by V. V. James
Then, seven years ago, the Garcias moved to Sanctuary from San Diego. It was Beatriz and Harper who became friends first. Julia first joined in my magic that desperate night a year later, and stayed a part of my circle thereafter. She loves the arcana and ritual, and responds with an artist’s creativity to my magic.
The four of us were friends, despite our obvious differences. And we became a true coven. Bridget grounds me, Abigail fires me up, and Julia reminds me of the beauty of my craft. They all join in my magic, despite having none themselves.
But can our friendship survive this? Can there ever be a way back for me and Abigail, after what she’s said and done? I would expect Bridget to stand by me. Julia, too, after the help I gave her when she came crying to me suspecting Alberto of yet another affair.
I remember when I realized that the man both my friends had confided in me about—Julia’s errant husband and Abigail’s new lover—was one and the same. I kept that knowledge locked inside to spare them both. What I did then, I did for all our sakes, and I brought us through it with no one the wiser. Surely I can bring us through this.
“I think I’m done,” Bridge announces. “I’m famished, and you still look terrible. Let me go grab you a sandwich and coffee—or even some dumb quinoa bowl.” She raises her voice. “Italian sub for you, P?”
Pierre yells his agreement from the yard.
While she’s gone, I go into my office. The disaster in the workroom didn’t affect things here, but I still feel compelled to check my cabinet and records. Governments always try to control what they neither understand nor trust. The less they trust and understand, the tighter they control. My whole livelihood depends on abiding by the rules laid down for us witches.
I lift the wards on my filing cabinet, and my fingers go straight to the fold of cardboard bearing Dan’s name. Both samples of his hair are still there: the one from last year, when I worked on his injury, and the one taken six years ago.
Two samples, but—contrary to the rules—only one consent form.
I’ve always wondered if any of the kids saw what we did that night. If they sensed anything different about Dan afterward. Because they’d all been so close, up till then. Piling into the same room for sleepovers. Having pillow fights and watching cartoons under the covers together. Just four normal kids.
Then it all stopped.
Izzy became a stay-at-home kid. Dan, of course, started getting serious about football. Harper and Bea still hung out, but they did things like going to the movies with other girls from school.
We never questioned it at the time. There were so many reasons why it was the most natural thing in the world. They were all reaching puberty, when boys and girls mix less and female friendships can acquire sharp edges. After Dan’s talent was scouted, he got sucked into training. Izzy had to deal with her parents’ breakup, and even though Bridge and Pierre did a good job of it, it was an emotional time for us all and Izzy struggled. She took to reading for hours with a box of cookies for company, becoming shyer and chubbier at just the time many girls start thinking about dating and dieting.
Childhood friendships seldom last into adulthood. I know me, Bridge, and Pierre are exceptions. But all the same, I wonder about our kids.
They can’t have seen it all. Would Harper date Dan, or Beatriz want to, if they had? But Abigail’s scream would have woken them. What might the girls have glimpsed before Pierre went and settled them down? My friend doesn’t like to talk about that night.
None of us do.
And now here we are again. Only this time, there’s nothing I can do.
I reach into one of the bags of Dan’s hair and rub the soft, fine strands between my fingers. It’s the earlier of the two samples, still the vibrant blond of childhood. I remember clipping it from his scalp with Bridget’s kitchen scissors, while Pierre restrained Abigail, a hand over her mouth to muffle her screaming. I did it as I did everything that night—without pausing to think. Wanting only to end the nightmare.
Taken without Dan’s consent. Though of course he would have consented, had he been able to.
Which is when a chill runs through me.
Something given for something gotten. That’s our creed. My gramma drummed it into me. Abigail spat it at me just a few days ago, when she tried to bargain Jake’s allegation against Harper for the impossible miracle of raising a boy a week dead.
Something given for something gotten. But that night six years ago, Dan got, without giving.
What if…
What if everything that happened at Sailaway Villa was what he got being taken back again?
What if there really was magic at the party? But not used by anyone. Merely the balance, righting itself.
What if that’s the answer my scrying bowl just showed me?
Forty
Sarah
My train of thought is broken by low conversation in the yard, then an excessively cheery “There you are!”—as if I’d be anywhere else.
It’s Bridge, back with a brown paper lunch bag. Pierre is hovering behind her in the doorway. They both look worried sick.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” stammers Bridget. “I took every copy in the deli, but there’s gonna be more all over town.”
“I’ll go find them,” says Pierre. “Every fucking one.”
“What? What is it?”
Which is when I see Bridget has what look like two dozen copies of the Sanctuary Sentinel folded under her arm. But the paper is a weekly. It only came out a couple days ago.
Special Edition. Then: Witchcraft Murder. And somehow, incomprehensibly: Death Penalty.
Everything slows down, as if I’ve taken a preparation of motherwort. A stillness more profound than valerian settles on me as I reach for the newspaper.
It’s only a single sheet. News so urgent they couldn’t wait to share it. The only time that happens is for elections or major accidents. It takes a matter of moments to scan it and realize what’s gotten Bridget horrified and Pierre incensed.
