The Fascinators

by Andrew Eliopulos

  “No, don’t,” Amber said. “Seriously, Sam, I’m not telling you to make you feel bad. I just hate to stand by and watch your friendship fall apart over nothing.”

  Sam bristled a little at that. It wasn’t nothing. Did Amber know that Sam had been in love with James, even when he’d tried so hard not to be? Did James and the church ask her to pray about that, too, and did he ask her not to tell Sam? Was he telling her about all the times when it had been so painfully obvious to him that Sam had a crush on him? Sharing an air mattress last year? That night outside the bowling alley? Or in the woods?

  That’s when it hit Sam.

  July.

  The book. Maybe this was why James had snuck in to look at it in the first place, at such a great risk. Maybe he thought there was some spell in there that could make his family rich. Maybe he was planning to steal the book, to hold it for ransom. Maybe the need to do something, anything, had felt so great, he’d acted without a clear plan at all. Maybe his desperation had made planning impossible.

  Sam could relate.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a message from Denver.

  At the entrance. Where are you?

  “I have to go,” Sam said. “But . . . thank you. For telling me this. It doesn’t fix everything, but it explains a lot.”

  “I really think if you can be the bigger person and apologize, it will all be forgiven.”

  “Duly noted. Are you three planning to come to the dance tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. Delia and James didn’t bring costumes, so I don’t think they are. They said it’s usually boring.”

  “But you brought a costume?”

  She nodded.

  “Good for you. Don’t listen to them. It’s only boring because James always gets drunk, and neither of them ever dances. Denver and I will be there, though. If you can convince James to join you, maybe I’ll see what I can say.”

  Amber smiled. She had a nice smile, too, warm and inviting like Denver’s. Who knew what their little magicker chapter could have accomplished, if they’d had all five of them from the beginning and none of this mess with True Light?

  It was a shame they’d never know.

  Chapter 20

  SAM WAS UNDER NO ILLUSIONS THAT THE CHATHAM Ballroom was the lap of luxury. But with a full wall of windows looking out onto a gorgeous sunset, and with a decorating committee that had used the full extent of their magic to bring the Modern Fairy Tale theme to life, the room—as it was set for the convention-ending dance—cast an undeniable spell.

  It was possible that Sam was still riding high from their coup at the podium that afternoon.

  When all the judges’ decisions had been handed in, and all the scores had been tallied, the Friedman High Fascinators had come out with a fifth-place overall finish, on the strength of three category firsts for Delia, a first and a third for James, and even a third apiece for Sam and Denver. The fact that they had scores at all in the rest of the categories meant that those exceptional individual results were enough to catapult them to right behind the elite Atlanta schools. They’d even placed ahead of Savannah Country Academy, sending a shockwave among all the students gathered in the auditorium.

  It should have been a unilaterally triumphant moment, but of course, it wasn’t. They’d accepted their trophy as two distinct groups occupying the same space on the stage, and even Ms. Berry—when she finally finished her ecstatic whoops of joy—was forced to acknowledge that Sam, James, and Delia were not celebrating with one another, or talking at all for that matter.

  Whatever.

  The others could stay at the hotel looking for a room party, or they could make the drive back tonight for all Sam cared.

  He and Denver were going to enjoy this dance. They were going to post lots of pictures in their modern fairy-tale costumes, and they were going to send off this four-year chapter in Sam’s life in style.

  “Puck?” Denver had said, meeting Sam in the hotel lobby. They’d agreed not to tell each other their costumes ahead of time, and Sam had been looking forward to showing off his revealing vest and vines—not to mention the pointy prosthetic ears—more than he’d been looking forward to anything else this weekend.

  Which he’d realized was silly when he’d turned around and seen Denver. That’s what he should have been looking forward to the most.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Can you guess who I am?”

  “The Swan Prince?”

  “I was going for the Swan Princess, but close enough.”

