(A witchy little Vauseman AU for October, inspired by the movie Practical Magic and probably told in three parts.)
There's nothing Alex Vause hates more than the first day of a new school year.
The other kids show up with their new haircuts and their new clothes, all soft unwrinkled cotton and stiff denim like they just came off the factory lines-and then there's Alex. Her hair looks the same as it did last June except for the trim her mom gave it in front of the bathroom mirror. She hasn't quite grown into the clothes she's wearing—old shirts of her moms and thrift store jeans, soft and grass-stained and rolled up at the ankles.
She finds an empty table during lunch and sits down, burying her nose in a book so she can at least pretend not to hear the laughter as Jessica Wedge's entire table points in her direction, mouths open in delight as if they're looking at an exotic zoo animal instead of just Alex. She'd hoped that the fun of it would have worn off by now—that this year they'd find someone else to pick on, but no such luck.
Jessica's voice lifts above the general cafeteria din, carrying snatches of conversation across the aisle. She's talking so loudly it's like she wants Alex to hear.
"I can't believe they live in that house. It looks like a low-budget horror movie location. Of course, that's what you get when your mom is some kind of witch…"
Alex lifts the book a little higher until it obscures her face completely, just the top rims of her glasses peeking over the edge of the pages. It doesn't help. She still feels like the punchline of everyone's favorite joke.
When the bell signals the end of the school day she heads for the exit so fast she almost runs into her new science teacher. She dodges around Mr. Campbell with a murmured apology, shoving the heavy door open with both hands and bursting through into September sunlight.
Kids start streaming out of the building behind her, heading for the row of buses that line the parking lot. Alex takes one look at the queue for her bus and decides she'd rather walk home than sit with anyone on her route. She hitches her backpack over shoulders and turns away from the school, feet scuffing along the pavement as she crosses the street and heads for home.
Alex and her mom live in the last house out on the headland, in old Victorian cottage that's been mostly abandoned to the passage of time. Overgrown rose bushes line the fence, twisting up through an old and leaning pergola just inside the gate. Gardens that had once been carefully plotted have grown wild, plants fighting each other for living space along the old raised flowerbeds and spilling onto the weedy cobblestone walkway. The house is badly weathered, decades of dirt dulling its once-white trim. The entire property thrives on an undomesticated, inelegant wildness.
When Alex lets herself in the smell of fresh coffee draws her toward the kitchen. Diane Vause is sitting at the counter, work uniform on, downing a steaming cup. She looks up at the sound of her daughter's approach.
"Hey kiddo, how was school?"
Alex gives a noncommittal shrug. She doesn't want to talk about how Peter Dennis kicked the back of her chair all through algebra, or how Sarah Brown tied two pencils into the shape of a cross and brandished it at Alex each time they passed each other in the hallway; the old sign to ward off a witch.
"You know," she says vaguely, hopping onto the countertop to perch beside her mother's half empty coffee cup. "Same as always."
Diane gives her daughter a knowing look. "Smug brats still acting like they own the place?" she guesses, taking another long sip.
"Pretty much."
"Don't worry about them. They're due for a round of bad acne soon, and nothing kills teenage ego faster. They'll be wishing they had your mom's good genes then."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better, or are you just gloating?"
"Both," Diane says with a wink. She pushes the cup away and stands up, swiping her apron off the countertop as she rises. "I'm working until close tonight. Don't stay up too late, okay?"
"Okay."
"G'night, Al," she says, tugging Alex forward to kiss her forehead. A moment later she's gone, locking behind her and leaving Alex alone for the night.
Alex takes her homework up to her bedroom and spreads her books out on the floor, but she can't concentrate. Her mind is too full of other things: of Jessica's taunts and Sarah's rubber-banded cross, and suddenly all she can think about is how badly she wants to skip school tomorrow, and the day after that, and preferably for the rest of her life.
She closes her eyes. When she opens them, a thin line of silvery light slants across the floor beside her. Alex glances at the window to find that night has fallen and the moon is full, and her heart leaps into her throat.
There are things she's learned from her mother that could never be taught by anyone else: always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder, plant lavender for luck, keep rosemary by the garden gate to ward off misfortune, and if you're going to make a wish don't bother with stars—it's a full moon you need, and the brighter the better.
Gazing up at the full moon through the window, Alex makes a wish. A simple one, though she'll never tell a soul what it is.
And maybe it's magic, or maybe it's just a coincidence, but the next day something's different.
