Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

  She has freckles, red-brown hair, and antlers like a deer.

  The Magician gives her the flowers, and the severed hand begins to bleed. Red flows down the antlered girl’s arms. It pools at her feet.

  And then she and the Magician are gone. I lie unmoving in the silence.

  Eve stumbled to the bathroom. She clutched the sides of the sink and tried to force the remnants of the vision out of her mind. It’s not real, she told herself. This is real. This sink. This house. These people. This life. This body. She splashed water on her face.

  Breathe in, she ordered herself. Out. In.

  She thought of Zach.

  He hadn’t fixed her.

  She pictured him next to her—if he were here, he’d be telling her facts about sinks or toilets or mirrors or toothpaste or whatever caught his attention. Closing her eyes, she listened to his voice in her imagination. It was like wrapping herself in a warm, soft quilt.

  When her breathing was under control again, she listened for sounds of who was in the house. She heard a clatter and then sizzling from the kitchen. At least one person was here.

  Leaving the bathroom, Eve followed the sounds to the kitchen. Aunt Nicki was at the stove, stirring hunks of meat in a skillet. She glanced at Eve and then shook pepper onto the meat.

  “What’s today?” Eve asked. “Have I forgotten again?”

  “Don’t know.” Aunt Nicki stirred more. “It’s the day you nearly gave Malcolm heart failure and broke Aidan’s heart all in one fell swoop. I’d call that a twofer. You really dove into the traditional teenage rebellion with flair.”

  It was the same day. She hadn’t lost any new memories, at least not yet. Eve exhaled heavily and sank into one of the chairs. “I saw an agency car outside Zach’s house. Is he all right?”

  Aunt Nicki twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Eve. “You actually care. Astonishing. This is not unlike discovering that one’s cat has an appreciation for fine art.”

  “Did I endanger him?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “What do I do?”

  Aunt Nicki’s lips formed a perfect O. “You’re seriously asking me for relationship advice. Again.” She laid down her spoon and sat in the second chair, opposite of Eve. “Well, if you were an ordinary girl, I’d tell you to spend as much time with him as possible doing ordinary things. See if you like being together, or if you drive each other nuts. But since you’re not an ordinary girl …”

  Eve waited.

  “In your case, for his sake, you should stay the hell away from him.”

  “Oh,” Eve said.

  Above the refrigerator, the clock ticked loudly. The refrigerator hummed, and the food in the skillet hissed. In a gentler voice, Aunt Nicki said, “The agency is taking care of it.”

  Eve felt her breath catch in her throat. Again, her ribs wouldn’t expand. She clasped her hands together hard. Aunt Nicki couldn’t mean … “Please don’t let the agency hurt him.”

  “You don’t—”

  “I kissed him.”

  Aunt Nicki shrugged. “You kissed Aidan too.”

  “But it was different. Zach and I floated in the air. And this morning, in the library reading room, we made the books fly. And at his house, we made it rain. And I didn’t black out. Not once. Until I was alone again.” As the words tumbled out of her mouth, she thought she sounded more like Zach than herself. Thinking about him in danger made her stomach clench.

  Standing up fast, Aunt Nicki knocked her chair backward. “Stay here,” she ordered. She darted out of the room as she yanked her phone out of her pocket. Eve heard Aunt Nicki say, “Lou, it’s Gallo. It’s about the boy …” and then her voice was too soft and muffled to make out the words. On the stove, the meat began to burn.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eve woke up the next morning and knew she had seen the antlered girl before.

  She kicked the sheets away from her feet and stood in front of the birds in the wallpaper. The birds were silent and still. One had its wing extended as if it were about to take flight. Another had its beak tucked beneath its wing, as if trying to hide.

  She’d seen the girl’s face somewhere other than in her vision.

  Eve left her room and headed for the kitchen at a walk first, then at a run.

  Aunt Nicki stood at the stove. She was stirring a glop of gray mush in a pot. Sniffing it, she wrinkled her nose. “Oatmeal is a terrible concept. Who cooked this, looked at it, and thought, ‘Yummy’? Much more realistic to look at it and think, ‘Great! This is perfect grout for my new bathroom.’” She looked up at Eve. “You’re not dressed. Did you forget how to dress? I am not picking out your underwear. And I don’t do socks.”

