Strange Ways

by Gray Williams

  She had every reason.

  Amanda’s eyes inevitably travelled down to the girl’s— no, the woman’s, hands. The last ritual she had seen those hands perform had been their undoing, or so she’d thought. The spell had proved too powerful and too complicated for a girl of her experience. If Amanda had acted sooner, she could have saved them. Only she’d chosen not to, chose to hesitate. The shredded fingers cut the girl’s career in magic short. One less Abra in the world, she’d reasoned.

  She’d lived with the guilt over two years now. Every time it surfaced in her mind, she had only to think of Michaela to allow herself to believe that she had done it for the right reasons. Now, facing Steph again, her motives for standing back seemed woefully inadequate. It felt like having a cold nail pulled out of her heart, the pain renewed, the wound reopened and bleeding, a sick, hollow feeling in her chest. Under the girl’s gaze, she felt exposed, every flaw, every mistake laid bare for anyone to see; her sins made flesh.

  But where Amanda expected to see three scarred stumps on each hand, there were now carved, wooden prostheses, hinged at the knuckles. The contraptions were held in place by a series of straps and buckles that disappeared beneath the rolled-up sleeves of her jacket. Each finger was crowded with small runes. It was because of the runes, the strange shapes and the way they moved in her vision, that it took Amanda a moment to realise that the girl had given herself an extra finger on each hand, between the index and middle. Looking closer, each finger had one additional joint as well. The skin of her forearms now bore a network of intricate tattoos, so thick with meaning there was barely any room for her pale skin tone to peer through.

  ‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ Amanda heard herself saying, stumbling through the same excuses she gave the girl in her nightmares. ‘My daughter needed me. And everything that had happened, my family, my friends… And who knew what that thing would have done if we’d let it win… There was no other way. It was too much for us. But we still did it. You and me. We saved people. We made history. Just like your mother wanted.’

  Steph didn’t reply, scowling now, Amanda’s every word etching it deeper.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the tears were running down Amanda’s cheeks. She didn’t know if it was the cold of her soaked clothing, but she couldn’t stop shaking. ‘I didn’t… After everything, I… You have no idea how much, I…’

  ‘Stop,’ Steph’s tone was so cold as to be almost frozen. The force returned, slamming Amanda back into the earth, bearing down on every inch of her, squeezing at her chest, her joints, her eyeballs. Every word trembled in Steph’s throat. ‘Just. Fucking. Stop.’

  Amanda’s mouth clamped closed like someone had flicked a switch.

  ‘You think I’d believe anything you ever told me?’ the young woman demanded. ‘The way you cried to me on that train. Made me think I was being the hero, when all you were doing was…’ The girl’s frown tightened, lips pressing on her teeth.

  Amanda groaned as the force increased.

  ‘Now I see you and there’s a knife in your hand? Like the only thing, the only person, I have left is too much for you. You have to take her from me, as well?’

  ‘I’m… sorry,’ Amanda screwed the words out through her teeth. ‘I’m sorry.’ She could feel her ribs beginning to bend, her eyes feeling like they’d pop backwards into her skull, her jaw slip from its moorings.

  ‘Yeah, you’re sorry now.’

  ‘Steph. Stephanie.’ A new voice, heard through ringing ears. Familiar.

  ‘This won’t take long.’

  ‘Stop it. Steph, I said stop it. You’re killing her.’

  The pressure let up all at once. Gasping, Amanda rolled over onto her side, curling up into a ball.

  ‘She’s the one,’ Steph insisted. ‘She’s the one who did this to me.’

  ‘This isn’t you, Steph. You’re not a killer.’

  ‘You don’t know what I am. She was there to kill you. I saw the knife.’

  ‘And don’t you want to know why?’

  ‘Because she’s evil. What more do you need to know? She took everything from me, I’m not going to let her take you too.’

  ‘And then what? They’ll just leave me alone? They’ll always be sending people. So we need to know everything we can. We’re not like them.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s for fucking certain.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Amanda rolled onto her back, cutting their conversation short.

