Work Text:
Cora taps her fingers on the old wooden counter very slowly, counting down the seconds that stretch and drag on forever. It’s a slow day in the apothecary – the rich scents of herbal salves and burning incense waft through the shop, and the rusty hinges of the door make a small, grating sound every time the soft wind picks up. Summer is drawing to a close and the stifling heat is starting to give way, but the days are still bright and warm, and Cora would much rather be outside today.
But it’s the last Wednesday before the New Moon, and that means everyone else is busy. Laura is in the fields, picking chamomile flowers and lichens and river stones, and whatever else she deems worthy. Derek is back home, preparing pots and pans, and doing whatever other kitchen magic he does. Mom and Dad ought to be on their way back from the market already – Cora listens for the sound of their small hand cart, but they must still be too far away.
Cora wishes the market ran out of stock, or closed early, or mysteriously vanished in a cloud of misty smoke, just so they’d hurry home and relieve her from her shop keeping duties.
The work itself isn’t hard – open the windows, keep the incense burning, help the customers, log any purchase in the books. Some Wednesdays are slower, and boredom drives Cora to the brink of madness, so much so that she sweeps and scrubs windows just to keep her hands busy. She’s not too fond of busy Wednesdays either – they drain her energy and sour her mood, and by the end of the day she is always on the brink of forcibly pushing out anyone who dares step inside the shop. Today has been just right (she knocks twice on the counter, careful not to jinx it) – she even cleared dust from the shelves and found the spare time to leaf through one of Derek’s spell books. And yet, it feels like the day is crawling, refusing her the right to run to the river and soak up the last heat of the day.
She knows Jackson will kill her if she’s late. Well, he won’t kill her – but he’ll give her his meanest scowl and refuse to speak to her for a week or so, and by the time she gets through his stupid silent treatment, the days will be too cold for swimming and laying in the sun, and they’ll have wasted the last few days of Summer. There’s also the possibility that he won’t even forgive her before he has to go back to school, and then they will definitely have wasted the best days of early autumn too, jumping into leaf piles and laying by the Samhain fire, burning bright and hot like the Sun against the black night. In summary: Jackson is a little baby, and Mom and Dad had better be home soon.
Sometimes Cora wonders what he does when he’s not with her. Jackson doesn’t speak a lot. Oh, he drones on about where the best place to dive off from is, and why she should always climb the trees up to the very top to pick the best fruit before the birds can – but that’s just talking. He never says anything important, never talks about home, or his school, or what he wants to do when he grows up.
Cora tried asking once. She waited for the perfect opportunity – it was mid-July, the days were impossibly long and hot, and they lazed their afternoons away by the river, in their secret spot where the water was crystal clear. They’d found a wild strawberry tree and eaten all the juicy red fruits, then raced all the way back to the riverbank and tried to outdo one another in handstands and cartwheels and holding their breaths underwater. Jackson had proclaimed himself the victor, on grounds of her cheating – Cora had splashed him and he’d laughed.
Later, when the sun was starting to set and they were laying in the soft grass, she finally found the words.
“I want to be an adventurer, when I grow up. Ride horses and fight highwaymen and protect lonely widows. Oh, and sail on the open sea,” she’d added, her tone humorous and light.
Jackson grunted in acknowledgement. It was a good sign that he’d even made a sound at all, so Cora had pressed on.
“What about you? What would you like to be?”
A long moment passed between them. Cora had almost given up on getting her answer, when Jackson’s small voice replied “A pirate king. If I could, I’d be a pirate king.”
Before she could ask any further questions, Jackson went into the river again, breaking his own personal best for time without coming up for breath.
The incense is giving Cora a headache.
It could also be the heat, or the dreadful bore of being stuck inside all day – that’s probably what she’ll blame it on, when Mom gets back. How Derek can stand being cooped up in the kitchen day in and day out is something she will never understand – and no amount of fond eyerolls from her older siblings will ever convince her that she will learn to enjoy it, with time. She’d rather spend that time chasing chickens and bouncing stones on the river.
“It’s out family’s duty, Cora,” she mutters to herself, scoffing at her mother’s words, “you’ll learn our magic like your mother, and my mother, and her mother, and her mother, and hers, and hers and so on and so forth until the beginning of times or possibly before then.”
“I’m glad you see it that way too,” Talia’s voice replies from the front door.
