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Chapter 5

time and tide

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place
where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
—Maya Angelou

"I just don't understand what I did wrong." Bonnie had been glaring down at the pages of Emily's spellbook for the past hour. The spell she'd used to get to the past was there, dark and newly inked on the crisp white pages. The grimoire lacked the age and wear of the one she knew so well, as well as a fair number of the notations, but it still felt familiar in her hands. It hummed with Emily's magic, which she'd grown very familiar with as she'd tried to model her own magic in its image.

The owner of the spellbook hummed noncommittedly, just as she'd done at all of Bonnie's earlier frustrated exclamations. Emily didn't even deign to look up from the stockings she was mending. At first this had suited Bonnie fine, she hated to have someone looking over her shoulder as she worked out a problem, but now she could admit that she was completely out of her depth. She needed her ancestor's help.

"Emily, could you give me some kind of clue here?" The older witch sighed as she tied off her last stitch and looked up to meet Bonnie's eyes. Emily looked just as she had in the photo album, her face composed and near-emotionless. It was the same face that had been reflected in the mirror that Bonnie had stared into in horror, desperately trying to take back control of her own body. It was only slightly less unsettling now.

"Bonnie, I do not understand how I could possibly help you. You have yet to tell me your affinities, the spell you used to come here, or even your purpose in doing so. I cannot see what you did wrong, because I have no idea what would have been right." Emily started on the other stocking leg after her final measured word, continuing to sway her rocking chair steadily. Bonnie gaped in disbelief.

"Are you not listening? This is the spell I used. The one you wrote! The one to go back in time! Which was obviously the goal!" Bonnie threw up her hands in the air, barely resisting the urge to set the book on fire and toss it in the other witch's face. "And I don't even know what you're talking about, affinities? Is that some type of magic? Ugh, it doesn't matter. I'm hopeless at this and I'll be stuck in this godawful time forever." Bonnie slumped back onto Emily's bed, the only other seat in the small room, and closed her eyes. She felt the pinpricks of tears begin to gather and willed herself not to start bawling. She was going to find a way home, she had to. She just needed a break from this stupid grimoire and her stupid ancestor who refused to help her even though Emily totally owed her for possessing her and almost getting her killed in the future. Not that Emily knew about her future ghostly activities.

"You used that exact spell? From my grimoire?" Bonnie cracked open her eyes to look at Emily, and nodded pitifully. Emily had completely set aside her mending, and was focused wholly on Bonnie. For once, Bonnie could easily detect the emotion on the older witch's face. But it wasn't the annoyance she'd been expecting; was confusion.

"You didn't change it at all?" Bonnie shook her head, but then gave it more consideration.

"No, I mean, maybe I mispronounced a word? That would be just my luck. Use the wrong inflection and get thrown off by a century for a stupid mistake."

"No, Bonnie, your pronunciation would not have been an issue. But, we have just found your problem. Why would you not change the spell to suit your needs? To suit you?"

"Umm, I'm not exactly experienced enough to start experimenting with spells. I would probably blow myself up if I even tried." Bonnie thought of the spontaneous fires she had set in her early days of magic discovery, and shivered.

"You're close to my age, are you saying you haven't ever changed a spell? Or created one? Have you been focusing on divination or alchemy instead? What do you fill your own grimoire with?" Wow, Bonnie thought, Emily was really pulling the disappointed parent card on her. Bonnie felt like she had failed to do a term paper and her report card had just been discovered. It was shitty, and unfair.

"Okay, you can slow down with the judgement a bit. I'm pretty new at this still, and not all of us can be freaking magical prodigies, or whatever. I'm just trying to figure this out one step a time."

"You're…new? How long have you been practicing?"

"Well, Grams started telling me about magic last summer, and I did my first spell in September. So with my time here, that's like 6 months." Emily's eyebrows shot up. It was the fastest Bonnie had ever seen the witch's face change.

"You performed your first spell half a year ago?" She sounded incredulous. "You've known you were a witch for less than a year? Why was it kept a secret? Where was your coven?"

"Umm, yes to the first two. No idea for why my Grams didn't tell me earlier. Maybe she was hoping my mom would come back and help her with it? Or maybe my dad forbid it when I was younger? He's not really a fan of all the witchy new age stuff. And I don't have a coven. Now that my Grams is gone, it's just me."

"Oh, Bonnie." Emily stood and crossed the room. She wrapped her arms around Bonnie and rubbed her hand down her back.

"I'm so sorry."

"No worries, not your fault." Not exactly. "And you didn't know." Emily pulled away so that she and Bonnie were face to face, but she didn't let go.

"Bonnie, no witch should practice alone, or learn alone. My small circle is considered dangerous, and it only succeeds because I have Katherine's strength to fully ground it. And to learn with no mentor, no guide? It is no wonder you were confused by my questions. You have taken on a mountain when you should be studying the smallest pebble." Bonnie felt this was rather insulting, even if it was kindly meant.

Emily seemed to sense Bonnie's growing impatience, so she pushed forward with an explanation.

"This isn't an insult to your abilities or intelligence Bonnie. In fact, knowing your complete lack of foundation makes me very impressed with your accomplishments, even if they were accidental. Even your being alive is impressive." This mollified Bonnie a bit, but also worried her. What had she done that was so dangerous?

"The first step to magic is knowing yourself. That is what I meant by an affinity. It often relates to a branch of magic, such as divination, or an element of nature. I, for example, have an affinity for the earth. It is how my magic first manifested when I was young, and the magic I find the most comfortable to use. That is why so many of my spells are built around gemstones. It is something I feel mastery over, so additional spells do not weigh quite so much." Bonnie thought this over, thinking of the many stones referenced in the grimoire, and the ones she had a familiarity with. The bloodstone, the talisman, even the comet. It wasn't a celestial event, like Damon had thought, it was a giant rock that Emily could draw power from.

