boisdemoon

DAMARA

The garage is surprisingly cozy. The first floor is a big, open area with the expected garage stuff and yard appliances, but upstairs is a mezzanine that’s been converted in a little guest bedroom, with a queen-size bed in a corner, an ornated desk next to it, and fairy lights tied around the thick wooden beams of the ceiling. I drop the woolen blankets on the mat.

“Wow,” I concede.

Jaden smiles, opening a door I thought gave to a closet to reveal a beautiful bathroom with green and yellow tiled mosaic on the floor and walls. “We’ve spelled the place so it’s always clean,” he says. “Mom has an aunt with the annoying habit of showing up uninvited and staying with us for weeks, lecturing her that she should always be ready to host family. We’ve adjusted.”

I sit on the side of the bed, tracing a finger on the soft blanket on top of the pile. For the first time tonight, the realization that I am here and breathing really dawns on me. And it tires me, as though I’ve run all night wearing a jacket made of merciless stones. I want to sleep for hours, but I’m scared I won’t wake up again.

The blade sinking in my chest.

The flames licking my face.

My skin no longer immune to fire now that I’m being drained of my blood, of my magic.

Her voice telling me to hold on, it will be okay.

I rub the fatigue from my eyes.

Jaden nabs at his bottom lip with his teeth, and I notice the front ones overlap a little. “My father will be here soon with the food,” he says. “I’ll let you rest.”

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.

I may not trust other Blood witches, but they have no reason to trust me either, and they’ve been treating me better than I deserve. Better than my family would’ve treated one of them if the roles were reversed.

“So,” Jaden says, scratching the back of his neck. “I’ll see you in the morning. Right?”

A smile plays on my lips. “Yes.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” He exhales, obviously relieved, and I feel pity toward him at his gullibility. He hurries down the stairs, making the mezzanine shake slightly.

I wait a minute to make sure he’s gone before I head to the bathroom, and the moment I see it, I gasp.

Logically, I knew it wouldn’t be me, that the ashes of my own corpse are under the ground by now, but seeing a complete stranger instead of my familiar reflection in the mirror is … something.

I step as close as I can, leaning against the sink to touch the cold glass. Short, bony fingers meet my hand, so alien to my usual long, graceful fingers. This face is rounder, lips fuller. This chin is pointy, and these eyes are of a dark shade of blue. I want to cry, to be honest, but I swallow it all. I get out of the bathroom and close the door behind me.

“Not yet,” I whisper to myself, shaking my head. Black curls brush my shoulders, which is a new feeling. I always kept my hair much shorter, too short to tie it. I want to cut this hair to feel a little more like myself, but I have a feeling Clare would not go easy on me if I did.

“I’m coming up,” a cheerful voice says, and I fan my hands in front of my eyes to dry the tears that were dangling at my lashes.

Peverell appears at the top of the stairs, smiling and holding a tray with lemonade, cheeses, sliced baguette, and an amazing salad bowl. “That looks delicious,” I say, forcing a smile.

“Thank you.” He sets the tray on the desk, then walks back to the stairs, stopping on the first step. “I won’t bother you any longer. Unless you’d like some company?”

I can tell he’s hoping I say yes, that he’s dying to ask me more questions, but I just don’t have the strength. “I’d rather rest, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem. Good night, Har—sorry. Good night.”

He leaves. And when I’m absolutely convinced that he’s gone, I finally allow myself the thing I’ve been craving ever since I took my first breath in this body.

I cry. I cry and I sob and I ache until exhaustion finally conquers and sleep carries me away in a river of my salt.

*

My dreams are visceral, filled with gore. I see my reflection die a million times at the hands of the Sight witch, Saleali, but I don’t wake up, not until they ask me for the hundredth time to help them.

And I agree.

*

There are no windows. I have no idea what time it is, but the food on the desk still looks deliciously fresh, so I don’t think I slept very long.

I devour the whole thing, gulp down the lemonade, and head to the bathroom to take a bath, careful not to look in the mirror this time.

