The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

by Adan Jerreat-Poole

  The figure didn’t wake as Eli hovered over it. She had to be sure. She leaned down, drawing the thorn blade, and pricked the bottom of a foot. Ghosts bled smoke or iron or scales. Once she had killed a ghost that had burst into a cloud of floral perfume.

  A single drop of red blood beaded at the cut.

  Ghosts didn’t bleed red.

  The body woke up screaming. Eli threw a hand over the woman’s mouth to stifle the sound, mind racing.

  “What’s your name?” demanded Eli. “Stop screaming and I won’t hurt you.” She slowly took her hand away from the woman’s mouth.

  “Take anything you want. My wallet is in the drawer. Please take anything, just don’t hurt me.”

  Impatient and flustered by the ghost’s response, Eli grabbed her hair and forced their faces together. “I asked for your name.”

  “J-Jennifer White,” she stuttered. “What do you want?”

  “No,” said Eli angrily. “It’s Virginia. This house belongs to Virginia.”

  A look of confusion crossed the woman’s face.

  “My mother’s dead,” she whispered. “She died last year.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Stroke.”

  Eli released her head. The woman scrambled back. Eli reached for the frost blade. It burned like ice at her touch. Her blades never lied.

  The woman was telling the truth.

  “You’re human,” said Eli.

  “Of course I’m human!” The woman looked at Eli. “Are you on drugs? I can call an ambulance.”

  She had the wrong person.

  She had made a mistake.

  Eli stumbled back. “I’m sorry.” She fumbled at her waist, sheathing the daggers. The woman took the opportunity to lunge at Eli with a large pillow. The pillow snagged on the thorn dagger, knocking Eli back and tossing a handful of feathers into the air. They fell like snow.

  The woman ran for the door. Eli knew she should kill her. Had she seen the sharp teeth through the fading glamour? Had crocodile eyes burned through the enchanted mask?

  Instead, Eli stood in a cloud of feathers and watched her go.

  She was not made to kill humans. There was no glory or honour in it.

  Knowing the police would be here in a matter of minutes, she dragged herself back up to the attic and scrambled through the empty eye socket of the house.

  My existence is marked by empty spaces, she thought bitterly.

  The sound of sirens in the distance.

  She ran.

  Eleven

  Eli ran wildly, her footsteps on asphalt echoing through the quiet street. She struggled to keep her glamour in place. Her heart was beating out of her rib cage. She turned left, then right, then right again, randomly, spurred on by panic.

  A dead end.

  The sirens were getting closer. Should she break into another house? Try to outrun the cars? She looked around for somewhere to hide.

  A black car flashed its headlights at her, and she jumped back, grabbing two of her knives — one made from rose thorns, the other carved from stone.

  The window rolled down and a familiar head poked out. “Need a lift?”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “Heard the call. I listen in on cop activity. Lots of times it’s witch crap.”

  Eli slid over the hood of the car, wrenched open the passenger door, and fell into the seat.

  He grinned. “What were you saying about not needing me?”

  “Yes, you’re very useful for a human. Now get me the hell out of here.”

  “What’s the magic word?”

  “I was trained to kill?”

  “Good enough for me.” He put the car into gear and drove off.

  Alto saxophone drifted from the speakers.

  Eli nearly dropped her weapons. “This is your getaway music?”

  “I like jazz. What’s wrong with jazz?”

  Eli shrugged and sheathed her blades. “Can you go any faster?”

  “I could, but then the cops would chase me. Gotta blend in.” He glanced over at her. “Everything okay?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “What did I just say?”

  He drove under the speed limit. He stopped at stop signs. He yielded right of way. It was painful. She threw him an exasperated look when he stopped at a yellow light.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She slouched down into the seat, trying to calm her heartbeat. “Nice moustache.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ever heard of sarcasm?”

  “Is that a fun place to visit?”

  Eli rolled her eyes.

  “I’m Cam,” he said.

