The Short Life of Sparrows (14 page)

I yawn, waiting for sleep to take me back to my body. As the girl reclines into him, he moves his hand from the armrest. Very carefully, he lifts her dress up her stockings with his index finger. The room spins around me, and the clock seems to tick more slowly. My tongue is so thick, and I feel like if I even swallow the sound is an uninvited interruption. I want to crawl away for the door, but there’s nothing that can move my feet. She is frozen. I’m frozen. We’re both made of busted hinges that won’t carry us away. Be brave, I want to tell her. You can run. The door is over there. But she stares at the wall as if it’s an ocean with waves that unburden her from having to think about anything—to have to think about what happens next.

He whispers into her ear, “I like you.”

His wet, humid breath makes every muscle inside of me tense. Suddenly I can’t smell peppermint. Instead I smell the dank sweat from his shirt. Every creak of the chair gets louder, and the ticking clock screams away the seconds. My face is damp from where he sloppily kisses her cheek. I’m squirming and shouting on the inside. And there’s nothing I can do to scoop her up, to run with her in my arms.  Her face is vacant, as if she’s floated out of herself as it happens. I look for the door, but it is miles from the chair. The door latch to the outside is a small speck—far away.

I hear her timid voice. “Can I go play now?”

The scene becomes dark.
My eyes burst open.

Flat on my back, I’m gripping my quilt with both hands.  The morning sun is pouring into the filmy windowpane above my bed. I wipe at my face, thinking his spit is still there. But my face is dry. I pull my knees into my chest, curling my legs securely into my arms. Staring at the tree outside my window, I count leaves, then the offshoots of the branches. Voices and happy chatter rises and falls, and I know I’ve overslept.

But I have no desire to get dressed or talk to anyone. I sure as hell am not drinking Lil’s sleeping tea and dealing with the sight of Rowe after what I’ve seen. Today, I’ll take exhaustion instead. My eyes follow the splintered cracks in the windowsill. 
It’s been too long since I’ve washed the glass
, I think as I note the water spots on the panes. I have no urge to cry. There’s nothing to feel about what I saw, nothing except emptiness.

***

“Calli?” the voice calls, thudding steps moving closer to my room.

I leap up from off my bed, realizing I have no time to close my door or make him go away before seeing me.

“Can’t you knock?” I shriek, guarded and mortified to have him come in unannounced. My shoulders curl inward, wanting to hide the frilly white nightgown Daphne made me. 
It makes me look ridiculous
, and I hurry to throw a blanket over myself.

“Lil is looking for you,” Isaiah says apologetically. “She wants you to soak some soup beans for tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I say, hoping he’ll take a hint and go.

He pauses in the open area, leaning on the doorframe. “Did something happen?” he asks. “I thought you liked to take your horse out on Tuesdays.”

“Nope,” I respond, mustering a large, closed smile. “Just another day.”

“You look terrible,” he says, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Thanks,” I mutter.

He stiffens, his tan neck arched back while he props himself in my door. 
Tell him to get out
, I shout in my head. 
Yell at him
. But I’m drained of all my usual brackish responses.

“I know you all make it a point not to talk about what you see,” he says, “but it can’t be good to bury it all down inside. To be left alone with it…sounds awful. You can talk to me—about whatever it is you saw.”

I want to argue with him—to say that he wouldn’t know a thing about it. But truthfully the secrets of what I see make me feel like a rancid peach infested with writhing worms. The nightmares are gradually eating my insides, taking chunks of my sanity from me. One more vision with mangled bodies or blood leaking from places it shouldn’t, and my brain is going to be soured mush from the memories of it. A second dream with the likes of the man I just saw is something I can’t even process.

“You know how back at the shed, you and I decided monsters aren’t worth the mention? Well, this one isn’t either.”

“I’m going to hug you,” he warns, eyeing me like he knows I’m thinking about pushing him.

My breath stalls in my throat, and the snapping of the fire in the other room seems sharp and abrasive. “Hugs are for Ordinaries,” I say in a matter of fact tone. “That’s something Lil has said as long as I can remember. I just need a second. Tell her I’ll take care of it.”

