Timespell (4 page)

With the help of music and her mother’s not so secret stash of iced mochas, the hours blurred by. Julia tapped out a final sentence. “This rocks,” she whispered. Thanks to widening the margins and starting the pages really low, the essay was practically five pages before dawn. She went to the living room to print as her mom came out of the bedroom, squinting against the light.

“How are you going to get through school without any sleep?”

“I can sleep. I have a whole hour before I need to get ready.”

Her mom shook her head. “It’s your day.” She shuffled to the kitchen, mumbling something in Spanish.

Julia fake-sulked a little. She hated when her mom said things in Spanish that she couldn’t understand.

Her mom watched her from beside the coffee maker. “If you want to know what I’m saying, stop failing Spanish.”

“Why didn’t you teach it to me when I was little and my brain was, you know, a little sponge?”

“You sound like Tía Josefina,” she grumbled. “Don’t forget to set your alarm. I’m leaving for work in twenty minutes.”

“Right, right,” Julia said with a yawn as the printer spit out the last page. One by one, she closed the browser windows she
had left open. Fashion, military, masquerades, political something or other. She paused at a site about French art. A painting there seemed really familiar. She clicked it for a better look and saw a girl dressed in a fancy, full-skirted ball gown. Julia slid her finger across the sensor pad to click the screen closed. As she did her heart slowed. So did the pointer moving across the screen.

She recognized that face.

“Oh my gosh,” she whispered. She hit print and stared at the painting. It was from eighteenth century France, but with a girl in it she knew from school. Her mouth dried out as she examined the picture. This girl couldn’t be an ancestor, not with that mark on her arm. Daughter of Future was not an inherited magic.

Holy cow, this had to be the final Daughter of Fate.

She was the girl who would be sealed to them, who would share their emotions and be bound to them for all time. The symbols on Julia’s arm warmed, changing from subtle gold to a searing bright white in the space of a heartbeat, casting glimmers of light in the dim room. She covered the mark with her hand and remembered the pain she had felt in Angie’s heart. But there was no doubt. One look at those smirking lips and condescending eyes was enough. She knew who the third Daughter of Fate would be.

“Kaitlyn,” she whispered, staring at the computer screen as it shut down. “Kaitlyn Tesoro.”

Steam
clouded the bathroom, leaving the faucet coated in cold moisture. Angie turned off the tap, brushing her teeth without wiping off the fogged-over mirror. Warm, damp air filled her lungs as she stared at nothing, tried to think of nothing, but her mind wouldn’t be still. One more day to find the final Daughter. Her entire life of training would amount to nothing. Her grandmother’s legacy ... lost.

Her phone flashed and Angie’s heart lurched painfully. Every morning since their breakup, she checked for a message from David—a message she knew wouldn’t be there. Ever since what happened with Kaitlyn, she had asked him not to text or call her again.

But yesterday he had asked her to prom. Maybe that meant he was back to texting her again, just like before.

She held her breath and picked up her phone, embarrassed by the longing that rose in her chest. His text would say,
Good morning, angel.
Her stomach dipped at the thought. Gosh, she needed some cookies.

Not that she would reply. She couldn’t yet. Maybe tomorrow. She tapped her screen on slid her fingers to the messages icon.

But the text came from Julia.

Disappointment burned her throat, sending heat to the backs of her eyes. How silly, to have hoped for—even expected—a text message she had forbidden him to send.

She leaned against the sink, drumming her fingers against her thigh and deciding she most definitely needed to make cookies today. Maybe cupcakes too.
David
, she thought, wishing there was a way to stop thinking about him all the time. She wanted to text him so badly.

He had always insisted that Kaitlyn had been the one who kissed him and not the other way around. Even after their breakup he hadn’t gone to Kaitlyn. Absently, Angie began counting out the light tapping motions of her fingers against her leg. She had agreed to go to prom with him. The thought of being in his arms again left her heart so full, tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted him in her life again. She wanted things to be the way they were before.

