What was he saying? She was like sunshine? That didn’t sound like the kind of thing you’d say to your girlfriend’s best friend.
“Really?” said Branna.
“I think it’s a shame that you don’t have a boyfriend already. I guess I figured you were still looking. But if you want me to whisper something in an ear, I’m sure I could get Will or Rick to take you out. Or Mel.”
I tried to calm down. If he was suggesting Will or Rick, that meant he wasn’t thinking about Branna in any romantic way. Although, really, did I have any right to look down on him if he was?
Yes, I decided I did. If I had fallen in love with someone else, it was because of a love philtre. Mark had no excuse. Neither did Branna.
“No, please don’t do that. I don’t want to go out with them.” Branna’s voice was soft and trembly.
“Is there someone else? Tristan?” asked Mark.
“No, not him, either.”
“Well, if you see someone you like, just give me the word. I have my ways.”
“Thanks for the offer,” said Branna. “But I’d rather date someone who chooses me for himself.”
“I guess I can understand that.”
Another pause. At least Branna was consistent, I thought.
“One other thing about Izzie,” said Branna.
“What is it?” Mark asked eagerly.
“You should find out more about her mom and dad.”
My mom and dad? Why was Branna telling him that?
“I thought her dad was dead,” said Mark.
“He is dead, but she loved him a lot. I don’t think she talks about him much with anyone. She needs to, though. He was her mom’s one true love, and you could get some real insight into how Izzie thinks about true love by listening to her stories about her parents.”
“Her dad. That makes sense. Branna, thanks.” Mark sounded relieved, happy. Just the way he should.
“And about her mom, you should watch her sometime. Or talk to her about her work. She’s not just an ambulance driver. She has other … talents.”
Was Branna trying to out my mom’s magic? She didn’t know about my magic, though. I hadn’t told her yet.
“Izzie must think I am completely blind, that I’m missing out on so much of her life. I’m glad I’ve had this chance to talk to you, Branna. You are the best girlfriend ever. Uh, I—I mean, the best girlfriend of my girlfriend,” Mark stammered. “Not my girlfriend, of course. I didn’t mean anything like that.”
“I know,” Branna sighed. “I think everyone knows that I’m not your girlfriend or anyone else’s.”
I guess I had been pretty clueless about Branna. The only excuse I had was that it seemed everyone else—Mark and the rest of the posse—had been clueless, too. The only one who had guessed was Tristan. He’d said that Branna believed she could still be my friend. And now I could see that was hard, because Mark was between us.
Chapter 14
The next day, the doctors let me go home. They were surprised I was ready so soon. I had missed almost a whole week of school and the homecoming dance, and my world had changed completely. I had no idea if I could go back to high school as if nothing had happened, but I was going to try.
On the drive home, Mom told me that Tristan would most likely be home the next day. I hadn’t been able to talk Mark into bringing me to see him in the hospital again, so I had to depend on Mom for all my information. She kept hinting that I should break up with Mark, but I ignored her. I wasn’t ready for that yet, and I still wasn’t sure about Branna. She had visited me later the previous afternoon, and we had talked about everything but Mark and Tristan. If I was really unselfish, maybe I should just push her and Mark together. I guess I wasn’t that unselfish.
When Mom and I got home, the first thing I did was lie on the couch in the front room with my eyes closed.
“Are you all right? What’s wrong?” Mom came over to check on me. “Are you having a relapse? Should I take you back to the hospital?”
I opened my eyes and smiled at her. “I just wanted to smell home,” I said. “You don’t know how awful it was in the hospital all these days.”
“I don’t know how awful it was? I think I know it just as well as you do,” said Mom. Then she closed her eyes and took a sniff, too. “It does smell … normal, doesn’t it?”
Well, normal for our house, anyway. It smelled of ginger and vinegar and something else. Maple syrup, maybe? “What have you been making?” I asked. It couldn’t be another love philtre, could it?
“An invincibility potion,” said Mom. “It was all I could think about while you were in the hospital.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing,” I said.
Mom looked away. “Well, it’s not completely impervious to magical power. But it works against almost everything. When your dad and I were—well, when we talked about the serpent and his going against it, I tried to make this potion, but it was a complicated recipe, and I kept getting it wrong. So he went to the serpent without it.”
She took a deep breath and shook her head. “I have been working on it ever since then, trying to perfect it. I think it’s almost there. But we can talk about that later. Right now, I want you to rest.”
I settled back on the old couch with the lumpy cushions. We’d never had new furniture that I remembered; it was all secondhand. Mom was careful with money. What she made, she spent on the house and our car and food. And her potion ingredients. I couldn’t remember the last time Mom had bought anything for herself. She just made do. It used to annoy me, but I was starting to understand why the potions were so important.
After a half hour, I went up to my room. I lay on my bed and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars that Mom had put up on the ceiling when I was five. They were supposed to help Dad f ind me from heaven. I remembered being so worried about that back then. But I hadn’t looked up at the stars in years.
