Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two

by Sharon Bayliss

  But today even watching television with his kids and doing laundry took too much attention. He felt unsettled, as if he had forgotten something important. Or perhaps…hadn’t forgotten something. He kept thinking about the missing girl. The more he tried to distract himself, the brighter her image burned in his mind.

  He knew magic was in play. The spell reminded him of white noise—somehow loud and silent at the same time. A low hum that didn’t exist before he had seen the girl on the television at the mechanic’s. The hum ignited his nerves and he knew he couldn’t focus on anything else until the spell had run its course.

  With Amanda at work, he could do research on the missing girl without her looking over his shoulder and disapproving. He pulled out his tablet and did a search for “Julie Prescott missing.” The search turned up lots of hits. Mostly news sites. All of the news sites said the same thing. She was last seen a week ago. Her older brother picked her up from volleyball camp at Sam Houston State. David’s stomach tightened when he read this. Emmy had attended the exact same volleyball camp for the past two summers. She would have attended this summer too if they had been able to afford it. Had the girls met before?

  On the way home from the camp, the brother and sister stopped at a Gas N’ Go near Sam Houston National Forest. The brother went inside the mini-mart and when he came back, Julie was gone. The story sounded strange, even far-fetched. This happened within the space of a few minutes, in the middle of the day, but nobody saw anything, and the alleged abduction was not caught on video. The car was parked out of range of any cameras, but the cops had footage of the brother entering the mini-mart as he said he did. Perhaps that could be called an alibi, but since the brother was the last one with her, and the one who told this far-fetched tale, David wrote down his name. Nathaniel Prescott. He was, as they say on crime dramas, a person of interest.

  David found another site that could be more useful—www.bringjuliehome.com. This site had been created and maintained by Julie’s friends and admirers, of which she had plenty. The message board had over two hundred personal messages to Julie. Most of the photos featured Julie with large groups of smiling friends—pictures at school, at church, at the beach, at camp, at Disney World, the Grand Canyon, and several other vacation spots. In any case, Julie seemed to have a glorious life.

  After looking at the site for a while, David considered abandoning his quest, magic or no magic. Anger bubbled in his stomach at the sight of every smiling face. Julie had plenty of people looking for her, plenty of people who loved her and missed her. The news stations loved talking about her. People had created websites devoted to her. When his children went missing, he’d been alone. No one had cared. He had little help, even from the police. And wizards of Julie’s kind thought the children of dark wizards weren’t worth looking for. She didn’t need or deserve his help.

  David let his tablet sit idle on the bed for a few minutes. He let himself be angry. But after he let the anger soak him, he decided to let it go. He knew he couldn’t stop out of spite. The magic wouldn’t let him anyway. And he’d rather make it his choice, instead of magic compelling him to act. He was a good person—a person who helped others even if they wouldn’t do the same for him. Even if he wouldn’t be rewarded for his efforts. He didn’t know if that was true, but he preferred that version of the story over the one where a spell forced him to do things against his will.

  He picked the tablet back up. So many people showed up in these pictures and had left messages, David didn’t know where to begin. He found a tab devoted to her volleyball photos. Her teammates showed up in many of the pictures. Last year, Julie had been captain of her school’s 8th grade volleyball team. Just like Emmy.

  mmy Vandergraff hated the summer. She hated the way every day was the same. Only empty sky and empty days—over and over and over. She hated the way the hot air felt thick and heavy. She hated the dead lawns. She hated having to save water and electricity. She hated the chemical-laden sunscreen that clogged her pores. Her list went on and on.

  However, this particular summer, she complained less. Not because she hated it less, but because this summer she knew she was a winter witch. And now, she also hated that she hated summer. It was just so expected and cliché. But since she hadn’t known she was a witch for the first thirteen years of her life, she couldn’t rebel against it. And now she had turned into the perfect example of a winter witch, except perhaps for better hygiene and her fondness for her cell phone.

