“It might not do anything,” she warns. “I can’t say my magic has been having a huge success rate throughout this whole adventure, but—“
“Adventure?” I laugh with derision. “You think of this as an ‘adventure?’ We both nearly died and I ended up in a coma because someone ripped my magic out of me, leaving my body to rot without me inside. Great adventure.”
She barely lets me finish before saying, “Poor choice of words, I hear you.”
“I don’t think you do, Cindy.” I stop her from continuing. “You have never in your life heard anything I, or anyone else said unless it pertained to you. You couldn’t be bothered to mention the fact Al is a wizard. He could have tried to take my magic at any point while you ran off on your idiotic ‘adventure.’ Do you give a crap what happens to me, or would it all have been a whole lot easier if I never woke up?”
“Don’t you dare.” Her voice cracks as she says the words. “You think I haven’t been sick with worry about you? You think I haven’t been awake every second since this happened thinking of ways to fix you? Ways to make you okay again. You think I don’t give a shit about you? Obviously you know nothing about me. Not very surprising. After all, you’re Princess Lou. You have your head so far up your ass you don’t see what’s going on around you. And yes, I know that’s a bad analogy right now, but you know exactly what I mean.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You think I don’t pay attention?”
“I think you spend so much time making Mom or your latest boyfriend or your terrible friends think you’re so perfect you don’t know what else you could be anymore. You used to be interesting. You used to actually care about other people. Now all you do is go through the motions and hope no one notices you were dead inside long before your magic was sucked out of you.”
I want to shout something back. Scream at her. Tear off her face. Do something. But I can’t. I feel limp. It’s like she can see inside of me and knows exactly what to say to hurt me the most.
But it’s not true. Not entirely. Maybe I was headed there before. I’d been doing everything I was told, become friends with the people I was expected to become friends with, but I started to change. I took up Taekwondo though I knew no one approved.
What had Al said? Something about how I thought of fighting as another dance?
“How should I act, more like you?” I ask. “Go out with guys I don’t like. Get into dangerous situations for the thrill? Change my looks every other day?”
A sound of disgust rises from her throat. “You should act however you want. I don’t care what you do. You should be you. And stop judging everyone else because they don’t do everything exactly how you think they should.”
“This hasn’t been an adventure.” I bring back the point I made before the whole shouting match started. Even to my ears I sound like I’m sulking.
“And if you’d have let me finish, you’d already know I’ve been out looking for magic to help you.” She stops to let her words sink in and make me feel a whole lot worse about my explosion. “Ass.”
The last bit describes exactly how I feel. But, I can’t apologize and I definitely can’t say what I’m thinking without her making some snide comment, so I half laugh and grumble, “I hate you.”
“Hate you too, sis.” She rubs the top of my head affectionately. “Now I’m going to put some stuff on your face. Let me know if any of it works.”
“Wait! My face? What are you putting on my-Blargh!”
Something cold, wet and slimy spreads over my forehead, smears over my eyebrows and then gently presses onto my eyelids. I pull away, but Cindy only puts more of the gunk onto my face.
“Stop moving,” she says, a little too pleased with herself. “I have to really get it on there. The more you fight me, the more gets in your hair.”
As though I didn’t already look bad enough. “It’s in my hair? Ugh!”
I bat her hand away and run my fingers through my now goopy locks in horror. When I pull my hands away I realize my mistake. Now it’s not only on my face and in my hair, but also on my hands. Great. I don’t have anything to wipe them on.
She finally sighs. “I guess that’s enough. Don’t move while I do the spell.”
I stop leaning back though I point one finger at her in warning. “If you do something to ruin my hair or burn off my eyebrows or something, I will kill you.”
“Don’t worry, Lou.” Hers hand grip my shoulders as she forces me to lean toward her a little. “I work in illusions and visions, not with burning stuff.”
I take a deep breath and prepare for the strange tingling feeling of magic.
“Plus, if I do destroy your face I can illusion it to look the same. No prob.”
“What? Wait!”
But it’s too late, the tingling and burning has already started as Cindy says a few words in a foreign language. I didn’t know she knew anything other than English and maybe like four words of French.
I squeeze my eyelids shut tighter as the magic shifts to focus completely on my eyes. I’ve never needed to rub them more. And then the feeling stops.
Chapter Twenty One
“Going to open your eyes or what?” I recognize the sound of Cindy tapping her fingers on her thigh.
My face twists in disgust. “I can’t open them with this gook all over my face.”
She sighs and the bed shifts as she jumps off and rushes away. I catch myself imitating her finger tap and force myself to stop. I can’t get too excited yet. Not until I know one way or another. She returns after only a few seconds and presses some sort of material to my skin, holding it there until I take it and wipe off my face.
As soon as I open my eyes I close them again.
“Well?” she asks.
I can’t speak. Hysterical sobs form at the back of my throat, but I manage to swallow them back. Finally I shake my head, but I’m sure she already understands from the look on my face.
“Shit,” she growls.
For once she’s understating how I feel.
