A Wicked Magic

by Sasha Laurens

  Dan looked at her like she was crazy, and Liss glared back at her. Dan had no right be upset that this was dangerous when she’d outright abandoned Liss, and now she was about to benefit from everything Liss had learned in her time alone, every risk she’d taken.

  “I did this by myself,” Liss reminded her. “You’ll be fine.” Then Liss slipped the backpack on and stepped over the edge of the gulch. “Unless you fall on me, and then we’re both screwed.”

  They stumbled and slid to the bottom of the gulch, then Liss led Dan down a few paces. The trickle of water running out to the ocean was only deep enough to soak their sneakers and coat the soles in clay-thick mud. They stopped at a place where the creek bed widened a bit. Here, the mud formed a kind of flat shelf next to the water, but it would be easily submerged after a good rain. The momentary widening of the creek bed carved out space in the sky as well. Liss pointed it out to Dan: the ashy remains of the tree branches on the banks above them bordered a perfect circle of light blue.

  “The other important thing is redwood.” Liss consulted the compass on her phone, turning her body to orient properly. “Over there.”

  Dan looked where she pointed, which was roughly directly into the muddy bank. It was taller than both of them combined. “I don’t see it,” Dan said.

  “That’s the thing. It used to be one of the tallest in North Coast, but it fell after the fire, and it’s a half-mile away. That’s why it took me so long to figure this place out. But you feel it, right?”

  Dan frowned in the general direction of the nonvisible redwood tree. Liss counted to four and back and tried not to think about how much she needed Dan to feel it. Liss mentally added that to the checklist of things she needed Dan to do: to be her gut check when it came to magic; to look at her with well-deserved appreciation and tell her that she’d worked so hard for good reason; to give her the Black Book; to say she’d abandoned this stupid grudge she was holding about Johnny and they could just be friends again, simple as that.

  “You have to feel it,” Liss pressed.

  “It’s been a long time,” Dan faltered. “But yeah, something feels right here. Like . . . things coming together.”

  “Exactly,” Liss said. “I knew you’d feel it. This stuff comes so easy to you, but it took me literally months to find this spot.”

  Dan glared at her. “I learned all this from scratch, same as you did.”

  “That’s not what I meant! I’ve just always had to work harder at magic than you, that’s all. I’m trying to say something nice.”

  “About who?” Dan asked. “You always have to be the best at everything.”

  “I do not,” Liss said, although it was definitely true that she did. She had a wild drive in her that kept her up at night, that curdled her stomach in fear of failure. “It doesn’t matter which of us is better”—another lie—“I’m the one who put in the work for all those months while you sat on your ass and felt sorry for yourself. So I don’t care if you’re better or not. You weren’t there.”

  “You never asked for my help,” Dan protested.

  “Yes, I did. The other night. It went super great. Anyway, why would I have asked when you would rather pretend none of this ever happened than talk to me?”

  Dan opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her arms were folded over her chest. Was she going to cry? That would be extremely Dan of her: Dan was additionally lucky that she’d grown up without learning that crying left you open to attack.

  But to Liss’s surprise, Dan hardened herself and said, “I’m here now. Let’s get this over with.”

  Liss shrugged the backpack off. “Since you’ve worked so hard, can you still draw a mercuriad, or do I need to show you how?”

  Dan tied her long hair back. “Where do you want it?”

  It was not at all gratifying that Dan completely did not need help marking the circular symbol that would confine the spell into the mud, and actually did a surprisingly efficient job of clearing gulch-y debris from the vicinity of their work. That had never occurred to Liss but was stupid obvious once Dan pointed out that natural material like old leaves and rocks could cause interference.

  “Especially if we’re going down,” Dan added.

  “Dark. I know you’re not sold on this yet, but jeez.”

  “I mean the direction of the spell.” Dan eyed the ground beneath their feet. “You said Johnny’s underground. So that’s where the spell needs to project, yes?”

