“Finn?” Vee popped her head out of her room, looking up and down the hall. “Oh, I thought maybe you were talking to—Never mind.”
“Looking for Pete?”
She blushed. “I haven’t seen him all day and, uh, Sarah is really worried.”
“Yeah, about that … Can we talk in your room for a minute?”
Vee glanced up the hall again. I shook my head. “Zeke’s chasing down some info, said he won’t be back for a while.”
She bit her lower lip, then nodded. We went into her room, and Vee plopped down cross-legged on a bean bag, her knees sticking far out to the sides, her body hunched over hands clasped in her lap.
I stood for a second, my hands in my pockets, composing my thoughts and dreading how Vee would react.
“Well, here’s the thing. Pete’s a really good guy. He’s the most honest, caring person I know. And trusting, and loyal, and—”
Vee crossed her arms. “And you want me to stay away from him, because I’m crazy, or dangerous, right? Because I was in the Hole, I’m not good enough for your brother?”
“No!”
“Because Sarah says that’s what you really think.”
“No, just the opposite, I swear.” At least now. “I think you guys are perfect for each other. It’s just—” I looked down at my hands. “So, the thing is, when Pete was young, Mort played a prank on him. We both did, actually. You see, Pete was having a really hard time dealing with Mother’s death. I think he felt, you know, vulnerable, scared. And then this dog bit him, and—”
“He isn’t really a waerwolf,” Vee said. It wasn’t a question. And she didn’t sound surprised or upset. If anything, she sounded resigned.
“Uh, yeah, that’s kind of where I was going. You knew?”
She nodded.
“Oh. Wait, of course you knew. You were inside my head.”
“Actually, no, I didn’t get it from you. Sarah told me. He didn’t act or smell like a waer, didn’t … feel like a waer.”
“So, you’re not mad? Because, well, he really likes you.”
“I know.” Vee slumped in on herself again, looked down at her hands. “That’s why I didn’t say anything to him about it. I really enjoyed talking with him, I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“But that’s awesome! I’m sure Pete’s worried you wouldn’t want to talk to him anymore if you knew.”
Vee looked up, and tears marked her cheeks. “I want to, but I don’t think I should.”
“What? Why not?”
“It’s just too dangerous for him. I shouldn’t have talked to him at all once I realized the truth. I didn’t want to encourage him. Still … I didn’t want to be alone, either. I was selfish. But we need to stop before he gets real feelings for me.”
“Uh, I think it’s too late for that.”
“Really?” Vee sat up, a look of hope on her face. Then she glanced to her side, listening. “No. You’re right,” she whispered sullenly, then looked back at me. “It’s just not safe. I don’t want to hurt him.”
“I hope you, and Sarah, will think about it before you say anything to him,” I said. “Waerwolf or not, I think maybe Pete and you could be happy together.”
Vee frowned at me. “Don’t you care that I’m a waer?”
“Not really,” I said. Which wasn’t exactly true, but this wasn’t about me. “I love Pete. I’ve missed so much of his life. I just want to see him happy, and if I can help make that happen it would make me happy too.”
Vee looked back down at her hands. “My brother, he’s already sacrificed so much for me. He lost twenty-five years of his life, and now he’s dealing with—” She stopped and blushed slightly. I understood. Zeke was dealing with my mess. She cleared her throat. “He’s still trying to take care of me. That’s another reason I can’t take any risks right now. Zeke doesn’t need any more problems, especially not mine.”
“I know you’ve both had it rough,” I said. “But at some point you’re each going to need to start your own lives again, right?”
“Maybe,” Vee said. “But what if something goes wrong? What if I changed and attacked Pete? Or even just infected him by accident? I’m not sure Pete would really forgive me if that happened. And Zekiel, he hardly even looks me in the eyes now. But if something went wrong with Pete, and I got sent into exile—” She shook her head. “I like Pete. And so does Sarah. But really, we barely know each other. I think the best thing for everyone is to just keep it that way.”
