Darkness Falls

by Cate Tiernan

  “Oh no. That sucks. Why did he do that?”

  “I wouldn’t help him take the 7-Eleven over in Melchett.”

  Melchett was the next town over. Take? Like, rob?

  “Um, and he got mad?” I ventured.

  “Yeah. So he broke up with me. Now he’s going around town talking trash about me, telling stories. That aren’t even true. Everyone’s looking at me funny.”

  I waited for her to tell me that he then did a drive-by shooting and popped a cap in her grandmother, but the story seemed to be over.

  “And you’re really upset?”

  That earned me a full-on glare. “Yeah, I’m really upset! The whole town hates my family, and now all my friends hate me!”

  “So get out of here!” I said once again. “What do you care what your loser boyfriend says? To hell with him! He’s trash! Ditch this place and all the assholes that make it tough for you here! Go someplace else; start over. They’re nobodies!”

  My stomach fell when Dray’s eyes filled with tears. She threw the box of Band-Aids down. “You say it like it’s so easy!” she shouted at me. “Like you know anything! But it’s not! It’s hard! I don’t have any money, I don’t have a car—” Her jaw clenched as if she couldn’t bear to say more. So she spit on the linoleum tile by my foot and slammed out, making the door bell jingle violently. Then she stuck her head back in and yelled, “Screw you!”

  I was getting to be an old hand at this “making things right.”

  I rubbed my fist over my forehead, feeling a splitting headache burst into full flower. Then I looked up and saw Mr. MacIntyre standing at the end of the aisle. I braced myself to get yelled at again.

  Instead he shook his head, seeming as tired and dragged down as I felt. “Just go home,” he said. “And don’t come back.”

  That hurt so much more than him shouting. I was crying by the time I got to my car.

  See? That’s what happens when you take a chance. I could have stayed home—I’d been fired—but nooo, I had to go be all active. I should have stayed home. Now both Dray and Old Mac had fired me out of their lives—twice. This time I was going to stay fired. Subconscious? Bite me.

  Of course at home I was put to work, since I had no job to go to. I was grumpy and out of sorts and didn’t feel like being around anyone. I hated to admit it, but my feelings were hurt. I don’t make an effort for many people or many situations. I had made an effort for Mr. MacIntyre and Dray. And they couldn’t care less. So to hell with them.

  The next day I was in a spellcrafting lesson, just me and Jess, being taught by Solis. I took some notes:

  Major Classes of Spells:

  1) Divination

  2) To effect change on a person or thing

  3) To effect change on an event

  4) Celebration and fellowship

  What? I have nice handwriting. I might not have graduated from high school, but that doesn’t mean I write like a peasant I’m not educated.

  We were in the main workroom on the first floor, practicing a healing spell. It would encourage the body to strengthen its response to infection, like from a wound or, say, if Amy stepped on a rake. Solis had led us through the limitations, which were for the specific person, the length of time, and the general nature of the response.

  Jess crafted his spell slowly but carefully. It was interesting to watch someone else make magick without having to participate. When it was over and he had dismantled the spell, I asked, “Do you feel any different?”

  Jess thought for a second, rubbing his hand over his grizzled gray stubble. For someone as young as he was, he looked about a thousand. Could hard living have aged him so much? I didn’t know.

  Then it was my turn. I’d just seen Jess do it, so I was a total whiz. First I drew the sigils of limitation in the air: I specified myself and no one else as the recipient, the response to be mild, and the effect to be open-ended, beginning now and lasting until I ritually broke the spell at a future date. The limitation of response specified that it was to bolster only my germ-fighting response—not to change anything else, like give me great eyesight or other senses. When all the limitations were in place—I glanced at Solis quickly to see if his expression clued me in to any problems—I started to call on my magick. Holding my moonstone in one hand (Jess had used his topaz), I began my song, softly at first, then more confidently.

  I could almost feel the spell as an actual structure, as if I were building something with physical form. Mentally I went through the steps: It felt whole and complete and even elegant, like a painting with every dab of paint in the right place. I was pleased: evidence that I was actually learning stuff.

