The Sweetest Kind of Fate

by Crystal Cestari

  “Amber? Is that you?”

  “YES.” Gods. “Put Mom on the phone.”

  “She’s not here right now.” He pauses for an unnecessary dramatic effect. “She went to get change.”

  ARGH! “Okay, can you have her call me back? It’s an emergency.”

  “Yup.” I hang up before he can draw out anything further. I try calling everyone in my phone (which is not a lot of people, to be fair), and when no one picks up, I text Mom

  VICTORIA 911

  and head outside, surely covered in an unattractive sweat.

  “Where’s your latte?” Iris asks.

  “Oh, um, I realized I already had two today,” I lie. “I should probably cut back.”

  She shrugs, and we march off to what will definitely be a dangerous exchange. Victoria knows Iris previously reached out to Mom about performing this spell, but doesn’t know about her client’s present Sand entanglement. If she sees me, she’ll have to assume something is up and could pull something sneaky on either Iris or myself. I can almost feel my throat tightening, reminiscent of our last encounter. Yet I don’t want to leave Iris alone; who knows what Victoria “needs” to complete this spell? I pray to the Gods Mom gets my cry for help and ends the appointment before it begins.

  We reach an empty dry cleaner’s storefront, and Iris looks at the address she has scribbled down, confused. The sign says closed, but the door swings open to a cleared-out space free of hanging garments or detergent smells.

  “I guess this is the place?” Iris says, unsure. “Victoria?”

  This could easily be a murder den or meth lab, and honestly, I’d feel more comfortable in either if I knew Victoria would not be around. Why she’d have a client meet her here is inconceivable, though if she’s going for “building terror,” then she definitely nailed it.

  Finally, she emerges, like a lizard slithering out of the grass, covered in animal print and ready for prey. With hair a few shades beyond platinum, and skin a confusing color of tangerine, Victoria stands like a real-life plastic-surgery fail. Every part of her being has been tightened or tinted beyond human limits, her efforts resulting in a disorienting display. It doesn’t help to know that underneath all that work lies the beating heart of a lunatic.

  “Iris, how lovely to—” She comes to a halt, her big reveal ruined by my presence. Though she recovers quickly, pointing her chin high and casting her gaze down the tip of her rhinoplasty, it’s clear she’s been rattled. It’s not the first (and certainly will not be the last) time I’ve made someone stop dead in her tracks. I soak in the momentary satisfaction.

  “Why, Amber,” she resumes in her dissonant baritone, “I didn’t know you’d be joining us today.”

  “You know her?” Iris whispers to me.

  “Uh, sort of,” I say, leaving out the part about Victoria nearly ending my life. “We’ve met.”

  “Iris, I wasn’t expecting you to bring a guest,” Victoria says between clenched teeth. She keeps inching closer, filling my nostrils with her horribly musky perfume. “Is there a reason why you felt you needed backup?”

  “Oh, no, of course not,” she says, clearly lying. Even through her coat, I can tell she’s covered in goose bumps. I mean, I know I am. “I just happened to bump into Amber on the way here.”

  “How convenient,” Victoria hisses. She takes a lap around us both, trying to detect any concealed spells, I’m sure. Her stilettos click on the linoleum, in time with her acrylic nails tapping at her side. Once she’s decided we’re free of magical ammunition, she stands before us, hands on hips, towering above us both.

  “Luckily, Amber is very ineffectual magically, so she won’t be able to interfere with what I need.” Her carnivorous smile will haunt my dreams for weeks, guaranteed.

  “And what do you need, anyway?” I ask, my knowledge of how Victoria operates being my only advantage here.

  “I’m sure it’s too hard to wrap your non-magical head around this”—UGH, wench!—“but a spell of this magnitude requires a considerable amount of resources. Brave Iris is giving herself over to love, and I need something of hers to help see that through.”

  “Such as…?”

  Victoria shrugs, pulling on the gaudy string of pearls around her neck. “Nothing she’ll miss. Just a part of her essence.”

  “Her essence?!”

  “Relax. My Gods, you Sands are so overdramatic.” She cackles, as if losing an undetermined personal element is nothing to react over. Ha-ha, no big; good-bye, part of myself!

