.

“We’ve been waiting all our lives to see a little scrap of the world beyond The Night Gate,” she says.

“Yeah, but—” Fredi starts.

Billie cuts her off with one sharp shake of her head. “This is our chance. Maybe our only chance. Let’s not waste it.”

Mama says Billie takes after her favorite brother, Malachi. He died young — as some Mosleys are wont to do — but he shoved more life into his few years than some people could muster in a century. Or at least that’s how the story goes. He also had a curious little bit of magic. “Malachi could turn night into day, water into wine, and a frown to a smile. What he said is, was,” and for the longest time, I’ve suspected that power was what mama saw in Billie.

But now I know it to be true.

“Tonight will be one of the best nights of our lives,” she whispers, her eyes focused first on mine and then Fredi’s. Her magic gently ties us three together in a familiar knot, binding us for safety and strength.

I only see it because I’m looking. And because this place is so dark gray — a place where hopes and dreams come to die. But what Billie says becomes, and while I’m watching, a warm light appears in a far corner of the room, small as a pinprick. My eyes shift toward it and I watch it grow, slow and deliberate, transforming everything in its arc of light. The dust clears in a wash, dull glass gleams, cloudy liquors in old bottles turn crisp and clear. I watch Mosley magic turn frowns to smiles and marvel at the sight.

“How?” I whisper, as if I’m not who I’ve always been.

Fredi’s soft laughter sounds louder than it should. Sharper. She lets go of me in degrees until she’s standing on her own two feet, close but on her own. Joy always did accentuate her power.

“Fredi,” I say, reaching for her again.

She shakes her head and dances away from my touch. “Have fun,” she says with a quick wave before plunging into the crowd. Because now there’s a crowd.

People who’d been slumped over grimy tables are standing now, speaking loudly to one another as if meeting long lost friends, ordering fresh rounds. Living.

I look back at Billie. “Is this safe?”

She reaches out to me, touching the back of my left hand with the tips of hers. Her look is soft and serious. Her eyes are big and bright. “We didn’t ask for safe.” A small smile plays at the edges of her mouth. “Don’t waste it,” she says, backing away. People step out of her way without noticing before moving back into place. A few moments later, I catch a glimpse of her afro bobbing through the crowd, but no matter where I look, Fredi is nowhere to be found.

All too soon, it’s just me standing inside the bar, alone. I search the crowd for my sisters, but can’t catch them in my gaze. And every time I blink, one more person appears out of nowhere. And then the room fills with music, deep guitar strings bouncing off the walls, obliterating the earlier silence. The old, rickety floorboards creak as people move together, pairing off at random. At least now I know what Fredi went off to do. The crowd starts to sway. Tables scrape against the floor as people move them aside, making room for a dance floor this place can hardly fit. Somewhere in the distance, I see Billie’s hands shoot into the air, the excessive stack of her gold bangles clinking to the beat. Fredi’s laughter pulls my attention in the other direction.

This is the moment I realize that my baby sisters don’t need me.

I’m the oldest, but not the strongest. A Mosley witch alone is powerful in her own right. It’s me who needs them. All around me, I can see my sisters’ magic transforming this room for their own pleasure, but fear of the unknown roots me in place. I know Mossville. I know who I am there and who everyone expects me to be. I think about returning home, and the longing hits me so hard I close my eyes and visualize myself back in those woods I know well, and that’s the mistake.

Those woods remind me of David.

I can smell the wet soil and dew dripping from trees, blocking out the light of the Moon. The music is muffled until the delicate sound of David’s boots sloshing in wet mud fills my ears. I hear his labored breath punctuated by the soft, asthmatic wheeze I’ve grown to love. The gentle rustle of our clothes together, then rough fingertips on soft skin. I think I hear him call out to me. For me.

Bitter bile fills my mouth and the illusion ends.

When I open my eyes, the warm room is blurred by tears. One falls from my eye, down my cheek, into the corner of my mouth. One small sip. One tiny prayer. Big fucking magic.

