Conjured

by Sarah Beth Durst

  The bailiffs brought me food that I didn’t eat and water that I didn’t drink, and doctors came in to check on me. I didn’t talk to them unless they talked to me. I felt as if I’d talked enough to last several lifetimes.

  Eventually, I stopped counting and started to think. In my head, I ran through everything I had said on the witness stand. I tried to separate the memories: times I was aware, times I wasn’t, to see if it was possible to draw a line between when I was a doll and when I was a person.

  I couldn’t. The line was blurred, and it wiggled through the past.

  Laying there with the monkey and with my own thoughts and memories, I thought about Zach too. Zach had told the truth, as always: who I was wasn’t who I’d become. And now that the trial was over, I didn’t have to stay this way anymore.

  If I was going to die, I wanted at least to die as myself, not as who I was made to be.

  Closing my eyes, I pictured myself as the girl that I’d become, the one that Zach knew. I let the magic run through me, shaping me, transforming me. I chose my face, my hair, and my green eyes. And then I lay on the bed and let the vision sweep over me.

  The Storyteller and the Magician sit on either side of me. Each holds one of my cloth hands. There are stars spread over the sky, and a pale-gray cloud covers half the moon. The Ferris wheel is silhouetted against the sky. It’s motionless.

  “I feel old,” the Magician says.

  The Storyteller kneads my cotton knuckles with her gnarled fingers. I think it calms her. “Do you want to stop?” she asks him.

  He sighs. “Some days, yes.”

  “The audience threw roses,” the Storyteller says. “You changed them into birds. Rose birds whose perfume smell wafted through the tent every time they flapped their wings.”

  The Magician smiles. “That was lovely.”

  “It was,” she says.

  They fall silent.

  I think it would be nice to talk. Straining, I stretch my mouth. The threads that tie my mouth strain. I press my fabric lips together, and the threads lie limp. I try to open my mouth again.

  “You add beauty to the world,” the Storyteller says. “People need that. They come into your tent expecting a trick, half wanting to see a fraud and half wanting to believe. You show them magic, and they leave full of wonder.”

  “Sometimes I feel that it’s not enough.”

  The Storyteller drops my hand and rises. She holds out her hand to him. “Make me something beautiful.” He leans toward me, breathes in, and then takes her hand. As he rises, green sprouts burst out of the ground. They shoot upward and wrap around the tent poles. Buds blossom and then open into burgundy roses. A trickle of water falls over the side of the wagon, forming a pool with water lilies.

  Holding each other close, the Magician and the Storyteller dance.

  I want to dance too. I want to tell them so. I push my lips together and wiggle them side to side, loosening the threads.

  As they sway and spin to the sound of crickets and the night breeze, the Storyteller says, “Once upon a time, there was an empty boy, and the emptiness ate him inside until one day, he met a girl who knew how to fill him …”

  I stretch my mouth again, and the threads snap one after another.

  Hearing the snaps, the Storyteller and the Magician stop and look at me. They study my cloth face and button eyes. “Some would see her as an abomination,” the Magician says.

  “Is that what you see?” the Storyteller asks.

  He shakes his head and smiles. “I see beauty, wonder, and magic. I see the best of us. She is the ‘something beautiful’ we made together.”

  The Storyteller smiles too, showing her crooked, stained teeth. “She could be. I’ll sew her a new dress, silk maybe. And I will give her glass eyes. Marbles or sea glass. I think perhaps they’ll be green. She’d look pretty with green eyes.”

  The threads have snapped. I open my mouth. It widens freely. Carefully, I curve my lips, threads dangling, into a smile. “Thank you,” I say.

  I went calmly with Malcolm when he came to claim me. I brought the monkey with me.

  Malcolm led me back to the courtroom, which was again filled with the same people. Zach, though, wasn’t there, I noticed immediately, nor was Aunt Nicki. But Aidan, Victoria, and Topher were. And of course the Magician.

