The Skinwalker's Apprentice (14 page)

“If I was a few years younger,” sighed Nora every time she watched him walk up to the attic. According to her Juda was ‘a hunk’. Emerald secretly shared her opinion.

The three-story brownstone seemed out of place next to its plainly colored neighbors. It was a deep purple, and right before sunset on clear nights it seemed to fade into the sky.  A black picket fence surrounded the small but lush greenery around the brownstone; it had a dwarf-sized front yard and a peculiarly large backyard by New York City standards. Another smaller gate led into the backyard from the left side of the house; pokeweed plants with dark purple berries lined the walkway. Flowering dogwood trees shaded the corners of the yard, with pink and white flowers blooming in the spring, and scrap metal bird feeders hanging from their branches. A haphazard trellis made of tree branches and covered with wild grapes adorned the far right side of the house. Alongside the back of the house, the remnants of an old brick wall stood four feet high and held up a stone fountain and birdbath.

Their boarding house was old but well kept, one of the last pieces of the Kipp children’s inheritance. Inside the hallways were narrow, and the rooms were cozy and comfortably furnished. Nora had added her own touches throughout, which consisted mostly of corner-to-corner floral prints, which Emerald liked to motion to with her thumb when Nora boasted about her ‘hip’ decorating sense. The floors were a dark wood, and the ceilings were high, giving the house a chapel-like feeling. It always smelled of roses, tea, and laundry, a smell Emerald breathed in deeply whenever she walked in. The boarding house was the only home she had ever really known, or at least the only one she could remember knowing. She had lived in a sprawling home on the edge of the Hudson when her parents were still around. The house overlooked the train tracks leading into Manhattan, covered in ivy and perched on a rocky cliff a hundred feet above the river. Emerald only knew it from a handful of stories and photographs now.

Once, Emerald had tried to enchant the outside of the boarding house with stars. It was her birthday, a day she never liked to celebrate since it brought back the pang of not having her parents around. She had gotten in trouble at school that day, and had spent the day avoiding her Aunt Nora and the inevitable cake all over the city. But first, she’d gone to the New York Public Library on West 42
nd
and 5
th
Avenue. She could spend hours in the reading room, running her hands over the old leather bindings and smelling the distinct aroma that only weathered books could give off. One thing she did remember about the old house in Riverdale was her mother’s library. The Kipp’s collection of books rose ten feet into the air, and Penelope, her mother, spent any time she had to herself reading and reciting passages from those books to her small child. Emerald didn’t know it at the time, but her mother was teaching her spells, reciting basic incantations over and over, and keeping her close when she brewed a potion or elixir. Emerald was barely six years old when she was separated from her parents, but somehow all the lessons had been ingrained. Emerald never found any books like her mother’s, though she searched relentlessly through libraries and old bookstores throughout the city every chance she got. Aunt Nora certainly wouldn’t loosen her lips, but Emerald desperately wanted to know more about witches, about what made her and her mother and her Aunt Nora so different. She knew there must be others like her, but finding them would be close to unthinkable since she was forbidden from talking about her powers with anyone. More than an escape, Emerald just wanted a connection, a small piece of who she really was and who she was supposed to be. She just had no idea where to start.

When she finally made it home from the library, a tuckered Emerald slunk into the backyard and lay down on the soft grass. Like every time before, she was no closer to learning anything about her powers. She bit her lip to keep from crying; something she rarely allowed herself to do. She had enough problems without sitting around feeling sorry for herself.

Emerald looked up at her home, the same violet color of the setting sky, and whispered, “
Scintillatione stellarum constare
.” Thousands of tiny, glistering stars washed over the house, reflecting light off every surface surrounding it. Emerald held her breath and made a wish before Nora, who had noticed the spell and was swiftly running out to berate Emerald, made it downstairs.

With a dismissive wave of her hand, Nora ended the light show abruptly, and covered them both in darkness. But as Emerald stood up to face her, Nora’s once angry demeanor quickly melted. Emerald’s eyes flashed a pool of tears before she blinked fiercely and put her head down. Nora knew the pain the child must have been feeling, and in an act of compassion that Emerald would never forget, Nora pressed all ten of her fingers together and closed her eyes briefly, throwing a protective shield over their home. With a wink the lights were back, and she reached for her niece who was already running into her arms. The two hugged each other tightly, as Nora whispered, “Just for tonight, Emmy,” into a sobbing Emerald’s ear. It was the first time Emerald had ever seen her aunt use her own magic and it made her feel like for once, she wasn’t alone.

Emerald had always been a handful for her aunt, taking every chance she could to see what she would get away with, but Nora could never imagine her life without her niece.

“You’re all I got, kid, and I’m all you got. We gotta make the best of it,” Aunt Nora always said, nudging Emerald’s chin with her fist and winking.

She was proud of the young woman her niece was becoming. She was difficult and headstrong but incredibly kind and sharp as a whip like her mother. And she was always smiling and making Nora laugh, always getting into some sort of mischief and rebelling, curious to a fault like her father. With Emerald, Aunt Nora felt she had a piece of both Penelope and her brother Alexander.

