Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

by Lish McBride

  “Isn’t that what you’ve done to yourself?”

  Nick shrugged. “So? Doesn’t mean I can’t have hope for someone else.” He placed a hand against the glass and smiled at her son. “I want to believe that change is still possible.” He waved at Samhain with his index finger. “You know what the great thing about babies is? They are like little bundles of hope. Like the future in a blanket.” He stopped waving and shoved his hands into his pockets again. “Maybe your kid will turn things around.”

  She made a decision. It coalesced in her chest and hardened there like an unpleasant pearl. Nick was right. Babies were hope, a blank slate for the future to write on. But he had to make it there first.

  “We need to hide him,” she said softly.

  “How do you mean?”

  “You said you could recognize me by my aura?”

  “Yeah…”

  Tia could tell he didn’t like where this was going, but it was the only chance she had. “Well, if we bind his powers, his aura might be too weak to be noticed, right?”

  “Tia, that’s dangerous. Dangerous and hurtful. You might as well remove one of his limbs.”

  “But will it work?”

  He crossed his arms, frowning at her. “Theoretically.”

  She touched his elbow. “We can undo it later, I promise. When he’s old enough to protect himself.”

  Nick’s eyes on her grew heavy. “I can’t help with this, Tia. I understand your reasoning, but I can’t in good conscience be part of a binding like this.”

  “I understand,” she said stiffly. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to notice how lonely it made her feel. “Would you like to hold him before you go back?”

  Nick straightened up. “Do you—I mean, is that okay?”

  She nodded and gestured toward her room. He went in to wait for her while she fetched her baby.

  Nick sat on the edge of the hospital bed awkwardly. “Are you sure I’m holding him right?” He had Samhain cradled in his arms. He’d taken off his jean jacket and pushed up the long sleeves of his shirt. Tia tried her best not to notice the fact that Kevin hadn’t looked this excited holding his own son.

  “For the third time, you’re doing fine.” She took the chair by the bed, adjusting her robe to get comfortable.

  Nick gave her a schoolboy grin. “He’s beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned back toward the baby, hiding his face from her. “What did Kevin say?”

  “That I gave him a hippie name. And I’m not sure if he knows,” she said, answering the unasked question.

  Nick sighed. “Did he even hold him?”

  Tia picked at the tie of her robe. “Briefly.”

  Nick tugged off the small blue knit hat and smoothed Samhain’s thin hair back with his hand before cradling the baby’s head in his palm.

  Then Nick’s lips parted slightly. “Oh, wow.”

  “What?” Nothing seemed wrong. The baby stared myopically at his uncle, but that was normal.

  Nick put the hat back on the baby’s head, making sure his ears were covered. “Sorry, little guy.”

  “What?” she said again. “Is there something wrong?”

  The baby grabbed his index finger, and the sad smile returned to Nick’s face. “No, nothing’s wrong. But I changed my mind. I’ll help you bind him.”

  “Not that I’m ungrateful, but why the sudden change of heart?”

  Nick waggled his finger, but Samhain held on. “I thought maybe if he was like me, he’d be okay.” He pinched the end of Samhain’s nose. “Why couldn’t you have been like me, little guy, huh?”

  Tia bit her lip. “I don’t understand. I thought he was like you. Unless I did the test wrong?”

  “No, you did it right. I was just hoping he’d be, you know, weak. Not worth the hassle.”

  “What do you mean?” She asked the question, even though she feared she knew exactly what he meant.

  “I was hoping his power would feel like a trickle. But it feels like a river. A big, icy river, and he’s just a baby.” He kissed Samhain’s knuckles. “No, you’re right. He needs to be hidden, and now.”

  She felt the fear grip her heart, making it trip in her rib cage. “What if I moved? Took the baby with me?”

  Nick shook his head. “Wouldn’t do any good. Maybe you’d move into a district with a nicer Council, maybe not. Either way, Douglas Montgomery would hear. No, we bind him. We bind him now and hide him right under Douglas’s nose.”

