Awakening (Birth of Magic #1) Read online

  This was the Alexis from before Mama died, the beautiful and somewhat vain young woman capable of breaking any man’s heart. Her milky white skin was perfectly smooth and with a bit of baby fat to it. Her hair was golden, flowing down to her waist. She had lost weight everywhere, including her breasts, which no longer sagged inside her dress. The dress itself fit snugly to show off her figure, a golden belt circling her tiny waist.

  I could hardly feel anything when she throws herself against me in a hug. After a moment’s hesitation, I patted her back and the silky tresses that badly needed some tending to. “I’m so glad you’re here!” she said, her voice full of sunshine.

  She took my hand, practically skipping up the front drive. I had never felt so old before as I did watching her with her suddenly boundless energy. If anyone had seen us, they would have probably taken me for her much-older sister—or more likely her mother.

  As she poured the tea, I could see Alexis’s body trembling from the excitement of her news. She handed a cup to me, not bothering to let me take a sip before she blurted out, “I’m in love!”

  It was good I hadn’t drank my tea or I would have spit it up all over her. “What?”

  “Love. L-O-V-E.”

  “I know what it is,” I snapped. “You know it’s against the rules to love a mortal.”

  “I don’t care. Marco and I are in love.” Her body trembled again and she squealed like a young girl. “We’re getting married!”

  I couldn’t stand anymore. I got to my feet and grabbed Alexis by the shoulders. “Are you insane? What about the coven? What about being a witch?”

  “I can still be a witch.”

  “Alexis—”

  Tears bubbled up in her eyes. “You don’t understand. I knew you wouldn’t. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be in love.”

  “Of course I do. I loved Henry. You still remember that, don’t you?”

  “Then can’t you be happy for me? I’ve found my Henry at last.”

  I knew I should have slapped Alexis across the face to knock some damned sense into her head. She wasn’t not sixteen like I was, even if she might look that way. She was three hundred eleven years old, far too old for this nonsense. Then I saw how happy she was, the same love I saw in my own eyes when Henry had been alive.

  I sagged back onto the couch. “Tell me more about this Marco.”

  His name was Marco Gallo. When Alexis first saw him a year ago, she was still a gray-haired crone. As fate would have it, Alexis met him in church of all places. As a witch she never went to Mass, but one of the Deveaux girls had had a baby and Alexis out of politeness went to the baptism.

  She sat in the back of the cathedral, where no one would notice that she didn’t sing any hymns or say any prayers. Marco sat across the aisle from her. Though she appeared to be in her sixties and was actually much older, she was still instantly smitten by him. She loved his smooth olive-tinged skin, his wavy black hair, his warm brown eyes, and especially his glowing smile. He flashed this to her during the ceremony; she in turn blushed like a teenager and hid her face for the rest of the service behind a fan.

  Marco lingered in the cathedral after the baptism—as did Alexis. He waited until he thought everyone was gone to go up to the altar and pray. Alexis used a Hearing Aid spell so that she could overhear him praying for good weather so that his ship could return safely to Italy.

  God did not answer his prayer, but Alexis did. She hurried out of the cathedral and found a secluded place near the docks. There she cast a Typhoon spell.

  The storm was enough that Marco couldn’t leave port that day. This gave Alexis time to go home and make herself young again. She spent much of the night feverishly updating one of her dresses to fit her young body.

  The next morning she returned to the cathedral. Marco was there again, but this time to confess his sins to the priest. Alexis hurried past him without looking to kneel down in the same spot Marco did the day before. “Oh Lord,” she said, loud enough so that he could overhear, “please give me the strength to endure these trying times.”

  She stopped again to burst into tears. “I’ve felt so alone since you took Mama and Papa and Caroline from me. I know it was all part of your divine plan, but I feel so alone. Please help me so that I can feel strong again and do your work. Amen.”

  Marco wasn’t the type to make a move right away. He waited until he finished confessing his sins, perhaps preemptively confessing a few more. Alexis waited outside, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “Excuse me, mademoiselle,” he said, his Italian accent making his French sound musical. “I couldn’t help overhearing your prayer. I too have asked the Lord to give me strength. I recently lost my dear sister Sonia.”

  “Oh, how terrible for you.”

  “It has been quite trying. I thought perhaps I could help you with your own struggle. If you could forgive me for being so forward, perhaps we could discuss the matter over dinner?”

  Alexis had to resist the urge to squeal with happiness and leap into his arms from joy. Instead she summoned all her strength to say evenly, “That sounds delightlful.”

  Their courtship proceeded along formal lines. Marco was a gentleman, not even kissing Alexis on the cheek until the third time they met. Their dates were separated by weeks apart as Marco had a vineyard of his own back in Tuscany. It was not as large as our vineyard, but Marco ran the entire place himself after his father died.

  He proposed to her just two days before I showed up. He did it the proper way, by kneeling down in this living room and offering her a ring. She fished the ring out of a pocket so that I could see it. The gold band with its pea-sized chunk of diamond must have cost a tidy sum. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked me.

