The Flower Bowl Spell

by Olivia Boler

  “The womb is the uterus,” Tyson says, his voice deadpan. “Womb is a polite word for uterus. It’s poetic.”

  “You think you’re so superior, just because you write your own damn songs,” Cheradon says, almost spitting. “You should be on your knees thanking me every single goddamn minute of your life. If we hadn’t picked you to be my boyfriend, you’d still be a useless nobody.”

  “Thank you, Cheradon.” Tyson’s lifeless tone sends a chill through me that tightens my skin. At the same time, something drops inside my chest—a sadness that makes me want to shake him until his head wobbles on his neck.

  “Better,” Cheradon says, and I can see by their shadows what they are doing. Her hand is patting his head like a dog’s.

  Now that they’ve settled that it’s my feet and female parts they need, I wait to see what they’ll do next. I have to admit, I am rather attached—in more ways than the obvious—to my uterus. In fact, I hope to put it to its proper good use someday. I want to be a mother. And I am not ready to die.

  Someone walks by me and nudges me carelessly with his or her foot, and while I know that the steel-toed boot is going to leave a bruise on my upper arm, I take the opportunity to check on Xien—still working that lock—and then turn back for another look at my captors’ progress.

  There’s a lot of prep work going on. Tyson, Babs, and the twin (I decide it’s Horatio; he was slightly beefier) are setting out their magickal instruments like line cooks putting out their mise en place. The elephant tusk is lying on the ground nearby. It must be the one that was stolen from the Emperor of Ceylon in Chinatown. Front and center I see two tiny, intricately embroidered silken shoes that look like they would fit a baby. These are the bound-feet shoes. According to what I’ve read in Tucker’s notebook, it’s not the shoes themselves that are important but the essence of what has gone missing because of the shoes—the true length of a woman’s feet. Hideously reduced yet rendered delicate, like a flower. So a paradoxical symbol of both her real disempowerment over her own fate, and her sexual empowerment over a man. No wonder they want my feet and womb.

  There are several bowls and vials, and a black velvet altar cloth—variations of my own magickal gadgets. It’s the surgical scalpel with a forked tip like a snake’s tongue that catches my breath.

  “I thought you needed a fetus to complete the spell,” I say, keeping it conversational.

  “We’ve been told a powerful witch would be the better choice,” D.B. mumbles. I’m surprised that he’s so forthcoming. Then again, in his eyes, I’m a talking piece of meat.

  “Who told you that?”

  “My grandmother,” Cheradon volunteers. “Who else?”

  “Gru.”

  “Yeah, Gru.”

  “Goddamn it!” Isaac, who has been arranging this and that in the center of the circle, turns with ferocity on her. “I told you not to say her name out loud.”

  “Sorry.” Cheradon hunches up her shoulders. “She said it first.”

  “She is not you. Is she?”

  “No.”

  “Just keep it buttoned. Got it?”

  There’s a soft release against my wrists and my arms almost spring apart as Xien succeeds at his task, but I hold them together, feigning bondage. He flies away, disappearing. I try not to get too excited about this. I still have to figure a way out.

  “And Gru suggested me?” I ask.

  “If it makes you feel special,” D.B. says, his shirt shimmering in the firelight.

  Actually, it does. But I can’t believe it. Maybe Gru told them I could help them somehow. But to make me an ingredient in a spell? This must be a mistake.

  “Of course, with your little entourage we haven’t been able to get close enough to nab you,” Cheradon says, forgetting Isaac’s directive to keep it buttoned.

  My entourage? I glance around for Xien, but all I find are the glow of animal eyes and Cooper’s slumped figure. D.B. notices the direction of my gaze and looks around too.

  “Who’s there? Who have you got hidden?”

  Before I can answer, Xien is at his face, sword drawn. He attacks D.B. straight on, stabbing him in the inner corner of one eye. D.B. cups his hand over it, but not before blood spurts out in a slender arc.

  I scramble up from my stomach. The closest person to me is Cheradon, and I put my shoulder down like a linebacker into her stomach. There’s a shock in my thoughts as I touch her, much like when I touched her in Santa Barbara. This one is accompanied by a vision: A younger Cheryl, maybe seventeen or eighteen, is crying. Her clothes and hair are disheveled, her cheeks plumped up by youth. Shadowy figures retreat from her, and I have to wonder if they are the ones who have made her cry. This is a life-defining moment for her, the day her father found her.