  He looked sadly down at the baby. “I’m sorry, little guy. I truly am.”

  The first pass didn’t work. Tia was still tired from the birth and the stress, and it had been hard to gather what she needed while at the hospital.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  Nick pulled a safety pin out of his jeans and pricked his finger. He used the blood to draw a small symbol on the baby’s forehead and another over his heart. “We try again,” he whispered, and closed his eyes. Minutes passed. The temperature in the room dropped, but Nick’s eyes stayed closed. When the cold snap ended, his eyes opened. He sagged forward and kissed his nephew on the head. Tia couldn’t see Nick’s face, but she could hear thick sadness in his voice as he whispered to the baby. She had to lean close to hear that he was begging Samhain for forgiveness over and over.

  14

  The Devil Inside

  I stared at the swirling wood grain of the table while my mom cleared away the mugs.

  “So Uncle Nick bound me, and that was it?”

  She ran water for the dishes. I got up and grabbed the dishcloth so I could dry. “His seemed to work where mine failed,” she said. “But even that one wasn’t perfect.” She washed the inside of her mug and set it in the sink.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You kept…leaking,” she said.

  “Leaking? I’m not a container, Mom.”

  She added a dish to the mug. “In some ways, all humans are. We contain organs, blood, emotions, power. In your case, even with the extra barriers, a little kept slipping out.” She washed another dish and handed it to me. “Do you remember when I made you that pouch?”

  “Vaguely. I’d been having nightmares.”

  “No, honey, you were seeing spirits. Even with the binding in place, the ghosts were finding you, seeking you out. You were terrified. Your uncle wasn’t around, so I did the only thing I could.”

  I dried the dish and placed it on its shelf. “I made your medicine bag. Most medicine bags protect. Yours was more like a shield. As long as it was on, you wouldn’t show up on the spectral radar, so to speak.” She handed me a dripping cereal bowl.

  I dried for a moment, letting everything soak in. I could see why my mom had done what she’d done, that it all stemmed from good intentions and a need to protect me. That didn’t stop me from being angry. She had just postponed the inevitable. I still had to deal with Douglas, only now I had zero knowledge and even less training.

  I put away the cereal bowl. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this? Especially after Kevin left. Unless Dad made you hide, too?”

  Glancing over, I could see her mouth crook up a little. “Haden never made me feel ashamed of anything. He found out what I was and didn’t care. In fact, he seemed delighted.” She handed me the last dish and pulled the plug out of the sink. The water gurgled out noisily. “We argued about telling you. He said you needed to know. But I was still so afraid. I think part of me hoped you would never have to find out. I felt guilty about what I’d done, how weak I’d been.” She turned on the faucet, rinsing the last bubbles from her hands. “Sam, what’s going on? I mean, why is this coming up now?”

  “Let’s just say some things have surfaced.” I didn’t think I was keeping secrets as payback, but with so much to sort through, I had no desire to get into the whole mess with her. Besides, she’d worry.

  “Sam.” She stopped when she saw the expression on my face. “Fine. I guess you don’t owe me an explanation.”


  “Later.”

  “Fair enough.” She flicked the excess water from her fingers. “Promise you’ll take care of Brooke?”

  “Already planning on it.” I handed her my towel so she could dry her hands. In the switch-off, my fingers met hers, and I felt my vision open up like it had in the park. Now that Douglas had shown me how to do it, I couldn’t help myself. It was automatic. The difference was that in the park I’d had to close my eyes and work at it. But this time it was much easier. Maybe because I was touching her, or maybe because her emotions were running high. Either way, it felt like a wildly spinning Rolodex in my head. It whirled madly before clicking abruptly to a spot. I could see a lot on that page. I knew that my mom was a witch, and I could really understand what that meant. By the greens and browns, my guess was that her specialty was earth magic. I could feel emotions spilling over me: relief that she was telling, worry about my reaction, love for me and Haley, sadness.

  Most surprising was her fear. I blinked at her and pulled back my hand. “You’re afraid of me.”

