Lili Crow - Wayfarer

Rita!

She couldn’t look back.

The moment stretched, impossibly long. Two thoughts, lengthening like taffy between a candy-charmer’s slipgreased hands, filling her, pulling her in opposite directions.

First: I could throw this back at her. I could loop it there, just a touch here, and it would kill her. She wouldn’t hurt me ever again.

Second: There’s no time.

If she spent even the scant moments to throw the charm back at Laurissa, striking in anger, Rita would hit the bottom of the pool. The other girl’s lungs would fill, the thing that used to be Laurissa would howl and stumble back, bleeding just like she’d made them bleed, and when the Strep died Rita would too.

The choice trembled inside her. Hot rage and cold knowledge, exact opposites, and Ellie was the rope between them. A thin, fraying, tired rope who had already been drained past her capacity to stretch.

If I throw this back at her, I’ll be just like her.

The curse spun, driving down into the ground before her, throwing up chunks of blackening moss and chipped paving stones, shrieking in rage as it burrowed.

Ellie, her arms opening wide, fell backward, borrowed slippers sliding again, for a long endless moment.

Smashing through the water, arrowing down, clothes full of viscous green. Tired, so tired, lungs burning, hand groping through the blackness. Eyes squeezed shut and fingers turned to claws, combing the jelly that passed for water here below the surface.

She sank forever, and finally, the thought came swimming up to meet her, a realization like dawn breaking.

I don’t want to die.

Her questing hand touched something. Living warmth, her grasp curling in sodden floating hair, and she hauled up. Dead weight, tired muscles straining, and suddenly she was full of a terrible lightness. It was the last scrap of oxygen being forced into her bloodstream, her aching arms giving up, the smothering black around them bearing down on two guttering sparks.

When a candle is snuffed, does it feel relieved at the end of burning?

No. A familiar voice, familiar warmth, and a cascade of blue sparks, crackling against inimical algae-laden water. My brave, strong girl. No.

But the ring was gone, wasn’t it?

It was never the ring, my darling. Her mother’s touch, light and warm and soft.

One of her hands was tangled in the other girl’s hair, the other reached up blindly, hopelessly searching for the surface. For light, for hope, for everything she found out she would miss if the dark succeeded in smashing them both.

It was never the ring, her mother repeated, and warm fingers—too impossibly big, as if her hand was a child’s and her mother’s so much larger, tapering fingers capable of soothing any ill, righting any wrong—threaded through hers. It was always you. My brave, bright girl.

Pulling, then. Lifted, her arms stretched and a jolt of pain cracking in her back, and they rose on an escalator of bubbles. The blue glow became a brilliant point of white, and her mouth opened, an explosion of silver bubbles, and she—

—broke the green mirror’s surface in a thrashing geyser, tasting mud and slime and rot, dragging at the hair in her fingers. Rita came up too, shooting out of the water like a dolphin, coughing and choking. They both struck out blindly, and there were hands and voices, lights and harsh sounds, and the choking screams as a Twisted creature rampaged away through blackening, curling azaleas, its body striped with slashes from dying roses.

LATER SHE FOUND OUT THAT AVERY HAD CLEARED THE side of the house in time to see the Strep, her shoulders thickening and her belly swelling obscenely as she dragged one clubbed foot behind her, scuttling off the kitchen step. He’d immediately recognized what was happening, decided that a minotaur was too much for three teenagers to handle, and darted in the kitchen to find the phone. Which was thankfully still active.

He’d punched 733 into the phone, and by the time the Strep had found them near the swimming pool the night was alive with sirens. At least Perrault Street was high enough on the list of priorities that when someone called, there was an answer.

Then he had called his parents. It was the adult thing to do, and she supposed she could be grateful. Especially once Mrs. Fletcher—Livvie—found Ellie huddled, wet and covered with green gunk, in the back of a high-crowned white ambulance and swept her up in a hug, after scolding Avery and kissing his cheeks and shaking him. Don’t you ever again , she had said, over and over again. What were you thinking? Don’t ever, ever , ever again . . .

It was a mother’s song, and Ellie recognized it. Every string in her tired body relaxed, and she had finally, finally burst into relieved tears. The sobs shook her, but she didn’t have to do anything about it. Someone else finally had the reins, was finally worrying about how to get things done, and the weight of responsibility had slipped from Ellie’s aching, too-thin shoulders.

There were bright lights and a long juddering ride in the screeching ambulance, Mrs. Fletcher crammed in the back with a sobbing Ellie and a dry-eyed, green-streaked, catatonic Rita, who was whisked away as soon as the bright glare of Trueheart Memorial Hospital swallowed them both.

The weeping wouldn’t stop, even while she was poked and prodded and had to answer all sorts of questions until Livvie Fletcher took over, her eyes gleaming under the fluorescents, and told them to leave the girl alone, yes, she’s part of my charm-clan, call Giles Holyrood—he’s a charmstitcher with the clan—and let’s not have any more nonsense.

Avery was there too, in a chair with his elbows resting on his knees, just watching. She tried to gulp back the sobs whenever she glanced at him, since he was ashen and his cheek had a smear of green algae, flaking and cracking as it dried.

The charmstitcher, a tall stoop-shouldered man with dark circles under his eyes and an amazing beak of a nose, eyed Ellie for a long time, standing next to the hospital bed. She felt his scrutiny and flinched under it, tiny diamond feet running over her skin.

An arachna , Livvie Fletcher murmured, her hands clasped like a little girl’s. And Laurissa Choquefort was forcing her to charm above her capacity.

I doubt she knew this girl’s true capacity , he’d replied solemnly, in a surprisingly reedy voice. She’ll Sigil, if she hasn’t already. Now, Ellen—it’s Ellen, right? Her own nod, the tears trickling down her chapped cheeks. Would she ever stop crying? Rita had been taken away in a wheelchair, her large dark eyes fearful and helpless, still silent—

Ellen, I’m going to charmstitch you, and you’ll sleep until you’re healed . . .

She had fallen into darkness, relieved that she didn’t have to run or fight or stay so constantly, painfully alert anymore. As far as she was concerned, she could sleep forever, though she knew she wouldn’t.

Yet in the dark, she heard two things. A distant seashell murmur— my brave girl, my brave darling, sleep until it’s time to wake up .

The other was a young man’s voice, low and hoarse. “Just be okay, Ell. Please, just be okay.”

“I AM NOT QUITE SURE I UNDERSTAND.” MOTHER HELOISE’S broad pale face looked, as usual, slightly damp. Her habit was just as starched-penguin as ever, her small avid eyes just as bright. The charmlight around her, if Ellen concentrated hard enough to glimpse it, was eye-wateringly bright.