Love Me, Love Me Not

by Alyxandra Harvey

  But in the mornings, we used their blood. We sang an old ballad as we worked, because it was tradition.

  We wore our white moon dresses, because it was tradition.

  The wind twisted through the long grass to listen to us sing a song no one remembered anymore. It was about a sly fox and the way he was caught. For Reynard, sly Reynard lay hid there that night; And we swore we would watch him until the daylight.

  No wonder people thought we were weird.

  Luckily they couldn’t see Rosalita painting a smear of blood on the ground between the iron gates. She used a birch twig because, again, that was tradition. Magic tingled through us until the air shimmered and glowed just a little more than direct sunlight could explain.

  Tally-ho, hark away, tally-ho, hark away; Tally-ho, hark away me boys away, hark away.

  Rosalita tossed the twig aside. “If there’s blood on my dress I’m going to be really pissed.” We had to wash our moon dresses by hand in a wooden tub painted with swans. We also had to gather the kindling ourselves to light the fire to boil the water mixed with lavender, marigold petals, grown in our gardens. Apparently the washing machine just wasn’t good enough for magic dresses and magic cloaks.

  Rosalita stormed off, followed by Mei Lin, who shuffled behind her, yawning. She was definitely not a morning person. “I’m going to patrol,” Sonnet said, crossing over into the fields. She wasn’t a morning person either, but she loved the idea of stabbing an unwary Renard.

  “I guess that leaves me to find Aisha,” I muttered. We had to check in after the spell was strengthened. I liked visiting Aunt Aisha even though she lived in the woods behind the house. It was her twin sister, Morag, I could do without. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but she was a lot to take in.

  The forest behind the house was hundreds of acres with secret creeks and ponds and enough pine and cedar to offer decent cover even in the winter. Swans might blend in the snow but naked girls didn’t. Aisha and Morag lived in a small shack made mostly of cedar trees and pine boughs. A fire burned inside all day and all night during the colder months. Technically, Aisha only slept here; she was the only one who could keep Morag calm. When her cloak was stolen, Morag went feral in a way the other aunts didn’t. She got it back, but she was already different. Our cloaks were a part of us, even before we got our wings. The loss of our wings—or not getting them in the first place—tended to leave its mark.

  If Edward didn’t ask me out soon, the future might be grim.

  Aunt Felicity lost her cloak as well but had never found it again. She reacted in the opposite way; she hadn’t left the house in twenty-three years. Her oddness was strangely delicate: she sighed and fluttered and stared off into space. Morag offered me dead mice as playthings, and that was on her gentle days.

  Today was not a gentle day.

  She wore a necklace of swan feathers, the spines broken and frayed. She’d also made a crown of more feathers and dandelions and red leaves for her hair. It rested on her soft afro, more sad than regal. She wasn’t crazy, not really. She just never stopped being a swan. She was eating a handful of berries and the head of a raw fish when I walked into the clearing. She hissed and threw the fish guts at me. I only managed to duck away unscathed because of long practice. And Aisha’s strict training regimen to protect us against the Renards. Mostly it protected us from each other.

  “I’ll take your cloak, girl,” she seethed. “Or I’ll take your spine.”

  “Good morning to you too, Aunt Morag.”

  Swans are known to be territorial and vicious in their defense. Morag was no different. She lifted her arms up and back as though they were wings and rushed at me. I backed up so quickly my hair tangled in a low-hanging branch. She laughed, shrill and sharp. “He made a harp o’ her breast-bone, Whose sounds would melt a heart of stone. The strings he framed of her yellow hair.”

  When your day started with decade-old battle-blood and your aunt singing about making a harp from your bones and your hair, it’s probably best just to go back to bed.

  “Hush, Morag.” Aunt Aisha came from behind, tugging my hair free with a painful yank. “Eat your breakfast before the ants steal it.”

  Morag crouched over her meal, shoulder hunched protectively. Aisha’s hair was honey-hued and twisted into short dreadlocks. She didn’t wear feathers or flowers, just old jeans and a hunting knife at her belt. “Shield spell is up?”