  From the fitted shirt of white feathers, intricately arranged, to the opalescent blush accenting his cheekbones—all the way to the silver diadem nestled in his curls that really was rather feminine now that he said it (though in Sam’s defense, Denver was wearing black pants)—Denver had arrived like an absolute vision. Sam had felt the eyes of all the other hotel guests on them as they stood there appraising each other. Puck and the Swan Princess then headed over to the convention center for a dance where their attention to detail fit right in.

  Even the music tonight had an otherworldly air. Sam recognized the vocals from pop songs he knew, but whoever they’d gotten to DJ the event was remixing everything to have a more elegant cadence. Not that anyone here had any idea of the best way to dance to such music. But it was nice to see all these eccentric souls whirring about the room at their own pace, in their own styles, instead of breaking off into heteronormative pairs and pantomiming reproduction, as had been the case at the last Friedman High homecoming dance Sam attended.

  “So now we just . . . dance,” Sam said, still mostly on a high but feeling a little self-conscious about his bare shoulders among so many strangers.

  Denver moved his whole body in sync to the rhythm, as if that was just something humans knew how to do. “That’s right, Puck—master of revelry, dabbler in mischief. We dance.”

  They eventually glommed on to another group of misfits, and they danced in one of those circles that required brave souls to show off their moves in the middle.

  It was all so fun—or it would have been, except . . . except that Sam kept wondering what James and Delia were doing. Kept wondering what it had looked like when Amber had asked James to consider going to the dance, if Amber had asked James to consider going to the dance. They hadn’t talked about it again since this morning.

  Not to mention, Sam was still on high alert, thinking about his prediction. Everyone who looked at him funny seemed as if they were getting ready to attack, and Sam would tense, preparing the one self-defense spell from Denver he’d managed to master, only to realize that it was some random kid in a costume, looking past him on their way to rejoin their friends.

  Denver kept noticing Sam in these moments, and he’d offer a crooked smile to remind Sam that he should smile, too—which of course was easy to do when Denver reminded him.

  “Are you having a good time?” he finally said, dancing in front of, around, and beside Sam.

  “Sure,” Sam said.

  “Sure?”

  “I mean, yes.”

  “I see. Missing Delia and James, then?”

  “Not even,” Sam said too quickly. “I’ve tried to have a good time at this thing all four years, and all four years, they’ve ruined it.”

  “And yet . . .”

  “I just don’t know how people turn off their brains and have fun, you know?”

  “Are you calling me brainless?” Denver teased.

  “No, sorry, that’s not what I’m trying to say. What I mean is, I thought the point of dancing was to not think about every little thing, but I keep noticing how awkward my hands are, and I keep thinking of how Delia and James probably hate me, and I keep imagining that all these other groups around us are doing it differently, doing it better, because they aren’t weirdoes back in their own hometown, and—”

  “Here,” Denver said, taking both of Sam’s hands in his. “Try this.”

  The music didn’t slow down—not exactly. But it suddenly
seemed as if it had, as Denver placed Sam’s left hand on his shoulder, cupped his own right hand on Sam’s back, and held Sam’s free hand in his free hand—a waltz position, though Denver wasn’t leading him in a waltz. He led them in more of a freestyle sway, in rhythm with the music.

  Denver’s shoulder was surprisingly warm, or maybe it was just that Sam’s whole body was suddenly warmer.

  “Is this okay?” Denver said.

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  “What are you thinking now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then it’s working.”

  “Denver,” Sam said, even though he wasn’t even sure how he planned to finish that sentence. Anyway, he didn’t have to, because many things happened at once to interrupt him, in that moment when time was already slowed.

  Six erstwhile dancers—five along the room’s edges, and one dead center—all began a complex and synchronized choreography that, together with their matching masks, revealed them to be part of some crew. An innocent flash mob, perhaps, forming the points and the center of a pentagram. Except that . . .

