The Cost of All Things
Page 1
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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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DEDICATION
FOR KYLE
CONTENTS
Cover
Disclaimer
Title
Dedication
Part I: The Hekamists
1. Ari
2. Kay
3. Markos
Part II: Side Effects
4. Win
5. Ari
6. Markos
7. Kay
8. Ari
9. Win
10. Ari
11. Kay
12. Markos
13. Ari
14. Markos
15. Win
16. Kay
17. Ari
18. Markos
19. Win
20. Kay
21. Ari
22. Markos
23. Win
24. Markos
25. Ari
26. Kay
27. Markos
28. Ari
29. Kay
30. Markos
Part III: The Costs
31. Kay
32. Ari
33. Win
34. Kay
35. Markos
36. Ari
37. Kay
38. Markos
39. Win
40. Ari
41. Kay
42. Markos
43. Win
Part IV: All Things
44. Ari
45. Markos
46. Kay
47. Ari
48. Markos
49. Kay
50. Markos
51. Ari
52. Markos
53. Kay
54. Ari
55. Win
56. Ari
57. Kay
58. Ari
59. Markos
60. Kay
61. Ari
62. Markos
63. Kay
64. Ari
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
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PART I
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FIVE DAYS AFTER
There’s a hekamist who lives in the run-down cluster of houses behind the high school. Everyone knows that. Lots of people have gotten spells from her over the years—study cheats and beauty touch-ups and good luck auras. Not me. The only spell I’ve ever taken, nearly ten years ago, was made for me by a hekamist in Boston. I remember her sterile-looking office and the slice of dry toast she put on a plate in front of me. I remember crying so hard I could barely swallow the toast.
But it worked and I stopped crying and here I am.
This hekamist works out of her kitchen. The curtains are cheap and there are water stains on the ceiling, but it’s neat. The hekamist herself wears a tattered housecoat. She offers me a cup of tea and I say yes, even though I know you’re never supposed to drink or eat anything from strangers—let alone from a hekamist. But it seems rude not to.
My left wrist aches. Inside, under the muscle and bone. An old pain. My side effect. I clutch the wrist with my other hand under the table.
“Love spells don’t work, you know,” the hekamist says, dunking what looks like regular Lipton tea bags into two brightly colored mugs. “Whoever it is, they’ll kiss you, they’ll say the words, they’ll believe it. But you won’t. Love needs struggle.” She smiles at me, a distracted smile, as if she’s not sure for a second who I am or why I’m in her kitchen, and I focus on the gap between her two front teeth so as not to look in her eye and think of Win and love and struggle. “Of course I’ll sell it to you. But that’s my disclaimer.”
“I’m not here for a love spell,” I say.
She hands me one of the mugs of tea and raises her eyebrows. “Oh, I’ve assumed. Silly me, silly me. Tell me, then. A prom makeover? Calculus for the AP test?”
I’m glad for the heat of the mug in my hands; it distracts me from the pain in my wrist and keeps me from shivering all over. I could change my mind—say anything. Tell her I want luck or confidence. Beg for a little help with the SATs. Ask for a gift for Jess or Diana, something temporary and fun. But I’ve made it this far—I’m so close to finishing this. Just a little while longer and I’ll never have to feel this way again.
As if the walls are closing in on me, even when I’m outside. As if the air is thinner than it used to be, as if every gasp brings less and less oxygen into my lungs. I want to cry, but if I start, I’m afraid of what will happen. I’m afraid of what I’ll become.
Diana always teased me for not wanting to talk about my feelings. True, but that never meant I didn’t have any. Only meant I didn’t want to let them out all at once, let them take me over. And right now, I can’t hold on any longer.
Just like nine years ago, I need this.
I take a deep breath and will the tears back. “I want you to make me forget my boyfriend.”
The hekamist sips her tea. Looks at me. I can’t bring myself to lift my mug to my mouth.
“Permanently,” I say. “None of this temporary crap.”
“Permanent is more expensive. Let’s say . . . five thousand dollars.” I nod. Perfect. “Well, if you have the money, I can do that. Of course. Can brew it right now, in fact—you’ll take it before bedtime, be emptied out in no time—forever.”
“Thank you.” The relief is huge, a wave that almost knocks me down. Not to have to think of Win.
No more picking me up for school in his truck. No more looking into my eyes at Homecoming, telling me he loves me. No more seeing him in the front row of my performances, watching me, glowing only for me. No more kisses and promises and plans. No more love.
No more last night on the beach. No more words in anger. No more waking up to the call from his mother. No more long walk home from the beach with sand and seaweed in my hair, stomach churning, eyes too pinched and dry to cry. All the pain of the past five days—gone.
