Magic for Liars

by Sarah Gailey

  “Mrs. Webb?” I said. “Do you remember our conversation? In the teachers’ lounge?”

  She fixed me with an X-ray gaze. “Of course I do, Ms. Gamble. I’m not senile yet, you know.”

  I crossed and uncrossed my fingers, a nervous tic that I hadn’t lost myself in since grade school. “Well, Courtney had a surgical abortion performed on her on school grounds, and I think someone should take a look at her to make sure she’s … okay.”

  I had thought that Mrs. Webb was sitting stiffly before, but her posture then was nothing compared to the deep-rooted stillness that overcame her upon hearing about Courtney. I felt like the entire room was looking at us, listening. “When did this take place?” she asked. I glanced over at Courtney, who was staring at her feet as though she’d never seen them before.

  Without looking up, Courtney whispered, “It was the third day of school.”

  Mrs. Webb narrowed her eyes, deepening the network of creases that branched from the corners of her eyelids. She stood from her desk, walked to where Courtney sat, and looked down at the girl. “Who did this?”

  Courtney looked at me. I looked back at her, not understanding until suddenly I did understand. She wasn’t sure if she could say it. She wasn’t sure that it was allowed.

  “She doesn’t remember,” I said, startling myself. I hadn’t known I was going to lie until the words had already left my mouth.

  Courtney nodded, tears filling her eyes, and I wondered what extra damage I’d done by implicitly demanding that she pretend she didn’t know who had performed the dangerous, illegal procedure. “Yeah,” she said softly. “I don’t remember. I can remember needing it done, but when I think about it, it’s just.” Her eyes were glassy. “It’s too much, you know?”

  Mrs. Webb lowered herself into a stiff crouch in front of the girl. Courtney’s eyes went round, and I’m sure mine did too—it was strange to watch the normally stern woman fold herself down into such a comforting position, like seeing a bird do a push-up. Mrs. Webb took both of Courtney’s hands and spoke to her softly. “Did you see it? Or did the person who did this to you give you some medicine before the procedure, so you wouldn’t have to see?” Courtney started breathing hard and fast, and Mrs. Webb placed a hand over the girl’s chest. “It’s okay,” Mrs. Webb said, “I’m just slowing down your heart rate and your breathing a little bit, so you don’t hyperventilate.” Her voice was low and soothing, super-calm, as if she were trying to hypnotize Courtney.

  Courtney took a few deep, slow breaths, then nodded at Mrs. Webb, who hesitated for a threadbare second before removing her hand from Courtney’s chest. Courtney took two more slow breaths unassisted before she answered.

  “I didn’t get any medicine,” she said. “It just kind of happened. I saw it all. I saw, um. I saw all of it.” Her voice trembled halfway through her answer, but she maintained steady eye contact with Mrs. Webb.

  “Have you talked to anyone about this?” Mrs. Webb asked in that same low, steady voice. Courtney shook her head, and Mrs. Webb nodded. “Okay. I’m going to find you someone to talk to—no, I’m sorry, but you will have to talk to someone, Courtney. What you went through is highly traumatic. It’s illegal, and the person who did that to you didn’t take the proper steps to protect you. Do you understand?” Courtney didn’t quite nod, but she blinked a few times, and that seemed to be enough for Mrs. Webb. “You’re a very strong girl,” she murmured, squeezing Courtney’s hands. “It takes a lot to go through what you went through. But you’re not alone anymore.” She straightened abruptly, and looked at me with a ferocity that Dylan would have envied. “Ms. Gamble, a moment, please.” She walked into the hallway without waiting for me. Before I turned to follow, I caught Courtney’s eye. She looked at me warily, and I’m sure she was wondering in that moment if I was an ally or a threat.

  I wasn’t sure what the answer was.

  When I stepped out into the hallway, Mrs. Webb was waiting for me, and I could tell that she wasn’t waiting to congratulate me on a student well counseled.

  “Well, Ms. Gamble,” she said, arms crossed. She only came up to my chin, but she was still towering over me. My stomach twisted in that familiar principal’s-office way. “You’ve got some answers for me, I trust?”

