Joe swore and then started to walk into the rink, his tennis shoes still on his feet.
I held him back by his coat.
“Stop,” I said. “Wait.”
I walked to a bench, and Joe followed me. As he put on his skates, I looked around and then drew a transformation rune on his forearm. It took a few false starts, but eventually Ryan smiled back at me. If only when the real Ryan smiled at me, I could feel even a fraction of the feelings that overcame me then.
The guy at the booth looked over at us. I smiled at him, and he shook his head as if he was denying what he saw. Whoops.
I bent down and put my foot into the… yuck, into the well-used skate. Then, with Joe sitting as a shield, I started to do the rune to transform myself. On a bitter whim, I transformed myself into Erica Fisher and then pulled my coat sleeve over the rune.
Joe was watching his mom and Ash, his mouth moving in silent arguments and his fingers twitching, shaping the rune in the air.
I used Erica Fisher’s hand and held his fingers closed. I guess he wasn’t as afraid of Erica as he was with me because as soon as I transformed, it was like Joe relaxed.
Grrr... Oh well, I thought. We skated out into the center of the rink, our hands clasped tight together. Joe wasn’t good at skating; I think this might have been the first time for him. He kept slipping, and I would try to catch him, giggling with Erica’s obnoxious high-pitched laugh. We skated (or really, I skated while pulling Joe behind me) until we were right behind Ms. P. and Ash.
They seemed to be having a much better time than we were. Their arms were touching, and the heat between them was palpable. They seemed… giddy. Smiling like they were, they looked so young.
“How’s your family?” Ms. P. asked.
“The same.” Ash said.
“I’m so sorry.” Ms. P. said, reaching for Ash’s hand. “I had hoped by now things had gotten better.”
Ash looked at their hands clasped together, pulled her hand up to his lips, and held it there for a while. Ms. P. stared at him, her face looked completely bewildered.
“Being with you… I feel like I can breathe finally.” Ash said quietly. “I feel like my life from the day I left you to this day was a dream, that it wasn’t real, like I wasn’t that person, and this now, this is who I am.”
Wow. Great line, loser. You get that from a movie?
Ms. P. fell for it. She smiled and looked away. “I know what you mean,” she said, and then she turned and looked up at him.
I could see the kiss coming before Joe did, but when he finally caught on, he shouted “No!” Joe slipped on the ice, his head hitting with a generous whack.
Water from the ice seeped into my jeans as I knelt down next to him.
“Are you okay,” I asked in a whisper.
Ms. P. joined us. When she got close enough, I brushed my fingers and the runelight fell from behind her coat collar. Whatever rune Ash drew was gone now.
“Mr. Wecker,” Ms. P. said, “are you alright?”
Joe put his hand to his head. Ryan’s voice came out his mouth, “I must have slipped.”
I helped him up, and then he brushed the frost off his coat and jeans.
“My son has a coat just like that,” Ms. P. said.
“Uh…” Joe said, looking at me for assistance. “Yeah, it’s his, I borrowed it.”
Ms. P. turned back to Ash, but Ash was staring at the both of us as if he knew something wasn’t right.
“I’m hungry, let’s go get some food.” I said in Erica’s voice. We skated out of the rink, and when we got to the hole in the wall that lead to non-slippery safety, I glanced behind us. Ash still watched us.
Walking on the blades across the aged carpet, I followed behind Joe. While he undid the laces to his skates, he was muttering about the unfairness of it all. He was fiercely protective of his mom. I wasn’t paying much attention to Joe; I was watching Ash and Joe’s mom as they restarted their slow circle, their hands clasped tight together. Ash glanced back at me; I ducked, did the rune for open on the skates and pulled my feet through. Joe watched me and then with a slight blush, he pulled his skates off without finishing untying them.
After Joe returned our skates and I retrieved my bag from a locker, we met up again near the front entrance. I reached for Joe’s hand, and he didn’t pull away.
“I meant it, are you alright?” I asked.