Cora jumps in her seat. She’s been so distracted thinking about Jackson and the river that she failed to notice her parents approaching the house. Talia is smirking, her chest still heaving from the long walk.
“I– I wasn’t–”
“Sleeping on your mother’s counter?” says another voice, coming from the outside. A moment later, her father is stepping into the shop, wearing a wide grin.
Cora squares her jaw.
“I wouldn’t do that!”
“He’s just teasing, my love,” Talia chuckles. She joins Cora behind the counter and plants a small kiss on her cheek. “How was it today?”
Cora shrugs. “Alright. Ms. McCall came by to get another salve for Scott.”
“So soon?”
“Says his breathing isn’t improving much.”
Talia furrows her brow. “Hm. Perhaps we should call for a druid. At the very least, we ought to send Laura to speak to one, learn from him what she can.”
Her husband grunt in agreement.
Cora, to her credit, doesn’t rush them as they make plans to send Laura out into town before the month is up. She gnaws on her lower lip, taps her fingers against the counter nervously, but keeps her mouth sealed until they reach a natural stop in their conversation.
“Mom? The river?”
Talia warns her to be home by sundown (which she would’ve been anyway, unless Jackson wanted to look for fireflies, and then any warning would be fruitless) and frees Cora from her post.
Jackson and Cora had been born on the same day.
This, in Talia’s opinion, was no coincidence. When Jackson had been brought to the Whittemores on his fifth birthday, to be raised as their own, she had made note of it – and as the two children’s paths crossed, like she predicted they would, Talia kept her eyes and ears peeled for any indication of a stronger connection. Ever the soothsayer, she had not been wrong.
They’d met by the river, in that same sacred place where they now spent their days and where, unbeknownst to either child, Talia had spent her childhood playing with her own siblings. Cora had come home in a sour mood that day, furious that someone had trespassed her secret hideout. The two had been rivals from that first moment, and more than once Cora had come home with scrapes and bruises, the skin on her knuckles broken and shimmering red. And then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. It was like they recognized the same wildness or cruelty in one another and, out of deference to that greater force, they’d shaken hands and made a reluctant truce.
And suddenly they’d become inseparable. Not friendly or affectionate by any means – to onlookers they seemed perfectly indifferent to one another, casual acquaintances at best – but they were fiercely loyal to each other, spending most of their days in almost silent companionship, exploring and play-fighting and running wild.
When they’d discovered their magic, neither was surprised.
The Hales had old magic in their lineage, a sort of sharpness in their nature that brought them luck and prosperity. They couldn’t perform the great feats of magic of their ancestors, the witches of the old world, but they had enough power to enchant potions and perform small rituals of protection. Jackson, by all accounts, was of a similar background, although he would be the last of his family line. They were both expected to make small acts of magic, like Derek and his kitchen spells, and use them for the service of their community. But when they were together, they could do other things too. Usually unconsciously, less like spells and more like magic itself was merely bowing to their iron will – and they floated leisurely to the top of the fruit trees or grew gills and swam for hours. Cora had sometimes wondered if she could do those kinds of magic on her own, and the same for Jackson – but she’d never actually tried. It seemed pointless to attempt magic without Jackson there to see her or outdo her.
Jackson is sitting against the trunk of a birch tree when he sees her. Cora half-runs, half-walks her way over to the river, and if she hadn’t been focusing so hard on not sounding too out of breath, she probably would have noticed the way his shoulders sag against the tree, the way his shrewd blue eyes seem unusually dull and soft.
“I thought you were going to be late,” he says, without the usual bite.
“I’m never late.”
“You’re always late.”
“That’s not true!” Cora argues, crossing her arms in front of her. “Besides, if I am ever late, it’s because I have to work at the shop.”
“I have to work too.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Studying is work.”
“Studying is different. It doesn’t count,” Cora decides. “And why are you being like that? I’m not late today.”
Jackson shrugs off her question and instead takes off his shirt and shoes.
“C’mon. We’re wasting time,” Jackson says. He walks to the riverbank like he really can’t wait to go under, but he still waits for her. A moment later, Cora joins him in her undergarments. Without second thought, she grabs his hand and they jump in together.
The river bed is a landscape of rocks and roots, twisting together and creating obstacles that they swim through or around with ease. It’s the best place to do magic tricks, because no one will see them – no one will ask questions or steal their secret. Jackson makes his eyes glow blue and Cora grows fangs. They follow a small school of fish without scaring them away for a while, then swim down to the bottom and play at spelling the river rocks into colorful stones, coming up for air only when they’ve fulfilled their every whim.
