Chapter 4
White Magic

"Why do you want to learn these things?" The witch asked me the next time I arrived at her home. As she had instructed I did not add her to the charms around my neck. Instead I had glued her tooth to a chain link then connected that to a braid of twine I wore around my ankle hidden in my boot.

"I want to protect my family." I said, answering her question.

"Protect them." She snorted. "I wanted to protect my family."

"You didn't?"

"…No."

"I'm sorry." And I really was. I knew that pain.

"Nothing can be done about it now." Then she turned to me. "What kind of spells do you want to learn?"

"Well… useful ones I guess. How to give someone back their strength. How to keep travelers safe. How to ward off bad dreams and bring good ones. How to find things we need. Ooh I'd like to heighten my senses. I think that would be cool."

"You want to know white magic."

I shrugged. "It's the best kind."

"The simplest too but, not always the most prospective. Faith is greatly needed in all magic, but particularly white magic. The fail-rate is higher with it than others."

"Like black magic and curses?"

Her tone grew dark as she looked down on me with those yellow eyes of hers. "Black magic involves the dead, the things that slither, crawl, and bite. It involves selling your soul."

I shook my head at the thought. "I don't want to do that."

"Good. That is wise. And we won't be learning that either way." Then she called me over to her. Her hand went to my face. Though she could not touch me, I lifted it at her direction. She looked at me as if she were seeing into my soul. "You're resourceful and adapt well to change. You've got remarkable strength and a strong sense of community… like the beetle."

"And… that's good?" I asked timidly.

"Beetles are powerful. The ancients have a certain fondness for beetles. They adapt well, are found on every continent and will live on billions of years after humans have gone, which may be much sooner than we all expected."

"I'm not sure I'm really like a beetle. Are you sure I'm not more like a butterfly or a firefly?"

She stopped dead and spoke sternly. "Why? You want to live for a twenty-four hour life cycle or be pretty and flashy and dead because you attracted too many birds and predators that want a nice rainbow meal?"

I frowned glumly. "No, I guess not."

She turned to a set of shelves in the living room and pointed up at a wooden box on the top. "Get a chair and get me my cards, girl. I want to see something."

I did as I was told and brought down the little box following her over to the table. At her direction I opened it to reveal a deck of cards. "These aren't regular playing cards." I realized flipping through them to find odd pictures."

"Shuffled them up and spread them over the surface of the table."

I obeyed and waited for further instructions.

"You want to learn?"

"Yes."

"Everything?"

"Yes."

"And you're not frightened?"

"No."

"Then look at the cards. Put your hand over them, just so; only your fingertips and feel."

I did as I was told, hovering over them and I focused.

"Now let them move." In a deep hush she leaned towards me and added with urgency, "Believe."

I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, letting my mind clear as I began to feel something. There was a pulse as my hand drifted to the side. It pulsed again when I retracted to the same spot. They drifted over a card, pulsing again like there was a beating heart in my hand. For some reason this card was speaking to me. I reached out and took it.

"Do I flip it over?" I asked her.

"There's no need."

Confused, I looked over my shoulder only to find her back to me as she turned to the door.

"Come, girl, we have work to do."

Speechlessly, I looked from her to the card I had pulled and paused. Before following I sated my curiosity and flipped the card over:

The High Priestess

I was confused by her reaction but I followed her out, hoping that I could gain some answers about what the card had meant.

We crossed with the boat and continued the conversation in the forest, strolling down a game path.

"Casting the tarot is a gift." She explained. "When you know the arcane you can hear the echo of time in your ear. In time you will learn their meanings."

"What does the High Priestess mean?"

"What do you think it means?"

"Holiness?"

Her brow rose in amusement as she glanced up and down at me in exasperation. "Really? Come on. You can do better than that."

I pouted in thought. It wasn't my fault I didn't know anything about tarot cards or the different meanings between them, but it looked like she really wanted me to try, so I remembered back to how the picture looked. She had been sitting between two pillars, one white and one black. There had been a fruit in her hands and the moon at her feet.

I closed my eyes for better thought, trying to think. "A… a choice. A balance between what's dead and alive. And something like… temptation always within sight, trying to tip the scales?"