“Well, I hope you’ll change your mind. I don’t see how your being unhappy and isolated is going to make Zeke happy. Wouldn’t seeing you living a normal, happy life make him forget you’re a waer more than shutting yourself away from everyone?”
“I don’t know.” Vee sighed. “We’ll think about it.”
“Okay. I guess that’s all I can ask. Thank you. And, uh, thank you, Sarah.”
Vee didn’t respond, just looked back down at her hands fretting in her lap.
I left her room, headed downstairs and out to Pete’s cottage. I didn’t look forward to the conversation, assuming he would talk to me at all. Even the good news that Vee liked him without his being a waerwolf was potentially bad news if it also meant she didn’t want to see him anymore.
I wished there was something I could do to make it all work out. But the only sure solution I could think of was to either make Pete a waer—not my first choice—or find a way to make Vee not a waer. That would be ideal. It would be a nice gift to Zeke as well, in return for all the trouble he’d been put through because of the attacks on me. I’d heard rumors of cures, but suspected they were scams or myths. Heather might know—heck, Heather might be able to create a cure if she put her mind and skill to it—but she wasn’t taking my calls.
I crossed the side yard to Pete’s cottage and raised my hand to knock on the door but heard his voice from inside, too muffled to make out the words.
Then Dawn’s voice, near to the door, said in response, “You’re sweet. But I’m not getting in a cat fight over Finn. I’ve got more self-respect than that. And I don’t even know if he’s worth fighting for anymore, you know?”
Ouch. Not that I wanted Dawn and Heather fighting over me, but it hurt that both of them seemed so unwilling to fight for me. The least of my worries, maybe, but it still bothered me because, really, I couldn’t blame them. To the mundy world, I was a loser dropout. To the arcana world I was a dark necromancer who’d only just returned from exile. Even in my own mind, I still had no idea where I fit in anymore, or where I was going now except back to exile. I wasn’t sure I’d fight to be with me either.
Pete said something as I stood there pondering, his words still indistinct. Dawn responded, “You have to say that, you’re his brother. But if he’s too dumb to know what he wants, or appreciate all this, I’m not going to waste my time like I did before.”
I heard the crunching of gravel as a car pulled into the main drive. I moved quietly away from the cottage and headed for the front of the house. As I walked, I considered again my feelings for Dawn, which had become no less confusing or uncertain since the night before.
Being honest with myself, I’d seen her differently after our kiss in the cottage all those years ago. She officially went from being my friend to being my friend who was a girl, and I’d occasionally wondered about trying for another kiss. But she’d made it seem like nothing special, so much so that I didn’t feel like she wanted to kiss me again. And then I started hanging out with Heather.
If you asked me the first word that came to mind with Dawn, it would be “crazy,” but in a way that made me laugh, that made a dull task an adventure. And the second word would be “easy.” Not in the slutty kind of way, but because talking with her was easy, and being with her was easy. Or at least it used to be. Maybe part of the reason I’d never really thought of her romantically was because she’d always been, in a way, “my other half”?
I rounded the corner to the front of the house. Mattie and Heathe
r slid a box out of the opened back of Heather’s hatchback. I faded back around the corner and watched Heather, taking the opportunity to really look at her without it being awkward.
In those rare moments in the Other Realm when I was allowed to imagine freely, I often imagined a relationship together with Heather. But in my imaginations she was always that girl I’d known, not the woman of hardened edges and sadness that stood a few feet from me now. How much of what I felt for her, or thought I felt for her, was based on reality? After twenty-five years of living in memory and imagination, I had no idea.
It was possible that, if I hadn’t been exiled, we might have dated for a week or two, and it could have been a disaster, just another one of the billions of failed teenage romances. Or we might have been that rare couple who met in high school and went on to get married and live happily ever after.
In a perfect world, I could date Dawn for a week, then date Heather for a week, and see which felt right. But I had the feeling that if I did date one, I’d lose the other, at least as anything more than a friend.
