Esmeralda sat beside him, nursing her broken fingers: the index, middle, and ring fingers of her right hand. They were all bending the wrong way and swelling up into weird potato fingers.
I did that, thought Tom, satisfied. Her hands and arms were covered with tiny dots of blood. Like the creature had left on him and Jay-Tee.
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid that I’d say no if you’d asked me the real question?”
She nodded. “Afraid of dying.”
“I trusted you. You betrayed me.”
Esmeralda’s cheeks went red. “I did. I betrayed you. I lied to you. I took your magic without asking. There aren’t any excuses, but I was close to dying. I was afraid. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have asked you. It was wrong.”
“Very wrong.”
She nodded. “But I don’t need to anymore.”
“Don’t need to what?” Her fingers were so swollen they were like pumpkin fingers. The middle one was bleeding slowly from the fingernail.
“Take anyone else’s magic.”
“Then why did you take Jay-Tee’s?”
“Tom! I gave her magic—at least I tried to. I didn’t take it away.”
“Sure you did.” Tom didn’t believe her, but her lies weren’t making him angry anymore. He didn’t think he had any anger left in him. He would probably live the rest of his life (which he’d just made shorter) without ever losing his temper again. Not many people could say that.
“Look at my fingers, Tom.”
Tom laughed. “I am looking at your fingers.”
The middle finger moved, began to straighten. The blood on the fingernail dried; the swelling started to deflate, like a balloon slowly losing air. Then the index finger straightened and began to shrink, then lastly, the ring finger. They were unbroken. Slowly Esmeralda flexed each one. They moved as if they’d never been broken.
Tom sat up, stared at Esmeralda, who was looking back at him with the same brown eyes as Reason. “How?”
“I have magic, Tom. I don’t need to steal Jay-Tee’s.”
“But in New York…”
“Sit down at the table with me, Tom. Let me get you a cold drink.”
Tom stood up, feeling wobbly, walked to the table, pulled out a stool, sat down. How had she done that? Why was he doing what she told him to?
Esmeralda was looking at her right hand as if she didn’t believe it, either. “You know the old man? The one guarding the door? He did something to me. Put his magic inside me. He didn’t ask, either, just pushed it into me. I thought he was killing me, but he wasn’t. Now I’m full of it, Tom. I can feel his magic in every cell. I feel different. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. I’m not dying anymore. Every time I do magic now I feel stronger, not weaker.”
“The old man?” Tom tried to take in what she had told him. He took in the tiny wounds all over her arms, looked at his own fingers. The dots there were dried, but they were still there. “When he sent that golem through, it was trying to give us magic?”
Esmeralda nodded. “I think so.”
“He’s trying to get through the door to save us?”
“I don’t know what he wants. I tried to give some of his magic to Jay-Tee, but…well, it didn’t work. It made her sick.”
Tom looked at Esmeralda, trying to read her face, but he didn’t have Jay-Tee’s ability. He had no idea whether she was lying or not.
“Her body couldn’t take his magic.”
“His magic isn’t like ours?”
“No, it’s something different.”
Tom tried to take this in. Mere had unbroken her fingers. He hadn’t even known something that complicated was possible. There were so many questions he wanted to ask her. “Why didn’t it work for Jay-Tee?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could you give it to me?
“We could try, but it was bad for Jay-Tee. She was convulsing…I thought she was going to die. But I tried to give her a lot. Maybe if I only gave you a little…”
“Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“I do. Her cells…When I look at them they don’t seem any more damaged than they already were.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I tried to give her didn’t take, but I don’t think it damaged her. Her body fought it, expelled it.”
“So where did it go?”
“I don’t know. Into the air? Maybe it burned up in her fever. I think she’s okay, Tom.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“No.”
“If she wakes up okay, will she have enough magic to last a little while longer?”
“Yes. I’m just not sure how much longer. She has the magic you gave her and whatever skerrick she had herself.”
Tom nodded, satisfied with Esmeralda’s answer. “I’m going to go sit by her.”