  “I want to look at the photos,” Eve said.

  Aunt Nicki’s expression changed instantly. “I’ll drive you.”

  Eve tossed on clothes and shoved her feet into shoes while Aunt Nicki pitched the oatmeal and fetched her car keys. Eve then followed Aunt Nicki to a black car that was tucked around the side of the house. She strapped the seat belt on and closed her eyes. She tried to fix the image of the girl’s face in her mind: the curve of her cheeks, the freckles on her cheekbones, the shape of her nose. The girl had tousled brown curls that were striped with straw-blond strands. The deer antlers sprouted from between the curls. Each boasted six prongs covered in soft brown felt-like fuzz, except for the tips, which were bleached white.

  Eve kept her eyes squeezed shut for the entire drive.

  She heard the driver-side window roll down, Aunt Nicki talk to the guard, and the agency garage door rattle up. Eve was rocked backward as Aunt Nicki zoomed into the garage, and then forward as she shot into a parking spot and slammed on the brakes. Still, Eve didn’t open her eyes until she heard her car door open.

  Malcolm was standing there.

  He didn’t speak.

  Eve strode through the parking lot. Malcolm and Aunt Nicki fell in behind her. Aunt Nicki used her ID card on the door, and Eve headed directly to the elevator. Inside, as the tinny music crooned and crackled, Eve covered her ears to block the noise.

  “Shut it off,” Malcolm growled to Aunt Nicki.

  “The beauty of elevator music: no off switch,” Aunt Nicki said.

  Malcolm thumped the speaker with his fist but it had no effect. Six prongs, Eve thought. Brown eyes. Soft brown. Like leaves in winter. The elevator lurched to a stop at the third floor. The door slid open.

  Eve walked out into the hallway and then into the reception lobby. Malcolm held up his hand to forestall any words by the receptionist. “Close your eyes,” Malcolm told Eve. “I will guide you.”

  She obeyed and let Malcolm and Aunt Nicki guide her through the halls. Other marshals called out greetings. Grimly silent, neither Malcolm nor Aunt Nicki replied.

  Eve heard a door shut, and the sounds of the agency were cut off.

  She lowered her hands from her ears and opened her eyes. Malcolm was standing before her. He thrust the tablet at her. His hands were shaking, she noticed. Hers shook too as she accepted the tablet. She sank into one of the leather chairs and stared at her glossy reflection in the smooth surface.

  For an instant, she couldn’t remember how to activate it. She swiped her finger over the surface, but it stayed dark and blank. She tried pressing the button. The screen blossomed to life, and a face appeared. Looking out at her, the face filled the screen: a boy with black eyes and skunk-colored hair. She scrolled to the next face. And then the next.

  A boy with pale skin.

  A girl with piercings.

  A yellow-eyed boy with gills in his neck.

  A boy with blotches on his face, or tattoos—elaborate tattoos on his forehead and chin in swirls so dense they blurred into blotches—who stared straight out of the tablet.

  No, she thought. Not you. Or you. She wondered if she was wrong. Not you. No, no. She could have imagined it. Or maybe seeing the photo had influenced her visions. No. No. Maybe her memories were warped or faulty. No
t you. Maybe …

  There.

  There she was. The girl with the antlers. She smiled out at Eve with her crooked teeth and her round cheeks with freckles and her six-prong antlers and her brown curls with strands of blond. “Yes,” Eve said out loud.

  Malcolm sank into his chair. “Tell me about her.”

  Eve pictured the antlered girl in her vision. She’d reached out her hand for the flowers … Eve shook her head. She didn’t know the girl’s name or where she was from or why she was there or why she was in Eve’s mind …

  But Eve knew one thing.

  “She’s dead,” Eve said.

  Several doctors scurried in, took Eve’s temperature, took her blood pressure, and took a blood sample. Aunt Nicki fielded phone calls. Malcolm typed furiously on his computer. Other marshals shuttled papers in and out of the office. A bulletin board was pulled into the office, and a photo of the antlered girl was pinned to it, along with a collection of numbers.