The hekamist’s hand taps the table for my attention. “But there’s a cost.”
“I told you I can pay,” I say. The money’s stuffed into the pocket of my jacket, still in the folded manila envelope I found it in. I can feel it against my ribs. Exactly five thousand dollars. I found it in the very back of my closet yesterday, in a half-crushed shoebox, while I was looking for something to wear that didn’t remind me of Win. I hadn’t known it was there before, and I’m not sure it actually belongs to me, but
I didn’t know who else could’ve put it there and I couldn’t help feeling that finding the money was a sign, confirmation that getting this spell is what I’m supposed to do.
“I don’t mean money. The spell asks its own payment. A beauty spell might kill a few brain cells. For something like this?” She considers me, and I try to look like this is new information. It’s not. I got the whole side effects speech the first time around; the pain in my wrist is my proof. “Most people experience aches and pains after a memory spell, at the very least. Might affect muscle or nerve or something else. Can’t predict it exactly.”
It’ll be worth the money, worth the collateral damage, not to have to feel this crushing weight anymore. I imagine it like falling asleep and waking up in someone else’s body. Blank. Empty. Happy. Free.
“Oh!” the hekamist says, knocking on her head with a knuckle. “I’m supposed to ask, silly me, silly me. Have you ever had any other spellwork done in the past?”
“No.”
“Because multiple spells get messy. Muddled. Mixed up. Side effects aren’t doubled, they’re increased ex-po-nen-tial-ly.” She squints at me, her small eyes disappearing into the folds of her face. “Silly, so silly. You look familiar.”
“I promise I’ve never had any other spells.” I say it quickly so I don’t have time to be caught in the lie. I’m a horrible liar; if she presses me, I’ll crack. I resist the urge to grab my wrist again and massage the pain. It’s been acting up all week, as if in warning: This is what happens when you take spells. Instead I stare down at my feet. Inside the sneakers they’re red and sore. I’ve lost or am in the process of losing another big toenail. Lost toenails: a dancer’s pride.
If she knew the truth, she’d refuse me for my own good, to avoid those compound side effects. But I can deal with more side effects like my wrist—that’s what I deal with every day in ballet. Pain. Struggle.
Physical pain and physical struggle, though. What’s a few busted muscles compared to the pain of losing Win?
If my body has to pay the price, so be it.
“All right, then,” the hekamist says.
She stands and moves to the small kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards and rummaging through drawers. She dumps ingredients into a dented pot on the stove. “How about some chicken noodle soup?”
As she works, I pull out the worn envelope of bills and place it on the table in front of me, then surreptitiously rub my aching wrist. She glances over at the envelope and nods.
“You’re a junior?” she asks, standing over the pot. When the soup spits and sparks, she lifts the pot over the counter—and it rests there in midair. Or so it seems from where I’m sitting.
“Yes,” I say. “Well, technically a senior, I guess. School just got out.”
“I have a daughter. She’s a little older than you.”
“Oh.”
“She’s special, my daughter. I know all parents think that, but it’s true.”
And just when I think I can’t feel any worse, I get one of those unexpected pangs for my mother. It’s an old pain, too, and normally I can go weeks without it flaring up—the pain in my wrist is much more persistent—but it happens. A photo in a gift catalog. A kid crying on the beach. Families coming in to the Sweet Shoppe together. And now I’m jealous of a hekamist’s daughter.
As I take a deep breath and push the feeling down, the light in the apartment dims. Cold air presses in from the cracks in the walls and floor. My wrist pulses with a heartbeat. The hekamist, at the stovetop with her back to me, pulls up her sleeve and makes a quick motion with a stone held in her other hand. I can’t tell what’s happening with the pot of soup; she’s in the way.
“You seem determined. That’s good. Know your mind, know yourself. But young people don’t always think things through, and no one talks about what hekame does. Not anymore. You think it’s dangerous, now. If it’s illegal to become a hekamist it must be bad, right? Shameful. Silly, so silly.” It’s almost pitch-black in the apartment except for a glow from the pot behind the hekamist. She watches it. “It’s not dangerous the way you think. But memory spells can be awkward, especially when you run into this boyfriend again. Walking down the street, he tries to say hi, you don’t know him, he’s confused or angry—or some such and so forth.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say. I breathe and sip my tea. Tastes like Lipton—needs milk. In the dark and cold while my salvation’s being brewed, it’s easy to say the hardest thing in the world. “He’s dead.”
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FIVE MONTHS BEFORE
When most people think of Cape Cod, they think of beaches and boardwalks, sand and sun, families and friends eating ice cream and playing volleyball. And for four or five months every year, that’s exactly what it is. Tourists fill the towns and hotels and restaurants and beaches, the sun shines and waves crash, and we have a reason for existing.
