Wild Magic

by Madeline Freeman

  “I did not mean to imply…” Eli plants his feet firmly, squaring his shoulders. “It is just that… When I spoke with—”

  “I know to whom you refer.” The elder man’s voice is sharp, but not unkind. His gaze shifts to Eli. “The ring is mine to do with as I please. I know he believes he has claim to it because he is the eldest grandchild, but it is my wish that it remain in the Barnette line.”

  I gasp, immediately covering my mouth with my hand. My muscles tense as I wait for a reaction from either Eli or the old man, but they continue as though I’m not there. Because, I remind myself, I’m not. I’m merely witnessing an echo of a past event. I take in a breath and relax. They’re talking about a ring and my family. Could they be referring to the ring I now possess? And if so, who is this other person who thinks it should be his? I tiptoe forward, not trusting myself not to make the boards beneath my feet creak, even though I know I can’t—I’m not interacting with the world here. Eli’s eyes are on his palm again, but as I near him, I see a heavy ring in it. I run my thumb over the ring on my finger. The two are too similar not to be the same piece of jewelry.

  “He’ll not be pleased,” Eli says.

  “I am too old to worry myself about pleasing everyone. I can only do what I believe is right. The ring passes to you, Eli. If your cousin finds fault with my decision, he is to see me.”

  Eli closes his fingers around the ring. “Yes, Grandfather.”

  The old man unfolds his hands and presses them to the armrests of the rocking chair. With effort, he stands. He is hunched with age and shorter than Eli by several inches. Eli holds out his hand to steady his grandfather, but the man doesn’t accept his assistance. He straightens his spine as much as he can and takes Eli by the shoulders. “I know you wish to believe the best of him. The two of you have been inseparable your whole lives. And his motivations may seem pure—” He catches the look of surprise on Eli’s face and nods knowingly. “Yes, Eli, I know. You are not the only ones who avail yourselves of the abilities of the town psychics. This path will lead to darkness, mark my words. He will listen to you, Eli. You must lead him away from this path.”

  Eli shakes his head. He attempts to take a step back, but his grandfather’s grip is too strong. “He’ll not listen to me, Grandfather—especially after he sees the ring. He already believes I wish to challenge him for power of the circle.”

  “His fear is his greatest weakness, yet he wears it like strength. We all fear something, Eli. It is a strong man who can see the difference between legitimate fears and baseless ones.” Grandfather releases Eli’s shoulder but takes up the hand holding the ring. He uncurls Eli’s fingers and plucks the ring from his palm before straightening Eli’s right ring finger and slipping the ring onto it. He doesn’t push it past his second knuckle, but he doesn’t need to. Eli buckles, tipping forward. His grandfather tries to arrest his descent, but he only delays the inevitable. His gnarled hands loop beneath Eli’s armpits and slow him as his knees collide with the rough wooden floor.

  Heat surges through me, followed by a sharp pain in my knees. The plank beneath me digs into my skin through the thick rough material of my pants. The old man’s hands dig uncomfortably into the soft flesh of my armpits. My mind struggles to make sense of what’s happening. I can see Eli in front of me, but I can also feel the sensations assailing him. A bright white light assaults my vision and I recognize it for what it is in the same instant it overtakes me: I’m experiencing another vision within this current one.

  Fire. A barn is alight from within. Flames peek between the joints in the walls and erupt through the doors. Heat burns my cheeks and I raise my arm to cover my face. Screams rip through the air, high and terrified. Someone is in the barn, a girl. Shouts sound through the surrounding darkness. I pull my arm away from my face, but the barn is gone, replaced with darkness and murmured voices. Lights flicker into existence one at a time—candles, arranged in a circle, revealing a figure laid out in the center, covered in black and bound at the hands and feet. A robed figure enters the circle, a long knife clutched in the hand that hangs by his side. He crosses to the figure and raises the blade into the air, above where its heart would be—

  A graveyard at dusk. Flowers adorn the headstone of a newly-covered grave. White stones, each the size of a human head, encircle the freshly mounded earth. The robed figure approaches, dropping to its knees and clutching the gravestone.

