Chapter Four
The chime of the cell phone woke me up. I was bundled up on my sofa with the Literature book in my hand. I’d started reading where my class left off on Friday, act four of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and dozed off a few lines in. I didn’t hate reading. I was just exhausted, as usual.
The number on the screen wasn’t Sophia. I flipped the phone open and cleared my throat.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Chris—uh, Leah. It’s Emma. Are you busy?”
I shook my head like she could see me like an idiot. “No,” I finally said.
“Sophie gave me your number. I was wondering if you wanted to come downstairs and hang out with us. We’re just sitting around, nothing special.” I pulled the phone from my ear and stared at it. Was this really happening? An invite? Like a real, social invite?
Panic made me stutter. “Um … Ssssure,” I said.
“Okay, then. See you in a bit.”
I sat there for a moment with the phone to my ear, stunned, after she’d hung up. My head swam with memories of the hundreds of invites I didn’t get and the hundreds of invites I’d gotten as jokes.
My abysmal social status served me well now. Sienna hating me, my dead heart not letting me connect with anyone, and my embarrassing freak-outs had made me an outcast. And since I was an outcast, I hadn’t violated the No Contact clause of the treaty, which I assumed meant what the words implied—we couldn’t mingle with humans.
I imagined myself walking down the stairs and getting laughed at for taking Emma seriously. The thought of being humiliated here braced me to the sofa for ten minutes. But if it were a real invite, it would be awkward living here after blowing them off. I grabbed the empty plate from my snack. If I heard them laugh, I’d head for the kitchen like that had been my destination all along.
I held my breath on the stairs. My heart pounded like death was waiting in the living room. Nathan turned around as I cleared the last step. He lifted one corner of his mouth. I tried to fake it and smile back, but it came out as a facial spasm as I twisted my mouth and wrinkled my nose. I almost turned around then.
Paul jumped up from his seat and met me at the bottom of the stairs. “Can I get a better greeting now that Nana’s not here to block us?” he asked.
He wrapped his arms around me before I could answer, pulling me into his mind.
I wonder if I’ll have to play the nice guy with her. She’s quiet. She won’t go for a bad ass. Or will she? Her bra is totally showing—
I yanked away, muting his thoughts, and retreated to the kitchen. I stacked my plate on the pile in the sink and crossed my arms over my chest. It was the first time I’d touched a guy, and that didn’t go well at all. He was thinking about my bra, and I, the creep, ran away without saying anything.
I bowed my head to apologize to God for using magic, but I raised it before I started the prayer. I didn’t really do anything wrong … this time. I didn’t ask to be hugged, he wasn’t human, and I didn’t even like it.
The cabinets took on the purple-orange light of the setting sun as I stalled, scared to go back in there with the magical teenagers who weren’t as strange as me.
I gathered enough courage to leave the kitchen and managed a wave to the four of them. Paul winked, and I snatched a pillow from the sofa and braced it against my chest. It would be my first and last time wearing this shirt.
“What have you been doing?” Emma asked, as I sat on the farthest, emptiest end of the sofa.
“Sleeping. Reading before that,” I said.
“You like to read?” Remi asked. Her tone wasn’t curious, more surprised. Did I not look like someone who liked to read?
“Sophia gave me work to do. School stuff,” I said.
“I thought you were avoiding us,” Remi said. “I’d be pissed if everyone else stayed here free of charge and I’d coughed up cash like a dummy.” I tightened my grip on the pillow and bowed my head, an automatic response to her tone.
“I hear you got the biggest room, though,” Nathan said. “That’s pretty awesome, right?” I managed a semblance of a nod to him. I wanted to go back to my room, but I didn’t want to seem even stranger by fleeing after five seconds.
“Well, we’re going out after dinner. You in?” Paul asked.
Staring at the stitching on my jeans, I shook my head. “They’re searching for me. Lydia Shaw is.” It became unnaturally quiet, like they’d frozen and stopped breathing. At least we had one thing in common—fear of Lydia Shaw. “Sophia seems to think I’ll be able to leave the house after she gives up,” I said.
Remi stretched on the sofa, flipping over to her belly, and threw her legs over Emma’s lap. Tattooed vines covered her shoulder line and disappeared under her tank top. It looked painful and kind of interesting against her pale skin.
“Why would Sophia expose herself like that? What the hell was she rescuing you from?” Remi asked.
“I was … um … about to do something stupid,” I said, unable to get my voice over a whisper.
“It couldn’t have been dumber than what Remi and I did,” Emma said. “We were getting frozen yogurt.” She stopped to giggle. Her accent made yogurt sound expensive. “And we didn’t have any cash … and we wanted to have a little fun. I made the register ding liked we’d paid, and the girl bought it. Not five minutes later does the hunter, dressed head to toe in leather, walk in. We sat there. Bold! Eating our yogurt, mocking him a little. Then he followed us out and … of course my magic does not work under pressure … and we ended up in a cell again. Public use of magic for the fourth time!”
They laughed, and I just sat there, staring at a bone jutting out of my wrist only covered by a thin layer of skin. How hadn’t I noticed myself turning into a skeleton?
