The Cost of All Things

by Maggie Lehrman

  “That’s not really good enough for me. I’m a loyal customer.”

  “Oh yeah? You’ve got money?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  The girl looked me over, from my lime-green flip-flops to my sundress to my swinging perfect hair. It was a totally normal outfit, especially compared to her biker-esque dirty-looking black coat and asymmetrical short haircut. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but she must’ve found it. “If you have money, I can help you,” the girl said. At my doubtful look, she added, almost casually, “I’m a hekamist.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. She seemed Mina’s age at most.

  “You are?”

  The girl leaned back, tapping her black-nailed hands on the doorframe. “Joined the coven when I was thirteen,” she said. “Do you want a spell or not?”

  I followed her through the cramped living room and sat at the kitchen table. She bustled around the kitchen making tea. I pulled the black AmEx out of my jeans pocket and placed it between us on the chipped table.

  She glanced over and laughed, though it sounded sad. “What exactly do you want me to do with that?” She picked up the card and twirled it in her fingers. “I can’t believe I told you I was a hekamist for nothing. This isn’t Barneys. We take cash or nothing, Ms. Lila Charpal.”

  “It’s Kay,” I said, then snatched the card out of her hand and crossed my arms over my chest and flared my nostrils. It’s a look my mother gives salesladies and doctors when she’s not given the answer she wants, and it covered my embarrassment. “I can get cash.”

  “I don’t work on installment. At least, not for you.”

  “I don’t know what installment is, but I’ll get you cash. As long as you can actually deliver.”

  She sat across from me, mug of tea in her hands. “What do you need?”

  So I told her about my spells: the beauty one and then the hook for friendship, and how I’d given the hook to my two best friends and a boy, and how I didn’t want him to be in the spell anymore.

  The girl—the hekamist—listened and drank her tea.

  “There are two ways to do this,” the girl said when I had finished. She still hadn’t told me her name, and no way was I going to ask for it. “The first is you take a spell to cancel out the effects of the hook. Not a reversal—you won’t go back to normal—it’s more like another layer of spells over the one you’ve got.”

  “What kind of a layer?”

  “The hook needs to know who you are in order to hook onto something. So this spell would make you sort of . . . invisible. Not actually invisible. Just harder for people to notice, especially if they don’t really know you or care about you. And it would affect everyone, not only your boyfriend.”

  I shivered. It sounded awful, and I couldn’t risk losing Diana or Ari. No. “What’s the other way?”

  “It’s a bit harder. I’d brew something that you’d have to sneak to him to eat. A spell to disconnect from you and really break it.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “It’s dangerous. I can’t be sure it would work. Spells protect themselves. They don’t want to be broken.”

  Sounded like typical hekamist warnings I’d heard every time I’d gotten a spell. “I know.”

  The hekamist grinned, but not from amusement. “You don’t know what other spells he’s taken already—you don’t know the types of reactions that could take place. Plus if I’m not careful the original spell will lash out at me, and then I’ll probably get caught and my mom and I will go to jail until we both go crazy and die.”

  I shrugged. “You chose to join a coven.”

  Her eyes flashed and she blinked rapidly. “I saved my mother’s life. What the hell have you done?”

  “I just meant that you knew the risks when you joined, right?”

  “Sure, I knew it was illegal to join and that we’d all go to jail for life if we were caught. But I also knew that the government made it illegal for my mother to grow old in peace. I knew that the legal thing to do would be to watch her fall apart and slowly die by degrees, day by day.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, dark hair dropping over her eyes. “A lot of people say hekamists dying out is for the best.”

  “Not me,” I said.

  “Because you’ve benefitted from us. But do you know what ‘dying out’ actually means? It’s not peaceful, one hekamist by one closing her eyes and drifting off. My mother and all the hekamists her age—they’re dying horribly. They’re dying not knowing who they are. Not recognizing their families. All because people are suddenly afraid of something that’s been around for as long as we’ve had society.”

  I squeezed my hands together under the table. All the talk of dying made me think of Mina and the shadow of death that used to follow her around. But I didn’t want to think of Mina; I was here to get rid of Cal. “I’m just here for a spell.”

  She flashed a smile, very white teeth in her pale face. “Everyone just wants a spell. So handy, hekamists. What are you going to do when we’re all dead?”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “I told you. Aren’t you listening?”

  “Why are you telling me all this? There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  The hekamist shrugged. “Maybe you caught me on a bad day. Or maybe I’m going crazy, too.”

  Whether she was crazy or not, I needed her. “Look,” I said, swallowing, “I’m not here to get rich or hurt anyone or do anything else bad, and I’m not here because I care about you or your situation. I won’t rat you out and I promise I’ll pay you for the work. I’m trying to do the right thing. I doubt Cal wants to be stuck in my spell, anyway.”

  “Cal?” Echo sat up straight. “It isn’t Cal Waters you’ve hooked?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  She slumped back, frowning. “If you want a spell to take yourself to cancel out your hook completely and you manage to bring me cash, I’d be happy to take the risk, but otherwise—”

  “What? Why not do the other thing, and break the spell on Cal directly?”