  A room, much like the one Eli and his grandfather stand in, with a low-hanging ceiling hanging oppressively over the heads of a couple dozen people, both men and women, ranging in ages from around thirty to probably sixty. The old man is among them. In the center of the room is a younger man, who faces the far wall, his arms and legs bound to the chair he sits in. His head droops, his chin resting against his chest.

  “There is only one solution,” says Eli’s grandfather, moving toward the bound man. In one hand, he holds up a fist-sized chunk of clear quartz crystal. “The evil must be contained.”

  The ring on my finger burns against my flesh, but, when I pull it off, the stone and metal are cool to my touch.

  Darkness overtakes my vision again, plunging me into a black void.

  I gasp, doubling over as I come back to the present. What just happened? Did the grandfather give that vision to Eli, and if so, why did I see it? Did it have something to do with the ring? And what was the evil he spoke of? Did he mean it needed to be contained inside the piece of quartz he held? There was something familiar about the piece of crystal in his wizened hand. It couldn’t be the crystal, could it?

  Yes. The answer bubbles to the surface of my consciousness immediately. The stone from my vision looked too much like the one Crystal and I brought back from the past not to be the same one. But if that’s the case, what does it mean about the energy inside it?

  Footfalls thunder behind me and I manage to stand as I turn toward the sound. Neither my mom nor Jodi takes stairs that quickly—but who else could be coming up toward by bedroom?

  Crystal Jamison appears at the bottom of the landing on the second floor. Her blue eyes widen as she takes in my appearance. “You’re not ready.” It’s not a question.

  I look down. She’s right. I’m still in my pajamas. Have I been standing here for the last ten minutes? I shake my head. “I’ll be right down.”

  She doesn’t take the hint. As I move toward my closet, I hear her feet creaking against the stairs. I grab the first shirt and pair of jeans my hands contact and move into the bathroom without looking back at her. How can I explain what happened, why I’m not ready? Crystal doesn’t know about my psychic inclinations, and it’s not something I particularly want to share with her. She’s already the only other person who knows about things being different after our foray into the past. I don’t like the idea of her being the keeper of all my secrets.

  I pull on my clothes and run a brush through my pale blonde hair. A quick scan of the vanity doesn’t reveal a hair tie so I abandon any thoughts of pulling back my hair. In less than two minutes, I emerge from the bathroom. Crystal is circling the perimeter of my room. While she’s not touching anything, I can’t help feeling violated, like she’s going through my things or reading my diary. Then again, it’s difficult to be too offended when the room isn’t exactly mine. There are several items that are familiar, but just as many things are alien to me. It’s like I’ve been away so long I’ve forgotten all the details of the room. It feels like I should remember the pictures taped to the mirror above the dresser, but I don’t. I can’t. I didn’t live those moments.

  I clear my throat and Crystal turns, looking completely unabashed. She raises an eyebrow and although she doesn’t say anything, I know she’s judging my appearance. I roll my eyes. Meeting Crystal’s stylistic expectations doesn’t even register on my radar as anywhere near important.

  “What’s that on your finger?”

  I glance down at my right hand even though I don’t need to. My finger looks normal, despite having felt l
ike it was burning just a few minutes ago. “It’s a ring.”

  “An ugly ring.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, tucking my hand where she can’t see it. “Are we going or not?”

  Chapter Three

  Crystal doesn’t speak again until we’re safely in her car, headed down the road. “You’re going to have to try harder.”

  I throw up my hands. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

  She sucks her teeth as she pulls up to a stop sign. There’s no one else at the intersection and she takes a moment to turn to me. “What are you wearing?”

  I rub my left hand over the knuckles of my right. “Enough about the ring already. It was my dad’s okay?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not talking about that monstrosity, so you can dial it back. I’m talking about that outfit.” Her lip curls as she looks me up and down.