Ryan’s eyes looked back at me, but Joe’s pain shined from behind them. “I’ll live,” he said after a moment.
A bunch of twelve-year-old boys pushed past us. Joe held my hand firmly and then pulled me closer to him so that the swarm of prepubescent boys wouldn’t separate us. When they passed, I looked up at Joe. Ryan’s face looked down at me, and we both smiled and then turned toward the front entrance.
Meg stood there looking at us, a bouquet of blue and orange balloons in her hands. I smiled at her, and she glanced at our hands, and then ran past us with a look on her face that I knew meant she was about to start crying.
Ryan’s face looked after her. Ryan, the first boy who seemed to like Meg, was holding hands with Erica Fisher.
I just broke my best friend’s heart. I glanced at Joe, and a ripple of runelight started sliding over his face. The rune was ending. The more working runes you do at one time, the less time they hold. I pushed him, looking back in the rink where Ash was looking on at both of us.
We got to the parking lot. After a quick look back in Meg’s direction, I turned and walked to my car. I never went back. I never apologized or set things straight between us. All I had to do was go in there and tell her it was just Joe and me. She knew I was a Witch, so she knew I was capable of doing things like this.
But Joe needed me. I chose Joe over Meg yet again. I guess I assumed I would have the chance to call her later and explain. I assumed I would have the chance to make things better.
I didn’t. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last day of my normal life.
And it was just getting started.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
We went back to my house in silence. The return of our own faces seemed to bring back the awkwardness. I wish I knew what Joe was thinking, but Joe wasn’t good at communicating his emotions. His fingers kept twitching as if he were drawing Ash’s rune.
At six-thirteen, we were inside my house, sitting down at the kitchen table. The box of pizza was still on the table, the pizza inside going stale. It is a true testament to the seriousness of the situation that my OCD and I didn’t put that darn box away.
Joe flicked his fingers against the table, and I opened my notebook to the page of my newest rune. He leaned in close to me, our shoulders brushing together as we both looked at the rune.
“You know what it reminds me of,” Joe said a few moments later.
“What?”
“It reminds me of the rune on the SUV that crashed into Fake-Erica.”
“Hmm…” I flipped back to the first few pages of my notebook. Joe was right; at the center was a mark for… confusion, compulsion… Except the rune Ash left on Ms. P. was very different around the outside. It wasn’t a closed rune, so it was a working rune, but…
“Test it on me.” Joe suggested.
“Are you kidding?”
“It obviously didn’t hurt my mom, test it out.”
I sighed. “Alright, but if this kills you…”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” he said.
I drew the rune for who-knows-what on Joe’s arm, and then we both watched to see if the runelight would start to fade.
“Well, that’s a dumb rune,” Joe said. “That didn’t really do anything.”
The runelight didn’t even fade.
“That’s so weird.” I said. “Why would Ash come all this way to put a rune on your mom, and it not do anything?”
“Who knows?” Joe said. “You know, I don’t know what to think about him. I’ve hated him my whole life, but now...” Joe looked at me with those sunflower eyes, “I’ve never see
n my mom that happy.”
His fingers started shifting in his hand, but I didn’t think much of it.
“Did you know he was the one who kidnapped me?” I said. “He was the first one who hit me.”
Joe was silent. His fingers kept shifting, but I was too angry to care. I turned away. Joe put his hand on my arm, his face angry. “I’m sorry, Riz.”
He kept his fingers brushed against my arm.
I laughed bitterly. “Remember how we thought he was going to save us?”
Joe smiled, but it was a deadly brand of smile. His fingers twitched against my arm.
Brilliant red runelight followed his fingers as he drew the rune Ash had drawn on his mom’s neck against my forearm. He looked at me with panicked eyes, the warmth of his eyes burning the skin on my face.
