The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

by Adan Jerreat-Poole

  “As interesting as this conversation is,” said Tav, “shouldn’t we try to get out of here?”

  Cam collapsed dramatically, flinging his stick to one side. “Are you made of pure muscle?”

  “Nice prop.” Tav poked it with their foot. Eli thought about the blood it had absorbed and the magical storm it had weathered. She said nothing.

  “For once, I agree with Cam. We should rest and then continue.” Eli didn’t tell them that the magic of the junkyard was pulsing through her entire body and she wasn’t sure she could bear ripping herself away from it. She felt strong.

  Cam emptied the drawers of an antique armoire and made a nest out of silk shirts. He curled up inside it and fell asleep almost instantly. Eli knew she should sleep, too, but between the magic and Tav, her heart was racing too fast to imagine resting. Tav didn’t seem inclined to sleep, either, and instead they climbed over to where Eli was sitting and settled beside her.

  “Can’t sleep with all this magic around,” they explained.

  “Me neither,” said Eli. “What did you do while you waited for us?”

  Tav shrugged. “Mindfulness exercises. My therapist made me do them when I was angry.”

  “Did they help?”

  “No.”

  They both laughed. Eli told them about the storm but not about her conversation with Cam in the truck.

  “I’m glad you found me,” Tav admitted. “I didn’t love being here on my own.”

  “Cam missed you, too.”

  “Just Cam?”

  Eli shrugged.

  “Thanks for keeping him safe,” said Tav.

  “Just doing my job.”

  Eli hesitated for a moment and then took out her obsidian blade. It was the narrowest, like a crescent moon, thin and jagged and slightly curved. It was a cruel blade and it worked on shadows, echoes, and the true bodies of ghosts. “Take this. If you feel something touch you and nothing is there — use it. It wants to be used. It’s thirsty.”

  “Are you sure?” Tav’s eyes were wide.

  “Yes. Just don’t lose it.” Eli smiled at them. “I hope we don’t get separated again, but just in case, you should be armed.”

  “Thank you.” Tav wrapped their hand around the blade, then hissed in pain and dropped it. A single drop of blood, so dark it was almost black, dripped from their palm.

  “It shouldn’t hurt corporeals,” said Eli frowning, feeling lost and confused. What was Tav?

  “I don’t know what that means,” said Tav, “but maybe you should keep it. Maybe it doesn’t want to be given away.”

  “Maybe …” Eli sheathed the blade.

  They fell into a silence that was almost comfortable. Eli thought about nightmares and daydreams and the memory of Tav’s fingers gently following the lines of light across her knee.

  “Are you sorry you came?” Eli didn’t look at Tav when she asked this. It was a stupid question, but Eli needed to know anyway.

  Tav turned and looked at Eli for a long moment. “Not for a second.”

  Eli hid a smile.

  “It’s beautiful here,” said Tav.

  “You’re magic drunk,” accused Eli, who was starting to feel something like that herself. The magic was so thick here she could almost see it with her crocodile eyes.

  “So?”

  A piece of plastic digging into her thigh. Cam snoring in his sleep.

  Tav leaned over. The smell of salt — not sea salt but human body salt. The percussive beat of their heart. Eli could see it twitching on their neck, a delicate rhythm of life. She wanted to touch it. Tav ran one finger along a vein on Eli’s forearm. Pathfinding on her body. Mapping a history of touch and want. A few sparks crackled along the line of contact, but this time, neither of them pulled back. Instead, Eli leaned in and pressed her lips against Tav’s.

  She had been warned about strong emotions.

  Everything happened at once.

  Cam woke up.

  The world caught fire.

  Eli’s heart stopped.

  Through the heat of the flames and the smell of ash, Eli could hear a voice shouting her name.

  “Eli?! Eli!”

  “… no pulse …”

  “Somebody help us!”

  “What do we …”

  “Eli, stay with me!”

  Thick smoke clouded her vision. She could feel it filling her lungs. She tried to breathe. Her eyes fluttered shut. Eli’s last thought was of a motorcycle glowing like a celestial body. Eyes were painted on the side, and one of them winked at her.