“Shit, shit, shit. It should have worked. There was enough magic in the stuff to heal anything. Combined with my specialty with vision, it should have been more than enough.”
I feel like I should be comforting her somehow. At least let her know it’s not her fault and thank her for trying. Instead I focus on not letting more tears come.
Cindy touches my face a few times, as though that will make a difference. “There must be something else. There must be some other plant, or magical item, or maybe we could find another sorceress, or—“
“No.” I speak firmly to stop her from saying any more.
“Lou, I can fix this. You have to trust me.”
“How dangerous would a search be?” I ask, knowing she has no answer. “How long would it take? And what if it’s all for nothing? What if nothing can make this better?”
She wavers for a minute. “I have to do something.”
“And what about Mom? Are we going to leave her wondering if we’re alive or dead?” I don’t want to start another argument, but she has to know we can’t stay forever. “We have to go back. We belong there.”
“Yeah, but, what if we don’t really?” she says.
Her question confuses me. “Of course we do.”
“But think about it. Why don’t we see witches and wizards and sorceresses in our world?” She waits a beat, but I don’t say anything. “Maybe they don’t belong there. Maybe they all come from this world and have gone through a portal like the one in Gran’s house. What if the only reason we were born in our world was because Gran came from here? It would mean this is where we’re supposed to be.”
I shake my head. In some weird way she makes sense, but this still isn’t our home.
“We can’t do that to Mom.”
She heaves the longest sigh I’ve ever heard and settles farther back on the bed until I hear a thud which I can only imagine is her head hitting the wall.
“She’s going t
o kill me,” Cindy says after a minute.
I groan. “You and me both.”
She laughs. “You? No. You’re her perfect princess, remember? I’m older than you and it isn’t like this is my first offense. Plus, I not only allowed you to regain your magic, but also have the same magic sucked out of you, which put you in a coma, and then made you blind. Oh no, she’s going to do worse than murder me.”
“Maybe we should leave out the magic and coma stuff.” I snort.
She’s not as amused. “What about the blindness thing? Tell her you woke up one morning and, oops, you couldn’t see?”
“Well,” I say. “It’s the truth.”
She groans and I can sense her move her arms like she’s messing up her hair with both hands.
“Fine,” she says. “I’ll call her. Think you can get my phone to work here?”
“Don’t know,” I admit. “I’ll try.”
When she hands me her phone, at first I have no idea where to begin. And then I remember the spell with Al. It seemed to work because of a combination of willing it to and being able to connect to him in a way I can’t quite explain. It was like there was no difference between where I ended and he began. Everything is a different level of energy, and it’s simply a matter of shaping my magic to connect rather than conflict with the energy.
Or, at least, that might be how it works.
I focus on the phone the same way I’d focused on Al. At first, all I can feel is the cold plastic. There isn’t a trace of magic in the thing. It’s kind of like the technology repels the energy everything else is packed with. As I concentrate, I notice a slight change in the feel of the phone. The cool temperature shifts as it absorbs the heat from my hand. If it can absorb warmth, then it can also take in my magic.
The tingling barely registers in my mind as I gently press my magic into the plastic and let it bleed into every inch of the thing. Once I can feel the phone as though it’s a simple, though odd, extension of myself, I hand it back to Cindy.
“I think it will work,” I tell her.
“Perfect.” She stands up from the bed and starts pacing. “And so you know, you make faces when you’re using your magic.” I open my mouth to protest but she interrupts by announcing, “Amazing, it’s actually ringing.”
I sneer and roll my eyes. “Thanks for the confidence.”
There’s a click indicating someone on the other end of the line has picked up. “Listen, Mom, before you say anything, things aren’t nearly as bad as they seem,” Cindy says quickly, making me cringe as I can imagine Mom’s reaction. There wasn’t much worse she could have started with.
But when the sound of Cindy pacing suddenly stops, I notice the noise from the other side of the phone isn’t Mom’s screams as I expect. Instead it’s deeper. A man’s voice. But who...
“Stewart,” Cindy says at the same moment I realize who’s on the other line. Her voice cuts out as she says the word and she’s forced to take a couple of sharp breaths before saying, “What do you want?”
I can’t make out most of what he says, but there’s no mistaking the word “box.” The rest doesn’t matter. I know what he wants and he’s got a bargaining chip we can’t ignore. Mom. The air seems to grow heavier as everything around me slows and blurs. It can’t be real. This can’t be happening. Not now. Things are starting to be okay again. I can deal with the blindness. I can go back home and maybe even get along with Cindy and everything will be almost normal again.
“Where do you want to do the exchange?” Cindy’s voice no longer holds the fear it did before, instead sounding cold and emotionless. I don’t know which frightens me more, her being afraid or her giving up.
“Fine,” she finishes and the sound of Stewart’s voice is gone.
Neither of us says a word. There’s no need. I reach over to my purse, find the box and hand it over. But to my surprise, she doesn’t take it.
“What are you waiting for?” I ask. “We have to go make the exchange. Who knows what he’s going to do to her. What he’ll get Borin to do.”
“It’s not going to be so easy,” she says.
