I bit my tongue and nodded.
“The same person cursed them both,” I said. “Cassandra’s dad. He was a Red Magician, and the Synod banished him to the Negative a long time ago. He actually cursed my mom for ransom, but the Synod won’t pay, and she’s been this way for almost fifteen years.”
“It wasn’t my father,” Cassandra said, her words almost giving me whiplash because I spun my head so fast to look at her.
“We are talking about the same person here, right?” I asked. “Erebus, your father, wearer of a pleather jacket?”
“Yes, of course, him,” she said. “And you need to get over his jacket.”
“So if he didn’t curse you,” I asked, “then who did? He’s the only Red Magician either of us has ever heard of.”
“Not necessarily,” Ruby said. “Someone could be practicing Red Magic, and you just don’t know.”
“I thought using Red Magic made someone’s Sitter magic go away,” I said, somewhat shocked, but Ruby shook her head.
“Only if they get caught,” she said. “Then that’s their punishment. But it doesn’t have to be a Sitter. There could be others like Cassandra’s dad.”
“So, what if someone’s just dabbling?” Cassandra said. “Like, not going full-on, just testing it out.”
“The whole thing with Red Magic is that it’s addictive,” Ruby said. “That’s why the punishment is the same whether you’re just doing a little spell or trying to bring on a full-blown apocalypse. Once someone starts, they’re probably not going to stop.”
“So, basically, anyone with access to Red Magic could be using it?” I asked, and Ruby nodded. “Well,” I said to Cassandra, “then we’ve got to start with motive. Who would want to curse you?”
“Who knows?” she said. “Anyone who ever spent more than five minutes with me on a day when I was in a bad mood?”
“You said it, not me,” I said.
“I bet it has to do with whatever you’re not supposed to remember,” Ruby said. “Red Magic curses aren’t like regular curses, if there is such a thing as a regular curse. A regular curse just means bad things will happen to you. Like you get lots of parking tickets, you drop your phone, or step in dog crap on the way to a date. But a Red Magic curse, it’s like a living death. It makes it so you can’t participate in the world, and it slowly cuts you off from everything you love.” She glanced over at Cass. “Sorry,” she said, “you just don’t seem like the type who wants things sugarcoated.”
Cassandra nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
I nodded too. It seemed like we’d learned more from five minutes in this bathroom than we had in all of our studies with Brian. “So, what do we do now?” I asked.
“We stick with the original plan,” Cassandra said. “I’m staying here, and we’re keeping this a secret.” She looked back and forth between Ruby and Mallory, almost daring them to contradict her, but neither one did. They just nodded.
Mallory cleared her throat. “I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said. “And I’ll help cover for you, if I have to, but if you hurt someone else, I’ll have to go to the Synod. I’m sorry,” she added, and she looked like she meant it. “But we have to protect ourselves first so that we can protect everyone else.”
Cassandra nodded. “Fair enough,” she said.
In the silence, Mallory stepped up to the broken mirror and held her palm out to it. “Vitreokenesis,” she said, and the cracks in the mirror fused together, healing the same way she’d healed the cuts on Cassandra’s hand.
“Wow,” I said, and she shrugged.
“Glass manipulation,” she said. “I had to learn because one of the kids I babysit for kept hitting a ball through his neighbor’s greenhouse.”
“So, what do you want to do now?” I asked Cassandra.
“Go back to my room,” she said, and again she glanced at Ruby. “And go to sleep.”
“I’ll walk back with you,” Ruby said. “I’m going to hit the gym because I missed my third workout today, so I need to change.” Cassandra walked out of the bathroom first, and in the hallway, I could swear she put another six inches between herself and Ruby as soon as Ruby fell in beside her. I had no idea what had happened between them before dinner, but apparently Ruby coming to Cassandra’s rescue still wasn’t enough to melt that ice block.
“Hey, Esme,” Mallory said, “can I talk to you a second?”
“Sure,” I said, falling back. “What’s up?”
“How well do you know Cassandra?” she asked.
“Pretty well,” I said. “I mean, I haven’t known her for that long, but we’ve been through a lot together. She’s a good Sitter, and she cares a lot.”
Mallory nodded, but stayed silent in that noncommittal, if-you-can’t-say-anything-nice kind of way.
“Why?” I asked.
She looked up and down the hall. “When I heal people, I pick up on a lot of their vibes, and Cassandra’s are dark.” She paused. “That could be the curse, or it could just be her.”
I chose my words carefully. “Thanks,” I said finally. “For helping her, and for telling me. I didn’t mean to, I mean, we didn’t mean to, get anyone else involved. I’ll look out for her.” I swallowed. “And keep an eye on her,” I added.
Before Mallory could say anything else, we both heard a loud grumble, and she got a sheepish look. “My stomach,” she said. “I’m starving.”
“You didn’t eat much,” I said, thinking of her nibbled sandwich.
“It’s cool,” she said. “I have a stash of protein bars in my room. I’m going to head up there. See you tomorrow?”
“For sure,” I said. “And thanks again for everything.”
Mallory took the elevator to her room, but I opted for the stairs. I didn’t want to do that thing where you make small talk with someone after you’ve already said goodbye, and I wanted a few minutes alone to think.