  I blinked, then wondered if I was blinking too much, then wondered if not blinking would be more suspicious. “What answers are you looking for?” I said, trying to speak in a super-normal voice.

  “Who performed a back-alley abortion on this student at my school?” she said, and although her voice didn’t carry the same wave of obey-me manipulation that I would have expected from Alexandria, I felt compelled by the sheer power of her disapproval to tell her everything.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t throw Tabitha under the bus like that, not without knowing why. Not without knowing what had happened with her and Sylvia. Not without answers.

  It was not lost on me that I’d been fully prepared to shove Alexandria headfirst under the bus I was now attempting to save my sister from. It was not lost on me that I was giving the benefit of the doubt to a woman who had performed a procedure for which she was absolutely unqualified, endangering the life and well-being of this young girl.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Mrs. Webb the truth.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She doesn’t remember. I think she was too traumatized. Maybe with time, and therapy—”

  Mrs. Webb shook her head at me. “Try again, Ms. Gamble,” she said, and my heart was pounding but I dug a nonchalant shrug out of the very bottom of my well of fortitude.

  “I wish I could tell you,” I said. “Are you going to be able to take care of her? I mean, is Courtney going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Webb answered, her eyes still narrowed, still locked on my face. “I certainly hope so. But there’s a reason that surgery isn’t usually performed in high school classrooms, Ms. Gamble. I told Alexandria DeCambray so, and I told your sister so, and I told Sylvia Capley so. There’s a reason that sedatives and anaesthetics and sterile environments are a critical aspect of patient care. Whatever happened to young Courtney—and I highly doubt that what happened to her was anything approaching the isolated, proper procedure that would have been performed in a clinic environment—it will have left scars. Lasting ones.”

  I didn’t bite my lip, and I didn’t look away, and I didn’t clear my throat. I kept my eyes steady on hers. I nodded. “If I find out who did it, I’ll tell you,” I said, and the lie fell between us like blood dripping onto a white silk blouse.

  “I’m sure you will,” she said, and I felt two inches tall as she walked back into the front office without another word.

  Something she’d said was stuck like a splinter under my tongue. As I tried to get a firm grasp on it, my feet carried me toward the library of their own volition. I walked in and closed the library door behind me, leaning against it, drumming my fingers against the doorframe.

  It was too much. It was too much, and I couldn’t do it by myself. I was alone with this impossible thing. I wasn’t Tabitha. I wasn’t smart enough for this.

  Mrs. Webb said that she told Alexandria that surgeries shouldn’t be performed outside of medical facilities. She said that she’d told Tabitha the same thing. And she said that she’d told Sylvia that, too.

  “Be smarter,” I hissed to myself, squeezing my eyes shut. There was something I was missing. They all went to Webb to see if she could perform the abortion. That already made sense, that fit together fine—

  But then, it didn’t. Because Sylvia already knew that it was too dangerous. So what was she going to Mrs. Webb for?

  That was it, that was the thing. That was the thread I needed to pull on. I tried to get a good grasp on it, but the books in the Theoretical Magic section where whispering so loudly, and things got slippery. It was hard to remember what I was supposed to be thinking about.

  The books were getting louder.

  I dug my fingernails into my palms an
d tried not to pay attention to them, to the place I was in, to the way that everything here constantly reminded me that I wasn’t magic. I just needed to pull on that thread, just needed to let myself see the shape of the thing that Sylvia asking Mrs. Webb to help was about. I just needed to be as smart as Tabitha, but I wasn’t magic, I wasn’t brilliant, I was ordinary, I wasn’t Tabitha, I was nothing but Ivy—

  Ivy. I heard it again. Ivy. And again, and again, layered over itself—IvyIvyIvyIvyIvyvyIIvIvIvy.

  I whipped around, but there was no one behind me. I was awash in my own name, spinning, trying not to panic.

