The Scapegracers

by Hannah Abigail Clarke

  “Hey, Sideways.” The bartender, a stocky ginger with hipster glasses, gave me his customary smile. His name was Drew, and he didn’t need to ask me what I wanted to drink. My order hadn’t changed in the two years since I started coming. He cleared his throat and set to work. “It’ll be right up.”

  Jing’s gaze had settled somewhere on the far wall, about twenty feet away, on the other side of the makeshift dance floor. It was covered with images of patrons past. Pictures of couples kissing, dancing, clattering their glasses together in frozen cheer were displayed in mismatched frames. Somewhere toward the upper right corner, a much younger Boris and Julian glittered down at the dance floor. Younger them were clasped together tight, caught in the middle of a halting laugh. Julian’s glasses were stuck eternally falling off his nose. I couldn’t tell exactly where Jing was looking, but I had the feeling that it wasn’t at one fixed point, but rather, a synthesis of the wall as a whole.

  “I’ve known for a while,” she said slowly. Her voice was distant, and she didn’t blink. She sat perfectly still in her seat, so still that I couldn’t see her breathing, but her eyelids drooped half-shut, and her mouth tugged up on one side. It wasn’t a particularly regal expression, which made it strange on her face. She looked contemplative and starkly honest. “Since I was ten or eleven. Maybe longer.”

  “About being bisexual?” I squashed my cheek against my fist.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And about magic. I’ve known about one as long as I’ve known about the other. I just didn’t have words for it. Now I do.” In that moment, illuminated by the neon lights, Jing looked like what a witch should look like. Menacing and lovely. She was pure and raw and radioactive. She was more vivid than anything else in the room. I looked at her and marveled. She went on. “I’ve been friends with Daze since before the big bang. We’ve always been best friends, and we will always be best friends. We were such sweet little monsters. Writing on the walls with lipstick, playing dress up with her aunt’s haute couture, running down boys in my pink Barbie Jeep. We once made fifty bucks selling lemonade on her front lawn.

  “And I was with her when she found her mom’s body in the garden. That’s when things changed, Sideways. It wasn’t just about us anymore. The world was bigger and meaner than two nasty little girls. We’d always had complete reign over our little patch of reality, but Daisy’s mom dying spoiled that sense of control. She needed it back. We both did. We stopped tormenting small-scale. We made a market for ourselves. We were ridiculously cutthroat about the whole thing. People who were with us could be new royalty, and those who opposed us found themselves on the meat hook soon enough. Like, there was this girl who was mean to Alexis in the fifth grade. The girl had a stupid name, I forget what. She called Alexis an ugly bitch, something like that. Stuck gum in her hair. Shoved her off the monkey bars. In fifth grade, that sort of thing was a big deal. So Daisy and I threw a huge party on the same day as her birthday, and not a single person turned up at the little gnat’s house. Wasn’t enough, though. She still wouldn’t leave Alexis alone. So, you know what we did? We put her bike in a tree. Told her we’d haul it down when Alexis told us to, but she never did. It was always public, what we did. People knew where they should put their loyalty.

  “Then there was Lila Yates. She moves to town during eighth grade, looking like a goddamned archangel, and my heart just breaks. She was so pretty, and no one is pretty when they’re fourteen. She’s pretty and quick and nicer than me. I remember telling Daisy that I needed her to be friends with me. I needed her to be our best friend. So, Daisy chats her up for me, and soon they’re talking resorts in the Bahamas and Tiffany diamonds. Summers in Montenegro. Golf courses and ballet lessons. My family’s doing alright, but both of them are dripping money. They had luxury in common. I did not. For a while I was so jealous. I felt like Daisy would leave me, that she’d be Yates’ best friend instead of mine, and I was crushed. And God, that crush was something nasty. I was so lovestruck. I’d never loved anyone before, not like that. I’d never loved anything. But Daisy’s no Brutus, and she stuck by me. The two of us became the three of us. Yates understood without asking.

  “I don’t love her anymore. I mean, I do, but not like that. I don’t think so, anyway. Sometimes it crawls back up and I’m sick with it for a little while. It’s not fair. She’s Lila Yates. Loving her is compulsory.

