I didn’t remember that trip anymore—if I ever had, four’s pretty young—but I remembered the picture of it. The picture was the real memory. Where would it go if it wasn’t here—at my mom’s? Put into a box? Only exist in my head?
This world was so far removed from where I’d been earlier today. Nothing here was cement. Nothing here had ever been covered in bones or blood.
I felt the friction that I’d had frequently when I was beginning as a nurse, trying to hold two worlds inside my head. The world that I’d known my entire life—the one with nice couches you could sit in, watching the daily news as it happened to other people, distant on TV—and the world where drunk people tried to hit you, where people turned orange once their livers blew out and then shit themselves until they died.
It was a little like being a prisoner. Once you’d seen the inside, the outside was never really the same again.
“Edie!” My mom spotted me as I walked into the living room.
“Hey, Mom.” I smiled at her, bending down for a hug, stepping through the tunnel from my current life, violent and strange, into this, the recollection of my past. Two-dimensional pictures. Painted leaves. Carefully labeled jars of vacation sand.
My mother smiled at me. “How was your day?” she said, and she patted the couch beside her.
“Good,” I lied, and sat down.
* * *
I spent the afternoon chatting with my mom. She seemed smaller now, even smaller than at our dinner earlier this week. I remembered that Greek myth about Tithonus, who lived forever but was always aging, who eventually shrunk down to the size of a cricket. My mother wasn’t there yet, but she would be, if the cancer didn’t get her first.
“You know, Edie, I’ve been thinking about your childhood. I’m sorry it was hard on you…” She kept talking, but my mind went blank. Oh, God. This conversation? I’d heard people have it at work. I’d lurked in rooms while it was happening, or had been sitting right outside their doors, but I’d never had it myself. Half confession, half absolution. The ordering of affairs.
“I don’t really want to rehash the past,” I blurted out, louder than I meant to. She blinked. “You’ve been a great mom. I’m a pretty awesome kid.”
“But—”
I shook my head. “Shut up.”
It wasn’t that she couldn’t die if we didn’t have that talk … but having it was one more step on the path of inevitability. Accepting what was happening. No turning back. I didn’t care what growths were raging in her right now, I still hadn’t given up.
Even if she had.
She shook her head, gave me a smile, and patted my hand with hers, all bone-thin and skin translucent-white. “Tell me about your new job. Is the doctor there handsome?”
My mom had asked me that at every job I’d ever had as a nurse, ever. “Gah.” I rolled my eyes for comic effect, and grinned at her. “Okay. Yeah. He is.”
My mother chuckled in triumph. “Tell me about him.”
“Okay.”
We hung out until she faded, talking about small things under Peter’s watchful eye. When she wanted to take a nap again, I left. Peter even gave me a hug. I tried to be genuine when I gave him one back.
By the end of my return trip home it was raining in earnest. I ran from the station to my door, and once I got inside I started to gear up. I put on my belt with a silver buckle, and a silver cuff that Asher’d given me for Christmas what felt like a lifetime ago. I took the silver cross down off my wall again and plunked it in my bag. I wasn’t sure how to get to the Reina’s. I pulled out my phone and prepared to text Asher.
There was a knock at my door. Maybe he’d saved me the hassle of a text, heh. I walked up to my front door and looked through the peephole outside.
As soon as I saw who was there, I began latching all the lock chains I’d installed.
“Edie!” Ti protested, from the far side, hearing me work. The Ti of last night hadn’t been able to speak to me, right?
“Ti—where were you last night?” I asked through the closed door. Though the better question to ask might have been who he’d been.
“Edie, come on. Let me in.” He hit the door, and it made me jump.
“Why’re you here?” I yelled through the door.
“I found your badge. In my pocket.” There was a long pause. “Why was it there?”
“Just stay on that side of the doorway, okay?”
Silver wasn’t any good against zombies. Nothing was, except for guns and knives, and I couldn’t imagine hacking Ti up. Plus the most dangerous thing I had in my house was a steak knife.
I opened the door slowly and peered through the chains. He loomed on the other side.
“Do me a favor and try to look harmless, could you?” I asked him. He deflated, taking a step back. “Thanks.”
“Edie, what’s going on here?” Honest confusion played on his face.
I stepped forward and peered out and up at him. “You really don’t know?”
“No. And I don’t like feeling like that.”
“You’re not going to like what I have to tell you then.” I looked to the side, where my neighbor’s front door was closed. “Last night, I saw you with a butcher knife. You’d been cutting bones out of Dren. For a while now, it seems. A month or so.”
Ti blinked. I waited for him to tell me I was lying. If he did, then I’d slam the door in his face. My hands tensed, waiting.
“Go on.”
“I was rescuing him. From where he was trapped. Being tortured. By you, as it turns out. And then you were going to come after us, and somehow you changed your mind. I think you remembered me. You could have hurt me but you didn’t—so maybe you knew who I was. Even if you can’t remember it happening now.”
Ti ran his fingers through his short hair. “Why would I hurt you? And why would I torture Dren?”
“You really don’t remember anything?”
He shook his head slowly.
“What’s the last thing you do remember?”
