That Touch of Magic (31 page)

I left Leo with Tobias and Cain in the living room, and went out back with Liv to sit in the Adirondack chairs by her mother’s garden. Her mother’s urn and Millie’s sat side by side in the corner of the garden, surrounded by flowers and the occasional ceramic frog, which, prior to today, had always made me smile. The girl had a bunny made from a mug, but the ceramics that were actually made to like real critters were just decoration.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, taking a sip from the iced tea she’d given me. “I think bad. Mostly, I’m numb. Kind of hollow. I think maybe that’s because it’s not over. Once it’s over, I’ll fall apart.”

“Yep.” She took a sip of her own drink and we sat in silence for a while. More than anyone in the world, Liv understood what I was going through. “If there’s anything I can do—”

“You’re doing it,” I said. “Just giving us a place to stay for a few days, so I can figure this out. It really helps.”

She let out a little laugh. “Power doesn’t count for much, does it?”

I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, here I am, right? I have evolving magic, magic I can control and strengthen. Magic so rare that someone tried to kill me to steal it from me. I have both day and night magic. I’m a freaking unicorn and…” She shrugged. “What can I do? I can make you a fish out of a keychain. I can’t help. I can’t make Desmond give you the cure. I can’t fix you, or your mom, or Ms. Troudt, or Clementine. It’s frustrating.”

“I know,” I said. “I can make a potion that will make you fart rainbows, but I can’t make Leo love me again. How stupid is that?”

“Oh, baby.” She reached out and put her hand over mine. “He’ll come back to you.”

“Yeah?” I swiped at my face. “How do you know that?”

She gave me a sad smile. “Because he’s Leo, and that’s what he does. Sometimes it takes a while, but he comes back.”

Just then, we heard steps behind us. I shifted in my seat and there was Leo, looking a little haggard, but standing on his own power, which was good.

Liv hopped up out of her seat. “Sit down, Leo. I’ll go get you something to drink. Water? Iced tea?”

“Water’d be great,” he said, his voice scratchy.

“Here,” she said, and handed him her iced tea. “Take this for now, if that doesn’t gross you out.”

He let out a short laugh. “I used to drink wine from a glass with a thousand people every Sunday.” He held up the iced tea and smiled at her. “Thanks.”

I watched him as he watched her go, his face full of warmth and affection. And then he looked at me, and the light in his eyes went out. I must have reacted to it, because he said, “Damnit,” and sat down heavily in Liv’s vacant chair.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I have something you can take. It’ll be okay. It’ll bring you back.”

He shook his head. “You have one dose. You can’t use it on me.”

“I’ve made the decision, Leo.”

He shook his head. “It’s not your decision to make. I won’t take it.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I said, my throat tightening. “You don’t feel anything when you look at me. You’re numb. I’m the one who’s hurting.”

“You think I don’t feel this?” He stared at me. “I remember all of it. I remember every night I was away, how I forgot every detail of this town and everyone in it, but I saw your face, clear as a bell. I remember talking to a parishioner who had married his high school sweetheart and being so envious I wanted to hit him. I remember everything we did together, everything we are to each other, and when I look at you, it’s like this big, black chasm. The only happiness in my life was just taken away from me.”

I leaned forward, shifting closer to him. “So, take the potion, Leo. Just take it. I don’t know if it’s going to work on Desmond anyway, but I figured this much out. I’ll figure something else out. I’m smart, and I can—”

“It’s your best chance of getting through to him, of saving not just yourself, but your mother. Ms. Troudt. Clementine. Stacy, that kid’s seventeen.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I thought about Clementine, her sweetness and vulnerability, and then shook my head against it. I was Stacy Easter, and I did what I wanted, and to hell with everyone else. If that was who I was, then there had to be an upside, and saving Leo at the expense of everything else …

I took in a deep breath as my stomach roiled.

“Look,” I said desperately, “this might not even work on Desmond. Who’s to say he’s not naturally a sociopath to begin with? This is all guesswork, Leo, and I have no friggin’ idea what I’m doing here.”

“Which is why you’ve got to try everything you have,” he said. “Including that potion.”

