The Cost of All Things

by Maggie Lehrman

  When I was around her, I didn’t have to be together and cool and Waters-ish and okay. And because there was no expectation to be happy, I managed to feel better anyway.

  So Wednesday I felt as good as it was possible for a nonlobotomized person to feel—not that my family noticed. They crowded around the kitchen table for breakfast like they always did, despite the fact that Brian and Dev didn’t even live there anymore.

  “Sweep up the wood shop today, all right, Markos?” my mom asked. She had her big accounting ledger out and was erasing something furiously. We’d all tried to convince her to computerize her accounts, but she clung to the ledger, wouldn’t let any of the rest of us touch it.

  “Where’ve you been, anyway?” Brian asked.

  “Asleep in my room.”

  Brian rolled his eyes, and Dev flicked a Cheerio at my face. “Been doing something in his room, that’s for sure.”

  “Oh! Markos has a girlfriend,” Cal said. “I saw them walking together by Junior’s Auto.”

  “Oooh, who is she? Hot?” Dev asked.

  “Not bad. Her name’s Diana North. Crazy red hair.”

  “Fiery,” Dev said.

  “She’s in his year, I think,” Cal said. “Friends with Ari Madrigal.”

  They barely paused at Ari’s name, just long enough to think of Win—Win and Ari, Ari and Win—and then hurriedly covered up the thought with more talk.

  “Bring her over, Markos, I want to meet her,” Mom said.

  “It’s not like that.”

  Mom frowned. “What’s it like, then?”

  “You embarrassed of us?”

  “Afraid we’re going to steal her away?”

  “Friendly advice,” Brian said, which was practically a catchphrase for him. “Bring her over, don’t bring her over, but don’t get too committed going in to senior year. You’re going to want all your options open.”

  “You’re too young to commit to anything, is what Brian means,” Mom said, and Brian shrugged in semi-agreement.

  “Still, bring her around,” Dev said. “Once Markos gives her up, maybe she’ll want to go out with me.”

  “You’re not her type,” I said, and Dev laughed. “Besides, we’re just friends.”

  The whole table turned and looked at me. I shouldn’t have said anything. Better for them to think I was hooking up than to wonder What’s wrong with Markos now? I could see them gearing up to ask questions I didn’t want to answer, and so I got up before they could open their mouths.

  “I’m going to sweep the woodshop.”

  As soon as I was outside I had the urge to find Diana and complain about them. I didn’t think she’d understand, and she wouldn’t like that they talked about her, and anyway she was babysitting all day and I had shit to do, so the idea faded.

  I had an imaginary conversation with myself instead, letting my mind wander as I walked into town.

  —I hate my family.

  —You don’t hate them.

  —I hate that they think they know me.

  —Don’t they?

  —No! They think I’m exactly like them but younger. Like I am them when they were younger. Dev sometimes forgets I don’t play water polo, you know? Because he did.

  —They love you.

  —Yeah. As long as I don’t embarrass them.

  —What would embarrass them?

  —Not being a real Waters man.

  —What does that mean?

  —Not being cool. Getting too drunk at the bonfire. My failed Homecoming prank. Everything I do.

  —What else?

  —Diana. No. I don’t know. Maybe. She’s not what they’re used to.

  —You’re not giving them enough credit.

  I stopped walking. Leaned over. Put hands on my knees. Gulped air. Felt the ground tilt under my feet. A normal block, vacation rentals on all sides, no one out yet because it was too early in the morning for tourists.

  In my head, for a second, I wasn’t talking to myself. All I could hear was Win.

  Win had loved my brothers. And they loved him, too—not that we ever talked about Win since he died. Not that we talked about anything real at all. Sometimes the three of them and Mom talked about Dad, but it was always the same carefully preserved stories, and I didn’t remember any of them. Win, we ignored. If I had died instead of Win, I bet they would’ve been happy to share stories about me with Win all day long. But there was something about me that made them shut their mouths. Not

  When I could move again, I stopped thinking of anything at all and ran the rest of the way to Waters Hardware, my family’s store. In the back of the store, there was a full woodshop with all the carpentry and other manly gadgets anyone could ever want. It’s my understanding that my dad opened the hardware store so he could make himself this woodshop.

  I ducked past rows and rows of junk and unlocked the shop’s tiny, almost hidden door. I swept up quickly—Mom would never notice the difference—and decided to weld some leftover pipe into a bong, even though I’m not supposed to use the welder on my own. They even locked it up in a corner cage in the shop, as if I didn’t know exactly where they kept the key on a hook by the woodshop door. Welding took up all my concentration, so I made five more—there’s always a market for drug paraphernalia, as long as Brian didn’t find it—and the hours went by, until I saw Ari Madrigal in the shop’s closed-circuit camera bank.

  Since the store was such a crowded, confusing labyrinth, there was a real chance someone could walk off with half the inventory without any of us noticing. But instead of cleaning it up and organizing it—because god forbid the Waters clan attempt anything that ambitious—we installed more and more cameras. They peeked around all the many corners and into each of the several dead ends. A flat-screen monitor displayed a grid with all the angles.