  Sliding down the bank towards her, Karina circled, keeping her distance. ‘You lost your knife. Don’t try anything.’

  If she’d looked tired before, she was positively exhausted now, a hunted look in her eye.

  ‘Fitzackley sent you?’ she asked. ‘To kill me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She’s lying,’ said Steph.

  The worry lines around Karina’s mouth deepened.

  ‘I don’t know who sent me,’ Amanda continued. There was no sense in denying it. ‘I never got to see him. But he’s got my daughter. Said if I didn’t kill you by tomorrow morning, then he’ll kill her.’ She quickly described how the man had contacted her, the proof he’d given her. And what she’d done to ensure she’d been sent to Coldwater.

  ‘Your daughter?’ said Steph, her words dripping with poison. ‘Again?’

  ‘You think I want to be here? Look at me, I’m an inmate. No going back. And I’m not a killer.’

  ‘That’s exactly what you—’

  ‘This person,’ asked Karina, cutting across Steph. ‘Their voice. It wasn’t Fitzackley, or Harry or Mallory.’

  ‘No. They want you dead too, but it wasn’t them. Someone else. It’s nothing personal. I just want my daughter safe.’

  ‘It never is, is it?’ said Steph.

  ‘Steph…’ Karina warned.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re buying this? I’ve seen it before. Believe me, it’s all an act. She’s stalling. They’re probably on their way right now.’

  ‘They’re not,’ said Amanda. ‘I swear. Something happened and I slipped away.’

  ‘Did Mallory get what was coming to him?’ asked Steph and, from the fire in her eyes, Amanda knew it was she who had attacked the man.

  Amanda nodded and quickly told the pair the story of Sarah, the papers and the lodestone. Steph flushed at the mention of the stone, her hand slipping into her pocket and scowling when she found it empty. Amanda knew right then that she had been the one to make it with Karina, she had been the one who dropped it. When Amanda reached into her own sodden pocket, she found the stone was no longer there, washed away in the water most likely. The papers were nothing but a sodden mulch, the charcoaled words erased.

  ‘That was my evidence,’ Karina frowned. ‘Every conversation overheard, every bit of information about Harry and the warden, I wrote it all down. I told myself if I ever got a chance to smuggle them out to the authorities…’

  Amanda didn’t say anything. Karina’s plan seemed naïve at best. If anyone had read those scribblings, they’d have been dismissed or just ignored.

  ‘It feels like quite a coincidence,’ said Karina, ‘that of all the people who show up it’s you.’

  ‘That’s because she’s a liar,’ spat Steph. ‘Isn’t it obvious? She’s lying. It’s Harry. It has to be. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty and Fitzackley wants to be able to deny it was his fault.’

  ‘No. That can’t be it,’ said Amanda. ‘They’re saying you assaulted a guard and ran. They don’t care about getting dirty. They can make up whatever story they want. Harry doesn’t need me. He doesn’t even want me. Whoever got me caught up in this didn’t even know what was happening here. And Harry and the warden are so paranoid that each thinks I was brought here by the other. And look…’ she worked her tongue into her cheek, dislodging the scryball from its hiding place. The ward that her blackmailer had placed on it had done its job, keeping it from being swallowed or washed out in the sea. She spat it out into her hand and held it up for them to see. ‘Th
is proves it. Whoever’s behind this, he sent it to me. Had me smuggle it in here. That was the first time I heard his voice. If it’s Fitzackley, Harry, any of them, then they’re doing a good impression because it doesn’t sound like them.’

  Karina leaned forward, squinting against the glamour that kept it hidden from others.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Steph. ‘Don’t go near her.’

  ‘Please.’ Amanda placed the ball down in the cup of a dead leaf and moved away.

  Wary, Karina ducked forward and picked it up, stepping back to examine it. With a quick cantrip, she pressed the tips of her second and third fingers together, one bending the other to create the shape of an eye. She peered through the hole between her fingers, her eyebrows rising in surprise as she saw it clearly for the first time. ‘Someone we don’t know about… But you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense when he has people right here.’