  “Sam—”

  “No, don’t. I saw it. You’re afraid of what I am, what I can do.” The idea that my mother, the one person who was supposed to love me without reservation, could fear me made my stomach clench up. I stepped away. “Please,” I said. “Please don’t argue.”

  She dried her hands and hung the towel on the stove. “A powerful necromancer can raise the dead. He can read the soul, like you just did. I’ve heard some of them can even push on a person’s spirit and influence the people around them to do things. If that isn’t a power to be feared, Samhain, I’m not sure what is.”

  I shook my head. What she said sounded scary, but I couldn’t agree with her completely. “I was born with it. You always said nothing is born bad. How can the gift be given to me by nature and be inherently evil? Seeing the dead is freaky, but—”

  “I didn’t mean just the dead. I said soul.” I saw her eyes fill with pity as she looked at me. “Some races are more secretive than others. Whether they do this out of fear of persecution or the desire to keep family knowledge, I don’t know. We all have our secrets, I suppose. A few are unknown because of their general rarity.” She sighed. “Necromancers manage to fall into all of those categories at once: secretive, afraid of persecution, and rare. From what I saw Nick do, and from what I’ve seen you do, my guess is that necromancers have more than a connection with the dead. You have some connection to the human spirit as well. Otherwise how could Nick read me when he met me? How could you read me just now?” She reached out, paused, then straightened my hair like she used to do when I was little. “I’m not afraid of you, Sam. But the power inside of you, I believe, is worthy of my fear.”

  Her cold dread washed over me and I understood. She feared the power would corrupt me, that it would get out of hand. Perhaps someone else would use me for evil. For the first time, I was afraid of the thing inside me.

  I stared at the floor, feeling the lead weight of everything settle in my chest. “Do you know you hesitate before you touch me?” She started to say something, but I cut her off. “Since I was a kid. I thought it was the way you were, but then you had Haley.” My throat felt thick, but I kept going. “There was never any hesitation with Haley. I always thought it was because I reminded you of Kevin. That I took after the Hatfield side of things too much.” I laughed, and it soundly sickly, hurt. “I’ve never been so wrong about something and so right at the same time.”

  “Sam.”

  “No,” I said. I kept my gaze on the floor. My insides twisted, and my eyes burned. I didn’t want to hear anything else right then, even if it was an apology.

  My mom tried to hug me, and I wanted to let her. I wanted to put my arms around her and hug her until my arms ached. Mom and Haley were the only family I had, and when you have so little, you want to hold on tight. I hated fighting with either of them. But the minute Mom touched me, I felt her fear and anxiety roll over me again. It was like a sucker punch to the gut. I jerked back, choking on the nausea and pain. Mom reached for me again. “No,” I managed. “Don’t. Oh, God, don’t.” I slid to the floor and tried to contain myself. I wanted to curl into a ball. I managed, at least, to stay sitting.

  My mom stood anxiously above me, unsure what to do. “I can’t help being afraid of it,” she said.

  “Just go away,” I whispered. “Leave me alone.” I’d never wanted so badly to be by myself. There were lots of times growing up when I felt isolated. Being the lone boy in a family can do that. Your biological dad showing no interest in you only shores up the feelings that are already there. So I’d felt alone a lot. But this was the first time I really wanted it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I know.” I’d felt that too. I swallowed hard. My body shook. I curled up and rested my head on my knees.

  She pulled back from me. “Are you still angry with me?”

  “Just go!” I screamed it, but even that felt like restraint. I wanted to howl until I was nothing but sound.

  She hovered over me for a moment. When she left, I heard her whisper, “I didn’t mean it to go this way.” Then I heard the kitchen door shut.

  I stayed shaking, tucked in a ball, until Ramon came in and told me it was time to go. He pulled me up off the floor, and I made him wait outside while I splashed cold water on my face. I caught my reflection in the darkened window as I dried off. It didn’t look like me. But then again, I wasn’t really sure who I was anymore, was I? I rested my head against the cool glass and tried to get back to normal. I wanted to laugh. How the hell could I even come close to normal now?

