A Wicked Magic

by Sasha Laurens

  The breeze was intensifying, tugging her hair free of her bun, until suddenly it burst into a gust that lashed her from all angles. Liss had the crazed sensation that she was being tied up somehow by ropes of wind, as if the wind wanted to pin her into place, the same way it had pinned the map against the dry grass. Liss fought against it, lunging for the map. She had to find the spot marking Johnny’s location—

  But then she wasn’t looking at the map at all, but at the dark grass underneath. The wind had whisked embers out of the bowl. The air still swirled around them. First pinprick burns riddled the paper, then in seconds they bloomed into a single red and black abyss, eating up the topographic swirls of the mountains and down the arteries of the rivers. The fire gnawed through the old map like it would destroy the whole of North Coast, and soon the paper was obliterated altogether. Liss clung pointlessly to the scraps—the legend, part of the blue border of the Pacific Ocean.

  “Did you see it, Dan? I didn’t get it.” Liss was frantic. “Shit, the whole map’s wrecked.”

  Then she saw Dan.

  At some point Dan had stopped the incantation. Or no—she’d frozen, her lips stuck on a word half said and her eyes screwed up tight. Her notebook paper was crumpled in her fists, her body rigid and still, the wind whipping her hair around her face. It was as if one minute she’d been doing the spell and the next she’d just stopped, like a toy run out of batteries. In front of her, the bowl of fire still snapped and burned, responding to the rush of the air.

  “Dan?” Liss whispered, then cleared her throat. “The spell’s over.”

  Liss crawled toward her. Dan was trembling all over, and there was a low moan coming from her throat, like the sound had gotten stuck there. “Dan, open your eyes!”

  Liss put her hand on Dan’s shoulder.

  The sound in Dan’s throat broke free—a wild, inhuman sound that the wind rushed up from behind her to carry away. Dan didn’t struggle against it, as Liss had. She let it shove her forward, and she fell—directly into the bowl of blue flame.

  “Dan!” Liss screamed.

  But the fire was already spreading, urged on by the wind. The dry grass that Dan had carefully tamped down before the spell was smoking, fingers of flame lacing through it. Before Liss knew it, the world started to burn.

  Alexa

  Alexa cut across the middle of the flat top of the hill to avoid whatever was happening on its north side. Whoever it was wasn’t exactly trying to escape notice, not with a flashlight pointing all directions like that. By the same reasoning, they didn’t seem part of Black Grass. It was probably a darryl or some stoner kids. She reconsidered heading back to the car, now that the noise wasn’t a threat after all, but she’d agreed to meet Domino there.

  Then that sound—a guttural scream with serrated edges. Alexa felt it in her chest, like a hot knife. The flashlight was bobbing like crazy now. A chill ran down Alexa’s spine. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t any of her business.

  “Dan!”

  Alexa was running before she thought about what she’d heard. It was that scream and Dan’s name that played in her brain as she bounded through the grass, struggling to keep her feet under her. What was happening up there—was that the orange glow of a fire? The wind shifted and brought the smell of smoke to her.

  Alexa ran faster.

  Liss

  Liss did not know what to do.

  The fire had spread so much in just a few seconds—Dan still wasn’t awake, and it was the best Liss could do to drag her away from the worst of it, but then she’d stupidly left the backpack with the fire extinguisher where she’d been sitting for the spell, and now it was completely out of reach—the backpack itself was actually on fire. Then the stink of something sulfur hit her, and Dan’s lovely long, dark hair was burning. Liss grit her teeth and stamped it out with her foot, then tried to hook her arms under Dan’s shoulders, but she couldn’t, she just couldn’t. Dan was lying in a field of burning grass and Liss was too stupid and weak to help her.

  Liss reached for Dan again but something flung them both back and flattened her to the ground. For a split second there was a tremendous pressure in the air, sucking and pulling, and the terrifying sensation that she couldn’t breathe—and then once again she could.