  “No, she’s right; what do you mean, part of my essence?” Iris’s sweet face is turning sour, losing certainty in the situation.

  Victoria, ever the snake oil salesman, swoops in to reassure her wavering client. “Darling, don’t worry. You know this spell is no joke; we talked about it. You will be going through a major transformation. Just to be sure nothing gets lost in the balance, I’ll take a small, unnoticeable slice of your soul and keep it safe until we’re done. That way, in the unlikely occurrence that something goes wrong, we’ll still have a part of you to help restore your true character. Make sense?” She flutters her lashes, making me sick. This sounds like the most insane bull I’ve ever heard, but Iris seems to be buying it.

  She nods slowly, trying to determine if this logic is sound. I want to shake her, to throw her over my shoulder and hightail it out of here, but I know an easy escape is not in the cards.

  “What do you think, Amber?” Iris asks, her voice small and fragile, like a child asking for permission. I don’t want to crush her dreams, but this does not feel right.

  “I don’t like it. I’ve never heard of my mom taking a part of someone in order to complete a spell. A real witch would figure out a less invasive way.”

  Victoria is laughing to herself. “A real witch? You mean, someone who sells fairy figurines and pentagon pendants in a tourist attraction? That’s who you’d trust your life to?”

  “Hey!” I spit back. “You know full well my mom has the skills, and we sell a lot of actual magic in our shop!”

  “The Lucille Sand I knew was capable of real power, and had she continued studying with me, maybe she’d be the one standing here now, with the ability to change a life. But she made a poor choice, and now Iris has only one hope if she ever wants to be with her true love.”

  I’m not going to win this; Victoria is too persuasive, playing too hard on Iris’s emotions. How can I stop her when love is on the line? I can’t do this alone. C’mon, Mom, I think. Burst in right now, please.

  But she doesn’t.

  “It’s okay, Amber,” Iris reassures me, giving my shoulder a pat. “This is what I want, remember? And I’m sure Victoria wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”

  “Ha!” I burst. I’m actually shaking with fear, knowing there’s no way this turns out well. “Don’t trust her, Iris. We can find you a different way!”

  “That’s enough from the peanut gallery,” Victoria grumbles, snapping her wrist and instantly flinging me against the wall. Iris screams. The wind is knocked out of me, yet I try to run back, only to find I’m stuck to the wall, like a bug on flypaper, forced to watch against my will.

  “Damn you!” I screech, straining against intangible glue.

  “Is that really necessary?” Iris asks, lip trembling as she takes a step back from the wicked witch.

  “Quiet,” she bellows, wrapping a bony orange hand around Iris’s neck. “I need to focus.”

  It happens quick: for a moment, Iris tenses, making a faint, choking yelp as Victoria perches a claw just outside her mouth, which is slowly turning blue. Iris is convulsing like she’s going to vomit, her whole system shaking and fighting this mystical lobotomy. With one final gurgle, Iris projectiles something, like a translucent hairball, which Victoria catches and pockets inside a small leather pouch. Iris falls to the floor, just as I’m released from my concealed web; I rush to her side, while her breathing slowly returns to normal.

  “What did you take?” I ask, peer
ing over my shoulder. Victoria pretends not to hear me, freshening her bloodred lipstick instead. “What did you take?” I repeat.

  “Just like I said, a part of her essence.” A brow raises in amusement. “The free part.”

  Now I feel like I can’t breathe. “You took her free will?! Are you deranged?”

  “Not in the slightest. Now I know she won’t back out of our arrangement, and I’ll become infamous in my success.”

  “You’re sick,” I hurl at her, but she’s unfazed. She crouches down, pinching Iris’s cheeks with one hand, forcing her victim to look her way.

  “Now listen to me,” Victoria says, enunciating every syllable. “You will go straight home, without making any stops, without any alarm. You will stay in your house until the full moon, upon which we will meet for the spell. You are not to leave for any other reason, and you are not to tell anyone what has happened here. You will not listen to any instructions from anyone else but me.”

  Iris doesn’t nod or make any acknowledgment but pops up, immediately heading to the door. She says nothing, looking neither at me nor at Victoria, making a beeline in the direction of her house. Without free will, she’s incapable of doing anything other than what Victoria instructed.

