The North Valley Grimoire

by Blake Northcott

  Kaz eased off the gas when they reached some winding residential streets. Calista peered in the rearview. No one was following. Could they have gotten away with it? She let out a sigh and sagged into her seat. Then she laughed—wild and raucous, clutching her belly. Kaz shot her a sidelong glance but remained silent. He redoubled his iron grip on the wheel.

  This is hysterical! She pictured herself in an interrogation room, pleading her innocence to a detective. ‘It’s my tattoo! Really! He’s the one you should be questioning, not me!’ The fact that it happened while Kaz was unconscious made the situation doubly hysterical. Explaining her homicidal tramp-stamp over a cup of hot chocolate would be another knee-slapping riot.

  Now a mile removed from the carnage, something about being in a getaway car calmed her mind. Maybe it was the adrenaline pumping through her veins like high-octane jet fuel, or the fact that she’d unwittingly performed a murderous magic trick, but in that moment she felt righteous. Terrified and confused and somewhat insane, but in a good way. And at the same time bizarrely optimistic, like nothing could go wrong. She wondered if this was what it felt like to pull off a bank heist.

  It would be ten more minutes until her high would wear off, the guilt striking her gut like a steel-toed boot. She’d killed someone. Indirectly, but still, she’d somehow willed it to happen—a morbid wish come true, like the grotesque mirror-image of a fairy tale.

  And it would be an additional fifteen minutes until her false sense of security would melt away.

  They’d evaded eyewitnesses and fled the crime scene undetected … but they’d also left a big yellow floppy disk inside a computer.

  I've tried to create sigils using my tablet, but magick doesn't respond to pixels on a screen.

  As it turns out, our ancestors got it right the first time: scraping a stone across a cave wall generates more mystical energy than anything I can produce with Photoshop.

  – Passage in the North Valley Grimoire

  8. Schism

  “YOU’RE SURE YOUR tattoo killed Mrs. Walton? You didn’t shoot her? Or stab her with something?” Kaz was transfixed on his driveway, peering through his bedroom’s slatted blinds. He hadn’t made eye contact with Calista since before they’d fled Hawthorne, and was borderline catatonic during their escape. At least he was responsive again.

  “Yes, I’m one-hundred percent sure. I can’t say I’ve never fantasized about it during one of her lectures, but …” She cut herself off before going into more lurid detail; Kaz was still on edge, and she didn’t want to say something she couldn’t take back. “Even though Walton wanted to turn us in, she didn’t deserve to die. It’s just that I didn’t kill her.”

  And she didn’t. At least not that she was aware of—but when their teacher slammed the butt of her gun into Kaz’s skull, something primal awoke inside of her. Something she couldn’t control.

  Her mind raced back to a lazy August evening at Jackson’s house. He asked if she wanted a tattoo, and she thought it was a decent way to kill a few hours on a Saturday night. Was it capricious youth? Teenage rebellion? Or a very permanent way to alleviate some temporary boredom? She wasn’t sure. Though looking back now, it might’ve been something else entirely.

  For reasons he didn’t live long enough to explain, Jackson was the proprietor of his own tattoo equipment: a surplus of ink; an assortment of needles fitted with tiny rubber grips; and a small metal box that acted as a power supply, toggled on and off with a foot pedal.

  She initially laughed off the notion (“You’re kidding, right? What’s next, we’re going to snort coke and rob a liquor store at knifepoint?”) She’d wandered outside the lines when it came to rule-breaking before, but a tattoo wasn’t just veering off the path: it was driving off the cliff and into a canyon.

  Jackson produced a leather-bound tome. “Take a look.” He flashed a knowing smile. “Something might jump out at you.”

  It was that smile. That goddamned smile that could convince anyone to do virtually anything. It was like orthodontic hypnosis.

  He flipped through several hand-drawn abstractions—mystical seals from another time and place. They were oddly beautiful. Calista was curious, but not curious enough to sign off on the idea of having one permanently emblazoned on her skin.