I sighed. “I gave one of the purple vials to Cain to try to figure out what’s in it. That means I’ve got one left. Assuming that none of us uses our powers, that might buy us another day or two. I can figure something out. There’s time.”

“Maybe,” he said. “You’re relying on a lot of ifs.”

“I know,” I said. “Worse comes to worst, I’ll just go with Desmond and be his guinea pig until I figure out something to fix all this. But I can’t … I can’t live the rest of my life looking at you and seeing…”

I crumbled over, weeping into my hands, and Leo was immediately at my side. He pulled me up into his arms and held me, and for a moment, it all felt better.

Until I pulled back and our eyes met, and there was nothing there.

“We can still get married,” he said. “Maybe … maybe I can fall in love with you all over again.”

“Maybe,” I said, my breath catching in my chest. “Maybe not. But this…” I motioned toward him. “This is worse than dying, worse than going with Desmond. My heart breaks every time I look at you. I can’t live a lifetime like that.”

He lowered his eyes. “No. I guess not.”

I took both his hands in mine. “Please, Leo. Please,
please.
Just take it. I can’t do any of this without you. I used to be able to function without you, but you came back and you ruined that and you can’t leave me now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly.

I looked at him, the sight of him blurring through my tears. “You’re already gone.”

“You have to focus on Desmond,” he said. “We’ll deal with me afterward, but right now you’ve got to stay on task.”

“I can’t focus on anything else while you’re like this,” I said, crying so hard I could barely get the words out. “I can’t do it, Leo. I can’t.”

“Hey, shhh,” he said, drawing me back into his arms. I wept onto his shirt, and he held me, comforting me. I pressed my face to his chest, trying to pretend he was still there, that when I pulled back and looked into his eyes it wouldn’t stab me through the heart.

“Okay,” he said finally, his voice almost a whisper.

“Okay, what?” I asked, sniffling.

“I’ll take the potion.”

I stepped back, my heart racing. “You will? You mean it?”

He looked at me with dead eyes. “I believe in you. You’re so smart. You can fix this, and I know you will.”

I threw my arms around him, hugging him tight. “It’s just inside, in my messenger bag. I’ll be back in a couple of seconds. I don’t have a hypodermic needle, but Cain said it can go through the skin, as long as you don’t wash it off.” I kept my eyes closed and kissed him. He kissed me back, and it was a little cold, a little removed, but I didn’t care. Leo would be back with me in just a little while; I could hold on until then.

I started for the back door, only turning when I heard Leo call my name.

“What?” I said, swiping at my face and sniffling through my smile. “You can’t take it back now. No changing your mind.”

He smiled, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I love you. I may not feel it right now, but I know it. I want you to know it, too. I’m doing this because I know that I love you.”

I nodded, but couldn’t say anything, not while he was looking at me with that dead expression. Not when the spark would be back in a little while. I ran inside to the living room, grabbed my messenger bag, and rushed back out.

Leo was gone. I glanced around, twirling in circles until I heard the old familiar rattle of Nick’s truck starting up. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach, and I ran down the alley between Liv’s and Peach’s houses just in time to see Nick’s truck take the corner onto Main.

Nick, however, was standing on the porch, staring off after it.

“Nick?” I said.

He turned to me, and his expression went from confusion to compassion. “Stace.” In that one word was everything. Sorrow. Pity. Bad news on the horizon.

I forced my leaden feet to move. Nick came down the porch to meet me.

“He made me promise I wouldn’t let you follow him.” Nick took my arm and led me to the porch steps, where I sat with a
thud,
staring down the empty street. Even the faint rattle of Nick’s crappy muffler was gone.

“He told me to tell you that everything he said was true, and that’s why he had to go. I don’t know what that means, but…”

He trailed off, sitting next to me on the stoop. I couldn’t even get up the energy to sob, or breathe. Tears just welled and dripped down my face as I stared off into the distance.

“Hey.” Nick put his arm around my shoulders. “He’ll come back.”

“No,” I said. “He won’t.”

“You don’t know that. Leo’s a good guy. Whatever happened between you two, he’ll do right by you.”