Suddenly, I remembered something else I hadn’t looked at for a long time. I got off the bed and went to the bookshelf by my desk. Underneath a bunch of overdue library books and some papers from fourth grade, I found my old photo album. It was just big enough for a few small pictures of me with my dad.
I teared up as soon as I saw the first one. It was me as a newborn baby, on my dad’s stomach. He had his hand on my back, and I had my eyes closed. The look on his face is hard to describe, not a smile, but pure contentment, like he had found out what life was all about. And it was me.
No wonder I had always liked that picture. It made me feel safe and secure. That is, it had until I got old enough to realize that Dad had died anyway and that he was never going to be there for me now. That was when I had stopped looking at the photos.
I turned the page to the next picture. I was taking my first steps, and Dad was holding out his arms to me. I remembered him telling me about the picture. I could almost feel him beside me again, whispering in my ear, his voice soft and low. “You were scared to walk. You were almost fourteen months before you even tried. And you would only do it for me, Isolde. You wouldn’t even look at your mom while you were standing. But when I held out my arms, you would toddle toward me. And I would step back, and you would keep coming, on and on until you realized that you didn’t need me after all.”
I had needed him. I still needed him.
Me in the bathtub with Dad pouring water on my head.
Me feeding myself birthday cake with my fingers.
Me blowing out candles at my third birthday party.
Dad and me mixing up mac and cheese, which used to be my favorite food ever.
My first day in kindergarten in the magic world: I still remembered the backpack Dad had bought me, red as fire. I remembered how he and I had picked it out together, and he had told me that I’d made a good choice, that red was a good color for me. I’d thought he meant something more, but I’d never known what.
And then the photos ended. Dad had died in February of the year I was in kindergarten. Now all I ha
d left of him was this album.
Wearing an apron and smelling of ginger, Mom stood in the doorway of my room. “I’m sorry, Izzie. I’m sorry he’s gone.”
“I really miss him,” I said. “I try to pretend that I don’t, but it’s still there. All that pain.”
Mom put her arms around me, and I could feel her breathing. “I know, Izzie. I know.”
“What happened? Will you tell me now?” I said.
Mom pulled away from me and looked me in the eyes. “I tried to tell you as much of the truth as I thought you could handle at the time. You were only five. And you kept asking me if the serpent you had seen was real. I didn’t want to frighten you, so I told you it was a dream.”
I nodded. “And the flu?”
Mom shook her head. “You made that part up yourself.”
“I guess it was easier than the truth.”
“Yes.” Mom took a deep breath. “We used to live in a place called Curvenal. Does that ring any bells for you?”
I thought for a long moment. “Not really,” I said.
“A lot of people who had magic used to live there. It was a place for us to share our experiences. We still lived in the real world, but we didn’t have to hide as much as we do here.”
“Where is Curvenal?” I asked.
“North,” said Mom. “In a valley between two mountain ranges. It’s very remote, so we didn’t get disturbed often by the outside, non-magical world. Your dad’s family was from there, and it seemed like the perfect place to raise you. We knew from the moment you were born that you were special, that you had your dad’s magic. You were hot with it.”
I nodded, figuring I would ask her more about my magic later. Right then, I wanted to hear the story of my dad’s death. It seemed like I had waited my whole life to hear the rest of it.
“We had rules about magic, and how it should be used. The rules were to help us protect each other and the out-side world, the people without magic. It didn’t seem right to use our magic to control other people, even though we could. And living together, we could watch each other to make sure none of us fell into that temptation. That was the idea behind Curvenal, anyway.”
“But it didn’t work?” I said.
She shook her head. “It worked for a few generations, but then a group of teenagers started looking into the ancient histories.”
“What kind of ancient histories?”
“Histories of the old days, before there were rules about magic, before there was any power but magic in the world. The days of giant magical serpents.”
“Real serpents,” I whispered.
“They used some old spells and a map to search out the resting place of one of those serpents. Then they raised the serpent from its ancient slumber. Your dad could feel the change in his temperature immediately. He knew his magic was calling to something, and he followed its scent just in time to see the teenagers devoured by the serpent. For a few weeks, the serpent terrorized the town, devouring someone with magic each day, while your dad frantically tried to figure out how to fight it. Then it came for you and your magic, and he had to fight it.
“He left you in a cave where he thought you would be safe, but you were curious, and you peeked out. You saw it all, your dad fighting the serpent. And then him—”
“Dying,” I finished for her.
She nodded. “The serpent called for you and tried to scent your magic, but you were too scared to use it. So the serpent slithered off, searching for you and for whatever other magic he could destroy. That’s when I came and got you, and we left Curvenal right away.”
“You left them?” I said. “With the serpent still there?”
Mom hesitated a long moment. “I couldn’t fight it. Neither could you. You were a small child, Izzie.”
“But all those other people …” I didn’t like to think about how it must have been for the people who hadn’t been able to escape from the serpent.
“Izzie, every time I drive someone to the hospital in my ambulance, every time I use a potion, there are others who are dying because I am not helping them. There are natural disasters all over the globe, and I can’t be at all of them. Every day, I have to choose to save the person in front of me, the one that I can save. And that day, I chose to save you.”