  I snap back to the present. Cheradon, taken by surprise by my attack, stumbles back but doesn’t fall, and I sort of bounce off her body. We look at each other for a moment, almost like old friends about to hug before a long separation. And then she’s on me. I meet her head on, whispering a jinx that’s immediately crammed down my throat. I look around, and Isaac is staring at me, his teeth clenched ferociously.

  In general, magick is awesome for the long job, if you have the luxury of, you know, time and quiet, meditation, and no enemies breathing immediately down your neck. On those other occasions, things like sharp nails, a good attitude about biting wounds, and an armed fairy go a long way.

  “Xien!” I can’t invoke but I can converse. Apparently, there are limits to Isaac’s hold over me. “Xien!” The fairy is still on the attack. D.B.’s forehead and ears are stained in thin rivulets of blood. Xien stops to look at me. “That dude.” I point to Isaac. “Please.” He sheathes his sword and flies toward his mark, drawing out two quivers and his bow. With one shot, they fly into Isaac’s eyes. He grabs at his face and screams while Xien reloads.

  Cheradon turns at the sound of her father’s cries. “Papa!”

  As Xien lets fly more arrows, Isaac falls to the ground, clearly in a bind of agony.

  Oblivious to all this violence, Babs, Horatio, and Tyson continue with their preparations as if the mayhem around them isn’t happening. I only have a second to marvel at this because Cheradon has decided to take hold of my hair and pull. I find this disappointing. Hair-pulling? Really? She’s not having much luck—my locks are short and I added a little gel this morning—but I’m able to do some damage to hers, grabbing at a thick peacock-hued hunk and yanking with all my might. It comes off in my hand, and I feel sorry for her, but not enough to spare her from a headlock and neck squeeze (thanks again, college self-defense class).

  She passes out, and I drop her to the ground.

  Xien flies to her face and points at her nose. Actually, it’s her nose ring, that tiny diamond you almost can’t see. In an instant, I understand—it’s controlling the glamour. I pinch it out. A sigh escapes, not from Cheradon, but all around her. She seems to sink deeper into the ground. Her hair and skin grow duller, but they also look healthier, if that’s possible. I slip the diamond in my pocket and start to stand just as Xien is plucked from my side. I look up into Tyson’s shaded eyes and then at his hand, which holds my fairy by his delicate wings.

  “You can see him?” I ask.

  “What does it look like?”

  “But how?”

  He taps the side of his sunglasses. “Upgrade.”

  “Tyson.” I stand up just a couple of feet away from him and hold out my hands. “Please don’t make me hurt you.” I don’t ask him not to hurt Xien. It always seems stupid to me when victims beg for something like that in books and movies, because then the tormentors know exactly how best to torment.

  “You can’t hurt me anymore, Memphis,” Tyson says, and I see images of Alice swirling all around him.

  Cooper is still lying on the ground, forgotten by all for the moment. I have to keep it that way, to make sure they focus on the task at hand—the spell and me. Behind him, Babs arranges the tiny embroidered shoes. The
random thought that Cleo would love to play with them enters my mind, and I’m glad she is not here, that she and Romola are safe.

  And it hits me that these guys never wanted the girls. It was always me. If only Viveka hadn’t left them with me, her girls wouldn’t have been in danger at all.

  Still, the sudden need to make sure the girls truly are safe overwhelms me. I have to distract Tyson. I look at Xien, whose eyes register his fear even as he slyly reaches for his sword.

  “So you do blame me,” I say to Tyson.

  “You? For what?”

  “For Alice.”

  “My sister?” He shakes the fairy in his hands. Xien cringes, and I try to keep my face blank, my breathing even. “Yeah, I do. You were supposed to protect her.”

  “No. I wasn’t, Tyson. It’s true that I tried to protect her. But it wasn’t my fault.” As I say it I realize the truth of this: Alice did not die because my magick backfired. “Whatever happened to her was out of my hands. I don’t know why it happened, or why anything awful happens to anyone. I don’t know why you and these idiots are doing what you’re doing. Why are you doing this?”

