by Martha Carr
“You guys are feeling this too, right?” Laura grimaced at the silver ring on her thumb.
“You mean the ring of fire? Yeah, I feel it.”
“Emily, pull over.”
“What? We’re only halfway there.”
Laura slapped the back of Emily’s seat. “Pull over, Em. I felt the same thing when I saw the Gorafrex take over that guy’s body. This is way, way stronger. Stop the car.”
“You mean it’s here?” Nickie asked.
“Yeah. Probably a lot closer, too.”
“Okay, okay.” Emily turned left onto Sayers Street and pulled around behind the blue and green building of a custom hardware store. The parking lot was relatively empty, connected to an alley behind a few other small businesses before leading back to another cross street. She parked in the closest empty space, and Nickie popped open the glovebox.
“Wow.” Emily stared at the dagger her sister handed her. “We’re actually gonna try to use these, huh?”
“We have to.” Laura took her dagger from Nickie and flexed her hand. “Man, these rings can burn, can’t they?”
“Let’s go make them stop.” Nickie raised her eyebrows, then got out. Emily and Laura followed. Outside the car, the only thing they saw was the wind rustling through the green leaves on all the trees lining the lot.
“Hold on.” Laura pulled out her wand, aimed it at her iron dagger, then pointed it toward each of her sisters. “Dissimulo. Just so we don’t look like a bunch of crazies walking around with ridiculously sharp knives, right?”
Emily frowned at hers. “But we are walking around with ridiculously sharp—”
“Guys?” Nickie stared across the parking lot and lifted her dagger to point ahead. “I think we found it.”
Laura tightened her grip on the dagger. “Yeah, that’s the guy.”
A tall, skinny man in a fringed leather vest and ponytail walked out of the alley between old houses converted into storefronts. His steps were measured, purposeful, and he gazed around with a sneer. The dead giveaway was his eyes glowing an opalescent, shimmering silver, which had now spread to encompass his body in an unmistakable aura.
“He definitely wasn’t glowing the last time I saw him.”
“We can’t just attack him, right?” Nickie whispered. “The minute the Gorafrex leaves his body, that man’s gonna be in really bad shape.”
“It might not be so bad,” Emily said, “if you’re still as good at healing as you used to be.”
Nickie shrugged. “I hope so.”
Together, the sisters stepped forward in the parking lot, daggers held at their sides.
The Gorafrex-possessed man took one more step and stopped. His head turned with agonizing slowness until his gaze fell on the witches moving toward him. A snarl burst from his lips.
“You!”
“Yeah. Hi, again.” Laura lifted the dagger and kept moving toward him. “Listen, you can’t just collect humans off the sidewalk like that. And you really shouldn’t even be out here, anyway.”
The man growled. “But I am.”
Emily drew her wand. “Time to change—”
The Gorafrex roared. A stream of glistening black bubbles darted from its mouth and hurtled toward Emily. She flicked her wand up in front of her and deflected the Peabrain attack with a magic shield. The black bubbles burst against it, and though she managed to pop a few with the iron dagger, they kept coming.
Laura’s wand sent a minor attack spell streaking into the man’s shoulder. He stumbled sideways, and the bubbles stopped flying from his mouth. “No serious damage,” she reminded her sisters. “Just enough to keep that thing distracted, okay?”
Nickie circled around to the man’s side and shot a few minor attacks at his feet to keep him moving. The man stumbled, and the sisters pressed in, gripping their daggers.
A groan escaped him, and the glowing human body staggered like the man was about to pass out. “Not enough…” the Gorafrex hissed. “I need more.”
“I don’t think so.” Emily dashed toward him, dagger raised.
“Careful,” Laura warned.
“I am.”
The man fell to his knees just as Emily reached him.
Laura and Nickie closed in. The door to the hardware store opened with a jingle. All four of them stared at a woman coming down the steps, who stopped when she noticed three angry-looking women scowling down at a dude on his knees.
“Uh, everyone okay?” she asked.