  ‘Are you fucking insane?’ said Steph. ‘Haven’t I told you about her? This is all bullshit. She has to be working for Fitzackley.’

  ‘Is Sarah OK?’ asked Karina.

  ‘They took her to the White House. She’s probably still there. But before that there was an interrogation. She was this close to giving them those papers. If she hadn’t spoken to me, there’s no telling who she would have gone to. And I found that stone, that was sloppy. But at least I was the one who picked it up.’

  ‘So you could kill Karina!’ Steph stormed forward. ‘Don’t make like it’s some grand gesture.’

  The runes across her hands flared with colour, magic surging through them, the light almost organic, like something from under the ocean.

  ‘I wasn’t. But what do you think would have happened if they’d found it? Because I don’t think it would have worked out so well for you.’

  Steph went scarlet. Bringing up her hands, she began to perform quick cantrips. Amanda braced herself against the tree. All of a sudden, the sky was yawning below her, some unseen force pinning her to the earth, preventing her from falling up and into it. The breath caught in her throat as she scrabbled for a root to hold. Closing her eyes, she told herself it wasn’t real, just a trick, just a trick. But she couldn’t convince herself. She had to hold on.

  ‘Stephanie.’ Karina slapped the woman’s hands apart and the two glared at one another.

  Steph’s face contorted in a dozen different ways, trying to spit out the words, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Fine,’ she spat. ‘Stay here and listen to her shit. See what happens.’ Spinning around, she stalked away through the trees. ‘Maybe you can help her find her knife. Show her the best place to stick it.’

  The world had righted itself all at once. Amanda’s whole body was aching, she’d tensed so tight. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

  Karina crouched over her. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Amanda assured her, prying her fingers from the root.

  ‘Can you stand?’

  ‘We can give it a go.’

  Karina held out a hand. Amanda eyed it, wondering if this woman was for real. After everything she’d done and tried to do, and Karina was still like this? She had to agree with Steph, if their roles had been reversed, she would be behaving very differently.

  She took the hand and Karina hauled her to her feet.

  ‘Is she going to be OK out there on her own?’ Amanda stared out in the direction Steph had disappeared.

  ‘She’ll be fine.’

  ‘She’s learned a lot since I—’

  Amanda didn’t see the blow coming. Karina gave her a hard open-palmed slap that snapped her head round.

  ‘That’s for what you did to her,’ Karina snarled. ‘Do you see how broken you left her? It’s taken me years to even begin putting her back together. I took her in, I dealt with the nightmares. You manipulated and mutilated a little girl to get what you wanted.’

  Amanda didn’t say a word, her cheek glowing.

  ‘She was never the same. I wouldn’t have thought human beings capable of something so despicable.’

  ‘A lot more people would have died if we hadn’t.’

  ‘But you didn’t have to abandon her. That thing had killed her mother. She had no one else. If you’d seen her face when I found her. She was so betrayed and miserable and grieving. And what you did to her.’

  ‘I know. I… You weren’t there. And it’s no excuse but… I thought about her a lot. Believe me I did, but…’

  Looking properly now, Amanda could see the mud on the woman’s knees, the creep of it up her boots. She looked drawn, a woman who had spent the last day hiding from guards and dogs. Had she even eaten?

  The anger in Karina’s face was dying now, burning itself out. Amanda wondered how long she’d been harbouring those thoughts, thinking on what she’d say if she met the woman who had hurt her friend.

  ‘So you’re the one who took her in?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘Someone had to. Me and her mother didn’t get on. And when she summoned that thing… But… Steph was so talented, so ambitious. She deserved better than what you did to her. We made that lodestone, so she would feel better when I was away. The nightmares she had…’

  The shock was beginning to wear off and Amanda felt a flare of her own anger rising to the surface. She would apologise to Steph, but she didn’t owe anyone else an explanation.