  I start to chase after her just as Victoria adds, “Give my regards to your mother,” before disappearing back into the dark.

  THE whole way home, I try to talk sense into Iris. I plead, I yell, I slap her in the face. I pull her, yank her, even get a running start to try and push her off course, but nothing works. She’s like a robot wearing an Iris costume, capable only of completing her programmed task. When she finally unlocks her front door, she sits down in the foyer, successful in her mission. Then I swear I hear her make a whirring sound, after which she closes her eyes and falls asleep.

  It’s awkward, standing in a stranger’s house with an almost-comatose body at my feet, but I know I have to tell someone. The Chamberlains’ butler has not come to greet us, so I call out a tentative “Ivy?”

  My phone starts to ring, just as Ivy walks in from the kitchen, balancing a plate of cucumber slices. She drops it upon seeing her sister, porcelain shattering as she runs to her side. Mom’s face flashes on my screen, but it’s too late now.

  “What happened to her?” Ivy cries, pushing Iris’s hair back off her face. “What did you do?”

  “I…I did what I could to stop this,” I say, realizing Victoria has much more power than I thought. “Iris was on her way to meet Victoria, and we happened to run into each other. I tried to call for backup, but…” Clearly, my efforts failed.

  “Why does she look like human pudding? What did that witch do?”

  “She…She said she needed something else for her spell. A part of Iris. She took…her free will.”

  I may as well have knocked Ivy across the jaw. I expect her to launch herself at me, make me a punching bag for her pain. But she doesn’t. Instead, she looks up, on the verge of tears, and asks, “What do we do?”

  As Victoria so preciously noted, I have no magic; I have no idea what comes next. So I call back my mom and recount the events, putting her on speaker to hear her reply.

  “Ivy, I’m so sorry this happened,” she says, her voice echoing throughout the room. “The only thing we can do now is wait for the full moon and thwart the spell.”

  “What?” Ivy yells. “That cannot be the only option.”

  “Victoria holds Iris’s free will, which we’ll obviously need to obtain. Though your sister is powerless right now, at least she’s safe at home for the time being. I will work on gathering resources to ensure Victoria does not complete her spell as planned, and we’ll successfully restore Iris.”

  “And I will too,” I add, trying to be comforting but feeling pretty useless. “I know weird people who can help us out.”

  Ivy stares blankly, like someone has scooped out her soul and there’s nothing left to guide her. She looks haggard, beaten: completely un-siren-like. Even during times of anger or frustration, she’s always maintained her perfect gloss, careful not to expose her inner core. With dark circles under her eyes and hair clumped in a messy tangle, she looks like a regular teenage girl.

  “Can you help me get her upstairs?” she asks, so softly I almost miss it. “My parents will freak if they see her like this.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, though it’s entirely disarming to hear Ivy ask permission, rather than demand assistance.

  We manage to drag Iris’s lifeless body upstairs; she’s like a Costco-size bag of potatoes. We practically drop her into bed. She makes no notice of our efforts; we could have plopped her into a bathtub, and I still think she’d be sleeping soundly. Ivy stands in the doorway, watching her sister sleep, her own eyelids heavy. Her grief is palpable; usually when I’m around her, I feel her icy chill, but now all there is is sadness.

  “After everything I did, it didn’t even matter,” Ivy says, her voice hollow but words weighted. “I couldn’t protect her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A memory presses, causing an emotional implosion. She seems to shrink before my eyes. “I used it all up. My siren powers. I tried to change her mind and stop her from doing this.” Her head hangs lower. “But it didn’t work.”

  The Fates were insightful enough to place some mystical checks and balances on sirens: so that they don’t have the ability to rule the world forever, they each are granted a finite level of power. Once they’ve used up their storage of magical manipulation, then they’re done, and have to live as run-of-the-mill humans. I always thought it was wasteful of Ivy to exert influence over high schoolers, but putting that energy toward her sister is a sacrifice I didn’t expect.

  “I thought a siren couldn’t manipulate another siren,” I say.

  “We’re not supposed to; it’s like a moral code. But I tried anyway.” She turns to me, face painted with regret. “And now it’s gone.”

