For Love or Magic

by Lucy March

  Nick dropped his eyes to the floor, and I felt a twinge of guilt for making him feel bad, but I had to make my point.

  “I wasn’t here last year,” I said. “I know it was bad, but I didn’t see it, so maybe it’s easier for me to see him for what he really is. Desmond told me what he did to you, and I know he feels terrible—”

  “Eliot,” Desmond said again, his voice a little firmer now, but I was already worked up, and not ready to stop.

  “He was under the influence of a powerful potion,” I said. “He wasn’t himself. He’s different now. He’s kind, and smart and generous. He didn’t hesitate to help Tobias when you needed him. Just a few days ago, he asked me to risk his life to protect you, and—”

  “Eliot!”

  The force in his voice was enough to get my attention, and when I looked back at Desmond, his face was red and his eyes were blazing. Not at them.

  At me.

  “That’s enough, Eliot.” His voice was even and firm, but he was visibly upset. As our eyes met, the turmoil in his calmed a bit. “Please. Enough.”

  I looked back at Leo and Stacy, then at Peach and Nick. I couldn’t say anything else in Desmond’s defense. All I could do was stand beside him.

  So that’s what I did.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t turn to go toward the door. He didn’t speak. He just stood there, ready to take his punishment. I stood steady at his side, ready to take whatever was coming with him.

  The silence was long, and excruciating. Peach watched all of us, expectant, and when Nick opened his mouth to say something and break the incredible tension, she put her hand lightly on his knee, and he shut up.

  Finally, Leo spoke.

  “When you took away my emotions … my feelings for Stacy…” Leo cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “She was heartbroken. I watched her fall apart, right in front of me, but I couldn’t feel anything about it. I left, because I felt it was best for her, but … even loving her as much as I did, even knowing how much it would devastate her for me to abandon her … I just felt cold about it. It was easy to leave.” He raised his head and met Desmond’s eyes. “Is that how it was for you?”

  Desmond took a while to answer. “I knew what I was doing was wrong.”

  “But you couldn’t feel it,” Leo said. “You couldn’t feel that it was wrong.”

  Desmond didn’t say anything. I moved closer, silent at his side.

  “That was one dose of that stuff, Leo,” Peach said after a while. “Desmond had been taking it, over and over, for years.”

  Desmond’s head moved slightly to the side as if he was dodging something, as though hearing the slightest word in his defense made him physically uncomfortable.

  “And you know how guilty you felt when you came back, Leo?” Peach continued, her eyes locked on Leo. “I remember that night you came over and got drunk with Nick. I remember how terrible you felt about leaving Stacy. Desmond got hit with so much more than that, all at once, when Stacy shot him with that reversal potion. Just imagine what that must have been like for him. He could have run off, but he didn’t. He stayed. He faced all of us, over and over again, every day.”

  I was close enough to Desmond that I could feel the tension in his body. His face was stone, his head raised, his body taut, ready to take whatever came at him.

  There was another long silence, but then Leo stood up, walked over to Desmond, and held out his hand.

  “All right,” Leo said. “If you’re good, I’m good.”

  It took Desmond a moment, but he took Leo’s hand and they shook. Peach made a sound, and when I looked, I saw tears in her eyes, which made me want to tear up, but I couldn’t. I was going to match Desmond’s strength, face it all with him, and that meant withstanding whatever the storm threw at us.

  Leo stepped back, and all eyes were on Stacy, who stood up as well and walked over to Desmond. She looked him in the eye, crossing her arms over her stomach.

  “I felt sorry for you,” she said. “That day, when I hit you with that dose, and brought you back. You were so destroyed. Five minutes before, you were going to kill me, and then you were just lying there, a pathetic, weeping huddle on the ground. Peach didn’t see it. Neither did Nick, or Leo. I did and it was…” She shuddered, remembering. “It was devastating.”

