by March, Lucy
“Yeah? Well, part of being my friend is choosing me over your goddamn job. You just let this whole thing slam into me sideways, without a word of warning.” I took in a sharp breath as I realized something. “You knew I had a sister when she was still alive. I could have met her.”
“That wasn’t my call.”
“Don’t hide behind that. You know it was wrong, you know it, I can tell by the look on your face. Jesus, Tobias. I thought you were my friend. I thought you would put me first.”
His eyes went dark with anger. “I put your safety first.”
“That was the job,” I said. “I’m talking about me.”
He went quiet, and my ability to deal crumbled. Hot tears flooded my eyes and I turned away, not wanting him to see. I started down the path, my feet crunching the twigs on the forest floor as I walked away, and I could hear the echo of his footsteps behind me as he followed.
“Liv, wait.”
“You’re relieved from duty. Go away.”
He darted in front of me and blocked my way. “Something’s going on. I don’t know what, but I think you’re in danger, and right now, that’s more important than you being pissed off at me.”
“I’ve got Betty and Davina. I’ll figure it out.” I walked around him and continued down the path, but again, he followed.
“You want to be pissed off at me, fine, but don’t be an idiot. Whatever is going on, it’s killed your sister, and is likely the reason that your father disappeared. Not taking that seriously because of your fucking pride is just stupid, Liv, and you’re not stupid.”
“Oh, I’d beg to differ there,” I said, giving him a sharp look. “I fell in love with you, didn’t I?”
He shut his eyes, released a breath, and opened them again. “We’ll get to all that, I promise. But right now, we’ve got bigger problems.”
“No, I have bigger problems,” I said. “You just need to find a new job.”
I continued down the path, but this time, there were only my stomping, crunching footsteps, a fact that filled me with warring factions of relief and distress. I kept moving until I was sure I was completely out of earshot, and then I allowed myself to cry.
*
It took me the rest of the day to figure out what I needed to do. I spent most of those hours in bed, hanging out with the little red mug bunny and watching streaming TV on my laptop, barely noticing the story lines as I tried to work out my next move in my head. I slept so much that day and night melded together, and when I ate, it was coffee and a Pop-Tart. No matter how I angled everything around in my head, though, wondering what I was going to do, I always came to the same answer. The only answer, really.
Move on.
On Saturday morning as I was toweling my hair dry after my shower, I heard the door downstairs open, and Davina’s voice called, “Baby? You awake? I brought coffee.”
I looked at the mug bunny, who was sitting on my bed in his little shoebox. “I bet they knock in Europe.” I tucked the mug bunny in my arm and brought him downstairs with me.
“We need to talk,” I said when I got to the bottom of the steps. Davina stood in the hallway, a cardboard drink tray in her hand sporting two cups of coffee and some kind of pastry bag. She was smiling, and she looked really pretty in her brightly colored peasant skirt matched with a bright yellow silk shirt, so exuberant next to me in my old jeans and faded purple T-shirt.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m about to disappoint you.” I moved toward the front door, holding it open; I didn’t expect this to be a long conversation. “You seem like a nice person and everything, really. But this whole magic thing … I don’t want it.”
“What do you mean?” She stared at me for a long moment, then set the coffee tray down on the half-moon hall table. “What’s going on?”
“I’m getting rid of the magic.”
“Getting rid of it? Why? Did something scare you?”
“Did something scare me? Um, yeah. Every time I pick something up, I’m afraid it’s going to sprout wings or whiskers. I have to go out and buy a new phone because I turned my old one into a bat. I have no idea what you even feed a ceramic mug bunny. And, I got pelted by magic walnuts the other night.” I lifted the right pant leg of my sweats and showed her the fading bruises, then let it drop. “Whatever’s going on between you and that Cain guy is your deal. I really don’t think he’s out to kill you, but that’s between you and him. As for Millie…” I thought about Millie, standing in her red dress at the end of the street after magically pelting Peach with walnuts, then I looked at Davina. “You didn’t throw your stinky gym sock at Millie, did you?”
“I’m sorry. You lost me at magic walnuts. Who’s Millie?”
“An old friend. Sort of on the short and pudgy side, used to be a normal person, now she’s a bombshell with anger issues? You don’t know her?”
Davina shook her head, then crossed her arms over her chest and eyed me. “You think she has magic?”
I felt a moment of unease, and then let the front door shut. “You know, forget the walnuts. It doesn’t matter. I probably imagined the whole thing. The point is, I’m getting rid of my magic, and then, I’m leaving. I’m going to Europe, and I’m going to take pictures of myself with goats. So, thanks so much for everything, but you can go do your fairy godmothering with someone who wants it.” I recognized the edge in my voice, and added, “You know. No offense.”
She watched me for a moment, then said, “Mmm-hmmm.”
“Mmm-hmmm what?”
“Nothing, it’s just…” She shrugged, obviously trying to come up with a nice way to say whatever she was thinking. “Wherever you go, there you are.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that your problems will go with you to Europe, or wherever you end up. Your problem isn’t the magic, baby. It’s you.”
