Excerpt
Spells, Strings, and Forgotten Things
Chapter 1Calliope ran barefoot through the field, shadows unfurling around her like a sinister promise. Any moment, her skin would burn, and her bones would turn to ash. The shadows whispered things that made Calliope’s blood sing with terror. She ran fast and faster still. The Altar was just there, and she knew if she could reach it, she’d be safe on that hallowed ground. But a tendril of shadow swept out, wrapping around her wrist. The pain was a song of death and ice, and a scream tore from her throat as she was pulled into the night—
Calliope jolted awake. Her heart beat so hard and fast she thought it might shatter like glass. The sheets were a tangled mess that smelled of sweat and fear and forgotten things.
Only a dream, she told herself over and over. But when she rubbed her wrist, she hissed in pain. In the soft dawn light filtering through her high windows, she could see her skin was burned where the dream shadow had touched her. The mark was raised and blistered in places, but instead of feeling hot, it was cold to the touch.
Calliope scrambled out of bed and riffled through her drawers, tossing things haphazardly onto the floor until she found a tin of calendula cream. She would tell her sisters about the nightmares, she would, but not today. Not on the anniversary of their mother’s leaving. Too many ghosts were already chasing them; she didn’t want to add another. And so, she sacrificed a small memory—Marigold brushing her hair behind her ear during their first date—and chanted a spell in Greek that closed the open wound and soothed the irritated skin. The scar that remained was pink and tender and shaped like a snake. She pulled her sleeve down over it.
The grimoire’s pages rustled like an invitation from where it sat on her desk. As she approached, it flipped to a blank page, and Calliope recorded the date before jotting down her dream in a hasty scrawl. Sighing, she stared at the words, willing Grim to help her make sense of them, but for now, the book was silent.
Grim was more than a book. Over the years it had become a friend and confidant, something to turn to when the weight of loneliness became too much, pages to scribble her thoughts in. She’d spend hours poring over chapter upon chapter of spells and potions and recipes. At times it felt like her only connection to her mother. With another sigh, she closed the grimoire and patted its cover lovingly.
By the time she reached the kitchen, her sisters were already awake. The wind whistled through the old stone, and even through the closed windows, Calliope could hear the birds chirping their songs to welcome spring. Herbs and flowers were strung from the ceiling in various stages of drying, tangles of garlic hung from nails, and heavy cast-iron pots were stacked neatly below the old wood table that served as a kitchen island. It was a witch’s kitchen, and Calliope was more at home here than anywhere else in the world.
Thalia held her hands over the teakettle on the stove, her pretty, delicate features pulled into a well-worn frown. Eurydice hugged her from behind. Eurydice was so much shorter that her head rested between Thalia’s shoulder blades.
“I think you’d be cold on a beach in summertime,” Eurydice said with a laugh, and it was such a sweet sound it made Calliope’s teeth nearly ache to hear it.
Thalia groaned and tried to bend her fingers. “It’s this house. The stone seeps all the warmth away, even in the spring.”
“Let me see,” Calliope said, holding out her hands. Thalia paused for only a moment before slipping her fingers into Calliope’s palms. Calliope closed her eyes and offered up the memory of her favorite childhood hiding spot—nestled among the branches of an old oak tree—then channeled every warm thing she could think of: summer afternoons, river rocks baked by the sun, apple pie straight out of the oven, and a freshly poured cup of tea that was so hot it burned your tongue. “Na eísai zestós,” she whispered. And Thalia’s icy hands thawed. Thalia flexed her fingers and gave the type of sigh you release after slipping into a hot bath after a long winter day.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Thalia said with a frown. “But thank you.”
“Don’t you ever miss it?” Calliope asked quietly. “Doing magic?”
“It’s not worth the price,” Thalia answered without hesitation. “Let’s get ready for work.”
Thalia had turned eighteen years old the year their mother vanished. And the moment her mother left, Thalia, with two younger sisters to care for, vowed to follow their mother’s forbiddance of magic. To this day, she never let a drop of magic pass her fingertips, swearing to guard her memories like the treasures she knew them to be. Magic had made their mother weak, Thalia always said. By the end, there had been so many patches in their mother’s memory that a dozen spools of the finest thread couldn’t stitch it back together. For Petridi magic was cursed to be only as strong as the memory they sacrificed to fuel it. It was a curse they knew little else about.
Over the years, the sisters had had too many arguments to count about finding their mother. Calliope had spent more than half her life searching for answers, and neither Eurydice nor Thalia had been able to dissuade her. She’d pored over the grimoire, offered up memories, brewed potions, and cast spells, and no matter what she tried or how many memories she sacrificed, always, she came up empty. As if their mother had been swallowed by an impenetrable void.
Still, perhaps this would be the year. The year that something changed. For the better, Calliope thought, glancing down at her wrist.
The sisters settled into their routine in a comfortable silence, moving around one another in a long-practiced dance. Calliope handed Dissy the tea cannister before she reached for it. Thalia slid a travel mug beneath the spout just as Dissy picked up the kettle to pour. At the front door, Thalia looped the long end of Calliope’s rainbow wool scarf over her shoulder, a simple thing filled with a motherly touch. Calliope was reminded that her eldest sister had been taking care of them since she was barely old enough to care for herself. When she was younger, Calliope would have rolled her eyes. Even now it grated, just a little. But the feeling was overshadowed by love, as so many small irritations were.
All the while, three cats trailed after them, winding through their feet and rubbing against their legs. Fen—short for Fengári, the Greek word for moon—was the oldest, a lanky barn cat that had adopted them two years ago by showing up at their front door one day. And after she had a litter of kittens under their porch last summer, Calliope and Dissy each kept one. Astro, with her fluffy gray-and-white coat, belonged to Calliope, and Solis, the smallest of the litter, had climbed into Dissy’s heart and never left. And though Thalia demanded that under no circumstances would those cats be allowed in the house, they always found their way in. Dissy would swear up and down that she wasn’t the one who left the window open and little saucers of milk in the kitchen, but Calliope didn’t believe her. Meanwhile, despite her protestations, Thalia could be found most evenings with a book in her hands and Fen curled up in her lap.
As the fresh spring air kissed Calliope’s cheeks, a family of deer grazed nearby. They tipped their heads lazily as the women passed, their large glassy eyes mysterious but friendly.
“You’re feeding them again,” Thalia accused Dissy.
“They were hungry!”
“It’s spring, Dissy.” Thalia sighed, though now there was a hint of laughter to her words. “There’s literally green everywhere.”
“Okay, fine.” Dissy shrugged. “I like to look at them while I drink my tea.”
On the mile-long trek into town, the sun warmed their backs as they walked with their arms linked and footsteps in sync. Calliope welcomed the kiss of heat on her skin from the fresh spring morning.
But Calliope knew that behind them trailed the ghost of their mother’s presence. Though they didn’t talk about such things, it colored the lens through which each sister saw the world.
