Signal to Noise (31 page)

“Where’s my object of power?” she asked.

She headed into his bedroom and began tearing his maps from the walls, ripping the postcards and tossing the sheets from his bed.

“Hey!” he yelled as she opened the doors of his armoire and pulled out his shirts, throwing them on the floor.

“Where do you have it?”

“It’s not here and I am not giving it back to you tonight.”

“When are you going to give it back, asshole?”

“When I damn feel like it!”

She turned around, shoulders raised, and walked away.

“Come back here!” he yelled.

“Go to hell,” came the reply.

He chased her down the stairs, furiously stomping on every step.

“You’re jealous, isn’t that right? That’s what this is about. You’re jealous of me.”

“Like I’d be jealous of you!”

“Well, you are.”

“You knew I needed that record,” she told him, stopping on the second landing and turning around, slamming him against the wall even though he was much bigger than her. “You knew it and you stole it!”

“I borrowed it.”

“You are a thief!”

“Didn’t you say to take what I wanted? When life offers you something, grab it. I’ve grabbed it, alright.”

“How did you dare, to go into my house, into my room...”

“You wouldn’t lend it to me! You were being selfish! Now you’re angry because I used it, because I have the girl and you don’t have the guy.”

“What goddamn guy?” she asked.

“Constantino! Which other guy would it be?”

“You thought I was going to play that record to get together with Constantino?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, gripping her tight and flipping her around so that she was now against the wall, his fingers digging into her flesh.

“Who else?” he muttered.

Meche let out a low laugh which startled him. Confusion, doubt, flashed across his face.

“I wanted to play that record for my parents. So they’d get back together.”

His hands grew slack and she brushed them off her.

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course not. You’re too busy being selfish.”

“You can have it back. The record—”

“—I tried it. It has no power left.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You drained it! You took it all for yourself and for her! Are you in love now, Sebastian?” she asked, pushing him back so that his back hit the bannister. “Does your heart beat a little faster?”

“I didn’t know records could be drained.”

“Doesn’t matter now, does it? Pat yourself on the back. You have the girl of your dreams and I have nothing.”

“Don’t exaggerate. Look, Meche—”

“You’re going to regret this,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes for a second, feeling like they were standing at the edge of a cliff and were about to fall.

“Can we pause and rewind?”

“No.”

She shoved him away, her elbow hitting his ribs, and then she was gone.

Twin desires, to seek her forgiveness and to ignore her, warred with each other. His pride was hurt by the angry slap. He did not want to acknowledge he had done any wrong. To do so would be to admit she had been right and, once again, his pride would be stomped over.

He would talk to her later. Give her a day or two to cool down. Seek Daniela’s intercession if necessary.

But why the hell did he feel like they’d already hit the ground and shattered?

D
ANIELA WRUNG HER
hands and pushed the cupcake moulds into the Easy-Bake oven, trying to focus on her cooking. But Meche would not stop. She had been going on about it for nearly an hour and Daniela knew this was not a storm which would subside. This was a hurricane, gaining speed, preparing to rip the ground apart. Daniela did not know what to do. She did not know how to stop it. She felt that with every passing minute she was being engulfed by Meche’s nervous energy, dragged along, small satellite that she was.

“I said, will you help me hex him?”

There. The question. Point-blank. Daniela squeezed her eyes shut.

“I need to finish baking.”

“Quit playing silly games,” Meche said, crouching down and looking straight at Daniela’s face. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“What you want to do... it’s mean,” Daniela whispered.

“You think what he did to me is right? You think stealing is nice?”

“No.”

“And ruining my parents’ marriage?”

“No.”

“And getting together with her, with Isadora, that is nice? How many times has she made fun of us at recess and suddenly she’s all over him? And he likes it?”

“I know, it’s just—”

“It’ll only be a little tumble from the motorcycle. A few scrapes. He can take it.”

Daniela shook her head and closed the oven door. She set the timer and rubbed her hands against her skirt.

“He’ll ache for a couple of days and then he will be fine.”