The man leered at Laura, who realized what the Gorafrex was about to do.
Laura reached toward the woman. “Go back ins—”
It was too late. Pounding drums shattered the air.
Nickie shouted in pain as the black ring on her thumb seared bright-hot, the light almost touching the Gorafrex. She clamped her hands down over her ears and doubled over as the drumbeat pounded, loud, fast, and urgent. The glistening mass of the Gorafrex’s energetic form burst from the man’s body, rose into the air, and darted straight down into the woman.
“Nickie, what’s going on?” Emily shouted over the drums.
The man kneeling on the asphalt collapsed. The woman leered at the Hadstrom sisters, and the next second, she took off running across the parking lot. Two seconds later, she’d disappeared around the storefronts.
Gritting her teeth, Laura spun around toward her sisters and the groaning human on the ground. “Nickie?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
Nickie clenched her eyes shut. “Just those…drums. I just…” She tilted her head, blinked, then exhaled. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Emily patted her on the back a few times, then looked at the man in the fringed vest, who writhed on the ground. “That peabrain is awake now.”
“The Gorafrex used his magic,” Laura muttered, “so I have to agree. I think we banged him up some.”
Blood trickled from his shoulder just below the cut of his vest, and Nickie’s smaller attacks had put a few holes in his boots. “I can heal him, Nickie, if you can’t.”
“Nope. No, I got it.” Nickie knelt beside the man. With a flick of her wand, she produced a large, light-purple bubble in the palm of her hand and guided it toward the wound Laura’s spell had inflicted on his shoulder. The bubble settled on the man’s shoulder and sank into his skin. The gash closed, and the man gasped a deep, shuddering breath. Nickie repeated the process with smaller bubbles, releasing them over the holes in the man’s boots in case her spells had eaten through a little more than leather.
Nickie stood and stepped back. “They definitely have the best healing magic, that’s for sure.”
“And you use it better than any witch I know,” Emily added.
The man grunted and pushed himself up. “What…” He blinked his vision into focus and studied the three women gazing down at him, all with the same dark hair and wearing sympathetic frowns. Their eyes glowed a dull silver. He blinked again to clear the image away, but nothing changed.
“How you feelin’?” Laura asked.
“Uh…fine, mostly. I think.” The man looked down at his hands and turned them back and forth. “What am I seeing right now?”
“You’ll get used to it.” Nickie cocked her head. “Eventually.”
“Wait, this is…this is way too trippy.” He looked at the witches again and swayed where he sat. “What happened?”
Emily spread her arms and smiled. “Think of it as an…awakening.”
Nickie nudged her in the ribs. “Careful.”
“Right. Sorry. So…good luck.” She turned with her sisters to head back toward her Honda.
“Hey, wait! I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“You will,” Laura called.
By the time they piled into Emily’s car, the man had pushed to his feet. He stumbled a little, turning slowly and gazing at the sky and the trees and down at his own hands again in amazement.
“Like he’s seeing everything for the first time…” Emily muttered.
“Well
, part of him is.” Laura pointed ahead. “Let’s go.”
Emily started the car and turned around to head out onto West 5th. Nickie sighed in the backseat. The youngest Hadstrom sister looked into the rearview mirror. “You okay back there?”
“Yeah. I just…” Nickie grimaced and rubbed her forehead. “Just a bad headache.”
“All right. Hang in there. We’re goin’ to get food.”
22
An hour later, the workbench in the middle of the concert-hall basement was covered in empty to-go boxes and plastic utensils. The smell of Mexican spices and tomatillo sauce hung in the air.
“Okay. Prepare to lose.” Emily slapped her ping pong paddle, straightened, and belched.
“Gross, Em.”
“It’s a compliment to the chef, okay?” Emily swallowed and nodded across the ping pong table at Laura. “We gonna play or what? I’m ready to warm up for some brainstorming.”
Shaking her head, Laura snorted and eyed the five squeaking teezlers bouncing at the corner of the table. “Who’s ready to go first?”