“Yes,” Esmeralda said, as if she were giving him her permission. Tom was thankful that she made no move to follow him.
22
Waking
Jay-Tee woke to bright daylight stinging her eyes, making them water. She closed them again. She woke to a thudding pain in her head, but when she shifted position there was just more pain. Her throat was dry and raspy. She coughed.
“Here’s some water.”
Jay-Tee turned to the voice, to Tom. She half-opened her eyes, sat up, groaned, took it from him. “Thanks,” she said, draining the glass and holding it out for more. Tom poured the water quickly, splashing drops of it onto her hand.
He stacked a monster pile of pillows and cushions behind Jay-Tee. She leaned back into them, relieved that her muscles no longer had to work to hold her up. Everything ached.
“My head hurts,” she told Tom. Talking made her cough. She finished the water and then held out her glass for more. Tom poured it.
“Want me to get you some aspirin?”
Jay-Tee nodded and Tom went away. She drained the glass again. It had no effect on her thirst, on her feeling of dryness. The water vanished before it reached the back of her throat, leaving her mouth as moisture-free as a ten-day-old slice of bread. But the jug of water was on the floor. The thought of getting out of bed to refill her glass was too much.
She closed her eyes, resting the empty water glass on her lap and thinking about what Esmeralda had done to her. Jay-Tee felt terrible, but she didn’t have that floating-away feeling, she didn’t feel like she was dying. Not immediately, anyway. What had Esmeralda said? It hurt trying to think complicated thoughts.
Tom came back with a bottle of aspirin and shook two onto her palm. She swallowed them. Their journey down her parched throat was scratchy and uncomfortable. “Could you close the curtains, Tom? Make it less bright?”
She heard him bustling with them. When the other side of her eyelids got darker, she ventured to half open them again. The searing whiteness had softened, making the room shadowed and spooky. Much better.
Tom came and sat beside her. “More water?”
She held out the glass, drained it, held it out for more until Tom had emptied the jug and gone into the loo to fill it again.
“Thirsty,” she said.
“Well, der,” Tom said, smiling at her. He had a nice smile, she decided. White teeth. Very blue eyes. She wondered if they seemed so blue because his skin was so pale.
“You’re so white. You’ve got lots of freckles,” she told him, draining her glass again.
“Yeah, and invisible eyebrows.”
“I can see your eyebrows. They’re goldy-white.”
“Ah, yeah. Do you think you’re brain-damaged, Jay-Tee?”
Jay-Tee giggled. “Maybe. My brain sure does hurt.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Esmeralda did something to me. I thought she was stealing my magic, but she didn’t.” Because I still have magic and I’m alive. Jay-Tee frowned. What had Esmeralda done? “She put her hands on me, but they hurt. Her fingers put something in me, something sharp and horrible. Worms with tee
th.”
Tom poured her more water. She drank it, her mouth finally feeling a little damp. She held the glass out for more.
“I swear you’re going to pee for a month.”
Jay-Tee began to shrug but it hurt. She tried an eye-roll, but that shifted the pain of her headache from the back of her skull to her eyes. She settled for silence.
“Do you know why Esmeralda hurt you?”
Jay-Tee went to shake her head before she remembered the ow-ness of any movement. Instead she said, “I thought she was trying to suck me dry. Take everything. But she didn’t: I’m alive. Why am I alive, Tom?”
“Esmeralda claims she thought she was giving you magic, but she says your body didn’t like it.”
“Huh.” She shook her head a fraction, careful not to shift the headache again. “Didn’t feel like magic.”
“The old man’s magic,” Tom said. “It’s different. Really different. Esmeralda’s turned into a superwitch. She unbroke her fingers.”
“She…?”
“She, uh…her fingers were broken and she fixed them with magic.”
“She broke her fingers?”
“They broke, but she fixed them.”
“What do you mean?
“I saw her do it. Her fingers unbent, the swelling disappeared, and then they weren’t broken anymore. It was—”
“Freaky?”
“Bloody oath.”