And when I do, I’m so furious I could explode my workroom all over again. Or preferably the Sentinel’s offices.
They’re pinning it on my girl. On Harper. Publicly and unambiguously this time.
“Impossible.” I throw the thing to the floor. “How can it be Harper? Everyone knows she doesn’t have the gift.”
“She doesn’t, right?”
Bridget sounds anxious, like a child seeking reassurance.
“Of course she doesn’t, Bridge. I determined it myself. Any witch would be able to do the same.”
“Then you sue these fuckers,” snarls Pierre. “You sue that Varley bitch and take every dime off this rag so it has to close down. How do they think they can get away with it? The last piece was bad enough, but this one just comes right out and says it.”
Harper.
How do I keep Harper safe? Grief has made Abigail a monster, and Jake Bolt, too, and I should pity them—but not when they threaten my child.
Dan’s death could be a terrible, tragic accident. Or another witch could be involved.
It’s just possible he died as a result of what we all did six years ago.
But it’s completely impossible that my giftless girl had anything to do with it.
The last time Abigail and I met, I refused her impossible demand to bring Dan back. And now this. It’s all her doing. By whipping up suspicion of Harper, she wants to force my hand.
I can’t let this continue.
“Have you seen Abigail recently?” I ask Bridget.
Bridget is looking…guilty? Shifty, certainly. And she spills it all. How Abigail summoned her and Julia and asked for their support.
Her story twists my gut, poisonous as a brew gone wrong. I feel like throwing up.
“She said what?” Pierre is shifting from foot to foot as though he’s itching to
swing a punch at someone, if only he could work out who. Bridget rounds on him.
“She was grief-stricken, P. Imagine if something happened to Izzy. What sort of state would you be in?”
“Not a trying-to-get-my-friend’s-child-killed-too sort of state, for sure.”
My friend cracks his knuckles, but his anger has nowhere useful to go.
“Pierre,” I tell him, “leave this to me. Bridget, would you come with me to Abigail? This has gone far too far. I need her to come out and say clearly that she doesn’t believe Harper did this.”
Even now, I can’t hate Abigail if she’s behind this. But that doesn’t mean I won’t fight her with everything I have.
And witches, after all, have magic.
Forty-One
Abigail
“Abigail? Abi? It’s Bridget.”
I’d planned on ignoring the door.
Beryl Varley came by an hour ago to deliver some copies of the Sentinel’s special edition. We sat at the kitchen table and went through it. I wanted to know why there weren’t any photographs from Jake’s recording of that night, the ones that clearly show Harper using magic. Varley told me that they were being held “in reserve.”
“You don’t throw everything out there at once,” she said. “Readers are only capable of taking in two or three facts at a time, and the facts they need here are ‘witchcraft,’ ‘murder,’ and ‘cover-up.’ Plus drip-feeding keeps pushing the story on. It builds confidence.”
She told me she expected this news to break statewide in the next twenty-four hours and advised me to lie low. She and Tad and the Spartans and the people of Sanctuary would be a “circle of wagons” around me, to protect me from intrusion.
So yes, I’d planned on not answering the door—but it’s Bridget, and I’m so sick of being alone in this house. This empty, echoing house. No husband. No lover. No son. As she thumps the door hard and calls my name for the third time, I answer.
Except she’s betrayed me, because Sarah is with her.
Before I can slam the door, Sarah sticks her foot in. Or I think she does.
“Sarah?”
Bridget sounds uncertain. Which is when I notice that there’s nothing holding the door open except for Fenn’s upraised hand, midair, about six inches from the door.
“Witch,” I spit with as much venom as if the word began with a b. “How dare you.”
Sarah flinches, as if she can’t believe I’ve used that word against her. But the door doesn’t budge.
Bridget gulps. “I didn’t know you…”
“Consent.” And Sarah’s wearing a grim little smile. “She opened the door to me. And if she hadn’t done, well, there are other ways.”
“Go before I call the police. They’ll have you locked up alongside your daughter.”
“Stop it, Abigail,” Sarah says in that low voice of hers. “Stop all this.”
She pushes her hand forward fractionally and the door edges wider, sliding me backward even though I’m now leaning all my weight against it.
“I’m pretty sure forcing entry by witchcraft is against the law,” I hiss.
“Forcing? Bridget, do you see me forcing anything?”
Bridget is hanging back on the step. What was she thinking, bringing Sarah here? And then she explains.
“You two have got to talk, Abigail. You can’t honestly think Harper killed Daniel? I know you’re… It’s unimaginably hard… But you can’t be sure about this.”
“I’m not. Discussing this. On the doorstep.”
I’m breathless. Exerting so much of my strength on trying to keep Sarah out that I can barely speak.
“Fine. Inside, then.”
And with the merest thrust of the witch’s hand against nothingness, my door flies open and I stagger backward.
Bridget gasps, shocked. As she follows Sarah over the threshold, she reaches for me. I shake her off and stand firm.
“Get out now, Sarah.”
“Not till we’ve had this out.”
At a wave of the witch’s hand, the door slams. And despite myself, the hair lifts along my arms and something trickles cold in my stomach. Fear. Like a child seeing for the first time their pet dog bare its teeth and snarl. Realizing that something they’ve trusted and loved could actually harm them.
