Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “Was I afraid before?” Eve lay down. She crossed her arms over her chest and felt as if she were lying in a coffin. The couch cushions were stiff and smelled of smoke.

  Malcolm hesitated, as if he wanted to lie. “Every time.”

  She leaned back onto the pillows. Her heart was pounding hard, so hard that it hurt. She laid her hands over her chest as if it were a bird that she wanted to hold inside her ribs. Her ribs were a cage, and her heart was a bird, and it was fluttering its wings so very fast. It would escape, and it would fly to the sky and leave her body to die, heartless and without memories on the couch.

  “You don’t always forget.” Malcolm patted her hand. “Sometimes you remember—at least until next time.” He smiled as if this should reassure her. It didn’t.

  “Get on with it,” Lou said.

  She thought of a bit of magic she could do, harmless magic. She remembered the flowers that Zach had grown in the library. She spread her hands and imagined there were flowers growing from them. Bark spread over her hands. Leaves sprouted between her fingers.

  “Don’t transform!” Lou said sharply.

  But it was too late. She was wood inside. She felt it spread, calming her, steadying her. She felt his voice recede until it was merely wind. He was shouting; she could see his lips move, and doctors were rushing into the office. Then bark sealed over her eyes, and she saw nothing until the smoke rolled in.

  Smoke curls around me in shapes: a snake, a dragon, a cat, a hand … and then it dissipates into a formless haze. I am suspended in the smoke. Ropes are wrapped around my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders, my knees, my neck.

  I feel safe.

  Cocooned, I spin slowly, and the ropes wrap tighter around me. And then I spin in the other direction, and the ropes unwrap. I twist. I untwist.

  And then the ropes loosen, and I fall.

  The ropes snap. I scream.

  I am lying facedown in the muddy dirt. My arms shake as if they have never been used before, but I push myself upright.

  I am on the dirt floor of the carnival tent, in a row of feet and legs. Around me, above me, hands are clapping for a performance that I didn’t hear or see. Up farther, faces are smeared with white paint and rose circles. Garish eyes are painted on foreheads and necks and chests. I can’t see the stage. It is shrouded in smoke, my smoke, that billows and puffs into a snake, a dragon, a cat, a hand … But I am outside the smoke, between strangers, and I do not feel safe anymore.

  Pushing past the legs and climbing over the feet, I squeeze down the row until I reach the aisle. At last, I can see the stage. It is draped in red velvet and lit by candles that line the edge.

  A cello plays slowly.

  The Magician pushes a box onstage. It is larger than those in the wagon, but it is undeniably the same. I recognize its gilded edges and the silver clasp. Staring at it, I feel my rib cage shrink inside me. It’s hard to breathe, and the smoke-laden air scratches my throat.

  A girl with many arms scuttles onto the stage, pushing a freestanding silver mirror with two of her arms and using her other arms as extra legs. She positions the mirror behind the Magician, and then disappears back into the smoke.

  Looking around, I see a break in the tent at the back of the audience. I walk toward it, away from the stage and the Magician and the box.

  I hear a gasp, then whispers.

  Hands point to the stage, but I do not look, will not look. I walk toward the exit, faster, but it seems farther away with each step.

  At last I reach it and push aside the curtain. And face a silver wall.

  In the silver, I see a reflection of the stage behind me. The Magician has opened the box. He is looking over the audience at me, or at the silver wall. In the mirror, a boy with white-yellow hair and thin eyes stares out at me.

  I look over my shoulder … but there’s no boy. I am the boy.

  I look back at the silver, and now I am a taller boy with leopard-spot tattoos on my neck. Leather straps cross my chest, and a sword is strapped to my back. I reach back to touch it, and the hand of the boy in the mirror reaches in sync with me. The reflection touches the sword, but I feel nothing. I look for the sword—and this time when I look back at the silver, I am a girl with feathers in my hair and glittering scales on my arms.

  I reach to touch the reflection—and melt into it. Cold slices through me as I walk forward. Light pricks my eyes. I block my eyes with my arm and squint until my eyes adjust to the stabs of light.