  Twenty-Six

  “Welcome back, Eli.”

  Eli woke to a child’s face dangerously close to her own, a mouth splayed open to display white teeth behind pink lips. She felt very heavy, her lungs choking. The ground beneath her was stone, solid and cool. Somehow, they had left the junkyard.

  “Clytemnestra … what … how …” Eli tried to find the right words.

  Clytemnestra snapped her jaws a few times, barked, and then scampered off Eli’s chest. Gasping, Eli realized she could breathe again.

  “The question is what are you doing here?” Clytemnestra cocked her head. “And more importantly, what did you bring me?” She clapped her hands together excitedly.

  “What happened? Where are my friends? Where are my knives?” Her voice rose in panic.

  “I didn’t know you had friends. I always admired that about you.” Clytemnestra’s face fell into a pout. “You went away on a trip and didn’t bring me a gift? After all I’ve done for you? You almost died, and I saved you.”

  Eli put a hand to her chest and felt the familiar rhythm of her heartbeat. “The fire —”

  “Something about lightning. Playing with fire is dangerous, you know.” She waggled her finger at Eli. “That’s why I love doing it!”

  “My heart stopped.”

  “Oh, we got it working again with a little magic and blood.” Clytemnestra waved her hand. “No need to pay me back now. You can owe me.” Clytemnestra’s eyes glinted fiercely.

  Then she vanished. Eli turned her face upward to the crystalline sky. Breathed in the familiar smell of dead fish. The Labyrinth. Her eyes skittered around the room and landed on a single porcelain teacup — white with blue petals.

  The same pattern as her pendant.

  Clytemnestra, Eli thought, what are you up to?

  A moment later, a tiny witch with glittering black eyes and a mischievous smirk crawled out of the ground. They smiled, and their teeth were black with dirt.

  “The Warlord sent me,” they said. “You are cordially invited to a tea party.”

  Eli sighed and then forced herself to stand. She picked up the teacup and followed.

  Clytemnestra was juggling Eli’s blades. When Eli entered through an elaborate archway, Clytemnestra dropped them all. Tea spilled everywhere. China shattered. The archway closed.

  Cam and Tav were sitting at a table and eating sugar cookies, looking dazed and confused.

  “Here are your things,” Clytemnestra said proudly. “I even managed to keep the other children from eating these two.” She bared her teeth wickedly.

  “She’s joking,” Eli told them.

  “Where is my gift?” Clytemnestra floated up in the centre of the room, glowing faintly. “I want my gift!”

  “Give her something,” Eli said irritably to her companions, reaching for her blades.

  “What, our clothes?” Cam asked.

  A storm cloud was slowly forming in the centre of the room. “I want my present!”

  Eli felt a spark of electricity prick her elbow. “Hurry up before she fries us!”

  Lightning struck the ground between Eli’s feet. She forced herself to stand still. She didn’t think her heart could handle being struck by lightning a second time.

  The square pupils in Clytemnestra’s eyes wavered and then shrunk. She turned her white eyes to Tav. “A worthy opponent.” Her voice deepened, and the sky overhead turned black. This was the voice of an eternal
child who had been weaned on blood, who revelled in watching cities burn, and cared only for her own pleasure.

  “Here.” Tav snatched Cam’s walking stick and thrust it into the centre of the storm. “A gift from the junkyard.”

  “Hey!” Cam protested.

  Immediately, the cloud vanished. The sky lightened. Clytemnestra floated back to the floor, full of angelic smiles and dimples. She took the staff from Tav and inspected it very closely, holding it up to her eyes. She sniffed once, licked it, and then yelped.

  She looked up at Tav. “A worthy gift. A forgotten sword now remembered.”

  “It’s mine,” said Cam.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Mine now, little human, unless you want to be the next skeleton we dance with under the pink star.”

  Cam stepped back.

  “You accept the gift?” Eli kept her eyes on the little witch.

  “Of course!” She smiled broadly.