  Then, just as the whispers stopped and silence fell over the library, I realized that I knew exactly where to find the end of the thread, the one that started with Sylvia asking for help. I didn’t know what would be waiting for me there, but for once, I knew exactly where to go.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  BY THE TIME I’D MADE it to the Theoretical Magic section of the library, the whispering had started again. This time, they were back to being incomprehensible—a susurrant tide of words that sounded like they should have made sense, but which didn’t fit together to form phrases I could recognize. I stood outside the aisle, trying to look in, but I felt the same dizziness as I had the first time I’d visited the library with Mrs. Webb.

  “Tabitha?” I called, and I could only just hear myself over the whispering of the books. “Tabitha, are you there? It’s Ivy.” I felt like an idiot, yelling into the end of the shelf that divided Theoretical Magic from Poison. There was no answer, and I wondered if I was totally wrong. If she wasn’t there—if she wasn’t at the scene of the murder—I would still have to find her to ask the questions about Sylvia and Courtney that I didn’t really want answers to. If she was there … well. Why would she be here, hiding, if she hadn’t done anything? “Tabitha?” I called again. “I just want to talk.” I hesitated. “I’m alone.”

  As soon as I said it, I knew that I’d said the right thing, and I knew that I’d already decided my sister was a murderer. I’d already decided she was guilty. Maybe that’s why my gut didn’t clench when the blurred section solidified and my sister appeared in front of me. She was sitting on the floor between the two massive bloodstains that marred the carpet, resting her palms on each one.

  “Come on in,” she said in a dull monotone. She didn’t look at me when she said it. I walked between the shelves, and immediately heard a crackle behind me. When I turned around, the blurred barrier was back, closing us in.

  “I set it up,” she said, still staring at the books beside her, which were shaking with the force of their whispering. “There’s always been a little baby barrier here, but it’s never been so harsh. So … active. The day after Sylvia died, Torres called me to her office, and I was sure that she knew. But she didn’t know—she just wanted me to set up a stronger barrier, something the students couldn’t get past, so they couldn’t contaminate the crime scene. She needed something that would keep them from taking pictures of the blood. And then, after we got back the official ’miz report that said it had been an accident, she told me to leave it up so the private investigator could take a look too.” She huffed out a breathy little laugh. “I remember thinking that there was no private investigator in the world that I would be worried about. I figured there was no one who could possibly figure out what happened. I had totally forgotten that you lived in the area. Isn’t that weird?”

  I sank to the floor beside her, trying not to touch the bloodstains. “It’s not so weird,” I said. “I forgot that your school was so close to where I live.”

  “It’s weird,” she insisted. “It’s weird that we’re twins, but I didn’t think about you. I didn’t think about you at all. I never do.”

  I reached for her hand, and she gently—but firmly—pulled it away. Something in me whispered “But we were supposed to…” and I realized that I didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

  “Tabby,” I said. “I think you need to tell me what happened. Why did you kill her?”

  Her eyes were wide, dry, staring. “What did you say?”

  “What happened? Did she cheat on you?” I was talking too fast. “Was there a fight? Why did you kill Sylvia?” I tried to keep my voice as gentle as possible, but it was hard to find a way to soften those words.

  “I never thought of it that way,” she said, stroking the bloodstains. “I never … you think that’s what happened? I was trying to save Sylvia.” I watched my sister and wondered if maybe this was worse than I’d thought. Maybe she was actually just plain crazy.

  “How did you try to save her?” I said, but Tabitha shook her head. I tried again. “What did you do?”

  “I miss Mom,” my sister murmured. “I know you think I don’t, but I do. I really do. I wish I could have saved her.” My vision went white as I considered what she meant. “I wanted to, you know,” Tabitha said. “I wanted to help her, but the doctors I talked to—the magic ones—they said she was too far gone. They said it was impossible.” Her lip curled. “Impossible, as if they can’t reverse the polarity of magnets and grow a tree in a day and make wine out of milk.”

  I leaned back against the bookshelf nearest me, then flinched forward again as the books buzzed like hornets against my spine. I tried again. “Tabitha, what happened?”