When Alex heads for her usual table at lunchtime there's already somebody sitting there. She's wearing corduroys and a button-down blouse—the kind of thing Jessica Wedge and her friends would have worn last year but definitely not this year—and her blonde hair is pulled into two neat braids. A book obscures her face, but even so Alex is pretty sure she's never seen this girl before. She looks a bit too Little House on the Prairie to be an islander, but she seems quiet and unassuming and something about her makes Alex feel bold enough to approach.
"Something wicked this way comes," Alex murmurs, and allows herself a wry smile because, obviously, she's the something wicked.
The new girl jumps a little in her seat, eyes flicking upward to meet Alex's gaze uncertainly.
"The title of your book," Alex clarifies. "I recognize the cover."
"Oh." The blonde girl lowers her paperback a little, and her eyes sweep appraisingly over Alex's figure. "Have you read it?" She asks, her voice a little shy.
"One strange wild dark long year," Alex quotes, "Halloween came early. And that was the October week when they grew up overnight, and were never so young any more…"
"It's a little creepy, isn't it?"
Alex shrugs. "Creepy is good."
"I guess," the girl says pensively. "Is this your table? I thought it was empty, but I can move."
"No, it's okay. I'm Alex."
"Piper Chapman."
That's how it starts. When Alex heads home after school she only makes it two hundred before she realizes she's being followed. There's a pair of footsteps mimicking her own, and then Piper falls into step beside her, book bag bouncing a little as she struggles to keep pace with Alex's longer strides.
"Hi," she says, between heavily drawn breaths. "Can I walk home with you? I think we're actually neighbors."
Piper starts talking, and she talks a lot. She talks about how her family had to move because something bad happened to her dad's law firm and he lost his job, and then something else happened to his financial accounts, and they had to sell off all their assets to stay afloat. The words sail over Alex's head—firm, financial accounts, assets—like they're a foreign language, but what she gathers in the end is that Piper's immediate family now lives in Celeste Chapman's vacation home on Rock Point. It's the only other inhabited house on the headland, and it's right next to the Vause's old cottage.
Piper starts to lose steam as they're walking down the gravel drive that curves out toward edge of the island. Her expression crumples a little.
"Listen," she says, "the other girls said some… things about you."
"What things?" Alex tenses, tugging self-consciously at the straps of her backpack and shifting the weight higher.
"Things about your mom, and… you know, kind of weird stuff that happens at your house."
Alex takes a deep breath. "What stuff?" she demands, a little too sharply.
"Well, I guess, like—magic?" Piper looks mortified as soon as she says the word, and her expression suggests she'd like nothing better than to go back in time and unsay everything she's spoken in the last five minutes.
They're almost at Piper's driveway now and, as if on cue, they both stop walking.
When Alex doesn't reply, Piper looks over at her awkwardly. "Is it true?"
Alex's hands curl into fists around the nylon straps. "What do you think?"
Piper's cheeks go a little pink, but she doesn't look away. Her answer comes out in a steady parade of words, like she's conducting them carefully. "There's no such thing as magic," she says. "Not real magic, and not witches either."
Alex doesn't say anything, just adjusts the positioning of her glasses and starts walking again.
"Besides," Piper continues, "The girl who said it didn't seem very nice. She never even asked me my name."
They're in front of Piper's house now, at the gate of the picket fence, but she seems to hesitate. One foot inches toward the gate, the other remains firmly planted. She glances tentatively at Alex. "Do you want to come in for a snack?"
Alex peers past her, surveying the freshly mowed lawn that eventually meets up with the wrap-around porch. She takes in the sight of the newly-painted lattice work with the honeysuckle climbing up the sides of the house, dripping red-orange flowers. The Chapman's property is as bucolic and tidy as Alex's is ramshackle and in need of repair, and she feels suddenly embarrassed about the contrast, about the clear demarcation where the mowed grass ends and the tangle of overgrown rose bushes around her house begins.
"Your parents won't mind?" she asks, half-hoping it'll change Piper's mind.
But the other girl just shakes her head and favors Alex with another shy, encouraging smile.
They go inside together, and just like that it becomes routine.
The next day they skip the school bus and walk home again, and Mrs. Chapman has carrot sticks and apple juice waiting in the kitchen. The following day they endure the scathing looks being thrown their way from Jessica Wedge's table, and Alex keeps waiting for Piper to lose interest. But Piper still finds her after the bell rings, picking up the threads of their lunchtime conversation and continuing on like it had never ceased.
