Page 32 of The Witches of Cambridge

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, a time of darkness and endings, but also of hope and new beginnings. The women of Lilith House lit candles, then made certain to string holly from the ceiling to ensure that evil wouldn’t walk through the door and that blessings would be given to all. In the 1600s there were people who baked witches’ cakes made of rye flour and urine on this night, vowing that should a witch take a single bite she would be revealed, but that old story was nothing more than a lie. A witch would take one look at a cake like that and know it was meant to be a trap.

Jamie had never invited anyone home for Christmas before, and for good reason. Holiday gatherings were dreadful enough, and now he had thought of the ways in which his family might provoke a guest, as they harassed him at every given opportunity. Whatever he did was subjected to judgment and derision. He wasn’t a hard enough worker, he was too quiet, he drank too much, he was too much of a loner, he couldn’t take a joke. No matter the case, he was always wrong.

“You’ll hate everyone,” he assured Ava.

To say that Ava was a nervous wreck was an understatement. She had packed her suitcase twice over and still wasn’t sure of what she should bring. When Lauren passed by in the hallway, Ava signaled to her.

“I’ve been invited to the Mathers’ Christmas dinner,” Ava blurted. “I have nothing to wear.”

“Wait right here.”

Lauren disappeared into their shared closet, returning with a chic black dress, black patent leather heels, and her cashmere coat. “Take it all. Don’t forget to wear makeup and be sure to laugh at their jokes, even if you don’t understand them—you’re not meant to. They’ll all be private family references meant to make you feel like an outsider.”

Ava was convinced she needed more than cashmere and patent leather heels to pass as an acceptable guest. She wished she were as brave as the first witch, able to fall in love no matter what, to give no value to the opinions of her enemies. Perhaps she needed an enchantment to get through the encounter with the Mathers, and so on the night before they were to leave, when she knew Jamie had a late class, she went to the three-family house where he rented an apartment. The family upstairs was having a Christmas Eve party with a dozen or more relatives raising their voices for a sing-along to “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” Ava made a dash into the dark yard, then carefully put her hand through the broken pane of glass no one had ever thought to repair. She opened the window and climbed through. She had brought along an elixir, a fabled love potion, the strongest love magic of all, first used six hundred years earlier in France. It was so potent that people went wild with desire after only a few sips. She’d found the recipe in one of the poisonous green grimoires in the Bells’ library. On the topmost shelf, out of reach unless you used the library ladder made of rosewood and oak. Caute Utere, Use with caution, had been written in red letters on the very first page of the book, but she had gone ahead and re-created the spell, gathering all the necessary ingredients. Cardamon, hibiscus, lavender, bird bones, feathers, the foam from a black dog’s mouth, the heart of a dove.

To deliver the potion, Ava climbed through the window of Jamie’s apartment, leaving Jack in the yard. She told herself there was nothing wrong with love magic, people used it all the time. In the Middle Ages, magicians called to demons to ask for help with their love magic and seductions, for it was easier than you’d think to convert hate to love and love to hate. Women used love magic on their husbands to assure they would remain faithful and wouldn’t stray, adding their own menstrual blood to their food so that their husbands’ love would be more inflamed. Ava realized she didn’t wish to force someone to love her. No fish, no blood, no worms, no silver pins, no demons, no false promises, no potions, just love. She poured out the potion in the bathroom sink, and for a while the air turned red, but she opened the window and waved the fumes outside, where birds began to sing in the chilly air.

As she was leaving, Ava came upon a white paper crow left on Jamie’s desk. In the story of her life, she wanted the white crow to return to her whether or not she called out to him. Even if his family thought she would never be good enough, even if they lived in different worlds, no matter what happened, no matter where fate led them. Amor in aeternum, amor qui meus est. Love forever. Love that is mine.

Before the holiday, Ashton called Ava into the library to remind her that the true nature of the society must always be kept secret. “Especially if you’re associated with a Mather. You would be putting us all in danger.”

By now, everyone at Lilith House knew of Ava’s involvement with Jamie.

“I’ve made mistakes myself,” Ashton told her. “I trusted a man I should never have trusted.”

Ava listened, she nodded and said she understood, but the truth was that Ashton’s warnings had nothing to do with her.

Jamie was different. He understood her.

In the morning, he arrived behind the wheel of a white Corvette with a red interior, a model so small Jack had to curl up under Ava’s feet in order to fit inside. “It belongs to my brother Brent,” Jamie said, clearly embarrassed by the extravagant car. “He keeps it in a garage in Boston. He’s a sports car fanatic. I’m just borrowing it. He can’t seem to spend enough money on cars, or anything else for that matter. Expect him to be an ass, because he will be.”

“Will your other girlfriends be mad if I go away with you?”

Jamie laughed and shook his head. He had fallen in love despite himself, even though it was likely he would ruin this thing with Ava just as he ruined everything else. He was broken, and anyone who came too close to him was bound to find that out soon enough. It was more than likely that Ava would dump him once she got to know him, and so he tried his best not to appear too pathetic and lovestruck.

“How will you introduce me to your family if I’m not your buddy or your pal?” Ava asked.

“Are you saying you’re my girlfriend?” Jamie said.

“You tell me.”

“Haven’t I?”

The gleaming sky was wide and bright above them as they drove. The crows were following along. “You haven’t told me anything,” Ava said. Tell me now, tell me everything, be the white crow that returns.

“All right, then,” Jamie said. “You are my girlfriend. Unless that’s not what you want to hear. Then I’ll say you’re a pal.”

Ava couldn’t help but smile at his sidelong glance, for clearly he was afraid of her answer. “I’m not a pal,” she assured him, before leaning over to kiss him.

They kept the top down even though it was freezing, and they shivered as they roared past Lincoln and Concord, past the old prison that had been there when Louisa May Alcott and her sisters had taken walks on crisp afternoons. There was no snow, but there were patches of ice, and the wind was brisk. They turned up the heat and didn’t pay any attention to the world around them. Let it hail or rain for all they cared. When they turned down the gravel drive to the Mather family’s estate, Ava begged Jamie to stop so she could brush her hair.

Jamie watched as Ava fixed her windblown hair, his face breaking into a wide grin. He’d never seen anyone as beautiful.

“What?” Ava said, thinking she’d done something wrong, more convinced than ever that meeting his family was a half-baked idea. She thought of herself sitting at the farm stand all summer, reading a book she wasn’t supposed to have, a D. H. Lawrence novel she’d found at the library titled Women in Love, published in 1920 and banned in many places, hoping no one would stop and buy tomatoes so she could go on reading.

“I love to look at you,” Jamie said.