"You," Emily continued with a somewhat wry smirk, "I suspect, do not share my affinity. You have a livelier temperament." Bonnie laughed. Elena had known Bonnie was possessed in less than a minute because of the difference in their so-called temperaments. "Bonnie, how did your magic first manifest?"

Bonnie thought back to those early days of junior year. She had thought Grams was crazy, but strange stuff had kept happening. Some of it she could now discount as vampire meddling, but some of it was all her.

"Fire, I lit candles, and some other stuff, on fire." Bonnie paused, thinking about the Lockwood's dining room, alight from a single thought. "But something else too. I could touch people and sense their future, and sometimes their past." Emily nodded.

"The fire is fairly straight forward, and not particularly surprising after getting to know you. But the other…many witches have some form of precognition. But it takes practice, and usually more than just a touch. I have a feeling yours has more to do with life and emotion than seeing the future." Bonnie tried to act like she knew what all of this meant. But her fake-understanding face didn't work in Tanner's class and it didn't work now. Luckily, Emily was more willing to explain than Bonnie's former history teacher.

"When I create a spell, I am building it. It is solid and immovable, but rigid. My spells are bound by strict rules. I could not fight off a vampire if one attacked me, but I could set a trap that lasts a thousand years." That was definitely true.

"Your fire affinity means you operate differently. When you craft your own spells you will have to consider what and how much fuel to use, when to have a controlled flame and when to blaze. I suspect you'll be adept at offensive spells. But because you aren't thinking about this, your magic is almost wild. When you used my spell," Emily gestured towards the grimoire that had been tossed aside, "it was meant for me and my understanding of magic. You didn't have that. You took a keg of black powder to a mountain. Was it effective? In a way, since the spell worked. But it was completely uncontrolled, so you ended up here, instead of the more measured, month long trip you desired."

"Okay, that makes sense, but why do witches keep grimoires if spells are that personal? And I don't have a coven at all, how does that work? And what about the hand touchy thing?" Bonnie eagerly asked, drinking up the knowledge that had never been openly offered to her before.

"Well, many witches share affinities, so some spells are more easily adaptable. And, as you've shown, you can force spells to work with enough power thrown at them. If you'd known what you were doing, you probably could have made my spell work as you desired, though it probably would have drained your reserves. Also, the fact that spells and grimoires are so personal is another reason to keep them. It is a way to feel close to the witches that came before you, and to keep a record of their achievements and failures." Bonnie thought of her grandmother, who had shelves full of grimoires and dedicated her life to studying them and teaching the occult to university students. This explanation made sense, but she waited for the rest of her questions to be so neatly put to rest.

"Your lack of coven and ability to…sense people, I think, are related. Most covens are wholly made up of witches. But it is possible to include others, even humans, in them. Witches draw our strength from both within ourselves and our connection to the world. Your affinity is how you perceive and channel that energy, but your coven is your lodestone, your fire starter, if you will. You can access all of Nature, but you sense your coven the most easily, so you draw from them first. It will also make your magic stronger when used on them, whether it is to heal, find, or harm. This isn't a problem when a coven is all witches who can protect themselves, but you should consider it carefully, as I think you built yourself a coven unconsciously."

Bonnie opened her mouth to protest. She was pretty sure she'd know if she'd joined a coven. The weekly meetings with chanting and robes that she pictured would have been a dead giveaway. Emily spoke before she could.

"You had a network of friends, including supernatural beings, and a shared goal to protect your hometown. You could detect their sense of self, what you called their emotions or futures, and added those you could trust to your coven. Think about when your magic was strongest, and who you were with. And think of when you arrived here. Did you feel cut off from your powers at all?"

"I thought I was just drained from the spell. I had to rest and get my reserves back. That's why I've focused on finding a way back today, my magic almost feels back to normal." Emily smiled.

"Your magic is not a finite well that can be emptied. The reason you felt weaker was because your coven was ripped from you. Your access is back because you have added people here, in this time, to your circle. Some of whom, I think, are not entirely new in their membership." Bonnie thought about how easily she'd fallen into snark with Damon, her attempts to re-forge the trust between her and Stefan, and the instant acceptance Katherine had extended towards her. She thought about Emily's single raised brow when she was judging Bonnie's words, so similar to how Grams used to, and recognized her theory as the truth.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Emily grasped her hands.

"But Bonnie, I'm worried about you. Covens are usually formed by mutual attachment. Even what Katherine and I have, it isn't traditional, but we both need each other, and we are both aware of what we draw from the other. You have created a series of one-sided bonds. It is dangerous for you. You're aware, even if only subconsciously, that they are your people and your magic. You would do anything, give anything, to protect them. If they are not willing to do the same, you could end up seriously hurt, and potentially powerless." Bonnie felt a chill at the base of her spine. Is that what had happened to Grams? She'd given everything to her granddaughter, and received nothing in return?

Emily saw her downturned expression and cupped her cheek, tilting her face upwards.

"Bonnie, you know now, and that is what is important. Use this knowledge moving forwards, and feel no sorrow or guilt for the past. Tonight, I will be happy to work on this spell with you, and to figure out how it will work with you. But I think we should put it aside for now. You need food, and some more pleasant company than your crotchety old great-great-grandmother." Bonnie tearfully laughed, and pulled Emily into a hug. This one tight, and desperate. Emily had been a figure in Bonnie's nightmares for months after the possession, and she'd never imagined she could be a figure of comfort. Now, she felt like an untouched rock in a stormy sea, the one thing Bonnie could rely on not to move.

"Come on, dear, let's get out of this room. You haven't even met my children. I'm sure they'll be eager to fight over which one you're the descendant of all afternoon."