  She didn’t answer. They drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “Do you want me to drop you off downtown?”

  She hesitated.

  “Or somewhere else?” He sounded nervous. She didn’t blame him.

  “Downtown,” she said. “I have to go back and report in.” The thought filled her with dread, a slow poison in her stomach. She didn’t want to go back. Failure was not tolerated. But she had nowhere else to go.

  “Okay.”

  He pulled up outside City Hall, a building so like and yet unlike the Coven. Tall and imposing, built to withstand storms and centuries. But somehow empty and dead, where the Coven was alive.

  She hesitated. Took a breath. Prepared to face her punishment.

  “If you need anything, I’m here to help.”

  “Says the hired hand.”

  “Well, I do get paid.” He shrugged. “But that’s not why I do this. Mercenaries don’t last long in my position. I want to help.”

  “I already said I don’t need help.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Okay. I’m going.” She opened the door and climbed out. She hesitated. “Thanks, Cam.” Then, her hand still on the door, “I’m Eli.”

  He gave her privacy to do the dirty business of summoning a hole between worlds.

  Twelve

  Eli closed her eyes and stretched out her arms. She felt for the lining of the world, where the fabric thinned, where she could move from the human realm to where the witches ruled. She fumbled for the seam.

  All she felt was smooth sky and sparks of magic like electricity tickling and teasing her fingertips. She frowned, reached farther, sent her mind out. Stretched her thorn-and-flesh body to the land of its birth.

  I am one of yours, she told the magic world in the sky. Come for me. Please take me home. Take me away from here.

  She wondered how long it would take the cops to find her.

  She wondered if going back was a mistake.

  She wondered if there were other human operatives watching her right now.

  She wondered if she was a mistake.

  No. Keep your concentration.

  She took a breath. There!

  The seam split, an opening in time and space. Finally, she was in the Vortex, surrounded by silence. Taking her away from motorcycles and madness, and a boi with eyes like liquid gold. Taking her home, where the rules were chaos and power, everything lived and breathed magic, and the exchange of knowledge was everything. There, Eli knew what she was worth, and she could bargain. She had a place and a purpose.

  Didn’t she?

  Was that enough?

  In the human city, she was no one. A lost girl with desires and needs that had nothing to do with calculation and planning. Jazz and leather jackets couldn’t save her. Maybe she hadn’t chosen this life, but it was hers. Eli would leave the dreaming girl behind.

  The Vortex froze.

  Eli was suspended, caught between worlds. Hanging like a fly in a web. Held up with strands of magic.

  She was nowhere.

  Terror rattled her heart. Eli tried to turn her head and realized she was frozen in a block of black ice. All she could see was the darkness, but it had solidified and trapped her inside it.

 
Time seemed to stop. Eli couldn’t tell if only a minute had passed or an hour. She didn’t know how the two worlds were aligned. What if she was stuck here while a generation passed? Would she return to find Kite gone forever, just a floating voice in a white chamber? Would she have a home? She thought of Tav and Cam. Would they wonder what happened to the girl with crocodile eyes, tell stories about her to their grandchildren? And would she be the hero or villain of the story, or just a monster used to frighten toddlers into good behaviour?

  Why had she been created? Was it truly to hunt down ghosts, to protect the human world, and to keep the witches’ world a secret, as she had been told?

  Was her entire existence a lie?

  A much younger Eli had thought herself a vigilante superhero, protecting the human citizens from the haunted echoes of witch blood, the sinister and sneaky souls who had crossed the forbidden boundary. Those creatures had used their last magic on a human-like glamour, hunting prey of flesh and blood to feed their existence and replenish their disguise.

  Now she was less sure.

  Tears filled her eyes and froze. Everything was black ice.

  Eli was going to die in this magic coffin.

  After what felt like hours, Eli heard a new sound, like metal being torn apart. Again, she tried to move, but her muscles were trapped. Through the ice, she saw a bright turquoise light, pulsing faintly. It reminded her of an iridescent jellyfish in the ocean.

