Glimmer

by Phoebe Kitanidis

  Fight back.

  I force myself to raise my knee, but he blocks it with his own.

  A knock on the door startles us both.

  Jeffry’s voice hot in my ear. “Keep quiet.” He’s leaning over me, so close I can smell the acrid, angry sweat mingling with his acne cream. My throat opens to gag. His mustache tickles the back of my neck, and the dark flower of rage deep inside me bursts open. Instead of retching, I scream as loud as I can in Jeffry’s face.

  The glass door slides open, and I see Jim and Candace standing there, wearing twin somber looks of horror.

  Jeffry drops his arms and I slip away from him, feeling numb.

  He clasps his hands together and smiles at them, all warm and jovial again. “Oh, hello, folks! Anything I can help you with? Fresh towels?”

  Jim swallows. “We came out to watch the sunset and heard yelling.”

  “We were just having a discussion. Right, Elyse?”

  My scalp is tingling, like an alarm. Not danger, but urgency nonetheless. There’s something I have to do right now. I have to get to my room. Without saying a word, I grab my backpack by its plastic top handle—it feels featherlight—and turn toward the door.

  That’s when I see the ghost slide in behind Candace and Jim, laying a hand on each of their backs. She’s an older lady with a beehive, wearing an old-fashioned suit. Candace and Jim gasp and topple to the floor, and the ghost grabs on to Jeffry next.

  I make a beeline for the door and run through the balmy backyard, sucking down hungry breaths, not stopping till I reach the kitchen.

  Liz is humming cheerfully at the counter as she chops carrots into evenly spaced little orange coins. On the counter a loaf of crusty bread peeks out from the top of a grocery bag. “Hey, you’re home.” She leans over to peck my cheek, and I don’t even feel her lips. “Can I get some help with dinner?”

  “I need to talk to you.” I barely recognize my own voice, it’s so quiet and serious, but Liz doesn’t even look up, just slides her chopped carrot from the cutting board into a roasting pan and starts chopping a second one.

  “I got a late start, hon, so why don’t you peel potatoes while we talk?” She grins and with her free hand passes me a peeler.

  I inspect its loose steel blade and rusted handle. It looks a hundred years old, like maybe Mrs. Preston left it in a drawer somewhere before she died, and then when Liz and Jeffry bought this place it was just one more thing that didn’t have to be changed because it still technically worked.

  “I’m not cooking for him,” I say.

  Did she not hear me? Of course she heard me, she’s just pretending she didn’t. Pretending everything’s okay. Like she must do every day. But I can’t do that. What happened to me today can never happen again.

  My fingers are tingling again. Have to get in my room, now. Lock the door. Shove the dresser in front of it too. I drop the peeler in the sink and back out of the kitchen.

  All the way upstairs my fingers are on fire. As soon as I’ve barricaded the entrance, I march over to my sock drawer. I pull out my stash, stack the bills, and wrap them in a rubber band, and dump it in my backpack. I can’t stay here tonight; I’d rather sleep on a park bench in the town square like that crazy redhead. Sooner or later I’ll find Marshall and we’ll figure out a plan—together. I crumple up all the Hollywood crap into one ball and slam-dunk it into the pink-and-white-striped wastepaper basket.

  Something’s still not right, though, still feels left undone.

  My pulsing fingertips reach for my backpack again, but this time they lift out my binder. Experimentally I tear out a piece of loose-leaf and stare at it. Why’d I just do that? It’s not like I’m going to solve math problems at a time like this. My head turns to face the desk, my eyes focusing in on a blue gel pen. Before I know it the pen’s in my hand and I’m scribbling, filling the page with what just happened. The horrible names he called me. The horrible things he did. At first I write it cold and clinically, then I add in my fear. My helplessness and shame. Angry tears sting my eyes as I write it, but when I get to the end, all I feel is exhaustion. Drained, I sigh a deep breath.

  And that’s when I smell it, Jeffry’s acne-cream-and-sweat scent. A knot of fear rises in my stomach again, but he’s not here. Couldn’t be.