  Ari wandered from aisle to aisle, sometimes in circles, looking around with a pathetic expression on her face. I smiled. She’d been here countless times, but she could never seem to figure it out. No way she’d find me without some help. I flipped on the intercom. “Right at the sandpaper.” She jumped, stumbled, but made the right. “The door’s to the left of the paint chips.”

  She hopped from box to box on the monitor and a couple seconds later she was standing in person in the doorway to the shop. My good mood from the morning must’ve been stronger than I thought because I was glad to see her. It didn’t hurt to look at her, to be reminded of Win, because I was already thinking of Win. Instead, it was like an old friend who I hadn’t seen in ages stopping by.

  Which she was, actually. Maybe Diana was right and I should’ve been talking to her this whole time.

  Thinking of Diana, though, my stomach sank. Ari had to be there because of all the time I’d been spending with Diana. I had been repeatedly and emphatically warned away from Diana more times than I could count, and I didn’t care to get into the same discussion again.

  So I took my time as I switched off the welder and pushed it back into its cage, clanging the chain-link door shut behind it and locking it. Then I flipped up my visor and tossed the last bong onto the floor with the others. She flinched at the sound.

  I remembered what Diana said about Ari being scared to come in to the store. I figured only Diana herself would make her do it.

  “Ari Madrigal,” I said, drawing it out. “The fuck are you doing here?”

  She looked around the shop, gaze lingering on the bongs and the mess I’d made. Her ultrastraight hair, normally so razor-edged, had gotten raggedy at the ends, and she held one wrist with the other as if she was taking her own pulse. She was still pretty in that small, delicate, deceptive way, but I never understood what it was that made Win so crazy about her. One time I saw her point her foot all the way over her head, so maybe it was a ballet thing.

  “Hello to you, too, Markos,” she said pleasantly.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Oh, everywhere. I’m a social butterfly.”

  “Is that right?”
r />   “Yeah, and I’ve taken up knitting. I’m fabricating doghouses for homeless dogs.”

  “Nice to see you working for the less fortunate.”

  “It’s an important charity. They’re doing such vital work in the area of knitted domesticated animal enclosures.” She shifted on the balls of her feet. “I’ve been meaning to call.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Well. You could’ve called me.”

  “Why? So you could recruit me to knit?” She half shrugged. I pressed on. “Or so we could cry together? I dunno, you made it pretty clear at the funeral you weren’t into talking about Win, but you know, the knitting sounds great, go ahead and sign me up for six.” I yawned, stretching my hands over my head. “Why are you here, Ari?”

  She straightened her shoulders, which was odd because she usually didn’t need to. I prepared myself. Stay away from Diana. Stop messing with her head. What’s your evil plan? But there was nothing she could make me do. I was ready. I was reminded of my brothers giving me advice at breakfast: They thought they knew what was going on, and they gave advice to control me. But they didn’t and they couldn’t.

  “I need to borrow five thousand dollars,” she said finally.

  All the air whooshed out of me, but the next second I was back, mental guard in place. “Ha ha,” I said. “Those dogs need a lot of yarn.”

  “I’m not joking. I need it. I’m sorry to ask you, but I didn’t know who else—”

  “I’m not a bank,” I said.

  “I know. But you have the, uh, pipe sideline—and the store—”

  “It’s my mom’s store. What the hell do you need five thousand dollars for?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “That worked for Win, but it won’t work for you.”

  Her forehead crinkled. “What do you mean it—oh. He got it from you.” She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Shit.”

  Of course Ari knew about Win’s borrowed cash. I’d thought I was the only one he told, but that was stupid of me. “He didn’t tell you where the money came from?”

  She hesitated, and then shook her head. “No.”

  Great. I got cut out of the story entirely. “Did he tell you what it was for?”

  “No.”

  At least he hadn’t told her that; I would’ve felt like a complete chump if she knew that and I didn’t. “This is an amazing coincidence, isn’t it? Both of you asking me for the exact same amount of money.” I kicked the locker next to my workbench and the lid fell down and snapped shut. “I guess I know what you both think of me. Thought of me.”

  “Please, Markos. You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

  “And what’s so important?”

  She wrapped a hand around the opposite elbow and bit her lip. “Win owes someone five thousand dollars.”

  “Yeah, and I gave him five thousand dollars. So that’s done.”

  “She didn’t get that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because . . . I spent it.”

  I exhaled all the air in my chest.

  “I didn’t know it was his,” Ari said. “I mean, yours. I found it in my closet. He must’ve hidden it there.”

  “So return whatever you bought and give this person the money.”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to say what she spent it on; I could see that. I think she thought I would be grateful that she told me anything at all.

  “Fine, then,” I said. “Win’s debts died with him. Tell this person you went on a shopping spree and they can fuck off.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  I brushed scrap metal off the table and took a step closer to her. “I should give you five thousand dollars—why? You basically already stole five thousand from me. You won’t tell me what you spent it on. You won’t talk to me at all. Where have you been all summer?”

  She frowned, a mulish expression on her small face. “If Win asked, you would lend him the money right away. You did lend it to him. Bet you didn’t give him the third degree, either.”