The tiny creatures squeaked and jostled each other for the right to start the first match; they were the same size and shape as a ping pong ball, and they looked more like giant roly-polies covered in fur instead of a hard shell. One of them broke from the group, tucked itself into a little ball and, with a loud squeak, rolled toward her.
“Excellent.” She lifted the teezler, giggling when it squirmed in excitement, and looked at Emily. “Ready?”
“Your serve. Let’s do this.”
Laura lifted the teezler, dropped it, and waited for the bounce before smacking it across the table with her paddle. The thing squealed with joy as it soared back and forth across the net between the sisters, and its fellows cheered it on from the sidelines.
“Okay,” Emily said, pausing to hit the teezler. “So, we didn’t catch the Gorafrex today.”
“Not even close.” Nickie’s muffled voice rose from below her bowed head. Sitting in a chair just beside the ping pong table, she hunched over, her forearms on her thighs and her eyes closed against her massive and worsening headache.
“But we learned something.” Laura hit the teezler back again. “Right?”
“Yeah. The Gorafrex tries on humans like Mom likes to try on clothes at the store.”
Laura cocked her head and hit the round creature bouncing toward her. “A little crass, but okay. I was thinking more along the lines of what happened before it left the first human and decided to take over the woman’s body.”
“What do you”—the teezler thudded against Emily’s paddle with a little whoop of excitement—“mean?”
“The Gorafrex looked like it was having trouble staying inside the man. Stumbling around.” Thump. “Glowing like that.” Whack. “It did say, ‘Not enough.’”
“And the drums,” Nickie muttered.
“Yeah, those too. I heard those every time I saw the thing.”
“And you were fine afterward?”
“Well, yeah.” Laura shrugged and swung her paddle. “I mean, a little surprised. That’s a weird sound for a creature with no body of its own. Oh—” She jumped forward to spike the teezler over the net.
Emily moved her paddle just right to bounce the furry little creature sideways to the edge of the table, where it bounced off the corner on Laura’s side before hurtling to the floor. Laura tried to catch it but didn’t reach far enough. She moaned when the teezler bounced in front of Nickie’s feet. The other creatures cheered in tiny, high-pitched voices. Nickie lifted her head to give the thing a tired smile. The first-round teezler righted itself, shook its fluffy body all over, and turned around to cheer back at its peers before rolling toward the table again.
“That’s a point for me,” Emily said.
“Em, I know the rules.”
“Hey, just sayin’.”
Laura eyed the other creatures bouncing beside her. “Next up?”
Another teezler pushed its way through. She scooped it up, winked, and continued the game. “The point I’m trying to make is that I don’t think that was supposed to happen.”
“What?”
“I don’t think the Gorafrex expected to have to jump from the first human into the second. I think it was bad timing. Like”—she jumped over the table with a grunt to hit Emily’s next shot—“what would’ve happened if there hadn’t been another human around?”
“Oh.” Emily nodded and hit the teezler. “You mean it has to switch bodies.”
“That’s what I’m thinkin’, yeah.”
“So…the best time to go after it would be when it can’t stay in its current host anymore.”
“Yup.”
Emily whacked the teezler at a sharp angle across the table, but Laura was quick on her feet this time. “Assuming we find it again in that woman before it gets enough of whatever it said wasn’t enough.”
“Right. We need to figure out what that is.”
“You think it has anything to do with the Gorafrex activating that guy’s magical brain?”
Laura leapt to the other side of the table and barely caught the teezler with her paddle. “Probably. The Tree Folk said it can only inhabit humans. It might be feeding off their magic or something.”
“Until it gets enough.”
“Or until we—”
“I gotta lie down.” Nickie shouted the declaration, startling both her sisters out of their teezler-pong-brainstorming match.
The gathered teezlers lifted their voices in anticipation, but their friend was forgotten and bounced off the table onto the floor. A collective sigh of disappointment puffed out of them.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Emily asked, laying her paddle down upon seeing how much pain Nickie was in.