  To reassure myself, I move the dresser and press my ear to the door. I can hear Liz and Jeffry laughing over a TV show together, scraping silverware on plates.

  It’s me. His harsh antiseptic smell is all over me, in my clothes, in my hair. Whatever I do I have to get that stink off me, now. To wash off his aura of judgment.

  My pink clock says 7:03. The show they’re watching just started. My stomach’s still queasy with fear, but I try to reason with it. I’ll take the fastest shower in the world, then I’m out of here. Forever.

  I stumble into my bathroom. My face is red and blotchy in the mirror; so’s the skin on my neck and shoulders. I peel off my clothes and step into the shower. Under the hot water I hug myself and let out a sob that leads to another sob. My belly muscles are contracting, my spine curling forward, as if my body itself is telling me it’s okay to cry, to let go of this awful feeling—till a soft thump behind me makes me freeze.

  What was that?

  Peeking out from one end of the lavender shower curtain, I can see that the bottle of vanilla body lotion on the sink is still teetering back and forth. Something jostled it.

  My heart’s pounding in my throat. I’m trapped.

  On the other side of the curtain a handprint and the outline of a face appear; I let out a piercing scream. A long, shimmering arm reaches toward me. I feel a strange liquid pressure to open my mouth, and my knees feel weak, and I hear the thud on the padded floor, but I don’t even feel my body drop.

  —

  I wake up sputtering rainwater. No, not rain, it’s hot. I’m in the shower, the lavender bathroom. What happened?

  I stand, feeling soreness all over my right side, where I fell. I turn the water off and tie on the white fluffy bathrobe on the door hook, willing myself to put the pieces together. I was at the pool; I jumped in after that little girl who passed out. Then I somehow got home and fell asleep in the shower? My whole body’s aching.

  No, I didn’t fall asleep.

  With a shiver I run to my bedroom. I’m dressing when I see the letter on my desk. I stare at the familiar angular writing. Dear Elyse, it says at the top, and underlined, Remember this happened to you.

  Chapter 24

  MARSHALL

  I pace the block four times before I can bring myself to climb the steps to Bill King’s front porch. I rap on the knocker, fighting my irrational urge to run away. Or maybe not so irrational. After all, I did jump out a second-story window to escape from him yesterday. But he’s my father. Maybe the only family I have left. And there’s a lot we need to talk about.

  There’s no answer. Well, fair enough. After the whole baseball bat incident, I don’t blame him.

  I jiggle the knob. Locked. What now, find a way to climb back in the window?

  A dried-out flowerpot catches my eye. Of course I didn’t notice it yesterday, but this house is the most neglected property on the street by far. The lawn’s two feet high. I lift up the heavy ceramic bowl, where some poor houseplant died ages ago, and hear the clink and scraping on the concrete before the key comes into view. I hesitate.

  This is your house, dumbass, I remind myself. Probably your own spare key.

  Feeling like a criminal nonetheless, I turn the key in the lock and push the door in. “Hello?”

  The living room is dim and stuffy, the only furniture a pair of scuffed IKEA couches. One is covered in piled-up mail. The place smells like tomato soup.

  “Hello?” I nearly bump into a wall of cardboard boxes. Moving boxes. “Bill? Dad?”

  “Marsh?” I can see the bald man in the kitchen, in his bathrobe, shivering on the floor against the closed back door. “Thank god you’re back.” He jumps up and hugs me. It’s weird t
o have a stranger—or someone who seems like a stranger—hug you, but I feel bad for not knowing him, so I pat his back. “I thought I’d lost you,” he says.

  “Sorry about the window,” I say. “And I’m sorry I don’t remember you or anything else.”

  “It’s not your fault.” His finger tugs down the stretchy collar of my T-shirt, revealing the ink eye. His brow furrows. “I don’t understand. It’s still there.”

  I glance down. “Why wouldn’t it be?” It’s a tattoo. You can’t erase them.

  “Because your memories are gone.”

  “Wait, the tattoo is what protects me . . . from losing my memories?”

  “You and your mother both had personal defense spells. But in the end something must have gone wrong with hers.”

  “That must be what Joe was talking about,” I say, putting it together.

