Under a Spell

“I need a picture of the girl,” she asked without looking up at me.

Will shrugged and handed me Sampson’s file. I took a guess and laid Alyssa’s grinning mug in her hand.

“No,” Kale said, taking the photo from Lorraine. “We need the picture of the one who was sacrificed. The one with the carvings.”

My throat went dry, but I sifted through the stack, pulling out the photo. I wouldn’t let myself believe the ruined flesh could be Cathy’s; that what had happened to this lifeless thing had anything to do with the smiling girl I had seen in her mother’s photograph.

“You guys should get back,” Kale directed us as she lit the two candles and positioned the photograph on the star map.

“With pleasure,” Will said, moving onto the couch.

“I’ll leave you to this,” Nina said, opening her door three inches and shimmying through.

Lorraine stood in front of the table, which had quickly become a kind of altar. Candles flickered and the stars on the maps seemed to glitter as Lorraine’s palms went over them. Soon the chicken feathers were unbound, their edges burnt. They were scattered and dotted with oil from a tiny jug Lorraine produced from her pocket, and everything was tossed as Lorraine began to mumble. Kale joined her from the other side of the table and both of their voices dropped to the same octave and soon became the same throaty whisper. It got deeper, heavier, and I wasn’t sure if I was hearing it or feeling it as the words reverberated through my chest. My heart started to match the pulse of their speech. My breath rose and fell with theirs. My eyes may have been closed, but I couldn’t tell. Everything I saw was in a deep, red haze and the smell of blood—metallic, thick—was suddenly overwhelming. It was in my nose, I felt it pressing against my eyes, on my lips. I felt the heat dribble in, a tiny drop at a time, until the blood was pouring over my bottom teeth, filling up my mouth. My whole body started to shake and then it was like I was breaking apart—inch by inch.

I heard someone cough and sputter, then felt heat on my cheeks. I opened my eyes and the candle flames seemed to have amassed into one giant orange roar. Lorraine and Kale’s voices rose to a crescendo and the flame seemed to follow. Will’s face was drawn, the dancing firelight flickering in his eyes. I was mesmerized until I heard the crack—so loud, so unholy that the entire building seemed to tremble under the vibrations and all of my friends—Will, Lorraine, and Kale—were lifted off their feet and thrown backward. In an instant, the fire went out, the apartment was blanketed by a bone-chilling cold, and the only sound was the heartbreaking crush of body against wall. Will shot backward, his head smacking the edge of a framed photograph with a sickening crunch. Glass showered over him as he slumped down the wall and huddled on the ground. Lorraine was launched sideways toward the kitchen, her spine crushing against the countertop and bending so far backward that her skull scraped against the tile while her legs folded uselessly underneath her. And Kale tried to brace herself by digging her nails into the table, but whatever was pushing was too strong. There were bloody grooves where she’d dug her nails in, and now she lay like a crumpled rag doll against the baseboards.

I heard myself scream. I felt myself yanking handfuls of hair as my legs turned to useless rubber. My mind warbled as I tried to think of who to go to first—Will, bloodied and unmoving; Lorraine, silent, eyes frozen wide with terror; or Kale slumped and whimpering.

But I wasn’t moving. And I hadn’t moved. The explosion had done nothing to me. I wasn’t singed by the mammoth flame or pierced by the shower of broken glass. I was spared.

“Oh my God!” Nina shouted as she flung her bedroom door open. “Oh my God, what happened?”

Vlad raced out beside her and cleared the overturned table in a single leap. He silently landed a hairsbreadth from Kale and fell to her, gingerly brushing her hair aside, his voice low and soothing as he worked to cradle her. I saw her blink, the confusion in her eyes, the tiny splatters of broken blood vessels spider- webbing.

Nina had her palms pressed against Lorraine’s ruined back and she was looking at me, her mouth moving, color pulsing in her cheeks. She was saying something, she was screaming, but it was all a muffled blur.

Will. “Will!” I could finally make my lips work. I could finally make my legs work, pushing them, taking steps that seemed achingly slow. I tried to close the distance between us, I tried to reach his silent, crumpled form, but I couldn’t move fast enough. The air in the room seemed to push against me until finally, I was there, dropping to my knees, feeling his warm flesh underneath my palms. I pushed his arms aside and pressed my ear against his chest, praying silently to hear a beat.

There was silence. Dead silence. And then, a beat, and a second one, and I was crying. I raked my hands through his hair and murmured his name, relishing the steady sound of his heart until his eyelids fluttered and opened.

“What?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I wailed, the tears rolling down my cheeks.

“She’s okay,” Vlad said, and even without looking I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Sore,” Kale croaked.

I straightened, my hands still cradling Will’s head. “Lorraine? Lorraine?”

Nina’s coal-black eyes were heavy with emotion. She said nothing. There was no rhythmic rise and fall of Lorraine’s chest. No triumphant gulp of air or even a pitiful moan. There was just . . . nothing.

I remember the beeping because it was the only thing I could hear outside of the blood pulsing in my ears. People talked to me and jostled me, and I signed something and nodded a lot. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t anymore. My entire body felt papery thin and sucked completely dry.

We were in the hospital and Nina had both of my hands in hers. There were flashes of light and my head was cold and Will was looking down at me. I sprang to my feet and threw my arms around his neck and crushed myself to him, finally feeling his warmth as it seeped through me, made every fiber of my being hot and awake and alive again.

“Will, Will, Will,” I was mumbling into the crook of his neck, feeling the edges of his hair on my cheeks, inhaling his sweet, cut-grass-and-soap smell. And then the picture skewed and fish eyed. I could hear nothing but a deafening sizzling and hideous crackling, and the overhead lights were popping and smoking. . . .

I heard someone cough and sputter; then I felt the carpet against my knees, the heat of it as it brushed against my palms.

“Move her!” someone yelled.

I wanted to cry out as someone pinched my skin, as they tried to extract me from the ground I had melded to. I felt my head bobbing backward and was vaguely aware of movement, no blood now, then something cool washing over me and finally, softness.

I woke up sputtering in the darkness.

“Where am I? What the hell—where am I?”

I heard ChaCha’s surprised little yelp and felt her paws pitter across my bare skin. I shivered, then was finally able to push against what held me down and sit up. There was a click, and a tiny slice of yellow light. I squinted.

“Will?”

“She awakes!”

I heard a shuffle in the darkness and then the bed depressed. Will was next to me, sitting on my bed, his thumb brushing over my wrist as he counted. I tried to struggle free, but he was strong—and it was nice.

“Am I in my bed?”

“You are, and you’re alive.” He let go of my wrist. “Properly so.”

I leaned back against my pillows and rubbed my palm over my head. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you would tell me. What do you remember?”

“Stars. Darkness. Did Lorraine come over?”

Will nodded.

“And Kale, she was here, too, right?”

“Yes, Kale, too.”

I ran my tongue over my lips—they were dry and cracked. “So Lorraine and Kale—they’re okay.” I smiled,