Drawn Away

by Holly Bennett

  “You must be Jack,” Lucy’s mom said, offering her hand and introducing herself as Alice. I was relieved I didn’t come as a complete shock.

  Lucy was on the living-room couch with a blanket tucked around her. She pulled up her feet to make room for me, and I settled at the far end, pulling her feet onto my lap. “Man, you look rough.”

  “I’m actually a lot better. Yesterday I looked rough.” She waved an impatient hand, sweeping that subject off the table. “I have to tell you what I saw in that dream.” The sound of the vacuum down the hall told us we had privacy, at least for now.

  “She’s making, like, a voodoo doll? Of me?” I was remembering the night before, the Match Girl’s odd behavior, and the phrase a sinking feeling now demonstrated its meaning in my body.

  “It could have been just my fevered, delirious mind spinning out,” Lucy said. “But I gotta tell you, Jack, it really felt real.”

  “What’s this binding she was talking about?” I thought I knew, but I didn’t want to be right.

  “I think she meant something that would tie the doll to you.”

  Not good. So not good.

  “What?” said Lucy. “Jack, what is it?”

  “I gave her a Kleenex, Lucy, and it had my blood on it.”

  LUCY

  For the first time, Jack seemed really freaked. Honestly, I was too. At that moment I actually believed the Match Girl was real and that she was somehow plotting to kidnap Jack. And Jack just sat there looking gobsmacked.

  He finally looked at me, his eyes, well, haunted. Though as soon as the word came to me I wanted to stuff it back.

  “What am I going to do?”

  It killed me to see him like that. Since I’d known him, he’d always been so confident and easygoing, so sensible. But how can sensible fight voodoo?

  So Take-Charge Lucy came up with a plan, because we had to do something.

  “We have to do some research.”

  “What? Lucy, this isn’t a joke.” Jack glared at me, panic just waiting to jump out.

  “No, Jack, listen. We need to figure out what’s going on. There has to be some kind of info about ghosts or about the magic she’s trying to use. I’ll get on Google, see what I can learn. What about the conditions when you went over there? Is there a pattern, or anything they all have in common? Maybe we can figure out what makes it happen. And the Match Girl herself—who is she, and why is she there? Maybe, I dunno, we can find out why Hans Christian Andersen wrote about her. And what’s the connection with you?” And me, I wondered. Why had I seen her when no one else but Jack had?

  Jack offered me a quick, apologetic half smile. “Okay, sorry—it’s not a dumb idea. But God, it’s overwhelming. I don’t know where to start with any of it.”

  “I have to start with a nap.” It was true—I was fading fast, my body demanding rest. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m still pretty sick, I guess. But if you like, when I wake up I’ll start looking for some way of protecting you from the kind of spell she’s planning. You start looking for a pattern in your visits to the Twilight Zone—all those science and math courses should be good training for that.”

  “Okay, I can do that,” he said. “And Lucy—thanks. I mean it.” He unfolded himself from the couch, leaned down and kissed me very gently on the forehead, like a parent kissing a sleeping baby. It was so sweet that, sick as I was, I felt a shivery little zing in response. “You rest up now,” he said. “Get yourself better before heading out on your witch hunt.”

  As he shrugged into his backpack and headed for the door, I added one more assignment. “Jack? Why don’t you start researching Andersen too? I doubt you’ll find much of interest on Wikipedia, but maybe check Amazon and see if there are any biographies of him or, even better, an autobiography. Or see what’s in the library.”

  He looked daunted, but nodded. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  JACK

  Once I started looking for it, the pattern became obvious. I wanted to call Lucy right away, but it had been barely an hour since I’d left her, so I forced myself to wait another hour. More to pass the time than with any real interest, I looked up Hans Christian Andersen on Amazon and, sure enough, found an autobiography, a collection from his diaries and a book of letters, not to mention a bunch of biographies. None of them looked like a quick read. I bookmarked the page, hoping I wouldn’t have to spend my life savings on this wild goose chase. Then I called Lucy.

  “It’s been happening about once a month—just under, really.”

  “Just under. Define just under.”

  “Well…” I looked at the calendar. “Around every four weeks, give or take a day or two. The first time was the second day of school—September 5. Then that time with you in the backyard—that was what, October 2 or 3? And then the Halloween party—right on the thirty-first.”

  “Four weeks, twenty-eight days,” Lucy said and fell silent.

  I waited a bit, then asked, “You there?”

  “Yeah.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I was, well, just trying to figure out if it somehow coincided with my period. You know, that’s what twenty-eight days means to girls.”

  I nodded as if I knew. “Right.”

  “But of course that’s dumb,” she continued. “What else is—”

  “The moon,” I cut in. “The moon has a twenty-eight-day cycle.” I had a sudden, vivid memory of the moon flooding light over the fields at the party. “It always happens on a full moon.”

  We digested this factoid for a bit, neither of us having a clue why it was significant but knowing without a doubt that it was.

  “Well,” said Lucy finally. “That means if you’re lucky, and the Match Girl doesn’t find some way to yank you over prematurely, we have almost a month to figure out how to keep you here.”

