I sat back. “I never thought about that.”
She continued, “I mean it’s either a miracle…”
“Or else someone made it happen.” I finished. I turned to Joe.
“Hey!” I shouted, and then felt like an idiot for a second as I wiped away the runelight.
Meg made an appreciative noise as the glittering light fell.
“Joe,” I said.
“Oh, you’re talking to me again,” he said. “Sorry, I’m still on the whole Mage thing.”
“How many Instincts and Runes do you think there are?” I asked.
“What, in the whole world?” he asked in return.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Very helpful, Joe. “Come on, pattern boy, your whole life you’ve never met another Witch besides me, so how rare do you think we are?”
“I’d say…” He closed his eyes and thought for a second, “one in about four million people.”
“And there are two of us,” I said. “In Plymouth of all places, and we are almost exactly the same age.”
“Yeah,” he smiled. “It’s kind of like a miracle.”
“Or else like a manipulation,” I said.
“Whoa,” Joe said, sitting down on the couch next to me. I could tell Meg was taking in how close Joe was sitting. “You know what, I wonder… When my mom got this job we were both surprised, because she didn’t apply for it.”
“What?” I said.
“Yeah, she was applying for jobs in New Mexico, and we got this random letter and then moved here about a week later.” Joe ran his fingers through his hair. “I think you’re right. But what are they trying to manipulate us into doing?”
The skin on my left hand started feeling warm. I looked down, and my other hand rubbed against the lines under my skin that held my contract to the Grandmothers.
I sighed. “I think I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I bought a children’s workbook for Fee’s birthday. It was for kindergarteners. Phonics. I wrapped it in neon pink wrapping paper and glued on a store-bought bow.
Then I didn’t know what to do with it, so it sat on my dresser next to both of Fee’s sparkling shoes.
After staring at it for more than a half hour, I left my room, went to the kitchen and dialed Joe’s number.
“Hello,” Joe said.
“It’s Fee’s birthday today,” I said, “I mean it would be…”
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
I hung up the phone, walked back up to my room and picked up Fee’s present. I put it down a few seconds later and stared at it for a while.
I picked it up a few more times before I heard Joe walking up my stairs. I left my door open, not that it mattered. Joe walked toward me with his arms up to give me a hug, but I handed him the present instead.
“I don’t know what to do with it,” I said.
I…You know, I don’t really want to dwell too much on Fee’s birthday morning. Let’s just say it sucked and then move on.
Anyway, so about three hours later, Joe and I were standing in front of my family’s graves. They were buried a few towns away, so no one would find them. My parents shared a gravestone, and Fee had one of her own. It was smaller, a dark gray stone with a rune carved above her name. It was the rune for protection, the same rune that hung over my door. I ran my fingers across the stone feeling the rise and fall of the indentation, my fingers shooting sparks, as they do when I’m around real runes. The present leaned against the stone. Water from the snow seeped up into the package and through the knees on my jeans. It was a sunny day with a cold wind that blew through my hair and stung as it brushed against the tears on my cheeks. The sunlight reflected off the snow, leaving sparkling light that made me close my eyes and ripped against retinas already tender from crying.
When my tears were gone, and I couldn’t find the energy to make any more, I stood. I looked at Joe, his sunflower eyes reflecting back at me. The only thing I really felt for him at that moment was grateful. Who cared if someone manipulated him into meeting me; thank God they did. I didn’t know what I would do without him.
That breaks my heart to write.
I walked to him and he held his arms open for a hug, but I shook my head. I was done with that.
“If you had a tattoo, where would you put it?” I asked.
He looked at me, confused, and then answered, “My arm, probably, but up high, so my mom couldn’t see it.”
I nodded emotionlessly. “Take off your coat.”
He did, all the while looking at me as if I was speaking Spanish. He was wearing his short-sleeved blue shirt we bought together at the thrift store. I pulled his sleeve up to his shoulder and then started drawing the rune for protection, glancing for reference at my sister’s gravestone. The rune was an intricate one, completely balanced on all four sides, a mesh of curves that connected like eternity, with no beginning and no end.
I sighed when I finished and pulled my hands down by my side. Joe looked over at his arm, and he smiled as if he liked it.
“It will look like a tattoo if any rube looks at it,” I said. “Protection is the strongest rune I know; it doesn’t wash off, or rub off unless the person who drew it takes it off. And I won’t. I want you to be safe.”
“So could I like jump off a cliff and bounce?”
“No,” I said. “It’s not a bulletproof vest, you moron. You could maybe jump off a second story window and not break anything. But jump from too high, or crash a car too fast, and there’s only so much it can do. My family still died. But it’ll help.
“You should draw it on yourself,” Joe said
“No need,” I said “My mom drew it on me when I was born.”
“Where is it?” he asked, looking at my body.
I crossed my hands over my stomach. “None of your business.”
Joe smiled in his patented way, and I laughed. It felt good to hear laughter that day. Things had gotten too serious.
I thought for a moment, and then shook my head. “Beside’s, I’m not in any danger. They only brought us together so I could watch you, be a spy for them.”