And in that moment, my decision was easy. Trying to think of which one I wanted to be with romantically was just confusing. But in weighing the risk of losing them, one stood out clearly over the other. The realization filled me with guilt over all that had happened in the past day.
I resumed walking, and Heather looked over as my feet crunched across the gravel. She frowned and helped Mattie settle the box by the front stairs, then walked briskly back to her car.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mattie,” she said, and closed the hatchback door. She moved toward the driver’s door.
“Heather, wait,” I said. I hurried around the front of the car and reached her before she could shut her door.
“Finn—” she began.
“I know. You don’t want to talk about us. But I wanted to ask you something else, as an alchemist.”
She sighed. “What is it?”
“Do you know of any cure for a waer curse?”
“Other than silver to the head or heart, no,” she said. “Nothing legitimate anyway. Why? I thought Pete’s curse wasn’t real.”
“It’s not. But a friend is cursed, a girl that Pete likes in fact, and—”
“Is it Dawn?”
“What? No. It’s someone you don’t know. Why?”
“Just wondered. I’ll see what I can find, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. If a cure was possible, I’m sure it’d be out there by now.”
“Maybe. But then, you’ve done all sorts of things nobody’s ever done before, right?” I smiled.
I meant it as a compliment, and a nod back to her experiments when we were young. But a pained expression flitted across Heather’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose I have. I need to go. I’m having dinner with Orion, and I don’t get to see him very often.”
“Wait. I just—I hate to see you unhappy, Heather. I hope you know I’m still your friend. Whatever happens, whatever you did or didn’t do, whatever your reasons for pushing me away, I’m here if you need a friend.”
Heather laughed through her nose, and shook her head. Then she looked up at me, a sad smile on her face. “You said friend twice in as many sentences. Is there something you’re trying to tell me?”
“I—there’s a lot going on, you know. I’ve got a lot to figure out. But like I said, I do want you to be happy, and I do want us to be—”
“Friends. I know.” Heather put her hand on mine. “Thank you, Finn. And thank you for offering to help. But you don’t even know me, not really. And there’s nothing for you to do anyway. I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with my own messes. Sometimes life just is what it is, and not even magic can make it better.”
She started her car and drove off. I sighed. Real-life relationships were so much harder and confusing than what I’d imagined.
“You okay, Uncle Finn?” Mattie asked.
I joined her by the stairs and peeked inside the open box. It held a few stainless-steel sports bottles that I assumed held potions and what looked like a papier mâché volcano with pictures of various fire elemental creatures painted on its sides.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“School project,” Mattie said. “Ms. Brown runs an after-school club for us arcana kids.”
“The school lets her? How does she keep mundies from joining?”
“She called it a slug identification club. No mundy volunteers for it.”
“That’s cool. I wish I’d had something like that.” It certainly would have been a nice break from Grandfather’s strict tutoring. “And the potions?”
“Just some things Dad asked for, for the business. You know, Uncle Finn, Ms. Brown was really distracted today. And she kept just sort of spacing out and smiling when the students were busy. I’ve never seen her do that.”
I sighed. “Thanks, Mattie. That’s … good to hear, I guess.” I lifted up the box. “Come on, let’s get this inside.”
And then I needed to talk with Dawn.
Mattie stepped into the house. Before I could follow, a sudden heat burned my chest, like being bit by a mosquito made of fire. I dropped the box and slapped my hand to the spot. The hex protection amulet!
The Króls. At least some of them must have survived the sasquatch attack. And they’d gained something personal of mine, something to hex me with across a distance.
Mattie turned at the sound of the box dropping. “Uncle Finn?”
“Stop! Stay inside.”
The house wards would protect her. But if the Króls had samples from anyone else outside the house—
Dawn screamed, but it didn’t sound like a scream of pain.
Pete!
I ran for the cottage as Dawn shouted for help, her voice sharp with fear.