The tapping of her fingers stopped as she pressed her hands against her eyes. She swallowed, allowing the magic to build up inside her. She wanted to feel close to him again, and she let the magic grow stronger. The mark on her arm changed, going from pale gold tones to shimmering white. “Memoria,” she whispered. Her heart eased and light flashed across her vision.

Angie ran. The sand became hard beneath her feet. Water crashed against her chest, icy needles burrowing into her skin. She sucked in her breath, bracing herself as the water receded again.

“Angie!” a voice called above the roar of the ocean.

A wave slammed into her. She rolled onto the sandy floor, waiting out the last of the ocean’s wrath beneath the water.

Her head broke the surface and her lungs burst with laughter at her stupidity. It had been a few years since she had been pummeled by the sea. She smoothed back her hair, sure that she
had imagined David’s voice a moment ago. She imagined him a lot.

“Angie!” the voice called again, and this time there was no mistaking it.
David.

Water trickled from his mess of light brown hair, the droplets streaming down his chest. She sucked in her breath as heat raced up her face.

It was impossible to forget the way it felt to be with him. She forced her gaze up, finding his blue eyes somber. A little more than a month ago he would have rushed across the sand and picked her up by the waist, kissing her until she couldn’t remember her name. But that was before she had caught him with Kaitlyn.

Water sprayed as he came to a stop in the receding ocean. His eyes shifted back and forth as he watched her. “It’s so great to see you,” he said, his voice halting.

Angie nodded. “You too.”

The moment stretched. It seemed as though he wouldn’t say anything more. Angie drew her hair across her shoulders, watching him. Nothing else seemed to matter when he was near. Not the magic or finding the final Daughter. It was only the two of them in their own world. Why had he gone and ruined everything by kissing Kaitlyn? She lowered her eyes, her nose stinging.

“This might sound like a line or something,” he finally said, “but I had this feeling that I should come today
...
that you’d be here.” He came closer, his voice dropping, “And here you are.”

Warmth flooded her as she met his gaze. How could he still make her feel this breathless after everything they had been through?

“It’s a coincidence,” she said, unable to stop the catch in her voice.

“I can’t believe that.”

She tasted the saltwater on her lips. David’s Adam’s apple bobbed as his gaze dropped to her mouth.

“I’d better go,” she said.

“Wait.” His vivid blue eyes lit with determination. “I have to believe this means something.”

She shook her head.

“One date,” he said. “Please.”

“I said we could be friends. That’s all you asked for.”

“It’s not enough.”

It wasn’t enough for her either, and she felt herself giving in. “I don’t know.”

“Not just us, then,” he said, taking her hands. “A date with friends.”

She blushed at the contact. “A date with friends. Okay.”

The relief poured out of him so clearly she could practically touch it. He let go of her hands, walking backward into the ocean. “I’ll pick you up Friday at six.”

“Friday night,” she repeated. The remnants of a wave rolled up around her ankles, waking her up. “We can’t go anywhere Friday night with friends,” she said. “Friday is prom.”

“Exactly,” he called before turning and diving into an oncoming wave.

“Angie,” her mother called, breaking through her spell. “Angie!”

She shook her head, registering that her name had been yelled out more than those two times.

“Coming,” she called, not wanting her mother to worry. She rose to her feet, grateful that the magic had drained from her body. It left her shaky but feeling better. Reliving that moment with David ... she couldn’t admit even to herself how good it made her feel inside.

Quickly she brushed out her hair, her thoughts returning to the more pressing matters at hand. The final Daughter of Fate would need to be marked today if she and Julia had any hope of keeping their magical inheritance. The last Daughters who succeeded in creating the seal between Past, Present, and Future had been back in the early eighteen hundreds. The channel had been in New York at the time, and before that it had emerged in Morocco, Japan, Peru—wherever the Fates deemed best, it seemed. The only thing that seemed clear was the fact that an ancient jewel passed down from the Fates caused the channel to form, acting like a magnetic draw and compelling the chosen descendants of the first priestesses to live near it.