  “Oh, right. Yes.”

  “That’s probably why you got lucky with the gulch, too. We’re practically underground already.”

  A smile spread across Liss’s face. She hadn’t thought of that either, and immediately it felt right—another tiny piece of the puzzle settling into place. She set the circular mirror down in the center of the symbol and poured a little water onto its surface. Dan stood across from her, watching with her brow furrowed. The mirror captured both of their faces, Liss’s framed in light hair and Dan’s in dark. Then they broke away and sank to their knees in the mud, facing each other with the mirror between them.

  “How long has it been?” Liss asked.

  Dan exhaled. “This is the first time, since Johnny.”

  Liss could feel how nervous Dan was. It was the kind of nervous that named an inseparable mess of excitement and fear over a thing that was probably good but could also be terrible.

  “Too long,” Liss said. “Let’s do some magic.”

  * * *

  —

  Everything was perfect—exactly the same as last time, if not better, stronger, because Dan was there, but they still kneeled for what felt like hours, their hands buried in up to their wrists in mud, whispering the words of the spell from Liss’s notebook over and over, each syllable synchronized. They kept their voices in time with each other with only the exchange of glances, kept each other focused when attention wandered with a jut of the chin, managed to convey that it was taking too long with the arch of an eyebrow, an eye roll, a quirk of the mouth—and not once did either of them stumble over the words.

  It was perfect.

  And it didn’t work.

  Eventually the spell began—a prickling sensation that ran up from the mud, into their hands, up their arms and over their skin. But also: a staticky feeling that blossomed from the air and not from the ground at all, and grew into a bolder charge that made their baby hairs stand on end. Dan’s eyes grew wide and focused on Liss as each wave of sensation passed over them, perfectly in time. A pressure against their bodies, like a very serious hug, the feeling you get when a plane takes off and your ears haven’t popped, the heavy lead blanket they made you wear getting X-rays at the dentist. Goose bumps all over, all at once.

  And then the feeling fissured and snapped and the water pooled in the mirror began to change.

  Dan’s breathing hitched, but she didn’t lose the thread of the words. Her eyes darted to Liss’s, and Liss popped her eyebrows in an answer that said, See? Look what I managed to do without you? even though she instantly knew it was different from what she’d seen before.

  A black-brown substance like old blood was seeping into the water, but instead of mixing, the substances seemed to repel each other. The blackish stuff kept leaking in and out of view, and its energy felt feeble. Last time, the mirror had been obscured entirely, but now she could clearly still see her reflection. Worse, the feeling wasn’t there, of someone on the other end of the line. Liss put extra force into her words and thought of Johnny. She had planned out what she would say if they connected again: I’m coming for you, you’ll be safe, I love you.

  Three truths—two truths and a guess.

  But he never came.

  Liss raised her eyes to Dan’s and nodded, and in the same moment, they fell silent.

  Liss wrenched her hands from the mud and pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. Her knees ached. She s
tumbled forward and braced herself on the bank of the gulch.

  “Damn it,” she growled as she shook gobs of mud from her hands. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

  It should have worked. Everything was the same, or nearly the same and actually better, and worst of all Dan was here to see her look stupid, to see her fail. All that effort, again, for nothing—not even a glimpse of his face. Dan was half gone already, with that grudge she wouldn’t give up. All of it was slipping away—Johnny, Dan, magic, everything.

  All at once, Liss found herself back at the beginning of the search: alone and lost with her own stupid dark destroyer of a heart, which burned with the paradoxical truth that nothing would get better unless she tried, unless she gave her entire self to it, everything she had, and yet at the same time, that would never, ever be enough to make a difference.

  Liss tried counting to four and back but her blood was pounding in her ears, her breath coming in short, quick bursts, and that familiar, burning pain was twisting through her guts. She had to get it together, she had to find some way to force herself forward and make another plan. But wouldn’t it be better, somehow, to stay lost in this stupid muddy creek bed forever? To disappear completely—more completely than Johnny and Zephyr and Rickey—just vanished, just gone.

