by Tim Pratt
I saw the wristwatch disappear into his mouth, and then he bit down. His teeth cut through the bones of my wrist just behind the watch without any difficulty; he might as well have been biting through a carrot stick. I fell backward, staring at my arm—my hand was gone, how was I supposed to paint when my hand was gone—and blood fountained from the wound. I tried to lift the arm over my head with some vague idea that elevation might slow the bleeding, but everything swam and went gray and I fell down.
Some distant part of my mind explained: You’re in shock. But the rest of my mind couldn’t do anything useful with that information.
I’m going to tell you what happened next, but understand: the world was a gray haze after he bit off my hand, so this is pieced together from what others told me…and some other sources (more on that later). Even if it’s not entirely accurate, though, I think it’s close.
The Belly climbed all the way through the door, swallowed, and smiled at me. There wasn’t even any blood on his teeth. “Mmm. All that bourbon adds a nice caramel note to your blood. And that watch!” He flexed his fist. “This is really interesting. I wonder if I can get the effect to migrate, to expand beyond just the hand—it’d be awfully handy to be invincible, don’t you think?” He crouched beside me. “I could get a tourniquet on that arm of yours. Or stick the wound against a hot stove, cauterize it, and then you might live.” The Belly looked at the ceiling for a moment, hummed, then shrugged. “Nah. I have too many sisters anyway. Even if I’m not sure if any of the Drips are actually girls, they might as well be. Losing one of you won’t matter much. Have fun bleeding out, Bekah. I hear it’s a very relaxing way to go.”
“House,” I whispered. “House, get him out…”
Lamps and books began to levitate, but the Belly just waved his hand and batted them away—telekinesis, courtesy of the broom—or knocked them out of the air with his stone fist. He was fast, inhumanly so, and I wondered who or what he’d eaten in the past to get that power. “Throw something magical at me, house!” he shouted. “Spare me the trouble of hunting it down! Once your mistress here pumps out her last spurt of blood you’ll stop fighting me anyway—”
Which is when I heard a boom. At first I thought I’d time traveled again to the night with the window-rattling thunder. But then the noise came again, and it made sense that time: a gunshot. The Belly looked down at himself, expression baffled. There was a huge hole where his stomach used to be. He could be immovable—I guess that’s why two shotgun blasts didn’t send him flying across the room—but apart from his hand, he wasn’t invincible.
Especially his head.
The next shot made that disappear. His body fell forward, getting blood all over a perfectly nice old couch.
I turned my neck, even though it felt like trying to steer a sailboat in a hurricane, twisting to catch a glimpse of my savior…and there were three of them, all holding shotguns, standing just inside the door. Stacy Howard the First, the reptile. A balding man of middle years with a distinct family resemblance to Mr. Howard. Presumably Stacy Howard the Second, the worm. And, of course, Stacy Howard the Third, Trey, the…whatever he was.
Trey rushed to me, taking his belt off, and tied it around the stump of my wrist, pulling it brutally tight. “You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, Bekah, I’m so sorry…”
Why wasn’t he getting the sword, so I could heal myself? Wait. I hadn’t told him about Hannah’s brief visit, and the sword’s return. He didn’t know we had it. I had to tell him—I had to—
I didn’t have to do anything, it turned out, except lose consciousness entirely before I said a word.
#
I woke in a dim room, tried to sit up, and fell back weakly instead. “The sword!” I said. “I need the sword!”
“Bekah?” A face floated into view above me, and for a moment I was sure I was hallucinating, because it was Charlie’s face, those dark eyes, the spray of freckles across his cheeks barely visible against his dark skin. He looked so serious, not mock serious but actual serious, and I said, “Are you real?”
“Real as you are, girl. I’m so glad you’re awake. The doctor said you might come out of it soon, but—are you in pain?”
“I…” There was a distant throb in my hand—or in my wrist, rather. Where my hand used to be. Things were fuzzy. I wondered what drugs I was on. “What are you doing here?”