“Why?” he said. “I’m nothing special.”
“You can do runes, Joe. I know you don’t want to, but that still means you are a freakishly strong… Mage.” I pulled Joe’s sleeve down, and then he put his coat back on.
Something occurred to me. “You know what’s strange?”
“Everything,” he said, as he zipped his coat closed, “Everything is strange.”
I ignored him, “How many Witches have you seen since you came to Plymouth?”
“Imitation Erica, threatening Witch, Giara, and you,” he listed.
“That’s four and no men. Isn’t that weird?” I started walking away from my parent’s grave, happy to have something to occupy my mind.
“I don’t think the Grandfathers know you exist, Joe,” I said. “If they did, you would have been inducted into the society. You would have been invited to go golfing or whatever it is they do.”
Joe held open the door of my car for me, and I got in. I was silent as he moved around the car and sat in the driver seat.
When Joe put his seatbelt on, I realized something else. “What if… I think the Grandmothers are trying to hide you from them. Trying to rob a commodity, weaken the Grandfathers.”
Joe started the car; he didn’t look worried, but that was Joe. He still thought he was indestructible. “Okay, so what do we do?”
“We need to find a Mage. The Grandfathers will need to know... they’ll be able to protect you.”
“Maybe, but one, I don’t need protection; I got this.” He said, gesturing to his new rune, “And two, we don’t know any Mages.”
Ulgh. That dumb kid. The Grandfathers would be able to protect him from the Grandmothers. And from me. “That’s the problem. I really don’t know any…” I wished my dad had been more open with me, introduced me to his fr
iends, anything.
An idea hit me, “Except…”
No, that really wouldn’t be a good idea.
“Except who?” Joe seemed eager.
This was the only way to protect him. We had to, at least try, to find him.
“Your dad,” I said turning back to the road.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Joe slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “No!”
“Joe, calm down,” I said.
“There’s no way I’m gonna…”
“I’m not suggesting you ask him to take you fishing,” I said. “You can punch him in the face if you want to, and then tell him you’re an Instinct. After he gets out of the hospital he will tell the Grandfathers, and someone will find you.”
Joe was silent.
This wasn’t a good idea, I thought.
“I can do that,” he said, looking away from me.
“I’m sorry, Joe.” I took a deep breath, and started talking softly, hopefully showing Joe I was sensitive to the fact that this was sensitive to him. “Okay, how are we gonna find him… Do you know his name?”
“Maybe, Larissa, you grew up in a happily ever after fairytale where people fall in love and get married and then the stork magically delivers a newborn on their front step,” he said, ”but I didn’t. No, I don’t know his name. I don’t know if my mom knows his name, and I’m not going to ask her.”
“Do you think she’s written it down somewhere?” I asked. “I mean, she’s an English teacher; she’s got to have written it down.”
“She’s… she’s always written journals,” he said.
“Perfect.”
Joe sighed. “Alright, we can look at her journals. No promises that we’ll even find anything. And I’m not reading them; I told my mom I wouldn’t.”
“Well, luckily I didn’t,” I said.
I smiled at Joe. He didn’t notice. Was I being a crappy friend, forcing Joe to do something horrible? If it kept him safe, was there anything that I wouldn’t do?
“I’m really sorry, Joe.” I said.
We got to Joe’s house about a half hour later, parked in the driveway, and then walked to the garage. Ms. P.’s pickup wasn’t in the driveway, so we knew she wasn’t home.
The garage was detached from the house and had one door that lifted straight up, instead of rolling up like the garage at my house. They always parked their only truck in the driveway because the garage was stuffed full of boxes. Most of the boxes were left over from their many moves around the country. I remember Ms. P. talking about how every time she moved, she never got around to unpacking that one box. Every move she just added another one to the pile. I guess the garage was where all those boxes ended up. Joe climbed over a few boxes and then started digging inside. I followed behind him and started with the boxes on the left.
“You guys really need a better organization system,” I said, ruffling through pages full of Joe’s homework from the third grade. The rune for water was drawn on several dog-eared corners. There were old electricity bills, student loan payments, and Joe’s birth certificate. I checked, but the line for father was blank.
“Thanks Miss OCD,” Joe said. “If you want to organize all of this, nothing’s stopping you.”
“You say that like it’d be torture, but that’s my idea of a good time,” I said.
I moved on to a different box. This one had a bunch of batteries and owner’s manuals.
Ms. P. showed up about a half hour into organizing. She smiled at our choice of activities and then almost sprinted back into the house with her groceries so we wouldn’t rope her into helping. It took about an hour to find the journals, and Joe was the first one to find them (probably because I kept spending far too much time looking at Joe’s baby clothes.) It just seemed strange that such a hulking giant of a good-looking guy wore outfits that were smaller than my forearm.
“Okay,” Joe said, “it’s your turn.”
He held my hand so I could climb over the box of stuff and then left me to it, throwing my carefully organized piles into one of the empty boxes.
