Page 22 of Until the Stars Fall

“So if you wanted to manifest more joy into your life, you might write out ‘I AM JOYFUL’ in capital letters.” She illustrated her process with artful strokes. “Then you scratch out all the vowels and break the remaining letters into pieces, making a bank of shapes to draw from.” She drew lines about the same sizes as the letters: four vertical, four slanted, four horizontal lines, and one gracefully curved J shape. “Once you have those broken out, you arrange them in a manner that’s aesthetically pleasing to you.”

Her stylus flashed as she made a fanciful symbol from the components, finishing with something that looked a little like a pyramid and a little like a W. “Then if you want to embellish it with a strategic rune or two to give it an extra oomph, like a couple of wunjo”—she drew an angular P shape to either end of the symbol—“that can strengthen it too.”

“You can draw personal sigils on your body with makeup or even a marker,” Summer said, “or write them on paper and burn them.”

Beck held up a finger. “My personal favorite.”

The image of Beck blowing onto the bay leaf blazed through my mind and sent a shiver across my skin. I tried not to look at him and concentrated on Eyre’s drawing.

“Or, like we’ve done, you can just paint ’em and leave ’em,” Summer said, “and activate them with spellwork. We worked with Beck to determine what shapes might actively interface with the machinery. Then we combined my knowledge of geometry and Eyre’s artistic talents to select the best medium, color, and placement for each of them.”

I thought about the blue sigil in the engine room. “Would you draw the ones you used in the spells in my notebook? I don’t think I could recreate them properly. And shouldn’t we keep track of the original phrases or intentions?”

Eyre nodded. “That’s a great idea. I have all the original paper sketches. I can bring them to you to put in the grimoire.”

“Thank you.” At Eyre’s use of the word grimoire, I glanced at Beck, and he wiggled his eyebrows mischievously at me.

“I see the name Beck gave this thing is catching,” I said.

Eyre shrugged. “He isn’t wrong. The Interstellar Grimoire is pretty badass.”

Beck leaned near me, and I caught a waft of woodsy soap. “When Eyre gives you those sketches, I can write up anything that needs to be captured about how they intersect with the machinery.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking to Eyre to try and focus on something other than him sitting next to me. “Perfect. And the crystals?”

“The crystals prime their surrounding environments into the most advantageous atmosphere for the spells to work,” Eyre said. “I charged every crystal on the ship under the last full moon, but they all need to be recharged periodically. Depending on whether they’re fixed or moveable, I recharge them by laying them in the running water in the forest, or smoke cleansing, or singing bowl, or even my own magic.”

“Eyre’s got this super cool approach to magic. She likes cascading systems. Like you set up one spell to make another thing naturally happen, and that sets off the thing you actually wanted to happen. Like the crystal environments.”

Eyre shrugged. “I find the elements work best when they think it’s their idea, so I set things up and let them all roll downhill.”

“Roll downhill,” Beck repeated, laughing and pushing his palm down away from him, mimicking going downhill, making Eyre laugh too. “She’s been like that ever since I’ve known her. I’ve never known such a chill toddler.”

“As if you were such an old man when we met. You couldn’t have been any more than what, nine?”

“I didn’t realize y’all’ve known each other that long,” I said.

“My family and Beck’s go way back in the New Orleans witching community. I moved in with the rest of the coven when my grand-mère passed away a few years ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured.

Beck gave Eyre a sad smile. “I miss Grand-mère.” To me, he said, “I studied under her for a while. I’ve been staying with the coven for a couple of years, since my parents went to Gaia.”

The silence lengthened just long enough for me to feel awkward. So not very long. “So this might be a stupid question, but how do you activate your spells? What makes them...work?”

“We do.” Summer shrugged. She waved her hand across her empty ice cream bowl, and it and the spoon lifted into the air, circled around each other, then set back down.

I edged away from the display of magic, remembering the days when I, too, made things move around in my room.

Beck leaned back onto a floor pillow. “Depending on the spell, it might be our own magic that activates it, either individually or in some combination. Some are potion activated, some require intricately worded spells. You’ll have to see your sister for those. Some are elemental.”

“Fire, earth, water, air, spirit,” Summer explained.

“It must’ve taken a long time to figure out how to make some of these spells work. You couldn’t find the parts you needed?”

“Or couldn’t afford them. My uncle giving us the ship and the junkyard was a huge boon. We replaced and repaired everything we could, raised money selling things we didn’t need. But ultimately, when the whole planet’s evacuating, there’s just not enough to go around. Then the surprise launch slot.” She shook her head. “That was crazy.”

Beck shrugged. “Some of the parts we did have, other people needed worse. If we could figure out how to make do with magic when they couldn’t, we let ’em have it. Ya gotta help one another, you know?”

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