Page 43 of Big Little Spells

Because, yes, our mother has to literally sign off on these dresses.

Our mother sighs. Then she twirls her fingers in the air, a magical signature for each of us.

I should be happy about that, but the teenager inside me is spoiling for a fight. I order her to sit down.

“Now, as happy as we are to have you home, Rebekah and I did have plans this evening,” Emerson says brightly. “I wish we’d known you were coming.”

The subtle shade is lost on Elspeth. “You should stay in. You’ll need a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be a late night. And treacherous, given your position.”

Emerson opens her mouth. I wonder if she’s going to say she spends many of her nights at the North Farm. Come on, tell her.

I am not going to tell her that, Emerson replies, prim even in our own language.

Then she puts on her chamber of commerce voice. “While we appreciate your advice, and love you being here, I’m sure you can understand that we aren’t children any longer. We have a certain amount of autonomy. As is only appropriate.”

There she goes again with my parents’ favorite word.

But the ferocious Elspeth Wilde is having none of it. “You’re attending a children’s dance and taking a children’s test, girls.” This time it’s clear that girls is deliberate. She’s putting us in our place—another Wilde family specialty. “Because you failed the last one. When you were actually children.”

“Did we, though?” I hear myself ask without putting any thought into asking that question, out loud, to my mother, who didn’t just betray me in a hundred ways, but left spell dim Emerson here alone.

My mother, who has never showed the faintest glimmer of recognition that the Joywood might be anything but benevolent and good.

I’ve skyrocketed past a childish tantrum straight into speaking sedition out loud in Wilde House. Go big or go home, I guess.

Oh sweet Hecate, Emerson says faintly in my head.

I brace myself for the explosion. But much to my surprise, my mother doesn’t call down the Joywood upon us. She doesn’t even dismiss me flat out.

She looks at me with some shock.

And then, of all things, consideration.

13

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN by that, Rebekah?” my mother asks after a few humming moments of waiting. Still with that considering expression on her face. Then she looks at Emerson as if Emerson might answer for me.

Not today. “I mean it’s clear Emerson had power all along. Maybe it was buried under something, but you’re telling me no one could see that? No one could help her find it? And I have power too. You must know that.” Since it’s all she ever seemed to care about.

“But not enough,” Elspeth says crisply. Pointedly. “Neither of you had enough power to pass the pubertatum.”

“What exactly is enough?” I demand, and maybe here comes the tantrum. “And who decides?”

Elspeth draws herself up again. “You will not take that tone with me, Rebekah.”

“Let’s take a breath,” Emerson suggests, standing between me and my mother like we’re about to lunge at each other and have a wrestling match. “The important thing is that we’ve taken the necessary steps to move forward with tomorrow.”

Always the peacemaker. But what’s the point of peace when I know I’m right? When I know that the Joywood want to wipe us out no matter what we do?

“What you’re saying is right up there with treason,” my mother says, ignoring Emerson. And her dark gaze on mine reminds me of too many things I would rather forget. “Surely you’ve learned something from your ten years in exile. Like what happens when you think you’re more important than you are.”

I want to tell her all the things I’ve learned. About self-worth and emotional honesty. About living outside of their prized hierarchies and thriving, thank you. But I’ve also learned something about the pointlessness of trying to get through to people who don’t want to bend.

So I simply pull out my daisy smile again. It doesn’t matter if she believes me. I believe me. The people who welcomed me home believe me. We can fight the Joywood and their little games without my mother.

But then Elspeth surprises me, because she continues when she doesn’t need to. Almost as if she’s working through convincing herself I couldn’t possibly be right, rather than just knowing I’m wrong.

That might not sound like an upgrade, but it is.