The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories

by A. C. Wise

  The logic was as faulty as the logic of witches in general. And so it stood to reason his plan would work. It had to.

  He moved to the next house, the next pumpkin. When he reached the end of the block, the cup was a quarter full. By the time he’d gone another block, the measuring cup was half full.

  His life had been normal and boring until the witch had shown up. Then she had to go smell like smoke, and the sea, and cinnamon, and make him see that life was terrible, and unfair. And it was beautiful, too.

  Because the house settled around the witch, and the clomp-clomp of her footsteps over the floorboards comforted him. He slept better with her in the house, and Spencer curled on his chest kept the nightmares at bay. And because the witch kept coming back, no matter how horrible her deaths. The force of life itself, or her will to try again, to live on her own terms, wouldn’t let her give up. It was undeniable, and inexorable. Like moonrise, and spaghetti on Tuesdays. Like witches and black cats. And that was something. That was magic.

  The cup was full. Michael held it up, watching frost melt in the moonlight. Maybe, just this once, life could play along and pretend to be fair after all. If witches were real, wasn’t anything possible?

  On Halloween, Michael brewed the ingredients from the witch’s list like tea. He poured them into a jam jar, and let them cool. The resulting liquid was reddish gold, the color of museum amber.

  Michael held the jar. He expected it to hum with power, but it only sloshed as he turned it from side to side. The contents left legs on the glass, like good alcohol. He wanted to say he was sorry. He wanted her to come back, and tell him her name. He wanted her to explain herself, and he wanted the chance to do the same. And he missed Spencer.

  Michael sniffed the potion. After all the things the witch smelled of, smoke and the ocean, wet rope, and crashed cars, the liquid in the jam jar smelled of nothing. Not the candy corn, or the soft, half-rotten apples. He screwed the lid on, and slipped the jar into his pocket.

  Even though it was just past noon, Michael Remmington decided it was high time he got well and totally drunk.

  Sometime after sun down, it began to rain.

  Would there be any trick-or-treaters in this downpour? Instead of Spider-Man, they’d all be dressed as kid-in-raincoat. He snickered, but really, it was depressing. He pulled out the jam jar, watching the way the light slid through the liquid as he turned it round and round. He needed to find the witch. She needed to see him drink the potion. She needed to know he was sorry.

  He pushed the chair away from the table. The front door was miles away, but he made it somehow, and stepped out into the pouring rain.

  A jack-o’-lantern carved from a pumpkin he didn’t remember buying sat at the bottom of the porch steps. The lid had been knocked askew, and rain had drowned the candle. Along the street, other houses were similarly struggling.

  “Crappy Halloween,” he said to no one.

  He couldn’t even call the witch’s name. Liquid sloshed uncomfortably in his stomach and his pocket—the alcohol and the witch’s brew. A few brave parents with umbrellas ushered kids from house to house. No one looked happy.

  Michael made his way toward the main road and the hum of cars. He could picture the witch walking past the library, and the grocery store; she’d come to the end of the sidewalk, but keep going. She wouldn’t be barefoot, but her suitcase would be clutched in her hand, and she wouldn’t have an umbrella. Spencer, wet and miserable, would be close at her heels.

  He spotted her up ahead.

  Michael stopped, blinking water out of his eyes. The witch looked just as he’d pictured her, which made him suspect wishful thinking. Or maybe the alcohol had gotten the better of him. He broke into a run.

  A sudden gust of wind pulled leaves from the trees, and slicked them over the sidewalk. Water blew sideways. Michael slipped, nearly turning his ankle.

  “Hey!” The downpour stole his voice.

  The witch didn’t turn. Even over the rain, he could hear the steady clunk of her heels. She clutched her suitcase in both hands, and her black skirt clung to her legs, ink bleeding into her skin, bleeding into the sidewalk, bleeding into the dark.

  If she reached the end of the sidewalk, she would be lost. Michael felt it as down-in-his-bones-true. Whatever rules governed witches made it so; those rules governed him now, too.