“Your lawyer-slash-boyfriend flew me out yesterday night. Said you needed someone here with you, someone you trusted, because you were hurt. He didn’t want to call your parents because he wasn’t sure you’d want them to know, but Becks, I almost called them anyway. Honey, your hand…they had a doctor here, he seemed to know what he was doing, and you’re full of antibiotics and painkillers, but I don’t understand why you aren’t in the hospital. What kind of Southern Gothic shit have you gotten into down here?”
“Sword.” I licked my lips. “Water, too, I need water, but first…under the bed, wrapped in a towel, there’s a cane, a sword cane, get it for me?”
He frowned, then sighed. “I just love being part of your opiate haze, Becks. I’m supposed to be the one who does heavy drugs in our relationship.” And yet, because he was Charlie—my best friend, the one person who had never let me down—he vanished from view, reappearing moments later holding the cane. “Okay. This is old school. Did Mr. Hyde use this to beat schoolgirls to death?” He slid out the blade and whistled. “What now?”
I reached out for the cane—with my right hand, which no longer existed. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and tried to push back the cotton-candy fog covering my mind and senses. I reached over with my left hand and grabbed the hilt of the blade.
“Bekah, you shouldn’t really be holding bare steel in your condition, you might cut—”
I wrenched the sword out of his hand and jabbed it into my side, because that was the closest bit of my body I could stab.
“Shit!” Charlie wrenched the sword away and threw it across the room, where it struck the floor with a clatter, then pulled up my nightgown to look at my side. My entirely unharmed side. “You—but you stabbed—is it a trick sword? I don’t understand—”
I screamed, because the pain in my right hand was sudden and unbearable. But it was definitely pain in my hand, not ghost pain, not my wrist. I didn’t understand why it hurt—the sword took pain away, it stole life from the future to cure ills in the present—but then I figured it out. The bandages wrapped tightly around my stump were cutting viciously into the new hand I was growing. I lifted my stump to my mouth and tore at the bandages with my teeth—reminding myself uncomfortably of the Belly—and finally ripped the cotton enough to let the bandages fall away.
Have you ever seen time-lapse video of a plant growing? Seeing my new hand form was like that. It went from baby-sized to normal-sized in seconds, and apart from the skin being softer than the rest of me and the fingers entirely without calluses, it felt just like my old hand when I flexed it.
“You…you…you just grew a new hand, Becks.” Charlie took my right hand in his, running his fingers across the new skin. “What the hell is going on?”
My head was entirely clear. The sword had cured my fatigue, my blood loss, and probably flushed all the drugs out of my system, too. “So, Charlie.” I squeezed his hand in mine—my new hand. “I maybe should have mentioned this before. But I inherited more than just a house.”
#
“I don’t know anything about a body,” Charlie said. We stood in the living room together, looking at the place where I’d seen the Belly die. There was no blood, though I thought one of the rugs was missing, and the couch he’d landed on had been reupholstered in a rather pleasant dark-blue corduroy.
“The Howards must have buried him, or burned him, or…who knows what. Did they tell you anything?”
“They told me a bunch of bullshit, Becks. That Trey came by to see you, to make up because you’d had a fight, and found you with your hand missing. Gave me some story about how the local hospital’s no good, so the
y hired a private physician, best in the business, all that. Nothing about shotgun murders.” I waited for him to say, “Are you sure all that really happened?” But he didn’t.
I love Charlie.
With the broom and the watch gone, I didn’t have as much proof to show him, but the bell of truth and the vanishing Studebaker and the magic glasses convinced him, though in truth the fast-growing hand alone had probably been sufficient. Charlie’s never been one to clutch his head and moan about things being impossible, and I saw him integrate these new realities into his worldview more smoothly than I’d managed to. I could see his mind working: okay, there’s magic, and crazy motherfuckers who are obsessed with said magic, got it.
Maybe I couldn’t depend on Trey as I once had—though him showing up with the cavalry was a hell of an apology—but with Charlie, I had someone I could absolutely trust by my side.
No make outs with Charlie, of course, but you can’t have everything.