The writings of the jewel were vague. Some Daughters referred to it as three separate pieces, while others made mention of a single item of power. Whatever the case, the artifact’s current whereabouts were a mystery. Although the prior Daughters documented where it was found, they always hid the jewel with utmost secrecy—sometimes one Daughter even hid it from the others. Its use was forbidden, and it seemed those Daughters who tried to control it were doomed to corruption.

She had to believe that the jewel had created a strong enough channel this time. Whatever power it held, it had brought her and Julia together. It would bring the final Daughter to them as well.

Angie left the bathroom, pausing at the door to face the mirror. Parts of the mirror remained hazy from her shower. She saw herself in bits and pieces. Narrow hips ... one boney shoulder ... half of her face from the mouth down. She lifted her hand. A thin beam of light drifted from her outstretched index finger. She manipulated it easily, using it to trace a happy face on the bathroom mirror’s receding mist. It was a silly trick her grandmother had taught her when she was little. One she wouldn’t be able to do again, if she didn’t succeed.

The weight of finding the final Daughter pressed in on her mind. She dropped her hand. After a lifetime of magic, who would she be without her powers?

A
ngie leaned back against the passenger seat, listening to her mother’s enthusiasm over a new piece of art the museum recently acquired and her hope that her father would turn down the promotion he had been offered.

“He works such long hours as it is. We only have two more
years with you and then you’ll be off to college ...,” her voice trailed off, her brows coming together as she navigated the school’s crowded parking lot. “This drop-off line gets longer every morning.”

“Don’t worry so much, Mom,” Angie said. “If Dad takes the promotion, he’ll still make time for us.”

Her mother smiled, her eyes hinting at embarrassment. “I can’t help worrying.”

“I know,” Angie said, unlocking the passenger side door to her mother’s sedan as they neared the school. She had gotten her own car for Christmas, a used Honda civic, but only upper-classmen were given parking permits. The thought of her little white car sitting in the garage all alone made her wonder at the school’s arbitrary rules.
Next year,
she thought, a bubble of happiness rising inside her. She would get a crescent moon decal for the back window. The same moon marked on her arm among the twisting, turning symbols.

“Here, take some money for lunch,” her mother said.

Angie took the cash and gave her a hug across the center console.

“I’m going to miss our mornings together next year,” her mother said.

Angie lowered her gaze. It was like her mother had picked up on her thoughts from earlier. That kind of thing happened all the time.

“Do you have cheer practice?”

“Yeah. I’m getting a ride home with Tina after, though.” She shut off her phone for the day before triple-checking that she had all her books.

Her mother’s pale eyebrows shot up as Angie got out of the car. “I think someone’s waiting for you.”

Angie kept her eyes on her mother. “Is it David?”

Her mother nodded.

“Maybe going to prom with him is a mistake,” she said, gripping the edge of the car window. “I have to focus on finding
the final Daughter. I don’t know what the best thing to do is anymore.”

“No one knows ahead of time, honey. Try to believe in your decisions. You’ll have less to regret that way.”

Less
to regret? She would rather have no regrets at all.

The car behind them honked and her mother jumped. “Goodness!”

“Bye, mom.” She backed away as her mother waved and drove off. The power of the Fates always skipped a generation, so her mother had never experienced any of it herself. However, there existed an undercurrent of magic in her mother. She was known to glance at her phone the moment before it rang. She could lose her keys and spend several minutes searching, only to make them appear on the counter, which had been empty before. She could walk into a room and inexplicably smell roses—and if Angie surveyed the past, she would find a wedding had taken place decades ago.

Her mother rarely noticed the subtle influence and extra perception just beyond her control. Maybe that explained why talking to her about non-magic things came so easily. She never pretended to understand the magic, so when she did understand about other problems in Angie’s life, it felt genuine.