“My contact numbers are here.” She pointed to the top of one of the pages and handed me a card. “And this is my card. Same information. Smaller format. Call me anytime. I’m serious, Reason. Even if you need help at four in the morning, I want you to call me, okay?” Jennifer Ishii lost her smile again and stared at me as if…I wasn’t sure what. She seemed to pity me.
“I will,” I said, taking the papers from her. They felt slippery in my hands.
“And if you keep vomiting like that, you must see a doctor. Yes?”
I nodded.
“I think I’ve seen everything I need to see. You’ve been very helpful, Reason. I know how strange this must be for you.”
There are stranger things, I thought.
4
Pots and Pans
“So, is she putting you in a foster home?” Jay-Tee asked, which made Tom want to smack her. Couldn’t she see Reason was upset? He elbowed her instead.
“What?” Jay-Tee turned to glare at him. “She knows I’m joking, Tom!”
Tom didn’t know any such thing. Reason had been acting strange ever since she got back from the cemetery. She kept staring off into space like she could see stuff they couldn’t. It was creepy. He wasn’t surprised she was freaked: after all, that weird monster had done unspeakable things to her in the cemetery.
Well, okay, not exactly unspeakable. Tom could say what had happened: that Cansino ancestor-thing had made Reason pregnant using magic. He wasn’t sure he was capable of taking it in without his head exploding. What kind of baby was it going to be? If he were Reason, he’d have been doing a lot more than staring into space.
“I’m okay,” Reason said. “It wasn’t that bad. Jennifer Ishii seems okay. You know, for a social—”
“For someone whose job is to pry into other people’s lives,” Jay-Tee said. “She smiles too much.”
Tom couldn’t help agreeing. She’d definitely been trying too hard.
“She was being nice,” Reason said flatly, as if talking was just too exhausting. “You probably have to smile a lot in her job. Show that you don’t mean any harm. Something like that.”
Tom wondered if being pregnant was making her so tired. Was it extra tiring because there was a weirdo magic baby growing inside her? Or was it too early for it to have any effect? Even without the pregnancy thing, yesterday had been knackering. Reason could be worn out from fighting her grandfather, from all the magic she’d used, from all of it. He touched the bandage on his cheek. He knew he was still reeling.
“I guess,” Tom said. “As long as she doesn’t take you away.”
“She won’t.”
Tom wished he could be sure of that. He didn’t think they’d made a very good impression. “Do you wanna sit down?” he asked. “You look knackered.”
“Yeah,” Jay-Tee said. “Maybe you should lie down.”
“You know, I am kind of tired.”
They trooped up the stairs to Reason’s bedroom. She lay down on top of the covers and closed her eyes. Tom couldn’t help thinking how gorgeous she looked. She opened her eyes and he blushed.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes. No.” She let out a long breath. “I dunno, Tom. I’m confused, knackered, dizzy.”
“Me too,” Tom said. “Well, not dizzy, but I’m definitely confused. Did—” He closed his mouth.
“Did what?” Jay-Tee asked, sitting down on the end of the bed.
“Nothing,” Tom said, pulling up a chair and sitting down. He’d been going to ask if Reason knew that Esmeralda had stolen some of his magic. But he wasn’t sure it mattered anymore, plus it was selfish of him to be still thinking about that when there was a monster growing in Reason’s belly.
They’d spent all morning acting normal. Tom wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one to break the spell. At breakfast none of them’d mentioned anything that’d happened: not the weird old monster man making Reason pregnant; not the brand-new, souped-up, scary magic he’d given Reason, Esmeralda, and toad-face Jason Blake; not the fact that Jay-Tee had almost died. Jay-Tee was only alive now because Tom had given her some of his magic.
Tom could feel all the things they weren’t talking about hovering in the room around them. If he closed his eyes, he’d probably be able to see them as hexagons and trapezoids and rhombuses. Not that he was going to use his magic again. Not for another week.
In the past week he’d used more magic than ever before: he’d given some to Jay-Tee, then used even more losing his temper with Esmeralda, and he’d followed that up with helping her way too much in her fight against Jason Blake. How much magic had he gone through? Was he as close to dying as Jay-Tee? He didn’t feel any different. But he’d never used that much before. Tom had no idea how many days or weeks or possibly years he’d burned up.