  A man all in black, in a seventh matching mask, stepped right through the rippling wall of windows, as if it were water, not glass. He carried a book, opened to a page in the middle, and it looked like he was reading it aloud as he came. The Seven of Swords. Sam had been so fixated on the symbolism of the card during his spell—deception, theft—that he’d hardly given much thought to its more literal reading. But now the seven swords of True Light were here, and there was no joy in having seen the future coming, nor time to do anything about its arrival, because in that same moment . . .

  James—in a plain T-shirt and dark jeans, his only nod to a modern fairy tale being the glittering blue lipstick he wore—stopped short in the main entrance, first taking in the sight of Denver and Sam dancing together with an unreadable expression, then taking in the sight of the seven masked figures, recognizing them immediately for what they truly were, because of course he knew the spell—had felt the associations in action once before. Which was why . . .

  Before Sam had even processed the reality of these simultaneous developments—before he could even prepare his meager self-defense spell, which would have been useless in any case—the seven swords of True Light completed the precise motions of their collective spell, and James screamed the guttural sounds of a spell of his own, and those parallel but opposing forces met like a blinding supernova giving way to a black hole.

  Sam was thrown clean off his feet.

  It was only because he was holding on to Denver, and Denver was flung in a perpendicular direction, that they didn’t go farther. Plenty of the other partygoers weren’t so lucky; they were hurled into the air like bowling pins caught in a strike, and they landed on top of one another with cries of pain.

  Everyone’s vision was recovering from the flash.

  Mixed in with the clear sounds of injury were as many clear sounds of fear. Sam frantically blinked the stars out of his eyes, feeling around for Denver, who was moaning in pain.

  “Denver, we have to get out of here. Denver, are you all right?”

  “My leg . . .”

  Sam willed his vision to return. As it finally began to clear up, what came into view was Denver’s right leg bent at a horrible angle.

  “My leg . . .” Denver repeated.

  Sam tried not to throw up.

  “Don’t move. I’m going to get you help. Stay right there.”

  All around him, people were clutching at sore limbs or rubbing their eyes. Everyone was shaken but getting their bearings, and a few people with stronger survival instincts than Sam’s were quick to stumble for the entrance, aware that the danger hadn’t fully passed.

  The swords of True Light were still in the room. Four of them, including the leader with the book, were still down, and a fifth was standing over the leader, trying to shake him awake.

  The other two were—

  Oh no.

  They were standing over James. James wasn’t moving.

  Sam pushed through the haze and charged at them like a bull, screaming at the top of his lungs and leaping over anyone who got in his way.

  His brain was too white-hot with panic to produce any spells. He wasn’t like James, who could exhale magic like it was carbon dioxide. Even the self-defense spell Denver had taught him was useless in this moment.

  The only weapon he had was himself, but that would have to do. He body-slammed the masked figure closer to James, jackknifing to take out the other with his feet, and the force and the element of surprise were enough to send them all rolling into the wall with an oomph.

  That lasted only a moment before he was full-on wrestling with them both. Lashing and kicking out like he was some sort of rabid animal, while the two of them struggled to contain him, one focusing on his arms, the other on his legs.

  A lucky kick connected with a stomach, and it was almost enough to give him the upper hand. He might have gone through with throttling them. There was no telling what he was capable of in that moment.

  Except that without so much as a word of warning, Sam felt his body freeze up, and looked over to see the figure from before, who’d been checking on the leader. An older woman, from what Sam could see behind the mask. The figure now held the book under her arm, and with a flick of her wrist, she’d frozen Sam in place.

  As she approached them, one of the boys Sam had been fighting—a guy with a football player’s build—turned to her and said, “Sorry, we’re hurrying,” even though Sam hadn’t heard her speak.

  The other guy—the one Sam had kicked in the stomach—now struggled to stand, but when he finally did, he didn’t waste a moment landing a quick kick to Sam’s ribs. The pain was excruciating, but still Sam couldn’t move.

