Page 44 of Our Crooked Hearts
Marion had been watching Astrid’s rise with shining eyes. Now she looked up. “Don’t,” she shrieked, too late, as Fee tossed the gold cross underhand at the mirror.
The occultist might have been stronger than whatever was in that necklace. But it startled her enough to lose her grip.
She fell back. Below the flames, below the glass. Her body went down but something else went up, some grainy exhalation of spit or spirit. The cross hit the mirror just after her fingertipswent through and the glass cracked, four perfect lines blooming into an asterisk.
A rushing sound rose as the flames went out. A burning wind plucked at our hair, the salt circle’s hellish heat spilling into the rest of the room. Something interrupted the moonlight, casting the walls in reaching, fast-flickering shadows, like we were moving at speed through a naked wood.
“We have to end it,” Sharon said tightly. “Forget the spell, the spell is broken, we need to end themagic. Clasp hands.Now.”
We did, flinching from each other’s scorching touch even as our fingers tightened. When we were a circle of four Sharon began to chant.
I dropped my pail into your well
From your well I drew
With blood for thanks and a strand for luck
My gratitude I’ll shew.
Until we meet on a blood-moon night
Or on a silver shore
I’ll thank the Devil once, twice, thrice
Before I ask for more.
She let go of us to rip a few hairs from her head, pressing them and her bleeding hand to the floorboards. My scalp freckled with heat as I yanked my own strands free.
Our hair and blood joined the mess on the ground and the wind snapped off. The writhing shadows withdrew, the temperature dropped to the middling warmth of an ordinary atticroom. Our bare feet shifted over boards slicked with salt and chalk and blood and the remains of a rabbit. It was done.
Marion’s flat blue eyes came alive with rage. “Youbitch,” she said to Fee, and charged her.
But Fee and I were two bodies with one heart, and one fighter with eight limbs, and her dad had taught us how to throw a punch and mine taught us how to make it dirty. I pulled Marion off my best friend by her hair. She twisted like a cat, sinking her teeth into my upper arm. Fee socked her in the gut to make her let go. Marion went at her again and I caught her around the stomach, hauling her down and pressing an arm to her throat the way I’d seen my dad do, breaking up fights on the block. By then the will had gone out of her. I scrambled back, sickened and ashamed, as she started to cry.
“That was her,” Marion said, her voice bitter with broken hope, her face red and naked. The circle’s heat had fizzed her eyebrows down and her lashes away. “That washer.”
“You lied.” Fee sat ramrod-straight, looking at the mirror. Her mother’s cross had bled into the cracks, sealing them with gold. “You lied to us.”
“I didn’t.”
Fee’s cheeks flushed hotter. “That was asummoning! We were dragging Astrid Washington out of, what, Hell? Mother of God, Marion!”
Sharon stirred. She’d watched in silence as we fought; now she pushed herself off the wall. “Are you three done? Because we have bigger problems.”
Sharon was not okay. Her fingers quivered as she pulledout a squashed pack of Camel Reds, patting manically at her pockets until Marion tossed her lighter across. The room felt flammable with enchantment, but nothing blew when she lit up.
“You broke a prime fucking rule here,” Sharon said. “You lied to your fellow workers. You withheld somecrucial information.I don’t knowhowyou pulled that off, how far it would’ve gone…” She trailed off. “But at least she was contained. Untilyou”—she nodded at Fee—“let her out of the circle.”
“Hey,” I said sharply. “Marion did this. Fee was trying to stop her.”
“That’s great. Magic definitely gives a red shit what youmeantto do.”
I felt dizzy, my temples burbling like a kettle with the approach of blowback. “But she did. She did stop her. And you stopped the magic. So now what? We clean up. We bury the rabbit.”
“How are you bitches not dead yet?” Sharon said scornfully. “She didn’t stop shit. She broke the circle mid-summoning. Yeah, okay, Marion’s girlfriend isn’t embodied, but she’s not tucked up safe in witches’ Valhalla either. You let herout.She’s, oh, man. Having some fun. Or maybe she’s right here. Waiting for us to find another rabbit.”
I cast my eyes around the room, searching for places where the moonlight hung funny. I didn’t see or sense anything amiss.
