Sorcery and the Single Girl by Mindy Klasky Page B

sleeve. He shook his head, once. “By your leave, Coven Mother,” he said, nodding deeply before stalking away from Teresa Alison Sidney.
    Away from me.
    I watched him open the door to my right. There was a momentary pause in the male banter within, and then the noise swelled louder, all greetings and laughter and casual bonhomie. I swallowed hard and reminded myself that at least Neko had been permitted to stay with me.
    Teresa Alison Sidney’s smile was as perfectly manicured as the hand that she extended to me. Her fingers were cool in mine, sleek, as if she spent part of her life as a seal or a mermaid. “And you must be Jane Madison.”
    “Yes,” I said. “Yes, Coven Mother.” I answered her perfect nightingale trill with a peacock screech. I knew that there was something else I should be saying, something else that I should do, but my mind was blank, numb. I wondered if I had lost some basic faculties when I crossed the silver pentagram into the room. Maybe some silent spell had stolen away my most basic social abilities.
    I felt a jab in the small of my back and I took a half step forward. Even as I racked my brain for something to say there was another jab, a poke deeper into my spine. “Jane!”
    The whisper broke my trance, and I half turned around. Neko was shoving the book toward me as if it were an infant needing a diaper change. I scowled, more embarrassed than ever by the awkward presentation of my gift. I should have wrapped it, no matter what David had said.
    I turned back to Teresa Alison Sidney. “Coven Mother. I, um…I brought something for you. A small token of my respect.”
    She turned her head to a perfect angle, her lips twisting into the smallest of smiles. I dared to glance at Neko, steeling myself to take the heavy book from his arms. I forced myself not to picture dropping it, not to imagine the pages splayed and torn on the inlaid parquet floor, in case dreaming had the power to make it so in this strange place of witchy energy.
    As soon as my fingers touched the citrine binding, though, a wave of calm washed over me. There was peace in the crystal, confidence. I remembered the power that I had felt when I bound the book. I threw my shoulders back and displayed the volume for all to see.
    And I was rewarded with a collective gasp of awe from all the women in the room.
    Even Teresa Alison Sidney, even the perfect Junior League matron, even she was surprised by the riches that I held. “For you,” I said, as I extended my offering. “For you, Coven Mother.”
    She looked at me for a long moment, blatantly scanning my face for my intention. I hoped that she could see my earnest desire to fit in among my witchy sisters, to find the collective support that I’d never known in high school, in college, in any social aspect of my life. I hoped that she could tell I wanted to join this clique more than I’d ever wanted to join one before.
    She glanced down at the volume and completed a tiny nod of recognition. The title might not be stamped upon the cover, but she knew the treasure that she held. I couldn’t say whether she was able to divine the name by magic, or whether she had studied catalogs of valuable holdings in the past. She met my eyes, though, and said, “The Illustrated History of Witches. ”
    “I thought that you could make good use of it.”
    “I can indeed.” She set her hands upon the green moroccan leather. “Citrine,” she breathed. She closed her eyes and inhaled through her aquiline nose, drinking in the power of my binding.
    Now, standing in this magnificent space, surrounded by a showroom of furniture and a gaggle of perfect women, I wasn’t sure that I had made the right decision when I wrapped the crystal’s power around the book. Maybe I should have been orderly. Maybe I should have been uniform. Maybe I should have followed the letter of the occult law, tamping down every single spark of individuality and creativity in my witchy soul as I bound the