Mallory hadn’t needed to explain further about what she’d said, because I knew. Everything I had said about Cassandra was true, and I trusted her, but I also knew that Cassandra had two approaches to rules, and if she wasn’t breaking them, she was bending them. I’d seen her steal, get in fights, and turn her brother into her slave. Erebus was her dad, so of course Red Magic was in her blood, but there was more to it than that. From everything we’d learned, Red Magic seemed like a way to exercise great power to get exactly what you wanted and take revenge on anyone who had ever made you mad. And from what I knew about Cass, that all sounded right up her alley.
But still, I couldn’t believe it. I’d seen her on Halloween. She’d jumped into the Portal with no idea what was on the other side, willing to sacrifice herself to save MacKenzie, and that had to count for something. In fact, I was sure it counted for a lot.
I opened the door to the fourth floor and smiled at a few people as I walked down the hall to my room. Smoke hit me in the face as soon as I walked in. Amirah and Ji-A had a joint going that was about the size of a carrot, and the fumes coming from it smelled like a skunk raised on cabbage. The window would only open about four inches, and they were trying to blow the smoke out of the crack, oblivious to the fact that most of it was coming right back in. Amirah held the joint in my direction, and when I shook my head, she turned back to the window. She and Ji-A were deep in conversation, and Amirah seemed heated. I sat down on her bed for a minute, next to an issue of Vogue Brasil. I picked it up, then realized that the cover model’s face had been scratched out with ballpoint pen.
Amirah saw me looking at it and coughed. “Ugh, my stupid ex-girlfriend!” she said, stomping over and grabbing the magazine from me. Then she ripped the cover off, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in a corner. “We broke up like two weeks ago, and she’s already in another relationship!”
Behind her, Ji-A caught my eye and mouthed, “It’s a dude.”
“I mean, did the two months we spent together mean nothing to her?” Amirah wailed, before taking another hit.
We still had forty-five minutes before curfew, which meant forty-five minutes of me being the third wheel before Ji-A went back to her room, and I didn’t have the energy right now to try to interject myself into a conversation where I wasn’t wanted or needed. “I think I’m going to head down and see what’s going on in the lobby,” I said to no one in particular, and Amirah waved to me through her tears.
I tried to find Brian, to see if he’d talked to Dad or heard anything about Mom, but he was nowhere to be seen. I thought about asking the front desk for his room number, but after our interaction with Cybill in the bathroom, I wanted to steer clear of the hotel employees. So that left me with nothing, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
The lobby was empty save for a few girls already in their pajamas. I flopped down on a couch that was cozily parked in front of a gas fireplace, and wished I’d brought something to read.
Soft music was playing through the speakers, but instead of being relaxing, it was vaguely disconcerting. Every song was a watered-down version of a watered-down version, and it made my brain itch trying to place the original. I put my feet up on the coffee table and then it hit me what song was currently playing. It was heavy on the jazz flute and drum machine and…oh God, of course. Why had I even listened? It was “Jingle Bell Rock.”
I groaned out loud and threw my head back, and that was when I realized I wasn’t alone. Someone else had had the same idea as me and was sitting in an armchair, feet up on a footstool. But it wasn’t another Sitter, or a member of the Synod, or even a hotel employee who at least knew who to talk to about getting my phone back. It was a guy. A very specific guy: the guy I’d seen at the library, and at ice cream after hip-hop class. The hot guy, and now he was here, in this hotel, and he was reading a book. An actual, gosh-dang book, with a spine and paper pages, and it was Lord of the Rings.
My heart started to pound. I had no idea who he was or why he was here, but I was sure that I was not prepped to have a conversation with him right now. He had earbuds in, but he took one out and smiled at me, almost expectantly.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t notice that anyone else was here. I promise I won’t talk to you.” He nodded and put the earbud back in, but not before I could hear what he was listening to. The Clash. “London Calling.”
Dang. That was from my gateway-drug album, the one that opened the door to punk, then domino-effected everything so that I discovered half of my favorite bands. I could spend an afternoon just talking about Joe Strummer’s hair.
But yeah, I’d promised I wouldn’t talk to this guy.
And, ugh, the god of social anxiety himself couldn’t have orchestrated a more awkward situation. I didn’t have anything to do, or even to look at. I missed my phone violently. I didn’t want to leave immediately, because I didn’t want him to think I was leaving because of him, so I settled back into the cushions and stared at the fire like the flames were a secret code I was trying to decipher.
Then he said, “Hey.” I looked up and I must have looked startled. “Sorry,” he said, “but I didn’t promise I wouldn’t talk to you. You’re Esme, right? You live here in Spring River.”
“Yeah.” I was momentarily shocked that he knew my name. Since there was literally no way for me to play it cool, I decided to not even try. “I’ve seen you around town,” I said. “Before the Summit. Are you from around here too?” I knew he wasn’t, as guys who were from around here didn’t look like him. He was a piece of fancy licorice, whereas Spring River boys were stale circus peanuts.
“No, I work for the Synod,” he said, taking out his other earbud and winding up the cord. “I had to come early and scope out the town as a Summit location.”
