Born Wicked: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One: The Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book One (16 page)

Four blocks away, on a little side street filled with ramshackle row houses, Sachi Ishida is standing in the Elliotts’ front yard. She’s twirling a red rose between her thumb and forefinger. Rory is sitting on top of the wrought-iron gate, swinging back and forth and giggling. “Cate Cahill!” Sachi pronounces. “Just who we’ve been waiting for.”
“We were afraid you’d back out.” Rory hops down off the gate. “We hear you’re a troublemaker.”
I freeze on the empty sidewalk. I’ve done magic and told lies. I’ve read forbidden books; I’ve kissed a man and liked it. But Sachi Ishida can’t know any of that, can she?
The shrewd look in her eyes alarms me more than all the Brothers put together. It was easy enough to trick her father, but Sachi looks at me as though she’s ferreted out the inner workings of my mind and uncovered all the secrets of my imperfect heart.
Rory opens the gate for me. I hesitate and she laughs—all sharp notes and broken edges. I can’t help noticing that her eyes are like her cousin Brenna’s. They’re not quite so empty—but they’re not altogether
right
, either.
I step into the yard, overgrown with weeds and dandelions.
“We need to talk, Miss Cahill,” Sachi says. “Oh, ouch!” She makes a little face, throwing the rose to the ground. A bead of blood wells up on her index finger.
Rory leans away, scrunching up her nose. “Ugh!”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Sachi snaps. I expect her to pull out a handkerchief, but instead she closes her fist and squeezes it. A moment later, she holds her finger up for inspection.
No blood. No puncture. Not even a mark to suggest it was ever there.
Sachi Ishida just did magic.
Right here in the yard. Right in front of Rory and me.
Did she
heal
herself? I’ve never even heard of that sort of magic.
Sachi smiles. She’s pretty as a picture in her pink dress, every flounce edged in lace. “As I said, Miss Cahill, I think it’s time for us to have a talk. I suspect we have more in common than either of us thought.”
I go very still. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
Sachi Ishida, a witch? With her father the head of the council? It’s not possible.
But there’s no other explanation for what I just saw.
“Rory’s mother is indisposed. We’ll be left alone here,” Sachi explains, walking up to the front porch. I can’t help but follow.
Up close, the Elliott place is even more ramshackle than it looks from the street. The blue trim around the windows is cracked and peeling. There’s a broken board on the front porch, and others feel ready to give way beneath my feet. I feel a pang of sympathy for Rory.
And yet the most popular girl in town strolls in without knocking and hangs up her cloak as though she’s perfectly at home. The Elliotts’ sitting room isn’t grand and fashionable like Mrs. Ishida’s. It’s clean but shabby; the rugs are worn clean through in places, and the striped wallpaper is faded and out of fashion. Still, it seems cozier.
Sachi sits in a bulky chair of brown leather. I take the seat opposite her. She rings for the maid, then sends her off for tea and scones while Rory flits around the room, tidying things up, moving like a bright, restless yellow butterfly.
My mind is still reeling. Sachi’s always seemed so proper, and Brother Ishida is the very definition of strict. It’s hard to imagine magic taking place right under his nose.
“We’ve been watching you,” Sachi says finally.
I leap up, expecting men in dark cloaks to explode into the room.
“Rory and me,” she clarifies. “Lord, but you’re jumpy. Sit down.”
The cracked leather armchair behind me shoots forward, knocking into the back of my knees.
She moved the chair. It was a foot behind me. She
moved
it.
I do not sit. I stride forward until I’m looming over her. “How did you do that?”
She doesn’t look intimidated. “How do you think? Magic.”
Mother never taught me how to move objects. How to heal myself from a cut or scrape. Or, for that matter, how to magic things out of thin air, the way I did by accident with the sheep and the feathers.
I’m starting to think there were quite a lot of things Mother didn’t teach me.
And now I’m here in this room with another witch, a witch who happens to be the daughter of the most important man in town, and I’m at a distinct disadvantage.
“Cate. Don’t waste my time.” Sachi tosses her dark, shining hair. “I’m not an informant for my father, if that’s what frightens you.”
