Trio of Sorcery Read Free

over her legs and curled up, staring at the flames and thinking. The afghan was warm and soft, and had been made by someone who loved the feel of the yarn in her fingers as she worked. It had, as they said, “good vibes.”
    She couldn’t recall a moment from the time she’d entered Memaw’s home to stay that she hadn’t known that her grandmother could do magic. She remembered Memaw soothing bumps and bruises with a touch and a murmur of words, remembered Memaw lighting candles and the fireplace, and remembered the teddy bear that Memaw had persuaded a house-spirit to “animate” once when Di wassick. Nothing like singing and dancing, just curling up, cuddling, and crooning. So Memaw must have known that Di had the gift too, and that the best way to teach her was to keep it from being something scary. On the other hand, Di also couldn’t remember a time when Memaw hadn’t made it very clear that this was something to be kept between the two of them. “Not everyone can do this, sweetie. Keep it secret so they aren’t jealous.” Or, “The neighbors think we’re strange enough, don’t say anything about this, okay?”
    She had learned how to keep secrets from a very young age. Probably some child psychologist would make much of that, but she couldn’t see that it had harmed her any.
    Then again, there weren’t a lot of kids who grew up being able to see things that no one else could. Saying “Look at that!” and pointing at the creature that was perfectly clear to you, but invisible to everyone else, taught you pretty quickly to keep your mouth shut.
    Good thing that most people go, “Oh, what an active imagination!” when you’re a little kid, not “Lock her up, she’s nuts!”
    Not that she could actually do magic until she was old enough to realize that it really did matter what the neighbors thought about you. That was the year that the other kids started calling her “Wednesday.”
    Memaw wasn’t big on family photo albums, but they did have one, and now Di could admit that the nickname was apt. There were three photos of her from that year, two of them the mandatory class and school photos, and there she was, a stick-straight, solemn-eyed, dark-haired child withher hair in two equally straight ponytails. And while the teen glamour magazines were showing straight, straight mod hair, either long or short, no one around her town wore their hair like that. The flip was very much the thing, with some teasing on top. Not big hair, like the fifties, but not ironed-flat straight either.
    She hated the nickname and she hated Wednesday Addams. But most of all she hated Jimmy Mason, who had first started calling her that.
    She sighed and rested her head on her hand, elbow on the arm of the love seat.
    She had Memaw cut her hair boyishly short, but nothing would get him to stop. Finally she decided she was going to curse him.
    It wasn’t hard to get “something” from him. She used her big vocabulary for once, standing where the teachers could see her, but not necessarily hear her, and started taunting him. Finally, as she had known he would do, he flew into a rage and came at her.
    She’d been dodging worse things than him for two years at that point (though never, never as bad as the things she encountered once she was a Guardian). She was coming into her magic, and arcane critters smelled that, and scented her youth, and came hunting. She easily dodged him, but while he was windmilling away, trying futilely to hit her, she snatched a tiny handful of hair. He squalled and came at her harder, which was when the teachers finally took notice (or resignedly knew they werebeing forced to take notice, they didn’t care for her either), and pulled him off.
    She had her prize.
    She took it home and began to construct a Curse Doll. Memaw caught her at it of course, because all manner of tiny little nasty