The Price Guide to the Occult(29)

Nor opened her mouth and then closed it. She wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Why haven’t you ever said anything?” she finally asked.

Savvy shrugged. “I figured you didn’t want to talk about it. I mean, let’s face it, Nor. You don’t want to talk about most things. Though” — Savvy examined Nor with a careful eye — “now that you are talking, I have some questions.”

Nor sighed. “Yeah, that makes sense. Go ahead then.”

Savvy settled onto a mint-green settee and folded her arms comfortably behind her head. “Are you immortal?” she asked.

Nor smiled. “I don’t think immortality is possible, even in the magic world. Though my grandmother’s dog is over one-hundred-sixty years old, so I could be wrong.”

“What about him?” Savvy pointed to Bijou, who was busy trying to coax a mouse out from behind an old jukebox. “He isn’t immortal or hundreds of years old, is he?”

“No,” Nor answered, “and Bijou doesn’t want to be immortal, either.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can read his thoughts.”

“Interesting. Can you read mine?”

“No.”

“Why his?”

“I can only read the thoughts of animals — birds, squirrels, dogs. And plants,” Nor added.

“Plants have thoughts?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that plant thinking?” Savvy asked, pointing to a potted geranium on the windowsill.

“That it’s not a rose, and it wishes you’d stop referring to it as one.”

“No shit? But you can’t cast spells? Isn’t that what witches do?”

Nor shook her head. “Not necessarily. Casting spells is just one skill out of many that a witch can have. No one in my family has been able to cast even a simple memory charm since my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Rona Blackburn.” Nor did the best she could to explain everything she knew about Rona and the curse that had befallen all the Blackburn daughters after her.

“So you’re not just a witch, you’re a cursed witch.” Savvy considered this. “That’s totally fucked up.”

“That’s not even the worst part.” Nor sighed. “For generations, Blackburn women have been given one talent — incredible strength, speed, the ability to walk through fire, or heal pain through touch. My mother is casting spells she shouldn’t be able to cast. Practicing magic outside a witch’s natural abilities isn’t just frowned upon. It’s black magic. It’s considered wicked and evil because you have to do wicked and evil things in order to do it.”

“Like what?”

“You have to be willing to hurt someone,” Nor said softly. “Even kill them. Some witches have gone so far as to hurt their own children to get what they want.” The night sky bright with fire. The charred black of burned skin. Pools of blood. “Trust me when I say the price paid for one of my mother’s spells isn’t just monetary. The real price is blood. And pain.”

Which is why Nor had never told anyone that being able to communicate with nature — her most innocuous gift — was only one of many abilities she’d been given. Every time Nor accidentally stopped time or healed pain or saw a lie, she was afraid. Afraid that if people knew, they’d look at Nor and see someone evil and wicked, afraid they’d look at Nor and see Fern.

“So you’re saying on a scale of one to ten, the likelihood of you casting, I don’t know, a love spell is, what do you think, a four?”

“More like negative eleven. And love spells don’t actually make anyone fall in love with you. It just mimics the physical responses to the feeling of being in love.”

“So like sweaty palms and a racing pulse?”

“Pretty much.”

“Gross.”

Nor laughed. Of course, in some hands, a love spell could cause far more damage than an increased heart rate. A love spell could take away a person’s autonomy. They’d love you because they’d have to love you. They wouldn’t have any other choice. Nor thought about her father. Part of Nor knew Quinn Sweeney was still alive, that he was still under Fern’s control. What could such a spell do to someone long-term? Was there anything left of him, or was he just a shell of who he once was? “I guess we’re lucky that you don’t want a love spell then, huh?” she finally said.

“I might not, but you could sure use one,” Savvy said.

“My love life isn’t really my top concern right now.”

“Yes, it is!” Savvy insisted. “Whether or not your mom is a sociopath in witch’s clothing, you still totally want to get underneath Reed. Hell, girl, I’d even settle for you to hook up with what’s-his-name, that hot angry guy on the beach.”

“Gage Coldwater?” Nor exclaimed. “You can’t be serious. He’s hated me since seventh grade!”

“Which could be fun,” Savvy posited. “Nor, you care about Reed. And maybe you don’t want to admit it because then you’ll have to consider what happens if it doesn’t work out. You and I both know that losing someone hurts like hell, but that’s how you know that it meant something. That it was real. Isn’t that worth it?”