Residue

by Laury Falter

  Fighting the tears that still threatened to spill over, I centered in on that energy inside me. I pushed it, pulled it, did everything I could to coax it to life, to tell me that I was still alive, that separating from Jameson wouldn’t end me.

  Then I saw the first blossom open…and then the second, unraveling their tiny petals to the light, showing themselves to the world.

  There it was…that energy in me, surging through my torso and down my arm and through my fingers, passing the vacancy left in my chest as if it didn’t even notice it was there.

  The wooden step vibrated then and I found Miss Mabelle had plunked down beside me, her cane stretched out down the rest of the stairs.

  “Told ya not ta touch my plants, didn’t I?” she said, her lips turned down in a frown.

  “Yes,” I whispered. While normally I wouldn’t have cared if she were mad about it, I didn’t have the life in me to fight the guilt.

  Miss Mabelle wasn’t angry. That was just her way.

  “So ya lost a little bitta life in ya n’ decided to give some of it back? That it?”

  I shrugged, having no interested in explaining.

  “Then what ya doin’ hea, chil’?”

  Finally, I lifted my head to her.

  My lip trembled as I said, “I can still heal others. Why can’t I heal the pain in my heart?”

  Then the tears won, swelling over and coursing down my cheeks. Her arms came around me and pulled me close, enveloping me. I leaned against her for an immeasurable amount of time, shuttering into her fleshy embrace, appreciating the comfort it gave.

  She didn’t offer any consoling words other than one sentence and it made me pause because I’d heard it before, recently.

  “Just rememba…Things ain’t always what they seem,” she whispered into my ear.

  I pulled away then and wiped the tears off, stunned. Miss Celia had said the very same thing.

  She didn’t give me the chance to respond because her legs were already heaving her body to a standing position. Then, as I watched her go, she hobbled into the house, where my cousins waited in an awkward cluster just inside the door.

  No one said a word to me at dinner, allowing me to mend myself on my own. I tried some of the fried catfish but could only bring myself to chew a few biscuit crumbs.

  I was thankful for a few families who stopped by to request a healing session. It kept my mind off Jameson, as much as was possible anyway, and it gave me the chance help those in my world. With my almost daily trips to the hospitals and clinics, they’d been neglected and I felt a little guilty about it.

  Because of them, when the next morning came, I had the energy to dress for school. Still, I received concerned glances from my cousins as I struggled to take in a few bites of food as I headed out the door.

  It was drizzling rain, which was fine because it matched my mood. When I reached school my cousins were back to walking me down the hall so when someone dared to say, “What? No Caldwell today?” Oscar had to stop Nolan from trouncing the guy.

  The sting of that question hurt worse than I thought it would. The fact was people were curious. The entire week before, Jameson and I had been side-by-side, unabashedly displaying affection. His absence and the return of my cousins surrounding me made it good enough for another round of gossip.

  None of that mattered much to me. I was mainly concentrating on what would happen in second period when Jameson and I would see each other again. As it turned out, it was worse than I’d expected.

  He was already there, his head bowed, his arms crossed over the front of his desk.

  When I saw him, my heart stopped and then started again at a quicker pace. He looked miserable. His hair was tousled, his clothes were wrinkled and unkempt, his skin was pale, and he slouched, something I’d never seen him do. Then he looked up and I saw the red in his eyes and knew he’d slept about the same number of hours as I had.

  As our eyes met, there was no denying the despair and hopelessness we both felt. It was a message that didn’t need to be channeled because it was already obvious.

  His gaze followed me until I was a few desks away, and then they fell aside, unable to retain that connection at such a close range. When I sat down, it was unusually loud and clunky because the room was absolutely silent now. Awkwardly, I fumbled with my laptop while pulling it from the bag, nearly dropping it twice because my attention wasn’t on it.

  I was following, without looking, every action, or inaction, Jameson was making. His hands had tightened around the edge of the desk when I’d sat down, just before he slid them across the surface and dropped them to his lap. His head remained motionless, dipped slightly, as if he didn’t trust himself to move it because he knew which direction it would go. His legs, which were normally stretched out in a relaxed state, were bent at the knee with both feet placed firmly in the floor.

  When Ms. Wizner entered the room, she didn’t bother to acknowledge us because she no longer feared a spat between Jameson and me. But the rest of the class did. They paid curious attention to us but were smart, or prudent, enough not to mention it.

  Jameson and I didn’t take a single note during Ms. Wizner’s lecture; our laptops remained open and untouched. Instead, our attention remained on each other. I knew this when my foot scuffed back toward my chair and that slight motion caused Jameson to inhale. It was quiet but I’d heard it.

  When class ended, he stayed in place as he usually did while I slipped my laptop into my bag and headed for the door. I didn’t think it was possible but my heart broke even more when I left the room, knowing his eyes were following me out.

  The next day was no better. And the day after was the same as the two before. Evening class arrived and we behaved the same there as we did in normal school, doing our best to ignore each other and failing horribly at it. His family kept him close with a wary eye on me, although they had no reason to. The separation caused more harm to Jameson and me than any hex ever could.