  I was deep in concentration. My eyes were closed and I felt focused and content. I felt the magick all around me, as if it were the heavy scent of lilies. No sound disturbed me; I wasn’t aware of anything except myself and the feeling of magick shimmering through me. Had my mother worked magick like this? I remembered her chanting over our garden, singing softly as one of our horses foaled. I was connected to her in this way. I was congratulating myself on a job well done—the only thing that had gone right—when suddenly it went not right.

  Solis cried out, my eyes popped open, and something hit the back of my head, hard. My head snapped forward and I shrieked something bleep-worthy.

  “What did you do?” Solis yelled, diving behind a chair.

  The air was full of… flying books. Not cute books with little wings, zipping around like the Golden Snitch, but, like, demonic, possessed books hurling themselves at everything, out for blood.

  “Nothing!” I shrieked, ducking from one, then another. A third one whapped me in the shoulder, like a brick. “Goddamnit!”

  Over and over I heard heavy thuds as books—some thick and oversize—hit things. One slammed Jess in the side, and he swore loudly and scrambled over to hide behind the desk. I had no time to dismantle my spell—just covered my head with one arm as I scuttled over behind the desk next to Jess.

  More books sailed past me, knocking objects off every surface. Crystal globes shattered on the floor, a glass inkpot spewed deep purple ink across the antique rug; empty teacups, bits of parchment, chunks of minerals, lumps of copper and gold… all went flying in the crazy storm I had somehow created. A tiny pot of powdered copper flew open and scattered shiny glitter across the pool of ink. Other books flew violently at the window, breaking it with a huge crash. Still others landed in the fireplace, where they caught fire.

  “Undo it!” Solis shouted.

  “I don’t know how!” I wailed, cowering under the desk. Books slid off its top and tumbled onto Jess, who swore again. “I don’t know what happened! You’re the expert! You fix it!”

  Solis was already spitting words out, his deft fingers drawing sigils and runes and other magickal symbols in the air. It seemed to take for-freaking-ever, but suddenly every book dropped heavily to the ground right where it was, all at once. The books made a tremendous noise, but in the deafening silence afterward we heard footsteps running down the hall toward the workroom.

  Solis jumped up and ran to the fire, snatching books away from the flames and rolling them in the hearth rug.

  “What the hell did you do?” Jess roared, ten inches from my face.

  “Nothing!” I screamed back. “You saw me do the spell!”

  The door burst open. Asher and Brynne stood there, eyes wide. They looked around the room: the shelves almost empty, books strewn everywhere, the window broken. Everything on a surface had been knocked over or pushed off; small pots and bottles of oils and essences were smashed on the floor. Solis was on his knees looking at the burned books to assess their damage.

  “What in the world happened?” Asher asked. “Are you all okay?”

  A frigid gust blew through the broken window, swirling with the overpowering smell of flower essences and herbal oils.

  More people came: Charles, River, Anne.

  I stood slowly. I had done this. I had caused this.

&n
bsp; “What happened?!” River asked.

  The three of us were silent. The old Nastasya would immediately blame Solis, for teaching me incorrectly, or Jess, for distracting me, or life in general, for not going my way. Which was clearly the path to choose here—this was a whole world of bad.

  “It was me,” I said, touching my puffy eye. “I truly don’t know what happened. We were doing a healing spell. I thought I was doing it exactly right.”

  “You were,” said Solis, standing up. He looked at River. “Jess went first, then Nastasya right after. I was there, watching and listening. She did it perfectly, and everything was fine until the spell was supposed to go into effect. Then all the books started… flying off the shelves.”

  “Like in The Exorcist,” Brynne said unhelpfully.

  “Except we don’t believe in the devil,” Charles said, examining all the wreckage.

