For Better or Cursed

by Kate M. Williams

  The woman and I were at Cass’s side in two seconds. As she looked up at us and blinked, I was relieved to see that her pupils were back to normal. If the woman was under the Synod’s spell, I would have expected this whole scenario to barely register with her, but her breath was rapid and her hands were shaking as she leaned over Cassandra.

  “I have something that will help,” she said to Cass. “But I need time.” She looked at me. “Come find me Sunday,” she said. “I’m working the continental breakfast. Not the buffet, the bagels and cups of yogurt in the lobby. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get everything, but I’ll try.” She looked up sharply as voices wafted into the bathroom from the hall. “I have to go,” she said, standing up quickly. “But Sunday, continental breakfast. Don’t forget.” Then she turned and ran to the bathroom door. She tugged at it with a grunt, and then looked back at me. I lifted my kenesis, and she pulled the door open with a swing, then ran out into the hallway.

  “What, and who, was that?” Cassandra said, struggling to sit up. Then she looked down at herself. “Esme, why am I wearing my shirt as pants?”

  That seemed to be the least of her—of our—concerns right now. “Cass,” I said, “your hand.” It was bleeding, a lot. I helped her up and over to the sink, where she turned on the water and held her hand under it, the water running pink over her fingers. She pulled her hand out from the water, and the blood started to run bright red again. She grabbed a wad of paper towels and wrapped them around her hand. Within seconds, I could see red spots start to appear. “Is your hand going to be okay?” I asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “The cuts aren’t deep enough for me to need stitches, but still. I can’t go back in there like this. Esme, this is bad.” I could tell Cassandra wasn’t just talking about her hand. Her earlier episodes had been inconvenient, and almost funny. She’d seemed happy. But this one was different. She’d been angry, and she had hurt herself. Maybe even pretty bad. I’d become a pretty good liar over the past month, and Cass was no slouch herself in the fib department, but it would be hard for us to come up with a story to write off why her hand looked like she had just punched a mirror. She held her wounded hand above her head, but within seconds, a drop of blood seeped out from the paper towels and started to run in a red river down her arm. “And who was that woman?” she asked. “What’d she mean, she had something for us?”

  “I don’t think she meant a croissant,” I said, the back of my neck starting to tingle.

  “Do you think she’s a spy?” Cassandra said, her words turning my tingle to a chill.

  I swallowed. “Cass, we have to tell someone,” I said. “So you stay here and I’m going to go get someone to help us.” She started to shake her head, but I stopped her. “It’s not Brian, and it’s not a member of the Synod,” I said. “We don’t know if we can trust her, but we have to take that chance.” And then, before she could stop me, I turned and ran out of the bathroom.

  * * *

  —

  The dining room had about half cleared out, but to my relief, Mallory was still sitting at our table. Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone. Amirah and Ji-A had taken off, but Ruby was still there, and they appeared deep in conversation. I forced myself to walk, and not run, over to the table, but I didn’t do a very good job. Sure enough, Ruby’s head snapped up when I was still halfway across the room, about five seconds before I would have arrived at the table. And I was out of breath.

  “Esme!” she said, half rising from her chair. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” I said, too fast, “everything’s fine. I just need to talk to Mallory.” Mallory’s eyes widened.

  “Okay,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Not here,” I said. “And alone, please.” Ruby wasn’t buying it, though, and she stood up before Mallory did.

  “Where’s Cassandra?” she asked, looking behind me at the door.

  “She’s fine,” I said.

  “I didn’t ask how she was,” Ruby said.

  I shifted from one foot to the other, wasting valuable seconds that I needed before a bleeding Cassandra decided she was done waiting and took the matter of her hand into her other hand. I shuddered to think what that would look like.

  “She’s in the bathroom,” I said.

  “Doing what?” Ruby asked. She was looking down at me like she was the babysitter and I was about to get in trouble. I didn’t know how it worked to lie to someone who was five-seconds psychic.

  “She’s not feeling well,” I said.

  “Is that why you need Mallory?” Ruby asked.