  “The three of us are one monster now. We’re like Cerberus. Or, we were. I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Sideways. I mean, we’d always noticed you. You were the skulky gap-toothed weirdo who was into occultism and knocked people’s lights out if they looked at you funny. For a while, I wrote you off as being a store-brand metalhead type. You looked enough like a freak Satanist type who murders squirrels that I was sure it had to be an act. But you know, Yates was genuinely put off by you, and she normally only gets squeamish around the Real Thing. That’s why we invited you to that party. You gave Yates the creeps.” Jing smirked, and it was the first time her expression had changed since she’d started talking. “Look. All this stuff is coming together. Now our three is four. That magic thrill we always wanted is real, and it’s because of you. With you, we’re powerful. We have magic. We’re fucking marvelous. No one better dare screw with us.

  “And I’m even sort of out now. Out-ish. Out in a small way, and I don’t do things in small ways very often. I’m usually a big deal. This feels different. It’s special.”

  Our virgin margaritas had been sitting in front of us for a few minutes now. I took one and raised it, and Jing mirrored me. Salty rims knocked together in a silent toast. I brought it to my lips and pretended that it could make me drunk, because there was a peculiar sensation in my chest, and I didn’t know how to deal with that other than drowning it. It felt like a bundle of candles was burning down to the quick inside me. My tummy was all fire and liquid wax. Goddamn.

  I wondered if Yates ever planned on telling her about being queer, but I held my tongue about that.

  “So that’s my damn life story,” Jing said with a cough. An easy smile slipped over her lips. She pushed her bangs off her forehead and made a face like a Halloween monster with her lips scrunched up and her nostrils flared. I cracked a laugh, and she let go of her hair, straightening herself up. “Fucking. Your turn. Be vulnerable, or some shit.”

  “Pass,” I said. I licked along the rim of my glass. Jing stopped fixing her bangs long enough to shoot me a withering look. “Right,” I said. I looked somewhere in the direction of my lap. “Ain’t much to say. I grew up with just Mom and then she died. Someone sent the Vade Mecvm Magici to my foster home and I used it to find my uncles. I didn’t have a friend to be my partner in crime, though. I didn’t have any friends at all. Just me and my spell book. I mean, there were people I talked to in class, but that’s where the relationship ended. God, I hate that. I’d rather be a stranger than someone’s casual friend. At least with a stranger, there’s things to unwrap about each other. There’s a mystery there. People don’t care about their acquaintances’ mysteries. Why the hell would they? I don’t. I only went to parties because people didn’t know how to politely avoid inviting me. You lot were weird. You went out of your way to invite me, a fucking Wild Thing, to your huge party, with the explicit instruction to be as me as possible. You wanted me to be a horrorshow. I don’t care if I was a gimmick. People never asked me to hang out with them as myself. Meant a fucking lot, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Then you all drag me into your clique, and suddenly I’ve got friends who want me around. Before you, magic only worked in bursts: levitating bottles of nail polish, flickering lightbulbs, bubbling flat water without touching it. Small magics, nothing like what we’ve done. I thought I was damn cool for it, too. Seems like hopscotch now, you know?”

  “You’re thoroughly ours now. In case there was any doubt about that. You’re what we were looking for.” Jing took a slow sip of her drink. “Besides. I’ve never talked to anyone who wasn’t straight before. I don’t think I have,
anyway.”

  Drew the bartender made a sound of strangled shock under his breath. “God, you haven’t? You poor thing.”

  I sniggered, waggled my eyebrows at her. Typical Drew antics, half listening to everything but only ever chiming in where being gay was concerned. We clinked our glasses together and took a drink in tandem.

  Drew’s eyes slipped over our heads. A smile broke on his face, and he nodded vigorously, so vigorously that his glasses nearly clattered off his nose. “Maurice! It’s been a while. How are you this fine afternoon, eh?”

  A man in a crisp red suit sat down beside us. He sighed, inclined his head, smiled ever so slightly. He looked thoroughly exhausted. Something had stained his long brown fingers the color of ink, and he rubbed at them slowly, which only served to spread the dark stain across his knuckles and the backs of his hands. Finally, he looked up at Drew, and his expression warmed a few degrees. “It’s been a day, I’m afraid. I’d sell my soul for an Irish coffee.”