  Eve didn’t move from the leather chair.

  She didn’t look at any of them. She continued to stare at the face of the antlered girl. She felt as if the office were tilting and rocking around her. She’s real, Eve thought.

  “She liked flowers,” Eve said out loud, suddenly certain. The girl had had them in her room, daisies and peonies and flowers that Eve couldn’t name shoved into vases and cups and jars on the dresser, bookshelf, and windowsill. She’d braided them around her antlers and worn dresses with patterns that mimicked vines and leaves.

  The typing paused. “What else?” Malcolm asked.

  Eve shook her head. Her fingers traced the shape of the girl’s antlers. Six prongs. Exactly like in her vision. Exactly like in her memory. Eve pictured her with flowers … and on a hill. Yes, Eve thought. I remember a hill. The girl had been silhouetted, blue sky behind her, as if she’d been waiting … and then she’d run down the opposite side of the hill, disappearing from sight, her antlers the last bit of her to vanish behind the rocks and grasses. “There was a hill. But I don’t know where. And I don’t know why she was there or why I was there. Why do I remember her? Who was she?”

  “Keep trying,” Malcolm said.

  “You said they were cut into pieces. Was she?”

  Aunt Nicki let out a sharp hiss. “Malcolm!”

  Malcolm didn’t respond to Aunt Nicki. “You have to remember on your own,” he said to Eve. “Your testimony won’t carry weight if the jury thinks we fed you false memories. Forget what I said, okay?”

  Her hands started to shake hard. Carefully, she laid the tablet on her lap, and she folded her hands together. “You think I saw … that?”

  “We can’t lead the witness.”

  “That isn’t a yes,” Aunt Nicki put in. “Keep it together, girl.”

  Hand still trembling, Eve picked up the tablet again. This girl. She’d been someone’s daughter, sister, friend, niece, cousin. She’d had a name … but the knowledge of that name slipped away from Eve as if it were a minnow in a stream, bright and shiny in the sun but flashing by so fast that it was only a glimmer, then gone.

  “Malcolm …,” Aunt Nicki began.

  Malcolm cut her off. “It was necessary.”

  “It wasn’t in your report,” Aunt Nicki said.

  “It doesn’t change the result. Agent Gallo, do I have your support? You know what Lou’s reaction to this morning will be.”

  Aunt Nicki was silent.

  Eve’s eyes flickered up. Aunt Nicki was rubbing her face as if she were tired. Her shoulders sagged, and she looked older than Eve had ever thought she was. “Yes,” Aunt Nicki said. “She cares, you know. About the boy. I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

  Eve looked down at the tablet. The antlered girl continued to smile, forever cheerful. Staring into her warm eyes, Eve heard the door open and slam, and then a voice speak. Lou’s voice. She felt her muscles squeeze into fists at the sound of his voice. “Anything else?” Lou demanded. Eve didn’t look up. She kept her eyes glued to the face of the antlered girl.

  She didn’t hear Malcolm’s response, but he must have shaken his head because Lou said, “Damn it. This proves we were right! You were right! If we could—”

  “Patience,” Malcolm said. “She’s come so far.”

  “She has a boyfriend,” Aunt Nicki put in. “And she’s adjusted to the library. She’s been helping me around the house as well.”

  Lou snorted. “Fantastic. She’s a real prodigy. Next, you’ll have her composing symphonies and writing sonnets. It’s not what we need.”

  Still without looking up, Eve said, “You could tell me what you need.”

  She heard their surprise—a rustle of their clothes as they turned toward her or toward each other. She knew Malcolm’s startled expression without having to see it.

  “See, even she agrees,” Lou said. “You are too damn cautious!”

  “You push too far, too fast, you’ll break her,” Malcolm said.

  Eve raised her head to look at Malcolm. Just Malcolm. She didn’t want to look at Lou. “I’m already broken,” she said. “And this girl is already dead.”

  Malcolm’s mouth thinned. She knew that expression too. It crossed his face before he exploded—it was the moment before the backdraft. But he held in the firestorm. “You don’t know what’s best for you. I do. And you need a return to normalcy.”

  “Agent Harrington—” Lou began.