The water soothes me, like it always did when I was alive. I use the sea salts in the jar on the floor and the scent of lavender envelops the entire mezzanine. I breathe in and out, soaking in until I’m sure I won’t cry again. Until I’m able to focus on what’s next instead of grieving the past.

I left something unfinished so I will finish it.

This must be the purpose of my strange resurrection.

After drying myself with a towel, I walk naked to the middle of the mezzanine, biting the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. I turn to the wall that faces the Wickens’ house and press both hands to it. “No layers,” I mumble. “Nec murum.”

For a long minute, nothing happens. I grow worried the magic of the Marshes deserted me when I crossed to the next life, but then the blood in my mouth heats up, lacing around my tongue like a ribbon of smoke. It all feels incredibly foreign, but there’s also the echo of my own blood and power deep in those veins.

I smile. “Nec murum,” I repeat, louder.

The wooden wall of the garage goes translucid. I can see the house perfectly, the sun rising weakly in the distance behind a few trees, toward the marshland. A single window on the first floor is illuminated with lamps from the inside, and I can see Peverell, Clare, and Jaden gathered around a coffee table in what looks like the living room, scouring books. Clare is pacing, waving her arms as she talks. Peverell calmly sips tea. Jaden is leaning so close to the books I think his nose must touch the paper.

Norma isn’t with them.

Perfect.

I go back to the bathroom to get the salts. In the main room, I roll the fancy rug away so I can pour salt directly on the wood, drawing a bird as I repeat Norma’s name under my breath. Then I grab a fistful of salts and spit some blood into the mix.

“Come,” I say. “Don’t let the others see you.”

Then I wait. I watch the house through the translucid wall, wringing my hands. When I see her shadow cross the hall of the second floor, I smile again. She heard.

I clean up the salt, dropping it in the bath where it melts in the water, then I go unroll the rug to cover up my mess. Just as I finish, I hear her voice.

“Hello?”

“Up here.”

She stays at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m not going up. I don’t feel comfortable being here.”

“That makes two of us.”

A beat. “What do you want?”

“To talk. I have a favor to ask, and I don’t think the others would help me with it.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re too focused on getting your friend back. If I ask them to track my girlfriend and make sure she’s been doing okay since I died, they’ll say there’s no time.” When she doesn’t reply, I add a painful but true detail, “Norma, I don’t know how long I’ve got in this body.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and I fear she heard the bluff in my speech. But then she climbs up the steps, saying, “Also, mentioning your girlfriend would be admitting you remember your life, that you lied to them, which is probably why you don’t want to ask the Wickens.”

“Also that,” I grant just as she appears at the top of the stairs.

She brings her hands to her eyes at once and yelps. “Whoa, hey! Why the hell are you naked?”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot.”

“You forgot? You sent me a creepy magic message to come here and meet you, but you forgot you were bare-ass naked?”

“I had to be naked to see through the wall,” I say defensively.

“Oh, obviously. That makes perfect sense,” she says with obvious sarcasm.

“It’s true. Look at the wall.”

She hesitates. She peeks through her fingers as she climbs up the last few steps, then gasps. She walks past me, all the way to the invisible wall, looking down at the others still assembled in the living room. “Holy cow,” she mumbles.

“There aren’t any windows in here,” I say, grabbing the change of clothes through the pile of blankets. “I felt like a prisoner.”

As I put on the clothes, the wall returns gradually, thick wood and picture frames replacing the wide opening. It feels darker than it was now that I saw the dawn, the fairy lights too high to be of any use, so I reach the little desk to turn on the sconce above it.

“Thanks for coming,” I tell Norma, hoping this new face conveys how genuinely I mean that.

Norma crosses her arms over the clean tank top she must’ve borrowed from her friend. Her hair is still wet from a shower. “I don’t like lying to them. They’re good people.”

“You won’t have to lie. I just want to know she’s okay. This is all very recent for me. It feels like I lost her, not the other way around, and I—” My throat is suddenly tight, burning, and I leave it at that, knowing it’s too dangerous to blend in emotions with my plan.

Norma gives me a little sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you mind me asking how it happened?”