But he doesn’t listen to me. He scoops his toned arms around me, gathering me in to him. The smell of pine tar soap emanates from his gray shirt. He presses the side of my face against his chest, and I try to look up at the slant of the ceiling. I wonder if he’d do the same for all of the other Seers—if I’m as pathetic in my nightgown as Mildred is without a handkerchief, dipped in dry paint.

At first I keep my hands stubbornly at my sides, and the red quilt slips to the floor at my cold, bare feet. He wraps his arms tighter, refusing to let me have any room to slip away. “You’re not fragile for giving yourself permission to be sad,” he says, resting his chin on the top of my head. “Just because you don’t want to paint like Mildred—or scrub the floors like Lil does after a bad one, doesn’t mean you have to pretend you’re all right.”

My body collapses into his weight, surrendering to my tears. My crying is a high-pitched, jolting sound—something I’ve never heard come from my own mouth before. Shaking and trembling, I’m ashamed of how hideous and loud I am. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. I cling to him, digging my fingers into his back. I’ve never tapped into the power that runs through my veins, but as Isaiah’s arms surround me, I have an overpowering longing to save this girl from what awaits her. But the dreams are always of things that must be, and I can’t change that.

“I’m going to do a casting,” I tell him through broken sobs. “I shouldn’t. But I’m going to. I’m going to reach for whatever I have to, to punish the man I saw.”

He obviously doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but it feels comforting to admit it to someone. I’ve never used magic before. My mother died using it. Lil and Mildred would be irate with me. But my anger trumps any punishment Lil would give me. I’m going to cast in this little Ordinary girl’s behalf. Isaiah pulls away from me, squeezing my shoulders. “I don’t know what has you so torn up, but if there’s any way I can help—count me in.”

I nod, the tears flooding my face again. He wraps me back in to him. Hiding from my own terrors, I close my eyes and bury my face against him. He squeezes me as my muddled sobs soak his shirt. I realize I can’t control the misery I feel, any more than I can deny that Isaiah holding me makes me feel better. That for a moment I feel safe. Twice now, Isaiah has allowed my tears without any judgment. I doubt that if I had a brother, he could do any better.

18

ISAIAH

I
’m not sure what possessed me to tell Calli that I’d help with a curse. I’ve kissed one Seer, hugged another, and now I’ve volunteered to do some strange spell that will call for who knows what. Telling Calli no was beyond me though, when she managed to explain the horror of what happened to the little girl. That’s why I’m still sitting here. You can’t hear something so callous and cruel without feeling the anger flip your stomach inside out.

Calli rushes around the room gathering bowls, tossing red candles on top of the heap in her arms. As she places the candles in a triangle on the table, I shift in my seat. She sprinkles salt along the floor, encircling the table. “This is just for protection. I don’t need any other-worldly thing showing up uninvited.”

“A thing?”

She shrugs her shoulders, her lips lifting to one side. “I’m sure they’re just tall tales, but I’ve never actually done this before. Better safe than sorry, right? Thankfully I keep my ears open enough to know how a casting starts. Lil won’t talk about it—not even for conversation’s sake.”

Not knowing what she’s going to do next, my mouth feels dry—and bitter. My gaze follows her as she runs her hands along the spines of several books on the mantle. She hesitates before pulling one of them from its spot. Lugging the heavy green book to the table, she taps the cover with her fingers as she takes a seat across from me. “You can’t say a word to Daphne about this,” she says. “I really don’t keep that many secrets from her, but this would bother her.” She bends toward the fireplace, lighting each candle before returning it to the triangular shape she’d formed with them.

“Why are you so afraid of anyone hearing you’ve done a spell?” I push, when I see her pull a small silver dagger from the folds of her dress. She slides the dagger to the end of the table, as if it no longer feels essential.

“My mother died channeling,” she says, no inflection in her response. “I don’t know why Lil and Mildred can’t seem to get over it. She’s
my
mother, and all I’ve ever thought is that she must’ve been daft to think it was a good idea. My mother used to draw from rainstorms to do magic, so she didn’t have to channel the life or blood of anything. She was struck dead by a lightning bolt—found lying face down in a yellow patch of grass the next morning. Not surprising when you stand in an open field and tempt nature. Ever since, Mildred and Lil refuse to channel though. Daphne and I aren’t supposed to either.”

Oh Calli. Your cousin does magic all of the time
.
And for things as insignificant as muffins
. I couldn’t bring myself to be the one to inform her of that, so I let her keep talking.