Nora cracked another egg on the old marble countertop and poured the contents of the matte shell into a giant yellow bowl that held about fifteen other egg yolks. She grabbed a whisk and began to beat the eggs, turning her slender wrists in and then out. Emerald couldn’t help but stare at anything her aunt did. She was graceful and beautiful, and once, when Seneka’s cousin Juda described Nora as ‘mesmerizing’, Emerald couldn’t help but agree silently to herself that he was right, despite the small prick of jealousy she felt. Juda’s words were sparse, and his compliments even more so. Nora was beautiful in the way of a classic movie star. Her hair fell just past her shoulders in perfect raven corkscrews, framing her face. Her eyes were the same almond shape as Emerald’s but a deep brown instead of green, and without the mischievous twinkle. Her eyes were sad, but her expression was always serene, unless of course Emerald had gotten into some sort of trouble, which was fairly often.

Emerald had her own unique appeal; her frantic pink locks and heart-shaped face made her look like a cartoon, she thought, yet she kept dying it because as she put it to Jackson once, “I’m a masochist.” She had a slight gap between her otherwise perfectly set teeth, and her downturned eyes, a shocking shade of green, flickered under her dark brows and heavy lashes. She was unusual looking, no doubt, but she liked it that way.

“You are gonna be late again, Emmy,” said Nora in her heavy New York tone, snapping her out of her trance. The wooden hands on Nora’s kitchen clock pointed wildly to seven thirty-nine a.m.

“Not you too,” warned Nora, shaking a pancake-battered spoon at the clock.

“AHHH,” exclaimed Emerald as she took one big gulp of orange juice and ran to her room. A fast-paced rock song with lilting guitar riffs wafted out of her door before she reached it, at which Nora let out a reprimanding “Emerald!”

“Sorry, it slipped!” said Emerald with a shrug, as she looked over her shoulder and threw up her hands. This time it really had; she hadn’t meant to make her music start playing. She shut her door and began to undress rapidly.

“Late again?” asked Iggy, one of the musicians in her posters.

“Yes, no peeking,” she said between breaths, throwing her robe in the poster’s direction.

She slipped on ripped jean shorts and a white and maroon jersey tee with the number ‘84’ on it. A red flannel shirt wrapped around her waist, Emerald slipped tube socks on before putting on black, high top canvas sneakers. She absentmindedly ran a brush through her chin-length bob and pushed her long bangs out of her face as she grabbed her backpack and checked her clock. ‘7:45 a.m.’, it flashed. She was already fifteen minutes behind.

“Oh, no,” said Emerald to herself, remembering her principal, Mr. Grossman’s words last fall, after she and her friends had pulled off the most disastrous senior prank in the history of their school.

“If you are late just ONE more time this year, you will be required to complete summer school.”

If she was even a few minutes late, she would be stuck at her high school all summer with kids that smelled like rotten cheese and smoked behind the gym. Even worse, she would miss her chance to say goodbye to Seneka, since Nora would ground her indefinitely if she didn’t graduate. She’d rather eat her own eyeballs than do that. Seneka was her oldest friend, and Emerald refused to let her down.

Emerald’s heart began to race at the thought of not saying goodbye to her friends, and suddenly her head began to swim. Her room, buzzing with activity a minute ago, was perfectly still. Her ever-moving knick-knacks stood motionless, her floral wallpaper stopped swaying with its usually breezy undulations. She held her breath and pressed the palms of her head to her temples as if to stop the effect and ran to the door to find a dazed Aunt Nora staring at her face with terrified eyes.

“How?” she asked staring unblinkingly at Emerald. “How did you do that?” she asked again, searching for the answer as if it was written on her niece’s face. Nora searched the room with her eyes but found it was in its usual state of activity and disarray.

“I don’t know,” said Emerald finally, shrugging and walking quickly past her aunt as she tucked one piece of hair behind her thrice-pierced right ear. “I was just late and it happened,” she mumbled as she walked briskly towards the stairs that would lead her to their front door and out into the city. She left behind a dumbstruck Aunt Nora, who could only stare at the clock, which inexplicably read ‘7:15 a.m’.


Happy birthday
- Altered Images

o
What Difference Does it Make?
- The Smiths

o
It's My Life -
Talk Talk

o
Cherry Oh Baby
- UB40

o
William It was Really Nothing
- The Smiths

o
The Ghost in You
- The Psychedelic Furs

o
Dazzle
- Siouxsie And the Banshees

o
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
-The Smiths

o
Hello Again
- The Cars

o
If It Happens Again
- UB40

o
Middle of the Road
- The Pretenders

o
How Soon is Now?
- The Smiths

o
Age of Consent
- New Order

o
Blasphemous Rumours
- Depeche Mode

o
Wrapped Around Your Finger
- The Police

o
Rapture
- Blondie

o
The Breaks
- Kurtis Blow

o
Sucker M.C.'s
- RUN DMC

o
West End Girls
- Pet Shop Boys

o
There is A Light That Never Goes Out
-The Smiths

o
More Than This
- Roxy Music

o
Pearly
-
Dewdrops
'
Drops
' by Cocteau Twins


The Killing Moon
- Echo and the Bunnymen

Claribel Ortega has a degree in journalism and got her start as a reporter for
The Rivertowns Enterprise
, a local paper in lower Westchester County, New York.

She lives in New York with her boyfriend, her Yorkie Pancho Villa, enjoys watching movies, reality TV, and reading anything she can get her hands on.

The Skinwalker's Apprentice
is her first book.

Visit Claribel Online:

www.claribelortega.com

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@Claribel_Ortega

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