  “Stop it, you dumbass,” the first guy said, running an anxious hand over his military buzz cut, balling the other hand into a fist. Sam had a flashback to something, though he couldn’t place it. Meanwhile, the woman flipped through the book, searching for something specific, until finally, she found whatever it was and started moving her free hand in the motions of a spell.

  Out of the corner of his eye, through the entrance to the ballroom, Sam could see a group of adults sprinting toward them. One of them looked to be a police officer, and there were two paramedics, but everyone else appeared to be teachers. Ms. Berry was among them. Someone must have had the good sense to call for backup, instead of running headfirst into the assailants like Sam had, violating nearly every emergency drill he’d ever learned in school.

  “Hurry up!” the muscular guy called again, this time to a fourth masked figure who was shuffling their way. At first Sam thought the figure was limping, but no—they were just moving reluctantly, wringing their hands. Finally, they came to the side of the woman with the book and placed a hand on her shoulder, and Sam saw that it was a girl’s hand. A girl’s hand that Sam would recognize anywhere, because of the friendship bracelet.

  The two guys placed their hands on the leader, too, and then, in the millisecond before all the adults made it into the room, the four swords vanished—there, and then gone.

  Sam felt control of his movements returning instantly—felt the agony intensify. He rolled to his unhurt side, groaning from the pain in his ribs.

  The adults swarmed the room, running with a purpose that confirmed Sam’s theory—they knew what they were looking for. With the help of the police officer, a few of them were quickly conjuring a binding spell to detain the three swords left, which didn’t look to be too hard, given their own injuries.

  Ms. Berry ran straight for Sam.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” she said. “Sam, can you hear me? Can you talk? Can you breathe?”

  “Yes, yes, and ow,” Sam said, trying his best to sit up. “It was all so sudden. They came out of nowhere.”

  “Don’t worry about that now,” Ms. Berry said. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  She’d already moved on to James, now that Sam was tal
king.

  “Help!” she screamed, when James didn’t respond to her attempts to wake him.

  “He stopped them, Ms. Berry. He came in, and he saw what they were going to do, and he stopped them.” Sam was babbling now. He was absolutely losing it.

  One of the paramedics ran over to them, hearing the panic in Ms. Berry’s voice, and as soon as he saw James, he spoke into a radio comm on his shoulder, before leaning down to James’s side to check for a pulse.

  “He’s breathing,” the paramedic said. “Back up, please.”

  Ms. Berry complied, but she had to pull Sam away.

  “Where’s Denver?” she said.

  “Over there. I think he broke his leg pretty bad. He needs a doctor, too.”

  “We’ll get him one. Oh my God, oh my God.”

  They both stared at the paramedic as he ministered to James, attempting a series of spells that seemed to have little to no effect.

  Ms. Berry spoke in a frantic stream, the words pouring out of her. “He told me he was coming over here, and I almost joined him, because there’d be three of the five of you here, instead of two. But then he promised Amber he would come right back, and I thought, I’d better stay here—a chaperone needs to stay at the hotel, too. Who knows what they’ll get up to if I leave. I should have come with him.”

  Sam said nothing.

  “We have to tell them,” Ms. Berry said. “One of us has to tell them on our way to the hospital. Otherwise Amber and Delia won’t know what happened to us. They’ll be worried sick.”

  “Oh, I think Delia already knows,” Sam said bitterly, all the anger that had been trapped behind a precarious dam of necessity now spilling over and out, flooding his vision with red, red, red.

  “What do you mean? How could Delia know?”

  “She’s one of the ones who did this. She just escaped with their spell book.”

  Ms. Berry gasped.

  “No,” she said immediately, but it wasn’t an expression of disbelief. It was an expression of exactly the kind of self-loathing Sam was feeling, too—a realization that their inability to read the signs right in front of them had led to this moment. In Ms. Berry’s case, it was a far more innocent claim to blame—a reluctance to wade into an all-too-typical fight among teenagers, to ask them what all the drama was about. As if they would have told her anyway.