Kicking It

A scream welled up within me as the female voice in my memory returned. There is a cost for these . . .

What cost had she been referring to?

My instincts shuddered, telling me to put the boots on again. When I reached for them, Philippe intercepted me.

“Forgive me, darlin’, but I did mean it when I said that I don’t need you to be Jackie Chan.”

As the skin all over my body—my face, my neck, my legs—pruned and ached, he gripped my wrists with one hand and quickly picked up the revolver I had put down with the other. He aimed at me.

“I had to get those boots off you,” he said, “because when I started being honest with you, I couldn’t have you running so fast away from me that I wouldn’t be able to catch up. I didn’t need you to fight me with the strength those boots clearly give you, either. That’s why I brought you here.”

I felt like a mummy without its bandages by now, and tears clouded my sight. The boots—they hadn’t only given me strength and speed. They had kept me from this—scars from the fire Philippe had seen. He hadn’t been lying about what he had divined when he had touched me earlier. The evidence was obvious on me now.

“You’ve probably guessed already,” Philippe said, letting go of me and standing, “that there was more to my vision than you running into my shop, Lilly.”

The sound of my name washed over me like acid, burning from the inside out. I was withered, wounded, betrayed.

I was Lilly.

He kept waiting for me to take his hand. “Come along with me now. I won’t hurt you, cher. I promise.”

“What will you do with me?”

“Take you back to your family. I saw that they are searching for you, offering money I can use for my maman’s health. We’ll both be much better off afterward.”

“My . . . family?” Why did the word leave a bad taste in my mouth?

He merely watched me, as if his vision hadn’t told him any other details about my parents, or siblings I might have.

There was a different burning inside me now. A heat. A hatred. And it wasn’t directed at Philippe.

Deep down, where nothing made sense, I knew I couldn’t return to my family. Not at any cost.

“Lilly,” he said, “you’ve made good with the witch. If Amari was the one who sent that red-eyed thing after you tonight, then you’re in the clear. We can leave, and I will take you to safety, where people know you.”

I felt the burning again, but this time I saw fire. Felt fire even as my skin began to wither. Smelled the smoke choking me, looked into a pair of eyes that were so like mine as flames consumed me.

Had my family done this to me?

With a yell of rebellion, I kicked, sweeping my leg under Philippe so swiftly that he didn’t have time to react. He fell to the floor, the revolver skidding away from him. Even without the boots, I was on him in a lightning flash, using a wrestling hold to pin his legs with mine, my arms threaded with his so he couldn’t move.

In the dimness, I could see his stunned expression, but he was laughing softly. “Seems you don’t need those boots. I didn’t see that comin’.”

He used all his power to kick me off him, but I sprang back at him, wrapping an arm round his neck, using my other hand to pinch him between the shoulder and neck in a spot that made him slump.

“Well . . . played . . . cher . . . ,” he whispered as he passed out, tumbling the rest of the way to the floor and taking me with him.

I didn’t move for a moment. I wanted to make sure he was down. And he was.

My pulse steady, I took my hand from his sweet spot, but I didn’t roll away from him. I stole a moment, feeling his muscled back against my chest, smelling his carpenter’s wood-chip scent, wishing . . .

For what?

I pushed away, knowing in my core that I didn’t love. I wasn’t certain I could, although there I was, still looking at him, my head tilted, when I heard someone come in through the front door behind me.

“Oh, Lilly,” said the female voice from my memory. “What’ve you done this time?”

4

The witch was framed by the door, backlit by the porch lantern. She held on to either side of the opening, dressed in a beige robe with a sash round the middle. Long, frizzy red hair framed a face that was covered by a cloth that tied behind her head, covering her eyes. There were two subtle dark circles on the white linen, ghosts of where a gaze would be.

From behind the witch, a teen girl with dark braids hanging over her shoulders ducked under Amari’s arm. She guided the woman inside the rest of the way, then went outside, apparently leaving.

“Get them boots back on,” the witch finally said to me with a backwoods drawl. Amari had a young voice. Was it because she led a charmed life? Or was she as young as she sounded?

Marveling that the witch hadn’t commented on Philippe, who was still lying prone on the floor, I obeyed her. As soon as I slipped the boots over my legs, they leeched to me, coming home, it seemed. I sighed as I felt all my skin moisten, unwithering, returning to normal just like that.

“Can’t even make a house call without havin’ to come back to this shit,” Amari said with a head shake. “I knew you’d be a challenge. Warned you over and over again ’bout how them boots work, but you’re full of yourself. I’m hopin’ you finally learned somethin’, though, since you’re back here again like a tamed pup.”

Back here again?

She moved farther into the room, and I stood, intending to act as a guide, just as the young girl had done before she’d left.

The witch waved me off. “I know my way ’round my own digs. Besides, I have Jean-Marie to wait on me most times, though she’s left for the night. It’s part of her tutorin’. And I wish I didn’t have to explain that to you every time you slink back here.”

“I’ve been here before?”

“Well, you don’t often bring amours with you.” Amari gestured toward Philippe.

“Yes, about him . . .”

“He’ll be out for a while, judgin’ on what I know you can do with those skills of yours.”

Could she see, in spite of that blindfold, with some sort of witch vision?

She sat in a chair behind the animal-bone table, then gestured for me to take the one opposite. Reaching under the table, she came out with a small crystal ball, setting it down, gesturing for me to touch it. The moment I did so, the boots hugged my feet, not violently but with comfort.

“You haven’t been here for two days, Lilly. I was worried.”

Clearly, she hadn’t begun to divine me with that ball, or whatever she had planned. “I wish I could tell you what was occupying me. I woke up in a small hotel at dusk, not knowing where I was.”

“Nothing new there.”

Was I ever going to find out the reason?

Amari clucked, and I noticed that her mouth was lovely: red lips tipped up at the corners. A chin with a dimple.

“Child,” she said, “I don’t envy you, but them boots were the only solution when I found you out by the road a week ago.”

A week ago? When Philippe had that vision of me?

“You’d just come into town,” Amari said. “Stole some poor soul’s pickup on your way here from Lord knows where else. Some time ago—you’d lost track ’bout how long it was, I guess—you were in Southern California.” Cal- ee-fornia.

“What was I doing there?”