  “Ugh,” I said, my voice pitching into a whine. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Cass is my roommate,” Ruby said. “So if she’s sick, it is my business.”

  “She’s not sick,” I said. “At least, she’s not contagious.” Mallory still hadn’t said anything and just looked back and forth between me and Ruby.

  Then she pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “I can’t cure,” she said. “Only heal. So if Cass is sick, it won’t be instantaneous.”

  “I said she’s not sick,” I snapped, then caught myself. I needed their help, or at least I needed Mallory’s help, and I didn’t want to piss them off.

  “Esme,” Ruby said, “I’m going to end up going with you anyway, so let’s just go now and save some time.”

  “Okay,” I said, deciding right then that I wasn’t picking this battle. “Come on. And hurry.” I turned and walked out of the dining hall, and even though I knew that Cassandra wasn’t going to be happy about it, there was a part of me that was glad Ruby was coming. I could already tell she was a great Sitter. She could take charge, and her kinesis must have given her a strong sense of intuition. She seemed like a good person to have on our side, and if the events of the past half hour were any indication of the weekend to come, it was going to take more than me to keep Cassandra safe.

  People were milling around the lobby and hallway. Mallory, Ruby, and I didn’t talk as we walked. When we got to the bathroom, we slipped inside, and then I held the door shut behind us. Cassandra was still sitting on the floor, in her underwear, her bloody hand wrapped in paper towels as she held it above her head. The mirror above her looked like it had been shot, and shards of glass littered the floor and sink.

  Ruby gasped and said “Oh my God!” at the same time Cassandra looked at me and hissed my name. As I suspected, she was not happy that we were not alone, which Ruby picked up on immediately. “Esme wanted just Mallory,” she said, squatting down by Cassandra, “but I forced myself in. What happened? Who did this to you?”

  Cassandra kept looking at me, and I could see some of the fire in her eyes drain out. She wasn’t choosing this battle either. “Nothing happened,” she said. “And I did this to myself.”

  Mallory walked over and motioned at Cassandra’s hand. Cass lowered it and then unwrapped the paper towels. “I think it’s pretty surface,” Cassandra said. Mallory didn’t move to touch her, just bent at the waist, like she was searching for a four-leaf clover, to get a better look.

  “That one on your index finger is pretty deep,” she said. “We should really get a first-aid kit and clean everything thoroughly, but I’m assuming there’s a reason you haven’t already done that.” She looked at me, and Cass’s gaze followed.

  “Yeah,” I said, “we don’t want anyone to know.”

  Mallory nodded and stepped back. “Okay, at least wash it with hand soap,” she said. “A wound that isn’t clean can still get infected, even if I heal it.”

  Cassandra washed her hand, the rushing water turning bright salmon. “What’d you do?” Ruby asked. “Punch the mirror?” Cassandra nodded as she dabbed at the cuts to dry them. Ruby let out a low whistle. “Dang, girl,” she said. “That’s some punch.” Cassandra walked back to Mallory and held out her hand. Ruby and I took a few steps closer to
them. Mallory held out her own hand, hovering her palm about six inches above Cassandra’s still-bleeding cuts. A look of focus swam onto Mallory’s face, Cass winced a little, and then the cuts started to zip themselves up. They closed one at a time, like someone was erasing them with Photoshop. After a few more seconds, Mallory stepped back. “Wash the blood off,” she said, “and I’ll check and make sure I didn’t miss any cuts.” Cassandra did as instructed, and when she patted her hands dry, this time the paper towels stayed white. She held her hand out and flexed her fingers a couple of times. There wasn’t even a scar.

  Holy crap. It was one of the most impressive things I’d ever witnessed, and I could see my wonder reflected in Cassandra’s face as well, but she shook it off. “Good as new,” she announced. “Thanks a lot. I owe you big-time.” Then she sidestepped Mallory and started to grab her clothes.

  “Wait a sec,” Mallory said. “You have to tell us what’s going on.”