I turned away from him so my OCD wouldn’t be showing and then sat down to read. This one box was the most organized box I’d seen, and it was still a mess of chaos. Journals from every year cluttered the box with their varied covers. Some were plain colored; some had flowers or puppies on the covers. Each had yellow masking tape sealing the book with the year the book was written and the words, ‘Joe, don’t touch.’
It took me a couple more minutes, but after doing the math, I found the two journals that would probably give me the answers that I wanted. At least they would be my best hope. I ripped the tape on the earliest and started reading.
Ms. P. as a teenager (or Maggie as I started thinking of her) was a lot like me. Typical almost, what with her over-analysis of boys who may or may not like her. Her days seemed normal. She mentioned friends and big homework assignments. But then, a name started cropping up over and over. Ashford. He smiled at her at a party, then ignored her in the halls. It seemed like Maggie was religious, her family was as well, and there was a lot of mention of church and religious activities. This seemed strange to me, as neither Ms. P. nor Joe were churchgoers now at all.
Neither was this Ash guy. It seemed like Ms. P. had a thing for the bad boy, which I in no way related too.
Reading the journal started feeling like reading a novel, and for a moment, I forgot this was a real person’s life. Then right when things got good, when Maggie and Ashford admitted their feelings for each other, I realized something. This love story didn’t end happily, in a couple more days, some dark Mage would step out of the shadows and take something precious from a woman I admired. I read the next few pages reluctantly waiting for the shoe to drop and the bad day to happen.
But it didn’t.
“Joe, were you a premature baby?” I asked.
Joe looked up. He was playing an ancient game boy he must have discovered in our perusal through the boxes.
“No.” He looked back down.
I went back to my reading with a confused, “hmm…”
The story went on, pages and pages of Maggie, happy and in love. Then all of a sudden, they broke up. Teardrops blended the words as Maggie wrote about how it was because Ash didn’t think she was special enough for him. Then the writing stopped, even though there were several empty pages left over.
I looked through the box for the next year, but I couldn’t find anything. The next journal I could find Joe was two years old already, and there was no mention of Ash or anything.
I looked over at Joe. No wonder Ms. P. freaked out so much with the completely accidental sleeping thing that happened.
“Your mom wasn’t raped,” I said.
“What?” he asked.
It was all there. Ash’s vivid blue eyes. The wonder of it all. Maggie didn’t just fall in love with a bad boy. She fell in love with a Mage.
Then she got pregnant, and her strict religious family… I don’t know. What happened that made her say she was raped? Where was the missing years of journals? Did someone wipe her memories?
“Look,” I said, pointing to the journal, “your dad’s name is Ashford, and I don’t think he knew your mom was pregnant.” I smiled. “He seems like he was a cool guy actually.”
Joe walked over; it was clear he was fighting believing me, and I don’t blame him. It must be difficult to hate someone your entire life, and then one day realize they weren’t so bad. Devastating really.
“Joe, you’ve got a dad.” I said, standing up and looking through a few more boxes.
Joe sat down, his back against the cardboard box, and he read his mom’s journal.
I found a few more boxes in the corner we hadn’t opened yet, and I dug through them while Joe read. I found one at the very back of the garage, behind all the others, covered in dust and filth. A thick line of masking tape covered the top. I broke it open. Inside the box I found regular notebooks full of homework assignments,
folded love letters from our man Ash, and under a letterman’s jacket with the name Maggie sewn in, I found a collection of yearbooks. Bull’s-eye.
“We’re going to find him.” I said with a smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I started with the yearbook for Ms. P.’s junior year. Inside on clean white paper were people’s autographs and messages. I read the first one expecting to read the ‘smile’ and ‘have a good summer’ that I always wrote. Instead, there were several handwritten messages that called Maggie horrible names. There were a couple from people who said they were there for her, and explaining the benefits of adoption. A few were helpful, but most were condescending and condemning. No wonder Maggie moved so far away.
I looked through the juniors, scanning the page for the right Ash. There weren’t any, it wasn’t a popular name. I started to doubt if this possibility, this chance to find this mystery person was just…
About eight pages in there was one picture scribbled out with a black sharpie. I stood, got my notebook from my bag, and then sat down by Joe, looking quickly through it. There. I found the rune for clean.
Joe looked over my shoulder, “Dang, Riz, how’d you get so many runes?”
I closed the notebook, and slid it under me. “Giara taught me a few.”
“How many is a few?” he asked.
I sighed, “A hundred and thirty seven.”
“And what did that cost?” he asked.
I didn’t want to think about that. “Joe, the less you know about runes the better, so don’t look, and I’m not gonna talk about it.”
He looked at me as if he had more he wanted to say, but I was firm on that, and he backed down.
The rune for clean is a quick one, just three lines and a dash. When I drew it all the marker and pen marks on the page erased.
There he was, Ashford Zabriskie. He had the same take-over-his-face smile that Joe did... the same full eyebrows. They weren’t exactly alike but you could tell they were related. They could be brothers.
Joe was silent, staring at this face. I can’t even begin to understand what he was feeling. He took a deep breath and when his shoulders rested, they were taller than they were before, his posture better, and he smiled.
Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) Page 10