“You should talk to him,” Daniela said. “You should talk it out.”

“I’ll talk to him after we are even.”

“Why not talk to him
now
?”

“There is nothing to talk about.”

Meche stood up and walked to the other side of the room, standing before Daniela’s shelves and looking at her dolls and toys. She grabbed a stuffed bunny and squeezed it between her hands. It was pointless, once Meche had boiled herself up to this state, to expect her to cool down. Daniela knew it. There had been other fights, other times when she had been called on to act as conspirator and ally of one of her friends—mostly Meche. However, this time it felt different. More dangerous. It was not a childish prank, not about cutting holes into Sebastian’s t-shirt. This was about inflicting actual physical pain.

“I thought you cared about Sebastian. Loved him. When you love someone—”

“What?”

Meche’s quick turn of the head and the way she spit out the words, as though she had just swallowed sour milk, made Daniela realize she had misspoken. She blinked and scrambled to correct herself.

“I... I meant...”

“What did you say?” Meche asked, frowning.

“Nothing. I... we can cast the hex,” Daniela said, wishing only to avert Meche’s wrath, to make those dark eyes turn away from her.

Her acceptance had the expected effect. Meche smiled, looking smug, and tossed the bunny away.

“We should head to the factory,” she said.

Every crack on the pavement spoke words of warning to Daniela as she rushed behind Meche, towards the old, abandoned building. But there was nothing to do now. She was a coward and would obey, bend the knee. She always did.

“A
RE YOU READY
?” she asked.

“Meche, you can’t,” Daniela whispered.

The factory was cold. Shadows gathered at the corners of the window. The distant moon turned its face away from them, hiding behind a cloud.

Meche knew they shouldn’t do it. She could feel it in every fibre of her being, feel it from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, but she did not care. She would have her revenge. She would have her hex.

“It’s Sebastian.”

“I know exactly who he is,” Meche said.

She held the needle above the groove. There was only one song for such a spell, only one song for this kind of hex and she had known it from the moment her hand had found the record—guided by some unknown force, just like it had been guided in the record shop to find A Whiter Shade of Pale—waiting on the third bin to the left, near the Jimi Hendrix poster.

It was
In the Court of the Crimson King
. Recorded in 1969, it was the debut album by the British rock group King Crimson. Although it contained five tracks she knew which one she needed. Side two. Fifth song.

It was a track to bring down houses and topple monarchs and surely it would teach a lesson to a teenage boy. A lesson he would not be likely to forget.

The music began to play. Daniela and Meche held hands tight as the building groaned, reverberating to the sound of Greg Lake’s voice.

D
ANIELA WANTED TO
pull her hand away, but Meche dug her nails into her palm and Daniela stopped fretting.

She was scared. The windows were tinkling, the glass straining in the frames and Meche’s hand felt like it was a hot iron poker. When she looked at Meche’s face, her eyes looked darker and older.

Shadows seemed to cloak Meche. She was robed in darkness. And the power in her burned, making Daniela wince.

S
EVERAL BLOCKS AWAY
Sebastian turned a corner as he had done many times before. But this time something felt wrong. Invisible hands seemed to hover on top of his own hands, invisible fingers making the motorcycle speed up, howl and screech and rush down hill.

He knew the hands.

This was Meche’s doing. She was trying to scare him.

“Screw you!” he yelled.

He didn’t know if she could hear him, but she hoped his defiance reached her.

The pressure of the hands increased, he swerved and almost lost control of the bike.

A cold bead of sweat dripped down his forehead and he was suddenly afraid. He realized she was not playing. It was not a prank.

“Mercedes!” he yelled.

The car hit him right at that instant and sent him flying through the air, tumbling over the pavement.

D
OLORES WAS HALF-ASLEEP
on the couch, her hands resting over a ball of yarn, when she felt the tugging. The web of magic drifting through their apartment shivered and moaned. She opened her eyes slowly, specks of darkness dancing before her eyes.