20
Blister in the Sun
I reached the cottage just as Pete stumbled out, clutching at his face and groaning through clenched teeth. It looked as though his flesh boiled, bubbles rising and falling all along his skin. One burst, sending out a thin pink mist. Dawn followed him, her green and white dress peppered with fine red dots of Pete’s blood.
“Pete! Shit! Dawn, help me get him into the house, fast!” Dawn reached for Pete with the slow movements of someone in shock. I grabbed Pete’s arm to guide him, but he screamed in pain and jerked away. He fell to his knees on the lawn, which brought another shout of pain.
“Okay, buddy, let’s get to the house. You can do this. Come on.” The protection amulet on my chest felt hot enough to blister my own skin now. It was being pushed to its limits, and I doubted it would last much longer.
I couldn’t get Pete to his feet, couldn’t get him to the protection of the house wards. I needed to bring the protection to him. I ran just inside the door, just past the cool buzz of the protective wards. I yanked off the amulet. “Dawn!” I shouted, and tossed the amulet to her. “Put it on Pete!”
Dawn looked confused, but she hung the chain around Pete’s neck. The chain caught on boils as it slid down, and Pete swatted at the air as if being attacked by invisible insects.
The boiling slowed, and then stopped, leaving Pete gasping and covered in oozing, bleeding sores.
“Pete! Come on, into the house!” I called. But Pete just slumped down, moaning and twitching. I clenched my teeth and prepared to make a dash for him. If I were fast enough, hopefully the curse wouldn’t damage me too badly.
Vee came running around from the front of the house, holding a metal potion bottle. She pressed the bottle to Pete’s writhing lips. “Drink!” she said in a tone that demanded obedience.
Pete did his best to obey. Much of the thick blue liquid spilled from the corners of his mouth or ran off his chin. But when he stopped, he let out a long sigh and stopped twitching.
Tears ran from Vee’s eyes as she said, “Let’s get him inside. Mattie’s calling the healer.”
Pete pushed himself to his feet, with Dawn and Vee’s help and encouragement, and lu
mbered into the house.
“I’ve got him,” Vee said as we entered the dining room, leaving Dawn with me. Mattie sprinted into the room, mobile phone in hand and locked the side door behind me and Dawn. “Locking everything down,” she said as she dashed off again.
Dawn watched all the commotion with an expression of mixed confusion and fear. “What … what the hell just happened?” she asked.
“Let me help get Pete settled and I’ll explain.” And hopefully I would think of an explanation by then. “Come, sit down.” I directed her into a chair. “I’ll bring you some water. Everything will be okay, I promise.”
I left her as she sat, and hurried around the house, helping Mattie lock doors and windows, making sure the warding spells were all up and humming. I stopped by the bathroom. Vee dug through the medicine cabinet and gave short sobs that sounded like hiccups as Pete rested on the closed toilet lid. He looked awful, his skin a mess of red bumps and open sores. Even after they healed, he might be scarred for life. Fury kindled in my gut at the sight, the desire to hurt the Króls flaring up as sudden and hot as swallowing a mouthful of flaming jalapeño peppers.
And the anger at myself was just as great. I should have handled the Króls differently, taken more precautions, made sure they couldn’t hurt us, or at least that they feared the consequences of doing so. But I’d been too focused on getting answers.
“Oh man, Pete. I’m so sorry.”
Pete started to shake his head but stopped and winced. “Why sorry?” he said, his voice slurred, groggy sounding. “You didn’t do this.”
Vee placed a couple of pills in his mouth, then made him sip some water.
“No,” I said. “But if I hadn’t gone after the Króls, they wouldn’t have had reason to hex us.”
“Don’t be a dumb head,” Pete said, then closed his eyes and slumped forward. Vee had to grab him so that he didn’t slide off the toilet and carefully propped him up. She held a pair of scissors now and began to carefully cut at Pete’s T-shirt. She lifted off the protection amulet, a clear fluid stringing between it and Pete’s skin, and dumped it in the sink. It would need to be recharged before it would offer any protection again.
Finn Fancy Necromancy Page 23