  It all makes sense now: her solo ventures through school, her inability to snake-charm Marcus or any other warm-blooded male. Ivy’s no longer a siren, and she can’t force the masses to flock to her side. She relied so heavily on that persuasive well of magic she never took the time to cultivate any real, lasting relationships. And now she’s alone.

  “That was very brave of you,” I confess. The words taste funny, but it’s the appropriate flavor.

  “You think I’m an idiot.”

  “Usually, yes, but right now, no.” I conjure up a sad smile. She reciprocates, and there’s a moment of understanding between us that I don’t think even Amani could have predicted, and I do my best not to freak out over having a heart-to-heart with my nemesis.

  “Can I, um, do anything for you?” I offer. I don’t know what the etiquette is after dumping someone’s lifeless sibling at one’s door.

  “No, I just want to be alone.” I nod and start to head back downstairs when Ivy calls from behind, “Amber?”

  I turn back to face her.

  “I’m glad she wasn’t alone, at least,” Ivy says. “It had to have been really scary. Thanks for bringing her home.”

  I nod again, even though I don’t feel at all helpful. What did I really do? Watch while a girl lost a part of her soul? Great work.

  On my way to the train, I immediately start texting Charlie but pause before hitting SEND. I reread what I’ve typed several times, looking for any possible pitfalls. I’ve never second-guessed reaching out to him before, but after my jealous rant the other day, things have been a little off. His words say he’s fine, but his body language illustrates otherwise. I don’t blame him; I would be acting different if my boyfriend accused me of cheating too. I so desperately want things to go back to normal, I feel like I have to be extra-awesome Amber, steering clear of any weirdness. Hence my hesitation. I scrap the message and text Amani instead, spewing out all the details of the night. Yet even minutes after crafting a horrifying tale that can’t be ignored, she still hasn’t written back. Hello, if a story about soul-sucking witche
s doesn’t deserve a response, what does?

  An entire hour later, I finally hear back. I kind of thought she would call to get the full scoop, but all I get is an OMG.

  Where have you been? I type back.

  Sorry! Water Tower. Bad reception, I guess.

  You’ve been with Kim this whole time?

  Argh! So what, when she isn’t suddenly joining clubs with my boyfriend, Kim’s now monopolizing my best friend?! GREAT.

  Yeah! We got dinner together. She told me the funniest story….

  I turn my phone on mute, ignoring her following messages. It’s crappy, but I don’t want to hear about Amani-Kim Fun Times right now. My evening was scary as hell, and it would be nice to talk to my best friend about it without side stories about shopping. It’s great, I guess, that they are becoming better pals. They have a lot in common, and putting my personal problems with her aside, Kim seems like a cool person. It’s just weird how your best friend can bond with someone you don’t mesh with at all. Isn’t there some sort of friendship law of relativity, proving that people within the same social circle should have a tangible thread? Their pairing seems miles apart from what Amani and I share, and it’s all so…whatever. They both have their free will intact and can do what they want.

  I can’t seem to stop anything.

  “AMBER, can you grab my grimoire with the purple spine?” Mom calls from the kitchen. Ever since Iris’s incident, she hasn’t left the kitchen, pouring herself into a new spell that’s filling the apartment with a metallic smell. It’s pretty unpleasant, so if something in that book will make it stop, I’m happy to oblige.

  “Yeah,” I call back, pausing The Great British Bake Off and popping off the couch. Mom’s office is positively bursting with grimoires, so finding the “purple one” would be daunting if I didn’t know where she keeps her personal volumes. Still, it’s always fun to take them all in; I’ve always hoped to stumble across one labeled “Fun Times at Salem,” but no such luck. Right next to Mom’s supply armoire, on a trunk filled with stones, sit three leather-bound books: one deep red, one marigold, one purple. The purple was her second installment, mostly from her teenage and college years, right about when her magic was hitting full swing and life was getting juicy. I flip through the parchment pages (What is it with parchment and witches?), seeing notes in my mother’s careful hand about the proper use of agarwood and cautions regarding deer musk. I start heading to the kitchen when a page near the back catches my attention: it’s neither notes, nor a list of ingredients, but a long-form, diary-like entry. And because I have no self-control, I start reading: