He scrambled to his feet, accidentally knocking the tarot cards and the incense into the tub in the process. He cursed.
The Savannah Convention Center was the site of the magic convention.
The Three of Cups, which Sam had been quick to read as a party, could really be any kind of celebration or gathering. The Seven of Swords, which Sam had read as theft, could, more generally, be deception, trickery. Their combination had an infinite range of possible meanings, but none of them seemed like good news for November.
The Death card had a range of meanings, too. It pointed to transitions and endings, and in relation to Sam’s very last magic convention of high school, it could—optimistically—be a redundant reminder.
But sometimes Death just meant death.
Sometimes the spells you found in a magazine just worked.
And sometimes, seeing the future out of the corner of your eye didn’t mean that you could change it, because when you faced it head-on, it was only water and glass.
Chapter 17
THE FRONT STEPS OF FRIEDMAN HIGH SCHOOL TURNED out to be a totally acceptable place to eat lunch. If anyone missed Sam at their usual table, well—they certainly weren’t texting him to say so. (And the shattered screen on his cell phone felt like a fresh slap in the face every time he checked.) No doubt James and Delia both thought they were the reason for Sam’s continued absence, but whether they actually gave a shit about it was anyone’s guess. Thanks to Delia’s disingenuous scheduling maneuver—the come-if-you-can plan that in retrospect was clearly about freeing up her time for more powerful magickers—Sam didn’t even have to tell anyone that he wasn’t coming today.
When Denver finally texted him from practice to ask where he was, Sam responded—carefully avoiding the cracks in the glass—Still not feeling great. Going home.
He thought that was the end of that.
Right as he and his parents were finishing dinner and a TV show, there was a knock at their front door. The three of them looked at one another in confusion.
“Are you expecting anyone?” his mom asked his dad.
“I’m not. Are you?” his dad asked Sam.
Sam shook his head and shrugged.
Sam’s mom hit pause and went over to the door, peering through the peephole they almost never used but that seemed like a good feature at the moment. Then she stood up beaming, giving Sam a mischievous look before she opened the door.
“Well, hi there, Denver from Nashville. Come on in.”
“Hi, Mrs. Fisher,” Denver said, coming on in.
Sam’s dad stood up and brushed the crumbs off his shirt, clearing his throat and going over for a handshake as if Denver were the Archduke of a country he’d never heard of and not a junior at Friedman High. Denver loved that. “You must be Sam’s new friend I’ve heard so much about. Welcome, welcome,” Mr. Fisher said.
Sam shot his mom a look. If his dad had been hearing a lot about Denver, it most certainly had not been from him.
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, sir,” Denver said. “I came to check on Sam. He said he was sick.”
Denver held up two Wendy’s cups by way of an explanation. “Sorry, I only thought to get two. They’re a little melty anyway, after the drive.”
“You brought Frosties,” Sam’s mom said, with a significant look to Sam as if Denver wasn’t standing right there where he could see said look.
“Okay, why don’t we head back to my room,” Sam said. “We’ll keep the door open,” he rushed to add, before one of his parents could humiliate him further with that request.
Denver followed Sam back to his room. He was definitely blushing.
“So, this is where the magic happens,” Sam deadpanned—a defense mechanism more than anything, because now that Denver was actually in his room, Sam was realizing that he was blushing a little bit himself.
“Wow. I didn’t know they made posters of Lady Gaga that big.”
“Yes, well, you have to remember, I only experienced culture for the first time in my life at the Fox Theatre a week ago, so it’s going to take some time before I’ve gotten rid of all proof of my basic upbringing.”
“You seem like you’re feeling a little better,” Denver said lightly, handing Sam a Frosty.
“Turns out all I needed was a nice long nap.”
“Right.”
The face-off lasted a half second longer than either of them meant it to, until Sam was forced to turn away and pretend that it was to clear some space on his bed for Denver to sit.
“Thank you for this,” he said, taking a bite of his Frosty.
“What happened here?” Denver said, eyeing the tarot cards spread out to dry on Sam’s dresser, warped and waterlogged.
“Only the world’s worst weather forecast.”
Denver laughed, clearly not believing Sam in the slightest but accepting that Sam wasn’t going to offer any further explanation.
“So, how was your visit with Arjun this weekend? Did you take him to Mary Ellen’s?”
“No,” Denver said, drawing out the word so that it had two distinct, long syllables.
“Just hanging around at home, then?”
“Listen, Sam, that’s part of why I wanted to come over tonight. I know this is probably awkward of me to say, and I could be way off base, but I was thinking—I got the feeling that maybe I had made Fascinators practice weird for you? By mentioning Arjun’s visit?”
“Oh, no, Denver, you don’t have to—”
“No, it’s okay. I want to make sure you know that we’re just friends.”
“Who’s just friends?”
“Sorry, God. I’m making this worse. I mean, me and Arjun. He and I are just friends. It wasn’t, like, a getting-back-together visit. But we’d been together for so long. We were boyfriends and also best friends, you know? And after cancelling the first trip I had planned, I think he felt bad about it, and he reached out last week asking if he could visit as a friend. I didn’t tell you this before, but when he broke up with me? It was over text. Yeah. After three years.”
“And you forgave him for that?”
“Well . . . yeah. I mean, it sucked, but losing my best friend of three years altogether would have been worse. Don’t get me wrong, it was a little awkward, having him in the apartment, sleeping on our couch. But I think we’re going to be okay now.”
“That’s . . . that’s great, Denver.”
“Yeah. So anyway, I wanted to tell you that. In person. Not in a text. Sorry, now you’re looking at me like I’m crazy. I should probably go.”
“No, wait—”
Sam had reached out to stop Denver before he knew what he was doing, and he’d grabbed Denver’s hand, which was warm and solid and real.
He dropped it almost as quickly, but judging by the O of surprise Denver’s mouth was making, he’d felt the sparks, too.
“I’m glad you told me,” Sam said. “And I’m glad you and Arjun are just friends. I mean, I’m glad you’re still friends. But you didn’t make practice awkward. Delia and James saw to that well enough between the two of them.”
“Oh yeah? Delia wasn’t at practice today, either. Is something going on?”
“Yes, something is very much going on. Possibly more than one something, depending on how you’re counting. I’m sort of fighting with Delia and James? And I’m worried about them, but I sort of promised not to say why?”
“Oh. Damn. Sorry, Sam. That sounds awful.”
“Well, I’m sorry, too. You came over from a magic club that placed eighth in the state, and now you’re in one that can’t even meet twice a week.”
“Don’t worry about that. There are way more important things than practicing magic, and friends are pretty high up there. I guess I’m just surprised. You, James, and Delia seemed like such a tight-knit circle.”
“I’m as surprised as you are. I guess this is the problem, right, when your friendships are based around what you do instead of who you are? Or maybe it’s the problem of being frie
nds with anybody for as long as I’ve been friends with Delia and James.”
“What’s the problem?”
“You’re not allowed to change.”
“Oh,” Denver said. He stared into his cup.
“Damn, I’m sorry. Here you were incredibly kind and brought me this Frosty, and now I’m making us both depressed. You know, if it’s not too dramatic for you, maybe you and I should branch off and form our own Fascinators sub-committee to practice for convention.”
“You think convention will still happen if we’re not meeting as a full group?”
Sam thought of the Three of Cups, which he’d started to imagine had meant him, James, and Delia for better or worse, but could just as easily have meant nothing at all.
Still.
“I think so. James would never admit it, but the individual medals he’s won at the last three are some of his proudest achievements. And I can’t imagine Delia would give up her best chance to show Pinnacle that she’s not some Georgia bumpkin.” Assuming she’s actually still applying. “Not to mention, we’ve got you this year. You and your luck magic.”
“Aw, shucks. Well, much as I hate conflict of any kind, if I have to choose between practicing with James and Amber or practicing with you, it’s an easy choice. It takes some considerable magic to even get them to notice when I’m in a room with them.”
Sam smiled, even though it hurt.
“Okay, well, I’ll let you get back to napping or whatever.”
He turned again to leave.
“Denver?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think you could teach me some of your self-defense magic?”
“I guess so. Why?”
“Not sure if you heard about what happened at Kevin’s party the other night?”
“With James and the earthquake?”
“That’s the one.”
“And you want to be able to protect yourself against James next time?” He was teasing, sort of, but he was really asking, too.
“I’ve just been feeling more helpless than usual lately. And I don’t want to fight fire with fire or anything like that. But I don’t want to get burned, either.”
“Gotcha. Yeah, I can teach you what I know.”
“Thank you.”
Denver smiled. If it was possible, his smile only got better the more times Sam saw it, as if its charm had a cumulative effect, carrying with it all the smiles that came before.
“See you on Thursday, Sam.”
“Not if I see you first.”
Chapter 18
ONCE, WHEN DELIA WAS IN SIXTH GRADE, HER MOM forgot to pick her up from her clarinet lesson. That her mom forgot to pick her up wasn’t really the notable thing, though. At eleven years old, Delia had already collected a long trail of being-forgotten memories, the excuses from both her parents becoming no less hurtful over time for their increasing mundanity. Getting lost in the shuffle because your mom is working late while your dad is at the doctor is one thing; finding out that your parents simply lost track of time watching their favorite TV show is another. At least when it happened at school, Delia could get a ride home with Sam, whose parents were always right on time, like they couldn’t wait to see him. It had happened enough that they would sit in their car for a few minutes, calling Delia’s parents when it seemed she’d been forgotten. Again.
No, what made that day after her clarinet practice notable was that, for once, instead of waiting and calling and waiting some more, Delia decided to walk home. She told her clarinet teacher, Ms. Eldicott, that she saw her mom’s car outside, and then, while the next student after her provided an easy distraction, she made a dash for the corner. It was at least five miles from Ms. Eldicott’s house to hers, along the winding back roads of Friedman—roads that had been carved right out of the woods and had shoulders so narrow she often had to walk in a lane.
She still had three miles to go when the rain started coming down.
