Josh is dead. Josh is dead because of me. Because I killed him. Somehow, I killed him.
I don’t know how it happened. I know I said that already, but I mean I really don’t know how it happened. I didn’t just not-do-it-on-purpose—I didn’t know it was possible. To explode someone. To kill someone, just like that, just because of a slip of magic. It’s like if I tripped and fell and accidentally levitated. Except that I have accidentally levitated before, and that’s how magic has always felt—floaty and personal and friendly. Harmless. I’ve never seen Iris get hurt this way before. I’ve never hurt anyone this way before.
I’ve also never tried to use anyone the way I tried to use Josh. I push the thought aside before I can really get my teeth into it, though. It’s not what I want to be thinking about right now.
What happened tonight was something dark and different. That’s what matters. It’s new, and it terrifies me. And my friends are going to help me get out of this; they won’t let me do it all on my own, and that terrifies me even more.
The water is really hot now. Steam is rising up around me, and my skin is turning pink. There’s a mirror suction-cupped to the tile inside the shower—Marcelina’s dad uses it to shave, I think—and I wish it would fog over, because I don’t want to see myself right now. I lather soap between my hands and spread it across the surface of the mirror.
I grab Marcelina’s mom’s fancy apricot scrub and start scouring my body. Iris’s spell took all of Josh’s blood off me, but I can still feel the burn of every drop. I can feel it all, lingering there like flecks of glitter. I scrub until it hurts. I wish I had just had sex with him. I wish I had never tried to have sex with him. I wish I had done whatever I needed to do to keep from killing him.
Josh is dead because of a horrible kind of magic that is apparently inside me. I scrub as if I can get to that magic and wash it out. My skin is a bright, livid red, and I make myself stop before I draw blood.
Before I draw more blood. There’s been so much blood tonight. Oh god, it was in my mouth.
I stand under the water until the heat makes me dizzy. After I turn it off, I lean my head against the tile and finally, finally, I let myself cry.
When I get back to Marcelina’s room, she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. She’s wearing black sweats and a black tank top. Her hair is in a messy topknot, and she’s taken all her makeup off.
She looks a little naked without makeup. People always talk about how wearing makeup isn’t natural, how “real” women look better, but that’s bullshit. Marcelina is perfectly lovely with or without makeup, but the “real” Marcelina likes wearing a ton of eyeliner and dark lipstick and sometimes does really incredible things with eyeshadow that I don’t fully understand. She and Maryam spend hours experimenting on each other’s faces, turning each other into mermaids and vampires and starlets. She’s good at makeup and she loves it and if that’s not “real,” I don’t want real.
Anyway.
She’s sitting on the floor, and there are two piles in front of her on a piece of spread-out newspaper. It looks like the classified ads—the paper, not the piles. I lean my head to one side and scrunch a towel through my hair as I watch her work.
She’s holding a vertebra in one hand. There are maybe ten or twelve of them in a pile in front of her left knee. In front of her right knee, on the newspaper, is a pile of white powder.
I don’t ask what she’s doing, because she’s doing magic, and watching Marcelina do magic is just amazing. I mean, everyone looks amazing when they do magic, because it’s magic, but Marcelina is especially cool to watch at it. She lifts the bone to her lips and starts whispering to it, a steady stream of suggestions and secrets. I can’t hear everything she’s saying, but I catch the words “together” and “dark” and “settle.” The vertebra starts to glow blue from within, like a flickering fire is burning in the bone. Marcelina breathes over it, a breath that’s heavy with magic and meaning, and then she’s not holding a bone anymore—she’s holding a handful of white powder. She adds it to the pile and picks up another vertebra.
This is her magic: the magic of quiet moments. Where Iris’s magic is showy and enormous and awe-inspiring, Marcelina’s magic is soft and subtle and works its way into everything. Where Paulie’s magic is experimental, Marcelina’s magic is certain. Watching her work is like watching a time-lapse video of a river’s course changing.
“Do you want help?” I ask softly, not wanting to disturb her. She shakes her head and looks up at me. Her face has gone soft and peaceful, and her lips are tinged with a faint glow, like the magic she’s whispering has left her with a Popsicle stain.
“Okay,” I say, and I sit beside her to watch her work. She raises the bone to eye level and starts whispering to it, and I don’t say another word until after she’s done.
There are a million stars. It’s one of the nice things about living so far outside the city—we get stars here. I look up at them as often as I can, because when I go to college in the fall, there probably won’t be that many stars.
I try not to think about it too much. I’m going to miss the stars. I’m going to miss a lot of things. But Maryam and Roya and I are all going to State together, so at least I won’t be alone in the dark of the city.
Marcelina is walking in front of