  He shrugs. “I love Cheradon.”

  Just as he utters these stilted words, Xien tosses me his tiny sword the size of a toothpick, which sails quickly over the two feet separating us. I know my puckish pal favors the eyes as raptors do, but Tyson is Alice’s brother and a damn fine kisser, and I simply can’t do it. And even if I were so inclined, he’s still wearing those friggin’ glasses. I raise my hand and stab the delicate skin on the inside of his wrist. The small blade sinks in like a hot knife in butter until I hit resistance—a tendon? Bone? Tyson’s hand opens, releasing Xien, who flies away. Tyson clutches at his forearm and I take the opportunity to reach over and snatch the glasses from his face and twist them into a ball.

  I enter the circle where Horatio and Babs, having completed their preparation, stand like zombies. With one kick I clear their altar, and then throw the glasses on it and stomp on them several times until they break into pieces. The giant elephant tusk sits on the ground, curved like an ivory rainbow. I tuck the foot-binding shoes into my waistband before scooping up the altar cloth and all that lies on it and tossing the whole thing into the fire.

  Tyson sinks to the ground. His head sags, and I wonder if he’s passed out.

  Cooper groans and I go to him. It is blood on the ground. “It’s going to be okay,” I say, and start to probe his head for wounds. I find two classic bloodletting points, one below each ear. There’s also a giant welt at the back of his head, probably from when they took him out. His wrists also have wounds.

  I look for my bag—maybe there are some herbs for a good old-fashioned poultice. It’s heaped on the ground at the edge of the magickal circle. Around us, Isaac, Cheradon, and D.B. lie like passed-out ravers. Although I suppose they’re more like fallen soldiers, fighting a stupid war. I stand up to get the bag and hear someone moaning. It’s Tyson. I put my hands on his head and for the moment the urgent need to retrieve my bag and help Cooper slips away. Instead, I whisper words of reversal and healing. “Bring him light, surround him in light, protect him in light, sheath him in light. Lift the darkness, banish the darkness, release the darkness, bind the darkness. Peace. Peace. Peace.”

  Tyson lifts his face to mine. He looks confused and lost and embarrassed. But he also looks glad to see me. I’m kneeling, my hands still on his head, and he reaches up to encircle my wrists with his fingers, and kisses me on the mouth. We part and smile at each other.

  I pull Xien’s sword from his wrist, and just as I’m about to steal another kiss, never mind my wounded boyfriend lying a few yards away, a tremendous pain stabs me in the tendons of my shoulder. I look up and a bloodied Isaac is standing by my side pinching me with his long, elegant fingers. A Vulcan pinch? A Jet Li acupressure squeeze? Just great, I think through the pain, as Isaac coughs, a long, sickly sound that goes on and on and on, so long that I almost fight off the agony to ask if he’s all right.

  “Good work, Ty,” he says once the hacking fit is pretty much over. “You got her.” He blinks, tears of blood running down his cheeks, but clearly he is not blinded. With one swift move, he pulls another forked scalpel from a bright leather sheath in his pocket, knocks me over, and pulls up my skirt. The foot-binding shoes tumble out. He starts to yank at my underwear, but doesn’t pull it off. He presses the knife a couple of inches below my belly button and a line of blood springs up. I turn my face to Tyson, who looks paralyzed by what is happening. A tiny arrow pierces the skin of Isaac’s hand, but he doesn’t stop, even as Xien attacks him with his sword.

  “Stop it.”

  We all look around, wondering who has spoken. It’s a high, sweet voice, like a child’s. And then I see that it is a child. Cleo, in fact, and she’s walking across the darkened grounds of the park flanked—yes, flanked—by Auntie Tess and Romola. Surrounding them like a glorious cloud is a multitude of fairies—the ones from Tucker’s fairy aviary. They hold swords, bows and arrows, daggers, and even dart shooters. Two or three brandish the tiniest six-shooter guns I’ve ever seen, their cowboy hats sitting back gallant and cool on their heads.

  All together, they look very much like an entourage. Actually, more like an army. My army or Cleo’s, it’s hard to say.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Man oh man. I must admit, I wish I had even just one thimbleful of the mojo Cleo possesses at the tender age of three-point-five. Because as soon as Isaac sees her, he stops slicing me. Wow, I think. She did it.

