by Devon Monk
Cody smiled. He liked it when the older, smarter part of him talked because he was always right. The man was a snake inside. Snake man. Snake man. Snake man. Cody sang it inside his head and he was so happy, he sang it with his mouth too.
‘‘Snake man, Snake man, bake a cake man.’’
But that was a bad idea because the Snake man heard him. And the Snake man moved.
Cody rocked harder, faster. He rocked even though it made his back hurt and he hit his head on the wall behind him and he had to breathe with his mouth open. He rocked faster so he could get away. Get away from the Snake man who was walking now, walking toward him, walking with soft, slow steps, bending down so he could see all the way into his eyes, so close, the Snake man could bite him. The Snake man was angry. But Cody had been really good. He hadn’t told anyone about the Snake man. He had kept all the secrets.
The Snake man reached out and put his hand on Cody’s shoulder. His fingers squeezed.
Cody didn’t want to stop rocking. He liked the heat, he liked the wind. He didn’t want to stop and have to just be here, in the room that didn’t have a sky. But the Snake man’s hand made him stop rocking. It made him stop breathing hard. It made him stop everything.
Don’t look, the older, smarter part of him said.
But Cody had to look. The Snake man made him look, all the way into his snake eyes. All the way into the twisting, burning magic under his skin. And he could not look away.
‘‘Hello, Cody. Do you remember me?’’
Cody did remember him. He remembered everything about him. He nodded.
‘‘Good.’’ The Snake man smiled, but only on his outside. On his inside he twisted and burned.
‘‘You did such a good job keeping our secret. Now I have a surprise for you.’’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a very small, gray kitten.
‘‘Oh,’’ Cody said, happy now, happier than he ever had been his whole life. He unlocked his hands from around his knees.
Don’t, said the older, smarter part of him.
‘‘Go ahead,’’ Snake man said. ‘‘She’s yours. A friend.’’ Snake man held the kitten out a little more and Cody touched the soft gray fur on her head.
The kitten mewed and Cody pulled away.
The Snake man’s voice got silky. ‘‘See how happy she is to meet you? She said hello. You are going to be best friends.’’
‘‘Friends?’’ Cody asked. He remembered his friends back home, and he missed them. Missed them maybe more than the sun. Yes, more than the sun.
‘‘Of course she’s your friend. Your new friend. Your best friend. Do you want to hold her?’’
No, said the older, smarter part of him. No. Rock. Just rock.
But Cody did want to hold her. He wanted very much to hold her. He wanted to hold her more than he wanted to rock.
He nodded. ‘‘Good boy,’’ the Snake man said. And then he put the kitten in Cody’s hands. The kitten mewed again.
Cody smiled and drew the kitten close to his chest. He bent his head over her to keep her warm and to keep her safe. ‘‘Hello,’’ Cody said. ‘‘Hello.’’ The kitten’s fur was softer than the bunny they had for a little while at the home. It made him happy to have a friend again.
‘‘You did a good job keeping our secret, Cody,’’ the Snake man said. ‘‘I’m proud of you. And because you’ve been so good I’m going to let you keep the kitten.’’
Cody smiled up at the Snake man. Maybe not all snakes were bad. Maybe Snake man wasn’t bad. ‘‘Mine. Mine now?’’ he asked, just to make sure.
‘‘Yes, she is yours,’’ Snake man said. ‘‘But first you need to do one more thing for me. Can you do one more thing for me, Cody?’’
Say no, Say no.
‘‘No,’’ he said.
Snake man looked surprised. ‘‘Oh, that’s too bad. Then I have to take her away.’’
Cody tried to hold on to the kitten, but the Snake man was fast. He snatched up the kitten and took her away.
‘‘No!’’ he cried.
The Snake man stood. He was tall, and powerful, and angry. He held the kitten out by the back of her neck. Kitten twisted and mewed and shook. ‘‘That was a bad answer, Cody,’’ Snake man said. ‘‘You’ve done a very bad thing. And since you don’t want a friend, I’ll have to kill her now.’’
The Snake man put both hands around the kitten, one all the way over her head. He twisted his hands.
‘‘No!’’ Cody jumped up and grabbed for Kitten. He was almost as tall as Snake man, but Snake man was faster. Much faster. He pulled the kitten out of Cody’s reach.
‘‘If you want Kitten to live, you must do magic for me. You must pretend to be someone else again.’’
No, no, no, no!
The kitten gave out one small mew, muffled by the Snake man’s hand.
‘‘Please,’’ Cody said. ‘‘Don’t hurt her. Please?’’