  She took a deep breath, released it, and went on. “I was ready to forgive you right then, as long as you left. But you stayed, and every time I saw you on the street, or even thought I saw you out of the corner of my eye, it all came back, and it made me afraid. I don’t like being afraid. That pissed me off.”

  Desmond nodded. “I understand.”

  She glanced at Leo, and her stance softened a bit as she looked back at Desmond. “But I can kinda see now … that the guy I’m afraid of did leave. He’s not here anymore. And I can’t forgive you, because you’re not him. So…”

  It was the most awkward hug I’ve ever seen. Stacy lifted her arms a little, started to put them back down, and finally placed them stiffly around Desmond’s neck. Just as stiffly, Desmond patted her on the back with one hand, and after a moment, they both seemed to relax into it. He held her tighter, with both hands, and in what I imagined to be a rare moment of sweetness from Stacy Easter, she kissed him on the cheek.

  “Oh!” Peach stood up as they released each other, and hugged Stacy, then Leo, her eyes brimming with tears. She laughed and looked at Nick. “Bad idea, my ass!”

  That broke the tension, and everyone laughed, and then Peach looked at me and said, “Don’t worry about those two. It was forever ago that they slept together, and it didn’t mean anything at the time, anyway.”

  Four sets of wary eyes landed on me, and Nick said, “Jesus, Peach.”

  “Oh, crap!” Peach put her hand to her mouth and turned wide eyes to me. “Did you not know about that?”

  “Oh, that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. We’re not…” I motioned awkwardly between me and Desmond. “I mean, we’re just…”

  “Friends,” Desmond said, smiling down at me. “Good friends.”

  My heart did a little jig in response to the warmth on his face. “Yeah. Good friends.”

  “Oh, please,” Peach said, and everyone laughed, even Stacy and Leo, and suddenly, it was all okay. Peach, in direct defiance of all reason, had actually been right about how to fix the situation, and I made a mental note not to underestimate her so easily again.

  Liv poked her head in from the dining room at the sound of our laughter and smiled. “Oh, good. Everyone’s still alive. You guys hungry?”

  “Oh, hell yes,” Peach said, and led the charge toward the dining room. Desmond and I were at the back of the pack, and he took my hand and held it, stopping me from moving forward with the crowd. The living room cleared out, and we were alone. I turned to face him.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He released a deep breath, and I could see the stress on his face that he refused to show during the confrontation. He took a moment, gathered himself, and gave my hand a squeeze, releasing it quickly.

  “Yes,” he said finally, and led me into the dining room.

  Chapter 13

  Peach was tired after dinner, so she and Nick went back to her house next door, and the rest of us walked into town. The sun was lowering, providing a soft pink glow, and as I walked next to Desmond, with the air sweet and warm on my skin, I felt happy and peaceful.

  “Did you enjoy dinner?” Desmond asked me when we found ourselves lagging at the back of the pack.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You?”

  “Not at first.” He let out a light laugh, less of humor and more of relief. “But … yes, I did enjoy it.” He stopped and turned to face me. “Thank you for … well, just thank you.”

  “For what?” I snorted. “I didn’t do anything. That was all you.”

  He smiled down at me. “Has anyone ever explained to you that the proper thing to do when someone thanks you is to graciously say, ‘You’r
e welcome’?”

  “You Brits,” I said, and started walking again. “So mannered. Chill, will you?”

  We laughed and walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence, weaving through the crowds and the food carts and the platform where the band played. We found a picnic table on the edge of the celebration, and we listened to the band and waited for the fireworks, making casual chitchat. I don’t remember what we said, exactly, because my focus was on searching the crowd for Emerson.

  “Would you like to go find him?” Desmond asked me after a while.

  “What?” I met his eye and smiled. “I’m sorry. I just … I haven’t spoken to him since … you know…”

  Desmond jerked his head toward the crowd. “Go on.”

  “Are you sure?” I glanced at Stacy and Liv, who were laughing about something.