  “You used limitations?” River asked.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Solis nodded. “She did—she set up all the proper limitations. I really have no idea how this happened.” He gave me a thoughtful look, and my heart sank: Unless I’m hopelessly dark. The thought came to me instantly, fully formed, and seized my heart like a cold fist.

  River came into the room, stepping over debris carefully. “So, normal spell, everything fine, then books fly off shelves, go everywhere, break everything.”

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. “Yeah.” Oddly, the person I felt like seeing was Reyn. I flashed on the feel of his arms holding me, how illogically safe I felt with him. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I did.

  “I’ll clean it up,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “I’ll help,” said Solis.

  “Right now let’s find a piece of wood to board up that window,” said River.

  “I can do that,” Jess said.

  I looked at the ruined room, felt my various bumps and bruises, and thought that so far, the new year was kicking my ass.

  CHAPTER 12

  It took me eight hours to clean up the room, even with Solis’s help. While we worked, he walked me through the steps of the spell again, and we both examined every bit of it to see where it had gone wrong. We still couldn’t figure it out.

  Unless the thought I’d had was true, that my magick is inherently dark, like my parents’. Unless I can’t choose to not be dark.

  Just a week ago, I’d felt so much more hopeful. I’d seen progress. Now I couldn’t do anything right. A dark, heavy cloud of Teräväness was hanging over my head, following me wherever I went. Every time I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my puffy, purpling eye reminded me that I couldn’t be trusted to do a simple spell by myself.

  When Reyn saw me, his eyebrows rose. “What does the other guy look like?”

  I wanted to come back with something witty and brave and casual, but I couldn’t think of a thing. In general my head felt fuzzy, as if I wasn’t getting enough sleep. But I was hitting the sack by nine thirty, just to make these awful days end earlier. I had no other symptoms except listlessness, a foggy brain, and a desire to spend all day, every day, in bed.

  I went to classes, though I refused to work any actual magick, and, tellingly, no one pushed me to try. I did my chores.

  One night Reyn, Brynne, and I were on the cooking team. I found being with Reyn both comforting and tension-producing. It was exhausting.

  In my attempts to see him as who he was now, I was noticing how other people acted around him. With surprise I realized that everyone seemed to like him and feel comfortable with him. I hadn’t really seen that before. At first glance, he seemed bossy and abrupt, forbidding and humorless. I was coming to realize that he was just—really self-contained. Withdrawn, even. Quiet, wrestling with all his inner demons. I still didn’t know why, specifically, he was here. What had brought him to River’s? How long had he been here? What was he hoping to get out of being here?

  The answers to these and other questions may or may not be revealed later on, in Eternity: The Ongoing Docudrama.

  “Oh! Turn that song up,” Brynne said, pointing to the small, old-fashioned radio on a kitchen shelf. I turned up the volume, and Brynne started dancing as she chopped garlic. She seemed to know the words to any song that came on, reminding me again of how unaware I was, how little I paid attention to things.

  “Baby, you know you got it going on,” Brynne sang, chopping in rhythm.

  I smiled and looked up to see Reyn also smiling. We met eyes and Had a Moment; then I went back to work.

  A few minutes later, Amy came in and perched cutely on a stool near where Reyn was cutting sausages to grill. “Can I help with anything?” she asked.

  Reyn shook his head. “You’re a guest.”

  I stirred the onions and garlic I was sautéing. I wished that it was just Reyn and me in the kitchen.

  “Nastasya?”

  It took a second to realize Amy was talking to me. I turned around.

  “Is this your first time at River’s?” she asked. “I was here ten years ago, and there was a completely different gang. But most people seem to come and go and then come back.”

  “No, it’s my first time,” I said. “Do you visit Anne here often?” Time to brush off the rusty ol’ social skills. I had gathered that Amy was actually a nice person. It wasn’t her fault that she’d fallen under the spell of the Golden Glory. Probably most women did, I thought wistfully.

  Amy smiled. “I come here every so often, but I last saw Anne three years ago. Every once in a while our whole family gets together somewhere, spends a couple weeks catching up. Last time it was Prince Edward Island. So beautiful there.”