  “Sure thing,” said Drew, who set off to work.

  I stared at the man. So did Jing. We gawked together in a moment of shock and understanding, because without a doubt in my mind, this was the elusive Maurice from Delacroix House. If he sorceried his way into reading my mind, he might have a serious bone to pick with me. I watched him with my mouth slightly agape as he reached for his coffee, slid a twenty-dollar tip to Drew, and downed the scalding drink in one gulp. Then, when he was done, he gently placed the cup down and leaned back on his stool. He smiled at Drew and asked for another drink, then shifted in his seat to turn his attention toward us. He gave us a nod and a smile. “Good evening.”

  I blanched.

  Maurice wheezed a laugh, which sounded slightly deflated. There was something of a smoker’s edge to it that made him sound older than he looked. “Wasn’t meant to be threatening. Sorry about that.” He folded his splotchy hands into his pockets, out of sight. The man inclined his head in an odd gesture of respect, and when he straightened back up, his eyes swept between the two of us with a glint of recognition. “Jing and Sideways, I assume?”

  Jing’s eyes narrowed a notch.

  The man shook his head. “You’re not in trouble. I’m not mad. Truly. It’s simple enough for anyone with a specter to walk right through our wards, because really, anyone with a specter is allowed up there. I’d have gone with a different series of spell books, though, if I were you. Vade Mecvms were written for a closed coven. They don’t share too often. Not the most straightforward texts, either; that series has a particular knack for being mysterious for mystery’s sake. And a bit elitist, if you ask me. If you’d have gone for a Book of Chaos, that might’ve worked out better for you. They’re not as particular with who they read for.”

  “Right,” I said. My palms were itchy. I didn’t dare look away from Maurice, not while he was watching us. In all his pleasantries, I hadn’t seen him blink. His eyes stayed focused intensely enough to X-ray us both if he’d liked.

  “I’m Maurice, by the by. Maurice Delacroix. The house is always open to those like us. It’s neutral ground between the covens, as a matter of fact. We provide lodging for traveling covens, storage for their supplies, and a neutral forum for inter-coven relations, on those rare occasions everyone feels like talking. Covens don’t typically do that. It’s like herding cats.

  “By age alone, I’d guess that the two of you aren’t properly aligned yet, even if you’ve started making prospects. Pythoness Society girls to be, I’d expect? It’s the Pythonesses who write the Vade Mecvm Magicis. Old world coven, very dignified, well esteemed. A prestigious pick, though you’ll have your work cut out for you working your way into their inner circles. They don’t seek out recruits often. Invitation only.” The exhaustion on his face echoed in his movements; it looked like it took something out of him to reach his hands out of his pockets and thumb through his wallet. There was a tremor in his fingertips. He placed a ten-dollar bill on the bar and returned his hands to his pockets again. He cleared his throat. “You should’ve told someone why you were there. They’d have told you anything you needed to know. Well, when you come back around, I’m sure that we can chat about things. I’d imagine you’ll come back. Find a spell book that’d take you. I could put a word in with Guadalupe and see if you could have one of our Vade Mecvms. She’s a Pythoness contact of ours. Helps out with auctions from time to time.”

  The sheer audacity of the moment was enough to knock all the words out of my mouth like loose teeth. This was wholly contrary to what I’d expected. I stared at Maurice, mouth agape, and tried to riddle through the frankness that he’d laid out. He knew. This man knew about the only thing that’d tethered me to the Here and Now for years. He knew and he was willing to talk. But this was too convenient. The universe didn’t just align for people.

  Instinct moved my body for me. I felt my hands grip my bag, tug the zipper open, and reach deep inside. I felt myself pull my VMM volumes out of the bag and rest them on the bar before me. I looked at them, and then at Maurice, and my voice found its way out of my mouth. “I was invited.”

  Maurice raised a brow. Jing looked at me beseechingly, but I didn’t look back. My pulse pounded like a snare drum in my temples. I placed my fists on the bar and swallowed, ground out the truth. “My name is Eloise Pike. Someone sent me the first volume after my mom died. The note was from ‘PS.’ That’s gotta be the Pythoness Society, right? They wrote these books, didn’t they? So I was invited. But I couldn’t read the other volumes. The book gave me lip when I tried.”