  “Wow.” Dan’s voice was flat and inscrutable. Wow like that was a huge waste of time? Wow like you really fucked that up, Liss? Wow like if Johnny wasn’t dead before, he sure is now?

  Liss couldn’t look at her. “I know. Sorry.”

  “For what? What I meant was—I forgot how it feels. All over your body like that. Like it’s inside you or you’re part of it or something. I don’t know—like it’s really magic.”

  Liss turned back to Dan. Dan was stretching her legs, but she kept half an eye on the mirror. The water was water-colored again and dribbling off into the dirt, but Dan was watching it like it was actually maybe alive.

  “It is magic, Dan. That’s why it feels magical,” Liss snipped without intending to be snippy.

  But Dan looked back at her with this mischievous, private sliver of a grin. “Exactly.”

  And suddenly, in that moment, it was the two of them again. Liss and Dan. Who understood each other, who trusted each other when it felt like they had no one else on earth.

  Liss allowed herself a small frown. “I was sure it would work. Everything was exactly the same.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem?” Dan mused.

  “What do you mean?”

  Dan picked the mirror off the ground and tipped the water off into one of the holes left in the mud by her hands. “The auspices of birds change fast. The stars move a little every day. Maybe the perfect place is somewhere else now.”

  It passed for encouragement, and Liss couldn’t tell if Dan really believed it or not.

  She decided it might be okay not to care.

  SEVEN

  Alexa

  Alexa had the distinct feeling that Dan had blown her off after school. She decided to do homework at the smoothie place anyway, even if Dan couldn’t come, but once she got there she realized it was stupid to spend eight dollars to drink pureed fruit by herself. Instead, Alexa went home and tried to figure out what kind of information she needed from Kim or her dad for her FAFSA application. Of course, that did nothing to make her feel better, because it involved two volatile compounds—money and her parents—that when combined in her presence became explosive.

  When Lorelei came home, she asked if Alexa was bummed about something. Alexa blamed it all on FAFSA, and Lorelei promised she’d talk to Kim about money, if that’s what was needed.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Alexa answered quickly. “Thanks for offering, I mean.”

  “Not a problem. I’m not scared of your mom.”

  “Neither am I.” Alexa forced a smile. “It’s better if I handle it, that’s all.”

  Lorelei waited a beat for Alexa to change her mind. They’d talked about how she didn’t have to do everything herself now, because Lorelei was her ally, but sometimes that didn’t make it any easier to accept her help. “Okay. You let me know if you need backup?”

  “Definitely,” Alexa agreed, even though she knew Kim would never stand for Lorelei’s interfering in financial matters. Still, it made her feel a little better that Lorelei had volunteered.

  * * *

  —

  After dinner, the two of them and Domino settled onto the couch to watch a movie on Lorelei’s laptop. Lorelei insisted Domino loved action movies as an excuse for always picking them, but Alexa couldn’t focus on saving the world right now: her mind kept running to Dan. Alexa knew she was being ridiculous. Dan wasn’t required to hang out with her, but it wasn’t impossible that she had done something to annoy or upset Dan either.

  Alexa frowned at the screen.

  It was probably nothing.

  But if it was nothing, then why did she still feel this way?

  Just then, Domino’s ears pricked up and he darted to the windowsill. A few seconds later, headlights shone into the living room and car tires crunched on the gravel outside. Lorelei went to the front window and pulled back the curtain, enough for a glimpse of the yard. “Seriously?” she said under her breath.

  Alexa sat up. “What is it?”

  “Stay inside.” Domino’s hackles were raised, and his tail switched like he’d scratch the eyes out of the first person across his path. “You too,” Lorelei added, to the cat.

  Lorelei slipped out the door before whoever it was had a chance to knock, and once she did, Alexa crept to the window. They never had visitors, save for Dan and their landlord. The plan to infiltrate Black Grass meant Lorelei hadn’t been able to make many friends in North Coast, outside the few parents she’d met at Alexa’s school and Graciela. They certainly never had visitors that made Lorelei nervous.