  I pulled on an oversize navy hoodie on my way out the door when I couldn’t find a jacket that looked familiar. My jeans are dark and flare at the ankles. The only shoes I could find at the front door that looked even remotely like something I might wear were a pair of black Converse, though they’re a bit loose and might actually belong to Jodi. “What’s wrong with it?”

  Crystal rolls her eyes before refocusing her attention on the road and proceeding through the intersection. “Didn’t you pay attention to the yearbooks I showed you last night? So far as everyone knows, you and I are best friends.”

  From the way she says it, her meaning is clear. How is anyone going to believe someone like Crystal—in her painted-on skinny jeans, low-cut red sweater that flares in ruffles around the hips, and seasonally-inappropriate tan corduroy jacket—would willingly hang around with someone dressed like me? I consider mentioning that people might assume we’re friends because of my personality but quickly change my mind. “Just tell everyone I’m still not feeling well after the spell last night.”

  She flicks her chestnut hair over her shoulder. “Like they’ll buy that. Clearly I feel fine.”

  I don’t bother reminding her that I’m the one who brought us back from the past, and I don’t mention at all that my psychic abilities are the reason we were able to travel through time to begin with. I know Crystal well enough to be sure inferring I did all the heavy lifting would not be received well. Instead, I tell her what she wants to hear. “I’ll try harder.”

  “Good. Because no one can know we went back and changed things. So far as everyone’s concerned, we’re exactly the same people we’ve always been, and everything is as it should be.” She gives me side-eye and I nod.

  It’s what we decided last night after realizing the world isn’t the same as we left it. At the time, it seemed logical—after all, if we start announcing from the rooftop that we’re living in an alternate reality, people will probably think we’ve gone a bit crazy. Still, I don’t know if I can pretend that everything is as it should be.

  But maybe it is. I can’t lie—having my mom back in my life is more amazing than I could have imagined. And the fact that Jodi isn’t sick, that she never was, that she never had to deal with the knowledge that the candle of her life was about to burn out, is incredible. Still, a weight sits in the pit of my stomach, like we’ve cheated somehow.

  But Crystal doesn’t want to hear that.

  She pulls her car to a stop in front of Fox and Griffin Holloway’s house. Everything is the same—down to the garden gnome leaning against the porch—and it comforts me. Maybe things aren’t quite as different as I imagined.

  We’re clearly not the first to arrive: Parked in the street nearby are a red SUV and a motorcycle, and in the driveway there’s an old but lovingly detailed dark blue Mustang behind what looks like a monster truck. I wrinkle my nose at the truck. Whose could that be? Zane’s, maybe?

  Crystal leads the way to the front door and lets herself in. The inside of the house is not like I remember. Before, it was very much a bachelor pad, with laundry strewn around the room and old take-out containers on the table. Now it’s downright tidy. The pulled-back curtains allow the last rays of sunlight to spill into the space. The video game controllers are still visible, but placed in a cubby on the entertainment center. There’s a vase of fake flowers in the center of the coffee table.

  Crystal whistles as she closes the door behind us. “Well, this is an interesting twist.”

  Voices float up from the basement and before I can ask Crystal what she means, she heads through the dining room, toward the stairs.

  As I descend to the basement, my heartbeat increases. For all the differences between this reality and my own, the one I’m least happy about is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. So far as my memories are concerned, two days ago, I was just beginning my first serious relationship—with Owen Marsh. However, according to what everyone here remembers, Fox Holloway and I are together, and from the brief yearbook research I engaged in last night, Owen and I might not even be friends.

  A swell of greeting resounds as Crystal reaches the bottom stair, but I can’t distinguish what’s being said. My head is too full of buzzing to differentiate between voices. What am I supposed to do if Fox tries to kiss me again? I didn’t react when it happened last night, but only because it was so unexpected. But what about now? I’m not sure if I can kiss him back—even if I’m just pretending.

