The Wind Between Worlds

by Julie Hutchings

  “Sit down,” Lux said, and Mitch did, as if nothing had ever happened.

  We sat in silence through the next twenty minutes of class, listening to the substitute insist that whatever was in the textbook was absolutely vital to all of our lives.

  She didn’t know what life was really was, what held it together. What kept life stitched into all of its ragdoll pieces. That was information only five witches and their five immortal mothers were privy to.

  And this one boy was the thread that threatened to unravel it all, and me with it.

  School had quickly transformed from a place where I put in too much effort for mediocre results, to a place where I searched every corner for people I should have been able to find with the simple assistance of a syllabus. Vera had gone missing the day she’d put the worm of killing the Elementals into Lux’s ear. And as soon as class was over, Lux disappeared like he’d never been there.

  I always found Una, though.

  “Vera approached the demon all alone, huh? Pretty badass,” she said, biting a Twinkie and wiping a smudge of filling on the wall.

  “Vera isn’t scared of things anymore,” I said solemnly. “Doesn’t tell me why she wants our mothers dead. Or why now.” Talking about this as we walked to class was the most ridiculous and ordinary thing, and I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for all the kids around us who had no idea what the hell was going on.

  “Do you know what things are like for her at home?” Una scoffed, sneering at Mitch Langford when he pointed at her ripped tights.

  “No,” I said quickly, because the idea of setting foot in Vera’s home was as scary as maybe, watching all the Saw movies sitting in a chair made of rats. “I don’t hang out with Vera, I’m not insane.”

  I wasn’t proud of feeling like that about Vera. She was incredibly scary, but she was one of us, and I treated her like a plague victim.

  Also, she was a person. A real, live person under all that horror movie freaktasticness and desire to ruin everything. She’d been the Witch of Whispers once, and she was still that sweet girl in there, somewhere. But she did need to be handled as the weapon she was.

  “I have an idea.”

  “Jesus Christ, Cymbeline! Stop goddamn sneaking up on us.” Una dropped her Twinkie in shock and stomped on it, grimacing at Cymbeline. Una didn’t like to be scared.

  “Hi, Cym,” I said through my grin. She gave me that shy quirk of a smile that I was becoming proud to get out of her. “Idea?”

  Training her dinner plate eyes on Una and I in turn, she said, “I know a place where the Elementals can’t reach us.”

  “Bullshit,” Una said.

  “How can you have a place that none of the Elementals can get to? They’re in the air, water, dirt—”

  “Our spirits,” Cymbeline said with a pointed look at me.

  “Yes,” I said under my breath. I didn’t want to agree that my mom was as everywhere as theirs were. The other Elementals were so intrusive, possessive, even cruel. Regular humans couldn’t feel our mothers’ magic in the elements, but the Poisons saw them in the water fountain outside the office, the flame in the Bunsen burners in Chem, the grass we stepped on in the courtyard.

  I saw a flicker of my mother’s soul in everyone. It comforted me. It never felt like she was trying to watch me through others’ eyes.

  Cymbeline wasn’t the only one unnerved by her mother eavesdropping on our talk in her bedroom. We still didn’t know what the Air Elemental was doing with that information. Maybe she was just nosy. Maybe she was acting only in her own interest, plotting against the other Elementals. Or maybe she’d reported everything back to them to band against us.

  Maybe she just wanted to keep Cymbeline under her thumb like Una said.

  “It’s in the woods. I go there,” was all Cymbeline said.

  Una leaned her head forward, eyes bulging. “And?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “How the hell can it be safe in the damn woods? Hello, earth. Air.”

  “All right, before this gets colorful,” I said, looking hard at the Witch of Shades, “fine. We’ll be there after school.” Una rolled her eyes but didn’t object.

  Cymbeline took my hand and whipped out a pen, drawing a tiny treasure map on it. The intimacy of it surprised me, but I didn’t let on. I didn’t want to scare her away.

  “Is this behind your house?” I asked quietly, my hair falling around us, making us more alone. She nodded, still drawing.