  I am behind the Magician on the stage.

  The box, fully open, is in front of him. He flourishes his cape and then beckons with one finger. It is many-jointed, and it curls like a snake. I know without seeing his face that he is smiling.

  The audience stares at me with their unblinking painted eyes.

  A boy walks onto the stage, slowly and stiffly, as if he were pulled by puppet strings. He’s young, not yet a man, and he has dark hair and dark skin. He wears an embroidered gold shirt. And I know he is about to die.

  I want to warn him. Or stop him. Or force him to run away with me, far, far away until we can’t hear the tinny sound of the carousel or feel the painted eyes of the audience.

  But ropes wrap around my body, weaving themselves around my wrists, elbows, legs … tighter, tighter, until I cannot even shudder. I am lifted into the air and watch from above as the boy climbs into the box and lies down. The Magician closes the box.

  He lifts a saw over his head. He turns, showing the saw to the front, the left, the right. It is the saw of a woodcutter. Candlelight dances over the blade, caressing it.

  The audience is hushed, expectant, excited. I feel it in the air.

  The Magician begins to saw the box in half, and blood drips onto the stage and runs in a river that douses the candles. I swing from the rafters as smoke rises. It thickens and curls around me. Obscuring the stage, it shapes itself into a snake and a hand and a cat …

  Eve woke in a hospital bed.

  She lifted her hand. She hadn’t been strapped down this time. Spreading her fingers, she didn’t see leaves or bark. Maybe she had only imagined it. Or maybe the doctors had fixed her. She wondered if she looked the same. Her hands went to her face, and she touched the shape of her cheekbones, her chin, her forehead. She wondered how much time had passed.

  “Want a mirror?” Aunt Nicki asked.

  Eve started. She hadn’t noticed Aunt Nicki was there. Aunt Nicki was curled on a chair next to the hospital bed. She had an array of empty, stained coffee cups next to her and a magazine on her lap. Searching her purse, Aunt Nicki produced a small case. She flipped it open and held the mirror up to Eve’s face.

  She didn’t see the antlered girl, or the boy with the leopard tattoos, or anyone from a photo on the bulletin board. She saw only the face she remembered, the girl with green eyes.

  “Neat trick you pulled,” Aunt Nicki said. “Don’t do it again. Can’t put a lilac bush—or whatever you were—on the witness stand.”

  Eve felt her cheek, and her fingers touched smooth skin. “More surgeries?”

  “You changed yourself back. Don’t you remember? Never mind. Don’t answer that. Clearly you don’t, and no, I am not going to play twenty questions with you so you can figure out how much time you lost. You’ll only forget again, so what’s the point?”

  Eve turned her face away from the mirror and stared through the bars of the hospital bed at the blank wall. This room did not have windows. Beside her, machines beeped in a steady rhythm. She had an IV attached to her arm. She heard Aunt Nicki’s chair creak, and then rustling, as if Aunt Nicki were searching through her purse again.

  “Okay, I need the details,” Aunt Nicki said. Paper crinkled, and a pen clicked.

  Eve didn’t turn her head. “It’s real, isn’t it? The people that I see …” Her voice sounded dead to her ears. She felt so very tired, as if all the pain and surprise and fear had been drained out of her, replaced by the saline that dripped into her veins through the needle in her a
rm.

  “Faces? Names? Locations? Come on, I know the visions aren’t fun. Don’t let them be pointless too. Share with your auntie.”

  Eve listened to the heart monitor and told Aunt Nicki every detail she could remember—the smoke, the audience with the painted eyes, the boy in the box, the silver mirror and her changing reflections. Aunt Nicki scribbled notes as Eve talked, the pen skritching over the paper. Eve also heard the click of a voice recorder, and she knew she was being filmed by at least two security cameras focused on the hospital bed.

  “Great,” Aunt Nicki said. “Photo time.” She dumped the tablet onto Eve’s lap. Eve tried to prop herself up on her elbows. An alarm shrieked. Aunt Nicki silenced it and waved away the guard and nurse who had shoved through the door side by side.