  “You think we’re friends like me and Win were friends?”

  Her stubborn expression didn’t budge. “I have your back. You should have mine.”

  “Win was my best friend. There’s no one else I would treat the same, and no one else I ever will. Ever. You and I haven’t even hung out in weeks. You think I owe you what I owed Win? Because he loved you? No. In fact, as of right now, we’re not friends. You understand?”

  “Come on, Markos—”

  “No. I’m serious. Why keep pretending? We don’t have anything in common anymore. I’m not sure we ever did.” That wasn’t what I wanted to say, and probably wasn’t even true, but I couldn’t stop. “I don’t like you. I don’t like your jokes. I don’t feel sorry for you because you have such a tragic past. There’s nothing about you that’s in any way interesting to me.”

  She seemed defeated, but not as completely as I’d hoped. I had hoped for a massive meltdown. I wanted her to feel on the outside as shitty as I felt inside.

  “You could have just said no,” she said.

  “And you can show yourself out,” I said, and turned my back on her. “Good luck finding the door.”

  Win, I’d steal for. Win, I’d die for. Ari was not Win.

  She left, stumbling a little through the woodshop door. On the flat screen, I watched her turn and double back through the store, always choosing the wrong way. Lost.

  And I did not help her.

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  ..................................................................

  Echo had agreed to help me, but practicing the spell took time—hers and mine. She’d tell me when to come over and I’d sit on her couch and she’d ask me more questions about how I felt and how I wanted to feel, or she’d tell me what she’d read in one of her mother’s books about mental spells and what I might expect as far as side effects.

  She also told me about her mother, who wasn’t well. “She’s forgetting things. Losing pieces of herself,” Echo said. I thought she meant dementia, but it was more than that: this was what happened when hekamists outlived their covens. Echo was the only one her mother had left. A coven had to have at least three—and ideally more than seven—in order to be stable. “When she dies, I’ll go totally nuts,” Echo said matter-of-factly.

  “Are you mad at her for making you join?”

  “She didn’t make me do anything. I joined when the second-to-last member of her coven got cancer. I wanted to. I couldn’t let my mother fall apart.” She grinned a red-lipsticked grin. “Besides, being a hekamist has plenty of perks. If I hadn’t joined, I couldn’t help you.”

  On one of these visits, while she frowned into pots and pans and made me taste tiny crumbs of cheddar and Parmesan and Camembert and Boursin, Echo told me how she’d gotten kicked out of college and fired from her waitressing job and how apartments had filled with rats and suspicious supers had torn up leases and forced her home again.

  “It’s almost like my mom’s given me a hook,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “What’s a hook?”

  “Type of spell to keep me close to her. It would make sense—she’s worried about me because I’m illegal. She’s afraid I’ll get caught and go to jail forever.”

  “Would you?”

  “Well. Yes.” She waved away the threat. “I’d go to jail, she’d go to jail. Anyone in a coven who makes a new hekamist goes to prison for life. Which is why I need to get out there and find another coven—convince them to take us on. They’ll need some persuading, maybe even some cash, because it’s such a risk to take on someone underage. But I have to do something to save my mother. Save me.”

  I leaned forward across the kitchen table, surprised to find myself interested—not a word I’d use to describe myself often those days.

  �
��So the hook spell keeps you close to her?”

  “If she gave one to me, which I don’t think she did.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hooks are for assholes,” Echo scoffed. “Pinning specimens under glass. Plus hekamists don’t spell each other. It’s bad form.”

  “But she could have. . . .”

  Echo shook her head. “My mother loves me, but she knows better. Sometimes bad luck is just bad luck.”

  I scratched my arms and wondered if I’d ever be able to think bad luck wasn’t entirely my fault. If I were Echo, I’d want to believe that it was a hook keeping me from what I wanted—anything but “just the way things are sometimes.”

  “If it was a hook, though, you could break it,” I said.

  “You say it like that’s even possible.”

  The thing about spells, Echo told me, is that you can’t break them, you can only wait for the them to run out (if they’re temporary) or try to layer another spell over them (if they’re permanent). It’s slightly easier to try to correct the side effects and not the spell itself, but even that gets complicated, because you’re adding another spell on top of the one you have, and once you start doubling and tripling up the side effects go totally wonky. And if you’re looking to reverse the spell itself, not the side effect, you’re mostly out of luck. Sometimes, if the hekamist was good enough and the moon was in the right phase and you didn’t bake the wrong kind of soufflé, a hekamist could come up with the right spell with the right side effects to nudge a person nearly back in their original direction. But trying that could be dangerous. A well-made spell protects itself. It will act on the world to prevent being destroyed, according to Echo.

  A week later, I came back to collect my spell.

  It felt weird thinking about the cheese sandwich in my hands as having its own will, but that’s what Echo had said. It will act on the world to protect itself. She sliced the crusts off the bread, cut it diagonally, and put it in a plastic bag for me.

  “The spell’s in the cheese,” she said. Her face was hopeful, proud. Maybe even a little bashful underneath the slashes of makeup. “I like cheese.”