“Well, that’s a great reason why we should stay in tonight,” Nathan said.
“Come on, Sparky. You have to come,” Paul said.
“I go by Nathan,” he said. “And I don’t want to get kicked out on my first night. You didn’t just spend a week playing fetch with a hunter to avoid a cage.”
“Some of us didn’t avoid cages and we’re still going,” Remi said.
“She’s not going to kick us out,” Emma said. “Sophie is the nicest person in the whole world. I lived with her for a year. I would know.”
I couldn’t decide if she was calling Sophia Sophie because she was French or because she’d known her so long. Maybe both.
“Remember when I asked you to marry me so we could go on a honeymoon, Em? You were such a prude,” Paul said.
“I was a child, Paul! And I loved every moment with Sophie … except when you would bother me.”
“Did she save you then? If you don’t mind me asking,” Nathan said.
“She knows my mother, and both of my parents were being detained for something they didn’t do. I stayed with her until they were freed.”
“She slept one door away from me,” Paul said, nodding his head as if that suggested something. Emma tossed a pillow at him.
“She’s been my guardian angel for years,” Emma said. Angel? I guessed that was an extremely loose interpretation of the word. “Especially this year after being captured so many times. I actually thought I’d reached the end of her kindness. I’ve never been locked up that long. My parents usually call her when they figure out Remi and I have been caught, and she’s there in an hour or so. I was so happy to see her after the longest four days of my life that I had to say yes to staying with her and having rules to follow again.”
“Ugh, we’d be partying in Mexico by now if she hadn’t,” Remi said. She obviously didn’t appreciate what Sophia had done for her. A waste of my money. “Beaches and drinks and …” Remi shuddered and arched her back. A strained purr escaped her.
“Hold on, Remi,” Emma said. Remi twisted and jerked, struggling in Emma’s arms. “You can do it. Just stay you.” Remi sprang from Emma’s lap. Her jeans and tank top shredded and fell around her paws. She
bounded up the stairs on four legs as my mouth hung open. “Poor thing. It’s getting worse. She used to go forty-eight hours without shifting. Now it’s only three.”
Paul leaned over Emma and massaged her shoulders. He was really touchy. She didn’t flinch; she looked comfortable, relaxed, and normal. “And how many hours is that reduced by, Em?” he asked. He snickered and winked at us.
Emma looked down at her fingers like she needed to count them to subtract three from forty-eight. “Um … it’s reduced by a lot,” she said, giving up.
Paul laughed hard, and she reached to her shoulder and grabbed one of his fingers. She bent it back, and he screamed playfully.
Weird. When someone made fun of me, I didn’t want to play with their bones, I wanted to break them.
Paul took Remi’s seat and reached his legs across Emma’s lap. She sighed, tugging at a loose thread on his jeans. “How long can you go without shifting, Spar—Nathan?” Paul asked.
“A few weeks,” he said. “You?”
The three of them cackled again while I just sat there, wishing I were bold enough to ask why they were faking.
Paul and Emma reminisced about the games they used to play when she lived with his grandmother. They seemed like happy, magical memories. Her face lit up with every “remember when.” I was so confused. Their lives seemed so happy and innocent.
I wondered why her parents were detained, not killed like mine. Why weren’t my parents shown mercy like hers and all the other creatures allowed to live?
If I were at school, the answer would’ve been in the buzzing in the air. Creatures were different. I couldn’t hear anything unless I touched them, and that didn’t even work on Sophia.
I sat there for an hour, hugging the pillow, listening and trying not to look too weird.
“You’re really quiet, huh?” Nathan asked. I opened my mouth to say something but closed it when nothing came to mind. He laughed; it didn’t feel like a taunt, more like he noticed how ironic it was that I couldn’t find a response to being called quiet.
I sighed. His laugh sounded real, undoubtedly real.
“Christine, my love,” Sophia said. She poked her head into the living room and winked. “Can I speak to you in here, dear?” I met her in the kitchen. “It’s almost time for dinner,” she said, barely a whisper. “Are you ready to … I mean are you interested in eating with—” I shook my head, cutting her off. Years ago, I swore to myself, as I stood covered in spaghetti that had been dumped on me “accidentally,” that I would eat alone for the rest of my life. Nothing was going to change that. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “I’ll bring a plate up.”
I ran up the stairs without saying goodnight to the three of them.
Remi, in scary panther form, sat still and calm in the middle of the stairs—stairs she didn’t need to be on, stairs that only led to my room and the locked one. She didn’t budge as I approached, but growled faintly as I stepped around her. Moments later, I looked over my shoulder to check her position.
She was gone.
Sophia brought up four huge pieces of tilapia over a mound of yellow rice and eyed me as I ate. Halfway through, I pushed my plate away. She cleared her throat, and I finished the rest.
After she said goodnight, I opened my laptop to do something I’d wanted to do for years. I took a deep breath as I clicked the Internet icon. The cursor blinked on the search bar. I’d never gone past this point, knowing that a big red X would appear for all sites outside of the few on the approved list at St. Catalina.