I close my eyes, exhaling slowly, because the truth is like a punch in the gut. “In all honesty, I don’t think I’m ready to revisit that day.”

The blade.

The fire.

Her smile.

“Will you help me?” I ask, blinking the last memory away.

She turns away, pacing. Then she uncrosses her arms, her shoulders relaxing.

“What’s her name?”

“Thank you,” I say, relief flooding me. I rush over to hug her, but when she freezes awkwardly in my embrace, I let her go, stepping back to respect her space. “It means a lot to me.” I walk to the desk, opening the drawer in search of a pen. When I find one, I turn back to offer her my free hand. “Here’s her info.”

She looks at my empty palm suspiciously. “Um,” she says.

“Just shake it.”

She does. Her skin is cold, and her fingers are trembling a little, so I hurry. With my other hand, I dig my nails into my palm until I draw blood, then tap the pen on top of our joined hands and say, “Peony Miller’s address.”

When I let go, Norma looks at her hand, astonishment clear in her dark eyes. “Woah.”

“That comes pretty handy,” I say with a little shrug. “Pun intended.”

She reads the address now written in black ink inside her palm. “What do you want me to tell her exactly?”

“Nothing. She didn’t know I was a witch. Say you’re an old friend from camp and that you wanted to give your condolences or something. Just try to notice how she’s doing so you can let me know. Make sure she’s eating, okay? And maybe find a way to know if she’s still doing pottery. She goes crazy when she doesn’t. Oh, can you ask how her mother’s cat is doing? He’s old and so lonely since she went back to work.”

“I’m not a creep,” Norma deadpans. “She doesn’t know me. There’s no way I can ask all that casually.”

“Fair enough.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “Just whatever you manage to fit in the conversation.”

“Okay.” Norma heads back toward the stairs. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

She doesn’t reply. She’s leaving too fast, probably nervous, or still uncomfortable. I say, “Just one more thing.”

She pinches her lips. “No, no more things. I’m really trying to be cool about all this, but I have my limits, okay? I almost burnt to death, you look exactly like Harlowe but you’re not, the Wickens are apparently witches, and you made the wall disappear with your tits or something. Honestly, no more things. That’s it for today. That’s it for the year.”

I can’t help laughing at that. I laugh for a whole minute. “With my tits?” I repeat, catching my breath.

“I don’t know!” Norma raises her arms. “I obviously don’t know half of what’s going on.”

“Some spells require us to very literally show our purpose,” I explain, still smiling. “I have to get rid of my own layers for the wall to do the same for me.”

“Cool, yeah. By the way, I don’t care that you’re not prudish. Harlowe is, and this is her body. So respect it. No more casually waiting for people naked.”

I sober up at that. She’s a hundred percent right.

“Sorry. I will.” I pause. “Just one more tiny little thing, though, I beg you.”

Norma sighs. “What is it?”

I give her my best smile. “When you’re there, could you ask to go to the bathroom and then grab my necklace in the little box under the sink? You can’t miss it. It’s got a bright red stone on the medallion.”

“Hey, I’m not stealing anything.”

“It’s not stealing. It’s mine. I lived there, too, you know? That’s where I was running to last night.” She narrows her eyes at me suspiciously, so I add, “I just want to feel a tiny bit like myself. This is literally someone else’s body and I’m sort of freaking out every time I look at my hands. That necklace meant everything to me.”

She closes her eyes for a second, then says. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Well, I believe you, which makes me feel crazy guilty.”

Worry pricks at my heart. “Why would you feel guilty, Norma?”

She doesn’t look at me. She stares at the picture frames on the wall, her lips taut. Exhaustion is apparent under her eyes and in the set of her shoulders, and anxiety is making her fidget from one foot to the other.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “But you didn’t really expect me to just come here without warning them? You—stole my best friend’s body or something.”

“I didn’t steal it,” I say, running to the stairs, and that’s when I see Clare leaning against the big garage door, arms crossed.

“So, you remember,” she says in a glacial tone. “Excellent.”

---

Read chapter 13.

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