Through the prism of my tears, I see curly wisps of my sisters’ magic in the air — bright purple and warm brown — and then my own deep yellow moving toward the bar. I’ve never seen our magic in this world — never knew it could be seen — and this revelation alone makes whatever will come worth it. I hope.

“Lemme get another.”

A smokey voice rises above the crowd somehow. A bright flash of light catches my attention and I watch as my own magic caresses the sloped back of a man hunched over the bar.

I might not know how Billie’s magic works, but my own was my first friend. Every Sight looks different, but the feeling is always the same — a hard tug in my gut in the direction my Ancestors have paved.

I move my hand across my wet cheek and take a step forward, grateful for the first time in my life to leave the memory of David behind.

* * *

XAVIER

“Ain’t no way in hell this don’t taste like gasoline. Cheap gasoline at that,” the bartender mumbles under his breath as he tips the bottle upside down to refill my drink one more time.

It did at first, but I shake my head now. “First shot burned away all my tastebuds. Might as well be water for all I know.”

He smirks, and we both watch the clear stream of liquid coat the bottom of the glass in a somehow thick puddle. I nod when the glass is a quarter full. “Enjoy,” he says in a voice that sounds as full of disbelief as gratitude when I slide enough money to pay for the next few rounds and a tip. I don’t respond to that word though because there’s no way. I don’t know what the rest of my life will look like — or even how long it will be — but I feel damn certain that I won’t be enjoying a single second.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asks.

I lift my head, ready to squint at him in confusion, only to find that he’s not talking to me. I follow the line of his gaze to my right and up. And up. And up.

Dark skin like midnight.

Wide lips like rose petals.

Thick eyelashes like feathers.

Bright eyes like the sun.

He looks straight at my glass and grimaces. “What’s the opposite of what he’s drinking?” he asks, turning to the bartender and flashing a playful grin. His voice is deep and his accent is thick like molasses.

“Uh… Um…” I glance in the bartender’s direction to find him caught off guard by his new customer. A bemused smile plays on his lips as he searches for his reply.

Jealousy feels heavy in my gut.

The man leans forward and places both hands on the bar. He’s close enough I can feel the heat rolling off his body. Or maybe all the liquor in my blood is burning me up from the inside out. I don’t think it matters which one I want, but for the record, it’s the former.

“Don’t matter what it costs,” the new man says, “just as long as it tastes good.”

Oh. It’s definitely the former.

“Y-yeah. Okay, I’ll… Yeah.” The bartender’s nodding, looking left and right as if he’s forgotten where the bar is or where they keep the good liquor or his own name.

The man next to me raises his hand and snaps two fingers. It rings in my ears like a crisp bell. “Focus,” he says, and I do.

“I’ll be back,” the bartender replies in a tight voice before scurrying away. The man next to me watches him leave, but I can’t tear my eyes from his profile.

I watch him for what feels like an hour, enjoying the sharp line of his jaw, the way his mahogany skin drinks in the dim overhead lighting. The liquor has me sweating. After a while, he lowers his long, lean body onto the stool next to me with the kind of poise I’ve never seen on a man…on anyone, actually. His back is straight as a ruler, accentuating the long line of his neck, and his chin lifts in the air, giving me and the rest of the room a perfect view of his profile in relief.

And it’s beautiful. He is beautiful.

They say beauty softens the blow of all the harshness life throws our way, and I never believed it until now.

He turns to me slow and steady, revealing more of his face by the second. I could look away. I could pretend I never even noticed him. I could mind my business, but I hold my breath instead, waiting to see him head-on even if it means my ruin.

Our knees bump together before he widens his legs to make room for me between them.

A week ago, I got a phone call that left me feeling lost. I prayed to fade away into nothingness, desperate for the suffering to end before it started. Desperate for my life not to be as it is. But when our bodies touch, I feel grounded for maybe the first time in my life.

I am here and I’m not going nowhere.

“My name’s Cato.”

“Xavier,” I say and then swallow the lump in my throat.

“I know,” he says breezily. “And don’t worry. I think everything’s gonna be okay.”