  Just like that the fire was gone. Liss was coughing and clutching Dan, and the grass was dark and slowly smoking where the fire used to be, and everything felt tired and frantic at the same time. The fire just went out, like it collapsed into itself the way horror-movie demons did, leaving behind a pile of blackened bones. It wasn’t possible—none of it was possible—but Liss couldn’t think about that now.

  Dan was breathing. She still wasn’t awake but her eyes were open and she stank like a cheap curling iron. Dan would be furious about her hair when she woke up.

  If she woke up.

  If Liss could get her out of here.

  Liss heard something coming through the grass, but she was beyond caring. “Whoever’s there—help! We need help!”

  “Is she okay?”

  She knew that voice, even gasping and panicked as it was.

  Liss looked up at Alexa and she could have sworn, for a second, that smoke was coming from her too.

  Alexa

  What had she done?

  There were foreign words on her tongue that had come to her from nowhere. They tasted dry as chalk, felt like sand in her teeth, and with them she had opened herself, thrown herself against the fire. She barely knew what that meant, only that it was enough, and the fire had died like a candle under a snuffer. She cared even less with Dan lying on the ground catatonic like she was.

  “What do we do?” Liss was asking again, as if Alexa might know. “How did you do that? Never mind—I don’t care. Is she okay?”

  Alexa never imagined she’d see Liss frantic like this, and she fought to keep the panic from her own voice. “I don’t know. She’s breathing.”

  “There’s an urgent care in Gratton—or the hospital! The hospital is better, but it’s so far.” Liss looked up at her, helpless. “She can’t die,” Liss added with sudden terror.

  But then Dan’s eyes started moving, and the awful frozen expression on her face relaxed. A second later she was rolling onto her side, coughing and spitting and rubbing her eyes.

  “Don’t rub them.” Alexa grabbed Dan’s wrist. “It’s from the smoke.”

  Alexa found a bottle of water and poured it directly into Dan’s eyes. Water ran down her face like tears.

  Liss

  Liss wasn’t religious, but at that moment she could not stop thanking god. Thank god for Alexa. Thank god Dan seemed okay. Thank god they hadn’t set all of North Coast on fire. She didn’t care what Alexa was doing in the same patch of wilderness as they were in the middle of the night.

  Dan was groggy, and not anywhere near as scared as Liss still felt. Adrenaline whizzed through Liss’s blood like a drug that wouldn’t wear off.

  Which is why she almost didn’t notice the cat.

  A black house cat had not wandered so much as galloped out of the grass and was pacing alongside Alexa, who was staring down at him with great concern.

  “Is that your . . . cat?” Liss asked.

  “Shit,” Alexa whispered, almost like she was speaking to the cat directly, then her head snapped up, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t be. “We have to go, right now. Where’s the car?”

  “I think Dan needs a second.”

  “We don’t have a second. They’re coming, now. We have a few-minutes’ head start. Where is the car?” Alexa demanded.

  “Who’s coming? There’s no one up here,” Liss said.

  “Black Grass,” Alexa said. “You didn’t know you’re on their land?”

  “Shit,” Liss hissed in agreement. “Dan, do you think you can stand? Because you’re going to need to try to ru
n.”

  Alexa

  Back at Dan’s house, Alexa and Liss were left alone in Dan’s room as she showered. She had promised them she felt fine, only her eyes stung a little. Now, Alexa sat on the floor against the bed, trying to quiet the sick feeling in her gut. Liss was looking very small and skinny and pale curled up in the armchair, directly on top of Dan’s clothes. She’d been fidgeting with her hands nonstop; it hadn’t stopped them from shaking.

  “What did you do?” Liss finally asked in a flat voice.

  Alexa pushed her glasses up her nose. “I didn’t do anything. The fire went out right when I got there. It must have been the wind or something.”

  Liss shook her head. “I saw it. I felt what you did. And the cat?”

  Alexa didn’t take the invitation to explain. Liss looked at her for a long minute with her lips pressed between her teeth. Then she dropped her eyes. “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. I don’t care. You saved her, that’s all that matters. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do anything. If something happened to Dan like . . .”