“Yesterday. I did some construction work for the guy I’m working for now. It’s what I do in the day, while he works on getting me back my soul.” He stared down at his hands. “I remember from sunup to sundown, but not after that.”
“Do you sleep at night?” We’d never done any sleeping when we slept together, when he was with me.
“No. I don’t need to.” I watched him think about the gaps in time. “I don’t remember what I’ve done any night … for a while now.”
“Is the magician you’re with named Maldonado?”
Ti’s brow furrowed deeper. “How did you know?”
I sighed. “Hang on.” I closed the door and undid all the locks. “You’re sure it happens around sundown?”
“Yes. Whatever it is.”
I let him into my apartment and closed the door before I went on. “I saw you with a butcher knife. You’d been filleting Dren.” I sat down on my couch.
He stood there for a moment, processing. “You’re sure?”
I nodded quickly. “There was a chance that you were going to debone me. That’s why I had my badge out. I hoped it still had some magic left in it. And I think you remembered me—you didn’t raise the knife.”
It was clear from the look on his face that he couldn’t believe it. “I would never hurt you, Edie.”
Well, that’s debatable. I kept my witticisms to myself.
Ti looked at his hands like they had blood on them. “How could I have been so blind?”
“Do you remember anything about a girl there?”
“Oh, God, no—what else have I done?”
“She was trapped in a cage. The room she was in was plastered with bones. I couldn’t get her free.”
“Why—why any of that? And why me?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest. You helped him torture Dren—and Dren couldn’t feed off you. Maybe that’s why.”
Disbelief still roiled on Ti’s face. “You rescued him? Why?”
&nb
sp; “Because I couldn’t figure out how to rescue her. And even though Dren’s awful, Ti, no one deserves what happened to him.”
Ti flexed his strong hands. “I know where he is. I’ll kill him.”
“If he’s been controlling you, Ti, you can’t go back to him. Who knows what’ll happen to you tonight.” I looked at my phone. It was six o’clock now—not that far away from sundown. “We have to figure out how to fix you, how to get you cured.”
“How?”
How indeed? I made a face. I only knew one person who could cure the incurable.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ti came willingly with me to the train station. It was so hard not to remember the last time we’d done this, when we’d been on the way to my trial, where the fate I shared with Anna had been sealed. I stood near him, but not too near him—I wanted to protect everyone else on the train if he did go away, but I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about him and me.
For his part, he seemed lost in thought. I bet he was poring over each and every day he remembered, searching for lost memories.
I stepped away and texted Asher. “Hey. I need more time. Ti’s here—he’s safe right now. I’m taking him to the curandero.” Asher didn’t respond to me.
When we got off at the clinic’s stop, the marketplace was winding down; everyone had taken their wares home as it wasn’t safe to sell at night. We walked down to the clinic itself, where a bright blue Three Crosses flyer had been nail-gunned to the door, promising the opening of a grand new church for Santa Muerte’s mass on Friday night. The eighteenth—the day after whatever Maldonado was starving Adriana to do. The street was littered with them—I wondered if there’d been a fight.
“Where to?” Ti asked, looking around.
“I was hoping we’d see Olympio.” I felt safe traveling with Ti. We walked down the street. I tried to remember the way I’d come that night, but it’d been dark, and we’d gone to the Reina’s hideout besides. I recognized one side street and took it, taking us to the mural of Santa Muerte. The sun was beginning to set, giving her an eerie glow. How long did I have? What a wonderful plan this was. I stood in front of her picture. “Hey, you—I’m doing a lot of work here. You want to help me?”
Ti looked from the mural to me. “Edie?”
“Edie!” I turned toward the new person shouting my name and saw Olympio, riding along on a bike too small for him, waving at me. “Hey—Edie!”
“Olympio!” He parked the bike and got off. I hugged him, and he hugged back for a second before he realized it was uncool and pulled away. “Olympio—I need a really big favor.”
Olympio looked over my shoulder at a brooding Ti. “Who’s he?”
“He’s being possessed by Maldonado every night. Can your grandfather cure that?”
He looked Ti up and down, and I wondered what he was seeing with his don. “Of course he can,” Olympio said, but his face was unsure.
“How do we get there from here?”
“I’ll take you the short way. Follow me.” He hopped back on his bike and led the way.
Ti and I walked quickly after him. “This was your plan?” Ti murmured.
“Pretty much.” I crossed my fingers that it was a good one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
We reached Olympio’s grandfather’s building not long before nightfall. Olympio ditched his bike and raced ahead to announce us.
“How is he going to heal me?” Ti asked.
“I’m not sure. But he fixed me up when I was in dire straits. I wouldn’t bring you here if I didn’t think he could help.” I took his hand in mine as we walked in the door.
Olympio came back down to find us as we were taking the first set of stairs. There was a child crying behind one of the thin walls. I tried not to think about what would happen if I was wrong; if Maldonado’s power over Ti couldn’t be broken, just where would I be setting him loose? It was hard not to yank him down the hall.
Olympio opened his grandfather’s door and waved us in. “He said yes. Come on.”
