The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic(15)

“Everything. Or almost everything. Seth means as much.”

“I know he does. Drink,” she commanded.

Sadie felt the valor of the pomegranate sink into her. She let the clarity and focus seep into her from the incense. Her curse wouldn’t be that bad. Whatever it was, it would be worth it so long as she could keep her magic.

She drained the last drop, set her teacup down, and rotating it, pushed it toward Gigi.

“You know the legacy. Every Revelare has magic, but they also have a curse. I told you your time would come, and it’s arrived, sugar. Your choice, of course, is to forgo the curse by sacrificing your magic.”

“What did Seth say when you asked him that?” Sadie challenged.

“Your brother and I had an entirely different conversation and ceremony, which you’re not to know about. Focus on your own future,” Gigi told her in a stern voice.

“Whatever his future is, mine is the same. We’re twins. That’s how it has to be. And I know Seth: he’d never give anything up until he understood it fully, and he doesn’t; so I can’t either, and I wouldn’t even if he did!” she said.

“This will change everything,” Gigi warned.

Sadie didn’t answer, but nodded once and watched as Gigi finally looked down into her cup. She turned it this way, then tilted it that. She swirled the remaining tea leaves, her lips pursed thin as paper.

“There’s a heart broken into four pieces and a chain. I see a clover, but it’s so near the bottom that the luck may not arrive before you’re old. And a snake. Bad omens, always.”

“What does it all mean?” Sadie asked, her heart hammering.

“It’s a curse of four heartbreaks, sugar.” Gigi shook her head almost as if she were angry. “Each one will be worse than the last. They’ll be so deep they’ll rend your soul in two. And if you’re not careful, when all four heartbreaks come to pass, the curse will consume you, and your magic will flee, leaving chaos behind, bitter as milk thistle. This curse will follow you like storm clouds, leaning toward you like wheat in the wind. Love only as you are willing to lose your magic.”

From that day, the magic had wrapped itself around her heart and built a wall of thickest vines until not even a tendril of hope could get in.

Though she thought of her curse every day, she hadn’t pictured the tea-reading ceremony in years. “Rule number seven,” Sadie said, sighing, “‘If it’s done, it can’t be undone.’” She’d forgotten what her grandmother had said about Seth’s time with her and wondered, for the first time in three blood moons, just what Seth’s magic was.

They used to be inseparable. They’d been every cliché, from finishing each other’s sentences to knowing when the other was in pain. But Seth was never content; he was always digging and asking questions about their magic and their parents, which was a mystery thick as cold clover honey. The only thing Gigi would tell them was that their father had never been in the picture, and their mother was gone. Not dead nor that she’d left—just gone. Like a puff of dust in a summer breeze.

Sadie never understood her brother’s need for answers or the way his cheeks would flush with embarrassment when neighborhood kids teased them about being the grandchildren of crazy Marie Revelare. Seth tried to hide from the strangeness, run away from it, deny it until he stopped asking questions altogether. Unlike Sadie’s magic, which showed up externally in the garden she tended and the food she made, in the way she could stir her finger in a pot of cold water and it would boil seconds later, Seth’s magic was internal. It was a hidden thing he never utilized as far as Sadie could tell. And no matter how many times she asked, demanded, pleaded, and pouted to know what it was, he would respond only with silence, headlocks, or vicious glares. But on full-moon nights when they were young, when the clouds whispered their secrets across the sky and the church bells chimed in the distance, Seth would sneak into Sadie’s room with chocolate biscuits and a jug of milk. They’d settle a blanket across the hardwood floor, and with their knobby knees drawn up and moonlight splashing across their faces like a blessing, he would finally talk. He asked questions about her magic, their future, and—most of all—their mother. What did Sadie think she was like? Why did she leave? Where was she now?

In Sadie’s mind, if her mother had wanted to leave, then good riddance. Magic was the truest thing she knew, and she was good at it. And if she focused on becoming the best, then she didn’t have to think about the way Seth had left her exactly the way their mother had. Seth’s disappearance had been heartbreak number two. The last year had been spent trying to find a neat little box to put the pain into. Something she could label and wrap with a bow. But the heartbreak was ugly and defied any sense. She hated that. Not having answers. Not having control. And even with the memory of those secret nights, she never found out what his magic was.

“I’m not like you. I don’t think what I have, what I can do, is good,” he’d confessed one night. They were older then, thirteen, and he’d brought Gigi’s cooking sherry instead of cookies and milk.

Sadie’s heart had hammered, wondering if this was finally the moment.

“I can’t tell you because I don’t know,” he’d snapped. “Honestly, stop screaming your thoughts into my brain.” He’d softened a moment later at the hurt look in Sadie’s eyes. “One day, okay? I promise.”