And who knew what was going to happen to Reason? What did that new magic do to you exactly? Could she explode from magic overload? Another thought he didn’t want to think about.
Seemed like none of them wanted to be thinking about this stuff; they still weren’t talking about it. Reason was staring at the ceiling, Jay-Tee at her hands, and Tom at the two of them. “Do you want some water, Ree?” Tom asked at last.
“Yep,” Jay-Tee said. “Water: well-known cure for confusion.”
“I am thirsty.”
Tom gave Jay-Tee an I-told-you-so look and went into the bathroom to fill the glass. He handed it to Reason and she gave him a fraction of a smile.
“Do you need anything else?” he asked Reason. He wanted to do something.
“I could make you a sandwich,” Jay-Tee offered. “My specialty.”
Reason shook her head. “Nah, I’m okay. I think I just need to rest for a bit.”
“I can imagine,” Tom said. “It’s tiring just thinking about what happened.”
Jay-Tee let out a long sigh. “Yup.”
“Um, yeah,” Reason said. “I kind of meant on my own. Resting, I mean.”
“Oh, sure.” Tom jumped up, pushed the chair back. “Sorry,” Jay-Tee said, standing up. “We’re gone already.”
8
“She’ll fix things,” Jay-Tee told Tom in the kitchen. The two of them were cleaning up slowly, as if the previous week’s events were piled up so heavy on them they could barely move. It took Tom many attempts to get the butter, three different jams, and Vegemite into the fridge. He’d lost his ability to stack. Jay-Tee was just as slow loading the dishwasher.
“That doesn’t go in there,” he told her, channeling Esmeralda and resenting it. “No wooden things. No pots or pans and not the good knives either.” Esmeralda was a bit thing about her kitchen and everything in it. Why wasn’t she that way about her clothes? He thought again about how insanely messy her bedroom was. How could anyone care more about kitchen stuff than clothes? At his place they put everything in the dishwasher—but then, they didn’t have any “good” knives.
“Hand wash ’em, then?”
Tom nodded, though he couldn’t really see that it mattered. He could feel himself on the verge of a massive attack of the whatevers. Jay-Tee put the plug in the sink and turned on the hot water. She squirted dishwashing liquid in. The sink filled with bubbles.
“You want gloves?”
“Gloves?”
“You know, ’cause the water’s so hot.”
“Er, okay.”
Tom bent down and opened the doors under the sink. Why had Esmeralda lied to him? Why had she taken his magic without asking?
“Wow,” Jay-Tee said. “It’s even tidy under the sink.”
“Rita,” Tom said. “She’s Esmeralda’s cleaner.”
He handed her the gloves. She put them on and started to wash one of the good knives. Tom grabbed a tea towel, ready to wipe. Good knives had to be dried straight away. Stupid good knives.
“Reason’s going to find the fix,” Jay-Tee said again.
“The fix?” Tom asked, wondering what was up with Jay-Tee. She hadn’t even protested when he said they should
clean up. Very un-Jay-Tee.
Jay-Tee stared at Tom like he was bonkers. “To this! Reason’ll find a way to stop us from going mad. Stop us dying young.”
“She what?”
Jay-Tee nodded, looking absolutely certain. “He dreamed about it.” Her voice sounded strange. Oddly tight.
“Who dreamed about it?”
“You know. Him.” She waved a hand, splashing water and suds around. “In New York City.”
“Your brother?”
“No! Reason’s grandfather.”
“Oh, sorry. Jason Blake. What did he dream about?”
Jay-Tee groaned. “He dreamed about Reason finding the fix for magic, for what it does to us.”
“Okay,” Tom said, pretending Jay-Tee was making sense. “That’d be grouse.”
“I’m not using my magic again till then,” Jay-Tee said, her voice rising. She handed Tom the knife to dry, her hands trembling, and started work on the frying pan. “I put my magic objects away. I’m not wearing my mama’s leather bracelet anymore.”
“Are you—”
“I’ll probably go nuts in the meantime, but Reason’ll bring me back. I’m not going to die young. I’m not.”
“Okay,” Tom said. “If that’s—”
Jay-Tee burst into tears.