She leaves the room, still without taking the box from my hand. I stand and stumble my way after her. Luckily she hasn’t gone far. I run into her as her fist slams against wood, possibly another door. It has to be the one to Al’s sister’s room.
“What’s his game?” Cindy demands as soon as the door squeaks open.
“What are you talking about?” Al asks.
“You’re a wizard. You’ve been trained as one and while you might not want to admit it, you think like one. So tell me, what’s Stewart’s end game?”
“What’s happened?” he asks. “What has he done?”
“He’s got our mother,” Cindy tells him. At the word mother, her voice breaks, revealing how close she is to tears, though I know she won’t show her fear for more than a second. She continues angrily. “He wants the box in exchange. But he’s not going to let it end with that, is he?”
“No,” Al agrees. “Not after you tricked him the way you did. How do you know he’s got her?”
“I talked to him. She was in the background.”
“Did she sound hurt?” I ask, desperate to know, but afraid of what Cindy might tell me. “Is she okay?”
“She sounded pissed,” she half laughs, though there’s a note of the same fear from earlier.
“And there’s no way it was a trick?” Al asks. “Maybe he was using magic to make it sound like it was her.”
“He answered her cellphone.” She chokes on her words but is able to continue on without pausing. “She never lets go of the thing. Plus, I know illusions, and that wasn’t one. Trust me, he’s got her.”
“And he says he wants the box,” Al confirms.
“We need to give it to him,” I say. I don’t understand why we’re discussing this right now; it all seems so simple to me. “We give it to him, he gives us Mom.”
“You would be making a mistake,” Al says.
“Why?” I ask. “I understand the box is magic and he’ll use it for evil, but it’s still only a box. We’re talking about our mother’s life.”
“Because it doesn’t matter if we give him the box, he’s not going to let any of us go,” Cindy says. “He will kill us all the second we hand the thing over.”
None of this feels real. Who would actually kill someone over a box? Even a magic one. Accepting magic as being real was easier than believing people like Stewart exist. And he’s got my mother right now.
“You do have one advantage, though,” Al reminds us. “He doesn’t know you brought Lou back. And he probably doesn’t think I’d stick around to help you either. I’ll bet he expects you to go alone.”
“He also doesn’t expect me to be coming from another world,” Cindy agrees. “But there’s something you’re not saying. What is it?”
He doesn’t speak for a long time.
“How bad is it?” Cindy asks, surprising me. I wish I could see Al’s face to know why she’s so worried, but then again, maybe I’m better off not seeing.
“It’s just, if you’re right and the voice wasn’t an illusion...”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then now you’ve heard it, there’s no reason for him to keep her alive.”
“No!” I don’t realize I’m repeating the word until I’ve said it at least half a dozen times. “He can’t. She can’t be...”
“There’s always a chance he’ll decide it’s better to keep her alive until you arrive,” he says, though I can hear the doubt in his voice.
Hands grip my shoulders and shake me several times, but I barely feel it. It’s impossible not to picture Mom’s body broken and bleeding on the floor with Stewart standing over her with a cruel smile spread across his face.
“Stop it,” Cindy says as she shakes me. “Do not fall apart now. Not when we need you more than ever. When Mom needs you.”
I push her hands off me and nod once.
“W
hat do you want me to do?”
“There isn’t a choice,” Al says.
Before he finishes, I already know what he’s going to say.
“You need to kill Stewart.”
Chapter Twenty Two
“Kill him?” My words come out meekly.
“It’s the only way,” Al says.
“Whoa, hold on now,” Cindy says. “We have magic now. I mean, not a lot and she’s still getting used to it, granted, but couldn’t there be another way?”
“A spell can be broken.” His warning sends a chill down my spine. “He would come after you stronger than ever.”
“We’re talking about murder.” I almost think Cindy is going to be reasonable for a minute. I should have known better. “How would we manage it? It’s not like he’s going to hand us a gun and say, ‘go to ‘er.’”
“Are you seriously saying you could?” I ask, horrified at the thought. I’m not sure who I’m asking, though I suppose it doesn’t matter since I can’t picture either of them as murderers. “If you had the chance, could you really kill someone?”
“It’s him or you,” Al says.
“There has to be another way,” Cindy says. “Something not involving jail time.”
“Yes, or murder,” I say. “If you tell me what to do, I’m sure I can manage it. I’m starting to get the hang of this magic thing.”
Not exactly true, but I’m desperate to steer things away from killing. Every time they mention it, all I can see is blood and horror and I can’t open my eyes to make the images go away.
Cindy snaps her fingers. “The rock in the barn. Everyone froze stiff as long as they were looking at it. There has to be something more permanent we can use.”
“Maybe,” Al says. “I know a place where you might find a way.”
Cindy’s interest is piqued. “Is it close?”
“It’s your grandmother’s house.” Al doesn’t sound pleased to say as much.
“Can’t,” Cindy says. “Stewart’s waiting for us there. We need a plan before we go anywhere near the place.”
The Box Omnibus #1 (The Box, The Journal, The Sword) Page 16