At first she talks a lot about her family and her old home in Connecticut. Alex listens more or less silently, feeling a kind of vague discomfort about how little she can relate. There are other uncomfortable things, too, like the disapproving frown on Mrs. Chapman's face when she spots Alex following her daughter into the kitchen. Like the gleaming backsplash tiles and the cabinet of polished silver with not a speck of dust to be found, and how Alex's too-long sleeves brush crumbs clumsily across the porcelain plates.
But the conversations switch to other, easier things: their classes, the other kids at school, movies, music, books. On Friday Alex lends Piper a copy of one of her favorite novels; when Piper returns it on Monday the pages are feathered with post-it notes. She flips through it on their walk home, pointing out her favorite passages and positing theories about the cliffhanger at the end of the book.
Their after-school routine never varies; not until the end of the October, when Alex first broaches the topic with her mom. It's a Tuesday evening and she's doing homework at the kitchen counter, her textbooks spread out amidst jars of camphor and sandalwood.
She puts her pencil down and looks up, adjusting her glasses carefully.
"Mom?"
"Hmm?" Diane has something bubbling away on the stove, and whatever it is gives off a strong smell of spruce and sage.
"I was thinking maybe Piper could sleep over this weekend."
Diane reaches for a vial of some other herb, dropping a pinch of it carefully into pot. She gives her daughter a brief, calculating glance. "You don't need special permission to have friends over, Al."
"Yeah, I know," Alex says slowly. "It's just that the Chapmans are sort of…"
"Stuck up?" her mom supplies. "Prissy? Rude?"
"Yeah. Not Piper though," she says quickly.
"Sure, not Piper. Hand me a spoon, would you?"
Alex rifles through a nearby drawer and withdraws the requested utensil. She hands it over wordlessly, and Diane's attention returns to the stove.
After a moment of pained silence, Alex tries again.
"I was thinking maybe you could not do this while she's here."
Diane stops stirring. "Not do this?" she repeats, eyebrows raised in challenge.
"Potions. Spells. Weird stuff."
"I see."
Alex exhales heavily. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that, it's just… I don't want Piper to freak out, okay? I'm always at her house, and she keeps asking why she never gets to come over here, and I don't know what to tell her. I don't want her to see this—" she gestures to the jars of herbs littering the counter "—and then get spooked and tell the whole school about it."
Diane puts the lid on the pot and wipes her hands on her apron before turning back to face her daughter. "You just told me that Piper's different."
"She is different, but—"
"You can't hide parts of yourself to make other people comfortable, Al. There's good and bad to every person. There's normal and there's weird, and you can't make any of it disappear just by pretending."
"Mom, please. Just while Piper's here, no weird stuff. Please."
Diane sighs, shakes her head a little sadly, and turns back to resume stirring the pot. "Okay," she says, in a tone that hints at disappointment. "No weird stuff."
It doesn't feel good, the disappointment—but Alex would rather endure that than have Piper run out of the house screaming, so she picks up her pencil and turns her attention back to her homework and they let the subject drop.
On Saturday Piper shows up at precisely 7pm, and Alex is so nervous that her hands shake a little as she opens the front door. When they climb the second set of stairs up to Alex's bedroom, her palms begin to sweat.
Personally, Alex has always liked sleeping in the attic. Sure, it's drafty in the winter, and almost always dusty, and it smells faintly of mothballs and sawdust; but there's a kind of hard-won romance about inhabiting it. Attics are a site of adventure in all of the best books, and Alex at thirteen is still too young to fear the kind of stories that appear suddenly and grab hold without permission.
Piper takes one look around, lets out an awed breath and whispers, "this is so cool."
Alex's fear dissipates immediately, replaced by a formidable sense of her own intrigue through Piper's eyes. They pile old cushions on the floor and drape sheets over the backs of chairs and make a blanket fort, where they fall asleep hours later. From then on weeknights are spent at the Chapmans doing homework; but weekends are for Alex's house, for movie marathons and pizza deliveries and staying up late to read by candlelight.
It's wonderful, having a friend. It feels like a wish come true. Alex gives silent thanks on each full moon, certain in the knowledge that it was her wish that brought Piper to town.
But friendship is fragile, too. It only takes one night for Alex to realize how close she is to losing it, and how badly that frightens her.
They're in the attic when it happens. During sleepovers Piper almost always tires first and she's out cold by midnight, lying on her side, a paperback fallen facedown where it slipped from her fingers.