  She smelled saltwater and knew that Kite had come for her.

  Eli had never seen Kite’s true form. Witches were pure magic pushed into bodies to meet the demands of the world they were in. Eli had long suspected the world they now occupied wasn’t their original home — or was only one of many.

  Kite’s formless light was so beautiful that Eli wanted to cry. As Kite floated nearer, moving through the darkness, Eli saw tendrils of light reaching through the ice toward her. She realized she could shift slightly, that the solid block was melting. She reached out, her hand trembling, toward the essence that was her best friend.

  Suddenly, another smell blocked out the familiar seaside aroma of Kite’s skin. Burnt sugar. Cigarette. Lavender with an undertone of cinnamon. Kite’s essence recoiled and Eli’s hand froze reaching outward, grasping for something, anything.

  Another essence moved, stuttering and sparking through the darkness, a redorange flame like Mars moving through the galaxy —

  Circinae.

  With a shriek, the blue planet threw itself at the red. The two shapes danced and fought brilliantly, fiercely, folding over one another in an intricate pattern, leaving sunspots on Eli’s eyes until she couldn’t see the battle.

  Had they come to save her or to kill her? Had they come alone, or had the Coven sent them? Which one was the killer and which one the saviour?

  Circinae and Kite fought tirelessly over the suspended girl drifting out into the cosmos in a block of ice. They fought like gods, their magic sometimes shaping itself into great swords and spears only to collapse into the other body and re-form into its home sun.

  Eli didn’t know whom she wanted to win. Her mother was selfish and, like all witches, valued power and purpose over sentiment. But Kite, too, was growing into her destiny. Each had strong ties to the Coven. Each, in their own way, loved her.

  On the edge of the universe, the only two people Eli cared about hurled themselves at each other again and again.

  A crack of thunder shook Eli’s tomb as great arms of blue lightning split through the red mass. With a sigh of pain, the red faded, receding into the black. In an instant, Kite’s essence was back, cutting through the ice.

  Eli was free.

  A tendril of light reached out. Take my hand, said Kite’s voice — only deeper and richer, like the sound of a shell held to an ear. An ocean sighing over the mortal body.

  Eli saw again, in her mind’s eye, the glorious rust-orange planet going dark. She looked into Kite’s essence and saw nothing of her friend, only a magic core that glowed as bright as the Coven.

  She flinched away from the beating heart of raw power.

  In that moment, the dark behind Kite turned cloudy and red, like a sandstorm. It swept over Kite and Eli and turned everything to pink dust. Circinae’s voice filled her head — Finish what you started, daughter — and then the essence of her mother pushed Eli forcibly back into the human world.

  She hit the ground hard, cracking her head on the asphalt.

  The Vortex was closed. Only the stale taste of old magic in Eli’s mouth convinced her that what she had witnessed was real. She stood, wincing, and held a hand to the back of her head, where a cut was leaking sticky blood, smelling of iron and fear.

  Where was Kite? Had Circinae killed her?

  Eli didn’t know. But she was going to get answers.

  Thirteen

  This time, it was a mint-green minivan with a licence plate that read FXYLDY.

  “I thought you were trying to blend in.”

  “Minivans are the epitome of blending in. And I didn’t have a lot of notice.”

  “How did you know I was still here?” Eli hadn’t even tried to track him down. He had just appeared. Again.

  “Tracked you.”

  “How? Your tech doesn’t work with magic.”

  “It was magic,” he said. “I’m not an idiot.”

  Eli sighed and turned down the jazz. “I need your help.”

  “I knew it!” He flung one arm around her shoulders. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for someone. I just need a phone and a ride.”

  “Name?” He retrieved his arm and pulled out his phone. “I’m a Google master.”

  “No.”

  “You just said you wanted my help.”

  “You want to be an accomplice to murder? I’m not telling you anything. Give me the phone.”