  Neither of us cared or had the energy to make ourselves presentable for the rest of society any longer so we showed up disheveled, exhausted, and depressed. The toll was even greater on our bodies, drawing in our eyes, withering away our limbs and torsos from lack of food. I felt like a ghost and I knew Jameson did, too.

  My only sense of life came when I healed others on my after-school errands, which I now took alone, or when those in the witch world stopped by the house for a quick healing session. At least that force was still in me. I felt sorry - and worried - for Jameson who had no motive to use the energy inside him. There was no one knocking on his door asking for help, inspiring him to conjure that force that told him that there was still life in him.

  I wasn’t the only one to see this happening in him either. Charlotte made that clear one rainy afternoon in the hallway outside my first period classroom.

  “What did you do to my brother?”

  The ever-present stupor kept me from immediately grasping the fact that someone was talking to me.

  “Weatherford!”

  That brought my feet to a halt, along with several others around me. I couldn’t be certain but I thought someone uttered, “Uh oh. Here we go again…”

  Turning, I found Charlotte standing, hands on hips, eyes narrowed at me as usual. Her sandy blonde hair had fallen over her eyes so she briskly flicked it away. If her tone didn’t tell me what kind of mood she was in her gesture sure did.

  “What? No freezing cast today?” I asked, not caring if this made no sense to anyone but the two of us. Caring even less if it did.

  She ignored me and stated, “I asked you what you did to Jameson.”

  The sound of his name made the despair well up in me again and I dropped my head in reaction.

  “Tell me what you did to him,” she demanded, taking a step toward me.

  I knew what she was really asking. She needed to know how to end the pain he was in. I didn’t doubt she and the rest of the Caldwells had tried every blocking cast possible, pulled
every spell book out, reviewed every note from class, asked every caster they knew. Now, as a last resort, she was turning to the person who had cast the hex. I was certain of it because behind the anger in her eyes was desperation.

  “Tell me,” she fumed under her breath.

  The problem was that no blocking cast, no repeal of any cast could help Jameson because the despair he felt didn’t stem from mystical properties. It was a natural reaction to losing someone he cared for.

  She took another step and the crowd around us grew.

  “I did nothing,” I whispered. “And everything…”

  “Don’t play games with me.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  She scoffed. “Weatherfords cannot be trusted. I don’t care what my brother says.”

  I jolted at the admission that Jameson had talked to his family about us.

  “We aren’t fooled, Jocelyn. We know you’re just as bad as your mother.”

  An emotion stirred in me…irritation. The first reaction I’ve had to anything in days. “Don’t act like you’re familiar with my mother,” I retorted. “I doubt you’ve ever met her.”

  “Where she works tells me all I need to know,” said Charlotte flatly.

  There was no contesting it. She did work for the ministry and what I’d learned about them wasn’t complimentary. Regardless, the conversation was headed in a direction I didn’t want it to take so I changed its course.

  “I don’t know how to help Jameson,” I admitted. “If I did I would have found a way to tell you already. I…” My voice cracked forcing me to clear my throat. “I don’t want him to suffer either.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said and the intent look in her eyes confirmed it.

  Then a voice came from behind me and the very sound of it shook me to my core.

  “What’s this about, Charlotte?” asked Jameson. His voice was croaky, like mine, as if he hadn’t used it in a while, which I figured was the case.

  My body froze, my heart wanting to turn around but my muscles refusing to comply with its command because my head told them not to. Then I heard footsteps and saw a body stop beside me. The fact he didn’t come between Charlotte and me was telling. It meant he’d intervened not for Charlotte’s sake but for mine. Again, after all I’d done, he was defending me.

  Charlotte concluded this, too, but didn’t seem surprised by it. “Jameson, aren’t you going to be late for your next class?” she hinted, clearly trying to motivate him to leave.

  It did no good.

  He crossed his arms against his chest and replied, “You’re right. I don’t have time for this. But I’m not leaving until you do, Charlotte.”

  There were audible gasps from the gathering crowd.

  Charlotte, furious now, marched up to him and hissed, “She’s the reason you’re like this.”

  “She’s not the one to blame,” he stated, telling me without saying the words that he held someone else, a person from his own family, at fault. “She did what she had to do. We all live by that rule, don’t we?”

  Charlotte sneered.

  He lowered his voice then so fewer people surrounding us could overhear. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help. I would do the same if our roles were reversed. But what you’re doing directly counters what you are trying to accomplish because, Charlotte, it’s not making my life any easier.”

  Her face twitched lightly but she remained silent.

  “If you really want to help me, than all you need to do is leave Jocelyn alone.” His next statement was more of a frustrated demand. “Leave them all alone.”

  No one had to tell me who “them” was. I knew he meant the rest of my family. This was a colossal request to Charlotte, who hadn’t stopped her attempts once since I’d met her.

  He was about to speak again when she cut him off. “For you. Only for you.” She turned then and directed a glare at me before spinning around and walking off.