  Malcolm led me to a table across the aisle from the Magician. He squeezed my shoulder. And then he left the courtroom. Gone, just like that. He left me alone. I never thought he would do that, and I suddenly felt fear squeeze my insides, my human stomach and lungs. I wanted to call out after him, but I didn’t. Half the eyes in the courtroom were on the Magician; the other half were on me.

  And suddenly I realized I’d lied to myself. I wasn’t ready to die.

  The judge banged his gavel. He listed the crimes—illegal use of magic across worlds, false identification, performing with an illegal license, and myriad other infractions. Then he paused and said, “Murder in the first degree.” And he began to list the names.

  The list went on and on.

  With each name, I remembered a face or a moment—all the talking that I had done had jogged loose the pictures in my head. I closed my eyes and let the images come, all the photos that I had identified in the tablet and Lou had then pinned to the bulletin board, all the boxes that had hung in the wagon, all the magic that swirled inside me.

  The judge continued, and, caught in the memory of faces, I didn’t hear his words.

  But I heard the intake of breath, the sudden stillness that spread over the courtroom, as the jury leader spoke the verdict. “We find the defendant guilty as charged.”

  As one, the audience exhaled.

  Guilty as charged.

  The words echoed around the chamber.

  I was led by a bailiff to a side room and instructed to wait. The court was in recess. I sat on a bench in a dull gray room and didn’t move, didn’t speak, and didn’t think. When it was time for sentencing, the bailiff led me back to the courtroom. Everyone had reassembled. I felt the Magician’s eyes on me. I didn’t look at him. Instead, I looked again for Zach. I didn’t see him or Malcolm or Aunt Nicki or Topher …

  In the crowded courtroom, I felt alone.

  The judge banged his gavel. “Sentencing is as follows: life imprisonment with no possibility of parole, this location with no possibility of extradition.”

  The courtroom erupted in shouting. I heard shouts for the Magician’s death, loud anger. Several jumped to their feet. The bailiffs rushed forward.

  The judge banged his gavel harder. All around the courtroom, the bailiffs pushed people back into their seats. Slowly, the courtroom stilled.

  “His belongings will be destroyed, including the doll known as Eve, who was created through his deeds. All records from this case will be sealed to prevent these crimes from ever being repeated. This court is adjourned.”

  The gavel banged again.

  And the words sank in.

  The Magician would be imprisoned.

  I would be destroyed.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As the courtroom erupted again in shouting, I wanted to fly away as fast as I could … or transform into a knot in the wood and hide … or change into a beetle and scurry away. I’d only have one chance—

  Electricity shot in an upward lightning strike toward the fluorescent lights. It hit three, and they exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. All the other lights flickered off, and people screamed.

  I hadn’t done it.

  I looked to where I knew the Magician was, though I couldn’t see him in the sudden, complete blackness. He couldn’t have done it either, I thought. He had no magic of his own, and he hadn’t drawn from me in days.

  Emergency lights snapped on, shedding weak, stark light on the courtroom. Agents aimed their guns in every direction. I was looking directly at the Magician, so I saw the snake a second before they did. Coiling on the table in front of him, the snake reared back and sank her fang
s into his neck. His face paled, then reddened, then purpled. His neck swelled. His eyes bulged and then bled, red tears streaking his purple-veined cheeks. He toppled forward onto the desk, and the snake slid back to the floor and disappeared beneath the benches.

  I felt as if the venom were seeping into me too. I couldn’t move. He was dead. Dead! The man that haunted my dreams, filled my memories … fathered me, in his own way.

  A hand squeezed my shoulder. Jerking back, I turned. Aidan smiled at me, his usual dazzling smile, and he tightened his grip. The courtroom vanished.

  I reappeared with him inside the agency elevator.

  Topher was there, finger poised over the buttons. “Which floor?”

  Unable to think, I stared at him.

  “Which floor has the portal, Green Eyes?” Aidan asked.

  Slowly, my brain chugged forward. I remembered that Aidan had said he couldn’t teleport somewhere he hadn’t seen. He’d been blindfolded when he’d arrived, he’d once said. They must have blindfolded him again when he went through to find the carnival. “Fifth.”

  Topher pushed the button to the fifth floor.

