Funny Tragic Crazy Magic (Tragic Magic Book 1) (14 page)

The
next day was Monday, and Joe didn’t show up for school. At first, I thought
that was a good thing, that we both needed space to make sense of the world.
Thankfully, I ran into Meg about ten minutes before first period so I wouldn’t
be alone. She held her math book in front of her chest.

“How
was your date?” she asked, her face worried.

“Awful,”
I said.

“No.”
She had a smile when she said it, like she had expected it to fail.

I
looked at her quizzically.

“Sorry,”
she said hurriedly, “It’s just that… Ryan called me.”

“What?”

“Yesterday,”
she said. “He had a question about History, and we started talking… um… I don’t
know how to say this, but… Is it okay with you if I like him?”

“Ryan?”
I asked.

“You’re
my best friend, and I don’t…” she said.

I
interrupted. “I don’t care if you like Ryan.”

“You
sure?”

“Meg,”
I said. “I want you to be happy, and I don’t like Ryan like that at all. And he
didn’t like me, either; he just liked the runes.”

“Do
you think…”

“What?”
I asked.

“Could
you give me…” She looked around to make sure no one was listening, “some runes
too? Like, could you, maybe, make me taller?”

I
smiled. “Absolutely.”

We
made our way to the girls bathroom, and after checking the stalls for company
and locking the door with
stay
, I opened my bag and brought out my
notebook. I added a little bit of height, and for fun, a bit of length to her
eyelashes.

When
she looked at herself in the mirror, it was like seeing a different person. Not
just because of the slight physical changes, but because of the way she held
herself, the way she smiled at herself so confidently in the mirror. I haven’t
seen her that free, that happy, since we were kids.

“You
know you’re beautiful, right?” I asked. “You don’t need the runes to make Ryan
like you, right?”

She
shrugged. “I just think they’d help me to be more confident.”

She
went on to describe everything she didn’t like about herself, the mole next to
her left ear, how pale her eyelashes were, her slight figure. And I, as her friend,
went about changing everything she didn’t like. I thought it was a kindness,
that it’d be a fun project. When we were finished, she was beautiful, but she
didn’t look like Meg at all. She looked more like a Barbie, like some image she
was supposed to look like, that we were all supposed to look like. We stood
together staring at the false perfection facing back at us in the mirror.

“That’s
not me,” Meg said, after a moment.

I
wiped away the runelight until the entire
transformation
spell was gone.
At first it was jarring, like all I could see were Meg’s supposed
imperfections. I never noticed them before she pointed them out. But then she
smiled, and she was just Meg, my best friend. A person truly beautiful, inside
and out.

“There
I am,” she said with tears in her eyes.

I
looked at myself and realized that I was just the runes, that the image of me
wasn’t real. I wiped away my own runelight, grateful that the dress I chose to
wear had so much give in the waist, and pulled my hair up into a ponytail.

“Well,
here I am too,” I said.

The
bell rang, and we walked together down the halls of the school, our arms linked
together, her pulling my posture down as I kept in step with my tiny, perfect
friend.

People
didn’t look at me as much, but I didn’t care. I was happy, and I was real. That
beats pretty any day.

We
ran into Ryan sooner than I expected. He didn’t face me, but he smiled at Meg.
She stopped to talk with him, and I left them behind, knowing that my presence
would just stand in their way. I stood behind a locker at the end of the hall
and watched them. Meg smiled up at Ryan and touched his arm. The bell rang, and
they didn’t seem to notice; Ryan’s eyes never left Meg. I smiled and then
walked to class.

A
few hours into school, I started noticing weird things. There was a substitute
in my math class, and he seemed to know my name before looking at the roles. As
I tried to concentrate on the variables in front of me, he kept glancing in my
direction, as if he was waiting for me to cough a cloud of runelight. When I
walked to my car after the final bell rang, I felt that burning feeling on the
back of my neck I only got when an Instinct watched me. I turned around but I
didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary. I scanned the parking lot. I barely
noticed a man standing up on the roof of my school. He wore a red baseball cap,
and he ducked when I saw him.

I
ran the rest of the way to my car. As I drove home, I kept glancing in my
rearview mirror, and this black car kept sliding in and out of my lane. My
heartbeat started to speed up, and my lead foot made my car speed up as well. I
didn’t drive toward my house. Instead (I don’t know why) but I instinctively
went the same way the false Erica had driven. When I got to the intersection
where the Fake Erica had died, I took a long look both ways before venturing
forth. Right before I was going to turn onto the freeway, flashing red and blue
lights filled my rear view. I passed the frontage road entrance, pulled into a
gas station parking lot, and put my car in park, the engine still idling.

The
police car pulled up behind me and I watched with joy as that black car that
had made me so nervous drove past, the driver staring at me as he passed. I let
out the breath I had been holding in, and then glanced back at the police car.

