“Ready,” Mark and Tristan said in chorus.
It gave me hope that they could actually work together when necessary.
“Ready,” I said a second later. I wanted to close my eyes, but I forced them to stay open.
Mark lifted Branna.
That was when Mom saw how big the piece of wood was. It was stuck in the ground underneath Branna.
“She’s bleeding,” said Mark. “Hurry!”
“Tristan,” said Mom. “The wood has to come out of the ground.”
He bent under Branna, put his hands around the piece of wood, took a deep breath, and pulled. The wood stayed wedged in the ground where the giant must have thrown it when he tried to spear Branna with it.
“Tristan, do it!” said Mom. “This is your chance to prove yourself.”
I thought that was totally unfair, but Tristan seemed to get energy from the challenge. He shook out his arms and stared at the piece of wood like it was an animal he was hunting. A mastodon or something really large. He bared his teeth, made a sound deep in his throat, and pulled again.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the wood started to slide.
Mark stumbled backward with Branna.
Tristan pulled the wood out of the ground and then out of Branna. Then he whirled it around like he was doing the shot put and sent it out toward the football field.
I’d seen Tristan against the slurg, but that was with the sword. This was superhuman strength. No wonder when Mark had seen him run, he’d been eager to make sure he was on Tintagel’s track team.
“Izzie, come here,” said Mom, beckoning me closer.
Mark was holding Branna against his shoulder. She was motionless.
“Here, and here,” said Mom, pushing my hands into the right positions along Branna’s back.
I put away my pain and focused on my magic, on the feeling of fire.
“Slowly,” Mom warned me.
So I let it out slowly. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life—harder than killing the giant. That had been just one fireball after another, with no attempt at finesse. This was like a chemistry experiment, but without using my hands, just my thoughts.
“And here and here,” said Mom, nodding at each vertebra, the lungs, the heart, showing me where to seal.
Branna whimpered.
She would have a terrible scar, but I thought I was doing a better job than an emergency room doctor would. There were lines left where the wound came together, but there weren’t any cross marks from stitches, and there were places where the wound was almost invisible. The lines were bright red and shiny, but they would fade. I hoped.
“Are you sure you’re doing this right?” asked Mark.
“This is her only hope,” said Mom. “Just talk to her, Mark. Keep her with us.”
Mom turned Branna to the side and I gasped at the damage on her stomach. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I had to keep them open and follow Mom’s instructions to the letter, step by step, healing her on this side, as well. Spleen, stomach, intestines, liver, and all the rest.
“Mark!” Mom said harshly. “Talk to her.”
So Mark did, his voice as intimate as if he and Branna were alone. “I’m going to take you to the Halloween dance, and you can dress up as an Amazon and I’ll be your slave. Or we can do something romantic. Romeo and Juliet. Or Lancelot and Guinevere. Or Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.”
I was surprised Mark even knew all those love stories. I guess that was more about him I had never bothered to find out. I bet Branna knew them all, too. And I bet she knew that Mark knew them.
“Branna, just please come back to me.” Mark spoke from his heart, with no hint of embarrassment. “I want to spend the rest of my life fyguring you out. And I think I know what I want to be. I always thought it was professional basketball or nothing, but now I know I want to coach. I want to help other kids see what really matters in life. Like you helped me see what matters. I want to help them feel a bond for each other, help them connect to the team, not play just because it’s fun, or because they want to win, but because they want to be the best they can be.”
I think I loved Mark more then than I ever had before, and he wasn’t even talking to me. I don’t know why, but he was a better guy with Branna. Even when she was unconscious, he was better with her. She was right for him. I hadn’t been.
“There,” said Mom. “That’s as much as we can do here. We need to get her to the ambulance now.”
“I’ll go get it,” said Tristan. He didn’t wait for Mom to give him the key or anything. He just went.
I watched him run off with my full attention. He moved with incredible athleticism and grace. I had never under-stood how people could sit and watch running on TV, even marathons, which go on for hours.
But I could watch Tristan for a long time. His hands moved smoothly back and forth at his sides, like the pistons of an engine, never catching, never losing speed. His feet seemed to spring off the ground like a cat’s, and then he was bounding up again. He looked for a moment like he was going to keep going up, like a rocket into space. Then he would hit an arc and slowly come back down and start all over again. There was magic in every motion. I had never seen another human run as fast, even in the Olympics.
“Is there some magic you can do to make Branna love me as much as I love her?” Mark asked me in a whisper.
I turned my attention back to him. “Mark, she’s been in love with you for months, never saying a word. Without any encouragement. I don’t think you need any magical help to make her love you more.”
“But what if I don’t live up to what she expects? Izzie, I don’t want to disappoint her. She’s been waiting for so long. What if I’m not enough?”
This was a strange conversation to be having with the guy I’d thought was my boyfriend until this morning, but it all made perfect sense to me now. I knew who I was, and I knew who Mark was, and we weren’t meant for each other. I could let him go, and I could feel for him when he talked about loving Branna, because I had Tristan, and I didn’t need anything else.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Mark, you’re enough. You’re more than enough for her.”