  “Then say the words.”

  “You’re such a spoilsport, Eli.” Clytemnestra tapped the staff twice and chanted, “A gift for you, a gift for me, the children let you walk free … for now,” she added.

  “For now,” Eli agreed.

  Clytemnestra sat cross-legged in front of Eli. “I’m impressed you stayed in a straight line for a hundred thousand steps.”

  “We didn’t.”

  “Of course you did. The junkyard is the portal. You just needed to open it.”

  “How did I — ?”

  “Oh, you didn’t, silly. The magic one did. Don’t you remember?”

  Electricity in her veins. Lightning from the sky. Everything was burning. And through the smoke — Tav. Tav desperately reaching for something, clutching at the magic strands, pulling them, twisting them, clawing their way out through the matter of the world …

  Eli stared at Tav in wonder.

  “What?” they bit into a sugar cookie.

  Eli didn’t have words. “How …”

  “I don’t know.” Crumbs fell to the floor. Clytemnestra immediately began licking them up, giggling wildly. “I thought you were dying, and I panicked. I saw the magic and I just grabbed it. I don’t know what I did.”

  “Could you do it again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Eli held out her teacup to catch a few drops of tea dripping from the tablecloth. “I’d say thank you for saving me, but you did almost kill me first.”

  No one laughed.

  They drank tea and ate cookies and tried to breathe.

  Eli could hear a revel going on behind one of the walls. Her body remembered the movements, the feelings, the rush of bodies and hearts and blood. She hadn’t been allowed back here for years — the walls barred all adults from entering, unless they had a token of favour from a child. A key. Eli’s hand went to the pendant. Why now? she wondered. Why would Clytemnestra invite me back now?

  “Excuse me,” said Cam quietly. “But where are we?”

  Eli turned to him, a smile breaking across her face. “Welcome to the Children’s Lair.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Eli lay on the stone floor of the chamber Clytemnestra had left them in, watching the moon overhead. She did not trust herself to sleep. She counted her heartbeats and reminded herself that she was still alive. She wondered if Kite was still alive. She had to be — Eli would know if she wasn’t, wouldn’t she? She would know, somehow.

  “Who’s Kite?”

  Cam and Tav were playing gin rummy.

  “I said, who’s Kite?” Tav took a card from the pile and slid it into their hand. “I heard you. You were talking about her.”

  Had she been? Or could Tav sometimes hear or see her thoughts, the way Eli could taste Tav’s memories? It was an unsettling thought.

  “She’s … just someone. A friend. It doesn’t matter. How long was I unconscious?”

  “Such a human question,” teased Cam, adopting a scholarly tone. “Don’t you know time works differently here?”

  Eli smiled. “You’re tougher than you look, boy.”

  “No, that’s Tav.”

  “Tav looks tough,” Eli said without thinking, watching them fan three aces across the stone floor.

  “Thank you.” Tav looked up and tried to smile. Eli could see the strain around their eyes, the hollow of sleeplessness.

  “Okay, okay, enough flirting. Four kings!” Cam tossed his cards down with a flourish.

  Eli wanted to ask Tav if they could stop her from dreaming. She wanted to touch their shoulder, to run her fingers through their hair. Instead she balled her hands into fists and sat up. Tried not to think about Kite’s light going out, the vacuum of dark and empty. Tried not to think at all.

  “If Kite’s a friend, why haven’t we met them?” Tav looked back at their cards and Eli wondered if she just imagined the look of worry in their face.

  “She’s a witch,” said Eli simply.

  “So is the Hedge-Witch,” Tav pointed out.

  “Yeah, but she ran away. And the only other witch we’ve met is Clytemnestra …” Cam shuddered. “I mean, I’m glad she rescued us, but I don’t know how safe I feel with witch allies.”

  “Safer than without,” said Tav.

  “She also might be dead,” Eli told the ceiling. Fingers interlocking over her knees. Tight, tighter, choking the joint. Waiting to feel something. Waiting for a sign.

  Nothing.

  She breathed.

  “Or not,” she shrugged. “I think maybe not.”