  I nodded. “Rosalita did it.”

  “Ana,” Aunt Aisha called out as I picked my way between the trees. “Don’t skip the moon dancing tonight.”

  As if she’d let me.

  Pierce

  I was late for school again.

  Nana had no respect for timetables that didn’t include her. And she had no respect for my books. I found her stuffing a garbage bag full of them.

  “You read too much,” she snapped when I grabbed the bag from her. “It makes you weak.”

  Actually, it made me strong. But she was currently making me hyperventilate. It took me years to build my collection. I haunted the used bookstores and library sales the way Ana haunted the ponds gathering swan feathers. “Nana, I need these.”

  “You need food and air. Not books.”

  “Then you’ll be getting rid of your rifle collection. You only need the one.”

  “Don’t sass me.” Nana loved her guns. To be fair, her hunting abilities kept us fed. But I was proving a point here.

  I held the bag behind my back. “You can’t throw out my books.” I was going to have to get a new lock for my bedroom door. And store most of my books in the truck for a while.

  “They distract you.”

  “Good,” I shot back.

  Jackson poked his head in from the porch. “Are we going or what?”

  I worked at the café to pay the bills around this falling-down cabin. I knew how to hang a pheasant until it turned green, how to skin a rabbit, and how to find turkeys in the woods. Not to mention the fact that I was in love with my best friend who was some kind of magical swan creature in her spare time. Maybe escaping was okay once in a while.

  Like right now.

  “We have to get to school,” I said.

  I took the bag of books with me.

  Ana

  “Not this again.”

  There was the soft rumble of a fight brewing: the telltale rise in voices, the scuff of shoes on the pavement of the school’s outdoor courtyard, that magnetic pull of faces all turning in the same direction. I was determined to ignore it, bent over my open history textbook on the picnic table. The moon dancing had eaten into my homework time, and if I fell behind in history, I would be so pissed.

  “It’s Rosalita,” Mei Lin told me, standing on the bench to get a better look. She was eating a rope of red licorice, as always.

  “Of course it’s Rosalita,” I shot back. She may as well have told me night is dark and water is wet. “It’s always Rosalita. And you owe me ten bucks. You said she’d last until Halloween before the first fight.”

  Mei Lin made a face at me. I turned back to my book, but the agitated shouts continued to press on my concentration. I tried to focus on my class notes. Napoleon. France.

  Someone started a chant, clapping and stomping in unison on the ground.

  Napoleon invades Russia. In winter. Short guy in a funny hat.

  Damn it.

  Once Rosalita got a spoonful of male attention she was instantly drunk on it. She’d flutter around the farm all night until I’d want to stick her with one of her own arrows. Not to mention she always got worse on the days she poured the Renard blood. And if I was refusing to be distracted by Edward for the first time ever, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be distracted by her violent flirting.

  I pushed through the crowd more forcefully than was strictly necessary. It wasn’t their fault that my cousin was annoying. Still, they were in my way, chanting and yelling and hoping to see blood on the grass. And frankly, our family couldn’t afford to be associated with any more blo
od.

  The two boys currently fighting were Samuel, who Rosalita had dated over the summer, and Jackson. It didn’t bode well that he was already throwing punches for Rosalita and it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she’d flirted with him in the woods. I’d hoped he’d be distracted by her enough not to question our excuses, but not like this. Not with the magic taking root inside him. Rosalita flipped her hair.

  I was never going to get any studying done.

  “Hey!” I marched right into the fight, slamming my elbow down on Jackson’s outstretched arms. His hands fell away from Samuel’s throat. It wasn’t enough. They went at each other again, colliding with enough force to knock me backward. I landed on my tailbone, pain shooting up my spine. Students loomed over me, laughing and yelling even louder.

  Not for the first time, I considered homeschooling.

  Especially when Edward caught my eye, wincing sympathetically. Liv stood next to him, smirking. She always managed to show up when I was being embarrassed. I blamed it on her Renard genes. Her red hair was the color of a fox pelt. I’d tried to yank it out when we were seven.