  “It’s nice.” I cleared my throat and then ask, “When is the wedding?”

  “Next June. We’ll have it here, at the cathedral where we met.”

  “If Gretel doesn’t put you on trial first.”

  “Why should she? Mama was married to a mortal and she didn’t give up her powers.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” I tried to smile at her, to show her my support for her choices—however bad they might be. “Where are you two going to live? Here or in Italy?”

  “Here. Marco is going to sell his vineyard to a cousin. I hope that’s all right with you. I thought since you haven’t been here in so long—”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  Alexis nodded and then her smile faded. She nervously sipped from her cup of tea. “There’s something else I need to tell you. Try not to be too angry with me.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I had to tell him a tiny little lie.”

  “That you’re not a witch, I know that already.”

  “No, a lie about you.”

  “Me? What did you say about me?”

  Alexis looked down at her feet, her cheeks turning red as if she’s about to cry. “I was showing him around the house and he saw that portrait Mama had made of us—you know the one over the mantle?”

  “I know.” It was the only picture of our entire little family: Mama, Alexis, Caroline, and I. Mama had it painted shortly after we took up residence in the estate. I was just three years old at the time, squirming so much that Mama had to use a Freeze Frame spell on me so that the painter could finish.

  “Well, I told him that was painted when I was twelve and Caroline was nine and you were three. Marco is a very smart man. He did the math in his head—”

  I leaned forward, my hands curling into fists. “Alexis, how old did you tell him I am?”

  “He thinks I’m twenty-one now, so—”

  I could do the math in my head too. Twelve. She had told him I was twelve years old. I wanted to slap her across the face and then choke the life out of her for her stupidity. Instead, I barely kept my calm. “You’ll just have to tell him I died in some terrible accident.”

  Alexis burst into tears. “You don’t understand,” she said.
She sobbed for a minute before gaining enough composure to say, “His sister was twelve when she died. That’s why he’s so excited to meet you. It would make him so happy to have a little girl the same age around the house.”

  “Alexis—”

  “I know it’s a terrible sacrifice and I’m very sorry to ask you. But it won’t be that terrible. You won’t be a baby.” She took my hand, looking into my eyes. “Please, Stephanie. Do it for him—for both of us.”

  I wanted to turn her down and vanish right out of the house, but I could see how much it meant to her to make Marco happy. With a sigh, I said, “All right. I’ll do it.”

  ***

  I took the potion and when I woke up the next morning I was twelve years old again. That had begun my second adolescence, perhaps the darkest time in my life. What had made it so bad wasn’t being a child or even having to relearn magic again; what had made it terrible was Marco. The moment I had seen him I had been as in love with him as Alexis, but when he saw me he saw only a little girl.

  I had managed to put up with it until the wedding. That day, after the ceremony, I took off. I ran away to the east, winding up in Germany. There I’d spent the winter with Frau Braun, as her surrogate daughter. Then the magic returned and I spent five years living hand-to-mouth, constantly moving from one place to another, picking up work where I could, always thinking of Alexis and Marco and how happy they must be together.

  Those old memories tormented me as I slept. When I finally woke up, the covers were torn from the bed, lying on the floor. At least this let me see my body. I looked down at my feet and sighed with relief. My feet were in the same place on the mattress as when I’d gone to bed after drinking the potion. My breasts were about the same, though a little firmer. It was the chest of a woman, not a little girl.

  I rolled off the bed and then hurried over to the light switch. I just about ran over to the vanity to see myself in the mirror. For a moment I stood in front of it and stared. Was this really me? Had my face really been that smooth? Had my hair really been that chestnut color? Had it really been that thick and lustrous before? Maybe Alexis had added something extra to the potion; or maybe it was because the last time I’d looked this way was over a century ago.

  I was so busy staring I didn’t hear the door open. Alexis shouted, “Look at you! You’re so cute!”

  “Yeah, cute,” I grumbled. Too cute for someone who went around killing monsters for a living. But then again, like Gretel’s going around as a crone, it would have some advantages. No one was going to think a cute young woman could whip them without breathing hard.

  Alexis took my hand, pulling me away from the mirror. “While you were sleeping, I made a darling outfit for you. It was supposed to be for Mrs. Grinnell’s daughter, but I can make another one later.”

  I had visions of a dark red velvet dress with a matching bow like I’d been wearing the first time I met Marco. I sighed with relief to find only a cream-colored blouse and dark gray plaid skirt. Just the kind of clothes for a proper college student. Looking at the clothes on the dummy, though, a horrible thought came to me. “I don’t suppose you made any underpants to go with this, did you?”

  She squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll think of something.”

  Chapter 4

  I never went to school. In my day, girls were expected to help their mothers with the housework if they were poor or if they were rich to learn proper deportment so they could land a richer husband. Mama taught us the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics, enough so we could read or write spells and manage the estate’s books. For history she taught us not from a book, but from the three thousand years she had lived through.