  Crystal crosses the floor toward the crude sitting area that takes up the bulk of the room. Griffin lounges in his usual arm chair at the far left, looking both haughty and bored, as usual. He chats with Zane Ross, who looks as relaxed and at ease as ever. Two girls stand from the couch to greet Crystal and the surprise of this fact jerks me from my own thoughts. Besides Crystal and me, there should only be one other girl here—Bridget Burke, Crystal’s darker hair and skinned double, whose hair, makeup, and clothing choices are typically slightly sluttier versions of Crystal’s. But beside Bridget stands a tall girl whose tight jeans and tan jacket match Crystal’s and Bridget’s nearly perfectly. The thing that distinguishes her is her hair—it’s red, not brown like Crystal’s and Bridget’s.

  Red hair. No, it can’t be—she and Crystal haven’t been friends for years, not since Crystal first started exploring her magical abilities. She thought Crystal was messing with something dangerous, something that could get her killed. Then again, she doesn’t have the same experiences as the girl I knew because her aunt didn’t die that night nearly twenty years ago. Something Crystal and I did affected that.

  Lexie Taylor raises an eyebrow. “Stare much, Kristyl?”

  The sound of my given name is jarring coming from her mouth. Lexie has only ever called me Krissa, the nickname Owen gave me my first day at Clearwater High. But things didn’t happen that way here. Now I wish I’d taken yearbook research a little more seriously last night. I recall the pictures I saw of Owen and try to remember if I saw Lexie in any of them. I don’t think she was. Are the two of them even friends now?

  I force a smile and start across the room to her. “Sorry—I’m a bit out of it still.”

  Crystal crosses her arms over her chest and peers at me. “Yeah, that spell took a lot out of you, didn’t it?” She shrugs. “I feel fine, though.”

  “You are so amazing, Crystal,” Bridget gushes. “That retrieval spell was way harder than anything we’ve ever tried. I still can’t believe it worked. After all this time, we finally have the crystal.”

  Bridget’s words stick in my mind. Retrieval spell? That’s not what we did—it was a time travel spell. But as the memory forms, another edges it out: Last night, during Crystal’s litany of differences between our old reality and this one, she mentioned even the quartz’s history had changed. Before, the stone had been all but destroyed in a fire, but here, it had merely disappeared on that night. Instead of passing through time to acquire it, our alternate selves retrieved it from some kind of magical limbo. The crystal disappearing the night of the fire makes some sense, I guess—since we took it back to the present with us. But thinking how it chan
ged things in this reality makes my brain throb.

  “Yeah—let me see it,” Lexie says, holding her hand out toward her cousin. “I’ve been patient enough waiting for my turn.” She gives a pointed glance in my direction and I bite my lower lip. I ran off with the crystal last night, thinking I needed it to save Jodi.

  “Chill out,” Crystal says, knocking Lexie’s hand away. She pushes past the girls so she can sit on the couch. I move to sit next to her, but arms encircle my middle, pulling me backward. Before I can react, I’m on Fox’s lap on the couch adjacent to Crystal’s. He must have come downstairs when I was talking with the girls. He lands a loud kiss on my cheek.

  “You snuck in,” he says, his lips close to my ear. “I wanted to ask how you’re doing. You didn’t return my calls.”

  His tone is easy, casual, but a sensation creeps over me—an emotion that’s not mine. He’s hurt, worried. I tamp down my guilt and twist to face him. “I texted.” The defense sounds thin even to me so I try again. “I’ve been kind of out of it all day. But I’m feeling better now.”

  Something flickers in Fox’s gray eyes but he blinks and it’s gone. He smiles and reaches forward to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I forgot how nice your hair looks like this.”

  I run my hand over the ends self-consciously. Is this not how my alternate self wears it? “Like what?”

  “All straight. And down. You’ve usually got it up or all wavy. But I like it like this.” He runs his fingers through the length of it for emphasis.

  I glance at the adjacent couch. Crystal, Bridget, and Lexie all have wavy hair. Am I expected to do up my hair to match theirs? Or do I do it because I want to? Just how different am I from this alternate version of myself?

  Before I can consider the question too deeply, a scuffle breaks out on the next couch over. Lexie has thrown herself across Crystal, who is leaning as far away from her cousin as possible, her right arm outstretched to its farthest extent.