We were still like that when Tristan came back in Mom’s ambulance. He was driving it straight toward us, over curbs and lawn, debris from the giant, and anything else in his way. The policemen were diving this way and that, but they didn’t hold guns on him, because they must have thought he was the ambulance driver—the crazy ambulance driver.
“Has he ever driven a car before?” asked Mark.
I thought the answer to that was probably no. Whatever magic they had in Curvenal, it apparently didn’t include the internal combustion engine.
“Are we going to let him drive?” asked Mom.
“You need to be in the back with Branna. And I think Mark wants to be with her, too,” I said. “To talk to her. But I could drive.”
Mom shook her head. “No, Izzie, you need to be with us, in case we need your magic for Branna on the drive over. And we’re going home, not to the hospital. I need to be able to use potions freely. That’s the only thing that’s going to save Branna.”
“So that leaves Tristan driving,” I said.
“I hope we survive,” said Mom. “Teenage drivers.”
We loaded Branna into the back, and Tristan turned on the siren. I had to hold on, and I was bumped up next to Mark more than once. Even when that happened, though, Mark only had eyes for Branna.
We got to my house, and Tristan pulled into the driveway with a lurch that I thought would send us straight through the garage.
Then he jumped out and opened the back door of the ambulance. He tried to help with Branna, but Mark wouldn’t let anyone else carry her.
“Remind me never to drive with you again,” I said to Tristan as we went in the front door.
He glanced up at me with a look of hurt in his eyes.
I blew him a kiss. “On the other hand, nothing wrong with the girl
driving the guy, is there?”
“Not as far as I know,” said Tristan.
There were a lot of things to like about a guy who had grown up a little isolated from the rest of the world. He didn’t have set ideas about what I could and couldn’t do.
“Good. Did I ever tell you how awesome you are, Tristan?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think you have,” said Tristan, a little wary.
“Well, you are.” I beamed my brightest smile, and I think he started to believe me. He relaxed and I could see him holding himself differently, more upright. Wow. That made him look even hotter.
No time for ogling now, though. We had to help Branna. She didn’t look so good anymore. I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing.
Mark had laid her out on the couch in the living room. Mom went into the potion cabinet and came back with some-thing that looked pretty grim. It was a muddy greenish gray, and when she pulled out the cork, the potion spat and kicked drops of liquid into the air. One drop touched Mark and he slapped at his arm.
“What is that?” he demanded.
“This is Branna’s only hope,” said Mom. “It’s life itself. Hot and sharp and spitting fire.”
I felt a connection to it, like it was made of some part of me. The smell was like rotten eggs, and there was no reason for me to want to touch it, but I did.
“Izzie, let yourself focus. You should activate this, not me. It will be more powerful that way, and more personalized, since you know Branna.”
Now was not the time to argue about how well I knew Branna. I’d made mistakes, but she was my best friend, and I still knew her better than anyone else—at least, anyone who could use magic.
Mom handed me the bottle and I felt the heat sear my hand. There was no visible burn on me when I finished, but I could see that the liquid in the bottle had changed color, from gray to amber. I looked up at Mom.
She nodded.
“Now open Branna’s mouth, Mark,” said Mom.
Obediently, Mark held Branna’s mouth open with two fingers.
“And be careful, because if she comes back, she’ll bite you.” She didn’t give any hints about how to prevent that. I guess Mark wouldn’t care if he lost a couple of fingers for a good cause. Like reviving his true love.
“Pour, Izzie. Tristan, you hold Branna down. I’m going to get ready to pump her heart back into action, because that first start doesn’t always work.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Just keep pouring until she starts choking,” said Mom.
I took a breath and I poured. A little at first, and then more and more as I became terrified that it was too late, that after everything Branna had done for me, I would fail at saving her.
Tristan muttered some words that sounded half like a song and half like a prayer in that other language, Greek or French or whatever. It was beautiful, and under any other circumstances, I would have kissed him.
If I had to be in a situation like this, I was glad it was with Tristan.
“Mom,” I said as I tipped the bottle up and the last few drops fell into Branna’s mouth. “She hasn’t choked.”
“I know, Izzie.”
We all knew. It was bad news.
“I’m going to kill someone,” said Mark, and then he started sobbing. He let go of Branna for the first time, and her head tilted back.
I didn’t know if it was the change in position, or if the potion had just needed time to work, but Branna coughed, and I saw her eyes open for a moment.
Mom put her hands on Branna’s chest and started pumping. She didn’t do breaths, just the pumping.
Branna’s face turned from whitish gray to pink in a few seconds. It was the most amazing thing. It was real magic.
I swore, and then I laughed.
“She’s going to be okay!” I shouted. Then I hugged Mark and kissed him, but not in that way. Not a passionate kiss, just one of relief and joy.
Tristan made a funny sound, so I turned and kissed him, too. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was completely different. He had to stop it, and then it took me a few seconds to remember Branna.
Branna, my best friend.
When I was kissing Tristan, everything else tended to fade away.