  He kept going, half running and half limping. He reached for her shoulder. The witch whirled on him and shouted something, but it was torn away by the wind.

  Tendrils of wet hair clung to the witch’s cheeks. She swung the suitcase like a weapon, and Michael ducked. He slipped again, scraping his palm.

  The witch stepped off the sidewalk.

  His heart lurched.

  A black shape streaked past him. Spencer.

  Headlights swept around a curve in the road, bearing down on the witch. Michael shot up, rain-blind, drunk.

  He might have shouted as he plunged off the sidewalk, chasing the witch, chasing the cat. The witch turned, mouth open, but he couldn’t hear her. Headlights washed her out, and made her eyes the same color as the storm.

  They collided in midair.

  She pushed him out of the way, or he pushed her. Or they pushed each other. Brakes squealed, and over the noise, a sound like wings and all of October taking flight filled the air. Against all reason, he heard the jam jar as it slipped from his pocket and became tiny splinters of glass and a magic potion washed away by the rain.

  A slew of water hit him in the face. Michael threw up an arm to shield his eyes, and the bumper of an ancient ’67 Oldsmobile stopped inches from his leg.

  “Jesus, are you okay?” The woman, soaked the instant she stepped from the car, left the Olds askew in the center of the road, door hanging open.

  Something nudged Michael’s leg. He looked down. Spencer twined around his ankles, dragging her sodden tail over Michael’s pant leg. The witch was nowhere to be seen.

  “My cat,” Michael said.

  He bent and scooped Spencer into his arms. The wet bundle of fur purred louder than he’d ever heard her purr before.

  “What?”

  “She’s okay,” he said.

  The woman stared. After a moment she nodded, looking more frightened than concerned. She climbed back into her car and shut the door. Michael held the cat, listening to her purr, listening to the woman’s engine purr. The rain slackened, still slanting through the headlights cutting the night. He realized he was standing in the middle of the road and limped back to the sidewalk. The woman, ghosted behind the car’s windows, shook her head in confusion as she pulled away.

  A shape lay on the far side of the road, which might be the witch’s suitcase. He couldn’t be sure. But he didn’t see the witch. The car hadn’t hit her, or him, or Spencer. He squeezed the cat harder until she squirmed in protest; he unburied his face from her fur.

  “Come on, let’s go home.”

  The witch would be waiting for them with a cup of tea. Or she wouldn’t. But it was possible. And she hadn’t died. Just this once, life had decided to be fair. The witch could go on living on her own terms. Anything was possible on Halloween.

  “Thank you,” Michael said to the night and the turning year.

  Behind the rain and the dense clouds, he could sense the sliver of a crescent moon, waiting to break free. It felt like a smile.

  Simon watched the mouse scale the clock’s side, whiskers thrumming. The clock struck, and the mouse quivered in time. Its paws lost their hold, and the mouse fell, its legs beating the air as Simon bent to retrieve it.

  Carefully he laid the creature on its back atop the counter. He could feel the flutter-beat of a heart through the skin, and above it the gentle ticking of a different kind of mechanism. He soaked the corner of a cloth in chloroform and held it near the mouse’s mouth and nose until the shivering stopped. Then he picked up a scalpel and tweezers, peering through his glasses, and opened the creature up.

  The mouse’s insides whirre
d, and the same honey-colored light that had lit its ascent winked off golden gears. Simon made a few minute adjustments—tightening here, and re-setting a balance there, and then he righted the mouse. Waking, the animal blinked and smoothed its paws over its whiskers before running for a hole in the baseboard.

  The bell hanging over the shop door chimed and Simon looked up. Hastily he pulled the watch, which he should have finished that morning, towards him and feigned absorption in his work. Hard boots clicked over the wooden floor, and the man’s shadow filled Simon’s peripheral vision, blocking the light. The man cleared his throat and Simon looked up. His heart went into his throat.

  “Herr Shulewitz? Simon Shulewitz?”

  “Yes?”

