Freya thought of everything they had given up: flying, for one; she still remembered how it felt, zooming through the skies, the wind in her hair. She missed the midnight capers in the woods as well, the powerful rituals that were taboo now that pagan was a bad word. The world had moved on, of course, that was to be expected; maybe it would have happened even without the restriction, but now they would never know. Like the rest of her family, she was stuck on this side of the bridge, with no way to return home.
She made up her mind. She touched Ross’s beer glass and added just a smidge of gingerroot and lemon zest. Then she stirred it with the red straw from Becky’s cocktail. The pint of beer turned a bright shade of pink for a split second. Now, this was definitely against the rules, this little concoction she had made, this little love potion. Sure, she had practiced a little magic before, here and there—that boy back in New York, that vampire’s familiar she had healed, for instance. But that was in the East Village, where she had been fairly certain what little, insignificant, inconsequential magic she had performed had been artfully concealed and absorbed by the city’s own kinetic energy.
This was something quite different, different even from the little nudges she gave the police to help solve crimes. This was the first real love potion she had created in . . . well, when the number of years was so big, who was counting? Besides, it was a shame to let such a good couple go to waste, and she shuddered at the thought of what might be if she did not: that terrible argument, a child growing up without parents, one dead, the other in jail. Freya increased the potency of the drinks she was about to serve. It didn’t have to happen. All they needed was a little help to get over the bump. They just needed a little reminder of why they had been together in the first place. She set the martini in front of Becky and the beer in front of Ross. “Cheers!” she told them, holding up her own glass.
“To our health,” Becky mumbled. She was probably embarrassed to have revealed so much to Freya earlier.
“Bottoms up,” Ross called to Becky from across the bar. He took a huge pull from his glass; and for a moment his face turned gray and it looked as if he were going to be sick, or throw up. Freya felt a fluttering of nerves—what if she had forgotten to mix it just right? What if she had poisoned him somehow—what if she had forgotten the correct amount to put in the elixir? She rushed to his side, hoping there was still time to serve him an antidote, when the color returned to his cheeks and he took a deep breath. “What’s in that?” he asked Freya.
“Why? Is there something wrong with it?” she asked, trying not to feel too alarmed.
“There’s nothing wrong with it! It’s awesome!” he declared, and downed the whole thing in one huge gulp. When he was done, his eyes seemed to light up, and he looked across the bar at his wife with a face full of wonder, falling in love with her all over again. Becky returned the smile tentatively, and in a few minutes the two of them were giggling, then howling with laughter, while Natasha looked confused and surly. Then Ross excused himself from his date, walked over to his wife, and gave her a back-dipping “Times Square–World War Two has ended” victory kiss. Natasha stomped off in a huff.
Freya sighed in relief. A few minutes later, she was smiling like a Cheshire cat. Her potion had worked. She still knew exactly how to make them. In an instant, the music on the jukebox suddenly pumped to life: Axl Rose screeching a love song: “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” She’s got a smile that it seems to me, Reminds me of childhood memories . . . The music began to fill up the night, lecherous and passionate, making girls grab their boys’ hands to lead them to the ad hoc dance floor in front of the jukebox. Dan and Amanda began to dirty-dance, and even the reverend and his wife took a spin. In the corner, the Baumans were making out so heavily—was that Ross’s hand up Becky’s shirt?—they should really think of leaving; it was getting a tad too heated. Even the mayor sat at the counter with a dreamy look on his face.
Freya drummed her fingers on the counter, swaying to the music. Sal had been right. It had felt like winter in there for a moment. But the frost had melted now. Of course, she still felt terrible about what happened with Killian. But a little magic went a long way.
chapter five
Sister Talk
You didn’t!” Ingrid said, looking up from her bowl of cereal and quickly putting the letter she had been reading back into her pocket.
“I did!” Freya said gleefully, too gleefully, Ingrid thought, feeling a twinge of jealousy at her sister’s exuberance as she picked off a few grapes from the bowl to feed her pet griffin, a part-eagle, part-lion hybrid, the one magical concession from their past that the Council had allowed, only because there was no way to separate a witch from her familiar without destroying either one. Truly Oscar was getting too big for the nonentity spell she’d placed on him centuries ago; he was almost the size of a Labrador, but he had the soul of a pussycat.
“And nothing happened?” Ingrid asked doubtfully. “Oh, Siegfried, I hear you, too. But you don’t like grapes,” she reminded the black cat.
“Not a thing!” Freya crowed, rooting around the cupboard for flour. She had just returned from her graveyard shift at the bar. It had been a long, busy night, one of their best in recent memory. “I feel like pancakes, do you want some?”
“I guess. So what are you going to do?”
“What do you think? I’m going to do it again! It felt good, Ingrid. I felt . . . like I was me again . . . you know?” She began cracking eggs in the bowl, looking around and admiring the newly clean kitchen. Things were so much nicer in the house now that the Alvarezes were taking care of it. Joanna had really taken to the little boy, too. It was cute. They all found him adorable. Tyler was an interesting kid, wise beyond his years. He could beat any of them at chess and could already add and subtract large numbers in his head. One day he had told them with a solemn face that it took fifty-seven steps to get to the beach from their house. Most of his diet consisted of dessert, which made him perfect for Joanna, who had yet to discover a cake she did not like. Ingrid brought him chess books from the library and Freya chased him around the garden. The house was happier with the Alvarez family inside it.
She noticed Ingrid surreptitiously reading her letter again. Her sister had begun receiving letters over the summer. They always arrived in a plain white envelope with no return address. Whoever sent them, Ingrid did not say, and Freya did not ask. Since moving back home, the sisters kept an easy peace. Freya did not ask Ingrid why she had spent her last several years as a humble library clerk, and Ingrid did not ask why Freya had dropped out of NYU and sold her bar in New York. If they felt like telling each other, they would. They shared confidences like clothes, but respected each other’s privacy.
It was funny how at home they fell back on their old habits, taking their usual places at the familial tree. Ingrid worked days, Freya took the late shifts, and they usually met for breakfast, at the beginning of Ingrid’s day and the end of Freya’s.
After a few seconds she flipped the pancakes. She didn’t need magic to know they would taste fantastic: light and buttery with a nutty sweetness. She stacked two plates and brought them to the table. She drizzled her pancakes with maple syrup, while Ingrid ate hers with fruit.
“Did Mother tell you about the dead birds on our beach the other day?” Ingrid asked.
Freya nodded, forking her pancake. “Yeah. What’s the big deal?”
“She’s not sure. She thinks it’s an omen.”
“Uh-huh. Remember when she thought my old English teacher was a warlock who was out to get us after he accused me of plagiarism in eighth grade?”