Jay-Tee half smiled. “‘Bloody oath.’ That’s funny. But how did her fingers get broken?” Jay-Tee shifted her head to look at Tom’s face.
He blushed.
“What? What happened?”
Tom looked down. “I lost my temper.”
“You broke them!” Jay-Tee winced, she’d spoken too loud. “You punished her?”
Tom nodded. “It felt good.”
“Mere’s like me, Tom. She’s been bad. Badder than me, because I asked you if it was okay. I didn’t want to be like him. She deserved broken fingers.”
Tom looked confused. “Asked what?” Then he blushed again. “Oh, right,” he said. “She should have asked.”
“Mere was afraid. She should have trusted you. Trusted that you’d be good. I did.”
“What would you have done if I’d said no?”
“Died,” Jay-Tee said. “Yesterday, with the cutting magic inside me…Are you sure it was magic?”
“Esmeralda thinks so.”
“Huh. Anyway, when the cutting got really bad, I thought I was dead. I floated. It was really boring. Being alive is better.”
“Too right it is.”
“I definitely want to make it past fifteen.”
“Yeah, I want you to, too. And Reason, and me.”
“Reason’s sure there’s an answer. Well, she was before she went through the door.”
“Ree told you that?” Tom’s tone was sharp. Jay-Tee wondered what was bothering him.
“No, but when Mere was explaining magic to her, the limitations and everything? She got this look.”
“What look?”
“Reason gets this look when she’s figuring things out, looking for answers. She’s a…a solver of problems. I think it’s the math thing. I think she thinks our problem is a math thing. I hope she’s right.”
“Me, too.” Tom was smiling again. He looked warm and sort of glowy. Jay-Tee blinked, wondered if she was seeing right.
“So you’re saying Esmeralda has this new kind of magic? Where did it come from?”
“The old man—”
“The guarding-the-door old man?”
“Yes. Esmeralda has the same little bites on her arms that we had when the golem bit us, same as what Reason had.”
“Huh. It did feel like that. But the golem thing gave me a tiny nip compared to what Esmeralda forced inside me.” Jay-Tee paused. “You know, Reason felt different afterwards. After the golem attacked her. Out of kilter.”
Tom nodded, remembering. “I touched her and she felt wrong. Too smooth, like her arm was made of metal, not flesh.”
“She made way too much light. Her magic was so big she couldn’t control it!”
“You’re right. Reason must have some of the old man’s magic, too.”
Jay-Tee closed her eyes. She could see it. That stuff coming out of the door, trying to suck Esmeralda into it. That stuff had been the same colour as the old man’s golem. Was that what had gone inside her? Jay-Tee’s head hurt. “Where’s Mere?”
“In the kitchen, watching the door.”
“And Reason?”
“Still in New York City. I haven’t talked to her since yesterday morning, though. After…after you drank from me I slept. A lot. It’s not long since I woke up.”
“Okay, then,” Jay-Tee said, pleased to be decisive. “Let’s call Reason. We have to tell her about this.”
23
Inside and Outside
A song rang out. Or a portion of it. I wondered why it stopped so abruptly; then it started again, the same fragment of music. I’d heard it before somewhere, but I couldn’t think where. Everything had been dark—now it was lighter.
“Hello,” Danny said, sleep in both syllables. “Oh, hi, Julieta.”
I heard the sound of a voice far away and small, but not any of the words. I opened my eyes, shifted a little closer to where Danny was. He didn’t have a shirt on. Neither did I. I remembered why. I pulled the sheet up higher. I blushed, my cheeks so hot my eyes watered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Danny asked. “Julieta? How long have you got?”
I was glad I couldn’t hear anything Julieta said. I tried not to listen to what Danny was saying, tried to think of other things, like the old man’s golem inside me, like what Danny and I had done together. If Jay-Tee wasn’t already cranky with me, that piece of news would make her totally ropeable. For a second I wished Sarafina had never gone mad and that we were still on the road, out bush, her and me. No magic, no madness, no imminent death, no evil grandparents, no New York City. And no friends to be cranky with me. We could go back to Jilkminggan like I’d always wanted. The women there could teach me more stories about their mermaid ancestor, the munga-munga.