  I threw the towel on the counter and left.

  Ramon said my good-byes for me. He came out of the house, his arms half full of snacks, some new jeans my mom had picked up for me, and a container full of herbal teas and things to help me sleep. Guilt was riding high. I told Ramon that I didn’t think I had much time to sleep, but he pointed out that I’d be next to useless if I didn’t rest. The body is much like a battery, he said, and if I didn’t recharge it, I might as well just hand myself over to Douglas now.

  I took the tea.

  Haley walked us out to my station wagon. “So, you see the dead and stuff, huh? How very Sixth Sense of you.”

  I snorted at her. “Thanks. At least you’re not running screaming into the hills.”

  She shrugged. “I think it’s pretty cool.”

  I unloaded all my stuff into the back of the car. “Yeah, I guess. Surprised?”

  Haley made a scoffing noise. “That you’d get the super-weird gift and be a freak even among freaks? Not really. I’ve always known you were a weirdo.”

  “Again, thanks,” I said. I shut the back of the car and walked up to the front.

  “No problem.”

  “I suppose you want me to stand out here on the street and tell you all about me and Mom’s conversation?”

  “Psh, no,” she said. “I listened at the door.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Ramon waved good-bye to Haley and got in the car, placing Brooke’s head gingerly into the seat next to him.

  Haley leaned against the side of my Subaru and crossed her arms, giving me a look I knew all too well. I was about to get a mini lecture. “You have to forgive her.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so shove it.” I zipped up my sweatshirt. “I’ve sort of had a lot thrown at me lately.”

  “So?” she said. “That doesn’t give you an excuse to forget everything else she’s done for us.” Haley got up in my face and stared me right in the eye. I’m always surprised by the amount of force and confidence there is in her eyes. I shouldn’t be. It’s been there since she was a baby.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “She screwed up,” Haley said, jabbing me in the chest.

  “Deal with it. If anyone should get a free pass, it’s Mom.”

  “This isn’t like forgetting to sign me up for Little League
or not letting me go to the school dance, Haley. We’re in the real world now, and whether she meant it or not, Mom’s mistake is probably going to get me killed. I’m sure you want me to be all forgiveness and light, but I can’t.”

  She glared at me.

  I wanted to hug my sister and try to get rid of that glare, but after the incident with Mom, I was afraid to touch her. What would I find? “Look, Haley, I know you’re smart. You’d probably whup my ass on Jeopardy!, but this particular situation is new to all of us, so shut it.”

  Haley leaned back against the car and recrossed her arms. I mimicked her stance until she caved. She threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. Gingerly I hugged her back, resting my cheek against her forehead. I almost cried when I didn’t find any fear in Haley. She might be worried about me and Mom making up, but she wasn’t going to run away from me screaming.

  “Just don’t take too long,” she mumbled into my sweatshirt. “Things start to fester when you do that.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” I squeezed her once and let her go.

  Haley wiped her tears away with the heel of her hand. “See you later, jerk.”

  “Okay, snot-face.”

  She smiled a little and walked back toward the house.

  “Hey, Haley?”

  She stopped and half turned.

  “Wanna go visit Dad next week?” I never said his grave. I didn’t need to. “I have a few days off,” I said softly. I knew Haley would rather go with me. Mom’s grief seemed different from ours somehow. Probably due to being a wife instead of a child.

  Haley nodded but kept her eyes on the ground. “I’ll get some flowers out of Mom’s green house.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Welcome.” She sniffed. When she looked up, her eyes were sad. She shooed me with her hand. “Now get.”

  “I love you, too.”

  She waved without looking back and went inside.

  15

  I Hear You Knockin’, But You Can’t Come In

  By the time we got back to my apartment, I was ready for bed. I was emotionally wiped out, confused, and still angry, and my back felt like fresh hell. I probably should have shown it to my mom, but she would have freaked, and I’d had enough for the evening. That didn’t change the fact that I needed a new dressing.