  “Great, hiking through the damn woods. That’s usually reserved for our birthday parties. Anyone seen Delcine?” Una looked around, but we all knew that if the Witch of Sweets wanted to be seen, she’d be seen.

  Another check mark for one of our coven that was up to something.

  Cymbeline dropped my hand, and I looked at her map. Tiny, pretty, and the key to something bigger, like the girl who drew it. I closed my fingers around it and took a deep breath.

  “Wish that it won’t wash off,” Cym said, and I did.

  “And that nobody sees it,” Una added.

  I did as they said, felt the rush of magic, and got back to business. “Okay. Delcine tried to tempt the demon, but didn’t get through to him. Vera did. Delcine won’t stop now. She’s not about to be one-upped.”

  “She used her only trick,” Una said, smirking. “Vera already got there, party’s over.”

  I pursed my lips. “I think we should meet without Delcine,” I said firmly. They both nodded without a look to each other.

  Once again, they’d actually listened to me. I went with it. Even though I was acting as untrustworthy as Delcine and Vera.

  “Let’s just get through today, incident-free. We meet after school—I mean, we should make some attempt at actually paying attention,” I said, looking at the empty halls. We were late for class every day all of a sudden. “After school, we decide on action. Because it is definitely time we took some.”

  Chapter 10

  I don’t know what I was thinking. Once I’d said out loud that we needed to get through the day “incident-free,” it was like I’d put up a banner saying Try All Your Tricks Today, Witches! Hashtag, You’ll Never Make It Out Alive!

  Cowardly, maybe, but I snuck out of school at lunch to get a coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. A momentary break from the constant fear of implosion. The Chains were always in my vision, across every surface, every blank or filled spot, in every ordinary and extraordinary thing. That was invasive enough when I just wanted to pass Chemistry. But controlling the Poisons like they were my kids and trying to save the world or whatever at the same time? That required a coffee break. And a donut. Two donuts.

  Chugging the last of my coffee, I lowered the cup as I walked to Albrecht’s class, and what do I see before me but the Witch of Sweets in all her glory, putting up a fight for Lux. I swore under my breath. I’d known it was coming; Delcine was no quitter.

  Lux was rooted to the floor, chin on his chest, mumbling curses. His black disaster hair was as shiny as the tile floor, as much of a mess as his suit was pristine, and he struck both fear and something else in me.

  The Witch of Sweets leaned casually against the wall, one foot perched on it, showing an expanse of leg. Her eyes were on Lux, but her hands worked in a system of rolling circles and patterns in the air, low by her waist like she was playing with a yo-yo. From between her fingers rose a thick stream of magenta that looked suspiciously like frosting. Only I could see the magic stuck inside, trapped, just like she was going to trap Lux. The gooey ribbon snaked through the air and wound around his glossy black shoes, up his legs, and he moved not a muscle.

  Delcine spun her finger in the air lazily and pushed off the wall, slinking towards the demon. I rushed to get to them. He still didn’t move when she put a finger under his chin and blew a puff of cotton candy smoke against his lips.

  “Stop!” I yelled at her just as I made it to his side. I tried to pull him away, but the ropes of pink frosting held firm around his legs, making him fall against
me.

  The Witch of Sweets smirked at me, all of her friendliness from earlier gone. “He’s mine first,” she spat. I smelled anger like cotton candy on her breath.

  “What do you even want with him?” I hated the jealousy in my voice. But I knew. It came to me in the glint in her eye. Her need to be on the winning team. There was shock in my voice when I said, “You’re going to bring him to your mother.”

  “I’ll not be brought anywhere.”

  Delcine huffed, cocking her head. “Sorry, sexy, but you’re outnumbered and out of your territory.”

  Lux turned his head to her slowly, with faint, but terrifying, jerking movements. My limbs went heavy and cold.