And she knew what was happening all of a sudden. Meche was casting a new spell. A very dark spell.

A spell of death.

Dolores stood up and shuffled towards her bedroom without bothering to put on her slippers. She opened a drawer and pulled out her thimble. She looked at her sisters in the photograph and wished they were still around. Lone witches are never much good. Maybe if the others were still alive they could have taught Meche the way Dolores couldn’t. Because Dolores had never been the head witch. Just a minor echo for her eldest sister. Always half-afraid of the spells and now unable to even remember most of them. They’d poured out of her one summer, long, long ago.

But perhaps there was one last spell she might remember.

Dolores put on the thimble. She took needle and thread and began stitching a handkerchief. Sweat beaded her forehead as she worked. The needle rose and fell, dipping until she tied a knot and cut it with her scissors.

There was a hiss, like steam escaping a kettle. Dolores winced as the thimble burned her finger.

She felt Meche’s death spell eroding and decaying, bits of it falling to the floor. The thimble also slid from her finger, shattering, bits of white dust scattered all around her.

Dolores closed her eyes and sighed.

D
ANIELA SAT ON
the couch, heart beating fast, and stared at Meche. Meche was on the floor wrapped in a blanket, a cushion behind her head, eyes closed and humming. Daniela could barely breathe but Meche seemed to be making a quick recovery.

Watching her from her position on the couch, Daniela knew her friend was dangerous. She felt the same horror she might feel at discovering a scorpion in her shoe and though she was exhausted, hungry and in desperate need for a nap, she pulled her knapsack over her shoulder.

“I should go,” she said.

“Go,” Meche said, eyes closed.

Daniela walked out quietly, looking over her shoulder before she closed the door.

M
ECHE WALKED HOME
listening to los Fabulosos Cadillacs sing Mi Novia se Cayó en un Pozo Ciego. She felt festive, moving to the rhythm of the trumpets, bobbing her head and smiling. By the time she stepped into the apartment she was dancing.

“Hey, mom,” she said, noticing that the kitchen light was on.

She poked her head in the kitchen. Her mother’s eyes looked raw and red.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“I was hanging out with Daniela,” Meche said. “What’s up? Is this about Sebos?”

“Sebastian?” her mother said. “No.”

Odd. Because Meche thought maybe Sebastian’s mother had already called to give them the bad news: that her son had a little traffic accident, that he’d broken his leg and Meche could feign innocence. Buy flowers. Take them to the hospital. The joy of his pain would be like a candy, melting in her mouth. Perhaps he would think twice about messing with her again. He thought himself a warlock? Fine. She was a witch.

“Then what’s with you?”

“Your grandmother had a stroke. I just came to pick some clothes for her, some things—”

“She didn’t have a stroke,” Meche said.

“She did have a stroke. This evening.”

“But she couldn’t have.”

“Meche, I need to go to the hospital,” her mother said, rubbing her eyes and reaching for her purse. “I have to get a cab and get back there.”

“Can I go?”

“All you’d be doing is waiting.”

“I can wait.”

Her mother nodded and they hurried down the stairs.

The telephone began to ring when they shut the door, a lonesome and sad cry.

S
EBASTIAN HELD THE
receiver and leaned back, trying to find a comfortable position on the couch. He had bruised his knee, had scrapes here and there, a sprained ankle and a broken wrist.

“You are an idiot,” Romualdo said. “How come you were driving so fast? Don’t you watch where you are going?”

Sebastian pressed the plastic bag filled with ice and wrapped with an old towel against his leg, watching the bruises with a certain detachment, as though this had happened to someone else. It felt like it had happened to someone else. Like he was a character in a video game, controlled by another player.

Meche.

The phone rang and rang.

Answer,
he thought, gritting his teeth.
Answer me
.
Tell me it was an accident, a game; you didn’t mean it. Tell me now.

“You know what’s going to happen, right? Mom is going to take away the bike. Not only that, she’s going to blame it on me for giving it to you in the first place. She’s going to say I did this. That’s bullshit.”