First Frost Read online

  Bianca tried to make sense of it all. She kept expecting to see a special effects crew to come out from behind the trees and tell her that it was all part of an elaborate prank. But no such thing happened. All she knew was that a strange turquoise flame was coming out of her mother’s hands.

  She knew that her mother sometimes read old, dusty books on witchcraft, but she didn’t know she had actual powers. She thought about all the little quirks her mother had. Things that Bianca thought were essentially Rose. Her mother talked to plants and trees. She would sometimes stare off into space as though she were looking at something in another world. Something only she could see. She read tarot cards to random people and would tell them things about his or her life as though she were reading an open book. Bianca always thought she just made really lucky guesses. She chose not to believe in this other world and everything it stood for. Magic represented a life out of the norm, and Bianca desperately wanted to be normal. Just like everyone else.

  Bianca pulled herself out of her thoughts. As she looked at the blue and green flashes in the backyard, she quickly realized that this was something she couldn’t escape. Normal was no longer a part of her world. Normal was no longer an option for her.

  Bianca didn’t know what to do. She was frozen in place. She was afraid to distract her mother for even a second. She ducked behind the screen door; at least this way she could still hear what they were saying to each other.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t come?” the witch shouted.

  “Oh, I knew you’d be back,” Rose replied.

  Bianca slowly lifted her gaze and peeked above the screen. She saw her mother standing behind the shed on the left side of their backyard. The witch was still too far away for her to get a good look at her, but Bianca could tell that she was on the far right corner of their yard.

  “Where’s the book?” the witch demanded.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rose replied with a smirk.

  “Don’t be coy with me. You know very well what I’m talking about.”

  “Sorry. I can’t help you.” Rose’s breathing was becoming more labored, and she was drenched in sweat, obvious signs of exhaustion, but Bianca could tell by the look on her mother’s face that she wouldn’t give up.

  “The wards in the museum are impressive. I couldn’t get past them. But maybe…she’ll know where the book is,” the witch said as she looked in Bianca’s direction and threw a sickly olive-colored fireball at the screen door.

  Bianca shrieked and jumped out of the way. The screen door fell off its hinges and landed on the kitchen floor with a loud thud.

  “Bianca!” Rose screamed.

  The witch laughed as she made her way toward the house.

  “Stay away from my daughter!” Rose shouted.

  Bianca watched as the witch tried to walk into the house, but she stopped as if held back by an unseen wall. Bianca gasped as Rose struck the witch with a citrine-colored fireball from behind. The witch howled in pain. Bianca wasn’t going to wait and see what else would happen. She got up and hid inside the fireplace. It was dark, dirty, and cramped, but she wasn’t going to come out of her hiding place until she was sure it was safe.

  “Bianca?” Rose cried.

  She was ready to call out to her mother, but she wasn’t sure if someone was trying to trick her, so she remained silent.

  “Bianca, it’s me, sweetie. Are you okay? Where are you?” Rose asked.

  She could hear the desperation in her mother’s voice as she searched for her in the house.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, it’s me, honey.”

  Bianca struggled for a few moments to get out of the fireplace. When she finally managed to get out, her pale hands were black with dust and soot, her clothes were ruined with ashes, dirt, and God only knew what else. Bianca sneezed a few times as she shook off the worst of the dirt from her body.

  “Oh, thank God. Thank you, God,” Rose whispered as she embraced her daughter and did her best to hold back her tears. She didn’t seem to care that Bianca had left a trail of black dust behind her.

  “Mom, who was that?” Bianca asked as she pulled herself away from her mother’s tight embrace.

  “Our enemy, Lenore.”

  “Lenore?” Bianca echoed.

  Rose sighed. “Sit down.”

  “Will she come back?” Bianca looked at the singed screen door. She shuddered to think of how close she had been to being burned to a crisp.

  “Yeah, but not tonight. She was distracted for some reason; she’s rarely that sloppy. Lucky for us she’s as out of shape as I am. She hasn’t attacked me in years. But this is good; now I have some time to train you.”

  Rose closed the kitchen door and locked it behind her.

  “Why did her magic burn the screen door?” Bianca pulled a chair and sat down.

  “I put the ward on the main kitchen door not the screen door. Trust me…I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Bianca…” Rose sat down beside her daughter. She took her hand and held it tightly. “God…how am I supposed to cram hundreds of years of family history into one conversation?” she wondered aloud. “I’ve never spoken of your grandmother, have I?”

  Bianca shook her head. It was a taboo subject. What little she did know was fairly unpleasant. Based on what Rose had told her, Alice Phillips, her grandmother, had been a woman who’d been rough around the edges. She’d had patience only for her garden and animals. There had been very little left over for her only daughter, Rose. Bianca had always been curious about her mysterious grandmother, but she’d kept all questions to herself. She knew talking about the past caused her mother pain.

  Rose took a deep breath. “My mother was a witch. And so are we.”

  “I’m a what now?” Bianca asked, trying to wrap her head around what Rose just said.