  But when Emmy first met Julie Prescott last summer at volleyball camp, she hadn’t known about witches. She hadn’t known she was a winter witch, and Julie was a summer witch. If she had, she would have avoided being so obvious and predictable. But since Emmy didn’t know any better, she did the obvious thing. She loathed Julie Prescott. With no knowledge of magic, Emmy hated Julie on sight. Looking at Julie gave her a headache, and if she got close enough to smell her, she wanted to throw up. Not that she smelled bad…the smell reminded her of maple syrup. But the fragrance could wrap around her like a snake, coating Emmy’s nostrils and lungs until she suffocated.

  Emmy had no reason to hate Julie at first, no good reason anyway, but Julie did turn out to be a bitch. Well, not to everyone else. Everyone loved her. Emmy could hear her bubbly voice everywhere she went. She smiled constantly. Fortunately, Emmy couldn’t get close to Julie even if she wanted to, because a circle of girls constantly surrounded Julie, following her as moths fly around a light.

  However, on a few occasions, the coaches placed them in stations together or on the same scrimmage team. Half the time, when this happened, Julie would suddenly have to leave practice to use the bathroom or see the trainer. The other times, she pretended Emmy didn’t exist. She chatted and smiled with every other person she met, but not Emmy.

  On movie night, Julie came in late, and the only seat left was next to Emmy. Julie gave the seat one look and then turned around and left. So, yeah, she was a bitch. If Emmy had known what they were at the time, she might have at least understood. But last summer, when witches still all lived at Hogwarts, she had hated Julie for nonmagical reasons, or so she had thought.

  Later that fall, they met again. And this time Emmy knew all about wizards. It was right before she went to the hospital…the second time…and so she hadn’t yet been put out of commission for the season. They played Sugar Land in an away game, so no one else in Emmy’s family attended. Not that any of them had cared about her volleyball games that fall anyway.

  She remembered the whole gym blinded her, as if the fluorescent lights above might burst any minute. She had the inexplicable sense of danger, and wanted to run. Some of Julie’s family members may have attended, which may have been why the whole gym felt like a battlefield. She had felt so surrounded. This time, when Emmy saw Julie warming up with her team on the other side of the gym, the truth was obvious. Julie Prescott burned her retinas. She was a witch. And later, when the summer wizards came to save…or, not save…Samantha, her guess had been confirmed. Julie was a summer witch.

  They were both captains of their team, so at the beginning of the game, they had to meet at the net for the coin toss. The ref asked them to shake hands, but they didn’t. Julie stared at her, looking as if she chewed on Styrofoam. Emmy stared her scariest, meanest stare. She wanted to make Julie cry, or pee in her pants. She deserved it for being so rude. But Julie looked like a deer in headlights—shoulders tensed, eyes barely blinking, like prey staying still to hide from a predator. Who knows what the ref thought of all this, but he knew what was good for him, because he didn’t ask them to shake a second time.

  Emmy rifled through a tangle of clothes. Her possessions had become hopelessly intertwined with those of her half-sister Evangeline. Not that Evangeline had many possessions, but they still crowded the room somehow. Evangeline refused to buy anything new, but did enjoy picking out the most ridiculous clothes she could find at consignment stores. Right now she wore an old Little League T-shirt, and a poofy purple skirt. Ev
angeline didn’t care much about her appearance, and probably washed her hair with a mixture of herbs and lamb’s blood, but her long dark hair stayed shiny and straight. She must look like her mother, because she looked nothing like Emmy, except for the fact that they both looked mean.

  Evangeline lounged on her bed reading her latest in an endless stream of random used books. From the cover, she currently read an Amish Romance. That girl would read anything. She had no specific tastes whatsoever.

  “Stop it,” Emmy said.

  Evangeline cocked one eyebrow but didn’t take her eyes off the page.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Emmy said.

  “What is that?”

  “You’re casting a confusion spell on me so I can’t find my shoes.”