  “Victoria?” Topher asked Aidan.

  Aidan vanished.

  The tinny elevator music played. Side by side, Topher and I watched the numbers click up. I clutched the stuffed monkey to my chest.

  A second later, Aidan reappeared, a snake wrapped around his arms. The snake slithered to the ground, and Victoria rose from the floor. “Justice has been served, and my sister is avenged,” she announced.

  “Good,” Topher said. “I can’t believe the stupid sheep thought they could keep a psychopath like that alive. Even without his tools, such a man is too dangerous.”

  “All’s well that end’s well,” Victoria said. “I see you succeeded too.” Victoria’s eyes swept over me, as if appraising my worth. She wasn’t speaking to me. I thought of Aidan saying I was the treasure he sought and the prize he was destined to win, and I wished I were anywhere but here—the house, the pizza parlor, the carnival. “Delightful.”

  Looking at each of them, I realized I’d traded one trap for another, except instead of wanting to kill me, my new jailors wanted me to kill. I wished I could run, fly away, fade into the wallpaper …

  At level five, the elevator lurched to a halt. “Ready yourselves,” Aidan said. Topher tossed sparks between his hands. Aidan gripped my arm, ready to vanish or to keep me from vanishing. Victoria dropped back into her snake form.

  The elevator door opened.

  Malcolm and Aunt Nicki waited for us. Side by side, they blocked the corridor. His eyes were glued on mine. Slowly, he and Aunt Nicki raised their hands as if in surrender.

  “That’s right,” Aidan said. “You don’t want to fight us.”

  Topher tossed a fireball from hand to hand. Flames licked his fingers, and sparks sprayed onto the floor. Smiling, he strolled out of the elevator with Aidan. I followed behind. Victoria slithered in front of us, hissing.

  “So, how about you step aside?” Topher said. “Shame if someone got hurt.”

  Eyes full of compassion, Malcolm asked, “Eve? Do you want to go with them?”

  I opened my mouth and then shut it. If I said no … Aidan, Topher, and Victoria were poised to hurt them, badly. But if I said yes … they wanted me as a weapon. I would face a lifetime of hurting people.

  “She’s coming with us,” Aidan said.

  “If she wants to go with you, then she goes with my blessing,” Malcolm said. “If not …”

  Aunt Nicki grinned. “If not, things might get messy.”

  “I need her.” Aidan vanished and then reappeared next to Aunt Nicki, too close to her. He put his hand on her throat.

  Aunt Nicki didn’t move. Her expression didn’t change either. “It’s Eve’s choice.”

  “Just tell the truth,” a voice said softly in my ear. “Yes or no?”

  Zach.

  I turned. He must have been waiting, tucked into the corner beside the elevator, against the wall. With Malcolm and Aunt Nicki in front of us, we hadn’t seen him. Now he was close, his face only inches away from mine. He breathed in my breath, my magic. “No,” I said. And the hallway erupted in chaos.

  Zach pointed at the snake Victoria, and she flew backward into the elevator and hit the back wall. She collapsed onto the floor. Topher hurled the fireball, and Malcolm lunged and rolled. It slammed into the door behind him, and the carpet ignited. Drawing his gun as he jumped to his feet, Malcolm squeezed the trigger. A needle embedded in Topher’s neck. He clutched at it, took a step forward, and then slumped to the floor. Aidan vanished and then reappeared behind me, hands on my shoulders, as Zach pressed his lips against mine again.

  I felt Aidan’s hands harden.

  The hallway fell silent.

  Slowly, I turned. Aidan’s face was porcelain, and his body was cloth. I lifted his porcelain hands from my shoulders, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Grabbing a fire extinguisher from the wall, Aunt Nicki sprayed the flames with white foam. The fire died, and the foam soaked into the carpet.

  “Is he …,” I began.

  “I don’t know,” Zach said.

  Both Malcolm and Aunt Nicki approached. They stood over the doll Aidan, tranquilizer guns aimed at him. “Turn him back, and we’ll see,” Aunt Nicki said.