  She picked at the edge of a raggedy black-polished nail. “Like I said. Too risky.”

  “I thought you were a badass hekamist warrior. You’re afraid?”

  The hekamist flattened her lips and glared at me, then stood up. “You’ll have to find someone else to do your dirty work,” she said.

  I allowed myself to be herded to the door, past the stained coffee table covered with tea mugs, past the runes scratched into the walls and battered couch sticking into the middle of the room.

  I felt like I should’ve tried harder, offered more money or said something sympathetic, but the whole experience had taken the fight out of me, the way Mina used to sag after doctors’ appointments even if they hadn’t done anything to her except talk.

  “Hey,” the hekamist said, peering behind my back toward the road warily. “You said you wanted to do the right thing. Take the spell yourself to rebalance. Let everyone go free.”

  Everyone would go free, but where would I be? Worse than where I was before. Alone. Invisible.

  No. I would have to keep doing this the hard way.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  It felt like I was buzzing. Like someone’d rigged up an electrical current to run through my skin and if anyone touched me they’d be blasted back a mile. Sometimes it was in my face. Sometimes my chest, my hands. Sometimes other places.

  Diana.

  I’d hooked up with a lot of girls before her—not as many as my brothers, as they liked to remind me, but a few—and sometimes those girls were memorable for some dirty reason, and sometimes I’d hook up with the same girl more than once because it was convenient or she had an amazing body or a crazy attitude. But I’d never woken up the next morning, and the morning after that, and the morning after that one feeling like this. More alive.

  The buzzi
ng didn’t go away, either, even though I spent my days in the hardware store copying keys and showing people where the drill bits were. In slow moments—and not so slow moments—we texted back and forth.

  How many lug nuts does one man need?!?!

  Is that supposed to be seductive?

  I don’t have to seduce you, I got you

  Oh? I’d forgotten all about that!

  I hadn’t.

  Yeah. Me neither.

  Gotta go help this dude with his engine starter

  Sounds fun. Call me later?

  Miss you

  Miss us

  Gross

  You’re gross

  And when I wasn’t doing that—when the customers wandered away and Diana had to go babysit—I talked to myself. Or not exactly to myself. It was that Win voice I heard talking back, the same one I’d been hearing for weeks. I knew it was crazy and I should stop playing pretend, but it was easier to let the voice run than to try to shut it up.

  —She’s joking but she’s right. This is disgusting.

  —Why?

  —I’m Markos Waters.

  —So?

  —So I’m letting this girl get to me.

  —She’s great.

  —Yeah.

  —She listens. She understands.

  —Yeah.

  —And the kissing.

  —Yeah.

  —Yeah.

  —But I can’t be this guy.

  —Why?

  —It’s not in my DNA.

  —That’s a weak excuse, Markos. If I were alive I’d kick your ass.

  It made me think of Ari and Win together. When we were kids it was me and Win, Win and me. In middle school I started hooking up with girls but me and Win stayed the same. Then in high school, it became me and Win and Ari. Or really me-on-my-own then sometimes also Win-and-Ari. She was annoying at first because I didn’t really get it: she wasn’t a random girl, she was someone who fundamentally changed who Win was. Not in a bad way. He was more solid around her, more decisive, more purposeful. He took up more space. He was the good parts of himself, but more. Ari acted as a Win amplifier.

  Once I figured that out, I didn’t really have a problem with her. I liked her. Not the way Win liked her. But like a dude. She was cool.

  Win, though. It freaked me out that someone I knew so well—better than my brothers, even—could change so much just from being around another person. I’ll never change, I thought. I know who I am.

  Ha. Ha.

  I was straightening the paint chips when my mother’s hekamist sidled up next to me. My first thought was that she was going to yell at me about the stolen six thousand dollars, but that didn’t make sense. That was months ago, and Mom would’ve paid her again, not told her I’d taken it. Then I started to get really paranoid and thought that she could tell all I’d been thinking about Diana and Win and Ari and she had some sort of wise old hekamist life advice about all of it.

  “Markos Waters?” she said. She was a large old lady, and whacked out. Smelled like pine needles and forest dirt. Eyes too big and blinky to focus quite right.

  I nodded. She picked up a paint chip and looked it up and down. Sort of dreamily, hungrily, like it was a menu. “Can I help you find something?” I asked.

  She looked me up and down like I was another paint chip. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Right. She was a hekamist, but she could still get into the mourner tourism. Schadenfreude. It went like this: People claimed to feel sorry but they were actually relieved and partly fascinated by what the face of loss looked like. How could he live though this and go on? they wondered. He is so completely different from us now.

  “You were a good friend.” (How did she know that?) “He seemed the type of person you’d want to remember.” (As if I had a choice.) “It’s a shame not all of his friends can.” (Wait—what?)

  “What are you talking about?”

  The hekamist covered her mouth with the paint chip, but I could see the smile peeking out of either side. “She didn’t tell you. Of course. Funny, funny. That girl—the ballet dancer.”

  She was almost laughing now, holding her breath to keep it in.

  “What did Ari do?” I asked.