I felt as though a stone was being pressed on my chest; it was the weight of the responsibility that I had never known was mine. “You kept me safe all this time, and we could have been working against the thing that killed Dad?”
“When do you think I should have taken you back, Izzie? The year after he died, when you were six? When you were eight? When you were ten? I watched you, and I watched how little you showed an interest in your own magic. You were afraid, in some deep part of yourself, and you were right to be afraid.”
“I’m still afraid, Mom. But I don’t think I can let that stop me anymore. You’ve got to show me how to use my magic now.” All I knew was that my magic made me hot, but that didn’t seem particularly useful as a weapon against a serpent.
“That’s the problem, Izzie. You have your dad’s magic, and I can’t really show you how to use it.”
“But you had me spit in Tristan’s potion,” I pointed out.
“Yes. Your dad used to infuse my potions with one of the elemental powers.”
“But what does that mean?”
“The elemental magic uses air, earth, water, and fire,” said Mom, nodding. “It’s very effective with certain potions.”
“Then let’s do it.”
“Izzie, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
She threw up her hands. “It will draw magical creatures to you who are far more powerful than the slurg. The serpent has been sending them out after you for years, but they haven’t been able to find you. Now they will try to taste your magic and kill you.”
“Mom, I’ve already used my magic,” I pointed out. “They’re already coming after me. I might as well figure out some-thing useful to do with it.”
She sighed. “Come downstairs, then. That invincibility potion I’ve been working on could use some elemental magic added to it.”
So I went downstairs, and Mom handed me a clear bottle with a pinkish liquid inside. When I opened it, the liquid smelled familiar, faintly sweet and herbal.
“I need you to enhance it.”
“Tell me how to do it,” I said.
“Well, your dad always said he just thought hard at some-thing, and his magic came out.”
“He thought at it?” I asked, skeptical.
“That’s what he said.”
“And what happened when he thought at it?”
“Well, there would be a wind, and then a wisp of smoke, and then the smell of clean earth,” said Mom.
So I tried. I sat and held the potion in my hands. I thought at it for over an hour, and nothing happened. No hint of smoke.
“Maybe you should take a break,” said Mom. “Come back to it later, after dinner.”
But I was persistent. I ate a little dinner, but I have to say, the smell of the potion sort of killed my appetite.
It wasn’t until I had almost fallen asleep in the kitchen and had started to dream of Tristan that I felt a sudden breeze. I looked up to see if Mom had opened a window, but she hadn’t. And there was a trail of smoke coming from the bottle.
“I think it worked!” I called out hoarsely.
Mom came running from her bedroom. She looked at the bottle and at me and then sagged forward, her eyes closed. “It worked,” she said. “Just like it always did when your dad was alive.”
I held up the bottle and rubbed some of the liquid on my arm. Then I reached for a kitchen knife. Before Mom could stop me, I stabbed myself right in the arm. The knife glanced off and flew out of my hand, then fell onto the kitchen floor behind me.
“Cool,” I said. Although that was just against a regular, non-magical knife.
Mom handed me the bottle.
I held i
t tight to my chest.
“I’ll start making more,” she said.
I held up the bottle and shook it. There was about a pint in there. How many days would that last? Three? Four?
I hoped Mom would work fast, because I didn’t want to face something worse than a slurg without this.
Chapter 15
When the doorbell rang after dinner that night, I was surprised to see it was Tristan. He wasn’t supposed to be out of the hospital until tomorrow, but he looked good, better than ever. His eyes were bluer, his smile brighter, and he looked great in his jeans and flannel shirt. I caught a glimpse of thick bandages around his chest under his shirt.
“Uh, hi,” I said. Not the wittiest thing ever, but it was all I could do not to get all hot and sweaty around him again. I needed to keep my head on straight. The love philtre could make me feel in love with Tristan, but did I have to act on those feelings? Maybe I could stay with Mark after all. That was surely the more sensible thing to do. He was the one I knew and trusted. I had only just met Tristan, and even if he had saved my life, I didn’t know anything about him.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said, embarrassed that he’d had to ask.
He came in and sat down on the couch, his eyes on me the whole time.
I was suddenly conscious of how messy I looked. I had splatters of invincibility potion on my shirt, and I probably stank of vinegar. My hair was falling out of its barrette, and I was barefoot. Something about Tristan’s being here made me wish I had on shoes and a nice jacket, as a kind of physical barrier between his body and mine.
“When did you get out of the hospital?” I asked, curling my feet against each other.
“Just now.” He glanced down at my feet and then at my face.
Did he feel the same urge to touch me that I felt for him? He certainly looked calmer than I felt, but I tried my best. “You came here instead of going home? What about your uncle? Isn’t he waiting for you?”
Tristan held up his hands. “Please, give me a moment. I will tell you everything I know.” He took a deep breath. “But if you will not let me show my love, I must use some effort to contain it.”
Tris & Izzie Page 9