Alex, on the other hand, is very much awake. She's watching candlelight lick the shadows beneath Piper's chin, listening to the sound of a nightbird calling through the open window. She loves this time of night; the witching hour. She loves the stillness and the quiet, and most of all the sense that between now and sunrise there is the potential to discover something profound, something that can only reveal itself in deepest hours before dawn.
She blows out the candles, and the darkness that follows is absolute. Piper is a vague black shape beside her. In the silence Alex can hear each breath she takes, soft and rhythmic and comforting.
It takes a while for sleep to come, but just as it finds her there's a sound downstairs; a sudden heavy knocking, someone pounding their fist against the front door. Thirty seconds later there are voices—her mother's, and another that rises shrilly, sounding near hysterics.
There's a twist of dread in Alex's gut. She knows what this is, and for a moment her mind floods with betrayal—mom promised, no weird stuff—before her eyes flick open and she glances at Piper's dark form, already sitting up in alarm.
"What's going on?" Piper asks, her voice tremulous from the sudden wakeup.
"Nothing," Alex murmurs. "I think one of my mom's friends just came over."
The voice of the woman downstairs cracks and breaks, like she's starting to cry. Her tone is desperate, pleading.
"She sounds really upset," Piper ventures.
Alex doesn't say anything. There's a lump swelling up in her throat. Not now, she thinks. Not with Piper here. Not now.
Then there's a blur of movement as Piper casts off the blankets and stands up, the floorboards creaking beneath her bare feet.
"Where are you going?" Alex asks, bolting upright.
"I just want to see who it is." Piper's voice is already further away, the dark shape of her body nearing the top of the staircase.
"Don't, Piper," Alex says, as she scrambles to her feet. "It's none of our business. Wait!"
But Piper's footsteps are thumping softly down the stairs, and Alex chases after her with a defeated huff.
She finds Piper sitting on the second floor landing with her knees drawn up against her chest. From their vantage point at the top of the stairs they can see through the doorway into the kitchen. The woman—who Alex recognizes as the town florist, Miss Margaret—is leaning against the kitchen table she gasps for breath, her face flushed and her eyes fever bright.
"Have you thought this through, Marge?" Alex's mom is asking, her voice calm and steady. "Are you really sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," Miss Margaret gasps, her fingers balling into fists. "Yes, I have to. I can't stand seeing him with her. I want him back, Diane. I want him to love me the way he used to. I need him to love me."
In the shadows at the top of the stairwell Alex and Piper lock eyes with one another. Piper's are wide and bright and questioning, but Alex just shakes her head and holds a finger to her lips.
Diane begins to lay objects out on the table, Alex recognizes them at once: the white candles, the bowl sprinkling with rose petals, the dagger; ceremonial implements.
Piper's eyes are wider than ever, and now there's a hint of fear in her expression. Alex's hands feel cold and bloodless as she clutches them against her belly, waiting.
Diane walks away and returns with a dove in her hands, pinning its wings carefully to keep it from struggling free.
"The dagger," she says softly, and Miss Margaret picks it up with shaking fingers, her face pale and her lips pressed thin with determination.
"I want him to want me so badly he can't stand it," she whispers.
Then she thrusts the knife forward, straight into the bird's heart.
Alex hears the soft gasp of surprise as Piper turns her head away, but her own gaze remains steadfast. She watches the dagger plunge, watches the dove's white breast turn scarlet as the bird jerks and struggles in one last mad effort to free itself.
This isn't the kind of casting her mom has shown her before. This is real magic, and real magic is messy. It wants blood, and pain too. It takes these things ungently, bent on fulfilling its promise.
Piper's clammy palm finds Alex's in the dark. Their fingers interlock, hands gripping each other so tight she can feel the press of Piper's pulse against her skin. Alex squeezes her fingers. Piper squeezes back. Their heartbeats find a shared rhythm, loud and hard and perfectly in sync.
Diane glances up—just for an instant, but long enough for Alex to know that she's seen them sitting there at the top of the stairs.
She stands up, pulling Piper with her. "Come on," she murmurs. Together they retrace their steps, retreating back up to the attic.
They break away from each other when they get there. Piper collapses wordlessly on the pile of pillows and lies still. Alex's fingers twitch for something to hold onto.
"Are you okay?"
Piper doesn't answer her directly. Instead, she asks, "does you mom do that often?"
Alex lays down next to her, folding her arms across her chest. "Sort of."
"You never told me."
The words are fearful and accusatory and wondering, all at once.
"I know."
"Why?"
She can't see Piper's face in the dark, but she pictures it anyway: the furrowed eyebrows and slightly parted lips and the confused, hurt look in her eyes.