  “I’m telling you. Be patient.” She took a breath and bit the side of the paint chip. “What was it? Oh yes. The dancer forgot Win. Erased him. Silly, so silly, a spell to forget.” She took the paint chip out of her mouth, put it back on the rack, and patted my arm.

  All the electricity had gone out of my skin.

  I barely felt her hand.

  Then I was alone. Me and the paint chips. The door bell jangled. The air conditioner kicked on.

  I grabbed the metal rack in front of me and pulled. The paint chips crashed to the ground. I stepped around them and walked straight out the door.

  My phone buzzed. Another text.

  I pressed the touch screen with shaking fingers. Found Diana’s number. Listened to the ringing. The pauses between rings stretched out over blocks.

  When she answered, there were children screaming in the background. “Hello?”

  “Ari paid a hekamist to erase Win. She doesn’t remember him at all.”

  For a second, I heard only the screaming children. I don’t think either of us breathed. Then Diana sighed.

  “This sucks. But I am so glad she finally told you.”

  “What? She didn’t—what do you mean she finally told me?” The blood rushed out of my head and I leaned over. The weight of my head made me fall to my knees. “She told you. You—you knew.”

  “A few days ago. I couldn’t believe it. I was so angry, Markos. She lied to me—”

  “You lied to me. You lied to my face. You told me to give her a call, for fuck’s sake!” I was screaming, then, on my knees in the middle of the sidewalk, tourists parting like the seas to get around me. The air around me felt charged, poisonous.

  “I wanted to tell, but she promised—”

  “And you believed her? After she told you what she did, you believed a single word she said to you?”

  “Markos, I am so sorry—”

  “Don’t ever call me again. This will be the last time you hear from me, you lying bitch.”

  I jabbed at the phone to hang up. A call came in, and several texts. My heart bled out my fingers onto the sidewalk. Cement clogged my lungs. I gulped down air.

  When I could control the shaking in my hands, I turned the phone off.

  I started to head for the Sweet Shoppe where Ari worked but balked. I knew that if I saw her face something terrible would happen. A too-big part of me wanted to hurt her, reach out and bruise her, make her feel, bring back some of the pain she threw out like garbage when she erased my best friend. That anger scared me. Another part of me thought I’d break down. None of it would do any good, anyway.

  Nothing would. Not really.

  There were so many things that Win and I did together that I somehow thought were safe because Ari had a mental backup. But I was the only one, now. Only I remembered Win. All this shit—all this getting over it—I was the only one who had to do it. I couldn’t let the pain go now, could never get over it. Not when it was only me keeping Win from being forgotten forever.

  One moment I was standing in front of the hardware store and the next I was at home. A girl sat on my porch and at first I thought was Diana and almost took off running. But this girl had dark hair, not Diana’s red, and as I got closer I recognized Diana and Ari’s beauty-spelled friend—Kay. Katelyn. Something like that. It didn’t matter.

  She held opposite elbows over her nice chest when she saw me, but then as I got closer she relaxed. I tried to think of something to say that would make her go away quickly, but my mind was blank. I could almost hear the rushing wind between my ears. Or was that a roar?

  “Hey. I was looking for Cal,” she said.

  I stopped a couple feet from her. She was between me and the door. But there was nothing inside of the house that was bette
r than anything out here.

  “Are you okay?” Kay asked. “You look bad.”

  “I guess I’m bad, then.” I put my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking. Everything felt impossibly far away. “I bet you know, too. The three of you being such good friends and all.”

  “Know what?”

  “That Ari took a spell to forget Win. That she’s only been pretending to be grief-stricken. She told Diana—you didn’t know?”

  Kay’s mouth dropped open, and an expression filled her generically pretty features that looked almost as pained as the monster eating me up inside. “She was lying to me?”

  “To everyone.”

  “But . . . I’m her best friend.”

  I laughed at that, and she recoiled as if I’d spit on her. She wasn’t a bad person, and she hadn’t done anything to me, but I needed to push some of this bad feeling out or it would collapse in on me. “Look, I have a lot of shit I have to take care of, and none of it includes talking to you, so why don’t you get out of my face.”

  She snapped out of her surprise and hurt and put on her generically pretty mask again. But I could see how the mask didn’t quite fit, and the anger and the pain pushed on its edges and crevices, threatening to break through. “I’m here to see Cal,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . we’re friends.”

  I laughed again. “What, you think you’re dating or something?”

  “We might be dating.”

  “Yeah, right. Waters boys don’t get serious. Don’t you know that?”

  She stepped closer. As close as a girl had been since the night in the diner parking lot, since Diana—but this wasn’t Diana. This girl had black shiny hair and a good face and body but I felt nothing from her. Like a dead zone where your cell phone doesn’t get reception, or an ice-cold patch of the ocean.

  “Do you ever feel like a pathetic phony?” I asked. “Because everyone knows you’ve shellacked on some spells. You think we can’t remember what you looked like before?”

  She flushed with anger or humiliation or whatever and it actually improved her whole plastic appearance. It jolted down my spine, too—not her hotness but what I could do to someone.