My mouth drops open and I make a noise of elation. “No!”
“Yes!”
“I get to learn how to curse people.”
“No,” she says, frowning at me. “I’m teaching you about them. Why would you want to curse someone?”
I shrug. “There are some kids in my old class who could do with a curse. That baroness who came to our school, the one who was secretly a Siren. Portia.”
“Ramya,” she says carefully, “you need to know about all kinds of witchcraft. But magic is not your weapon. It’s your defence. It’s a gift. Not something to use to hurt people.”
I exhale. “Fine. Tell me about a hypothetical curse I’ll never be allowed to cast.”
She smirks. “Remember, magic is different with every single person. No two spells are the same. One witch cannot imitate another.”
“When you cast that Medusa Hex on Ren,” I butt in, “when you turned him to stone, was that a curse?”
“No,” she says and something sad crosses her face for a moment. “That was exactly that. A hex. A curse… a curse is irreversible. It cannot be undone.”
“Not even by the witch who casts it?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve never heard of a curse being reversed. By anyone.”
“Have you ever cast one?”
“No.”
“Have you ever wanted to?”
Something flashes across her face. She censors it quickly, before I can name the emotion. She looks out the window and then back to me. “Yes.”
I appreciate the honest response. It sits between the two of us for a moment.
“Who was it?” I ask.
At first, I think she won’t answer. Then, “Someone I used to know.”
“A friend?”
“Once.”
“You’re not friends anymore?”
Her eyes shine in the crisp winter sun coming in from the window, while her lips attempt a smile. “No.”
“I’m not sure they’ll want to be friends again if you curse them, Aunt Opal.”
She laughs and then her face contorts for a split second. She laughs again, uneasily, and looks quickly away. She blinks a couple of times. “No, probably not.”
“What did they do?”
She sniffs once and starts sorting through a pile
of books that were already on the table. “Oh… lots
of things.”
“Maybe you can make up?”
She touches the corner of her eye with the pad of her forefinger. “You know, Dad –your grandpa – he used to always say something. ‘The one thing evil cannot endure, the one thing it cannot bear, is your forgiveness’.”
I wrinkle my nose. “What? That doesn’t make any sense. Forgiving people means letting them off the hook. Why would that—”
“Like I said, it was just something he would say,” Opal says swiftly. She seems to have shaken herself back into teaching mode. “Now come on. You’ve
got to read these and note down the similar points in each text.”
I flip open the first dusty book with a grimace.
“And I’ll give you a help,” she adds. “Casting a curse, or any spell, should never come from a place of anger or hatred.”
I glance up at her. She is watching me with a knowing look. I suddenly think of the Faerie.
“Noted,” I say quietly.
I begin to read.
*