  “If I was afraid of becoming… yours… do you think I’d be here at all?” he said smoothly. His eyes had gone from black to that empty, brutal blue I was even more afraid of. I stepped away from him, something in his voice making me want to run and never turn around. He righted himself in his bonds, looking ridiculous in the immaculate suit from The Gone, with frosting holding him captive.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Delcine asked, sharpening a red fingernail between her teeth. The chain pattern printed on them flashed.

  “It means,” he growled, twisting hard and breaking Delcine’s spell, “that I knew exactly who I was coming across The Chains for.” He smiled hungrily, hurtfully, and inched toward Delcine. I stiffened in fear. Noses nearly touching, Lux said, “I didn’t come here by accident, Sweets,” he said, and gave her a peck on the ruby reds.

  And red was all that I saw.

  I stomped past the two of them into class, loving the feeling of my boots slamming the floor. I didn’t make the decision to spin on my heels and Wish that Delcine would taste The Gone from his lips like rotten meat. I just did it. She grabbed her throat and choked, wiping her lips furiously with her other hand until her lipstick was in butcher shop smears across her face and hand. She hung her tongue out like a panting dog while Lux stared at me, but spoke to the voices in his head.

  “Temptation and lust are not the same.”

  “Oh, shut up!” I yelled at him. And nobody saw the magic at work that made Delcine gag, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes, but it wasn’t magic that had me shaking in anger at the demon. My peripheral vision picked up a few students watching us and I could have Wished for them to go to class and forget what they’d seen, but I didn’t care. I hated caring at that moment. The Chains could hide the mess I was making for me. Let the power serve me for a change.

  “Get to class,” Lux said, nodding to a spot over my shoulder.

  “You too,” I snapped.

  With a shake of the cobwebs in his head, and a flicker of his eyes from blue to black, then blue again, he came as close to me as he’d been to the now red-faced Delcine, but I didn’t move out of the door frame.

  “This is futile,” he said.

  “Me standing in the doorway when we both should go inside? You hanging around here like you belong? The witches fighting over you like a goddamn chew toy? What’s futile?”

  Sadness took over his curiosity and amusement at me. “I was thinking going to class is futile when you know the things you know. And there’s more to learn.” His eyes glazed over as he spoke to someone else. “Too much knowing is another kind of greed.”

  And with zero warning, he was crying. Bona fide tears pooling in those amazing nightmare eyes while Delcine stumbled away behind him. I could have Wished for her not to taste rotten meat anymore, but I didn’t.

  I put my hand on his shoulder and he laughed, the tears spilling over in two streaks down his face. I don’t think he knew they were there.

  “Get in here,” Albrecht said behind me.

  “Sorry, yes, of course,” I said, but didn’t turn around until I’d wiped the tears on Lux’s cheeks away with my thumbs.

  “The Chains talk to me,” Lux said. And he pushed past me to a very ordinary seat.

  Both Lux and I sat through that class like it was the most interesting thing that had ever happened. I think we both needed to feel absolutely normal and regular and nobody. Had he ever felt that way? I was probably the only girl at Rocky Nook who wanted to be nobody. I could be nobody really well. It was when I was required to be someone that I failed. It was getting harder to see where I didn’t fail through the sickening responsibility, the failure, the growing lack of social ease.

  At least I knew Lux had even less social ease than me.

  We both jumped up after class, having had enough of being high school students, and went straight for each other. Link honey-bee buzzed in my pocket, and my eyes searched Lux for his chain link.

  The Chains talk to me.

  “What you’re looking for isn’t here,” he said.

  My eyes melted into his while everyone bustled around us. “Don’t be so sure of that.”

  His lips curled up with more mischief than a demon should be allowed. What the hell was I saying, he shouldn’t be allowed any mischief, or to talk to me, or to be in that classroom.

  “Look, it seems like you want to talk to me or something, and you just want to—I don’t know—with the other witches—”

  “They all have something for me. But you’re the one that haunts. The one I need to talk to,” he said. “Talking is gluttony,” he muttered to a voice in his head, blinking hard. “After school.” Back to me.

  My heart raced. I felt like I’d been caught in a lie. “I can’t after school. Not today. Tomorrow.”