“Branna, can you hear me? Branna?” I said, taking her hand.
“Here, let me try.” Mark nudged me out of the way. He reached for Branna’s hands. “Branna, it’s me, Mark.”
A hand reached for him and then fell back. “Mark,” Branna said in a raspy voice.
“Don’t let her get up,” Mom warned. “She’s been through a lot. She needs absolute rest to recover. Once a heart has been dead, it can die again easily in the next few days. And I don’t want to have to revive her again.”
“You’re out of the potion,” I pointed out, holding up the bottle.
“There is that, too, and mandrake root is expensive. Although considering the earthquake and the number of hours I’m probably going to be working this week, we should be fine financially.”
“What—what happened?” Branna asked weakly, looking around. “I thought we were at the school. The giant? Don’t tell me it was all a dream.”
“No, the giant was real,” I said. “He must have hit you with a piece of wood and it speared you into the ground.”
She put a hand to her stomach and felt along the scar I’d left in her skin. “I can’t believe I’m still alive.” She glanced at me.
I shrugged.
Mark bent down and kissed the wound. “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, Branna,” he said. Then he looked up at her. “You are the strongest, most capable, most amazing woman, and I—” He stopped, apparently speechless.
“Oh,” said Branna, like she hadn’t expected that. “You’re not just saying that because you thought I was dead, are you?”
“No, I’m not just saying because you were dead! I’ll say it every minute of every day for the rest of your life if you want. So long as you promise to live a very long life.”
“I’ll try,” said Branna, and she closed her eyes.
“What happened? Is she dead again?” Mark asked frantically. He tried to lift Branna into his arms, but Mom swatted him away, and Mark didn’t fight her, although he probably could have thrown her across a football field if he’d wanted to.
Mom bent down and listened to Branna. “She’s breathing,” she said. “She’s just asleep. She’s fine. Or she will be, when I’m finished with her.”
I sagged forward and Tristan caught me. I was exhausted in a way I didn’t think I could be and still be alive. I had lived through an earthquake, used my magic for the first time, killed a giant with fireballs, saved Branna’s life, and endured a NASCAR race home to save her again.
I never wanted to do anything heroic ever again. I just wanted to take a bath and put on some clean clothes.
Instead, I called Branna’s parents to tell them she was okay and was going to stay at our house overnight. Her mom said that was fine, and she should call them when she was ready to go home.
Chapter 23
Mom bandaged my cuts from the glass and told me she didn’t think they would need a healing potion. As for Mark, he tried to resist taking anything Mom gave him, but she reminded him that Branna would have a much harder recovery if she woke up to find her boyfriend dying of sepsis. It turned out he had a ruptured spleen, which I helped fire-seal. Then Mom gave him a magic salve for his burns.
Tristan didn’t need anything at all. He had come through the attack unscathed except for a few bruises from his fight with Mark, and Mom didn’t argue when he said they didn’t hurt.
After all that, I went upstairs and changed out of my disgusting, giant-stink-infested clothes. I bathed without putting my hands or shoulder in the water. Then I put on a nice pair of khakis and a shirt that clung to me in all the right places. Not that I thought Tristan needed to be coaxed to stare at me, but it made me feel more confident. Then I went downstairs.
Branna seem
ed to be recovering enough to open her eyes and murmur a few words, which was good, and Mark was there beside her. He didn’t look at me once, which was fine with me. I hadn’t worn the shirt for him.
Mom stood up and turned to Tristan. “You have your sword?” she asked.
He nodded. “I will return to the school,” he said.
She seemed to know what he was talking about, but I didn’t. “What for?” I asked.
“The giant’s magic must be destroyed,” said Tristan.
“But I already—” I said.
“You destroyed its body, to protect the non-magical world from discovering the truth,” said Mom. “But now the magic of the giant needs to be dissipated.”
“Oh,” I said, not really understanding.
“And also,” Mom added, “I have to get back to the school in the ambulance. There may be others who need me.” She checked on Branna once more and told Mark to call her if there was a problem. Then she grabbed her bag of supplies and got back into the ambulance with me and Tristan. She drove this time, and even with the siren on, it felt sedate compared to Tristan’s driving.
We got out of the ambulance and saw a long line of people waiting to be treated. Tristan and I had to sneak around a police barrier and keep close to the walls of the school to stay out of sight. We didn’t want to be told we had to go back for our own safety. Luckily, the police weren’t watching carefully for people coming into the disaster area. They were paying more attention to people who wanted to get out.
When we got to the pile of ashes that had been the giant’s body, no one was paying attention to it, which was good.
Tristan got out his sword.
“It is dead, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Dead, but it could be brought back to life with the magic left inside its body.” Tristan looked at me gravely. “I have seen it done before. Some years ago, there was a man in Curvenal who was killed, who had magic in his body. He was a sorcerer and he climbed out of his grave, though his wounds were so great that his body would not hold in one piece. Even so, he walked away from his wife, his daughters, and went to serve the serpent. My father was one of the men who went to stop him, and I followed after him.”
Tris & Izzie Page 15