Her first instinct was to start running faster, but at the sound of an oncoming car, so close she could feel its tailwind, Delia all but dove into the woods, not even feeling the branches as they scratched her.
When she at last found a patch of land that was covered enough to provide a dry spot to stand in, she took stock of her surroundings, and started to let the dread sink in. Her choices were either to wait out the rain and then walk three miles—soaking wet, possibly after dark—or else find a house nearby from which she could call her parents.
No sooner had she made her decision than a house appeared, not forty yards ahead. It was a small house, and it really was raining hard, and those were the only two excuses she could come up with for why she hadn’t noticed the house right away. She would decide only later that her gut had been right; that the house hadn’t been there, and then it had.
The lights were on inside, and when Delia knocked on the door, it took only a moment before a very tall girl answered it. She hardly looked older than Delia’s older sister, who was three months shy of graduating from Friedman High.
“What in the ever-loving world?” the girl said, her eyes going wide with alarm. Delia was drenched and shivering. “How did you find your way here? You know what, get inside, tell me what’s going on.”
Delia obliged, entering into a house that on the inside looked to be one big room, with a sink and a countertop stove against the wall to her right and a single bed against the wall to her left. For this girl’s sake, Delia was relieved to see a small bathroom peeking through a half-closed pocket door.
“I got caught in the rain,” Delia said.
“That much I can see,” the girl replied.
“Can I use your phone?”
The girl nodded. “Course. Let me get you a towel first.” She went into her bathroom and returned with an old towel that hardly looked dry itself. Not wanting to appear rude, Delia took it and dabbed at her arms. To her surprise, she began to see results right away. Not only her arms, either. Even her clothes, her hair, her shoes, started to dry as she spread the towel around, until it was like she had never been in the rain at all.
She looked dubiously at the girl.
“Just so you know, I can do magic,” Delia said.
“Is that right?” the girl said, already taking back the towel and handing Delia a cordless landline.
“Yeah. Me and a couple of my friends. Some of the teachers and parents at my school say we shouldn’t be allowed to do it around the other kids, but my parents told me I can do whatever I want.”
“And where are your parents now?”
“They forgot me at clarinet practice. So, can you do magic? Was that what happened with the towel?”
“You’re not shy, are you, knocking on a stranger’s door and asking them all kinds of personal stuff?” The girl was smiling, but she wasn’t answering Delia’s question.
“I have an older sister and an older brother. My sister and me have the same room. You can’t be shy at my house.”
Now the girl’s smile fell.
“Well,” she said, “in my experience, a little personal space is about the best thing you can ask for. A place you can run off to and not have to explain yourself to anybody. A place you can do whatever you want, sure. But being forgotten? Now that’s a different story.” The girl put her hands on her hips. “Tell you what, after you talk to your parents, why don’t you pass me the phone, and let me say hello.”
So, Delia called her mom on her cell and found that she was still running errands. She was totally shocked to hear that Delia had left her lesson without waiting. Serves her right, Delia thought, before passing the girl the phone.
The girl calmly explained how Delia’s mom could find her house, and then, just as calmly, she explained how relieved she was to have found Delia before something awful happened to her; how someone had died in a car accident the other day on the exact stretch of road by her house; how she’d even heard some of the deer around her property had rabies. She was laying it on thick without ever raisin
g her voice or overtly chastising, and Delia could already tell—she wasn’t going to be forgotten again by her parents any time soon.
“Now,” the girl said, after she’d hung up the phone, “it’s going to take your mom about twenty minutes to get out here, so why don’t we make some hot chocolate, and you can tell me more about what those other parents and teachers are saying at your school. It is totally within your rights to practice magic at school, you know. Even in Georgia—it’s the law.”
It was like Delia had stepped into a fairy tale, only—instead of feeding her candy and stuffing her into a cage—the witch in the woods was setting her free. Giving her what she needed. Her own guardian angel.
Delia never caught her name, and she never saw her again, but even years later, when she started winning medals at convention and attracting attention from out-of-state schools, it was never her parents she hoped were proud of her—it was Ms. Berry, who told her she could be a Keeper one day, and it was that girl in the woods, who’d shown her how.
So, yes, James had been the one to come up with the name “the Fascinators,” but Delia wasn’t club president because she was the bossiest or the most organized or some shit like that. She was club president because the club was her idea. Because she needed magic to breathe. Because it wasn’t enough to be okay—to have this little thing she could do. People who were okay got forgotten. Delia wanted to be the best.
And you know what? Sure, Sam and James had never left her in the rain, and yes, they’d been as committed to the club over the years as anyone could reasonably expect them to be, but did they really see Delia as an equal? Did they value her company as much as they valued each other’s?
How many times over the years had Delia caught wind of some party the two of them had gone to over the weekend without inviting her? Even before her job provided a convenient excuse for them to assume she was busy, there were always the plans she’d only hear about later, or the pictures she’d see online, like when James went with Sam’s family to Jekyll Island. So what if Sam seemed to be a little bit in love with James, no matter how many times he mentioned Eliot or whatever guy he was talking to online that month? Didn’t that make it even weirder for Sam and James to be so close, forcing her to be a third wheel?
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