There
was a sharp pain against the right side of my forehead. I turned toward the
pain of whoever had punched me. A line of runelight slid along the empty seat
until I saw Ash’s face from the passenger seat looking down at me, my blood
running down the palm of his hand.

“I’m
sorry, Larissa. But you really shouldn’t have told me who you were,” he
whispered, his eyes regretful, but a smile lurked on his face. He raised his
hand once more.

That’s
the last thing I remember.

When
I woke up, my head felt itchy. I could feel heat from the right side of my
face. It was dark, and my vision was blurry. My hands, tied by metal wire, were
behind my back.

“It’s
okay, darling, don’t panic.”

I
could hear a man’s voice coming from very close, but I couldn’t see more than a
dark outline in the general shape of a man. I felt pressure on both sides of my
head, as someone put their hands on my head and squeezed.

Warmth
spread from the man’s hands into my head, and everywhere it touched the pain
ceased. It felt like sunshine inside my mind, just wonderful and addictive. My
mouth protested when the man took his hands away from my face, and the flow of
honey stopped.

This
horrible smell filled my senses; it smelled like body odor, fecal matter, and
meatloaf. I opened my eyes. I was in this space between buildings, not an
alleyway so much as a forgotten hole, or a badly planned thoroughfare. Five
filthy tents lined the edge of the open space, and a bright green door lay off
center against a pile of cardboard boxes blocking the only way out. My wrists
burned as I tested the thick wire that held them bound.

The
man in front of me sat cross-legged and smiling. His beard was filthy and
framed chipped yellowed teeth. His blue eyes had a piercing quality that burned
my face and made me sit up tall.

A
fire burned from a metal can, and a clean-shaven man in an expensive suit
warmed his hands over the flames. A few more men, including Ash, my math
substitute, and the man in a red baseball hat, sat in a circle next to one of
the peeling tents. Ash waved at me, smiling as if he just invited me for tea. A
pile of cards sat untouched between the men, and they all stared at me as if I
was a wild animal, waiting to see if I would swipe my claws at them.

“Hello,”
I said quietly.

The
man sitting in front of me answered, “Hello, Larissa.” I swallowed and glanced
at Ash when the man said my name.

He
continued, “We had no idea you existed. Hmm… isn’t that strange? Your own
father being one of us, and all?”

He
had this lilting way of talking, almost every sentence sounded like he was
asking a question. “If he wasn’t dead, we would have had to punish him? Hmm?
For treason, for betraying us to the other side?”

I
held my breath, and the man turned to me. “Oh, dearie, I’m sorry. I’m
frightening you. Yes?” His piercing eyes stared into mine, and I could feel
heat from his face taking in the side of my neck down to my body. “You are a
strong one, you are. Hmm? Do not worry, any harm you come to tonight, I will
quickly heal. I have been told my healings are almost worth the pain.”

He
smiled at me modestly, but with expectation, as if he was waiting for me to say
something.

“Thanks
for healing me.” I whispered. The man smiled but didn’t seem quite satisfied. I
pulled my arms again, testing the strength of the wire that held me bound. “It
was very pleasant.”

 The
man bowed his head to me like he was the star of some great theatrical.

“Please,
child, call me Leo. Hmm?” He smiled again, his eyes lined with wrinkles as if
he was a person who laughed often.

“Alright,”
I said.

Leo
moved far quicker than I expected and backhanded me across the face. I saw a
flash of white, then my whole body toppled to the side. My hands tied behind me
couldn’t stop the fall, and I gashed the side of my head against the freezing
concrete. Searing pain lanced across my face. I swore. Leo hummed a pop song
and put his hands on the side of my head.

The
feeling of warm honey poured from his hands through my head. When the pain was
gone, he left me lying on my side. I leaned as best I could and sat up, my
stomach muscles groaning in protest.

“Alright,
Leo,” the man corrected. He smiled. “Call me by my name. Now, sweetheart,” Leo
leaned forward until his forehead touched against mine. His breath smelled
foul, like decayed garlic. “You will tell me everything you know. Hmm?”

Luckily
I didn’t know much, so the entire interview/torturing didn’t take very long. It
was horrible. It was as if the moment I found out my family had died was
playing on repeat. Just when I thought I could breath, it would begin again.
While Leo hit me, he would giggle, and while he healed me, he would hum and
sing. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed asking me questions and then making me answer.
He never asked me about Joe, so I was able to keep the fact that he could do
runes to myself, as well as the fact that if he did another rune I would have
to turn my best friend over to Giara.

I
lay on the ground, bleeding from fresh wounds and waiting for the bliss of
Leo’s healings. It didn’t come. My view was blocked by a pile of garbage, but I
could see the top half of Leo as he stood and walked over to the man still
standing by the fire. The man drew the
silence
rune on Leo’s hand and
his own.

I
knew he was a Rune. I called it by his expensive suit. I pulled against the
wire, and it was much looser, although not loose enough I could pull out either
of my hands.