  “Like what happened to Johnny?”

  Liss took a very deliberate breath that meant yes. “Look, I don’t think she remembers anything. You can tell her you used the fire extinguisher. As for why you were up there in the first place, you need a better excuse than getting lost on your way to church.”

  “I don’t need an excuse,” Alexa said, because it seemed like the kind of thing a non-liar would say.

  “I don’t care. Tell her the truth if you want. But if you want a lie she’ll believe, tell her there’s a guy. Secret boyfriend. Dan won’t ask for all the details.”

  “It would have to be a girlfriend,” Alexa corrected her.

  Liss waved her hand. “Whatever, secret girlfriend then. Just tell her you were sneaking around because you wanted to meet her somewhere alone.”

  There was something about Liss as she said this, like it was a secret weapon, a weakness of Dan’s that she was wrong to expose, that made Alexa sad for all of them, and somehow jealous that Liss knew Dan well enough to hurt her like that.

  Alexa pushed her glasses up her nose again, although they hadn’t fallen. It was a good excuse. She could avoid Dan as long as she stayed in North Coast, maybe even say she’d run away with this girl when the time came. Could she do it? Alexa could still see Dan coughing by the remains of the fire, feel the desperate relief that she was okay. She wished there was a way to leave without leaving her behind.

  That was the awful problem: even after everything had gotten so beyond-belief screwed up, Alexa wanted Dan to know her, the real her, and with every passing minute that seemed increasingly impossible. It was stupid to try to save a friendship she was only going to have to leave behind. But Alexa didn’t want to push Dan away any more than she already had to.

  “How can I tell a lie I don’t want her to believe?” Alexa said.

  Liss studied her with a stern look. “Okay,” she finally said.

  Before Alexa could ask Liss what she meant, Dan appeared in the doorway, her eyes bloodshot and her wet hair dripping onto her T-shirt. “You guys haven’t managed to kill each other yet?”

  “Actually, we’re best friends now. It’s a regular three-musketeers situation over here,” Liss said.

  It was amazing how easily she did it—how Liss had been tense and scared one minute, then back to the same snarky, unshakable bitch just when Dan walked into the room. Alexa knew Liss was pretending although she couldn’t see any sign of it. All of a sudden she felt a rush of gratitude, because as freaked out as she might have been inside, Liss was acting normal for Dan.

  “Well,” Dan said. “Well, good.”

  “And the last thing tonight needs is a body to dispose of,” Liss added with an eye roll.

  How often did Liss pretend? Alexa wondered.

  “I was just saying how lucky we were that Alexa managed to get the fire extinguisher so fast. Half of North Coast would be ashes by now without her,” Liss said coolly. “It’s a crazy coincidence that she was up there killing time before she picked her aunt up.” Liss looked at Alexa and gave a little smile. This was a gift, Alexa knew—Liss was lying to Dan so Alexa didn’t have to—and the kindness of it made tears sting her eyes, even though she could practically see Liss willing her to keep it together. “Dan told me she works up there or something, right?”

  Alexa raised a hand halfway to her glasses but stopped herself. “Lorelei and I are sharing a car now, so she can’t drive it to work. I was just, you know, having a wander while I waited for her. The timing was crazy.”

  “We were really lucky you were there.” Dan crawled onto her bed and examined the ends of her hair.

  “How bad is it?” Alexa asked.

  Dan freed a lock of hair that stopped abruptly at her collarbone. It was at least six inches shorter than the rest of her hair. “I think that’s the worst.”

  “Maybe you can layer it, you know, so it blends? I can go with you after school tomorrow to get it cut.”

  “Dan, we should tell her,” Liss cut in.

  “Tell me what?” Alexa asked.

  “Liss,” Dan said in a low tone. “No.”

  “She already saw us,” Liss said. “You really want to act like everything’s fine?”

  “Everything is fine.” Dan gave Liss a hard and pleading look.