“So help me god, if you tell me that I had the power within me to change my life all along and all I have to do is click my heels three times, I’m gonna pop you one.”
She laughed, a hearty, lively laugh that somehow, despite the circumstances, made me feel better.
“I’m going to have to take that chance. Because don’t you see? You want to do something with your life. This is your chance to do something with your life, something important. You have power. And not just any old everyday power, either; even among Magicals, you’re unique. Power like that, you could do some very important things with it.”
“Like what? Turn plates into groundhogs?”
Davina’s eyes widened in excitement. “Oh, no. There’s so much more to what you can do than that.”
“More? Are you insane? I can barely handle this.” I held up the mug bunny in my hand. “I’m making woodland creatures out of household goods, and you tell me now that there’s more?”
“Oh!” Davina laughed and clapped her hands together. “He’s cute!”
I lowered him back down. “Not the point.”
“Oh, come on. Relax. Hello, little guy.” She petted him on the side with her index finger and smiled up at me. “Is it a little guy or a little girl?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think to check.” I lifted him up and looked underneath while he protested with much twittering and scrambling of little ceramic feet. “I don’t know. It just says Gibson.” I turned him back upright and he calmed down.
“Gibson,” she said. “I like that. That’s a good name.”
“I’m not naming him.” I set him down on the ground, where he clacked across the front-hall floor toward my living room, bouncing into a wall on his way. “I don’t want him. I don’t want any of this.” I swallowed hard, finally saying out loud the plan that I’d had in my head. “I’m going to find my father and have him bind my powers again. Then I’m leaving.”
Davina watched me for a moment, her eyes hard. “Oh, that’s the plan, is it?”
“Yep.” I wished I felt as confident as I was trying to sound.
“I s
ee. And you know where your father is?”
“No.” I looked at her, feeling like a surly teen. “That’s where you come in. I was kind of hoping you might know something about that.”
“I do,” she said, and I had just enough time to work up a decent surge of hope when she said, “He’s dead.”
My heart plummeted. “You know that? For sure? How?”
“I don’t know, not for sure. But he’s been missing for ten years and I just don’t think your plan is exactly … realistic.” Davina reached out and touched my arm. “I’m sorry. I really am. I knew your father, he was a good man, and it was a great loss to the community when he died—”
I gave her a sharp look, and she changed course.
“… I mean, went missing, but I’m afraid for you that this determination to find him is going to bring you nothing but heartache.”
“I’ll take that chance.” And then I had a thought. “Unless I don’t need to find him. Hey.” I pointed a finger at her. “You did this to me. You can undo it. Un-whammy me.”
Davina crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a doubtful look. “Un-whammy you?”
“Yes, get out your stinky gym sock and take it back.”
“Doesn’t work that way. And what’s more, I wouldn’t do it if it did. I gave you a gift, and I don’t mind saying, I think you’re being a mite ungrateful about it.”
“Fine.” I pulled the door open again. “Then it’s back to Plan A. If not my father, then there’s got to be a grandparent or a cousin or someone out there I can find who can do this. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got things to do. So, it was nice seeing you, but…”
She stood where she was for a moment, then said, “So that’s it?”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
“You don’t even care what kind of danger people are in?”
I paused, leaning on the doorknob. “Who’s in danger?”
She hesitated, and said, “I’m not sure. But this thing with your friend and the walnuts … you said it was at night? After dark?”
“Yeah, but I could have imagined all that.” I thought about the gray smoke, the walnuts falling from the oak tree. “Okay. Maybe not.”
“It must be him,” she said quietly, a troubled look on her face. “He’s started it, then.”
I felt a shiver of unease, and I shut the door again.
“Who’s started what?”
She looked at me. “Baby, this may come as a surprise to you, but this whole thing? Is not just about you. I came to find you because I wanted to get to you before he did, and it’s a good thing I did, but now…” She bit her lip and said, “He’s doing the same thing he did in Tennessee.”
I touched her arm. “Who?”
She met my eyes. “Cain.”
“Cain?” I said. “The drunk guy from the alley? The one you knocked out with a trash-can Frisbee?”
She shook her head. “Don’t underestimate him. He’s much more dangerous than he seems. If he finds out who you are…”
I felt a shock of panic go through me. “He knows who I am,” I said. “He asked me if my father was Gabriel Ford. I said no because I didn’t know who my father was, but he obviously did.”
Davina closed her eyes, released a breath through her nose. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I didn’t think it meant anything. It means something?”
“It means everything.” She grabbed her coffee cup out of the carrier and walked into the living room. I grabbed mine, and followed her.
“Davina, who exactly is this guy?”
She cleared off a space on the couch, sat down, then looked up at me, a grave expression on her face.
“This guy,” she said on a grim sigh, “is the man who killed your sister.”
9
“You mean … Holly?” I said.
Davina’s eyebrows raised up in surprise. “You know about her?”
“Yeah.” My chest tightened a bit, and I said, “So it was that guy, Cain? He killed her?”
Davina nodded solemnly.
“And now he’s here for me?”
“Well…” She sighed. “Yes.”