‘‘Do magic for me.’’
No!
Somewhere inside the Snake man’s hands, the kitten mewed, but she did not move. She wasn’t fighting anymore. She was doing what Snake man wanted her to do.
‘‘You can have a friend, Cody. She’s right here. All you have to do is say yes.’’
No!
‘‘Yes,’’ Cody whispered.
‘‘Good, Cody, good,’’ Snake man said. ‘‘I’m proud of you. You did a good thing.’’ He took his hand off the kitten’s head, but still held her tightly in one fist. Kitten shook her head and sneezed, and Cody might have laughed about that, but he was too sad. He knew Snake man wanted him to do a bad thing. He knew it would be another secret he had to keep. He didn’t want to keep any more secrets. He didn’t want to be bad again.
‘‘Now, I’m going to hold the kitten so you can use both your hands, okay?’’ Snake man said.
Cody nodded. What else could he do? He didn’t want his friend to die.
‘‘Good.’’ Snake man walked over to the door. There was a chair in the corner, and on that chair was a little box that could fit in Cody’s pocket. The box was made out of black metal and glass and had so many loops of wire wrapped around it, it looked like a square of spaghetti.
Snake man pushed the chair with the little box on the seat over to Cody.
‘‘Remember this little box, Cody? It is very rare. The only one of its kind in the world. Do you like it?’’
Cody liked the little box. He knew it was full of magic. But that was part of what made it bad. Cody was not supposed to touch magic. Not back at the home, not in the park, not anywhere. Usually, he didn’t mind. Sometimes his guardians would do little things with magic, like help a seed sprout, make the lightbulbs turn a pretty color, or snap their fingers and make a spark. But Cody only did bad things with magic, which was why he couldn’t touch it anymore. That was okay, because magic made his head itch on the inside.
But this box was special. The magic inside of it was easy to touch and easy to use. The Snake man said it was a very rare box, and the wires around it were rare too. Cody thought rare meant good. He secretly loved the box because the last time he touched the magic inside of it, he didn’t feel tired, and his head didn’t itch.
‘‘Now,’’ Snake man said. ‘‘You and I are going to play again. I am going to make a picture of a man, and he is a bad man. You are going to be strong and brave. You are going to make the bad man fall down.’’
‘‘Like the bad little boy?’’
‘‘Just like the bad little boy. This time you are going to pretend to be a girl when you make the bad man fall down.’’ The Snake man held out a picture of a lady with short dark hair and pretty green-colored eyes. She was wearing a dress and standing next to a man who was a little bit taller than her, and older than her, but looked a lot like her. He was wearing a dark suit and tie and wasn’t smiling.
‘‘Okay,’’ Cody said, even though he didn’t want to be a girl.
‘‘Can you see what her magic is?’’ Snake m
an asked.
Cody took the picture and held it in both his hands. He looked at it for a really long time. It was hard to see the magic inside of people in pictures. It was much easier to see the magic inside of people when he was close to them. But Cody could do it. He had done it before. It was just hard.
He looked at the smiling girl for a long time. Looked at her until her outside went away and all that was left was her inside.
‘‘Oh,’’ he said. ‘‘Pretty.’’
‘‘Good,’’ Snake man said. ‘‘Can you pretend to be just like her?’’
Cody nodded. ‘‘Easy, easy. Like me.’’
The Snake man made a surprised sound. ‘‘Are you sure? Look at her again, Cody. Make sure you can do this just right.’’
Cody looked up at Snake man. He knew he could be just like the girl because she was like him. Not on the outside, but on the inside, where the magic was. ‘‘I can do it,’’ Cody said.
The Snake man smiled. ‘‘That’s good. I’m counting on you to do your best. Kitten is too.’’ Snake man reached down and pulled the lid off the little box.
Cody smiled. He could really feel the magic now. It made him think of water, clean and cool and wet; it made him think of sunshine, and he missed sunshine. He wanted to touch the magic.
No, the older, smarter part of him said. It is wrong. Don’t do this for him.
‘‘Do it for Kitten,’’ Cody said out loud.
‘‘That’s right,’’ Snake man said, even though Cody hadn’t been talking to him. ‘‘Do this so Kitten can be your friend.’’
Cody licked his lips and looked at Kitten in the Snake man’s hand. He could do this. It was right to help a friend.
He dropped the picture of the lady on the floor and sat down in front of the chair. He reached out and dipped his fingers into the box. His fingertips brushed across three cool metal circles that felt like big coins. It wasn’t the box that held the magic, it was the coins.