  Aunt Nicki picked up the tablet and scrolled to the first face. “Do you recognize her?”

  Eve shook her head.

  Aunt Nicki slid to the next photo.

  Another shake.

  Next photo.

  No.

  Next.

  No.

  Next.

  No.

  Another. And another. And another.

  “Yes.” Eve studied the boy with the embroidered gold shirt. “Yes, this is the one I saw.”

  Aunt Nicki was silent for a moment.

  Eve turned her head to look at her. Her face looked raw, pain clear on her features. She then switched off the tablet and stowed it in her bag. She didn’t meet Eve’s eyes.

  “I knew him,” Aunt Nicki said quietly. “He was one of the best.” She stood and put her bag over her shoulder. “You should sleep now.”

  Eve thought of the smoke and the box. “I don’t think I can.”

  Aunt Nicki smiled, but it was a cold smile. She twisted a dial on the IV. “You will.” She left the room. The door closed behind her.

  Eve watched the monitor as her heart rate slowed, and she faded into dreamless darkness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As Malcolm talked to the nurses outside her room, Eve shed her blue hospital gown and dressed in ordinary clothes. She raked a brush through her hair and thought of the boy in the golden shirt. He’d admired the acrobats: three men with red-and-orange feathers that had either sprouted from their skin or been sewn into it. They’d been practicing a routine where they’d tossed one another into the air and rode the wind high above the carnival tent, spinning and swirling before plummeting in a dive that ended in a tumble. All three had been more graceful than birds, silent in their aerial dance. One had unfurled a ribbon from his wrist. Another had caught it and swung, and then they’d painted the sky with silks of ruby, emerald, and gold. Flipping over one another, they’d woven the ribbons into a circle that they then let flutter to the ground. Hands outstretched, the boy in gold had caught the circle of ribbons. He’d then flown into the sky with it—without hidden wires, a trapeze, or ribbons to lift him—and met the acrobats in the air.

  In that world, the carnival had been beneath a city in the trees. Above them, vast structures had been woven into the branches, and the homes had been like enclosed nests. As the acrobats flew overhead, the Storyteller had nestled in the roots of one of the trees. She had told tales about birds who guarded treasure while silver-clad monkeys stole everlasting fruit. While listening to her, Eve had watched the golden boy.

  Bits of memory or bits of imagination?

  Eve didn’t know, and she couldn’t summon the energy to care. She felt drained, as if someone had siphoned every drop of blood and moisture out of her body and left her a husk.

  Leaving the hospital room, Eve joined Malcolm at the nurses’ station. He glanced at her and then handed the paperwork to an expressionless nurse with slicked-back hair. The nurse filed the papers and then turned to Eve. “Wrist,” the nurse commanded.

  Eve glanced at Malcolm to interpret this cryptic statement, and he tapped his left wrist. She wore an ID bracelet. She hadn’t noticed it. As she lifted her arm up, she read the bracelet: PATIENT 001. She wondered if that meant she was their only patient or their first. She didn’t ask. The nurse snipped the plastic band off and dropped it in the trash.

  “Keep her hydrated,” the nurse said to Malcolm, as if Eve weren’t capable of listening to and following instructions. Maybe I’m not, Eve thought. She wondered how many instructions she’d heard and forgotten over the weeks, months, or however long she’d been with WitSec. “Lots of rest. You keep pushing her like this, and I won’t be held responsible.”

  “It’s not my call, not anymore,” Malcolm said. “The situation changed.” Eve looked sharply at him. “But I will do what I can. Her well-being is always my priority.” Hand on her shoulder, Malcolm guided Eve away from the nurses’ station. She wondered what had changed and if it would do any good to ask. Swiping his ID card, Malcolm unlocked a door and led her through a white hall to an elevator. He pushed the down button. The doors slid open—

  She knew this elevator: the brown-walled interior and the worn carpet, the tinny music that drifted out the open door.

  This isn’t a hospital, she realized.

  She’d never left the agency.

  Eve followed Malcolm into the elevator. He punched the button for the garage, and the doors slid closed. The elevator lurched down. She’d been on level four. The offices were three. Level five had the room with the silver walls.