  “A witch,” Rose said.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “I felt the same way when the time finally came for me to learn of our history. It was the only time in my life that I saw pity in my mother’s eyes. Almost as if she felt sorry for the load she was about to place on my shoulders, just as I’m about to do with you. It all started with one question. I remember that question all too well. That’s how everything began.”

  Bianca held her breath and waited. What could she possibly be about to ask me?

  “Do you know the story of Snow White?” Rose asked.

  Bianca arched her eyebrow and nodded. That was the big question? Of course she knew the story. What person in the world didn’t? Someone had to live under a rock in order to not know about the most famous brunette in the world.

  “It’s true. It’s all true,” Rose said.

  Bianca frowned, unable to process the words her mother had just spoken. Rose had mentioned something along those lines to her before, but she’d thought she meant that it was based on a true story. That perhaps there had been a grain of truth to the story of Snow White. That there may have been a queen somewhere that had been jealous of her stepdaughter and banished her, making the story so scandalous at the time that it took on a life of its own, thus ending up a fairy tale. But never in a million years would she have believed that Snow White was an actual true story, along with magic, poisoned apples, dwarves, and the handsome prince who broke the spell with true love’s kiss.

  “Come on, Mom. Really?” Bianca waited for her mother to smirk like she normally did when she was ready to burst into a fit of giggles, but Rose’s face remained stoic.

  “A lot of these stories are actually true. Not so much with the Hans Christian Andersen stories. He made a lot of them up…thankfully. But most of the fairy tales in the Grimm books have spells woven into the stories. For example, ‘Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all’ is only half a spell. The Brothers Grimm left the other half out because they didn’t want other people using the spell on the queen’s mirror. At the time they published their book, the mirror
was still missing along with other items from their now famous fairy tales. That would just cause too much trouble. People don’t really want to hear the truth about certain things. Look at what happened to the queen.”

  “Oh, my God. Are you serious?”

  “I am very serious. This isn’t a joke. Magic is real. The stories are very real,” Rose said.

  “But why print these stories at all? Why not just keep it all a secret?”

  “Because it forced a lot of the witches to go into hiding, especially the evil ones. They were out of control. Children went missing almost every day, and beautiful young girls were locked away for fear that witches would become mad with jealousy and try to kill them. People lived in constant fear. The Brothers Grimm helped put a stop to it.”

  “Witches? Like the one that just attacked us?”

  Rose nodded.

  “When did she get here?”

  “Ten-ish. I was ready to make my cup of tea and wait for you to come home.”

  Bianca smiled. That was what she had expected to see when she came home that evening. She thought about what her life would become now that she knew this huge family secret.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re witches? For real?”

  “Yep,” Rose replied.

  “Does that mean I have magical powers too? Like you?”

  “I’m sure you have some natural abilities, maybe even some things that only you are capable of doing,” Rose replied. “Your grandmother, Alice, was good with offensive spells and potions. My talents lie with healing spells and some offensive spells, for obvious reasons. I’m no good at potions, which makes sense because I’m not a very good cook.”

  Bianca opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She felt like a fish out of water.

  What am I good at?

  What sort of magic would be her forte? Would she be good at potions like her grandmother? Or would she be a healer like her mother? Or perhaps she would have a completely different talent? The possibilities seemed endless. Then another fear crept up. What if she wasn’t any good at magic? What would happen to her then?

  On the kitchen table was a deck of tarot cards. The box was missing some of the flaps and the corners were worn. This was the deck her mother had used since she was thirteen years old. Bianca reached for the cards and pulled them out of the box. She tried to keep her mind clear as she shuffled them. She pulled a card from the middle of the deck. Bianca held her breath as she turned the card over.

  The Tower. The illustration was that of a tower being struck by lightning and several people falling to the ground. The illustrator had drawn people covering their eyes as they fell head first toward the rocky ground. The Tower represented chaos, sudden change, revelation, disruption, hard times, and realizing the truth.

  Nothing good will come of this, Bianca thought grimly as she looked into her mother’s emerald eyes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Rose took a deep breath and replied, “Selfish. I was being selfish. I wanted to keep you innocent for as long as possible. I should’ve started training you the moment you turned twelve. Also…I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes my mother made. I wanted to be the exact opposite of the woman my mother had been. I mean, sure she was an excellent witch and had defeated many evil witches…but it was almost as though she didn’t know how to take that armor off around me.”

  Bianca was a little relieved that her mother hadn’t broken this bit of news to her on her birthday. She wasn’t sure she would have wanted to hear she was a witch right after blowing the candles on her chocolate birthday cake.

  “So…what happens now?”

  “We get some rest. We have an early day tomorrow.”

  Bianca’s heart skipped a beat. She would have to learn how to defend herself with magic. She couldn’t imagine being able to go to sleep.

  “Okay,” Bianca said, nodding reluctantly in agreement.

  “Good night.”

  “Yeah…night,” Bianca muttered.

  After Bianca turned off the lights in her bedroom, she lay in her bed, and thought about everything that happened that night. Eventually sleep found her, but that night she had dreams of rotting apples, pale hands reaching out to her in the darkness, and sharp white teeth.