I flush. “I’m hardly frightened. What do you imagine you could tell him?”
“Come now. It’s to our mutual advantage to be honest with each other. I am a witch. I strongly suspect that you are one as well.”
I steeple my fingers together, trying to look careless. “What on earth gave you that idea?”
“Rory stepped on your sister Maura’s skirt a few weeks ago at church. I was right next to her and heard it rip, and I saw the tear across the bodice, and then a moment later it was gone. As if by
magic
. And the way she whipped around and looked at you—” Sachi laughs. Maura did look at me—probably because she was afraid I’d murder Tess for doing magic in church. “She knows what you are, doesn’t she? Besides, your godmother was a witch; I heard Mama tell you. It wasn’t much to put two and two together. Who’d give a baby a witch for a godmother unless the baby was likely to be a witch, too?” Sachi smiles triumphantly while Rory looks back and forth between us as though we’re playing at lawn tennis.
I lift my chin. “What if you’re wrong?”
“It would be my word against yours, and my father’s head of the council.” Sachi smirks. “But if I were wrong, you’d have swooned or called me names or run out the door twice over, wouldn’t you? Any good girl would.”
She’s right.
Sachi Ishida isn’t a cabbagehead at all. She’s much cannier than I’ve ever given her credit for.
I’m impressed.
The maid brings a pot of tea on a silver tray with a plate of blueberry scones. “Thank you, Elizabeth. I’ll pour,” Sachi says.
I wait until the maid leaves before speaking, and even then I keep my voice to a whisper. “Fine. What if you’re right? What if I am—what you say?”
Sachi hands me a cup of tea—plain, the way I like it. The cup has a little web of cracks around the handle. “Then we can pool our knowledge. I hear you’ve been visiting the bookshop. Everyone says they’ve got books on magic—on the history of witchery, too. My father hasn’t been able to find them, but he’s certain they exist. I want to know what’s in them. Mrs. Belastra would never give them to me, but she might let you see them.”
I take a sip of tea, eyeing Sachi over the rim of the cup. “You haven’t told anyone about this suspicion of yours, have you?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that. Honestly, I wouldn’t,” Sachi swears.
“So you’re not blackmailing me?”
Sachi sets her teacup down with a clatter. “No! I can be useful, too, you know. Father trusts me. He thinks Rory and I are just silly little girls. I can see why you’ve stayed home so much, if you’re afraid of being discovered. But it must be awfully dull. I can make you the second-most popular girl in town. Or third, after Rory.” She rolls her eyes as if to show just how little she thinks of the town girls and their limited possibilities. “If you’re my new best friend, Father won’t suspect you.”
I look at Rory, who’s nibbling on a scone. She’s pulled the pins from her black hair so it falls in soft waves over her shoulders. Why are we having this conversation here, in front of her?
“No,” Sachi snaps, smacking a small bottle out of Rory’s hand. It rolls across the rosewood tea table. “Do you want to be like
her
, drunk by midafternoon?”
Rory sinks onto the sofa. “No,” she says pitifully. “But I didn’t want any of this, did I?”
The penny drops. “You’re not a witch, too?”
“Why not?” Rory grits her jaw, her overbite pronounced, and stares at the bottle.
“Evanesco,”
she says, and it disappears.
“Good work,” Sachi praises.
This is without a doubt the most bizarre afternoon of my life.
It seems my sisters and I aren’t the only witches in town after all.
“The drink—it dulls the magic,” Rory explains. “I don’t feel it
at
me all the time.”
“You don’t feel much of anything, and that’s a problem,” Sachi says. “You’ve got to keep your wits about you. Brother Winfield is itching for a reason to make Nils stop seeing you.”
Rory slumps across the sofa, kicking her voluminous yellow skirts out of the way. Crumbs drop carelessly to the threadbare carpet. “What do I care if he does?”
“We need Nils. He helps you keep up appearances,” Sachi says patiently, as though she’s said it a hundred times before. It’s the same tone I use with Tess and Maura.
I think of how Rory’s always smiling up at Nils, always touching him. “It’s all just for show? You’re not really in love with him?”