I typed Witches and Satan and pressed Enter. It yielded over two million results in .09 seconds. I clicked the first one, and a chill crept over me. Exactly what I’d thought—evil beings that used powers to harm and had a major, terrible, role in the war against humans. It was the opposite of what Sophia said. The opposite of what Sophia … showed. Emma and Paul, too, I guessed. And Nathan wasn’t human either, and he seemed nice. The magic in his blood made him change forms, and according to the nuns, he was strong enough to rip a human to pieces as either one. Remi, too.
Would it be that shocking for the nuns to be wrong about us being evil? They also thought we were all in Hell, and I was in a house full of creatures who weren’t burning.
I couldn’t ignore it anymore, what Sophia thought I was. I typed depression in the search bar and found a short survey that warned that it was not for the purpose of diagnosis; the exact reason I was about to take it.
I entered my age and gender.
Number 1. My future seems hopeless.
Was hopeless the same as waiting to be found and knowing that Hell was the only option when it happened?
I clicked the Strongly Agree box.
The next one read: Joy and pleasure have gone from my life. There wasn’t a box to indicate that I’d never had joy and pleasure, so I clicked Somewhat Agree.
I groaned at the third. I feel irritable more days than not.
I was a little more than irritable. I’d say I was explosively angry when I couldn’t control myself. I clicked Strongly Agree.
I scrolled down to scan the rest of the statements. They were about eating, sleeping, and energy, all things I would strongly agree with. I closed out the page. I could see where that was headed.
“So I’m not just a witch. I’m a crazy one,” I said. These creatures were nothing like me. They joked and laughed and enjoyed being around others. They didn’t look like they were fighting rage every moment of the day. If smiling and laughter required a soul, they all had one.
Something was wrong with me. Not magical kind. Just Leah.
My chest grew heavier with every step I took towards the bed. I wished my parents had left a note or something to explain it all. I wished they’d told me not to worry when the magic came, that Satan had nothing to do with any of it. And Sophia had been watching me. She’d taken helpless creatures in for years. She let me rot there. I wasn’t as important as Emma who she’d saved several times.
I felt myself shattering as I crawled into bed. It felt like I was crawling into my grave.
A bark startled me just before my head hit the pillow. It, well he, barked again, then scratched at my door. I managed to lift my heavy body from the bed and pull it to the door to answer him.
He had the same green eyes as he had as a person, just surrounded by snowy fur. He dropped the newspaper from his mouth at my feet.
“I saw it already,” I said. He nudged the paper closer with his nose. I kneeled and unrolled it. He’d written on my face when he had hands, I guessed.
Play with me, it said. “You … want to play?” He barked. It felt like a yes. “Fetch?” He answered with a wagging tail. Yes, again.
I rolled up the newspaper and flung it a few feet to the right. He scurried after it and ran out of the room, ending the shortest game of fetch ever. So I’d thought. He ran back and growled, playful unlike the panther, and took off again. I guessed he wanted me to follow him.
Since the only alternative was crawling back into my grave, I followed him through the dark house. He barked at a door in the kitchen.
“Outside? At night?” He jumped up on the door and tried the knob with his mouth, covering it with slob. It was locked. He whined, a cute disappointed sound, and I opened the door for him.
He sprinted out into the yard. I could barely make out the gate enclosing us in the distance. Nathan circled my legs, a huge splash of white in the grass. He dropped the newspaper at my feet. This time, I heaved it as far as I could, with all of the energy I had.
Somewhere between him charging after it and lowering my arm, I noticed it was the most energy I’d ever expelled on anything. How pathetic.
I threw it higher the second time. He jetted after it, flying through the sticky air, his paws barely touching the grass. He nudged my leg when he returned, first the right, then the left, then the right again.
“What?” I asked. He crouched, his tail in the air, like he was about to charge at me. “Run?” I a
sked.
He barked and I did. It was a wimpy jog at first, and he was right at my heels. Then I caught a glimpse of the stars above us, hovering over the home I should be grateful to stay in, twinkling in a night I should be grateful to be alive in. My legs moved faster, propelling me through the wet air and wet grass. My heart pumped violently for the first time without being afraid or livid.
His bark coached me on until I was no longer running from him. I was running to feel my heart pound. Running to feel my legs and arms move with a fervor I didn’t think I could have.
Running because I’d feared death for years for no reason at all, waiting for someone to pluck me from my hiding spot. Waiting to burn. And I would have thought I deserved it. I’d sat in Mass truly believing I could combust, more than convinced that the God I prayed to hated me. Witches weren’t soulless and incapable of happiness. My mind was just buried in a dark and hopeless place.
When the tears wanted to come up, I let them without straining. I kept running, because running felt like the opposite of dying—what I’d been doing for years. Nathan finally caught me, and I hurled the newspaper in the air and took off after him. We continued our game of fetch and chase until I didn’t want to cry anymore. Until all I wanted to do was play with the friendly dog that barked at my door.
When exhaustion hit, I collapsed on the grass to catch my breath. He stretched out next to me.
“Do you like to be petted … like a real dog?” I asked. He rolled over to his back and panted. It was so cute that I had no choice but to smile.