  Bathed in the car headlights, Lorelei clasped her hands in front of her chest as if she were praying. Alexa couldn’t see her face. “What an honor! I wish I had known you were coming. I’ve been spending so much time at the Center that my house is a mess. Can we talk out here?”

  Alexa recognized him from the brochure. Dressed in a polar fleece vest over white linen, his Cool TV Dad hair hanging shaggy around his face, Keith smiled in a way that reminded Alexa of how snakes always looked like they were smiling.

  “My Seeker Lorelei.” Keith reached out and stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. Alexa grimaced. Maybe it was the bad lighting, but it looked like there was a grayish tinge to his skin. “My heart is full of love for you.”

  “As mine is for you, my Guide.”

  “It’s due to that love for you that I’m here. I’m worried for your progress. Your advancing has stalled.”

  “I feel it too. I tried to hide it, because I was ashamed.” Lorelei’s voice was meek.

  “You cannot hide any part of yourself from me, Lorelei. You understand that? Lying disrupts our synergy. When one of us is not advancing toward synergy, none of us are advancing toward synergy. Building a better world takes bold action by every member of our community.” Keith ran his tongue over his teeth. “We are nearly at an inflection point. Soon, I’ll guide you to speak to our Lord directly, but he can only reach those who really embrace the path of advancement. It’s hurtful to me that you might not receive the Lord’s gifts.”

  “I never meant to be hurtful,” Lorelei pleaded. “I want to reach the synergy with you. This just demonstrates how badly I need your guidance.”

  Watching from behind a curtain, Alexa’s body was tense and her glasses were slipping down her nose. What even was a synergy? Was the Lord some kind of a Christian thing? Lorelei talked a lot about Black Grass, but she’d never mentioned any of this.

  The corners of Keith’s eyes wrinkled in a way that made him look charitable and caring. “Commit to optimizing yourself. It’s time t
hat you joined us, full time, at Black Grass.”

  “There must be another way. I have told you how deeply I desire to live at Black Grass with my fellow seekers, but I’m legally required to take care of my niece.”

  Alexa shoved her glasses back up her nose. She needed to stop forgetting that her situation with Lorelei, as good as it might be, was never meant to be permanent. Once she turned eighteen, she wouldn’t need a guardian, and although Lorelei never said she planned to wash her hands of Alexa, Alexa couldn’t reasonably expect Lorelei to stick by her forever—even though she’d imagined coming home from college for the holidays to the little Dogtown cottage.

  Keith placed his hands on Lorelei’s shoulders and gazed unblinkingly into her eyes. “This is a pressureful situation for you. But the world is a tangled knot. How do we untangle it?”

  “With the clarity to see our deepest energies,” Lorelei answered automatically.

  Keith nodded. “Remember, the Lord has promised us a better world is coming. He needs you to work harder. Prove you can advance.”

  Alexa watched, aghast, as Lorelei sank to her knees and bowed her head before Keith. “I will, I promise.”

  Keith folded his hands over his heart. “I pray the Lord hears you, Seeker Lorelei.”

  * * *

  —

  Once Keith’s car pulled away, Lorelei locked the door, then peered out the window, twisting the charm on her necklace.

  “I’m sorry, Alexa. He wasn’t supposed to come down here.” Domino rubbed his jowls protectively against her ankles until Lorelei said, “That’s enough,” and he stopped.

  “Does he really believe all that, about making the world a better place?”

  “Unfortunately, I think he does.” Lorelei looked out the window a final time and neatened the curtains.

  “What’s unfortunate about that? Isn’t it a good thing?”

  “Trying to fix something you don’t understand doesn’t usually end well. You know what?” Lorelei turned to Alexa. “I think we deserve ice cream after that. Let’s go to Crunchies.”