  “I think I can take them if they attack. Go. I’ll be right here until you get back.”

  “Okay.” I got up and the other four looked up at me. “I’m gonna go … try to find my father.”

  Stacy smiled at me. “Good luck. I’ve got booze in my car if you need it when you get back.”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling back at her. “I just might.”

  The sunlight was starting to dim, and I wandered through the crowd, looking for the familiar, slightly balding red head of Emerson Streat. After a few minutes, I heard his voice say, “Who are you looking for there, punkin?” and I twirled around to see him behind me.

  “Oh, hi!” I looked around, thought about making an excuse and escaping, but I just smiled up at him. “I was looking for you, actually. I was wondering if you still wanted to watch the fireworks with me?”

  He smiled so wide it took over his whole face, and as he held out his elbow for me to take, I felt strangely awash with happiness, like I had when I was a little girl and he would take me out for ice cream, just the two of us. We walked a little farther out, where the band music wouldn’t keep us from being able to hear each other.

  “I wanted to tell you something,” I said, feeling a little awkward. How do you tell your father that you maybe don’t think he’s a liar and a cold-blooded, ruthless monster anymore? It’s a tough conversation to start.

  I never even got the chance to start it, because Emerson held up his hand to silence me, and motioned toward the band, who had started playing Solomon Burke’s “Can’t Nobody Love You.”

  Emerson held his hand out to me. “I was going to request that they play ‘Happy Birthday,’ but I thought this might be better.”

  Hesitantly, I took his hand. Emerson pulled me into his arms, and we danced. For the first time in memory, I rested my cheek on my father’s shoulder and relaxed.

  “Do you remember how we used to dance to this when you were a girl?” he said, his voice thick. “You used to stand on my toes and I would twirl you around?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my own voice quavering. “I remember.”

  “I wish I could have danced with you like this at your wedding,” he said.

  I laughed. “No one danced at my wedding. It was at a county courthouse, and then we went out for pizza.”

  “You should have a big wedding,” he said, pulling back to look at me. His eyes were a little misty, which was as close as I’d ever seen my father come to crying.

  “Yeah, that won’t be happening for a while,” I said. “But if it does, maybe we’ll dance again then.”

  “You’ve grown into such an amazing woman,” he said. “I’m really proud of you. I want you to know that.”

  I took a deep breath. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do all of this right now. There’s time.”

  He stopped dancing and stepped back from me, holding my hands.

  “Well, punkin, things are gonna be different here after tonight,” he said. “I wanted to be sure we had this moment first.”

  “Um, okay,” I said, and my heart started pounding, an automatic response to my instinct knowing something my conscious mind was still resisting.

  He took my hand in his and walked, leading me toward where they were setting up the fireworks display. I followed, trying to listen carefully despite the commotion around us.

  “You know the story of what happened to your grandmother. My mother.” I couldn’t see much of his face in the fading light, but I could hear the seriousness in his voice.

  “Yes,” I said warily, and the muscles in my shoulders tightened.

  He gave me a brief smile and looked away. “They talk about the Salem witch trials like that kind of thing is in the past, but it’s not. Magicals die every day at the hands of people who don’t understand what we are. And no one knows why it’s happening, because we hide. We don’t talk about who we are. We live on the edge of every society, and if you let it slip for one minute…” He took in a deep breath. “If you stop on a road walking for miles with your son on a hot day, a moment where you think you’re alone, and have the audacity to make a little water fall from the sky to cool your boy, all it takes is one drunken asshole to see it, and you pay with your life.”

  I felt the shock at the language; in all of my life, I’d never heard my father say so much as darn. He just wasn’t that kind of guy. I reached out and touched his arm, and we both stopped walking to turn and face each other.

  “Why are you talking about this, Emerson?”