  Taking the book into her lap, she absently paged through the half-filled volume, tracing her fingers along the curves of the designs. One sparked her imagination, like a droplet of acid piercing her brain. The sigil stuck there, burning, grabbing hold. She couldn’t look away. “This one,” she announced, with a confidence that surprised even herself.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “You know these things don’t come off, and—”

  “I’m sure,” she said. She’d never been so certain of anything in her life—and simultaneously had no idea what had imbued her with that sudden resolve. She didn’t want the sigil tattooed onto her. She needed it.

  Kaz winced, dabbing his fingers against his wound. He lurched towards the bed and sat next to her. “Maybe Walton shot herself, and you were so traumatized that your mind played a trick on you. Maybe you suffered a psychotic break.”

  “Do I look like I had a psychotic break?” Calista shouted, quickly realizing it was not the best volume at which to pose that question.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t suicide?”

  She balled her fists. “Yes. I told you, I saw it with my own eyes.”

  At least that’s what Calista thought she saw—now, she wasn’t so sure. Her blood had been spiked with adrenaline following Mrs. Walton’s death, launching her senses into hyper-drive, but the high was gradually waning; in the heady aftermath, she couldn’t help but question her memory. The thought of Jackson’s tattoo springing to life and impaling Walton was ridiculous … wasn’t it? Could she have burnt herself on the exposed computer? Maybe their teacher was guilt-stricken after attacking Kaz, and had turned the gun on herself? And then, traumatized by the ordeal, Calista’s mind created this fantastical narrative as a coping mechanism. There were a lot of paper-thin ‘ifs’ and unqualified ‘maybes’ buttressing her theory, but it seemed more plausible than the alternative.

  “I can’t know what happened since I was busy being unconscious,” Kaz admitted, “but I say we call the cops.” He unzipped her duffle bag, which separated them on the bed, and rummaged through the contents. “We can show them the gun, tell them Walton burst into the room and killed herself.” His eyes were glassy, pupils blown. He looked concussed.

  “So that’s our story?” She reached out and snatched his frantic hands. “We stole the gun and fled the scene after Walton shot herself? Four times?”

  To her now-shaky recollection, that’s how many tendrils had lanced Mrs. Walton—the same number of spires decorating the sigil on her back.

  “We’re innocent,” Kaz pleaded, sounding like he was trying to convince himself as much as Calista. “We were confused, we took the gun, we ran out of fear. They’ll believe us if we stick to the story.”

  She knew there would be no bullets lodged in Mrs. Walton’s body to corroborate their fabricated take on the evening’s events, but she picked up his thread nonetheless.

  “Fine, let’s go with your story. You know what’ll happen: they’ll search our houses and question us for hours. The truth will come out, and they’ll realize we found Jackson’s stash. Including his gun.”

  “Then we toss everything,” Kaz said without missing a beat.

  “Everything?”

  “Yes! The gun, the lockbox, that book full of nonsense—we bury it all in the forest. Or better yet, dump it in the Potomac.”

  Calista snatched her bag and zipped it closed, clutching it to her chest. She was wearing one of Kaz’s oversized white t-shirts, having trashed the remains of her charred sweater. “The gun can go, but I’m not tossing the book.”

  “Are you serious? We should burn that thing. It links us to Jackson!”

  “You read the message,” she reminded him. “He said it was the key to
saving my mom.”

  “And Jackson is dead. That’s where your book landed him: in the graveyard, Callie. Is that where you want to be?”

  “If we ditch it now we’ll never know what it means.”

  Kaz scooched into the center of his bed and fell on his pillow. “I don’t want meaning in my life,” he said, gazing up at his slow-moving ceiling fan. “I don’t want mysteries, and I don’t want adventures. I want to survive high school. Then I want to go to college. Normal stuff.”

  Normal. Calista didn’t know what that meant anymore. She’d lived nearly eighteen years believing magic was an illusion; rabbits out of hats and sleight-of-hand nonsense that clowns perform at children’s birthday parties. But she’d witnessed something that could only be explained with that ridiculous word. Magic. It sounded absurd rattling around inside her head, dancing on the tip of her tongue. She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud, but she preferred the mystical explanation to the possibility that she’d lost her mind.

