On the other side of the garden, Father sat on the stone bench before the tiered fountain, his head buried in his hands. His figure was nearly drowned by the white blooms around him.
I hesitated. I hadn’t spoken to him much since I arrived, and now I was only doing so because I wanted something. Guilt warmed my cheeks. It was bad enough I was the smear on his reputation as a loyal, upright guard. What right did I have demanding things from him on top of that?
“Do you remember when your favorite kite got caught in that tree, Cissa?”
Father had removed his hands from his face, his gaze fixated on the maple tree behind me. The branches were bare now, but I could easily recall a time when they were thick with fiery orange leaves. The same shade as my hair, as Father used to point out.
“You called for the pigeons to get it for you,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “You named them too. Periwinkle and Gossamer, was it?”
His words resurfaced the memory of a pink silken kite and a pair of sassy pigeons.
I gave a weak laugh. “That was the day I learned not to do that.”
Wild creatures found it highly offensive when people named them, whether humans or witches. The two were one and the same, for all they cared. A name labeled them as domestic—something undesirable in their world. Needless to say, the pigeons never returned to the garden.
Father chuckled and shook his head. “You were only eight. And with such control over your magic! You didn’t even need an enchanted object to help you along.”
Being isolated from witchkind since I was born, I hardly knew that witches my age needed enchanted objects to keep their magic under control. I doubted that Father could have acquired one for me, anyway.
I meandered over and sat next to him on the stone bench, ignoring the cold seeping through my dress.
“I reckon you heard everything this morning?” he said.
I nodded.
Father heaved a sigh. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I kept my magic...and your brother’s. What if I told Vanessa I was a witch instead of Wilhelmina?”
“Father...”
“I was a charmwitch, did you know? Cleaning spells and protection charms were my specialties. Fellow guards were jealous how my sword gleamed brighter than theirs and how I never got a scratch during training,” he said, gray eyes alight with amusement. They faded as he looked down. “The day you were taken from me was the day I decided magic was too dangerous to have outside Witch Village. That woman...I know she made you do terrible things.”
I did not recall the exact day Mother took me under her care. I just knew I never visited Father again, and I was not allowed to call him Father even when I saw him at the palace. The time I spent playing was replaced by Mother’s experiments. She wanted to see what I could do. And more importantly, how she could use it to her advantage.
Most days took place in a small room with caged animals. The first time, I forced a snail to crawl into a bed of salt. The second, I made a fish jump out of a bowl of water. I left that session with the fish stuffed under my dress, scales and all. I had promised to return him to the pond.
Unfortunately, he did not survive the trip.
Coercion was not my true magic, but I let Mother believe it was. She would not have cared for my ability to converse with animals.
I shut my mind to the memories as Father plucked a white bloom from the bush next to him. He spun it between his fingers. “I would have removed your magic too. There was enough sickleweed potion left for you after I gave Maddox his dose, but I couldn’t bring myself to take something that gave you so much joy.”
“Sickleweed potion?”
“The herb itself looks quite similar to this,” he said, pushing the bloom around on his palm. The petals were crinkled and white, like pieces of organdy. “In small doses, it’s good for removing jinxes or spells. In a concentrated form it strips a witch of their magic entirely. Painless and quiet, said the herbwitch who sold it to me. She didn’t tell me the silence would hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be, Cissa. It was my decision.” Father smiled mirthlessly and flicked the flower away. “My onlydecentdecision, as Maddox said. Maybe he is right. Vanessa would have divorced me on the spot if her son started shooting sparks out of the blue.”
“I don’t think so.”
Father wallowing in misery unsettled me. He had done nothing but smile in my presence the moment I moved in.
“Thank heavens the boy was a late bloomer.” He studied his hands, brown and weathered from training. “I wonder what his magic would have been.”
We sat in silence for a minute, listening to the rustling of the heather bushes and the chirping of the chickadee.
“Well, Cissa, now you know a little more about this old man’s life,” he said in a lighter tone, patting my shoulder. “All we can do is move on, eh? The Winter Solstice Ball will be a fresh start for both you and Maddox. We’ll show that our family is bigger and stronger than ever, despite everything.”