For the first time, that phrase made sense to Tom. A shuddering, torn sound burst from Jay-Tee’s chest, as if the tears were being ripped from her body. She shook with it. Water ran down her face, soaking into her (Esmeralda’s, actually) T-shirt.
Jay-Tee slid to the floor, leaning against the kitchen counter, washing-up gloves still on, soapy frying pan still in her hands. She pulled her knees up to her chest, so the pan was caught between chest and thighs, and continued howling.
Tom stared at Jay-Tee, tea towel in one hand, good knife in the other, with no idea what to do. He hadn’t realised Jay-Tee was capable of crying. She always seemed so…so not cry-ey. He should do something.
Jay-Tee howled louder, tears and snot mixing as they poured over her chin. Tom put the knife and tea towel down, grabbed a tissue, and started to hand it to her, but she still had wet rubber gloves on; instead, he wiped at her face with it. Within seconds it was soggy. He slid the pan out of her grasp and put it back in the soapy water, then grabbed more tissues and mopped at her face and chin, being careful not to press too hard on her bruise. She didn’t stop shaking or howling.
“It’s going to be okay,” he told her, even though it was a spectacularly lame thing to say. Things were not going to be okay. Jay-Tee would go crazy and join his and Reason’s mums in Kalder Park. If they’d even admit her, what with her being American and everything. Once they found out she wasn’t Australian, she’d wind up in a detention centre as an illegal immigrant, and then she’d use magic to try and escape, and she’d die.
Now he felt like crying.
He wiped at Jay-Tee’s tears some more, avoiding the red, blue, green, and purple monster bruise on her cheek, wondering if he should get another box of tissues. He patted her knee, told her not to cry, and several other lameries in as soothing a voice as he could manage.
Jay-Tee’s tears began to slow, as if she were a balloon with a tiny hole letting all the air out. He patted her shoulder, slid his arm behind her back. She let her head rest on his shoulder. She sighed and then hiccupped.
“Sorry,” Jay-Tee said, then hiccupped again. Tears were still leaking out. Tom could feel his shoulder getting wet, but at least she wasn’t shaking anymore.
“No worries,” he told her. “It sucks.”
She nodded against his shoulder. “Does. Big time.”
Tom brought his hand up to stroke her hair. “No point not crying, really.”
Jay-Tee made an odd sound. It took Tom a few seconds to realise she was giggling.
“Yup,” she said, sitting up and wiping her eyes. “Nothing left to do but weep and wail and give our lives up to God. Time to join a convent.”
“Speak for yourself!”
Jay-Tee laughed again. “Or a monastery.”
“Again, speak for yourself! I’m not religious.”
“You’re not?” Jay-Tee seemed amazed.
“Course not. Don’t believe in God.”
“You don’t? How could you not? I mean, you’re magic! Of all people, you know God is real.”
“Excuse me?” It was Tom’s turn to be amazed. “How do you make that out?”
“Magic,” Jay-Tee said. “You know it’s true. Everything in the Bible: water into wine, the fishes and loaves, raising the dead. You know it’s all possible. More than possible.”
“Raising the dead?”
Jay-Tee nodded. “My daddy told me about it. It can be done. It’s just not a very good idea. He wanted to bring my mom back—”
“Ewww.”
“Yeah. But not when the son of God does it. That’s different.”
“You’re saying Jesus was a magic-wielder like us? You’re saying I’m just like Jesus? Isn’t that kind of blasphemous, given that he was the son of God and everything?”
Jay-Tee crossed herself. “Of course not! Jesus wasn’t just some magic-wielder! His miracles were a whole other thing. I’m saying that we’ve seen—hell, we’ve done—things that most people would think were miracles. We know miracles are real. We know water into wine can totally be done, so why is it a stretch for you to believe that Jesus did all the things he did? Why don’t you think there’s a God?”
Tom opened his mouth, closed it again. She had a point. A really good point. His dad was an atheist, and his sister. As far as he knew, his mum was too. Though seeing as how she was insane, her opinions on the subject might’ve shifted. He couldn’t imagine his dad marrying someone who wasn’t an atheist. Da was as likely to marry someone who voted for the Libs.