“Oh God,” I said, laughing. “What on earth did you possibly see that made you tell them this was a good spot?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t.” It took me a second to realize he wasn’t joking.
“Oh,” I said, not sure how to respond. “Then why did they choose to come here anyway?”
“I think it was like Wanda said in her remarks earlier,” he said. “A lot of stuff has happened here, and they’re pretty worried about it. I guess you had something to do with all that?” I nodded, and he smiled. “Sorry, I don’t mean to freak you out and talk like I know your life story, but I figure it’s less weird to cop to what I do know than to pretend I’ve never even heard of you.”
It still kind of freaked me out to think that he knew about me because someone—i.e., Wanda and the Synod—had been talking about me, and because there was no way they were saying anything good. But I had to admit there was some logic to the rest of what he said. We were both members of Generation Lurk, so why not own it?
“So when you say you work for the Synod, what does that mean?” I asked. He was too young to be a Counsel, and Sitters were only girls. Something about him piqued my interest, and it wasn’t just that he was cute. It was that he was in a hotel full of girls and he had chosen to sit by himself and read a book about elves, listening to punk rock. He picked at a string on his jeans. “It’s kind of complicated,” he said. “I do odd jobs, and kind of whatever they need me to do.”
“Oh, that’s cool. How’d you get that job? Are you from a Sitter family?” I asked.
“Eh, not exactly. Wanda’s my legal guardian. She kind of adopted me after my family was killed.”
“Oh,” I said, swallowing. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “I was too young to remember when it happened, and even then, it wasn’t your fault. That’s kind of one of my pet peeves, when people apologize for stuff that’s not their fault.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said again, automatically, then blushed. “Wait, did I do it again?”
“No, you apologized, but it was your fault you apologized for something that wasn’t your fault, so that one was warranted.”
We sat in silence for a second, just looking at each other. The gas fireplace gave off no heat, but it did give off a glow that reflected off his cheekbones. The corners of his lips turned up, and I couldn’t help but smile too. “Okay, I’m confused now,” I said. “Which one of us should be apologizing?”
“Neither,” he said. “I think we’re even.” He looked down at his feet, then looked back up at me. “I’m Adrian.”
“Esme,” I said, while his name pinballed around in my skull. “But you knew that.”
A beat passed, and then, because he’d opened the door, I decided to walk through it. “So, Wanda’s your mom?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. She raised me, the whole Synod did, but I wouldn’t say that it was very familial. As I said, my family was killed when I was little. Our babysitter, who was also a Sitter, really dropped the ball, and demons got in and murdered everyone while she was busy calling a radio station trying to win tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert.”
I had no idea what to say, so I went with the obvious. “But you survived?”
“I hid in the dryer,” he said. “And now I really hate ‘Sexy Back,’ so…” He smiled at me, but the smile quickly faded. “Sorry, I shouldn’t joke about my family being murdered. It’s just, it is what it is, and humor is my way of dealing with it.”
I shook my head quickly. “Oh no, I totally get it. I’m the same way. With my mom, I mean…” The statement was halfway out of my mouth when I realized it wasn’t true anymore. I used to joke about Mom. When I thought things were out of my control and that there was nothing I could do about it, dark humor saved me. But now I knew that Mom didn’t have to be the way she was, I knew there was a way out, and there was something I could do, I just didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t feel like joking anymore….
“Hey,” Adrian said, “you okay? Your face just got, like
, really weird. You looked like you saw a ghost or something.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Wait, should I apologize for that sorry? I don’t know. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now. It’s nothing you said.” I took a quick breath and tried to change the subject. “So, what all did you scope out while you’ve been here? It’s so funny that I saw you twice.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. I’d noticed him twice, and maybe he hadn’t noticed me at all.
Adrian smiled. “At the library, and when you were babysitting, right?” I nodded. “God, I sound like a creepy stalker,” he said. “I just had to find a Sitter to get my bearings, see what you do and where you go.” He paused. “Which, I am just now realizing, is exactly what a creepy stalker does. So if you want to call the police and file a restraining order, I will not stop you and I will move a hundred yards away.”
I couldn’t help but think that I wanted him to do a lot of things, but moving away was not one of them. “So, what’d you find out?” I asked him, leaning into it.
“Well, you like thrifting,” he said. “And you drink a lot of coffee.”
I laughed. “My deepest secrets,” I said. “I mean, about Spring River.”
He moved over so that he was sitting on the couch, next to me, and quickly glanced behind him to make sure we were still alone. “Honestly, it’s kind of odd,” he said. “Like, it seems like a normal town to me, with slightly below-average levels of demon activity. It’s not easy to get to, public transportation isn’t great, though I admire you for your continued patronage of the bus, and there’s not a whole lot to do here. Yet there’s a history here, and it scares the Synod to death, Wanda especially—and trust me, nothing scares that woman. I’ve seen her make the manager of a T-Mobile store cry.”
“Oh my gosh,” I gasped in awe.
Adrian nodded. “The guy ended up apologizing to her for the fact that she used up all her data,” he said. “And he paid her overage charges himself.”
For Better or Cursed Page 14