  Malcolm slapped the bulletin board, the one with the photo of the antlered girl on it, and raised his voice, the first time that Eve had ever heard him do so to Lou. “This is progress! I have … she has made progress! So let us continue! My way!”

  Lou was silent for a moment. “Very well. For now.”

  “Good,” Malcolm said in his usual calm, measured tone. His chest was heaving as if he’d sprinted a marathon. “We’re done here. For now.” He took the tablet from Eve. Hand on her elbow, he hauled Eve to her feet. Her knees felt solid, and she didn’t shake, to her surprise. To Aunt Nicki, Malcolm said, “Call Patti Langley. Let her know we’re incoming.” To Lou, he said, “Short-term results don’t justify jeopardizing the long-term goals.”

  “I said ‘very well,’” Lou said, his voice still mild. “But if the situation changes, if he starts again … I will have no choice but to accelerate matters.”

  “Understood,” Malcolm said.

  He pulled Eve past the bulletin board. Dragging her feet on the carpet, she slowed to look at it. The board was vast, nearly the size of the office wall, and the photo of the antlered girl was tiny within the expanse of empty cork. Two dates were under her photo—today’s date and five years’ prior—plus a reference number and a case number.

  The photo looked lonely on the huge bulletin board. She wondered … No, she thought. Don’t wonder. Don’t think. She let Malcolm lead her out of the office. Numbly, she walked through the halls. Other conversations—bits of phone calls, briefings, meetings—swirled around her in a meaningless mélange of noise. She barely saw the people who brushed past her.

  Ahead, two marshals escorted a boy into an interrogation room.

  That looked like … “Zach?” She rushed forward as the door to the interrogation room shut. Malcolm’s hand clamped on her shoulder, stopping her. The door was closed, and the shades were drawn.

  Spinning around, Eve faced Malcolm. “I saw Zach!” She thought of the phone call that Aunt Nicki had made to Lou. She’d assumed that had helped Zach, but what if it had made things worse?

  “You didn’t,” he said firmly.

  “But—”

  “He isn’t here.” Putting his arm around her shoulder, Malcolm guided her firmly toward the elevator. Eve felt her rib cage loosen. She sucked in air. If Malcolm said he wasn’t here, it must have been her imagination. “Come with me. There’s nothing for you here.”

  “It wasn’t him?” Eve asked.

  “It wasn’t.” At the elevator, Malcolm pushed the down button. It opened immediately. Without looking back, Eve walked
in with him. The tinny music crooned.

  Eve clasped her hands behind her back and thought of Zach and of the brown-eyed girl with flowers woven around her antlers. She thought of them for the entire drive to the library, and tried to think of what to say to Zach when they were alone in the stacks again.

  Malcolm let Eve off as usual in the parking lot, though it was hours after her shift had started. Wind blew in the branches of the trees, scattering drops of rain onto the pavement. The clouds had drifted apart, leaving patches of dull gray between them. Puddles filled all the crevasses in the asphalt. As she stepped out of the car, Malcolm handed her an umbrella.

  “You did well today,” Malcolm said.

  “Thank you.” Eve wasn’t sure if she meant for the umbrella, his words, or more.

  She put the umbrella over her head and ran for the lobby door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Inside the lobby, Eve shook out the umbrella. Drops spattered on the carpet and the wall. Near her, a man seated on a bench lowered his book to frown at her umbrella and wet shoes. He wore a suit and had sunglasses tucked halfway into his coat pocket. She wondered if he was a marshal. As she wiped her feet on the mat, he raised his book, but she felt as if he were still watching her.

  She expected to feel better once she was inside the library, but she didn’t. I’ll feel better once I find Zach, she thought. Talking to him, or listening to him talk, always made her feel better. She crossed to the circulation desk.

  Two librarians were working the desk—an older woman with bobbed hair and a man with a tattoo on his neck. The woman clucked her tongue. “You’re late, Eve.”

  The man was scanning returned books and adding them to a book cart. He didn’t look up. “Patti is pissed. Very, very pissed.”

  Eve wished she knew their names. She was supposed to have known these people for weeks, but they seemed less real and less familiar than the antlered girl. “Have you seen Zach?”