  Simon could barely swallow. He fought to keep his hands from trembling as he set the watch down and straightened his shoulders, trying to meet the Staatspolizei man’s eye. The officer held his peaked cap under one arm. The rest of his uniform was in perfect order—pressed and clean with sharp lines and not a speck of dust. The row of medals across his breast would have been blinding if the sun hadn’t been behind him.

  “Herr Shulewitz.” Here the man attempted something like a smile, but it pulled the deep scars around his mouth into ghastly lines and Simon fought the urge to shudder. “Are you aware that you have a vermin problem?”

  “Sir?” Simon gripped the counter until his knuckles were white to keep himself from visibly shaking.

  “Vermin, Herr Shulewitz. Mice.”

  The officer drew a plain white handkerchief, folded over to hide what was inside, out of his pocket and lay it on the counter between them. Simon’s heart beat high in his throat as the officer reached out one gloved hand and nudged the folds of cloth aside.

  One of his mice, looking as though it had been crushed flat by a boot, so gears mingled with blood and fur, lay within. Simon could not help his hand flying to his mouth. The Staatspolizei officer smiled.

  “A very curious creature, don’t you think, Herr Shulewitz?”

  “I…” Simon faltered. Tears burned behind his eyes, threatening to fall and make his fear visible. He tried not to think of shattered shop windows and cries in the night, neighbors who disappeared never to be seen or heard from again. It was easy to deny as long as darkness covered it, but now it was broad daylight and the officer was standing right in front of him. Simon darted a quick glance behind the officer. Were his neighbors drawing their curtains, bringing false night and pretending they didn’t see?

  “A very curious creature indeed, one with a great many uses, don’t you think?”

  It took Simon a moment to register that the officer was still speaking, still studying him with strange, bright eyes, and still smiling his terrible slashed smile.

  “I believe, Herr Shulewitz, that the emperor would be very interested in such a creature, and the man who created it. And if the emperor is interested, then I am interested.”

  The officer reached out, his leather-clad grip surprisingly strong on Simon’s upper arm. “Pack what clothing you need. You are in the service of the empire now.”

  It was not a question.

  Unfamiliar landscape slid by outside the train window—a blur of green and brown. Simon had never been farther than a few miles outside his hometown before. Across from him in the private compartment, Herr Kaltenbrunner, as the officer had eventually introduced himself, was still looking at the clockwork mouse. When Simon had asked where he was being taken, Kaltenbrunner had smiled his terrible smile and replied, “Lodz, Herr Tinker.”

  Simon had heard of Lodz, a shadowy city far distant, which he pictured as gray and full of rain.

  “Truly remarkable!” Kaltenbrunner exclaimed, turning the mouse over again to examine the gears within.

  “Machinery melded with living flesh. Truly you are a visionary. Think, just think, of how such a thing might be employed—scoop out the eyes and put in eyes of glass instead and there you have it, the perfect spy! It goes tiny and unnoticed through every house at night, seeing who has been naughty, and who has been very, very bad.”

  “It won’t work,” Simon answered, distracted.

  He was still gazing out the window. For the moment he had forgotten to be afraid, and he continued to forget as he divided his mind between the outside world and the thing Kaltenbrunner was proposing.

  “A mouse needs a brain to live. You can augment what is there, but you can’t take too much out. A device to watch behind glass eyes is simply unfeasible.”

  “Ah, but it is feasible, Herr Tinker, if you know the right methods to employ.”

  Simon dragged his gaze away from the glass and blinked. Kaltenbrunner had once more tucked the mouse carefully away. There was something in the officer’s eyes, in his smile, that made it seem as though all the heat had suddenly drained out of the car.

  “The emperor has many interests. Clockwork is only one of them.”

  Simon opened his mouth, but Kaltenbrunner laid a finger across his lips, his eyes shining.

  “You will see soon enough, Herr Tinker.”

  The train seemed to pick up speed then, as though through Simon’s alarm, hurrying them across the country side towards the city full of imagined rain.