The idea of there being a God had always seemed lame to Tom—fairytales. Why did people need some supernatural bloke in the sky to believe in? Wasn’t the world cool and complicated and amazing on its own? It had never occurred to him that there might really be a God, yet he had accepted magic immediately.
Well, of course he had—it was there—in his bones. He had evidence—bloody hell, he was evidence. What was the evidence for God? Why did magic existing mean that God did? He tried to think about it the way Jay-Tee did. All right, then: who’d made the magic in the first place? But wasn’t that the same question as who made life? Couldn’t magic have evolved in the same way as life? Little by little, over millions of years?
But Jesus being a magic-wielder, and Mohammed, and Buddha, maybe even L. Ron Hubbard—now that explained a lot.
Jay-Tee laughed. “You should see your face! You never thought of that before, did you?”
Tom shook his head slowly. The set of thoughts Jay-Tee had opened up were cascading through his mind. He felt dizzy.
Jay-Tee stroked his cheek just below his bandage. “It’s not that bad, honest.” Then she gave him a quick kiss on the lips. Tom was sure she didn’t mean anything by it. Her lips were only against his for a fraction of a second, but he could still feel them there. He’d caught a whiff of her breath. It smelled good. He blushed.
She stood up. “Really, Tom. You should find it comforting. There being a God? That’s a good thing.”
Tom nodded, but he wasn’t thinking about God.
5
Feeling That Way
Jay-Tee wasn’t thinking about God either. She was wondering why she hadn’t kissed Tom properly.
She’d given up magic, which meant that she couldn’t run anymore—not the way she wanted to. Worse, it meant dancing was out of the question. She wasn’t sure she could live without dancing. No more unraveling into the dance maelstrom, no more being consumed by the beat pulsing through her body, no more drawing energy from the crowd. Thinking about it made her want to cry. And she’d already done enough of that. What did Tom think of her now he’d seen her bawling like a baby?
Okay, so she wasn’t going to be able to dance or run decently unt
il Reason found the fix. At least there was one thing she could do just fine with or without magic: hooking up.
She liked Tom. He could be annoying—very annoying—but he’d grown on her, and even though he was pale and skinny, he was nice looking. She liked his gold eyebrows and his blue eyes. She even liked his freckles. They were almost as gold as his eyebrows. He smelled good. He had a gorgeous smile. His hands through her hair had made her shiver. Plus, well, it wasn’t like there was anyone else. Tom was a good person, and not in a gooey way. He’d saved her life!
Jay-Tee trusted him.
Tom stood up and looked at her oddly. She bet he was still freaked by God existing. His face had looked like something else, which was another reason she’d kissed him. He looked so cute when he was confused, his eyebrows pulled together, his forehead scrunched up, and his nose kind of wrinkled. She contemplated kissing him again, but with more oomph.
It’d’ve been a lot easier if he’d kissed her back, but he hadn’t. Not even a little bit. She sighed. Maybe later, when he wasn’t so God-bothered. Or maybe never. She kind of suspected he was into Reason, not her. What a waste. Reason definitely wasn’t into him at all, or anyone else for that matter. She was a very young fifteen, which made it so weird that Reason had wound up pregnant. But then, she hadn’t exactly gotten that way normally. Jay-Tee’s skin tightened at the thought of Raul Cansino putting his skinny hands into Reason’s belly.
Tom’s cell rang. He looked at his pocket, his forehead wrinkling even more, as if he was trying to figure out what the sound could possibly be.
“Your phone,” Jay-Tee said, trying not to laugh.
“Oh.” He blushed and dug it out. “Hello? Oh, hi, Cathy. Sure. Can you hold a sec?” He turned to Jay-Tee. “It’s my sister. I really have to talk to her. I’ll come back straight after, okay?”
Jay-Tee nodded. “No worries,” she said in her best imitation Tom Australian accent. He didn’t notice her mockage, just gave her a quick wave and disappeared down the hall.
She looked at the frying pan in the sink. But without Tom policing her, no way was she going to do any more washing up. She sat down again, all energy gone. The old man’s magic had wrecked her pretty bad. She still ached from it, was still exhausted. If only she could go dancing, then she could absorb the crowd’s magic. The net gain was tiny, but it was the only magic thing she did where she didn’t lose magic. But she didn’t have enough left even to get started. It’d kill her.
Magic's Child Page 3