  “Your whole family gets together?” I detected amazement in Reyn’s face, even though it was subtle.

  “Yep.” Amy picked a piece of lettuce from the salad bowl and ate it from her fingers.

  “Mine does, too,” said Brynne. “Every four or five years. My parents, all my siblings.”

  “Isn’t it great?” Amy asked her. “I mean, crazy and hectic, but great.”

  I glanced at Reyn again and found him looking at me. We understood what the other was thinking: We were both orphans. Our families had wiped one another out. He shook his head, as bemused by that thought as I was.

  “What about you, Reyn?” Amy asked. “Does your family get together?”

  “No,” he said. “It sounds nice.” He put the last sausage on the platter, then went out into the awful weather to use the big grill outside.

  “You?” Amy asked.

  “No,” I said. “My family died a long time ago.” I dumped a ton of diced potatoes into the onions and stirred. These people were into their potatoes—you could never make enough.

  “Oh.” Amy looked taken aback.

  “It was over four hundred years ago,” I told her, and she looked surprised. “I can’t even imagine what they would be like nowadays. I can’t imagine how they would have changed, modernized through the years, you know?”

  Reyn came back in, stamping snow off his feet.

  “Yeah, I see,” Amy said.

  “They’re kind of frozen in time for me,” I said, and felt Reyn stiffen as he realized what I was talking about. I never blurt out info about my family, preferring instead to cover my pain with scathing retorts. But I felt beaten down these days, little bravado in store. So I was dragging their skeletons out into the sunlight, as River had suggested. “I can only picture them as they were in the fifteen hundreds. It’s weird.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine,” Amy said, looking uncomfortable.

  “Has it been interesting, seeing your family change through the years?” I asked politely.

  “Not really ‘interesting,’ ” Amy said, absently picking another piece of lettuce out of the bowl. “It just seems normal, you know? Clothes change, hair changes, cool new things get invented—but it doesn’t happen all at once. It’s all gradual, so nothing seems sudden or shocking. Just normal life.”

  I’d never
heard anyone describe the immortal experience as normal, so this was a whole new concept for me. I went back to pushing potatoes and onions around the pan, making sure nothing burned, but inside my mind was a quilt of new thoughts. To me my life had always seemed like an unending disaster—one long series of awful experiences intermittently broken up by something good or fun, then descending into tragedy again. The tragedies were what I remembered, what dogged me. I’d never been strong enough or determined enough to kill myself, and I’d also never been together enough to see my life as a positive thing, a long line of opportunities, chances taken, people loved, if only for a while. Normal. What a freakish concept.

  I ate dinner like a zombie, barely able to pay attention to what anyone was saying. So much to think about. So many new ways to see so many things.

  When I went upstairs, I couldn’t remember the lockdoor spell on my room.

  Back when Nell had been roaming the place, Anne had taught me a basic lock-door spell so no one could leave ill-wishes inside. Nowadays I almost always used it, whether I was in my room or not, because I felt too vulnerable to leave my door unlocked. Not that anything could get to me here. But… you never know.

  Now I was standing here, exhausted, overwhelmed by new concepts, and I couldn’t get into my own room. When I tried to remember the spell, my head clouded over, as if full of a swarm of bees. I started and stopped several times, my hand freezing in midair as I tried to trace a sigil I could no longer visualize.

  Crap. What was going on? I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I didn’t want to be found out here like an idiot, especially after my room-destroying event of the week before. Think, think, think. It suddenly came back to me in a flash, and I murmured the short spell and drew the appropriate sigils and runes as fast as I could.

  I turned the doorknob and nipped inside, quickly closing the door behind me. I had cold sweat on my forehead. What was the matter with me? Shakily I recited the lockdoor spell again, then crossed the room to draw the insulated curtains against the cold black night. I turned the knob on the small radiator, hearing the steam start to hiss through its curved pipes. I kicked off my shoes and my jeans and crawled beneath the covers. The sheets were freezing.