  What if this mark was also a human? Why would the Coven want a human dead? For the first time in years, Eli was curious. And curious young women are dangerous — especially when heavily armed.

  “You make a good point.” He glanced sideways at her. “You don’t seem that happy about it yourself.”

  Eli slumped down in her seat. Rain had begun to fall, and the scratching of the windshield wipers was giving her a headache. Did Circinae know what was going on? Could she get her mother to tell her? Unlikely.

  “If I fail, do you turn me over to the Coven?”

  He kept his tone neutral. “You failed?”

  “No! I mean, not yet. I just wondered. Is it your job to make sure we don’t run?”

  Running? That had never been an option.

  Finish what you started, daughter.

  Cam was shaking his head. “No one would trust a human to go after a ghost assassin.”

  “But they gave you magic.”

  Cam didn’t say anything. Mournful trombone spilled out of the speakers.

  He drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “Do you trust me?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “If I show you something, will you promise not to kill anyone?”

  Eli held her hands up as if to say, See, unarmed?

  “You have knives all over your body.”

  “I won’t kill anyone I don’t have to.”

  “I’m guessing that’s the closest to a promise I’ll get.”

  “Yep.”

  “You want answers?” He turned the music back up and then had to shout over it. “You’ve come to the right guy!” FXYLDY took to the streets.

  “Where are we going?!”

  Cam grinned. “Headquarters! But first, my place. You need a shower — and you’re bleeding all over my minivan.”

  Eli had to admit she felt better with clean hair and dry clothes. She had showered with her knives within arm’s reach. She still didn’t trust Cam, although he hadn’t tried to kill her yet, and in her line of work, that was something.

  He made her feel like more than a weapon.

  “My roommate’s out for the
night,” he’d said. “No one’s going to bother us.”

  After she got dressed, she wrapped her hair up in a towel and explored the apartment. She’d never had the luxury of just looking at a human’s home; she was always on a mission. It was the attic of a house, with a slanted roof and a window ledge to sit on. Everything was covered in books: the ledge, the small table, the sofa, the floor. Stacks of books everywhere. Then there were the bookcases, which took up most of the space.

  “You really like cowboy erotica.”

  “You want to borrow? I’d recommend Studs in Spurs, one through seven. Number eight sucked.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  “You ready?”

  No. She wanted more time to understand how Cam lived, to impress in her memory an image of the two-bedroom apartment that meant freedom, to pick up these books and read openly without the fear of being caught. To choose how to spend her days …

  If she couldn’t trust in her purpose, then who was she? Was she even allowed to ask?

  “To meet your little gang of friends? Sure. But this time I get to drive.”

  Cam groaned.

  The rain was falling harder now, transforming streetlamps and neon signs into stars and comets. The windshield wipers scraped across the glass. Eli had a million questions, but she had learned when to stay silent. When to wait and to listen.

  Eli drove. Cam gave her directions.

  “We’re here. Pull over anywhere.”

  She stopped. Cam got out of the car. After a moment, Eli followed.

  They were standing outside The Sun.

  During the day, the sleepy café had been a hipster’s dream, with round windows and exposed brick, natural sunlight, and succulents dotting the windowsills. It was different at night. The brick was shiny and dark, like volcanic glass. The handle of the door and the shutters and rooftop were curved and wicked and sharp, like a toothy animal that might bite. It looked like a witch’s house.

  They approached the door. A chime sounded, and a mirror appeared in a rippling motion across the surface. Cam leaned in and breathed on the glass. The fog of his breath hung in the air for a moment, clouding the door. Then it swung open.

  “Deadly assassins first.” Cam winked and gestured for Eli to enter. Inside, the café looked the same, cute and cozy, sleepy and somehow intoxicating. Eli felt like she had been drinking. Her head was clouded, and her body felt relaxed. Her glamour unravelled like a long silk scarf and left her not-quite-human body visible to everyone in the room.