  ‘And you were that “better”? Because, from what I heard, between all your pretty speeches, you were back home building some really dangerous shit. You can act as righteous as you want, but we both know what they found in your house makes what I’ve done look like a fucking misdemeanour.’

  Karina had sat down now. Anger spent, she had gone back to looking exhausted, resting her head against the tree behind her.

  ‘That wasn’t…’ she winced. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the police can’t be trusted.’

  ‘I’ve heard people say they’re innocent enough times to know the word doesn’t mean anything. I have my sob story, you have yours. Let’s not pretend it changes things.’

  ‘Oh, but it does,’ said Karina. ‘It changes everything. And you’re every bit as responsible as I am.’

  Amanda blinked, trying to keep up. ‘That stuff was Steph’s.’

  Karina nodded. ‘The police were gagging to raid my house. All the speeches, I was making a lot of enemies. I was making progress. Then someone just gave them the excuse. An anonymous phone call. I’d known it was going to happen sooner or later, but as far as I was concerned, they wouldn’t find anything. Not a shred of evidence. I thought they’d raid me, find nothing and then I’d rake them over the coals in the press. But turned out that Steph… They found all this stuff in her room. And they didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what it was. I’d warned her. She knew the danger, me being who I was. I thought I’d got through to her. I told her violence wasn’t the answer. But she was just so angry, all those people hating us for what we wanted to do. Old beliefs in the way of progress and all that. I thought I’d steered her away from thinking like her mother. I thought she’d heard me. And after the way her mother had died… But they showed me afterwards what she’d been keeping… She’d built herself those hands. That wasn’t anything new, they’ve been doing similar in Asia for decades, but she built hers from scratch. A whole new design.’

  ‘She wasn’t mentioned in any of the papers.’

  ‘When the police came, she was up in her room. I don’t know how she did it, I was in the back of a van, but they couldn’t find her. She just slipped through their fingers. They had the place surrounded, wards on the perimeter, and she still managed to disappear. They never found her.’

  ‘So they said everything belonged to you.’

  ‘They must have thought all their birthdays had come at once. They didn’t say what they’d found in their statements, they were happy to just let the rumours get out, let the press’s imagination run riot. So they put me here. They loved the irony. All the time I’d worked to prevent those practising magic from getting
a death sentence, fighting for the right to incarceration, and I’m one of the first people to be sent here. They loved it.’

  ‘But it’s been over a year. Where did she go? Where has she been all this time? How did she get here? Weren’t people looking for her?’

  Karina gave her a long stare. ‘She won’t tell me. And however she arrived, she says it’s a one-way street. She’s as stuck here as we are. The other night, she was just… there. Waiting for me in my cell. I thought they’d caught her. But no. She found her own way in. She broke into Coldwater to be with me. I think she has nowhere else to go.

  ‘But then Mallory showed up. And if Steph hadn’t been there, I’m not sure what would have happened. Forget that, I do know. He was high on blood and he had that bat… He just didn’t see her coming.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘What does he ever want? He wanted to prove once and for all that he was the one in charge. But before he… Steph stopped him and while he was lying there, unconscious, I knew that was it. So we ran. All I’ve been doing is hiding and buying us time, hoping I can figure out what to do next. And then you come along and tell me I have even more people I need to worry about. Like me being here isn’t enough for them. They actually want me dead.’

  Amanda frowned, idly playing with the zip on her coat, as pieces started to fit together. ‘The caller.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whoever phoned in the anonymous tip. They knew what Steph had in her room. They were hoping it was enough to get you hanged. But instead you ended up here and so they’re trying again.’

  Karina rubbed her hands across her face. ‘I don’t know. A lot of people could have done it. The letters I would get, it didn’t even have to be someone I knew. It was a disaster waiting to happen.’

  ‘Ask her. Ask Steph if anyone else knew what she had in her room. She had to have got her materials from somewhere.’

  Karina folded her arms, pinched her lips in frustration, looking around like she expected her tormentor to step out from behind a nearby tree.