Rory barks her broken laugh. “Lord, no. He’s dumb as bricks. Handsome, though, isn’t he?”
I frown, and Sachi looks at me hard. “Oh, and I suppose you’ve never used anyone or lied to keep your secret safe?”
But I have. And I will again.
“Fine,” I say. “You’re right. I’m a witch.”
It’s a dangerous thing, saying those words out loud. It feels momentous.
Sachi smiles. “Prove it.”

I peer at the picturesque forest scene carved into the tea table, at the spot where Rory’s bottle disappeared. I can feel the glamour hovering over it, the magic practically shimmering in the air. My sisters and I are fairly well matched, which makes breaking their glamours difficult. Apparently it’s easier if the witch isn’t as strong as you—and Rory’s not. I push against her magic until her glamour cracks and I can see the bottle again. The golden-brown liquor winks in the sunlight.
Commuto,
I think. But it’s still only a bottle. I take a deep breath. My magic feels tenuous at best, whisperthin and shaky.

“Forget everything else and concentrate,” Sachi says. I glance at her, expecting scorn, but she’s smiling as though she’s eager to see me succeed. Mother never looked at me like that when we practiced. Anything to do with magic left her pinched and anxious.
Sachi’s right. Finn—the prophecy—Elena—the knowledge that my sisters and I aren’t the only witches in town—it’s all swirling around in my head, splintering my focus. I’m lucky I didn’t make the sitting room an aviary. I draw in another breath, filling my mind with a single intention, repeating the words over and over again.
“Commuto,”
I say clearly.
Now there’s a sparrow perched on the table where the bottle was. Brown feathers, white chest. Rory shrieks, leaping out of her seat.
“I knew it.” Sachi throws her hands up, triumphant. “Nice work, Cate.”
“It isn’t nice, it’s horrid. Birds carry disease!” Rory protests.
“Real birds do.” Sachi pushes aside the heavy velvet drapes and unlatches the window behind her. She shoves it open, and cool air rushes into the room.
“Avolo,”
she says, and the sparrow flies out with a flapping of wings.
“Show-off,” Rory complains, shivering. “Now where’s my brandy gone?”
Sachi looks at me, black eyes dancing. “Check the bushes?”
“How long have you been practicing?” Rory asks. She kicks off her slippers and stretches out on the red-flowered sofa as though we’re old, familiar friends who no longer need to stand on ceremony.
“Since I was eleven.” They both look impressed, so I don’t volunteer that I’ve hardly practiced since Mother died—that the spells I mastered at thirteen are the only ones I can manage at sixteen.
“I didn’t start until I was thirteen,” Sachi says. “Father preached against women’s inherent promiscuousness all through dinner and I went upstairs so angry, my magic exploded. I smashed all three of my looking glasses and the music box Renjiro sent me from New London. It took me a week to figure out how to fix them, and I had to find excuses to keep the maids out of my room the whole time. Couldn’t have Papa thinking his little girl had a temper.”
The first time I did magic, I was eleven, Maura barely ten, and Tess seven. It was a drowsy summer day and Paul was away. I was bored with being cooped up in the house, so I wheedled my sisters into coming outside and playing with me. The smell of roses and freshly cut grass surrounded us as we drew on the flagstones with chalk.
Maura and I got into a row about whether I’d smudged her drawing on purpose. She shoved me and I tripped into Tess, who fell and tore her stockings and scraped her knee. Maura said it was all my fault and that she was going to tell Mother. Tess just sat there, lip wobbling, knee bleeding. I was so angry, I wanted to shake Maura—I wanted her to be the one crying, her dress torn and smudged with chalk and blood.
I felt my anger simmer faster and faster until it boiled over. Something inside me swayed up and out my fingertips. Her green dress ripped. White chalk Xs slashed across the skirt. Blood splattered. At first I thought I was only imagining it, but then Tess’s eyes went wide as saucers and Maura started screaming her head off, and I knew they could see it, too. I tried to bribe them with promises of stories and sweets. I wasn’t much for listening to the Brothers’ sermons, but I knew about witches: how their magic sprang from Persephone’s marriage to the devil, how they were born wrong and wicked.