  Bill’s head snaps up. “Who’s Joe?”

  “You know, from the Institute.” I stand and turn on the light. Tired of sitting here in the dark. “The guy investigating her death.”

  “An investigator?” He lets out a groan of annoyance. “Freakin’ typical. Those assholes at the Institute did nothing but look down on your mom while she was alive. Now that she’s gone, they finally realize what they had in her.”

  “Why would they look down on her?”

  “Oh, they never understood her work. They’re very traditional, conservative stuffed shirts. . . .” He pauses. “You know, I don’t exactly know the details. Wasn’t my world.”

  “You mean, you’re not an occultist yourself?”

  He shakes his head. “Magic tends to run in families, and it didn’t run in mine. That’s why your mother warded this house. For me. As long as I stay inside, I’m safe; ghosts can’t get in.”

  I feel an ache. “Does that mean you’ve been in this house for over a year?” No wonder he’s a little batty and short-tempered. I have to get him out.

  “It was fine as long as Eva was alive.”

  “Tell me about her,” I say. “Then it’ll be like I remember her too, sort of.”

  He points to a leather-framed photo on the counter. “That’s her.” It’s Eva and a younger Bill together in a Parisian café, croissants and giant coffee cups in front of them. He’s gazing at her adoringly. She’s gazing at the camera straight on. “Eva Moon,” he says. “She was one of those people everybody thinks of by their whole name. Even though she was physically small—I could carry her—she was somehow a big person. She just had that something.”

  I look at the Eiffel Tower behind them. “You traveled a lot.”

  “No, we traveled a lot, Marsh. You’re the one who took that picture. You were always a trooper, you just fit right into our lives.”

  Did I have any choice?

  “I wasn’t sure I wanted kids,” Bill says. “Eva and I had lived such an exciting, amazing life together before we had you, and I was scared of losing that. But we just kept right on traveling. This whole trip to Summer Falls, it was supposed to be a one-time gig to get money that would take us to our next big adventure, a set of New Zealand caves with—”

  “Wait, what do you mean, gig?”

  “Just that. She was hired. Fifty grand to do a fairly simple ritual for an occultist who needed fresh blood.”

  “Blood?” I pull my head back, away from him.

  “Not literal blood,” Bill says patiently. “Fresh blood just means fresh talent. Magical talent, in this case. According to Eva, nothing in the world is permanent. Once a spell—even a powerful spell—has been in place for a hundred years, it starts wearing off. It’s like the elements themselves become immune to the spell worker’s signature. So he or she hires other, younger magicians to refresh it, give it a new spin.”

  “Wait a second. If it takes a hundred years, wouldn’t the original . . . um . . . person be dead?”

  “Normally, yes. But occultists aren’t normal people, as you’ve probably guessed, being one. Often the more talented they are, the more twisted they are. According to Eva, the man who founded this town was downright warped.”

  “Wait, Preston? Shouldn’t he be dead?”

  “After a hundred and fifty years, you’d think, right?” Bill barks a laugh. “I’m not even sure if he still looks human. She did a job once for a spirit that talked to her through Tibetan crystals.”

  I shudder. “How did Preston talk to her?”

  “As far as I know, they communicated by text and email only—anyone could be writing those words. At any rate the gig was simple. She had to walk through his underwater labyrinth. The sacred geometry in her movements would renew the strength of the spell performed more than a hundred years ago. The spell that tied all the local spirits to him, made them his servants. Including the big one, the elemental spirit of the waterfall.”

  Underwater. “That’s how she got hypothermia and died.”

  “No, not then; she did the spell and she was fine. The bastard cheated us though, never paid us a cent, but it wasn’t the first occult scam we ran into. The whole story wasn’t a big deal, in the greater scheme of our lives. Except, when it was over . . . she couldn’t stop thinking about that place.” This is obviously hard for him to talk about. “She said she’s never seen such beauty in the world, felt such power. And then she confessed to me in tears that the founder of Summer Falls was exploiting this beautiful place, using it for evil. She felt so bad that she’d agreed to work for him.”

  “So everything that’s screwed up about this town is because of the founder’s spell?”