  Maurice sat for a moment, then downed his second drink in one swallow, as if the liquor was medicine. The stains on his fingertips might have spread higher, or perhaps that was an illusion, and I was just confused. He set down the shot glass. It clinked on the countertop. “Eloise Pike, you say?”

  “Yeah. But Sideways is better. Whatever.” I ground my molars, which made my jaw ache, but not enough to make me stop. “What’s it matter?”

  “Pike, as in Rothschild & Pike?”

  My brows meshed together. “Yeah.”

  Maurice made a sound in the back of his throat. “That is curious, then. The books didn’t recognize you? Guadalupe seemed content to sell one to your father when he said it was for his daughter. She doesn’t typically allow for that. We usually put a line of grimoires up in auctions to mark who we are to other covens, but it’s just for show. We don’t sell them. They’re all unique. Irreplaceable. I didn’t question Lupe’s judgment at the time, but if she’d given one of them to you, it’d make more sense for the other books to follow suit. I could have a word with her. I’m not in the Pythoness Society; the Vade Mecvm Magici only address me for security purposes. Perhaps there’s some ritual you need to partake in before they all reveal themselves? I don’t know. Lupe is traveling right now, but she’ll be back in a month or two. If you come by the House soon, I’m sure that I could arrange for you two to talk. Negotiate. Whatever you need.”

  Jing, who’d been silent, cleared her throat.

  Maurice looked at her and smiled wearily, wavering on his stool. He shrugged. “Perhaps Lupe will speak to you, too. We can find a place for you girls. We’ll sort this out. It’s unwise for you to practice without a coven. Dangerous, even. There are unsavory sorts about, all of whom would love to get their hands on unattached witches without the power of a coven to back them. You girls best lay low where magic is concerned, at least until we’ve got the Pythoness business sorted. Don’t make any scenes.”

  Jing fished a cherry out of her mocktail and popped it between her teeth. Her stare hadn’t broken, glittered maliciously. It was like Jing was sizing him up for a fight that she very much intended on winning. “Did you follow us here?” Her tone was casual enough. “Kind of weird, running into us. Recognizing us, and all.”

  Maurice snorted, a reaction that made Jing blink. His mouth flickered into a smile, and perfect dimples buttoned either side of his face. “Dear, no. This is a gay bar. I am a gay man. I am a gay man
who’s had a very long, very trying day, and who just so happens to have a Sigil of Intuition carved on the back of my wristwatch. I came here for a drink, but my sigil is buzzing and I made a guess. It’s quite handy, having one of these around. I’d recommend it.”

  Jing did not look convinced.

  I cut in. I refused to let Jing pick a fight with the first helpful person I’d run across. I pulled one of my fists off the table and slid it down the nape of my neck. “What happened today?”

  Maurice sighed, shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Something nasty got loose in our storeroom, and we’ve been searching for it all morning. I don’t blame you two. I imagine it freed itself. Strange things are prone to that.”

  Jing and I exchanged a look.

  “Hard to tell you what it is, really. Bugaboos, boogeymen . . . you’d think there’d be more appropriate words for such creatures. Words that makes them sound a bit more urgent.” He slumped his shoulders, swaying forward. “Devils. Tragic little bastards. Even our kind has trouble catching them. It’s like trying to catch a shadow with your hands. We’ve been interrogating the creatures in our storage for information, and undoubtedly one of them will know something of its intended whereabouts. We’ll find it soon enough. Neither of you should worry. They’re easy to follow. They stain everything they touch. Just be aware: if either of you find yourself in the dark and something smells like a broken pen, make sure to turn on a light. They hate light. It fades their ink.”

  “Ink.” Jing repeated the word with an incredulous look on her face. “The boogeyman has ink?”

  I felt a funny thickness in my throat.

  “It’s made of ink. Ink and ash and charred scraps of leather. Keep away from it. It’s nothing but trouble, and I don’t want you girls sticking your fingers in things that could hurt you,” he said slowly, eyes fixed on Jing and me with a burrowing intensity. I felt his gaze like it was a physical thing.