  Then it was just the two of us in the center of a circle of gawking students.

  Jameson’s patience gave out at that point and he barked, “What?”

  That got the crowd moving and they dispersed rapidly.

  I didn’t think he was going to address me at all, and if he did I wasn’t sure what to expect from him given that I’d just seen his usually easy-going personality verbally assail onlookers. So when he rotated to face me, I was taken aback by what I saw.

  Devastated sadness.

  It changed then to reticent cordiality. “I broke our no-interaction rule,” he said slowly making me think he didn’t want to leave my side.

  “That’s all right,” I replied, not particularly liking how demure my voice sounded.

  Neither one of us moved. We simply stared into each other, our eyes locked, unable to break apart. The emotions swelling in my chest must have been comparable to his because his breathing was staggered.

  I miss you, I wanted to say. I can’t function without you. There’s a void where the feeling of being alive used to be and the only things that can shake it are your laugh, the unique way you think, the sound of your voice, the sight of you.

  I could have said these things. The hallway was empty now. But I remained silent, staring at him, soaking him up.

  It looked as if he were making similar statements in his own mind, battling with telling me the truth to how our separation was destroying him. But he elected to do the same as me and avoided opening himself up to the potential for further harm. Instead, he focused on something else and when he did all thoughts of my own needs were discarded.

  “La Terreur is back…They need your help. They’re dying at an alarming rate.”

  17 LA TERREUR

  “Marie Dupart…the little girl…has passed away.”

  That news sent a sharp pain through my chest.

  “More of them are passing each day,” Jameson continued. “It’s spread to villages in other provinces.”

  “Why didn’t anyone come for me?” I asked already heading for the exit, Jameson in step with me.

  “Isadora is my main contact…” he replied.

  My head snapped in his direction, knowing what he was implying. “She’s sick, too?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t find out until last night when I made the deliveries.”

  I released a moan, wondering how many we could have saved if the news had only reached us.

  He stepped forward to push the main entrance door open for us. “I was there all night and came straight to get you,” he admitted, acknowledging that he’d intended to break our no-interaction rule anyway.

  None of that mattered at the moment. I didn’t care I was leaving school without permission or that I was doing it with a Caldwell. My only goal was to reach the village as quickly as possible.

  We halted directly outside the door, staring first at the parking lot jammed with cars and then overhead, both thinking the same thing.

  “Think we can risk it?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t sound like we have a choice.” I drew in a deep breath, preparing to break our world’s most stringent law.

  “Good thing it’s raining,” he reasoned.

  “Right.” I nodded, surveying the sky. “Cloud coverage.”

  I reached out my hand, the one with the family stone.

  He hesitated for only a second and then took it, the warmth of his palm wrapping around my chilly fingers. “Have you ever levitated anyone…?”

  Before he could finish, we were in the air, his voice easing into a shocked chuckle. It actually gave me some satisfaction to throw him off a bit.

  It took me only until we broke through the clouds to the warm, radiant sunshine on the other side for me to realize I was going much faster than ever before, and I was doing it with another person. While I didn’t levitate myself often I knew it had taken me a few minutes to reach the height we were at. This time it took seconds. Oddly enough, our clothes weren’t rustled as much as they should have been and I didn’t feel the us
ual sting of the rushing air. Confused, I looked down at Jameson, curious if he was noticing the same thing. It was then that I understood. He was channeling, amplifying my power while subduing the energy around us.

  Jameson was already watching me, respect evident in his expression. He gave me a tentative grin and I knew my face reflected the same.

  Every so often we needed to dip below the cloud line to evaluate the geography and make sure we were on course but we still made it to the village in record time. We landed on Isadora’s dock just as another bout of rain began to fall. Jameson opened the door without knocking, telling me that she was in serious condition, which caused my heart to beat double time.

  Inside, candles illuminated the room just enough to show Isadora curled in a ball on her bed, shuddering, her arm limply held out to us, beckoning for us. The door left open during our urgency, we ran across the room toward her, our hands clasped together and then taking each of hers to form a circle.

  Jameson and I had worked together for weeks, healing the sick and injured, but we’d never used this method before. It was instinctual, natural, and clearly needed.

  Without hesitation, I began my incantation, conjuring the force inside me while Jameson magnified it. Isadora jolted, the surge of us together being a force greater than anything her frail body was ready to accept.

  I backed off and Jameson knew it. “Keep going,” he urged.

  “We might be hurting-”

  “Don’t stop,” he said, his voice taking on the hint of a French accent.

  I glanced at him, puzzled, and found him staring at her. “She’s telling you…” he said through gritting teeth, straining against the power rushing through us, “that she can take it.”

  Accepting this as truth, realizing there were nuances to channeling I couldn’t begin to grasp, I refocused and allowed the force inside me to fully release.

  Her eyes opened and found me then. They spoke to me without channeling, without words, and they said they believed in me. She had seen my ability and it was powerful. Then her lids closed and her thin, parched lips released.