  “You think?” Cam shot her a worried look. “Are you still hallucinating?”

  “No, just dreaming.” Eli laughed, and even to her own ears, it sounded wild.

  “Clytemnestra said you needed to rest.” Tav played with the edges of their card.

  “Where is my jacket?”

  “She also said you needed to photosynthesize.” Tav bent one of the corners. “I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.”

  “I never know.” Eli suddenly felt exhausted again. She laid her head back down on the cool ground and let her eyes close. Home. She didn’t want to leave.

  Eli woke in a single moment, sharp as a cut. Her eyelids snapped open. The sky was dark purple, and thick brambles twisted overhead.

  Tav was sitting nearby.

  “You can’t let me sleep,” she said, sitting up and checking for her pulse. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Clytemnestra was watching over you for a while, in case you ‘got out of hand,’ she said. Eli, you need to sleep.”

  “I don’t trust her. Promise me you won’t let me sleep, Tav.”

  “Eli —”

  “Promise me. My dreams could kill us. You have to promise.” The panic was rising in her voice — why had she allowed herself to fall asleep? Was she a weak human now, with no self-discipline? “Promise me!”

  “Okay. Okay, fine. I promise.” Tav glanced over, eyebrows raised. “Okay?”

  “Okay. Good.” Eli exhaled. “Where’s Cam?”

  “Still asleep.” Tav gestured to the pile of clothes in one corner of the room. “He got tired of losing at rummy.”

  Eli nodded and began checking her blades for scratches. The silence hung between them like a string of lights.

  “You could have died,” Tav whispered, their voice so soft that Eli could barely hear them.

  “I don’t think that was even the closest I’ve come to death,” said Eli.

  “You were struck by lightning.”

  “Good thing I’m hard to kill.”

  Tav shuffled the deck aimlessly. Then they crawled over to Eli.

  “I’m glad you didn’t die.”

  “Me, too.”

  Another beat of silence, heavy with unsaid words. Eli waited.

  “The Heart,” Tav said finally. “We’ve been sent for the Heart of the Coven.”

  Eli’s head snapped up. “That’s impossible.”

  Tav shook their head. “The Hedge-Witch says it’s possible, but a human has to carry it across worlds.”

 
“You came to steal the Heart?” she breathed.

  “Yes.” Tav’s eyes were burning with intensity. “We want to steal the magic of this world. Think how we could use it. Think how it could help us!”

  “Us, or you?”

  Tav’s jaw tightened. “You’ve seen what it’s like in our city. You know the way people like me are treated. With magic, we could make a difference. We could change things!”

  “It would be chaos.”

  Tav leaned back against the rock and looked up at the constellations overhead. “Maybe chaos is better than violent order. But it doesn’t have to be chaos, Eli — we could build something better.”

  “We?”

  Tav moved closer. They reached over and brushed a strand of hair from Eli’s face. They were so close their breath clouded Eli’s glasses. “You could come with me. Once we have magic, the real fight begins. I could use your help.”

  Eli swallowed. She felt trapped by the sparks in Tav’s eyes and the heat from their touch. But stealing the Heart, ripping it out of the world and transplanting it into a new one?

  What would happen to the City of Eyes?

  She wished Kite were here. With her knowledge, she might have the answer. But Tav wasn’t thinking about what could go wrong. They didn’t want to hear that their plan might fail. They were living on hope — and desperation. Eli understood that feeling. Instead of answering, Eli leaned forward and into danger. She brushed her lips against Tav’s. A spark lit up the dark. A sudden intake of breath. Eli hesitated. Then Tav kissed her back, and their hands were in her hair, and they were holding each other, pressing their bodies together.

  This time, lightning didn’t strike. Instead, it danced around their bodies, as if it wanted to be a part of everything.

  Eli had never been so grateful to have a body.

  After a while, they both lay back on the cool rock. Eli wanted to ask how Tav was able to tell her their mission when Cam had been cursed into silence. She wanted to know if Cam, too, wanted to steal the witches’ magic.