Conjured

prize that I am destined to win.”

“That’s nice.” Eve wormed her hand away from his.

“I can be your knight in shining armor. I can make you happy. I can make you safe. I can make you whole, if you let me.”

Eve opened her mouth to say he couldn’t—she was broken with pieces missing, except that she didn’t feel broken anymore, thanks to Zach.

“But you found someone else to do all of that. Tell me about him, Evy. Who is this human boy who caught your eye and captured your heart?” He caressed her cheek and then curled his fingers in her hair. His hand tightened into a fist. “What can he do for you that I can’t?”

“He can make me fly.” She pulled away, and several strands of her hair, still knotted around his fingers, yanked out of her scalp. She spun away from him and ran to her bedroom.

“Evy!”

She shut her door and leaned against it. She scanned the room—the only other door led to a closet, and the window was locked with a padlock. And she realized she’d spoken the truth. She’d flown with Zach—and she hadn’t had a vision.

He’d fixed her. He’d cured her.

She didn’t have to be the broken girl anymore, afraid of herself, afraid of what she could do, afraid of what was inside of her.

She strode to her dresser and opened the top drawer. “Go back,” she told the paper birds. “Be as you were.” Eve felt wind in her face as the paper birds fluttered in the drawer. They rose out in a spiral. Backing toward the bed, she watched them dive and soar around the room before flying toward branches in the wallpaper and settling against them. She saw a bird melt into the paper—before she pitched backward, unconscious.

The Magician has a black felt hat. He flips it off his head and tosses it up and down his arms and across his back. He throws it into the air, and I can’t see it against the glare of the stage lights. He catches it, plunges his hand in, and pulls out a bouquet of tissue roses, held by the severed hand of a girl. The hand is rigid and bloodless.

The audience laughs, but it’s a tinny sound, as if it were an old recording. It cuts off abruptly. I can’t see the audience from where I lie, wrapped in stage curtains like a shroud, but I see a girl step onto the stage.

She has freckles, red-brown hair, and antlers like a deer.

The Magician gives her the flowers, and the severed hand begins to bleed. Red flows down the antlered girl’s arms. It pools at her feet.

And then she and the Magician are gone. I lie unmoving in the silence.

Eve stumbled to the bathroom. She clutched the sides of the sink and tried to force the remnants of the vision out of her mind. It’s not real, she told herself. This is real. This sink. This house. These people. This life. This body. She splashed water on her face.

Breathe in, she ordered herself. Out. In.

She thought of Zach.

He hadn’t fixed her.

She pictured him next to her—if he were here, he’d be telling her facts about sinks or toilets or mirrors or toothpaste or whatever caught his attention. Closing her eyes, she listened to his voice in her imagination. It was like wrapping herself in a warm, soft quilt.

When her breathing was under control again, she listened for sounds of who was in the house. She heard a clatter and then sizzling from the kitchen. At least one person was here.

Leaving the bathroom, Eve followed the sounds to the kitchen. Aunt Nicki was at the stove, stirring hunks of meat in a skillet. She glanced at Eve and then shook pepper onto the meat.

“What’s today?” Eve asked. “Have I forgotten again?”

“Don’t know.” Aunt Nicki stirred more. “It’s the day you nearly gave Malcolm heart failure and broke Aidan’s heart all in one fell swoop. I’d call that a twofer. You really dove into the traditional teenage rebellion with flair.”

It was the same day. She hadn’t lost any new memories, at least not yet. Eve exhaled heavily and sank into one of the chairs. “I saw an agency car outside Zach’s house. Is he all right?”

Aunt Nicki twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Eve. “You actually care. Astonishing. This is not unlike discovering that one’s cat has an appreciation for fine art.”

“Did I endanger him?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What do I do?”

Aunt Nicki’s lips formed a perfect O. “You’re seriously asking me for relationship advice. Again.” She laid down her spoon and sat in the second chair, opposite of Eve. “Well, if you were an ordinary girl, I’d tell you to spend as much time with him as possible doing ordinary things. See if you like being together, or if you drive each other nuts. But since you’re not an ordinary girl …”

Eve waited.

“In your case, for his sake, you should stay the hell away from him.”

“Oh,” Eve said.

Above the refrigerator, the clock ticked loudly. The refrigerator hummed, and the food in the skillet hissed. In a gentler voice, Aunt Nicki said, “The agency is taking care of it.”

Eve felt her breath catch in her throat. Again, her ribs wouldn’t expand. She clasped her hands together hard. Aunt Nicki couldn’t mean … “Please don’t let the agency hurt him.”

“You don’t—”

“I kissed him.”

Aunt Nicki shrugged. “You kissed Aidan too.”

“But it was different. Zach and I floated in the air. And this morning, in the library reading room, we made the books fly. And at his house, we made it rain. And I didn’t black out. Not once. Until I was alone again.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, she thought she sounded more like Zach than herself. Thinking about him in danger made her stomach clench.

Standing up fast, Aunt Nicki knocked her chair backward. “Stay here,” she ordered. She darted out of the room as she yanked her phone out of her pocket. Eve heard Aunt Nicki say, “Lou, it’s Gallo. It’s about the boy …” and then her voice was too soft and muffled to make out the words. On the stove, the meat began to burn.

Chapter Eleven

Eve woke up the next morning and knew she had seen the antlered girl before.

She kicked the sheets away from her feet and stood in front of the birds in the wallpaper. The birds were silent and still. One had its wing extended as if it were about to take flight. Another had its beak tucked beneath its wing, as if trying to hide.

She’d seen the girl’s face somewhere other than in her vision.

Eve left her room and headed for the kitchen at a walk first, then at a run.

Aunt Nicki stood at the stove. She was stirring a glop of gray mush in a pot. Sniffing it, she wrinkled her nose. “Oatmeal is a terrible concept. Who cooked this, looked at it, and thought, ‘Yummy’? Much more realistic to look at it and think, ‘Great! This is perfect grout for my new bathroom.’” She looked up at Eve. “You’re not dressed. Did you forget how to dress? I am not picking out your underwear. And I don’t do socks.”

“I want to look at the photos,” Eve said.

Aunt Nicki’s expression changed instantly. “I’ll drive you.”

Eve tossed on clothes and shoved her feet into shoes while Aunt Nicki pitched the oatmeal and fetched her car keys. Eve then followed Aunt Nicki to a black car that was tucked around the side of the house. She strapped