  “Whatever my tattoo did,” she said, a little hesitantly, “I think it was … supernatural.”

  ‘Supernatural’ sounded slightly less insane than ‘magic,’ though as soon as it escaped her lips, she wasn’t so sure.

  He lifted his head and gazed at her through distant eyes. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but—”

  “But you’re not saying you do.”

  “All I know is that it’s been two hours, and no one has smashed down my front door with a battering ram.”

  She nodded. “Definitely one in the plus column.”

  “So it looks like, maybe, we could be in the clear?”

  She blew out her cheeks. Calista never did like being the bearer of bad news. “They have the disk.”

  Kaz shot upright. “They what?”

  “Big yellow floppy.” She traced a box in mid-air with both index fingers. “We left it in the drive back at Hawthorne.”

  He clutched his chest. “Now we have to turn ourselves in. If they find us, they’ll—”

  “We can’t,” she cut in. “Admitting we were there is the same as admitting to murder. There’s no one else to blame.”

  Kaz sprang to his feet and paced the room, then stumbled, and then used the wall to hold himself upright. “I can’t believe this. This is not happening. When my parents find out …”

  “We can fix this,” she said.

  “I didn’t dent my mom’s Audi! There is no fix for this. We were there when our teacher died. We didn’t call 911, and we didn’t try to revive her. I’m not a lawyer, but that has to look pretty bad to a jury. And my college transcript! Oh god …”

  Midway through Kaz’s panic attack, Calista’s phone sounded in her pocket. It was the customized ringtone she’d set for her uncle—the dark orchestral Imperial March, warning her that any fun she was engaged in was about to abruptly end.

  She stared at the device. It was past dinner time, and she hadn’t checked in all day. If she didn’t answer, it would look suspicious.

  “Be cool,” Kaz whispered, though she hadn’t yet answered the phone.

  She let out a long, shaky breath. “Cool. I can do cool.” She tapped the speaker icon so Kaz could eavesdrop. “Hello?”

  “Hey sweetie, You okay?” Frank’s gravelly voice was dripping in warm honey.

  “Um, yeah, I’m okay, I guess. Generally speaking. Just doing my thing over here. You know me: study, study, study.”

  Kaz mouthed the words, ‘be cool,’ and Calista angrily waved him off.

  “After what happened I thought you’d be shaken,” Frank said delicately. “I know she wasn’t your favorite teacher, but still.”

  She stifled a gasp. Kaz raced back to his blinds, no doubt on the lookout for rotating blue lights blazing up his driveway.

  Frank cleared his throat. “This has been a crazy few days, and you must be reeling. First Jackson, and now the car accident. Thankfully she didn’t kill anyone else.”

  “Car accident?” Kaz shouted from across the room. He clapped both hands over his mouth, trying to shove the words back in.

  “Oh, sorry Uncle Frank, that was Kaz. I put you on speaker phone.”

  “Hi Kaz. I was telling Calista I’m sorry to hear about the accident.”

  “We’ve been too busy studying to watch the news,” she said. “Can you fill us in?” She exchanged a confused shrug with Kaz.

  “It’s live right now. Her car wrapped around a pole a few miles from Hawthorne on a rural side road. They’re saying it was drunk driving. Apparently Mrs. Walton’s seatbelt wasn’t fastened. Died instantly.”

  A squeaky, “Oh,” was all she could manage.

  “I didn’t want to be the one to break the news. I assumed someone would’ve told you already.”

  “No,” Calista said, “it’s good. Not good that she … well, you know. Anyway, thanks for letting me know.”

  “All right, Tiger. Come home when you’re ready. Take your time.”

  “Okay …?”

  “I love you.”

  “Yeah, me too. See you soon, Uncle Frank.”

  Calista ended the call and pocketed her phone.

  A war of shock and relief battled across Kaz’s face.

  It was a cover-up, Calista thought. That was the only explanation. A spark of nervous excitement shuddered through her—an electrical charge that needled the back of her arms and curled her toes. “You know what this means, right? They know.”

  Kaz peered at her through his curtain of bangs and blinked twice. His shock and relief dissipated, giving way to blankness.