  Cass hopped on one foot as she pulled on her jeans. “I told you,” she said. “I punched the mirror and hurt my hand, but you fixed it, so now it’s fine. Thanks so much. Like I said, I owe you big-time.”

  Ruby was standing behind Mallory like she was her bodyguard. “Maybe you can start to pay her back by telling her why you punched the mirror,” she said. “That seems like a just thing to do, considering both of you are acting real sketchy and Mallory just put her own butt on the line to save yours.”

  I could feel Cassandra looking at me, but I deliberately avoided meeting her eyes. She had asked me not to tell anyone, and I wasn’t normally the type of person who spilled someone else’s secret, but I was pretty sure this secret was going to be too big for me to keep all by myself.

  “She doesn’t know,” I said. Ruby and Mallory looked at Cassandra, who had her shirt over her head as she pulled it back on the right way. Her head popped out of the collar, and then she took her time getting her arms through the sleeves.

  “Well?” Ruby asked.

  “Esme’s right,” Cassandra said. “I don’t know why I punched the mirror. I don’t know why I took off all my clothes. I don’t know a lot of things these days.”

  “Are you on drugs?” Ruby asked.

  “Heck no,” Cassandra snapped. Ruby didn’t look like she believed her.

  “She doesn’t even drink coffee,” I said, backing her up with the same argument she’d given me.

  Cassandra sighed. “I don’t know what it is,” she said. “I’ve been having these episodes. It’s like I black out, and when I come to, I don’t remember what I was doing. Esme tells me, or else I piece it together. Mostly, it’s been harmless. But today I hurt myself. I’m lucky Esme saw it coming and got me out of the dining room in time. Otherwise, I could have really made a scene.” She paused. “Or hurt somebody else.”

  Ruby crossed over to the counter and hoisted herself up so that she was sitting on it, her black-and-gold sneakers dangling. “Huh,” she said. “That’s it?”

  Cassandra huffed. “You lose control of yourself and see how you like it,” she said. “It’s a big deal, even if it doesn’t sound like—”

  Ruby waved a hand, interrupting Cass. “I’m not trying to trivialize it,” she said. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, are you having any other symptoms?”

  “You mean aside from occasionally blacking out and doing things like trying to wear my pants as a hat while I assault a mirror?” Cassandra said. “No, that’s about it.”

  “Wait, Cass,” I said. “Before all this started, you said there was something that you couldn’t remember.”

  “Your memory is bad?” Ruby asked, and Cass shook her head.

  “No, it’s not like that,” she said. “It’s more like there’s one specific thing I can’t remember.” She sighed and slouched against the hand dryer. “To be honest, it’s driving me nuts, almost more than these episodes, or whatever they are. It’s what I think about first thing in the morning, and the last thing before I fall asleep, and I don’t even know what it is.” Suddenly, she straightened up, her face brightening. “Hey!” she said, looking at Mallory. “Do you think—”

  Mallory shook her head and cut Cass off. “I can’t do diagnostics,” she said.

  “It wouldn’t matter even if she could,” Ruby said, “because you’re not sick, and you don’t have a brain injury. You’re just cursed.”

  “What?” Cassandra and I said at the same time. Just hearing that word out loud threw all my senses into overdrive.

  “Everything you’re talking about, it’s classic cursed behavior,” Ruby said.

  “But I went to the Negative on Halloween,” Cassandra said. “Couldn’t it just be from that?”

  “You would hope it’s that,” Ruby said. “Because then there would be a cure. But Sitters go to the Negative all the time. Well, not all the time. But it does happen. And sometimes, they’re a little effed up after it, but nothing like this.”

  “That’s true,” Mallory said. “One of my mom’s best friends ended up there for almost a week. When she came back, all she did for like a month was watch reruns of Three’s Company. But she eventually got her spirit back, and she’s been fine ever since.”