  “I am not.”

  “Some sort of concealment spell, then? Don’t act all innocent.”

  Emmy stared at her and cast a spell of her own. Real spells were different from what Emmy had read in books. Wizards didn’t practice fancy wand-work or spew long chants in Latin. They didn’t collect strange ingredients for potions to throw in a cauldron. Magic turned out to be both simpler and more complicated than that.

  To cast a spell, you had to visualize what you wanted, and then really, really want it. The second part was hard to explain; you had to tap into something deep inside you—the magic, she guessed—and let that power flow out of you. Once you got the hang of the basics, no one needed to teach you spells. You just wanted something, and made it happen. The trick was knowing what you wanted and how to make it happen. That part was not as simple as it sounded.

  Evangeline put her book down and sat up. “Stop that,” she said.

  “Oh, what? Having trouble reading? Letters swimming around the page in meaningless patterns?”

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it hurts. Stop.” Evangeline had her eyes shut tight and rubbed her temples.

  Once the magic went out to do its thing, you just had to watch it go. At least, Emmy hadn’t mastered the art of “undoing” as Evangeline called it. But Emmy knew if she turned her attention away from her minor confusion spell…or whatever she ended up casting…the effects of the spell would fade.

  Emmy heard a knock on her door. “Are you dressed?” Dad asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Dad opened the door.

  “I didn’t say you could come in, though,” Emmy said.

  “You don’t get to decide that. It’s my room. I just let you sleep in it.”

  “Mmmm…actually I think it’s Mom’s room since she pays the rent for this crap hole.”

  Despite his big talk about it being his room, he stayed in the doorway.

  “Evangeline is casting spells on me,” Emmy said. “But you know, that’s not even what pisses me off. She won’t own up to it. She pretends I’m the crazy one.”

  Evangeline stayed on the bed rubbing her forehead. “You are the crazy one. She’s the one casting spells on me. Just because she can’t find her shoes. She’s crazy.”

  “Maybe you could find your shoes if you didn’t shove all your stuff in your closet or under the bed when we ask you to clean your room,” Dad said.

  “You always take her side,” Emmy said, and collapsed onto her own bed.

  “Emmy, is there a summer witch on the Sugar Land volleyball team?” Dad asked.

  Emmy sat up, and stared at him.

  “What? Why?”

  Dad took a crumpled looking flyer out of his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Emmy. Emmy’s stomach squeezed. She had truly hated Julie. But now, she was on a missing child flyer. Emmy didn’t know if that made her feel sad, but it felt wrong. She thought those things didn’t happen to the good wizards.

  “What happened to her?”

  “She’s missing,” Dad explained, unhelpfully.

  “But why do you have her photo? Do you know her?”

  “I got this off the bulletin board at the gas station. I saw that she played volleyball, and I thought you might know her.”

  Emmy stared at her knees.

  Dad came in and sat next to her on the bed. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “You do know her?”

  “No. Well, yes. I mean, I’ve never talked to her. But we were at camp the same time last year. And I’ve seen her at games.”

  “Your mother thinks she’s a summer witch because of the bracelet she’s wearing in the photo. Do you think she is?”

  “Definitely.”

  Evangeline sat on Emmy’s other side, surrounding her. Evangeline took the flyer from Dad.

  “I’ve never met a summer witch,” Evangeline said.

  “Do yourself a favor and keep it that way,” Emmy said.

  Evangeline handed the flyer to Emmy and she passed it back to Dad quickly, not wanting to look again.

  “It can’t be that bad, right? Can bad things happen to summer witches?” she asked, echoing Emmy’s own thoughts.

  “Bad things almost happened to her when I met her,” Emmy said. “She’s got this warm, fuzzy vibe about her that makes everyone fall in love. All the Mundanes, anyway. Not me. I hated her on sight. I don’t know how summer wizards aren’t extinct. You’d think if they crossed paths with any winter wizard who was even slightly messed up in the head, they’d get slaughtered…Why are you asking me about her? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “No reason, I thought you might know something useful.”