  “The month sounds hopeful. The yanking-over part, not so much.” Jesus. I really didn’t need to be thinking about that.

  “Sorry. We shouldn’t get too cocky, is all I’m saying.”

  “Right.” As if.

  “So—Hans Christian next?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I reported on what I’d found.

  “Great,” said Lucy. “That’s great.” She sounded as if she really thought it was great that there were more than twenty books about an old, dead fairy-tale writer. “The school library won’t have anything good. The town library can surprise you though, and you can check books out. I’d start there.”

  “Um…I guess I’d need to get a card first.”

  “You don’t have a library card?” She sounded truly shocked.

  “Give me a break, Luce, I only just moved here.”

  Silence. Then, “Did you just call me Luce?”

  “No-o-o.” It was a relief to have something to laugh about.

  “Stupid place is closed Sundays,” she said, “but you can go online and see what they’ve got. If I’ve rejoined the living, we can go after school tomorrow.”

  I got home the next day just before dinner, lugging about fifteen pounds of books.

  “What’ve you got in there that’s so heavy?” Mom asked as my backpack thudded onto the floor.

  “I’m doing a research project on Hans Christian Andersen for my drama class.” An easy lie. Andersen—my mom’s last name. Well, no stone unturned. “You know about him, I guess?”

  My mom laughed. “It’s illegal to grow up in Denmark and not know about him,” she said. “And I got more than my share, because my grandfather always insisted he was our ancestor. I suppose I should have read you more of his stories, but to be honest, some of them gave me the heebyjeebies when I was little. I like Robert Munsch better.”

  She turned to the stove, stirring the cheese sauce. “You could set the table for me.”

  But I was still back at my grandfather. “Seriously? We’re related?” That could be the connection—a kind of connection anyway.

  My mom shrugged. “Oh, so he claimed. But every other person in Denmark is named Andersen, so we never really believed him
.”

  I counted out the cutlery and laid it out. That stack of books seemed like it might be worth looking at after all.

  LUCY

  I was good at telling Jack what to do but didn’t get far with my own assignment. I tried, but I’d barely typed my first search words into Google before my head was pounding and it felt like the computer screen was beaming little shafts of pain into my eyes. I needed to crawl into bed and get better before I could be of much use to Jack. Live to fight another day, I told myself, and then wondered where that expression even came from. It was part of something longer that I couldn’t quite pull out of the memory bank.

  I lay back on the couch and closed my eyes, my mind bumbling along in the loopy, fragmented way it works when I’m sick. Live to fight another day, or not to fight and bear the shame…no, that wasn’t right. Suddenly I heard my dad’s voice, as clear as if he was in the room with me:

  “Better to fart and bear the shame than not to fart and bear the pain.” Grinning at me like a kid as I giggled, my mom shushing him but smiling herself.

  “Daniel, don’t be teaching her that…”

  Oh God. I was so little then—four, five? I’d forgotten. There was so much about my dad I’d forgotten already, and I realized with a wave of pain that had nothing to do with my headache that I’d been trying to forget. Kate had talked to me about grieving, and I’d cried plenty in her office, but then I’d just…put him away. Not wanting to deal with the sadness that even the happiest memory could trigger. I’m sorry, Daddy, I thought, and then I was crying.

  The kitchen radio snapped off, and I heard my mom heading toward the living room. I sat up and swiped at my eyes.

  “Okay, Lucy?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “But I’ve got a really bad headache. Gonna head to bed.”

  My mom hadn’t put up a single photo of my dad when we moved here. So I wasn’t the only one pushing away the memories. And I really did need to sleep. I was weak and achy by the time I crawled into bed, and even with everything I had to think about, I sank into sleep as if someone had flipped a switch and turned me off.

  On Monday my fever flared up again, putting me out of commission. I didn’t make it to school the next day either, but Jack called that evening to report in.

  “He was a weird dude, this Hans Christian Andersen. Honestly, I’m sick of him already.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he seems cool at first, you know? Gutsy. He was born into a poor country family, but takes off at fourteen to Copenhagen, determined to be an actor. And he somehow talks his way into the choir at some big theater, and then this guy sponsors him to get an education.”

  “So why don’t you like him?”

  “Well, that’s where his diaries seem to start—when he’s about our age, and in school, and it’s just all this angsting out about his exams and begging God to help him and worrying that he won’t do well. And then I flipped through some of the later stuff, and it’s like all he talks about is what important people he met and whether they were nice to him or not and who invited him to visit. It’s friggin’ tiresome. Oh, but Lucy, get this.” Jack suddenly sounded animated. “I might be related to the guy.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Now that sounded more promising.

  “Apparently, my great-grandfather insisted it was true, but my mom doesn’t seem to think it that likely.”

  “Well, it’s a connection anyway. Our first lead!”

  “I guess…” He didn’t sound convinced. “But what does it actually mean?”

  “Maybe it somehow explains why she’s latched on to you. At any rate, we’re closer than we were. Time for me to start cramming Witchcraft 101.” Four sick days had put me way behind on my big history assignment, but I was pretty sure I could beg an extension. Jack’s problem was more urgent.

  “I’ll let you know what I find out tomorrow,” I said.