  So when I walked onto the campus of Cuthbert College, it was the first time I had ever gone to school before. I looked around at the other girls and then held my books higher, in front of the breasts Alexis had encased in a bra hastily altered to fit me. The books also effectively shielded the alligator tooth necklace I wore, the same one I’d used to hunt down Alexis’s bogeyman fifteen years ago.

  Since arriving at the college, the necklace had been steadily waving back and forth like a pendulum. So far I had walked an entire circuit around the campus’s half-dozen ivy-clad buildings without the necklace showing any stronger reaction. That the necklace was moving at all meant there was something magic in the area, but not anything so powerful the necklace could pick up on it.

  That meant I’d have to do a little detective work. I stopped a brunette who looked about like my current age. “Hello,” I said, not recognizing my own voice at first, “can you tell me where the administration building is?”

  The girl pointed to the left. “It’s over there. Are you new here?”

  “Yes. I just got into the city yesterday.”

  “In that case, I’ll walk you over.” The girl held out a pale hand for me to shake. “My name’s Celia.”

  “Sue. Sue Johnson.” Not the cleverest alias, but it should hold up while I poked around here so long as I didn’t get into any jams that required me to pull out identification.

  “I think you’ll really like it here. Cuthbert’s not very big, but it’s a lot friendlier than other schools. You can really get to know people here,” Celia said with the practiced voice of a tour guide. I’d definitely hit the jackpot asking her for directions then.

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said.

  We walked in the center of a tree-lined path, the other students slipping around on either side of us. I did my best to imitate Celia’s confident stride, though at the moment I felt as vulnerable as if I’d been naked. A new body—even your own younger body—always took some getting used to before you could make it your own.

  “What are you planning to study?” Celia asked.

  “I’m not really sure yet.”

  She smiled at this. “Undecided, huh? That’s all right. It took me a couple of years to figure out what I wanted to study too.” She held up one of the books she carried so I could see the title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, except it was in the original French.

  “Is that Spanish?” I asked, figuring it would be best to play as dumb as possible, the innocent country girl new to the big city.

  “French,” she said. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’m studying French Literature.”

  “That sounds interesting.”

  “After I finish here, I’ll go on to work on my master’s degree. Someday I might be a professor here.”

  “That’s nice.”

  I flinched when she put a hand on my shoulder, resisting the urge to throw her to the ground. “Don’t be nervous. I’m sure you’ll fit in like a round peg soon enough.”

  “I hope so.”

  She held the door for me as we entered the administration building. I would have preferred Celia had taken off at that point, but she stuck with me; I had played my cover a little too well. She insisted on walking me up to the counter, where a secretary looked up at us and smiled. “Help you girls?”

  “This is Sue Johnson. She’s transferring here,” Celia answered for me.

  “You can have a seat over there,” the secretary said, motioning us to a row of chairs. “I’ll go find your file.”

  I hoped Celia would excuse herself, but she insisted on sitting down next to me. “If you have a class—” I said, trying to subtly indicate I wanted to be alone.

  She didn’t pick up on the hint. “I’ve got my whole afternoon free.”

  “That’s swell.”

  As we sat there, Celia noticed the movement under my blouse from the necklace. “What’s that around your neck?”

  Besides knocking her unconscious, I couldn’t see anything to do but show her the necklace. “Those are alligator teeth,” I said. “Papa got it when he was in the army.”

  “That is really neat.” The necklace continued its back-and-forth movement even as Celia took hold of it. “Why’s it doing that?”

  “There’re magnets in it,” I said, hoping this would be
enough to assuage her curiosity.

  “Inside the teeth?”

  “Sure. Small ones. You can’t really see them.”

  To my relief, Celia let go of the necklace. “That’s a pretty swell gimmick.” She elbowed me in the ribs; I again had to fend off the impulse to send her sprawling. “Make sure not to take French 101 with Miller. I took his class when I was a freshman. He’s quite a heel.”

  “I’m not exactly a pushover myself.”

  Celia laughed at this. “You’re a lot spunkier than I thought. I think you and I are going to get along like gangbusters.”

  ***

  There was of course no one named Sue Johnson in the college’s records. I would have happily gone on my way so that I could continue my search. But Celia refused to take no for an answer. She leapt to her feet and then stomped up to the desk. “That can’t be right,” she insisted. “Someone must have lost it.”

  “I’m sorry,” the secretary said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  I hurried over to Celia, putting a hand on her shoulder. Last thing I wanted was to get pinched by the campus police for making a scene. “Thank you, Celia, but—”

  Celia pressed against me protectively. “My friend has come a very long way to be here. Why, she’s spent every nickel she has getting here. You’re just going to turn her out?”

  “I’m sorry—”

  I picked up on Celia’s game right away. Having done plenty of undercover work in my time, I didn’t need magic to conjure up some crocodile tears. “Please, miss, you have to do something. I’ve dreamed of coming here since I was a little girl. I don’t know what I’ll do if you turn me away.”

  It was a bit thick, but the secretary ate it up like butter. She reached across the desk to pat my hand. Her voice sounded like Alexis’s old one as she said, “There now, dear, don’t get upset. I’m sure we can work something out.”