  Liss held her gaze. “We all know that’s not true. All three of us smell like an ashtray and you just burned off half your hair. Alexa probably has, you know, some very legitimate questions about how we nearly became teenage arsonists. And we could use her help.” When Dan didn’t answer for a long time, Liss added, “I can tell her if you don’t feel up to it.”

  Dan cut her off. “No. If we’re going to tell her, I’ll do it.” Dan took a ragged breath to fortify herself, and Alexa thought that Dan sat a little taller. Whatever she was about to say, Dan was trying to be strong. “This will sound kind of crazy, I’m asking you to hear me out before you make any judgments. Earlier, what you saw us doing was . . .” Dan lowered her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear to see Alexa’s reaction to what she was about to say. “It was a spell. The truth is, me and Liss, we’re kind of . . . witches.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Alexa

  “You’re what?” Alexa blurted out. What dying witch had given them a gift? Was Dan hiding a rotting body in her garage? They had to be playing at some dumbed-down TV show imitation, not living with a putrefying undead corpse and unintentionally communing with ghosts. “You guys cannot be witches. Like pointy hats and broomsticks and black cats? That stuff is made up.”

  Liss cleared her throat, but Alexa didn’t look at her.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Dan ventured. “It turns out magic is, um, actually real and there’s kind of a lot of it up here in North Coast.”

  “For historical and geological reasons,” Liss chimed in.

  “Right. So there’s a lot of magic but it’s not all exactly good magic.”

  “It’s not really a good/bad thing—more like a dangerous/not dangerous thing,” Liss corrected.

  “Whatever.” Dan went on, “Some of that magic is dangerous. Which is bad.”

  “Okay, I’m with you,” Alexa said tentatively. “I mean, it sounds super weird, but I’m listening.”

  “Do you remember Johnny—Liss’s boyfriend?”

  “The one who’s missing.”

  “Everyone thinks he’s missing. But we know what happened to him.” Dan composed herself. “It was our fault. There was a spell that went bad and he got . . . taken.”

  “Taken? By who?”

  “Kasyan,” Dan said quietly. “Technically, he was taken by Kasyan’s henchwoman-thing.”

  “Mora took Johnny?” Alexa kicked herself; she’d let the words out before she even knew what they meant.

  Dan’s ey
ebrows popped. “So you know about Mora too?”

  “No! I mean, just what you said. Kasyan’s bad, Mora’s his henchwoman-thing, but they’re not real.”

  “You’re wrong,” Liss said with such casual authority that it was impossible to disagree with her. “We don’t know much about him, but the fact is Kasyan is real. We think he’s somewhere in North Coast. Johnny’s with him, and he’s going to die if we don’t get him back soon.”

  “That’s the spell you caught us doing. We were trying to locate Johnny.” Dan leaned back and studied the look on Alexa’s face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. You probably think we made this all up.”

  “No,” Alexa said. “Not really. Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

  Dan gave Liss another heavy look, but this one, Alexa could read. It asked, Are you sure about this?

  Liss shot Dan an ironic smile. “Like I said: three musketeers.”

  Dan

  Dan told Alexa that it was February, right after an info night about college applications that had freaked them out with talk of safety schools and reaches. They’d looked for a way to make the future feel nearer and surer. The Black Book responded, as it usually did, with a spell that sounded perfect.

  What Dan didn’t say was: It was Valentine’s Day, which was a very stupid holiday. Who needed a special day to celebrate having a boyfriend or girlfriend? When you were in a relationship, your whole life was a celebration of that fact. For the last two years, she and Liss had gotten ice cream and made fun of the other couples from school spending money they didn’t have on flowers that were already dead. This year, Johnny had planned a whole romantic evening for Liss.

  Dan tried to be excited for Liss, but the harder she tried the more she felt tired and hopeless. When she got home from school, her mom had left a present outside her door, as she always did on Valentine’s Day. It was always the same incredibly dismal thing: funny socks.