  Once I caught my breath and was reasonably certain I hadn’t splintered anything necessary, I scooted closer. I kicked Samuel first because I’d never liked him—he’d cornered me against the lockers once. Possibly I used a bit of my own magic to make his yell sound like a toy-squeak. I kicked the back of his knee next and he pitched forward, taking Jackson with him. I considered knocking their skulls together, but I was pretty sure I’d get detention for that. Plus, it was mostly Rosalita’s fault. She was singing something under her breath and the wind shivered through the trees, sprinkling red-edged leaves over us. She was the real reason I’d nearly broken my ass. When we sang, magic always answered.

  I didn’t stay to watch, or to get caught by the principal currently running across the lawn toward us, waving his hands frantically.

  Pierce fell into step with me. “Nice moves, Vila.”

  He smirked. I tried not to smirk back, but as always, it was a losing battle. “Aren’t you going to check on your brother?”

  He just snorted. “If Jackson landed on his head, he’s fine. He puked all morning, which he totally deserves.”

  “Damage control?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing about swans, believe me I’d have heard about it. But he won’t shut up about hot girls chasing them. It’s like a slumber party summer camp daydream to them.”

  “Ew. But that’s pretty much what I told Aunt Aisha, so you shouldn’t have half a dozen insane blond women with bows and arrows on your doorstep—”

  “Miss Vila.” It was our history teacher, eyebrows raised knowingly.

  I froze, groaning. “Ms. Pritchard.” At least detention would give me much-needed time to study.

  The wind snapped branches together over her head. “I’ll hold the quiz for you while you get an icepack from the nurse.” She winked. “Well done, by the way.”

  Ms. Pritchard was new but, for obvious reasons, she was becoming my favorite teacher.

  The ice helped my bruises, but it didn’t help me pass her history quiz.

  “Damn it, Sonnet.” I slapped at her hand, but it was too late. She’d already effectively ruined the spell. “Now they’re just cupcakes.”

  “Which means now I can eat them.” She grinned, unrepentant. Her hair was caught up in the middle to look like a cross between a Mohawk and a ponytail. She was already licking frosting off her thumb. They say love fuels our magic, but I think sugar is far more likely.

  I pulled out another bowl and started measuring ingredients. I stirred clockwise. I added nine drops of vanilla and juice from a lemon pierced with pins. Magic was in the details and Sonnet had just ruined an hour of preparation to get her sugar fix. And I had an essay on Romeo and Juliet to research. It was worth more than half our grade.

  Pierce leaned against the kitchen counter, paperback novel forgotten by his elbow. He loved watching me do magic, even now when it was directed against his own brother. His dark eyes followed my every movement as I stirred vinegar into the bowl, to sour Jackson’s feelings for Rosalita. Pierce made a face. “I know Jackson’s a bit of a meathead, but won’t he taste that?”

  “Please.” Sonnet rolled her eyes. She was nicer to Pierce than any other guy, mostly because he never flirted with her. “Even if he did, he’ll eat the batch if he thinks Rosalita made them.”

  “They’d taste a lot worse if she made them,” I put in. “Anyway, lots of cupcakes have vinegar in them. You can’t tell.” I added lavender buds from my back garden. The milk was from the fridge, but the water had been gathered during a thunderstorm on the night of a full moon. I’d added an iron nail to a vial of the water for this very purpose. Luckily, I hadn’t used all of my supplies for the first batch of batter.

  “And that’s it?” Pierce asked. He always asked that. “It seems too simple.”

  “Magic is simple.” I shrugged. “It’s people who are complicated.”

  “Very deep,” Sonnet said.

  “But if I used that same recipe, I’d end up with regular cupcakes,” Pierce insisted.

  “Magic needs a spark,” I explained. “I’m the spark.”

  “And I’m licking the bowl.” Sonnet clutched it to her chest like Pierce was going to take it.

  He snorted. “As if I’d dare. You’d break my fingers.”

  I carefully washed out the bowl with the remains of Jackson’s cupcake batter. There was a faint giggle from outside. Sonnet sighed in response, disgusted. I grinned at Pierce. “Don’t look now but your fan club is here.”