The Instinct level rune cast, and a fire hose flow of love poured through me. Before I knew what I was doing, I climbed on Joe’s lap, my fingers running through his hair. My lips moved against his, and the burning, the burning fire of his magic just consumed me. Joe put his hands on my back, and he started kissing me back, his fingers against my bare skin adding more heat to the fire that threatened to burn me up.
As soon as I realized what I was doing, I pulled back. My lips felt raw.
“Take it off.” I whispered, and the flow of love poured through me stronger, forcing my lips to his. I pulled back with all my strength.
“What, my shirt?” he said.
I hit his shoulder with the back of my hand. At least part of me was still functioning. I started to giggle. He was the funniest person I had ever met, the most brilliant, handsome, wonderful… My lips found his again and my mouth opened.
What am I doing? I thought.
I pulled myself back. Joe was not that funny.
I kissed his cheek, “The runelight,” his neck, “You…” his lips again, “Idiot.” I said between kisses.
Joe put his hand against my arm, and clumsily he wiped the runelight away. The flow of need released me, but my own need still sat me there, gasping for air. My hands entangled in his hair, my heartbeat still pounding, my heart still wanting him.
I climbed off the chair, walked to the kitchen sink, and turned on the faucet. The promise rune that hid on my hand started to burn. I fought the impulse to pick up the phone to call Giara and turn Joe in for drawing a rune. I stuck my head in the sink, and the cool water stung as it fell against the burning on my cheeks and my mouth.
When I stood up, the side of my hair was wet, and a splash of water fell against the counter. I turned and dared myself to look at Joe.
He was completely still. His hair stuck up vertically, and his sunflower eyes were filled with fear, confusion, and most clearly to me, hunger.
It was the love rune I had drawn on him; it was still active. I sighed and walked to Joe, and he followed my every step with his eyes burning against my skin. I wiped the runelight from his arm, so he could think clearly, but the hunger never left his face.
I sat back down in my chair, just across the room from the phone. The skin on my hand burned. Maybe I should send him home, so I could call Giara.
What? No. I wouldn’t betray my… Joe.
“You promised,” I whispered when I could speak again. “You promised me you wouldn’t do a rune.”
Tears fell down my cheek, and Joe caught them with the side of his palm.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” He started to pull his hand back, but then bravely, he bit his lip and then left his hand against my cheek. “So that was a love rune?”
I tried to look away from his sunflower eyes, but I couldn’t.
“Yeah,” I said.
“No wonder it didn’t work for me.”
I sucked in the muscles on my stomach and looked down. “Oh.” I said, heartbroken.
“No. No, Larissa, the rune you did on me didn’t work, because it didn’t have to. I’m already there.”
“What?” I asked.
Joe smiled, tears glistening in his eyes. I couldn’t help but smile back. The warmth on my face was receding; it didn’t feel like fire, not anymore, but more like fresh sunshine. Like sunshine from a perfect day, filling every inch of this moment.
Joe blinked several times, took his hand from my cheek, and held it against the side of his head.
“Larissa,” he said my name with tenderness. “I… My head.”
I took in the look of pain as it filled his face, and then held him, under his arms as he started to fall off the chair.
“Joe!” I shouted as he collapsed into me.
Best as I could, I lay him down gently on my cold tile floor. I just stared at this big hulking man who loved me as he lay dead asleep at my feet.
It was bitter, this joy I felt. It was like a light so bright, it burned my eyes to look at it. I ran the fingers of my left hand through his hair, against his lips, as all along my right hand a line of gold appeared through my skin, freezing every inch of flesh the runelight touched.
I glanced up at the phone.
No. No, I wouldn’t. I tried to wipe away the runelight, but it wouldn’t budge. Flecks of my own color code enwrapped with Giara’s in a twisted line of runelight. It was too strong for me to remove alone. I needed someone to help me.
Maybe if I called Giara, she could help me.
No.
I was in a fight again, but the fight was against my own mind. I couldn’t do this. I had to leave. I stood up and walked past the phone, a part of me stronger than I thought possible threatened to strangle me with the need to fulfill my promise. To keep my word. My mother would have wanted me to call…
No.