But oh, the magic was wonderful. It was cool and soft and thicker than water. It filled him up, and he liked it. The older, smarter part of him reached out for him, and he reached back and he could see all the wonderfulness of the magic in his hand and had all the words he needed to describe it. He could make the magic do anything he wanted it to do.
‘‘Remember the girl, Cody. Make the magic look like her magic,’’ the Snake man said.
Cody could do that. He could pretend he was the girl. It would be easy. He breathed in the magic, and memories of his life before this place came back to him. Yes, he was good with magic. He was very good. He was an artist—a Hand. He had infused art with magic and he had made a lot of money. But he had lost a lot of money and gone in debt with the wrong people.
To pay back those debts, he had forged magical signatures on Offloads for them. Untraceable signatures. He was so good at it that he started making money. A lot more money than he’d ever made off his art.
And he had made the wrong people angry.
But right now those memories were inconsequential compared to the rush of having magic, of using magic, of finally being able to create with magic again.
He flicked his fingers and magic, in ocher, gold, plum, and sparks of sapphire wove up his fingers, laced around his arms like metal ribbons. He used his fingertips like brushes and painted the woman’s strong, confident signature, creating an intricate glyph that glittered above the box like a necklace of sparkling jewels.
‘‘Good,’’ the Snake man said. ‘‘Now give it to me.’’
Cody was rapt, caught by the complexity of the woman’s magical signature. She was different than him in ways that were intriguing. He had thought she was an artist, a Hand, but she was much more than that. Her signature carved a picture of a woman whose strength ran deep. Magic burned fiercely bright within her, but she was fragile in unexpected ways. She wasn’t a Hand like him. She was something he’d never seen before. He traced his fingers along the trailing edge of the glyph, trying to see what it was about her that felt so different.
‘‘Cody, take your hands away from the box.’’
The kitten mewed and Cody remembered why he was doing this. He had to save the kitten. Something seemed wrong about that, but magic was flowing through him, and he didn’t want to let it go. Then a hand pressed down on his shoulder, and he was suddenly very sleepy.
‘‘Give it to me.’’ Snake man let go of his shoulder and took the little box away from Cody. The Snake man dumped the coins into his hand and something else fell out with them. A bone. A little bone that Cody knew had belonged to a child—a girl who had been good with magic when she was alive. But now that she was dead, her bone contained traces of a different kind of magic. Something dark. Something bad.
The Snake man held Kitten in one hand, and the coins, bone, and a knife in the other.
Cody didn’t know where the knife had come from, but there was blood on it. Blood in the hand that held Kitten. Blood on Kitten. Cody whispered a mantra to release the signature spell and the Snake man caught the glyph up quickly with the bloody tip of the knife.
For one disorienting second, Cody thought the Snake man had killed Kitten, but she mewed.
Then Cody worried about something else. The Snake man carved a wicked pattern of magic and blood into the air with the tip of the blade, the knife weaving through the signature spell Cody had created. The Snake man muttered a guttural mantra Cody had never heard before.
This was not blood magic. This was darker. A spell that seethed with anger and pain, and grew stronger with every drop of blood that fell to the floor.
Dark magic, death magic. Forbidden. No one could force magic to follow such fouled and tangled glyphs and survive the casting. Magic had its own natural laws, and one of them was that it only followed certain patterns or combinations of patterns. Forcing magic to follow lines contrary to its natural patterns carried a price so high that magic would lash back and consume the user before the spell was complete.
Maybe the Snake man didn’t know that.
Or maybe he was counting on it.
The knife slashed through the air just as the Snake man lunged for Cody. Cody threw himself back, but was not fast enough. The bloody knife sliced across Cody’s stomach.
The Snake man changed the mantra, lifting his voice to cover Cody’s scream.
Cody’s blood and Snake man’s blood flowed over the coin and over the little bone that the Snake man pressed into Cody’s wound. The coin’s magic, the Snake man’s magic, and the signature glyph mingled and poured into the bone. And then all that magic mixed up to become something else. Something wrong that was so cold, it burned.
Death magic.
The Snake man yelled the last word of the mantra and released the spell with such force and hatred, it left the bitter smells of chemicals and burned skin in the room.
Cody moaned. He couldn’t think. The memories of what he had been, of who he had been, were gone, and the older, smarter part of him was silent. His head hurt. His whole body hurt. He wanted Kitten. He wanted the pain and the coins and the bone and everything to go away.
He felt the box close around the coins and the bone, felt it because his blood was in there too. He didn’t like the little box now. Didn’t like it at all. Still the pain did not go away.