The
men sitting on the ground in the circle had returned to their game. Every man
looked different, different nationalities, different clothes. I could tell the
Instincts from the Runes by the cleanliness of their dress. Ash looked over at
me, and maybe this was just wishful thinking, but I thought I saw a look of
regret pass his face, as if he didn’t condone what was happening to me. Still,
all he did was look; he didn’t try to stop it.

There
was a noise from the side of one of the buildings. Two men were talking,
laughing to themselves. A voice I didn’t know called out, “There are some
people I would like you to meet.”

The
men sitting in the circle stood and hid their cards. Leo and the wealthy man
standing near the fire ran and pulled the pile of garbage over me, so I could
hardly see. The garbage bag over my face smelt like diapers, and I couldn’t
move enough to free myself from the stench.

Then
a voice I did recognize, a voice I would have known in my sleep, spoke.

“Hey,
let me.” Joe’s voice in this depth of hell seemed like an anchor to save me. I
turned my head and tried to pull my body up. The bag shifted a little bit. I
could see a bit of Joe’s sneakers, but moving even that insignificant amount
had exhausted me enough that I couldn’t speak.

Joe’s
companion, a man I didn’t know, had gray hair and wore a Hawaiian print shirt
which hung loose over dark slacks. He had dark skin, and a rolling, smiling way
of walking. He put his arm around Joe’s shoulder and faced him away from me.

“That’s
quite a talent you’ve got there, son,” the man said.

Joe
smiled, a blush creeping up his face. His smile gave me the energy I needed to
try to move once more.

The
garbage must have rustled, because the man pointed Joe towards Ash and the men
in the back, and then walked towards the pile of refuse that covered me.

My
lungs rejoiced when he pulled the bag from off of my face, but the light was
too bright. When my eyes adjusted, all I saw was his dark eyes taking me in, a
look of compassion on his face.

“What
are you doing, Leo?” the man asked in a quiet voice. “I’ve told you, no more of
this.”

Leo
answered, “Oh Mr. Robert, did you say to not do this, or do do this? Hmm?” He
started giggling, that horrible sound that I still dream about some nights.

Mr.
Robert punched Leo across the face, and then bound his mouth with the rune for
silence
.
“You crazy old man, have you no shame?”

He
walked to me and undid the binding on my hands, his body blocking mine from
Joe’s view. He pulled me up to sitting and put his hands gently against the
part of my face that was bleeding. “You poor thing. I’m so sorry for what has
happened to you.”

I
ignored him, “Joe.” My voice cracked. I could hear Joe walking toward me, and
when I saw him, a sob broke free.

“Holy...
Larissa!” Joe ran to me and held me, one of his hands behind the back of my
neck, the other sliding along the side of my face. “What…I… Are you...” He kept
starting sentences that he didn’t finish.

I
shushed him and put my head on his shoulder. I didn’t cry. I’m proud of that,
after everything. They didn’t break me.

“Heal
her.” Mr. Robert commanded, lifting up that monster Leo and pushing him toward
me. I shrunk back in Joe’s arms, but that man touched me, leaving a feeling of
stickiness and sludge as that warm honey feeling slid through my body.

Joe
pushed Leo away from me, and the man fell down on the ground and rolled, his
giggle filled the open area as the
silence
rune ended.

“The
rest of you,” Mr. Robert said, taking in the lot of people that stood by and
watched, “how could you allow such an atrocity to take place? She is just a
young girl.”

The
wealthy man spoke in a soft British accent, “My apologies Robert, but this is no
young girl. This is a Grandmother. We are at war. You did not stand in the way,
when young Michael…”

“You
are not to speak of him to me, Miles,” Robert said.

“You
do not like to hear of your failures? Hmmm.” Leo said from the ground. Robert
walked to him and kicked him in the stomach.

Joe
whispered in my ear, “Let’s go, Riz.”

I
let him help me stand up, but then I pushed him away. I walked toward the
idiots fighting near the fire. I drew the rune for
stay
in the air as
large as my chest and threw it at the men. They all looked at me; even Leo
stopped his giggling and went silent. I stood there, furious and still, my
shoulders rising and falling with each measured and heavy breath.

When
I spoke, I spoke in whispers. “I was not your enemy.” Leo smiled. “I was not
your plaything.” When I looked away, his bottom lip was trembling. “You have
made me one.” Ash wouldn’t look me in the eye. “And I do not forget.”

Robert
opened his mouth to speak, and I turned my eyes toward him without moving my
face, which shut him up.

“Leave
me alone, and I will return the favor, but if I see any of you…” I’d do what,
thin
them to death?

I
turned and walked over the cardboard and past the door, leaving them frozen.
Joe followed behind me. When we reached his white truck parked along the curb,
I swiped my fingers in the air and allowed the rune to fall.

I
leaned against the side of the truck, Joe standing beside me, and that was when
I started to cry.