  Chapter Four

  The following morning after a quick breakfast of green tea and buttered toast, mother and daughter went downstairs. There was a corner of the basement that was covered with boxes. Some of them were full of Christmas decorations; there were at least ten boxes dedicated to that holiday alone. Rose loved Christmas; it was her favorite holiday. Halloween was a close second.

  A few boxes were full of Bianca’s old baby clothes, and there was yet another set of boxes dedicated to David’s clothes. Bianca had asked Rose why she kept them, and her mother would shrug her shoulders and reply, “He might come back.” And they’d left it at that. A different subject they would ignore for years to come.

  The rest of the basement was turned into a craft room for Rose’s little projects. Sometimes she would make wreaths and give them as Christmas presents. Or she would buy fruits and make jam. Rose spent a lot of her spare time in the basement. Bianca glanced at the table and noticed that her mother was halfway finished making a Christmas wreath. All of the materials she needed were laid out and waiting to be used: the green plastic wreath, the little bright red hollies, the yards of cranberry red ribbon, and the can of silver glitter spray. Bianca wondered who that would be gifted to.

  “So, where do we start?” Bianca asked as she tied her hair into a ponytail.

  “Your grandmother was the one who taught me everything I know, and she was pretty brutal when she started training me. I remember shielding myself from her spells and dodging fireballs and every other spell she felt like throwing at me that day.”

  “How so?”

  “She threw every spell imaginable at me until I learned how to block them and attack back,” Rose whispered.

  “Whoa.”

  Rose lifted her white T-shirt halfway and showed Bianca some of the scars she had on her back and stomach. She had never seen these marks on her mother before. Now Bianca understood why Rose only wore one-piece bathing suits in the summer time. And why she went to great lengths to make sure her shirt was always tucked in. She didn’t want anyone seeing her scars. Bianca gently touched one of the scars on her mother’s back. It was the size of Bianca’s fist. The scar was the palest silver she had ever seen, barely noticeable next to Rose’s alabaster skin. Angry tears shot out from her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and tried to stop more tears from coming.

  “I got that on my first day of training. I learned the hard way never to turn my back on my attacker. I never thought she’d throw a freaking fireball at me. Safe to say I never made that mistake again.”

  She thought back on every conversation she’d had with Rose about Grandmother Alice. She knew next to nothing about her because Rose rarely spoke of her. She didn’t share any memories of her or quirky details that she assumed most grandmothers had. And now she had proof, right on her mother’s skin, of how far Alice’s cruelty could go. Suddenly, Bianca hated her grandmother. How could she do such a thing to her daughter? Was she insane?!

  “I swore to myself that I wouldn’t teach my daughter that way.”

  Bianca thanked her mother. She was grateful that she didn’t do any of that to her. Now that she knew a little more about her past, she understood why Rose was better with healing magic.

  “Let’s start with fire spells. Those are easy,” Rose suggested.

  Bianca nodded. She chewed on her thumb while she waited. She had never dabbled with magic before.

  What if I’m a dud? What if I completely suck? she thought. What if I’m the first one in the family who can’t do magic? What will happen then? Oh, God…please don’t let me be a dud.

  “All right, first rule is to relax. Fire is the easiest form
of defense, but it takes a lot out of you, which is why you should learn other spells. I know it’s going to be tough to do when someone is attacking you, but you have to learn to ignore everything that’s going on around you. Guide all of your energy, every thought, feeling…everything you’ve got into your hands. Then you direct it wherever you want it to go.”

  Rose demonstrated by showing her a tiny turquoise ball of fire that hovered on the palm of her hand. Rose played with it by making it dance and bounce from her right hand over to the left hand.

  “Why are yours that color?”

  “It depends on the color of your aura.”

  “Does that mean that Lenore has a green aura?”

  “Not necessarily. Lenore’s aura isn’t the green of life. It is more of a brownish green…almost sick looking, like bile. It’s her spirit rotting from the inside out.”

  “Ew.” Bianca couldn’t imagine having something like that happen to her. She pictured fruit going bad. All covered in mold, wrinkled, and decomposed to the point where it was unrecognizable. She shuddered at the thought and tried to clear her mind, which was easier said than done. Bianca closed her eyes and tried to do what her mother suggested. For a long time nothing happened, until she started thinking about her father. No specific memories, just the man she remembered. Handsome, kind, always trying to make Bianca laugh. Then she felt a tingling in her fingertips.

  “That’s it!” Rose beamed.

  A smile bloomed on Bianca’s face when she heard the pride in Rose’s voice.

  “What are you thinking about?” Rose spoke a notch above a whisper.

  “Nothing,” Bianca lied.

  As soon as the lie passed her lips the feeling in her hands vanished, and the magic was gone. Bianca opened her eyes. Rose’s mouth turned into a thin line.

  “Don’t lie. Magic…at least good magic…doesn’t help liars,” Rose warned.

  “I’m sorry.” Bianca lowered her head in shame.

  “It’s okay. We’re here to learn, not judge one another. Wanna try again?”