“So, anyway, it sort of sets us apart from the rest of our coven. A lot of the Seers think we’re strange to abandon our gifts. But my mother was best friends with Lil and Mildred. The three of them aren’t actually sisters you know—they were just really close. When my mother died, Lil and Mildred were changed by it. Lil took me in, and I’ve never been allowed to cast or summon because of it.”

“I wondered why none of you look alike,” I say, amused to have ever believed there was any blood relation between Calli and Daphne. I take the dagger off the table, rotating it in slow turns as I examine it. “Calli, I want to help you. I do. After what you’ve told me about the man you saw—what he did—I understand why you’d turn to magic to punish him. But I’m no fool. And I’ve seen what happened when Rowe only meant to grow flowers. If I’m going to be a part of this, I need to know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into.”

I’m eyeing the dusty book, cautious of what kind of curse she’s even considering. If she’s about to speak the word
death
, then I’m going back to my chores.

“Every kind of magic we do comes with a cost,” she says, her eyes set to me to gauge my reaction. “A summoning is merely our way of asking fate an important question, of getting an answer. In a Nightblood’s case, one of his veins would darken beneath his skin—to mark the magic he has done. A strong spell will lighten my skin a bit. Channeling is to create something, but you have to draw from the life or energy of something else. It’s a trade. Any kind of magic requires a trade.”

“But you said we’re casting. A curse,” I press, my voice careful as I push the blade to the center of the table in front of her. “Why a knife, Calli? Does this involve slaughtering a chicken or something? You need to tell me what we’re trading here to put a curse on somebody.”

“There’s two ways to place a curse upon another,” she says, flipping through the pages in a wild frenzy. “And no. I’m very fond of chickens, actually. But we’ve got to hurry if I’m going to do this before Lil sees I’ve taken one of the coven scripts from the shelf. I have to find the right chant and quickly.”

“You’re not answering my question,” I say, stopping her from turning another page. “You said there are two ways, but not what’s required to do it.”

“I can either promise a piece of my soul,” she continues, her chin tipped up in a resolute manner. “I’d exchange a certain amount of time after my death to be in the service of the Underworld. The Nightbloods think nothing of it. Or—”

“Or?”

“Or blood is placed upon the page of the chanted casting,” she says eyeing me closer. “But coven blood would only seal a curse upon another Seer or Nightblood. Blood magic is very specific. So instead I’m going to offer time to the Underworld. Otherwise I’d need—”

“Ordinary blood,” I finish, noting the dagger. “Ordinary blood to satisfy a curse on an Ordinary.”

“I grabbed the knife in a panic, to get everything I might need,” she says, shaking her head apologetically. “I know I can’t ask you for something like that. I wouldn’t.”

“No,” I say, extending my palm upward on the table. “That’s insanity to sell yourself in death. And I’m not keeping this curse a secret if your spirit is going to become part of some creepy purgatory. My hand will heal. You don’t actually need a lot of blood … do you?”

She gives me a closed smile, a hint of mischief in it. “No. You can keep all of your limbs. I’d only need a few drops. But I don’t want you to feel forced into this. I know our ways are—unsettling. I really can do this the other way.”

“Give me the knife,” I say, beckoning at her with my other hand. “Let’s just do this already.”

Running the blade over the crease in my palm, it burns as the edge slices through. “Where do you want it?”

She slides the book to me, the aged pages wrinkled and smeared in brown. The dark smudges are clearly not dirt, but bloody fingerprints. “Here,” she says, pointing. “Anywhere below the words.”

I push the heel of my hand flat against the page. “Now what?”

She takes my hands in hers, a fierce glare upon her face as she stares back at me. “Now I cast a curse on that beast of a man.” She says the words as if each one is its own thought—all nonsense sounds that mean nothing to me. As she reads the last of it, she sits up a little taller—studying the flickering candles. “Come on,” she coaxes them. Her forehead wrinkles. “If it worked they should’ve burned out when I finished saying it. Why didn’t the spell work? I put your blood on the right page. I did it carefully. Maybe I didn’t pronounce it all correctly. Damn it. I knew I should have paid more attention to how the others read scripts. Let me try it one more time. I’ll read it slower and hopefully those drops of blood were enough. We’re not cutting your hand again. I’ll just have to do it the other way.”