“I know.” I tried to smile, but my lips just trembled. “That’s why he’s not coming back.”

“Oh.” He tightened his grip around my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

I sniffed and swiped at my face. “Yeah. Me, too.”

We sat there, watching the empty street where Leo had gone, my big brother once again with his arm around me, trying to protect me from the world. Even when he was mad at me, he always loved me first, and the thought made me cry even harder. In response, Nick held me tighter, letting me get tears all over his shirt.

After a while, I pulled myself together enough to look at him. “I’m sorry I broke the Widow and ruined your honeymoon.”

“Hey.” He gave a dismissive wave. “She was broken when we got her. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I was just pissed because I was getting a lot of sex in Spain, and then there’s Mom, staying with us … well.” He shrugged. “It put kind of a spanner in the works, if you know what I mean.”

“Ew,” I said, and swatted at him, then I remembered that Leo was gone and a fresh wave of grief hit me. My eyes filled with tears and I crumpled against my big brother again. He held me there for a while, patting my back, only speaking again once I’d calmed down a bit.

“Hey, you want a steak? Peach took Mom to get some more things from the house, so it’s just you and me. It’ll be like old times, when I used to cook dinner for us. Come on. You know I hate eating alone. Let me fix you a steak.”

Despite myself, I laughed. Nick was like an Italian mother that way. There was no problem so bad that food couldn’t fix it. At the moment, eating was the last thing on my mind. My stomach was a mess, and I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to keep anything down. But Nick showed his love through food, and there was nothing else he could do to make me feel better, so I should at least let him feed me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can I put ketchup on it?”

“No,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out to me. “What are you? A savage?”

I let him pull me up to standing. “A1 Sauce? Something?”

“You put sauce on crap.” He put his arm around my shoulders and led me up to the porch. “You don’t put sauce on a good steak. You think I would feed you a bad steak?”

“I like the sauce,” I said, then sniffled and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, the way I did when we were little.

“I am going to make you a steak so good, you’ll never want sauce again.”

“But I
like
the sauce.”

Nick opened the front door and looked down at me, and his expression softened.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “You can have the sauce.”

*   *   *

I couldn’t eat much of the steak, but Nick was happy with a few bites, and once I’d stopped the breathless hiccuping that followed my sob fest, he walked me back to Liv’s. By the time I crawled into Liv’s guest bedroom, I was almost too exhausted to hurt much anymore. I knew it would come, that there would be days of unbearable pain in my near future, but for the moment, I could sleep.

When my cell phone rang, I was a little disoriented. It was light outside, but I wasn’t sure if it was still light because the sun doesn’t go down until nine thirty in June, or if it was morning. I was still trying to figure that out when I answered the phone.

“Yeah?” I grumbled.

“Stacy?” It was Peach. I glanced at the clock: eight thirty.

“Is it night, or morning?” I asked, blinking.

“Night,” she said. “You okay?”

“No,” I said. “What’s up?”

“It’s your mother. We brought her out here to her house to pick up some of her things, and then a whole bunch of people came by and she started in on a sermon, talking about some kind of ultimate sacrifice or whatever, and now … well, she’s glowing.”

“Fuck.” I sat up straight and shook my head to help wake myself up. I stuffed my feet into my sneakers and grabbed for my messenger bag. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Yeah,” Peach said. “It’s pretty bad.”

“I’m on my way.”

I ran down the stairs two at a time. Liv and Tobias and Cain must have been out back, because I didn’t see them, and I didn’t take the time to find them to explain where I was going. I got in the Bug and zipped through town until I pulled up in front of my mother’s. The lawn was full of people, and the Widow was on the porch, her arms outstretched.

“It is through sacrifice that God showed His love for us,” she said, “and through my sacrifice, I will show my love for you.”

“Oh, Christ,” I said, and a woman near me turned around and said, “Amen,” and then looked back at my mother.

Peach met me at the side of the house.

“Please tell me she doesn’t have any sharp objects up there with her,” I said. “This sacrifice talk is making me nervous. There’s no chance there’s a goat staked out back or anything, is there?”

“No sharp objects,” Peach said, “but no goat, either. I have no idea what the hell she’s talking about.”