  My heart was starting to race. I had a million questions for Ruby—about Cass, about my mom, about curses in general—and I felt like once again I was staring into the chasm that existed between me and Cassandra and the rest of the Sitters, or at least all the other Sitters whom we’d met so far. They’d all grown up in the Sitterhood, and their powers were expected and accepted. But Dad knew nothing about Sitting, and the various relatives and foster parents who’d raised Cassandra knew even less. It wasn’t Brian’s fault that Cassandra and I were behind. Even if he was the best Counsel to ever Counsel, there was no way he could ever make up for the fact that Cassandra and I had not been raised by our mothers, and we were behind by a lifetime for it.

  “How do you know about curses?” I asked Ruby. “I thought Sitters didn’t know about curses since we can’t do them.”

  “We can’t,” she said. “And you’re right—a curse wouldn’t come from Sitter magic. It’s Red Magic. I know all about curses because my grandma was a Sitter.” At the mention of her grandma, Ruby’s face lit up. “She was a real badass,” she continued, “because she was also a Santeria priestess. People were always coming to her for Santeria curses, which Nana wouldn’t do, of course, but seeing how many people wanted to curse someone got her interested in the whole idea. She was very academic, and wrote about it a lot, and actually got special dispensation from her Synod to study the history of Red Magic curses as well. She was looking for ways to remove them without using Red Magic.” Suddenly, Ruby started coughing. For me, at least, I had never been so impatient in my entire life for someone to keep talking.

  “Excuse me,” she said finally, pounding her chest. “I just swallowed wrong.” But then she just sat there, and it didn’t seem like she was planning to continue.

  “And?” I said. “What did she find out?”

  “Oh, it’s not possible,” Ruby said. “Red Magic curses can only be removed by Red Magic.”

  Cassandra was hanging on every word, just like I was. “But you said there were other kinds of curses,” she said.

  “True,” Ruby said. “But no one would use one on a Sitter. I mean, they might try, but it would be like a drop of rain, whereas a Red Magic curse is a hurricane.”

  I was starting to feel like I’d been hit by a hurricane. “So, basically, you’re saying that a Red Magic curse can only be removed through Red Magic.”

  Ruby nodded. “That is literally exactly what I just said.”

  From across the room, I could feel Cassandra’s eyes boring into me, and I didn’t want to meet them because I didn’t want to acknowledge the horror of what we were hearing. Sure, we’d heard it before from Brian, but I knew better than to trust an adult. Yet hearing
Ruby say there was only one way out…well, that made me pretty sure there was only one way out. “You’re absolutely sure there’s no other way to break it?” I asked.

  Ruby shrugged. “There might be,” she said. “Not everyone who’s cursed stays that way for their entire life. Sometimes it wears off after a few years. Other times, it can just be gone, and no one knows what broke it.”

  “Your grandma told you all of this?” I asked.

  Ruby nodded, and a faraway look crossed her face. “She and I were close, and I helped her get her papers and stuff in order before she died, so I spent a lot of time with her research.”

  “I think we have to tell someone,” I said, looking at Cass, but speaking to the room.

  “No way,” Cass said. “What are they going to do about it?”

  I looked at Ruby, but she raised her eyebrows. “I mean, I can tell you what they’ll do about it: nothing,” she said. “That’s the only thing they can do.” Cassandra gave Ruby a look I couldn’t quite interpret, then looked back at me.

  “They’ll make me leave the Summit,” Cassandra said. “And I won’t be able to Patrol, or even be a Sitter anymore.” She turned to me. “Esme, they’re letting your mom rot and they’ll do the same to me. If I get packed up and shipped off to some locked room, then we’ll never find out who did this.” Ruby had barely taken her eyes off Cassandra, but now she looked at me.

  “My mom is…,” I started, but then I saw Ruby was nodding, and I realized she already knew.

  “I recognized your last name,” she said. “From my grandmother’s files.”

  I felt like I’d stepped on a swarm of fire ants, and my skin prickled at her mention of Mom. “What did your grandmother’s files say?” I asked, my heart pounding in my throat.

  “I don’t remember,” Ruby said. “But that means it probably wasn’t much. Nana had records of every Sitter who was cursed.” I think she caught the look on my face. “Sorry I don’t know more,” she said.