  “Hell, this entire town is the founder’s spell. He’s the man, everyone here works for him even if they don’t know it. Anyway, after she did this for him, she started hatching these ideas of how to reset things here and restore the balance. She talked me into renting a house for a month and staying longer so she could investigate. She didn’t even tell me she was planning to go under a second time. I didn’t find out until . . . until some hikers found her body. I couldn’t even go and identify her. I had to send you. That was one of the hardest things, making you be the adult because I couldn’t go out there. But your mother’s spells still worked, even after she was gone. The wards around this house, for example. Elyse can attest to that—she was over here enough.”

  “Really, she was here a lot?” I lean forward, hope quickening my pulse. Had Elyse been a friend of mine after all? I explain about how we woke up and that I stayed at Preston House last night. “Were we close?”

  “Honestly, Marsh, you haven’t been cluing me in that much on your personal life. After your mom passed . . . things haven’t been great between us.” He sounds so morose. “Which is rough when you’re practically the only person I ever see. After she died, I was a mess at first. Then I wanted to get us out, but you wouldn’t help me. First you kept putting off renting a moving truck or even a car, then you flat-out said you didn’t want to leave. Said we’d dragged you all over the world against your will, and now that you finally had a choice, you didn’t feel like moving.”

  I shake my head, feeling my eyebrows knit in confusion . . . not just confusion. Anger. At the guy who left his grieving father to rot in Summer Falls. “Dad . . .” I can’t even say I’m sorry. I don’t feel sorry, because I can’t connect that Marshall to me. “You should have gone without me.”

  “You think I haven’t thought about it?” he says. “Marsh, I built my life around this family. I’ve got nothing left but you and my memories of her. Now I’m the only one left who remembers her. When I lose it, when they catch me, then she’ll really be gone.”

  I can’t stand to see someone so sad. Especially knowing it’s partly my fault. I need to fix this, but how? It seems so much bigger than me. Then I remember that the heatnaps only seem to erase bad memories, not good ones. “Hey, no matter what, you’d still remember the good times,” I say, but it comes out hollow.

  He scowls at me. “I don’t want to just remember the good times,” he says. “What we had was real, and I want to remembe
r it that way.”

  “I get it,” I say, because I wouldn’t want to remember just the happy moments with Elyse. We’ve had hardly any happy moments, in fact, but I wouldn’t want to forget her. “So that’s why you’re stuck here.”

  “It’s not just that,” he says. “I’m worried about you, the types of spells you’re doing lately. It’s hard to get you to come out of your room.”

  “Spells?” I ignored my grieving father because I was practicing magic? But if magic works . . . “What I need is a spell to get my memory back.”

  Bill points to the dusty bookcase. “Magic books are all up there,” he says, gesturing vaguely. “Oh, and you left your kit in your room the other day.” Bill picks up a velvet drawstring bag from the shelf and tosses it to me. “First time I’ve seen you without this in your pocket in five years.”

  I tip the contents into my hands. It’s a pile of elliptical gold coins and a handful of crystals. Gingerly I pick up the clear crystal. Its smooth weight feels just right in my hand. I realize I’m unconsciously sticking out my bent fingers in the same fanglike gesture I made when Dan hit me. I hold the crystal out toward Bill. “Do you know what this is for?”

  “Whoa.” Instantly he ducks away. “Careful with that thing. You never aim those at people.”

  “Got it, sorry.” I put the velvet bag in my pocket. The instinct had felt so natural when I was attacked. Even if Bill was squeamish, I was going to need to figure out how to use these.

  I walk back to the bookcase and open a dozen thick volumes before I find one called Returnings that’s got the right theme. The spell on page 689 is called “Unseal.” It involves doing an unpronounceable incantation over a “charged labor.” Huh? Hard to magic your memory back when you don’t remember how to understand occultist jargon.

  I have to leaf through several more books before I figure out that a “labor” is an object made purely for reasons of love and to “charge” an item is to anoint it with an element from a place of power. Okay, then. That part’s actually pretty simple. Water from the falls, though it’ll involve a hike in the morning.