I tried to process this information, but couldn’t get anywhere with it. I knew I should be feeling something, but mostly, I was just hollow. “I don’t understand any of this. What is so special about us that people are trying to kill us?”
“It’s power, baby. Power is everything. All the killing, all the evil, all the tragedy in the world, it’s all about who’s in charge. The only thing that kept magic people marginally safe were the facts that the powers were usually fairly tame, and they couldn’t be stolen. You were either born to it, or you weren’t. As long as Magicals stayed closeted and didn’t present a threat, it was okay. But then, your father got his power and he was … different.”
I leaned forward, hungry for details. “Different how?”
“He was the first known Magical who could manifest his power by will.” She met my eye. “Do you understand what that means?”
“Nope.”
“It means that there was no limit to what he could do. Most Magicals have innocuous powers. Some can make flowers grow faster. Some can maybe make things fly, set things on fire without a match. Simple things. Harmless, mostly. But imagine someone who could decide what power they wanted, practice a bit, and make it a reality.” And here, her expression grew dark. “Imagine if there was a way for a non-Magical to force that person to will that power away.”
I felt a shiver go down my spine. “But I thought … you know … free will, and everything. I thought that was important.”
“It’s important to the people who care about what the darkness does to their soul,” she said, her voice low. “Some people care about the power more. Cain’s one of those people.”
“Okay, now … who the hell is Cain?”
“He’s a conjurer … a witch, sort of. Someone who uses natural elements and potions to create magic, but who is not magical by nature.” She gave a small, humble nod. “I’m a conjurer as well, although I really just dabble. I’m not nearly as powerful as he is.”
I took a moment to absorb this. “So, Cain found Holly and killed her?”
“I still don’t believe he intended to kill her. He’s crazy, but not homicidal. It was an accident, I believe, an unintended consequence of stealing the power from her.” She raised her eyes back to mine. “But now, see, we’ve got a problem.”
“Now we have a problem? Didn’t have one when he killed my sister, but now…?”
She nodded. “Since taking your sister’s magic, Cain has been slowly losing his grip. The transition from day to night, from no power to power, it’s taking a toll. But it’s not like he’s going to give up the power so…” She eyed me. “He’s figured out another solution.”
I thought on this a moment, then finished her thought. “Me. If he takes my day magic, he doesn’t have to deal with the transition.”
Davina nodded. “I knew he was searching, and so I searched, too, and I found you. That’s what the test was about, the gym sock? The sneezing? I had to be sure it was really you. And then, you turned out to have day magic. You’re exactly what he needs.”
“No, no, I’m not anything,” I said, standing up. “I’m going to find my father and have my powers bound and—”
Davina stood up as well. “It’s too late for that. Cain’s found you, he’s not going to let you go.” She grabbed my hands and held them in hers, nice and warm and comforting. “But there’s good news here.”
I stared at her. “Hmmm. Missing father. Dead sister. A crazed conjuring killer after me. Somehow I missed the silver lining.”
“Well, for one, he won’t try to take anything from you yet. You’re not strong enough. You would die before he could get enough juice out of you.”
I swallowed. “That’s the bright side?”
She smiled, her expression calm and loving, and I felt my heart rate slow down a bit.
; “You can fight him. With Holly, we didn’t know what he was after, but now, we do. If you build up your magic, if you get strong enough, you can defeat him. You can take Holly’s magic back from him, and then he won’t be able to hurt anyone anymore.”
I thought on that for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I like my plan better. My plan has European goats in it.”
Davina sighed. “Your plan will take forever, if it works at all, which is unlikely. And the longer you hesitate on this, the more damage he’s going to do.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “You said he could only take me if I was strong. If I just don’t use the power, if I don’t get strong—”
“Walnuts,” she said.
“Walnuts,” I repeated, and then made the connection. “Wait. Millie’s walnuts?”
“Not Millie’s. Cain’s. He took her as a conduit, a non-Magical you can run your magic through, but it comes at a cost. He promises them what they want more than anything in the world, and for that they drink a potion that allows him to gain power over them at night. With every conduit he takes, and he could take quite a few, he is able to draw on their life force to stabilize and increase his own power.” She looked at me. “Do you know what it is Millie wants?”
I thought for a moment, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. “Nick. She was attacking Peach.” I rubbed my hands between my eyes, trying to ward off the headache that was forming there. “And I have them all coming over this afternoon for Confessional.”
“Well, if it’s the afternoon, during sunlight, it should be okay.”
“One of my best friends is trying to kill another one of my best friends,” I said. “It’s not okay.”
“Well, if we don’t do something, it won’t just be Millie,” Davina said. “He’ll do it to others, to gain power, to frighten you.” Davina made a disgusted sound, then looked at me, resolute. “But now, we know exactly what we’re up against. If you get strong enough, fast enough, you can fight him. And I’ll be here, to help you, all the way.”
I stood behind the easy chair, my hand over my beating heart. All I wanted was out. I wanted the power gone and my life back to what it was before. Or, whatever was left of what it was before. But if Cain was messing with Millie, how could I just stand back and let it happen?