“You’ve got something in you, something magical,” she breathes.
“Yeah, that’s just my mother’s concealment spell Rita,” I reply in annoyance.
“No it’s not that. I located your mother’s spell, there’s something else there, something weird.”
“Weird like what Rita?” Alvie asks, his teacup held up to his mouth.
“I’m not sure, it feels like inherited magic, but it can’t be, you’re not related to the magical families.”
“Well neither are you, apparently,” I say, though I have my suspicions about who Rita’s absent father is. She still reminds me of Theodore every time I look into her eyes.
“Yes but I’ve spent my life practising, building up my stores of magic. You haven’t and yet you feel just like me, like you’ve been a witch all your life too.”
“That can’t be true, the only time I’ve been around magic was when I’ve been with you, or when I was a baby with my mum. These last two years I haven’t even so much as meditated.” I laugh, but I’m too nervous and it comes out strange and joyless.
“Why are you complaining Tegan?” Rita asks. “You’ve got a big luxurious store of magic inside of you, something any witch would give her back teeth for, and you’re standing there with a face like a smacked arse.”
I scowl at her before shrugging off her comment. “Perhaps it’s my blood that you sensed then?”
Rita rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Nope, you don’t understand. When I used my third eye to sense you, which is what I did just now, I felt three things. The first was your mother’s spell, the second was a large, all-encompassing field of magic spread throughout your blood, and the third was like,” she pauses a moment to think about it, “it was like a ball of fire in your belly, magical fire. And it’s becoming too much to be contained. Maybe that’s why you caused a fork to levitate, the magic needed to drain out because there wasn’t enough room left to contain it.”
I drop back down into one of the chairs and scrunch up my nose in bewilderment. “You’re making me fe
el like a ticking time bomb here Rita.”
She sits too, fiddling with the rim of her teacup, she glances at Gabriel. “What do you think, Gabe?”
Gabriel blows air out of his mouth. “I think Tegan’s something of a Rubik’s cube, you get all the squares lined up on one side only to find that the other sides are a mess.”
I smile sourly. “Jesus Gabriel, thanks for the compliment.”
He looks embarrassed then. “No that’s not what I meant. What I meant was that we discover one thing about you but it only leads us to another mystery and then another.”
Alvie laughs as he looks across the table at Gabriel. “You’re a great help you are, the girl came here for answers not metaphors.”
Gabriel’s brow furrows ever so slightly. “Sorry, but I can’t think of what could account for this,” he stops and makes air quotes with his fingers, “ball of magic that Rita felt in Tegan.” He turns to look at me now. “I suppose there might have been a witch or a warlock in your family tree somewhere along the way. I know that the magical families tend to keep pretty much to themselves, but I’m sure that every once in a while one of them veers off the beaten track in terms of choosing their…bed partners.” This makes me remember Ethan explaining to Eliza why I smell different back in the club. Does Ethan know something about me that I don’t?
A blush rises on Gabriel’s cheeks, causing Rita to nudge him in the arm and laugh. “Jesus Gabe, you’d think you were some sort of repressed Catholic. Just say it, sex, sex, sex. Every once in a while a witch or a warlock has sex with a normal human, meaning there could be humans out there with magical abilities they are completely unaware of.”
I grin when I see Gabriel’s mortified expression.
“What about my mum, she was a witch right? Perhaps she belonged to one of the magical families and ran away. I never met my maternal grandmother, she died before I was born.”
A thoughtful expression forms on Rita’s face. “There’s an idea, what was your mum’s maiden name?”
“Peters,” I answer hopefully, because I really want to figure this out and be done with all of the mystery.
The interest drops from Rita’s face when she replies, “No, that’s not a magical name. Shit, I thought you were onto something there.”
“Me too,” I say with disappointment.
“Well, let’s not get hung up trying to figure out where the magic came from,” says Alvie, “clearly we need to focus on teaching Tegan how to manage the magic, so that it doesn’t spill out of her involuntarily again.”
“I guess,” Rita responds, but her posture is still hunched over the table top, like she wishes she could give me some real answers.
“That’s an excellent idea Alvie,” says Gabriel enthusiastically, and Alvie seems delighted with the affirmation. He doesn’t take his eyes off Gabriel for a minute, and it makes me wonder if he has a little bit of a crush on the dhamphir. I’d always thought Gabriel was straight, but you never know.
Rita sighs and stands up. “Okay then, let’s go into the living room and I’ll show Tegan the basics of containing magic.”