Only Saints

« viii. »

The first spellweaving I ever saw, I was six years old. That was before anyone told me that magic wasn't real. It was before I knew enough to be ashamed of the very thought that my grandmother was a witch; of course Old Mère was a witch, because if she wasn't, who else would make the plants grow and make the rain fall and make the sun rise in the morning?

Maybe I offered her a little too much power in my imagination. But I liked to pretend I saw her in my dreams, standing on the peaks of great mountains holding back the storms. The reason hurricanes didn't hit Frostproof is because Old Mère was here; if she were to ever leave, one would immediately overtake the town and wash it out to sea.

The spellweaving did nothing but solidify that thought in my mind. How can you watch your grandmother, your mother, your aunt, all standing together to change the fabric of the world, and not believe in such fantastic things as holding back storms and dragging the sun out of the ocean each morning?

There were the smaller ones: braiding ribbons to hold the road together; cross-stitching charms for good luck and wards against ill intent; carefully patterning tiles in a mosaic piece in just the right order to brighten up the mood of someone who looks at it. They were the easier things. Something to make a day better. Something to make a chore easier. A blender with etching in the side to make it turn smoothly, a gardening apron with magic in the stitches to keep it from wearing out, pot holders crocheted so that hands wouldn't burn.

Those were the kinds of spells that I was raised knowing. I don't remember when I learned them, though I must have at some point. There had to be a time when I didn't know them, but still, every time I think of what I learned under Old Mère, it's the larger things that stick out to me.

The real spellweaving is done under the dark of night, and it takes the strength of most everyone in the family. Florie and I were far too young to participate in the ones I remember, but we were allowed to watch as our mothers and aunts gathered along with some of the other Frostproof-Sebring witches to boost their power, to bring larger changes into the world.

The first one I remember was after the death of one of the older ladies. She was a kind woman from Sebring, maybe a distant cousin—I don't remember—and the family held a vigil that night in her memory. While they gathered, they drew power from the earth and from the lights around them, and they dragged the night out a few hours longer to allow for more time for the vigil. The wind whipped through the candles we had left out on the porch then, and not a single one of them flickered out.

Old Mère became something like God to me that night. I watched the fire flicker over her face, casting every sharp edge and every deep-worn wrinkle into contrast, and I knew then that I wanted to be like her more than anything else in the world.

Only saints are saints.

My phone rings in my lap. I'm laying face-up on the wooden porch in front of Old Mère's trailer, staring up at the light that's been off since the night she died.

What was the last thing she saw?

Did she know I was there?

My fingers fumble across the screen, and I nearly hang up by accident. Instead I set the phone on speaker and put it on my chest. "Hey, Dad."

"I've been trying to reach you." Even through the phone, my dad's mild tenor voice shakes me. He has a way of talking that makes you immediately regret whatever it is you just did. Every time he says my name, I feel like he's scolding me for doing something wrong, like I'm a puppy who's pissed on the carpet.

"Sorry. I didn't see," I lie. I have fourteen missed calls from yesterday alone. It won't help anything to tell him why I didn't pick up the phone yesterday; all it will do is get him started on his spiel about how my mother's family is so bad for me and that's why I need to come home right away. "We've been busy."