Vanessa looked pleased. "That's the feeling. Don't be getting too big for your britches, though. They don't always mean what you would expect." She walked on. "The High Priestess is also known as Persephone, Isis, the Corn Maiden and Artemis. She sits between the land of the living and the land of the dead. The pomegranate in her lap is a symbol of duty, because Persephone ate the fruit from the land of the dead she is forced to return to the underworld every year.

"Everything is symbolic as you've already discovered with those charms around your neck. Symbols represent people; they can guide them, too. Tell me about your father. Why do you use a star to represent him?"

I didn't ask how she knew that. "Because he used to be a sheriff."

"And why else?"

"I dunno. That's all I suppose."

"Try harder." She snapped.

I thought hard as her harsh tone had instructed. "Stars… are forever. They shine brightest in the dark. When they die, it takes centuries for their flames to burn out. But I feel like these things don't really describe my father anymore."

"Why?"

"Well… lately he has been burned out. Like someone snuffed out his flames."

"Who was it?"

I hesitated, not liking to say his name in such a pretty place. It felt like a curse word. "A warlord. He calls himself Negan."

"What would you use to represent this Negan were you to find a charm for him?"

I frowned. "I wouldn't need to because I would never search for a charm for him. I hate him." I stated firmly. "Charms are used for the people I love—people I care about. Not him!"

"I see then." She murmured before nodding in approval. "That's actually good."

"It is?"

"Yes, I now see where your priorities lie. Not on revenge or some hidden agenda towards your own ideals of justice. You only seek to help people. Try not to change that."

We walked in silence for a while before I asked a new question. "Will I only learn spells with you?"

"No. I have other things to teach you as well like plants and animals, how to pick locks, how to hunt, how to find water, food, and shelter. You probably don't even know that we've passed about half a dozen sources of food in only three steps."

I stared at her surprised before turning about to see what I may have missed. But everything just looked like ordinary grass and trees to me. Not good for eating at all.

Then she pointed to several plants in turn that I hadn't noticed before, "Wild onion, purslane, clover, dandelion, and pine."

I looked back at her in confusion.

"But… you can't eat pine. And dandelions are just weeds."

"You'll find a hidden magic in all plants. When out of everything else dandelions have long been used in salads and wine, are rich in vitamin A and are reputed to have curative and diuretic properties. You'll also find that there's a magic in its meaning. Dandelion is a corruption of the French dent de lion, which in turn comes from the medieval apothecaries' term dens leonis, so-named because either the tap root, the florets, or the jagged edge of the leaves resemble a lion's tooth. It is also connected to the sun, as is the lion; the flower's appearance is very suggestive of ancient representations of the sun. It has many local names, including fair clock, swine snout, priest's crown, puff ball and shepherd's clock. In addition, the feathery seed-tufts serve as his barometer, predicting calm or storm. Children and lovers grant them special oracular powers and blow on them to judge the time, or to find out whether or not they are in their loved one's thoughts."

I stared at her dumbfounded, unable to speak for a long, long moment. In one lecture she had completely changed the way I looked at these yellow weeds. I hadn't even known food like this was available in the forest. I assumed everything was just trees and bushes, maybe you might find some berries but even those could be questionable.

The witch turned back to me. "Little Beetle, if you learn my craft you will learn everything and I will see to it that you live long enough to put it to good use." And then she introduced herself properly. "You may call me Vanessa Ives, and from now on, I will be your teacher."

I stared, uncertain about what to say. I had never imagined such a little plant could own so much weight and meaning. The wonder on my face must have shown because Vanessa went on.

"I can show you a whole other world, Beetle, hidden all around you. I can teach you the meanings of everything. Every single thing in the world has a greater purpose in spells and chemistry." Her eyes grew big and her smile shone as she gazed back at me. "Oh the wonders you will find in my world. And I'll share them all with you."

My eyes sparkled with hope and longing.

With those words a marvelous door had been thrust open for me.

My family wouldn't die. My father's fight had been taken out of him, but I would fight for him now. I would be his instrument and make sure to take care of all the people we loved, in whatever way I could. If I needed to do so in secret then so I would do.

But Alexandria would live. Negan could take everything we had and more but I would give it back somehow, through work, through help, through hope. This woman's spirit would grant me the ways to do it and I would learn everything she offered to give.