  “The government knows about magick,” Calista said. “Real magick—with a ‘k.’”

  “No,” he said, “it doesn’t. It means someone didn’t want a dead body inside Hawthorne. Probably the school board.”

  “Or, it means the government has known about magick all along. They go around covering things up when someone uses a spell or whatever, and that’s why they went after Jackson. Because he knew too much.” Her eyes flared again, another realization popping like a flashbulb. “My mom might be linked to this, too. It’s all coming together.”

  Kaz shook his head. “It’s confirmation bias. You saw the sigils in Jackson’s art book, you read some websites with similar designs, and now you’re using that data to fit your theory.”

  “Don’t you see how close we are?” she pleaded.

  “Close to what? Close to matching orange jumpsuits? Close to a coroner?” Kaz wandered around rudderless, wearing a hole in his pale Berber carpet. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it, and you’re not listening: I don’t care how close we are. Whatever you think you saw back there, you’re wrong. Even if you’re right, in the off chance you haven’t gone completely nuts, and something supernatural happened—”

  “Magickal,” she corrected him. She was loosely trailing him as he ranted, allowing a wide berth in case he changed direction. “Or maybe it’s alien, or maybe The Pentagon is trying out some new type of tech. Whatever it is, Jackson gave it to me, and it might’ve just saved our lives.”

  “Oh my god,” he mumbled. “You and your conspiracy theories. It’s driving you crazy, and you’re taking me with you.”

  “Come on, Kaz, you don’t mean that.”

  He stopped and spun around. “I should have never let you drag me into this. You’ve been getting me in trouble since we were kids. The only difference is now, the messes are threatening to land us in jail.”

  “Don’t you care about what happened to Jackson? Why he had a fake passport and a gun, and some mysterious disk?”

  “You don’t get to do that,” he said gravely. “You don’t get to bring up our dead friend every time you want to coerce me into doing something dangerous or illegal.”

  She placed a hand on his chest and hoped he’d feel the frisson, like her enthusiasm was a quantifiable energy he could absorb by contact. “This tattoo on my back, the book that Jackson left behind—it means something. I know it.”

  “I don’t
know how you can be so calm about this, and honestly, you’re scaring me. We saw someone die tonight. And Jackson just died a few days ago.”

  She was scaring herself, too, but it was a controlled type of fear, like the moment a lap bar locks in place before the roller coaster jerks into motion. She was horrified by Mrs. Walton’s death, but at the same time felt an exhilaration that she couldn’t contain. “Jackson risked everything to get this book to me, and if it can save my mom, then his death will mean something.”

  Kaz cupped a hand over hers. “I know you want that, and I want it for you. But after what just happened …”

  “Tonight was a close call, but we’ve come too far to turn back.”

  He released her hand and stepped back. “I want to help you, I really do.”

  “So help,” she blurted out. “Say ‘yes’ for once and stop being such a goddamned coward.”

  Kaz parted his lips, and for a long, tense moment nothing came out. He finally said, “Is that what you think of me?” It was like he’d been stabbed in the chest by her careless choice of words, and she wanted nothing more than to lunge forward and pull the dagger free. It was too late.

  “Of course not!” She reached for his shoulders.

  He stepped away. “Sorry if it’s hard being friends with such a loser, or if I’m cramping your style at Hawthorne.”

  “Is that what you think of me? You have to know I’m not that girl anymore.”

  “Aren’t you? Because when you hung out with Whitney and the rest of the pod people, you acted pretty much exactly like this.”

  A tiny blade slashed her heart. She feared there were more where that came from. “Let’s start over.”

  “You don’t need to start over. You need to let this go.” The meekness behind his watery eyes galvanized into steel. “I can’t be a part of this. We dodged a bullet tonight, but next time we won’t be so lucky. This has to end.”

  She swallowed hard but couldn’t seem to clear her throat. “I can’t walk away from this, Kaz. Not until I get some answers.”

  “Then you’ve made your choice,” he said evenly. He paced to his bedroom door, twisted the handle and pulled it wide. “We’re finished here. Now please leave.”