“Leave Reason out of it—”
Oh, great, I thought.
“Come on, Julieta. Why didn’t you—”
I eased myself back to the other side of the bed. It was a big bed. I had to stop listening to this. I should get up, shower or something.
“Julieta, you’re my sister. Of course I wanted to know!” Danny looked in my direction, but I wasn’t sure he saw me. “What if I never see you again? I don’t want to lose you all over again!”
Jay-Tee said something that made him laugh, but it was a bitter laugh. “Friends are not the same as family, Julieta. We’re Galeanos.” He turned his back to me, lowered his voice. “You know I love you, right? I wish you’d come to me instead of running—”
Danny didn’t say anything for a long time, then he was murmuring that it was okay, that he was sorry. I imagined Jay-Tee crying. I had to stop listening. I threw myself into the Fibonacci series, let myself float away on the wave of each number: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181…A spiral unravelled in my head. It was grey-brown, the room filled with the smell of limes. I was floating in it, drowning in it.
“Reason!”
I blinked, spluttered. Opened my eyes on Danny’s bedroom. New York City. Danny lying by my side.
“Reason!” Danny called out again as if I wasn’t lying there right next to him. He had his hand over the receiver.
“Julieta wants to talk to you,” he said after a moment, handing me his mobile phone.
I took it but didn’t look at Danny directly. “Hi,” I said into the receiver, hoping I didn’t sound like…I wasn’t quite sure what it was I didn’t want to sound like. I hoped Jay-Tee wouldn’t yell at me.
“Hah,” Jay-Tee said. “You sound sleepy, too. Isn’t it like four in the afternoon there?” She didn’t remotely sound
like she’d just had an intense conversation with her brother.
I looked at my watch. “No, it’s 6:13 PM. We, ah, we were, um, doing a lot of research and running around yest—today and didn’t sleep much last night and—”
“Sure,” Jay-Tee said. “We’ve been sleepy, too.”
“You do sound kind of funny.”
“My head got banged,” Jay-Tee said, as if it was nothing. “I’m fuzzy.”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Just fuzzy.”
“I’m, ah, about telling your brother—”
“It’s okay. I mean, I’m mad at you. You shouldn’t have told him. But you did. So, you know…Let’s just say we’re even, okay? I didn’t exactly tell you stuff I should’ve when you first came to New York. You know, with him and everything. So we’re even, right?”
“Okay.” I shifted back onto the pillows, holding the sheet to my throat. I was sore. My thigh muscles ached. Danny and I, we hadn’t gone to sleep until long after the sun had come up. My face got even hotter. I decided not to think about it. I closed my eyes. On the backs of my eyelids I saw the curve of muscles across Danny’s stomach and my hand touching them. I wasn’t sure Jay-Tee would still think we were even when she found out.
“We’ve been running around, too,” Jay-Tee continued. “Well, apart from the monster-huge sleeps.”
Danny slipped out from the sheets. I watched his back as he retreated into the bathroom.
“Monster-huge sleeps?” I peered over the edge of the bed and found the clothing I’d been wearing. I held the phone between the side of my head and my shoulder and tried to get the T-shirt on but ended up tangled. I heard the sound of a shower going on.
“Yeah, ah, well—”
“Can you hang on a sec?”
“Sure.”
I put the phone down and got my makeshift PJs on. “Okay. What’s happening?”
“The old man gave Mere his magic.”
“What?”
“He or one of his golems got into Mere just like it got into you. Only it stayed in. It gave her magic and then she gave it to me. But it cut me up, made me really sick—”
“Cut you?”
“Like worms with sharp teeth. She thought it would help me. I’m…” Jay-Tee hesitated. “My magic’s worn thin. Mere thought I was dying. I was dying, am dying—so she thought it would help me. But it didn’t work for me the way it did for her. I got really, really sick. Convulsions and everything. You should see my bruises.”
Magic Lessons Page 16