But it’s not like that at all in the middle of January. The hotels and rentals empty out. It’s cold. The beach isn’t a beach, it’s just the edge of the land, and the ocean’s always there, hemming us in. Cape Cod’s an island, you know. Two bridges let us on and off, but for the most part we’re trapped, shut up in a narrowing strip of land that no one should’ve found, let alone settled. Windy, plain, brown and yellow and gray, the sky matching the ground.
In the gloom and early dark of January, Diana and Ari and I were celebrating. I’d stolen a bottle of Grey Goose from my sister Mina’s secret stash, and we toasted each other and shivered in the wind. The road was covered in half-melted snow and dead leaves. We slipped and slid over them in our sneakers, laughing and holding each other up.
“To New York!” Diana said to Ari.
“To horse camp!” Ari shouted back, even though they were standing right next to each other.
“To summer!” Diana’s voice rose to match Ari’s.
“To freedom!”
“Yay!” I said. I couldn’t think of anything to toast to, but if I didn’t say anything, I wouldn’t be a part of the celebration.
And, actually, I wasn’t technically celebrating anything of my own. But I was happy to be out with Diana and Ari, and happy for them. They were leaving right after school ended for their dream summers. Their happiness should have been enough for me to celebrate after the past few years.
“You’ll be the queen of those stuck-up horse chicks,” Ari said. “Maybe find a nice stable boy to seduce.”
Diana blushed and covered her eyes with her hand. “More like, I’ll spend a lot of time with my horse and halfway through the summer discover that none of the humans know my name.”
“Their loss.”
Diana pointed the bottle at Ari. “You’re the one who’s going to be the queen, anyway. Take those other girls out.”
“Ballet assassin. That’s me.” She grabbed the bottle from Diana, planted her foot, and spun in a circle, ending balanced on the planted foot, the other shooting straight up behind her like a bow string. She took a drink and didn’t wobble once.
“What if I dyed my hair?” Diana held out a strand of her thick, long hair and squinted in the low light. “Something bright.”
I started to agree, but Ari interrupted me.
“Oh, don’t,” Ari said. She lowered her foot and passed me the bottle. “You’re perfect the way you are.”
“I guess,” Diana said, and let go of her hair.
“Where’s Win?” I asked. Ari spent most of her weekend nights with her boyfriend, Win Tillman, which was why Diana had started calling me back in September.
“He’s home sick. Markos is having a party but I wanted to celebrate.”
“We couldn’t celebrate with Markos?” Diana said, attempting to sound casual.
“But it’s more fun just us.”
Diana didn’t argue. She had a crush on Markos Waters, Win’s best
friend, but Ari always said he wasn’t boyfriend material. Ari hung out with him and Win all the time when she wasn’t with us, so I guess she would know.
I felt a pause descending. A dreaded pause, where someone might say “It’s time to go home,” or “I’ve had enough to drink.” I didn’t want the night to be over. I’d only been friends with Diana and Ari for four months, since Diana and I sat together in English and started hanging out on nights when Ari was with Win. Ari and Diana had been inseparable for years, whispering in class and peeling out of the parking lot in each other’s cars, and I’d wondered what it would be like to be a part of a friendship like that. Someone you chose, instead of being born with, like me and my sister Mina.
I’d made friends with Diana first, but soon I was invited out with Ari, too, and we became a threesome. Four months of friendship. Six months since my beauty spell, which gave me the confidence to start talking to Diana in the first place. And two years since Mina got better and left me behind. I could remember each of the important dates exactly.
I didn’t want the night to end, so I rushed to fill the silence.
“Look, the hekamist’s house,” I said, pointing down the road.
Diana and Ari turned to look at the house. It seemed normal from the outside, if a bit run-down. Back when we were in elementary school someone made up a story that there was a force field around the house that would zap you or curse you if you got too close; only years later did anyone stop to think that wasn’t how hekame worked at all. You had to eat something to be spelled. So they changed the dare to eating the hekamist’s grass from the front lawn. When I’d gone there to get my beauty spell six months ago, I could still see bald patches of the lawn, as if new generations of kids were still daring each other to get close.
“What’s it like inside?” Diana asked.
“Diana!” Ari said, as if Diana had just said something offensive.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone knows I got a spell. Lots of people get spells, actually, you just can’t always see the results.”
Ari rubbed her wrist, and I remembered, too late, about her parents and the fire and her old spell. Diana stepped closer to Ari as if to comfort her, but Ari shrank away. I’d never seen Ari hug or touch anyone except Win.