  “How many times?” Eve asked dully.

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows.

  “I was at the pizza place with Aidan, Topher, and Victoria. You brought me here. How long have I been here?”

  “Seven,” Malcolm said.

  “Days or visions?”

  “Days,” he said as the elevator opened. “I don’t know how many visions.”

  Seven lost days, she thought. Numbly, she followed him out of the elevator and through the garage to yet another black car. She climbed into the passenger seat, snapped on her seat belt, and rested her head against the window as Malcolm drove out of the garage.

  “You need rest,” Malcolm said. “I told Lou this was too intense. You need the memories to return more naturally—through association or memory prompts, not self-inflicted comas. But Lou’s under pressure with the latest incidents—” He cut himself off.

  “Tell me more of your memories,” Eve said. “You told me about your mother singing. Tell me about your father. Nice memories. I only want nice memories.” Nice memories to scrub away the smoke and blood inside her.

  He drove out of the parking garage. “My memories?” He sounded relieved, as if he’d expected other questions, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to ask the real questions or hear about “incidents,” not when she felt as if she’d been scraped raw inside. “Okay … um, let me think … My dad and I used to play basketball. When I was a kid, he’d lift me halfway up to the basket. I’d dunk it in, and he’d cheer and shake me in the air like I was a trophy.” Taking one hand off the steering wheel, he demonstrated the shaking. “But I’d never made a basket on my own until one summer, when my father was away for two weeks. Every day of those two weeks, I practiced for hours. And the next Saturday, when Dad asked me to shoot hoops with him, I shot the basket from the ground by myself. My dad lifted me up and shook me like a trophy.”

  Eve closed her eyes. “Tell me more.”

  “My father was a cop, and he hoped I’d follow in his footsteps. Have a son on the force, you know? On the day I told him I was a US marshal … I swear he wanted to lift me in the air and shake me like a trophy. Only reason he didn’t was that I outweighed him by then. Also because my mom cried.”

  Eve opened her eyes. The sky was cloudless blue. The trees were heavy with dark-green leaves, motionless in the still air. She watched the telephone poles pass. “Why did she cry?”

  “She didn’t want me to be in any kind of law enforcement. She wanted me to be something safe like a veterinarian, even though I’m not good with animals. Hate cats. Okay with dogs. Don’t see the point of goldfish.”

  “What ha
ppened?”

  He shrugged. “Five years in, I was recruited for WitSec. Two years after that, a routine case proved to be anything but routine, and I came to the attention of the paranormal division. Para-WitSec is always looking for new agents. Since this is the only known nonmagical world, we are in high demand as a safe haven for witnesses of magical crimes. I was immediately assigned to multiple cases. All of it was classified, but I always wished I could have told her. As it was … she didn’t understand that my job is to keep other people safe. I’m doing what she—what both of them—taught me, what feels right and natural.”

  Malcolm parked the car in front of the drab yellow house. She watched him get out, check the area, and then open her door. She stepped onto the sidewalk next to him.

  “Was that the kind of thing you wanted to hear?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good.” He slid on his sunglasses. “Because that’s as much sharing as I do. Go on in.” He nodded toward the house as Aunt Nicki swung the door open. Eve headed toward her, then glanced back over her shoulder at Malcolm.

  Unmoving, he watched her from the sidewalk.

  Inside, Aunt Nicki put her hands on her hips. “You look exhausted,” she pronounced. “And too thin.” She picked up Eve’s wrist and wrapped her fingers around it. “You’re wasting away. I don’t care how much pressure Lou is under. We can’t have you wasting away. Are you eating?”

  Eve shrugged. She didn’t know how many of the seven days she’d spent in the hospital bed and how many in Malcolm’s office. “Intravenously, I think.”

  “Doesn’t count.” Aunt Nicki bustled into the kitchen, and Eve followed. “Soup? Sandwich?” She checked the refrigerator. “I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich with microwaved tomato soup. Serious comfort food. You look in need of serious comfort food.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Did I ask if you were hungry?”