  When they arrived in Lodz, Simon saw little besides the platform and the plain brick walls of the station. Almost immediately upon disembarking, Kaltenbrunner slipped a black cloth over Simon’s eyes and tied it tight, binding his hands as well before bundling him into the back of a car. When they stopped again, Kaltenbrunner took his arm. Simon was half-dragged from the car. He heard voices as they passed through some sort of gate, and Kaltenbrunner led him blind through the streets on the other side. He stumbled once, but Kaltenbrunner hauled him up.

  Around him, the streets were full of noise. Simon could hear footsteps shuffling over broken stones. Did nobody notice him being led away? Or did they simply not care? Simon pictured the men and women, heads bowed, hats pulled low, eyes downcast and perpetually shadowed.

  “Almost there now.” The officer spoke close to Simon’s ear; Simon felt hot breath, scented with brandy.

  All around them rose the stench of the bodies too closely packed, and waste, both animal and human. Wherever Kaltenbrunner led him stank of tallow, and oil, garbage and blood. Even blind, Simon felt the closeness as they pushed through narrow streets until they stepped through another gateway, and they were suddenly alone.

  The air felt damp on his face, and he longed to pull the blindfold away. The rope binding his wrists cut into his skin. Beyond the cloth, the light lessened. The surface underfoot changed, and Simon knew they had stepped inside. Echoes of their footfalls bounced back to them, and Simon lost count as they twisted through corridors until at last he heard a door being opened.

  Kaltenbrunner half-pushed him through, and all at once the blindfold and rope binding were both pulled roughly away. Simon blinked. They were in a vast space with a high ceiling of corrugated metal. Workbenches spread with objects Simon couldn’t even begin to name were scattered across the floor among other debris, so it looked like a scrapyard brought inside. Dim, gray light filtered through glass panels and lit the floor in strange pale patches, broken by beams and pillars, which kept the structure upright and cast long shadows on the floor.

  At first Simon thought they were alone, but a sound among the scattered chaos made him turn. A man who had been seated at a workbench rose and came towards them. Like Simon, he was young, but with darker hair, an added brightness to his eyes, and a kind of fierceness in his smile.

  “Hello, you must be Simon. Our good friend Ernst here told me he was going to fetch you.”

  Simon stared. He could clearly see the yellow star sewed to the man’s sleeve. His face was too thin by far, and there was no question he was a prisoner, yet he stood here shaking Simon’s hand and calling the Staatspolizei captain by his first name.

  “Who…” Simon managed, but he could get no further.

  “Your new partner, Herr Tinker, Itzak Chaim Bielski
.”

  Even when the door had clanged shut, and Kaltenbrunner had left them alone, Simon continued to stare.

  “Let’s have a look at your little toy, shall we?”

  Itzak crossed to one of the many work tables, kicking clutter out of the way as he went. Still feeling as though he was blind, Simon stumbled after him. Only at the table did Simon see that Itzak now held the white handkerchief. He had not even seen Kaltenbrunner give it to him. Itzak spread the cloth and his expression wrinkled into one of faint disgust.

  “He didn’t leave us much to work with, did he? Still, I’m sure in all this mess we’ll be able trap ourselves a replacement. What did you use?”

  “What? Oh, crumbs, whatever I had, in a box lined with rags soaked in chloroform. I rigged the box to spring closed once they were inside.”

  Simon couldn’t help grinning a little, coming out of his distraction. He had been staring around at the wondrous room and the first spark of curiosity was beginning to grow into something like excitement. There were tools and parts here he would never have been able to get back home—a veritable treasure trove of riches.

  “Crumbs. I think I can manage that.”

  Itzak lifted a sheet of metal to show a half-eaten crust of bread underneath. “Here.” He tossed the bread to Simon. “You start on building that box, and I’ll see if I can’t find us some chloroform.”

  Simon allowed himself to become lost in the work—forgetting everything but the delicate movements of his hands as he spring-loaded the trap and lined it with the rags Itzak had found.

  “I think I’ve seen some coming in over there.” Itzak pointed, and Simon carried the loaded trap over and set it down where indicated.