* * *
Ti ducked under streamers hung from the ceiling near the door. “Edie,” he chastised, seeing all the candles and statuary lying about.
“He’s magic. In a good way. I promise.”
Olympio’s grandfather was tearing off strips of tinfoil to lay on the floor while muttering what I assumed were prayers to himself. When he saw Ti he made an exclamation.
“What?” I asked Olympio. Olympio turned, eyes widening.
“I saw, but I didn’t see—” He was gawking at Ti. “You didn’t tell me he was really dead!”
“You didn’t ask. I thought you could see—”
“I thought it was a dead man’s curse. Not that he was actually dead.”
“He’s a zombie. Does that change things?”
Olympio’s normally confident expression crumpled. “My grandfather says we’re charging you triple.”
Ti snorted softly.
The curandero said something aloud, and Olympio translated. “Bring him over here. There’s not much time.”
* * *
Ti stood where they showed him to stand, facing us near the door, although he was giving me exasperated looks. The curandero went around the room on his crutches, lighting candle after candle. It was getting later; I could feel it, even if I couldn’t see the sun going down. The curandero started chanting while he moved, crutch-hopping from place to place, gathering herbs strung up from his ceiling to dry.
Any moment now Luz would be waking up. I hoped she listened to Asher and Catrina. And any second now Ti could be going away for the night.
“First the Donkey Lady, and now this—” Olympio tsked. His grandfather glared at him and started praying loudly.
* * *
As the sun disappeared outside, Ti became still. His countenance changed from a grimace as he tolerated my elaborate prank upon him to slack, unemotional smoothness.
“He’s gone,” Olympio whispered to me.
“And Maldonado?” I whispered back.
Olympio shook his head quickly. “Don’t say his name while you’re in here.”
The curandero swung over to Ti, beating him with a bunch of herbs tied together, whisking first at his exposed skin, then starting from the top of him, slowly beating lower, increasingly awkwardly, dangling from one crutch. When he reached Ti’s feet, he stood straight to start over again. I had no idea what he was saying, but he was loud.
“It’s going to be difficult,” Olympio narrated to me. “He’s made of magic—it’ll be hard to pull the malo magic out of him while leaving him whole. How do you know him?”
“He’s an old friend.”
“You and your friends,” Olympio said.
At least Ti was still for the procedure. He hadn’t moved an inch since the curandero had begun. I was getting tired of standing and went to lean back against the wall. Ti’s amber eyes tracked me. Angry, accusing, scared? They were impossible to read, and then they closed, as slack as the rest of him. I hoped Asher was okay.
When the curandero had finished hitting him with herbs, he lit them on fire and set them in a metal pan. When’s the last time the fire marshal visited? I wondered darkly. Then the curandero pulled out a white egg.
I was surprised to see it wasn’t already black. I assumed that part of the procedure was sleight of hand—still might be, I realized. I kept an eye on the egg while the curandero waved it over Ti’s body, praying even more loudly, as if he could shout Maldonado’s influence away.
I nudged Olympio. “What’s the point of this?”
“Same as when he did it to you. My grandfather’s pulling the bad energy out of him and putting it into the egg.”
“Poor egg,” I said.
“Better it than us. The energy has to go somewhere.”
Between the candle smoke in the room and the endless chanting, I started feeling claustrophobic. But I didn’t want to disrupt the ceremony. Gah, did I really believe in magic now? Was I one of
those people? I always wanted to punch those people at the hospital, when they’d brought their crystals into their sick friends’ rooms and hung Tibetan prayer banners from the walls.
It wasn’t even the paraphernalia so much as the type of people who enthusiastically believed in it, and tried to convert you to their tantric chanting ways. When you’re performing actual science, those people get irritating fast. And I didn’t want to get started on the patients who believed crazy things, like water was poisonous, and mosquitoes were recording their conversations. Some people’s brains were porous due to stupidity, damage, or drugs, and once bad ideas got in there, they were impossible to shake out again.
But there was magic in the world. The vampires and were-things and shapeshifters, I could blow off as alternative life-forms. But whatever held Ti together was truly magic—hell, he’d been alive since the Civil War.
Magic, and a strange hope he could be happy someday, even if he had to wait until he got to heaven. Ti was strangely like my mom. I snorted and smiled at him, and his eyes opened.
The curandero splashed what must have been pure alcohol on the herbs in the pie tin at Ti’s feet, and lit it into flame with a cheap plastic lighter. It would figure that there was no smoke alarm in this room, and that Ti used to be a firefighter.
“You okay?” I whispered to him, hoping he could read my lips. He didn’t respond. The curandero’s prayers went quiet and intense, then loud again, repetitively, as if his words were ocean surf. He lunged in and pressed the egg against Ti’s forehead.
At first I thought it was smoke from the fire he’d already illegally lit—the blackness swirling around the white eggshell. Then the egg changed color like it was being dipped in weak dye, turning a gray so faint I could hardly see it, then progressively becoming darker, until the shell was night black.
Olympio raced around me into the back room, then returned with another egg. He ran up to exchange this one with his grandfather while carefully setting the black one into the charred pie pan. I could swear it started rocking from side to side.
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