“Was your mother a witch?” Rory stretches her arms over her head, her fingertips dangling toward the floor.
I pluck at my blue skirt with nervous fingers. “She was.”
“And your sisters?” Sachi asks.
“No,” I say quickly. The Brothers can’t hurt Mother now, but my sisters are another matter. “They’ve been very accepting, but it’s just me.”
“You’re lucky we found you, then.” Sachi gives me her sly smile. “Mine comes from Father’s side. He doesn’t like anyone to know, but his greatgrandmother was a witch.”
“I don’t know where mine comes from,” Rory says. “Certainly not my mother.”
“You aren’t anything like her,” Sachi says, patting Rory’s dark head. “You’re so much stronger.”
Rory knocks her hand away, and Sachi sighs. I get the impression this is a frequent argument between them.
“What can you do besides illusions, Cate?” Sachi asks.
“That’s all, as far as I know. Mother only taught me a few spells before she died.” I reach for a blueberry scone. No matter how nice Sachi is, I’ll never tell her about the mind-magic.
“Animating objects is harder. It takes more energy than illusions.” Sachi’s teacup hovers off the table a few inches, then floats back down to its blue saucer, clicking gently into place.
“It’s not as easy as she makes it look. Things—well, they don’t always move where I want them,” Rory adds.
Sachi gives Rory a sideways look. “If you didn’t drink, your focus would—”
“Agito
,
”
Rory interrupts, and a thick leather-bound Bible flies right off the bookshelf, zooming across the room toward Sachi’s head.
“Desino,”
Sachi fires back, and the book falls harmlessly to the floor. “Very good, Rory.”
“Stop lecturing me then and let Cate try it.”
“Me? Here?” I glance nervously toward the hall. Birds and feathers aside, I’ve never performed magic in front of someone besides Mother or Maura and Tess. I can’t help feeling shy, as though Rory’s asked me to undress.
“It’s safe. Elizabeth’s gone out to the market, and Rory’s mother won’t come down until supper,” Sachi says, her eyes flicking up to the ceiling.
But it’s a new kind of spell. Who knows what could go wrong?
“No one will care if you break something here,” Rory says from her prone position on the sofa. “Mother never notices if the dishes go missing.”
“All you have to do is pick an object and focus on where you want it to go. Pinpoint the location
exactly
. If you get distracted, it may end up somewhere else,” Sachi instructs. “
Agito
is the best spell, although sometimes I use
avolo
to make things go faster. If you set something in motion,
desino
will make it stop.”
I’m slow at languages, but even I recognize that much Latin. I set my teacup down. “
Agito
?”
It doesn’t move. I try again, more forcefully, imagining it three inches to the right.
“Agito!”
Still nothing. Frustration chokes me.
I look up at Sachi, cheeks flushed. “I can’t do it.”
Sachi just laughs. “You can’t expect to master a spell in two minutes. Watch us for a bit.”
Rory sits up, and they call out spells, sending things flying around the room: books, pillows, Rory’s slippers, the sugar bowl. Rory pulls the pins from Sachi’s hair, and the next minute the sofa floats a few inches off the floor—with Rory still on it, squealing. They’re playful with magic in a way I’ve never been. They make it look
fun.
It makes me wish things were different. That
I
was different.
Mother was very clear; magic was not a thing to play with. Inheriting it wasn’t a gift or a mark of pride. It was a burden, and a heavy one, and we had to learn to wield it well enough to make sure we were safe.
What would it have been like to learn magic without all her warnings, without the fear and anxiety that pervaded all of our practices? Would the Brothers’ lectures still make me feel sick with guilt?
“Keep trying,” Sachi says, and I do. Once the teacup rattles promisingly, and they both stop their own efforts to watch. I try again. This time, it scoots forward three whole inches.
Rory puts her fingers in her mouth and gives a piercing whistle. “Brilliant! It took me weeks to learn that.”
“Me, too. You’re amazing,” Sachi proclaims. “You must have a natural gift for this sort of magic.”
I look at her suspiciously, but she’s not mocking. She actually thinks I’m good. Lord, but I have misjudged these girls.