“Oh, your treacherous lawyer—ha, I’m repeating myself—left you a note.” Charlie took a folded envelope out of his pocket and passed it over.
I sighed. “Do I burn it unread, or what?”
“If this was a normal asshole-boyfriend situation, I’d say yes, cut off all contact. But since you’re standing in the middle of a covered-up murder scene in a magical house, and said asshole boyfriend probably saved your life, maybe you should see what he has to say—even if it’s only, ‘Don’t dig a hole by the back door, that’s where we buried your half brother.’”
Good point.
I read the letter.
#
Dearest Bekah,
I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough, and I know it probably doesn’t matter, but it’s true. You have no reason to believe me, but if you want me to say this in the presence of the bell to prove it, I will: I couldn’t tell you about your father, or his magic, because I wasn’t supposed to. I wasn’t allowed. Mr. Grace forbid it, and when he forbade me—or my father, or my grandfather—to do something, it was well and truly forbidden. I don’t mean we’d get in trouble if we did it anyway: I mean we can’t do it anyway, any more than the sun can stop shining or the ocean can stop being wet.
My grandfather betrayed Mr. Grace a long time ago, and as punishment Mr. Grace bound him and his descendants to service, unto the third generation. Which would be me. We were compelled and bound by magic to serve and protect your father…and his rightful heir. Which would be you. I did know—I do know—all sorts of things I wasn’t allowed to tell you, because I was bound to keep Mr. Grace’s secrets, as one of the basic tenets of my existence. But you’re the one who holds power now, and if you tell me to speak, I’ll speak.
I hope having Charlie there helps you. I’d be by your side myself, there’s nowhere I’d rather be, but I know I’m not welcome now. I did the best I could to make sure you wouldn’t have to be alone.
I knew the name Ken Tenzil from the moment you told it to me. That it was one of the Belly’s aliases. So when you told me he was in town, we tracked him down and started keeping watch on him. We followed him to your house, and did what was necessary. Don’t worry. No one will ever know he was there—we’re good at covering up things like that. It’s not the first body we’ve had to bury for the Grace family.
I’m only sorry we didn’t get there faster. Your hand. Your poor hand. Oh, Bekah. But there’s more healing magic somewhere, I’m sure. Or I can try to track down Hannah, and get back the sword. We’ll fix this. We’ll fix everything that can be fixed.
Can we be fixed?
Yours,
Trey
#
I crumpled the letter and let it fall.
He’d had a good reason to keep secrets from me. Not just a reason—a compulsion. That made sense, and if I hadn’t been so hurt by the spoon’s revelations, if I hadn’t felt so betrayed by that discovery immediately after our intimacy the night before, I might have listened to his explanations before the house chased him away. But that didn’t mean things could go back to what they’d been between us, because the explanation for his behavior solved one problem while pointing out another.
He’d signed the letter “Yours.” He was mine, all right. My…what? Indentured servant? Slave? I thought of things he’d said: “Your wish is my command”; “I live to serve.” I’d thought they were words of goofy gallantry, but they were literally true. The connection he felt, the one I’d responded to, it wasn’t about me, or him, or anything within us. He was bound to me—enchanted, ensorcelled, bewitched, bedazzled, and all that similar jazz. It was just magic. Stupid magic.
How can you have a meaningful, healthy relationship with someone who’s compelled to obey your orders? You can’t. The power imbalance distorts everything. (Sure, being bossy in bed can have its pleasures, but it has to be consensual nonconsent.)
Charlie picked up the letter. “May I?”
I nodded and sat on the couch. I wished I had a necklace with the same magic the wristwatch had—something I could wear that would make my head all numb and solid and invincible, to turn all my thoughts to stone.
“That is some heavy shit,” Charlie said at last. “Did you see the PS on the back, Becks?”
I took the paper from him and turned it over, to see the line I’d missed scrawled on the back.
PS You should try stirring the spoon the other way.
“He means the spoon that, what, showed you the past?” Charlie said. “What happens if you turn it the other way?”
I rose from the couch. “Let’s find out.”