  “So, you think I kidnapped her?” Emmy was joking, but not completely. If anyone knew how much Emmy had hated Julie, it might make sense to accuse her.

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, good. Because I didn’t. It’s not like there is room to store her in here anyway. Check the closet if you want, but there isn’t even room for my clothes in there.”

  “Was there anyone who had a problem with her? Any jerk boyfriends? Or other weird stuff? Anyone not like her?”

  Emmy smirked. You mean, other than me? “No, Dad. Everybody in the world loves her. Like I said, we’re not friends. I don’t know anything about boyfriends or anything like that. If you want to know who would want to hurt her, I would say, all dark wizards. Just being around her made me want to claw off my skin, or her skin.”

  Dad’s face turned green at this.

  “Jesus, Dad. I’m just saying. I didn’t claw off her skin.”

  David’s discussion with Emmy made the humming of the spell grow louder. David excelled at reading people, and not only in the Mundane sense. He couldn’t read minds, but one of his magical skills was understanding people’s intentions and whether people told him the truth. And Emmy had told the truth. About all of it. She knew Julie. She hated Julie. But learning Julie had gone missing surprised her, and upset her. He doubted she knew anything else—at least he didn’t suspect she was hiding anything. And as suspected, Evangeline had no more than a detached curiosity about Julie. She had lived outside of society for the first twelve years of her life, and aside from attending a small progressive, private school the second half of last school year, she still hadn’t joined society in any meaningful way.

  So, David didn’t know why the spell had intensified. The girls didn’t know anything useful. But the magic pushed at his knees and coursed through his body like extra adrenaline. The spell seemed…excited?

  He could ask the boys, but they probably wouldn’t have any useful information. Xavier was more detached from the world than his sister. Through years of trauma he had found a way to use magic to numb himself into a state of near non-existence. He barely seemed to recognize his own family, let alone strangers. Patrick had never been social, and had become even less so lately. He had stopped going out to visit the few friends he had. The only time he left the house was for his summer job as a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool.

  Therefore, David doubted that either of his sons would know Julie. But David appreciated any excuse to engage his sons in conversation. His daughters bick
ered and cast frivolous spells on each other, but he could handle that. In fact, he had trouble stopping himself from smiling when he saw them fighting. They may not have gotten along, but they acted like sisters, and that made his heart swell.

  The boys got along fine, but he’d rather they fight. If they fought, he could see the life in them. At least shouting was communication. David wanted Xavier to feel something, anything—a selfish wish perhaps, because he knew Xavier needed a way to protect himself. If he started to feel things, some of it would be painful. But David feared what would happen if he kept fading. Could he fade away completely? Snuff out his soul altogether? Would David one day wake up to find nothing behind his eyes?

  The boys had left the door open, so David walked in. They played Grand Theft Auto with glazed eyes. They hadn’t known each other for most of their lives, but they still looked right as brothers. In looks at least, as they reminded David of himself and his own brother, James. Xavier looked like David…almost exactly like David. They both had hair and eyes a bland color of brown, and eyebrows that made them look serious all the time. Patrick looked similar, but warmer in every way. In the right light, his brown eyes had hints of red and gold.

  “Can you pause?” David asked.

  The game paused, but they didn’t stop looking at the screen.

  “And can you also turn around, and look at me while I’m talking to you?” David added.

  They did…slowly.

  “This will just take a second.” David held the photo of the girl out for them to see. “I don’t know if you’ve seen on the news…”

  David stopped. He felt a deep chill that made his skull tingle. Patrick’s eyes sparked to life, all sign of boredom or apathy squelched. He stared at the photo. He didn’t appear to breathe or blink. His face paled, as if David had shown him a picture of a demon or rotting corpse, and not a sweet, happy girl in a volleyball uniform.