  “I went into theory,” she said, answering an entirely different “what happened.” “I decided that they wouldn’t be the ones to tell me what’s impossible.” She finally looked at me, and her eyes were like the long-abandoned mine shafts that my friends and I had smoked in when we were in high school. We’d loved the entrances to the old silver mines because they were almost impossible to find if you didn’t know where you were looking. The mines had been abandoned when they were no longer productive; all the treasure had been scraped away, leaving only holes behind. “Do you know what I learned?” Tabitha had a smile playing around the edges of her lips. “I learned that everything they think is impossible is a lie. The boundaries”—she gestured with her hands, describing a shape I couldn’t have identified if my life depended on it—“they’re imaginary.”

  She twitched her fingers, and sparks danced between them. I felt the tiny hairs on the backs of my arms rise and hum as my sister watched the electricity she’d called out of the air.

  “Are you afraid of me?” she said to the sparks, and it took me a few seconds to realize that she was actually asking me.

  “Of course not,” I lied, hoping the strain in my voice didn’t give me away. “I could never be afraid of you, Tabby. You’re my sister.” I was using her name too much, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop saying it—trying to remind her of who we were to each other. Who we’d almost had a chance to become. She kept watching the sparks, and the books hissed all around us, and I decided to ask her one more time. “Tabby? What did you do to Sylvia? Can you tell me?” She didn’t answer. “Please?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again without speaking. She shook her head. “It’ll make me sad.”

  I thought of Tabitha’s eyes in the picture Courtney had sent me. I thought of her on my couch, in the dark, waiting for me to come home. “You’re already sad,” I said.

  My sister began to cry. Her head was bowed, and her tears fell straight down, splashing onto the dried blood, soaking the crusted carpet with salt.

  “I miss Mom,” she said again, and then again, and then I was holding her tight as she gasped and choked, mourning the mother I’d thought she’d forgotten. “I miss Mom, and I miss Dad.”

  I knew what she meant. Our father hadn’t been the same since Mom died. He was functional—of course he was; after all these years, he’d have to be—but he was a husk of the father we’d both grown up worshipping. He’d been hollowed out by the loss of our mother, and he’d never really succeeded in filling the space where she’d fit into his life. He’d been searching for a hobby for sixteen years. Even then, we’d had to push him into trying new things. He’d sp
ent the year after Mom’s death eating cold ravioli out of the can and watching the History Channel for eleven hours a day. I wasn’t even sure if he had friends back then.

  “I miss Dad, and I don’t want to see him,” Tabitha said. “I don’t ever want to see him again, because I’m pretty sure I’m becoming him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, rubbing my hand across her back in small circles.

  “I mean, Sylvia’s dead,” she spat. “Just like Mom. She’s gone.”

  “Tabby,” I said carefully. “Mom died of cancer. Sylvia was murdered.”

  Tabitha shook her head at me, wiping her eyes with her thumbs and then drying her thumbs on the carpet. “No,” she said. “Sylvia died of cancer too.”

  I stared at Tabitha, waiting for what she’d just said to make sense. “I’m … not sure what you mean.” My eyes flicked to the two massive bloodstains. The one on the left was peppered with dark spots where Tabitha’s tears had fallen.

  My sister took a deep breath. “Sylvia was sick, Ivy. She started getting tired—just tired—and then she was tired all the time, and then she wasn’t hungry, and then her joints started to hurt.” My mouth went dry. This sounded familiar. So familiar. “So she went to the doctor, and they found—”

  “Cancer,” I finished for Tabitha. She didn’t nod, but she met my eyes and I regretted finishing the sentence for her. I shouldn’t have taken that from her. She should have been the one to say it.

  “Everywhere,” she breathed. “It was everywhere. It was in her eyes. It was in her bones and, and, and in her brain, and her heart.” She stared at me with deep intensity, like she was willing me to understand. “They said they couldn’t help her. They said she had a month. Less, even.”

  A slow, uncomfortable heat was building under my skin. This was all so familiar. My mother had died seventeen years before, but I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready to hear it again. I couldn’t imagine how it had felt for Tabitha, when cancer came back to take away someone else she loved.