  He went on, almost as if he hadn’t heard the question. “It’s why I didn’t want children. I didn’t want to love anything so much, something that could be taken away in a vicious act of ignorance and fear. I didn’t want to ever have to imagine your suffering, the way I imagined hers for all these years. Wondering what she must have felt, the pain and the terror and the sadness, in those last moments before…” He shook his head and raised his eyes to look into mine. “I want you to understand, Josie.”

  “Emerson?” I said, my eyes filling with tears even as my body told me to run. But I didn’t run; I kept my pace, walking at his side, hoping against all hope that this wasn’t going the way I knew it was going.

  Emerson went on. “I want you to know that everything I’ve done, I’ve done so you can live in a world where that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore. You need a place where there’s magic.” He stopped walking, but didn’t look me in the eye. “Just … everywhere. Just everyone. One town. One place where it’s safe to let your guard down for a second. That’s all I ever wanted, a place where you could live without ever having to see the things I’ve seen.”

  “Emerson?” I could hear the tremor in my voice, so I cleared my throat and spoke louder. “Emerson, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  He pulled on a smile, but I could see the sadness in his eyes. “I know you may never speak to me again after this, and I’m really sorry about your fella there, but I did what I had to do, to get you here. To keep you safe.”

  Another firework went off. Red sparks turned to white, and then green. My heart jumped in my throat, and I looked toward the picnic benches to find Desmond … until I realized that he wasn’t talking about Desmond, and the world began to spin around me.

  “Oh my god.” I stepped back from him and stumbled on my heel. Emerson reached out to steady me, but I pulled my arm away. “You killed Judd?”

  “I was running out of time for you to find out who and what he was,” Emerson said. “I had to make a call.”

  “Make a call? Jesus, this isn’t fucking football. This is my life.”

  “And he was a bad part of it,” Emerson said. “You weren’t happy. Hell, I could tell that, and all I saw were pictures of you. Going to the grocery store, fighting with that no-account on the lawn. Wasting your time, your potential. Every day spent in that life was a waste of everything you are. I couldn’t watch it anymore.”

  “No one asked you to watch. Jesus.” I put my hand to my forehead and tried to process it all. “And Christy McNagle? Did you mean to kill her, too? God, Emerson! What if Seamus had been in that car with them?” Another firework went off with a big explosion,
and then tiny white flames shot out into the sky. I was so jumpy that I cried out, but Emerson just looked up into the sky.

  Emerson shook his head. “That was unfortunate. But sometimes, collateral damage—”

  “Oh my god … I can’t listen to this…” I started to stumble away from him, but he grabbed my elbow in a tight grip and turned me to face him.

  “You ran off last time, and I lost you for sixteen years,” he said. “If you go again this time, I want you to know that I’m not some monster. I did what I did for my family. I did it for you, Josie. Because I love you and I want you safe. And if you can’t understand that…” He shook his head and shot me a victimized look. “Well, then, I guess there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  Everything around me slowed down, and I felt every second like grains of sand slowly falling through an hourglass. I could feel my heart pounding, and while I knew it was beating fast, each beat thrummed through me with painful slowness. “Emerson, what did you do?”

  He didn’t seem to hear me, so I grabbed his arm and yanked until he looked at me.

  “What did you do?”

  He pulled me by my shoulders and kissed me on the forehead.

  And that’s when the fireworks went off.

  At first, I thought it was strange; the sun wasn’t even down yet. Then I looked over, and saw a blue bolt shoot out, but instead of going upward into the sky, it arced straight at me, and time stopped.

  I didn’t feel it hit. It didn’t feel like anything. Sunlight, I guess, a little, but strangely colder. I held out my hands, on instinct, and then looked down at my feet. The light went through me, arcing out of me in a million little pieces, dancing from me to the people around me, then going ever outward. It seemed like an endless blast, circling outward over everyone. I couldn’t tell how far it went, but it was well past as far as I could see.

  It was a second, maybe even a nanosecond, and then I held my hand up and looked at it as the last of the blue light danced and died over my fingertips.