Episode 4
Book
“So am I going to see anything happen when you work this particular magic?” Charlie said. “Sparkles, translucent unicorns, your eyes turn black and your tongue turns to fire—something like that?”
I poured the cold coffee out of the brown mug and waited impatiently for a new cup to brew. I had no idea if the cup needed hot coffee to make the looking-through-time thing work—maybe tea or whiskey or water or nothing at all would serve just as well—but this hardly seemed like the time to go screwing with the ritual.
“No idea. When I did this before, time didn’t even seem to pass in the real world while I was gallivanting through the past. If something does happen to me, let me know.”
“Always happy to bear witness.” The coffeemaker beeped, and Charlie poured fresh black brew into the cup. I added some cream—again, do what you know works—then picked up the spoon.
“All right. Here goes.” Trey’s letter had suggested I stir the spoon clockwise instead of widdershins. I’d done that before, to bring myself out of the past and back to the present, but I hadn’t tried it from the present.
“You think this is going to take you into the future, don’t you?” Charlie said.
“I think it might. Or maybe it’ll give me visions of the outer solar system or the secret vaults under the Vatican where they keep all the porn of the classical world and the mummified body of Christ. What do I know?”
“Seeing the future…there are some implications to that. Like, there-is-no-free-will, the-future-is-predetermined, we-are-in-a-mechanistic-universe implications.”
I nodded. “I think I took the same Intro to Philosophy course you did, Charlie. But I don’t know what the spoon is going to do until I try it. Maybe it’ll turn me into a stegosaurus wearing a waistcoat and a monocle. Magic is weird.”
“I’ll just be over here, then…at a hypothetically safe distance.” Charlie drew way back, standing near the door with the impenetrable padlock.
I took a breath and stirred sunwise.
Last time, color drained from the world. This time, the colors intensified, growing more garish and oversaturated, like the world had been run through a terrible Instagram filter. The scene around me didn’t change, though—Charlie was still standing there in the corner, but he was frozen now, a statue of himself in too-bright colors.
Then the kitchen vanished.
I found myself in the middle of
a cratered, scorched patch of earth, just a few scattered bricks and boards to show there’d ever been a house on the spot. The coffee mug—still its usual muted brown—sat where I’d left it, but because the counter underneath it was blasted to splinters, the cup just hovered in midair, like the world’s most boring special effect. I tried to pick up the mug, but I might as well have tried to lift a truck.
I looked around, and the woods were still recognizably those that surrounded my house…except now they were on fire—blazing orange and red, but also blue and green—and great clouds of birds fluttered above the conflagration, wheeling in the dusky sky, screaming their jay calls.
I couldn’t smell smoke, or anything else, so that was something. Otherwise, though, I was pretty much freaked the hell out.
A crowd of people stood loosely arrayed roughly where the front porch should have been. I made my way through the wreckage in their direction, spoon in my hand, trying to keep calm. Maybe this was something that would happen in the future, but it hadn’t happened yet. I was in no danger. I hoped.
I circled around wide to get a look at the half a dozen figures standing in a line in my front yard. I was surprised to see myself there, in the center, my hair hacked short, my face smudged with ashes. I held something in my hand—a gearshift from a truck?—like a scepter, or maybe a club. Hannah was beside me, but transformed: hulking, monstrous, nearly seven feet tall even while hunched over, her arms long, her hands tipped with claws like spear points. Her coat was shredded by the barnacles that covered her body, and torn fragments of her scarf were caught in her scimitar-length, curving teeth.
Trey stood on the other side of me, his head shaved, shirtless, a long and ugly cut running down his bare chest, like someone had tried to take out his heart with a machete and only just missed. He held the axe we’d used to try and knock down the unopenable door, and he was grinning, keyed up and manic. Beside him stood three people—at first I thought they were women, then men, then I just shrugged and accepted them as belonging elsewhere on the gender-presentation continuum—dressed in identical white shirts and loose cotton pants. Their eyes were closed, each holding hands with the next like a string of paper dolls, their short blond(e) hair standing up as if they were touching a Van de Graaf generator.