  “Think you’ll be at school?”

  “Almost definitely.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “I miss you. And…” He hesitated.

  “What?”

  “I’m just sorry, Lucy.” He sounded kind of miserable, and I really wished I was sitting right beside him then. “I feel like this thing keeps…I dunno, shoving into the place that should be just you and me being together and getting to know each other—you know? I mean, I wish we could just be having fun together.”

  “It’s okay, Jack,” I said softly. “This is getting to know each other too.”

  After we hung up, I googled one wacky thing after another, from binding spells to exorcising ghosts.

  FIFTEEN

  KLARA

  I haven’t been able to bring Jack back to me yet. At first I tried simply laying my little Jack doll on his handkerchief, but I soon realized it wasn’t so simple. Mad Gerda was always muttering over her charms, saying spells, and I don’t know the proper words. I was so angry then, to think all my work was for nothing—angry like I never was in life, rage rising up in me like a fire. It was a bad feeling, I suppose, yet I clung to it—I felt so alive, so powerful!

  Yet when it subsided, Jack was still not here, and my little doll was. And I found I was glad I hadn’t broken it in my anger. I like my little Jack—he’s not Jack, not really, but he’s still better than nobody.

  I’ve been carrying him around under my coat, wrapped in the handkerchief, for some time now, though I couldn’t say how long. Time is strange here—another thing I never gave a moment’s thought to until Jack woke me up. But now I have brought him out again, for it’s come to me that if I don’t know the proper spell, I can make one up. Somebody must have made up Gerda’s, so why not me? If it doesn’t work, I can try another, and another…

  First I am going to strengthen my Jack doll. I’ve torn a hole in the handkerchief—it’s easily ripped—and now I am going to put it over Jack’s head like the shift he wears. I am going to put the blood spot right over his heart and tie it in place. I will daub some soot at the top for his dark hair. And then I will say a spell, my own spell.

  I never had anything of my own, never dared want more than a morsel of food and a safe bed. But now I do, and nobody can punish me for it. I want Jack.

  I may not be able to bring him here with my doll, but sooner or later he’ll come back on his own, and when he does, I’m going to keep him.

  SIXTEEN

  LUCY

  I had a shift at the café after school, so Jack and I really only got to talk at lunch.

  “It’s crazy—you can find spells for all kinds of things.” I felt like my research of the night before had only muddied the waters. “But breaking spells seems to be more complicated, and figuring out which would be the right one…” Jack’s eyes were glued on me, but that didn’t stop him from dispatching his sandwich with alarming speed. “I dunno, it’s like, how do you find a reputable witchcraft source? Can anyone just follow the recipe, or do you need training? And if any of this actually works, will it work on the ghost of an imaginary character in another world?”

  He nodded. “It does all seem pretty surreal. But if we’re agreed that I need to take her seriously, I guess we have to blunder on.”

  “Right. Okay then, my impression is that doing spells is easier than breaking spells, so the first thought I had was that we could bind you to me, and it would be pretty easy to come up with something stronger than what she’s got, plus your willingness would add strength, and that would keep you here while we figured out how to undo both.”

  To my horror, I found that I was blushing, like I was suggesting we get married or something. “But that’s not ideal,” I hurried on. “You shouldn’t be bound to anyone. I’m sure we can find a spell to break the binding.” I didn’t tell him that any spells I had already found required something of the spellcaster’s—ideally, from the spellcaster’s body—in order to break the link to the sender.

  Jack looked thoughtful rather than appalled, which was a relief. “I would definitely rather be bound to you than her.�
�� The sweet little smile he sent my way erased my embarrassment. “But I don’t like the idea of setting up a tug-of-war between you and her. It seems like even if it took me out of danger, it might put you in her sights.”

  I was about to say, I don’t see how she could hurt me, but thought twice and didn’t. Clearly, the laws of what was possible did not apply here.

  The phone rang the next morning just as I was getting into the shower. I stuck my head out the door until I was sure my mother had picked up and it wasn’t for me. I was mostly dressed when she tapped on my door and came in.

  “What’s up?” I noticed her bathrobe and her bedhead hair before I took in the look on her face. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  She eased herself down on my bed. “That was the hospital in Ottawa. They said…Lucy, I’m afraid your grandfather Shamus has died.”

  My eyes were burning with tears before her words had fully sunk in, like my body understood faster than my mind. “Oh God—how?” But I was hardly listening to the words pneumonia, complications, underlying lung disease. I was flashing back to when my dad died, and how one of the many things I’d been angry about was that my mother had stopped visiting his father, my Grampa Shamus. I loved my grampa and had yelled at Mom about how he was lonely and sad too. “Lucy, I just can’t,” she’d said and left the room. I’d wanted to see my grampa because I thought it would be a bit like seeing my dad. Now I realized my mother hadn’t felt able to for the same reason.

  She’d started visiting again in the past year, though, and we’d made the three-hour drive to Ottawa every few months. But I looked at her now and saw guilt as well as sorrow.

  “He didn’t even tell me he was sick,” she murmured. Then she straightened her back, sighed and looked at me straight on. “Lucy, I have to go down there and organize things. There’s no one else.”