  “When the stars come out.” His jaw set, he swallowed hard, and I wouldn’t argue with him.

  Chapter 11

  Having Una in my car to go to Cymbeline’s was akin to driving a murderer to prison. The Witch of Shades took over the interior with an intimidation that was just unnecessary under the circumstances, trying hard to make herself not vulnerable in a place that wasn’t hers.

  “This radio sucks. You’re lucky I carry CDs for when I anticipate being in sucky cars.” She pulled a slim CD case out of her backpack and popped one in.

  I glanced at her. “Nobody carries CDs. You’ve been preparing for riding in my car since yesterday, haven’t you? Weirdo. Hey, I dare you to find another 1983 Buick with a custom CD player. You can’t, so be nice.”

  “Nice sucks more than your radio does.” Metallic, eerie music filled the car, and Una’s eyes dared me to object when I looked at her. I raised my eyebrows and looked back at the road.

  She slouched against the door, rolling a ball of gray energy in her hand. It crackled, and tiny bolts of lightning shot through it. A storm cloud the color of dust and confusion.

  “That’s so cool.”

  “It’s how I feel,” she said, tilting her head to look at it.

  “I get it.”

  She snapped her head toward me. “Doubt it.”

  I got mad. Something I did a lot that one day in particular. “Look, I know you’ve got it rough, but don’t think that I’m too stupid to understand just because I have it easier.”

  “That’s exactly what a self-important mama’s girl would say.”

  My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “I’m not sorry that my mom and I get along. I am sorry that yours clearly hits you like a punching bag.”

  “Screw you, Celeste!” She rattled the door handle like she was about to jump out of my moving car, but I’d locked us both in. We both knew what it was like to have no way out.

  “I know what she does to you. You’ve done nothing to deserve that abuse.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  “You know the Water Elemental takes her power from emotions, and you can hide behind that attitude all you want, but I see that she’s made you feel worthless. A troublemaker. It’s not true.”

  “Stop psychoanalyzing me, Stars.”

  “I’m not. I mean, you are a troublemaker, but you’re the one who says the things I wish I could. You make new rules, you take everything over. It’s awesome.”

  Una was quiet for a minute, and I kept g
oing. Maybe she was listening and not just hearing.

  “Don’t let her make you feel worthless, Una. Don’t let anyone tell you your value.”

  “Yeah, including you. You’re not my friend.” She took her hand off the door handle and turned to me, with this bewildered look that made me feel worse for her than I ever had, no matter how many times she’d shown up to school hurting. “All this is Spirit Elemental talk. Well, my mother would kill yours faster than you could say ‘Celeste is a goody two shoes.’ You think your mother would fight for me when it came down to it? Mine would kill me herself if she thought for a minute that you and I were becoming friends. I can tell myself I’m a special snowflake all I want. I’m still gonna end up dead. Don’t forget, this is war, Celeste. It’s just quieter and shows its wounds on all the wrong people.”

  If I’d learned anything in my life, it was when to be quiet, and when not to wish for things.

  I parked outside Cymbeline’s house in the pretty well nonexistent driveway. Because even if we were going somewhere in secret, it wouldn’t be a secret from the Air Elemental. She was watching us. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be Cymbeline, having to fight quietly for every private thing you said or did.

  Of course, the door opened before I knocked, causing Una to make a disgusted sound behind me like someone had thrown a slug at her. The Air Elemental was nowhere to be seen, and we walked in, straight to Cymbeline’s room. The breeze didn’t ruffle around us, but her mother was there, a chill in the atmosphere.

  “Cymbeline?” I called.

  The sudden scent of rotting red peppers made me cover my nose, and the room took on the feeling of the dark orange house on my street that seemed like lies lived inside. I was overwhelmed with a bitter distrust, and reached out for Una’s hand without looking. When she took it, everything around me felt deceitful somehow. I looked at her, and her eyes had turned the orange of smashed pumpkins, a mist of the same color around her, bursting in noxious bubbles.