“Yep. I just need sleep. The food didn’t do anything, and this headache is…” Nickie stood. “You guys had some good ideas. I’ll see if I come up with…anything else.” She waved, holding her other hand to her forehead as she turned to head upstairs.
“There’s some willow bark in the kitchen,” Laura called after her. “Want me to make you some tea?”
“No, thanks.” Nickie sounded annoyed, so neither sister pressed further. The house rumbled and creaked above them, churning to its original shape so Nickie could get to her room.
Emily peered at the squeaking teezler at her feet, who chattered away in its own creature language and seemed upset she’d neglected it. “Hey, it’s just a game.” She bent down to scoop the little guy up in her hand and stroked his furry back with a finger. She glanced at Laura. “That doesn’t count as your point, right? We both stopped playing at the same time.”
Laura held out her hand. “Whatever. It’s still my serve.”
Emily bounced the teezler across the table, and the other goofy white creatures cheered her on.
23
Nickie stopped in the living room to grab her guitar case. It never felt as heavy as right then, and she slogged up the stairs through a fog of pain and the pounding echo of those drums that wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Man, I can handle a headache,” she muttered, closing her bedroom door behind her. “What is up with this?” She sucked in a sharp breath as the heavy beat pounded away, over and over in a rhythm she felt like she knew. Yet, it was all in her head. She could barely hear herself think.
“Just stop…” She set the guitar case on her bed and flopped on her back beside it. Grabbing a pillow in each hand, she clamped them to the sides of her head and closed her eyes. The drumming finished the familiar cadence and faded into the relief of silence.
Nickie sighed. “Thank you.”
She dropped her hands by her sides and lay there, feeling the headache recede from behind her temples. After a few deep breaths, she thought about getting up to join her sisters again and help come up with a plan. The minute she moved, the drumbeat erupted again.
Nickie bolted upright. “Come on!” She barely heard her own voice over the Gorafrex’s wild, tribal
rhythm. She shut her eyes, and between the lulls of the rhythmic beating, she heard a loud snap.
The latches on her guitar case had popped open. Nickie squinted over and watched the lid creep open and fall backward onto the bed. When she pointed at it in confusion, the black ring on her thumb caught her attention with its glow.
“Oh. Great. My head’s literally pounding, and you want me to pick up and play.” She glared at the ring, then shook her head. “I sound like Laura, talking to inanimate objects.”
A warm buzz came from the ring, and Nickie’s acoustic guitar pulsed with a similar blackish glow.
She sighed. “Okay. Message received. If real music will get these stupid drums out of my head…” She slipped the neon-green pick from her pocket and crossed her legs on the bed.
Lifting her guitar out of the case relieved the headache a little, though the drums still thumped away in their urgent cadence. She strummed away with no idea of where she was going.
After about a minute, she stopped. “There’s no way I can play something with this stupid noise in my head.” Her ring and guitar flashed. Nickie sighed. “I don’t get it.” She settled the guitar in her lap again and put her fingers across the frets. She closed her eyes. “The rings make our magic stronger. Okay.”
When Nickie played this time, she stopped fighting the drumbeats and found herself listening to them instead. They had a definite pattern. Something she could work with.
Her wordless song melted into the rhythm of the drums, and she didn’t even have to think about what chords she was playing.
This sounds way too familiar.
She began humming, and the melody found itself in the music. The more she hummed, the quieter the drums, until finally, the beating rhythm was gone.
Nickie kept humming. She hadn’t heard or thought about this nameless song since her dad had stopped singing her and her sisters to sleep at bedtime. Now she knew that was where it came from. Finally, the drums were gone, and her slow breathing hushed like breaking surf in her own ears. She ended the song.
“That’s why I recognized the drums,” she whispered. “They’re the backup to dad’s lullaby.” Her eyes flew open. “Oh, my god. What if…? No way.” Leaping off the bed, she slipped the guitar strap over her head, clutched the instrument tightly, and hurried out of her room.