"Because," she says, sucking in a breath. "What was I supposed to say? I can't explain this, Piper. Not to you."
"Not to me? What's that supposed to mean?"
That I made a wish and you appeared. That you're part of the magic, and you'd hate it if you knew it.
"I wanted you to like me," Alex confesses, and the hollow places in her chest ache with each breath that moves through them. "I still want you to like me, Piper. I don't want you to stop being my friend."
There's a long pause. She can feel her own pulse racing; ears, chest, and limbs all threaten to burst open from that frantic beat as the sound of it fills the silence.
"Alex," Piper says finally, in a soft, small voice. "You're my best friend."
Alex swallows hard. Her heart leaps into her throat.
"I wish you would have told me," Piper continues.
"I don't want you to think-"
"I know."
"Are you mad?"
"Only a little."
The floorboards creak softly as Piper shifts onto her side. Alex shifts too, and now they're facing each other. Two long silhouettes, two pairs of eyes reflecting moonlight.
"We're okay?" Alex asks.
"Of course we're okay," Piper answers.
They lay there unmoving, side by side in the dark.
When slumber comes for Alex she wards it off, waiting for Piper's breathing to even out first before letting the lullaby of it serenade her sleep.
Piper leaves early the next morning to go to church with her family, but Alex sleeps until half past noon. When she wakes her eyes feel dry and sore as if she'd been crying, even though she knows she hasn't.
She's in the kitchen cracking eggs into a skillet when she hears her mom at the front door.
"Morning, kiddo." Diane tosses her work apron on the counter as she enters. She pauses to sniff the air, and casts a quizzical glance at her daughter. "Do I smell coffee?"
"Yeah."
"Since when do you drink coffee?"
Alex shrugs, back still turned. "Couple of weeks now." Her tone is flat and indifferent as she reaches for a mug from the drying rack in the sink.
"Jesus, you're too grown up for your own good. Pour me a cup, huh?"
Alex complies wordlessly, sliding the full mug carefully across the counter. No milk—her mom has always taken her coffee black. They still haven't made eye contact, and Alex turns turns her back again to stir the eggs in the skillet.
"Al."
"What?" she says, a little too sharply.
"I'm sorry about last night."
Alex takes a long, careful breath and then presses her lips together. Arguing with her mom always makes her feel worse instead of better. Instead she lets the anger out a little at a time, like deflating a balloon before it can burst.
Exhale. Inhale. Pause. Exhale again.
The spatula scrapes against the pan.
"Everything okay with you and Piper?"
Alex turns off the gas, lifts the skillet off the stove, and scrapes the eggs out onto a plate.
"I guess so," she says finally.
"I know I promised, but-"
"It doesn't matter," Alex says forcefully, stabbing at her food. The fork slides against porcelain with an ear-splitting screech, making them both wince.
"Hey." Diane tugs gently on her daughter's arm. Alex looks up at her, eyes blazing. "What's going on, Al?
She lets her fork clatter back onto the counter and takes a deep breath, fixing her mom with a wholly determined gaze.
"If you can do love spells, then why didn't you just cast one on my dad? Why couldn't you just make him stay?"
The question falls heavy and leaden as stone, and Diane shrinks away like she's dodging a slap. Her face turns white, and then her skin flushes pink again all the way down her neck.
"Alex..." she says sadly, "you can't change someone's heart."
"But Miss Margaret-"
"Miss Margaret wants to believe she can, because otherwise she has to admit she lost the man she loves."
"But that spell was real!"
Diane smiles sadly. "Yes, it was real. And you heard what she wished-that he'd want her so much he can't stand it. That poor man will probably never know a moment's peace again. But it won't make him come back to her, and it won't make her happy."
Alex slumps forward, elbows landing hard against the countertop. "I hope I never fall in love," she says vehemently, and closes her eyes.
She doesn't see the knowing expression on her mother's face. She doesn't yet know that love is love, and magic is magic, and when the two cross paths it's never the way you expect. Only after it ends can you put the pieces together and point to a moment say, there. That's the moment I never want to let go of, or that's the moment I am desperate to forget. Only then do you understand you never had a choice.
(The line "always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder, plant lavender for luck, keep rosemary by the garden gate" is imprecisely quoted from Practical Magic, and the love spell/dove scene is also derived from the movie.)
To the loyal readers: I'm sorry that new fic has been so long in coming. I'm planning two more parts for this one, though I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to post them. I edited this pretty quickly, so I'll do another check for typos later. As always, thanks for reading!