  Three of my younger cousins had their noses pressed to the glass. They shrieked when Pierce looked in their direction. He’d grown into his face since grade school and he was seriously good-looking now. His jawline was kind of sexy and his smile made him approachable. But mostly my little cousins had been crushing hard since this summer when he’d taken off his shirt to help me in the garden. He was lean and strong, and even I’d snuck a second look.

  Sonnet marched outside with her batter-smeared bowl, waving the wooden spoon as she chased them into the woods, shouting, “Have a little dignity!”

  I set the timer, then we sat on the lumpy couch while both batches of cupcakes baked. Dad and I lived in one of the small cabins scattered around the main house. Most of the cousins or mothers who weren’t any good at looking after themselves lived together at Cygnet House. Magic is great and all, but it won’t cook you breakfast or do your laundry. And it really doesn’t care if you’ve done your homework or not.

  The few families who were relatively stable had their own cabins, like ours. It was tiny and smelled of cedar all year round. There was a central room with the kitchen and wood stove and two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. Dad used his bedroom as an art studio and built himself a sleeping loft in the corner opposite the wood stove. He mostly painted swans and enormous oil portraits of my mother. I might not remember her very well, but she still looked at us from every corner of the cabin. There was a basket of swan feathers I collected in my room; one of them might even be hers. Her paintings were everywhere, too (my parents met in art class). She mostly did abstracts but there were a few family portraits, mostly leaning toward the creepy.

  “I bombed the test,” I told Pierce, leaning back against an embroidered cushion.

  “It was barely a quiz,” he replied, his dark hair flopping onto his forehead. “And it was the first one. Doesn’t count.”

  “Easy for you, you remember everything you’ve ever read.” Even now his backpack was so full of books the town library probably had to shut its doors due to temporary book shortage. “We should study.” I didn’t move.

  “Of course.” He leaned his head back. He smelled nice, like coffee and paper. I’d read somewhere that old paper has a vanilla scent. Like Pierce. It made me want to snuggle in like a cat. We used to nap together as little kids, all elbows and cookie crumbs. Now his arm was warm but decidedly unyielding under m
y cheek.

  “You really did get all muscly,” I murmured sleepily.

  Last night caught up to me all at once and I was asleep before he could reply. Pierce must have dozed off, too, because when the oven timer woke me up, he was snoring and Dad was standing over us, looking unimpressed.

  His eyes were sharp behind his glasses. Tattoos meandered out from under both sleeves: swans, swirls, stars. “I think it’s time you went home, Pierce,” he said loudly.

  “Yes, sir.” Pierce shot to his feet even though his eyes were only half open and he probably hadn’t actually heard what my dad said. We used to clamber up the ladder and use Dad’s loft for sleepovers and he never cared. Plus, right now we were in plain sight in the middle of the afternoon. And how much trouble could we actually get in, fully clothed and totally asleep? And it was Pierce, muscly arms notwithstanding. “I have to get to work,” he mumbled.

  “Dad, it’s not even like that.” Which he totally knew. I didn’t add that if it had been Edward, he might have had a reason to look all pinchy.

  He wasn’t convinced anyway.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  When Aunt Agrippina called to ask me to pick her up at the hospital where she worked as a nurse, Dad let me take his car. Sonnet was out in the woods with Soliloquy, and Story was meditating. She went all out on moon nights, chanting and ohming until someone knocked on her bedroom wall. Some of us took being a magical creature more seriously than others. It was just another part of me, like having brown eyes and a hatred of kale. And an aunt with a flat tire.

  She was waiting in the parking lot, her blond hair knotted into a messy bun. She wore scrubs with cartoon hearts, since she mostly worked with children. She’d lost a daughter to an illness even swan magic couldn’t cure. She wouldn’t talk about it. Right now she was standing under a streetlamp, talking to the tow truck driver. She waved a hand at me and I pulled around the corner to wait for her.

  I got out of the car, leaning on the hood to count the stars. I could only find the big dipper with all the light pollution. I never understood how people could live in towns, all packed together under a gray sky. There was more Vila in me than I thought.