The sun is creeping closer to the horizon, so Cora declares they should leave the water now if they want to be dry. She knows how to spell herself dry, and she knows Jackson does too – but it’s more fun to soak up the warm sunlight instead.
They lay on their backs side by side, their hands brushing lightly.
Then, something new – Jackson breaks the silence between them.
“I’m leaving.”
“Yeah, I know,” says Cora, her heavy eyelids closed against the brightness of the sun. “After Samhain. To your apprenticeship.”
It doesn’t surprise her when Jackson takes a long time to reply.
“No. Sooner.”
Cora sits up. “What? When?”
Jackson crosses his arms behind his head and looks decidedly ahead, refusing to meet her eye to eye.
“Father found me a better tutor, but they will only take me if I go sooner. For the last harvest.”
“That’s next week.”
Jackson hums. It only makes her angrier.
“That’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s my education. I have to go.”
“You don’t even need an apprenticeship. You can already do more magic than your whole family combined. None of them can play in the water for hours like you can, or—”
“That’s the point, Cora. It’s not a toy. It’s my gift and I need to learn how to use it.”
Cora thought they’d been learning. Together. The phantom hand of betrayal and hurt wraps tightly around the base of her throat. It’s her gift, too, she wants to say. Their gift.
She lays back down, still trying to understand what all this means. She has been counting on Jackson to leave after Samhain; that’s usually when classes start, after the harvests are done and people have more time for their studies. If he left after Samhain that would be alright, because by then Talia would start Cora’s classes too, and by then she wouldn’t have as much cause to miss him, because by then she’d be too busy struggling to memorize a thousand herbal properties she couldn’t care less about.
But this means Jackson will leave a full month early. A whole month spent in solitude in their woods, with nothing to distract or entertain her. Cora doesn’t like to come to the river alone – it doesn’t belong to her anymore, it belongs to them. She’ll have to settle for bothering Laura around the shop, or guilt tripping Derek until he agrees to help her look for bird nests, but she knows it won’t be as fun, because they’ll just be humoring her. A whole month of fun and sunshine and magic, lost.
A whole month of Jackson, lost.
Cora doesn’t really know what else to say – and she’s scared of saying the wrong thing and cutting short what little time they have left. They spend the rest of their afternoon in silence.
Cora has a harder time than usual accepting that it’s time to go home, so she doesn’t fight it when Jackson asks her to wait and dives back into the river. She ponders briefly if he means for her to follow, but before she can even walk to the bank, Jackson surfaces again and climbs out, keeping his right fist curled tightly.
The sun is disappearing behind the horizon and most of the day’s warmth has faded by now, but Jackson’s hair and clothes are spelled dry in a moment. He closes his eyes and curls his left hand over his right, then opens it in front of her.
On his right palm, carved from a grey riverstone, sits a small wolf figurine.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Cora says. Jackson shrugs, trying to look unbothered, and when he doesn’t close his hand again, Cora realizes he made it for her. A peace offering.
She picks it up gingerly, scared to break either the spell or the figurine, but it feels sturdier than it looks. Jackson turns away immediately, and Cora knows he’ll be even more uncomfortable if she acknowledges the gift, or thanks him in any way, so she decides to do what they do best.
“I bet I can do it too,” she challenges.
Jackson stops in his tracks and turns back to her, eyebrows raised in disbelief.
She snaps off a twig from the nearest tree and closes her left hand around it. Cora doesn’t know how he did it, or how to go about doing it – but she doesn’t worry too much about the technicalities. Instead, Cora focuses on the beech tree, with its strange forked trunks and its bright green leaves billowing in the wind.
Cora opens her hand to reveal a small figurine of the tree. The leaves are the same soft brown as its delicate trunk, and they definitely don’t sway, but it’s just as good as her new wolf. She holds it out to Jackson.
“See?”
Jackson picks it up, making a show of inspecting the small tree. He pockets it in the most nonchalant way he can, but Cora notices the way his lips tilt upward a little. She has a sudden impulse to kiss his cheek and follows through before she can change her mind.
Cora doesn’t want to check for Jackson’s reaction.
“I’ll race you back to the shop. First one there gets to pick what we do tomorrow.”
They share a look of agreement, eyes glinting with excitement and lips curving up in childish glee.
Then, they take off running.