Copies of the Sentinel lie folded on the hallway table. Sarah holds one up.
“You see what it says here?” She points to the second column and reads. “‘A number of voices are naming Harper Fenn as a person of interest.’ Or here? ‘State law mandates the death penalty.’ I know you understand what’s on the line with these false accusations, Abi, because we’ve already discussed it. The death penalty? You’re threatening my daughter’s life.”
“At least you still have a daughter.”
At my words, I feel Bridget melt against me. Kind, soft Bridget. She’s drawn to any suffering creature: beaten dogs and feral cats. The more wretched they are, the more her heart bleeds for them. She’s stroking my hair as if I’m some kind of wounded animal.
If it’s a contest in wretchedness between me and Sarah, with my dead son I’ll always win. Maybe Sarah’s sensed that, too, because with her next words, she goes on the attack.
“Bridget, there’s something I’ve not told you yet,” she announces. “I’d hoped it was Abi’s grief speaking, but you need to know what she’s trying to do. What the point is of these accusations against my daughter. Last week she confronted me and said that if I didn’t attempt to bring Daniel’s body—his charred, days-dead body—back to life, she would frame Harper for his murder.”
Instantly, I feel Bridget’s arms loosen around me. The suffocating warmth of her eases away. For once in my life, I don’t want it to. I need her on my side.
“‘My son’s life for your daughter’s innocence,’” continues Sarah. “Those were your exact words. You even threw our creed at me: ‘Something given for something gotten.’ Well, I’m sorry, Abigail. I can’t give you that. You know it couldn’t have been Harper.”
What I know is what I’ve seen—Jake’s video. His testimony.
Harper is guilty. She has to be, because it’s the only way I’ll get Dan back. My son, alive once again.
Once I have him, there will have been no murder. Harper will be free of suspicion, and I’ll never breathe a word of what she did to him. My son and I will be gone, far from here.
It’s so simple. I have to make Sarah see it.
I start to cry.
“You did it before,” I say in a whisper. “You brought Daniel back once before. Please do it again. Please.”
I sink to the floor, as if too weak to stand. I’m hardly even acting; I’m so exhausted, kept permanently sleepless by this nightmare that just won’t end.
And Bridget crouches and gathers me up. As I sob, the hand is back, stroking my hair.
“You did, Sarah,” I hear her say. “We all saw it. He died, and you brought him back.”
“I… No. That was different. He wasn’t dead.”
“Michael took his pulse,” Bridget says as I hunch in her arms, making myself very small, very wretched, very pitiable. “There wasn’t one. No heartbeat. Not for minutes. I think a Yale medical professor can tell if his own son is dead or not.”
“It wasn’t…” Sarah is on the defensive now. “Not a true death. People ‘die’ like that all the time on the operating table, after falling into frozen rivers, and they’re revived. That’s all it was.”
“His skull was broken, Sarah. Blood was coming out of his mouth. His nose. His eyes.”
I feel my friend’s shudder.
“It was only minutes, Bridget. That’s what matters. Not the injury—the closeness. And even then, I shouldn’t have done it. It’s forbidden for a reason. Not just by the law, but by my rites, too. It’s…wrong.”
“Yet you made us all a part of it. Me, Julia, and Abi.”
“You did it willingly. All of you. You did it out of love. That’s the only reason I agreed. I didn’t see how anything bad could come out of an act performed with such good, pure hearts.”
“But you’re saying it’s too late this time…”
And Bridget’s tone isn’t right. It’s sorrowful. Accepting.
I push her arms away.
“It’s magic,” I rasp. “Yes, he’s not a patient you can slap the defibrillators on and shock back to life, but isn’t that the point of magic, to do the things that science can’t?”
“Things like advance a husband’s career? Give you a good life?” Sarah crouches down, her face close to mine, and she’s got the gall to be crying, too. “Oh, Abigail, if I could do this for you, too, I would.”
“You won’t try.”
“There’s no point.”
“Not even to save your daughter?”
“I’d save her more easily by doing what you’re asking, wouldn’t I? Like you said—no body, no murder. But it’s different from before, Abi. It’s impossible. I’m so sorry.”
And somehow her regret makes it all real. The fight goes out of me. When I slump to the ground this time, there’s no pretense.
Sarah’s words are the perfectly placed blow of a knife, and what’s leaking from the wound it makes is hope.
Everything inside me comes loose. The painted-on Abigail who has been fooling everyone—sometimes, even, herself—dissolves as I let my tears flow. Bridget rocks me, and Sarah kneels and smooths back my hair. They both see me as I truly am. As what I’ve been denying I am, all this time.
The mother of a dead son.
I lie there breathing shallowly, and into the silence that falls, Bridget murmurs comforting nothings, her hand stroking my back. I’m overwhelmed by jealousy of the broken, car-struck strays that she’s comforted on the vet’s metal table as a needle takes their pain away. If only she could give me peace as easily.
Sarah’s right. She gave me Daniel’s life back once before. She’d do it again if she could.