  Zach took another breath from my lips, and Aidan’s porcelain face and hands softened. His cloth skin smoothed into human skin. His chest shuddered, and he began to breathe.

  Malcolm shot him with a tranquilizer dart.

  “Bet that felt good,” Aunt Nicki said to Malcolm.

  “Reasonably satisfying,” Malcolm agreed. The two of them dragged Topher and Aidan into the elevator with the still-unconscious snake Victoria. Aunt Nicki stabbed the close button and then stepped back out into the corridor. The doors slid shut.

  I realized I was still clutching the stuffed monkey.

  “You’ll need to be quick,” Aunt Nicki said to me. “And random. Don’t go places you’ve been before. Stay away from anything familiar.”

  I gawked at her.

  Her mouth quirked. “That’s the Eve I know and love. Always quick with the thank-you. Don’t overflow with emotions. I don’t want to get weepy.”

  “I don’t understand.” Were they truly going to let me go? Even Aunt Nicki? Sure, she’d said it was my choice, but their job … the agency … the trial … Lou …

  She rolled her eyes. “At least you’re consistent.”

  Malcolm holstered the tranquilizer gun and wrapped me in a bear hug. I leaned against his chest, letting his arms fold around me. “Be careful.”

  My eyes felt hot, and it was hard to swallow. “I’ll … miss you.”

  “Me too,” he said softly, barely loud enough for me to hear, and then he released me and shoved me toward Zach. “Kiss the boy and go.”

  I turned to Zach. “How did—”

  “I told them the truth.” Zach took my hand and brought it to his lips. His eyes were bright. “You’re real. Turns out, though, they’d already decided that. The two of them have been planning this since the trial began.”

  “Yeah, this is all very nice, but you need to leave now.” Aunt Nicki made shooing motions with her hands. “Kiss the boy and knock us out.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Make it look like we tried to stop you,” Aunt Nicki said. “I’m not going down for you if I don’t have to. You’re Malcolm’s case, not mine. And he deserves a better fate than the agency’s censure. If you care about either of us, then kick our asses. We’ll take care of explaining Aidan, Victoria, and Topher.”

  I kissed Zach, and then he flicked his hand. Both of them flew backward across the hall. Aunt Nicki hit the door, and then slumped onto the floor. I didn’t know if she was feigning unconsciousness or if she truly was. Malcolm grunted but stood.

  “Try again,” I told Zach.

  Zach caused vines to burst out of the wall and wrap around him.
r />   We kissed again. And then we ran through the wall. Guards were on the other side. We changed our shape. Two times, three times, as we plunged through the second and third doors. Wolves. Birds. Mice. And then dragonflies. We flew into the ventilation system, careened through the air-conditioning ducts, and then shot into the silver room.

  Inside the room, we changed into ourselves.

  Hand in hand, we walked through the silver walls.

  And I am, for the first time, free.

  Epilogue

  There isn’t a carnival tent, but the audience comes anyway. Zach and I had written in the sky with wisps of clouds, inviting them, and we’d used fireflies at night to guide them. And so they come, whispering and laughing, through the forest, trampling the ferns and ducking under branches, to see the magicians.

  Our stage is the base of an oak tree. Fireflies collect around the stage, defining the edges. The audience sits beyond it on moss and roots and rocks. They wait, and from behind the tree, I can hear the buzz of their anticipation. Zach squeezes my hand.

  “Ready?” he says.

  “Ready.” I kiss him. For a moment, I don’t hear the audience or the wind in the branches or the chirp of the cicadas. His arms are warm around my waist, and he tastes like the strawberries we shared for dinner, fresh from a field on another world.

  Hand in hand, we walk around the tree. Our audience is small: twenty or so, but word will spread. Tomorrow, more will come, and then more the next night. We’ll leave before word of us can spread too far.

  I begin with a deck of cards. I shuffle them fast from hand to hand. The cards arc through the air, landing neatly in my palm. I have practiced this, and I have some skill at it, which both surprises and pleases me. I toss the cards in the air as high as I can toward the branches, one card after another in rapid succession.