I walked past the phone and walked out the back door. Fresh snow was falling in sheets of misery. I left Joe behind, and was that wrong? Maybe I should go back in there…
NO.
I tried to leave my house, but I couldn’t go far before the promise rune bound me to the ground. I had an idea. In my backyard, we had a tornado shelter. I walked to it, unlatched the rusted lock with the rune for open, and then climbed down the musky stairs.
The first thing I saw was Fee’s pink and purple bike, and then my dad’s golf clubs. This wasn’t only the place we went when storms were raging; it was also where we stored everything we weren’t using. In one corner, underneath a pile of blankets, was my mom’s abandoned exercise bike. I don’t know why she bought it; she could have just used a transformation rune if she wasn’t happy with the way she looked.
I pulled the blankets off the bike, sat down on it, and started pedaling. I rode that bike until the heat of my body was stronger than the freezing pain on my hand, until my heartbeat pounded out my fear, and until I was too tired to think anymore. I rode for miles, for hours, running away as best I could, but not actually going anywhere. Because I couldn’t leave, as much as I wanted too, I couldn’t.
When my body was too tired to keep going, I stopped pedaling. My feet kept spinning without any assistance until slowly the turning ceased. I got off the bike and walked up the stairs. Each step I took felt as if my legs were giving up, but I think I stood by sheer force of will. It felt like the ground beneath me was still moving, moving faster than I could keep up with, and my head was swimming.
The stars were out when I walked out into the snow, and the snowflakes had stopped falling. The frozen ground crunched as I made fresh tracks through the yard and into my house. I didn’t kick the snow off my feet, and I left behind trails of wet that clung to the carpet, as if trying to slow me down by my OCD.
Joe still lay on the floor. The pizza box lay askew across the table. The phone still lay on the charger.
I glanced at the clock. It was one thirty in the morning. I hoped it wasn’t too late to call Giara.
And then, with my back to Joe’s unconscious body, I dialed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Henry Jarbonie died last night. He killed himself. In some ways, it breaks my heart, although we hadn’t ever spoken more than five words
to each other since I got here. I wonder if I had talked to him, if he would still be here. I’m spending so much time writing this story so that you, invisible reader, will have a chance to read it. There are real people around me. Why does your life mean more to me than those I can actually see? I could have told Henry this story. He wouldn’t have thought I was crazy.
I couldn’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone anymore. I’m seventeen years old, yet I feel like I’m carrying around this massive gulf of regret and guilt. I’ve done things wrong, and I can’t find a way to fix it.
We are almost to the bad part in my story, when things went wrong, when I ended up here. I don’t want to get to the end. I don’t want it to be true.
So today, I’m taking the day off. Yeah, maybe I am avoiding the ending, but for this day, Henry Jarbonie will mean more to me than you do. Even if I didn’t trust him.
For this one day, I will slurp my Jell-O, just for him. For this one day, I’ll look around and try not to hate everyone who shares this life with me. For this one day, I’ll try to be who I remember I once was.
For this one day, I’ll take my pills.
CHAPTER FORTY
When I pushed the green button on my phone so I could make the call, there were these three beeps indicating there was another message on the phone. Part of me was curious who had called while I was on the bike, but that part was exhausted, and the part of me that was rune-controlled held the phone. I dialed Giara’s phone number, and she woke up groggy.
“What?” she snapped.
“It’s Larissa.”
“What’s wrong?” Giara said, her voice suddenly alert.
Everything. “Was my mom a Grandmother?”
I could hear Giara sigh into the phone. “Larissa…”
“She didn’t die from a car crash did she,” I said not asking the question, just telling her what I knew. Giara was silent. “An Instinct named Michael whose talent was death killed my whole family.”
“How do you…” Giara whispered.
“Did you know that Leo’s healings feel like honey, and when he hits you, you want him too, just so you can feel it again?”
Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) Page 15