  Then he starts cutting again. The pain is beyond the worst pain I’ve ever felt, which was a tooth extraction when my dose of Novocain wore off and my herbal tea potion did too. This pain is way past that. I see the blood spilling over my skin and imagine a shimmer of flesh and fat separating from each other.

  Cleo stares at Isaac. I think she is going to cry, her eyes bright with unshed tears. She opens her mouth, to weep, I’m sure, and I wish Tess would take her away so she wouldn’t have to see this. Romola has already hidden her face in my auntie’s side, the way I did when I was her age and something scared me.

  “Stop it,” Cleo says again. Isaac looks at her. “Please.”

  “Or what, little girl?”

  “Or you will get dead.”

  Isaac sits back on his haunches as if considering this. We all wait, wondering what he will decide.

  After a moment he says, “I was told to fear you. But you are unworthy of my fear. You are even unworthy of my notice.”

  Cleo breathes fiercely through her nose, which would be adorable if her glare wasn’t so menacing. “I said please,” she says.

  Isaac almost smiles. “Enough.” He turns back to me.

  “How cheerfully he seems to grin,” Cleo says. “How neatly spread his claws.”

  Where have I heard this before?

  “And welcomes little fishes in—”

  Oh yes.

  “With gently smiling jaws!”

  Just as the words Alice in Wonderland flash in my mind, a rumbling shakes the ground beneath us. Something reddish and furry streaks over my head, and Isaac is gone from my side. I turn and see that a coyote has tackled him to the ground, its teeth bared. Isaac doesn’t scream, even as an owl swoops down from a tree and pecks at his eyes. The fairies join in, and they aren’t shy about using whatever weapons they’ve brought. Now Isaac howls as his arms, back, and legs are pierced with tiny yet effective darts and bullets and arrows. But it’s not until the gophers emerge from their holes, biting his cheeks and neck, that he begs Cleo to make them stop.

  Cleo stands over him as the animals continue their attack. “I don’t like you.” She looks like the youngest zookeeper in the world. “London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome.” With these nonsensical Lewis Carroll words, the animals back off but still hover over their prey. The fairies though, are apparently not under Cleo’s magickal jurisdiction, and continue to attack until Xien flies in and seems to
convince them to let it go.

  Tess is by my side, removing a handkerchief from her pocket and pressing it to my wound.

  “It’s not deep,” I say in response to her unasked question. “What are you doing here?”

  “They woke up.” She says it almost as if I have chastised her for having the kids out so late at night.

  “It’s okay, Auntie.” I mean my wound and—well, everything else. “Please check on Cooper. His head and wrists.”

  She goes to him, doing a quick examination. She zips open her pack and takes out a bunch of homeopathic vials and tubes. “I had a feeling I’d need my first aid kit.”

  I take a moment to catch my breath before getting to my feet. I clamp the handcuffs on Isaac who remains under the guard of fauna and fay. He won’t look me in the eye. He mutters, but whatever power he had over me has vanished.

  Cooper groans and I sit next to him, cradling his head in my lap as Auntie Tess slathers on an ointment that smells like pot roast.

  “What happened with the girls?” I ask her.

  “Cleo asked for a drink of water and she saw those bones you left in the kitchen. It’s like they triggered something in her. She said she needed to get to you, that you were in danger.” Tess fixes her gaze on Isaac, surrounded by a menagerie of coyotes, owls, hawks, and gophers. There are even a few raccoons. “You know, it turns out she’s been protecting you. Not the other way around.”

  I glance at Cleo, who is sitting on the ground with Romola. They are both petting a fox: Romola with a look of amazed delight on her face; Cleo like it’s no big deal.

  “She told you this.”

  “She said you needed her, that you’d get hurt without her. It’s like she finally figured out how to say it.” Auntie Tess points to Isaac. “Do you think she could really kill him?”

  I think about how just about every bad thing that’s happened since this all started took place when Cleo wasn’t there. How D.B. backed away from her at the concert and Isaac attacked me at the housing project. How Tyson wanted me to abandon the girls and how Cleo didn’t want to leave my side. “Hell to the yeah,” I say.