The Cost of All Things

FOR KYLE

There’s a hekamist who lives in the run-down cluster of houses behind the high school. Everyone knows that. Lots of people have gotten spells from her over the years—study cheats and beauty touch-ups and good luck auras. Not me. The only spell I’ve ever taken, nearly ten years ago, was made for me by a hekamist in Boston. I remember her sterile-looking office and the slice of dry toast she put on a plate in front of me. I remember crying so hard I could barely swallow the toast.

But it worked and I stopped crying and here I am.

This hekamist works out of her kitchen. The curtains are cheap and there are water stains on the ceiling, but it’s neat. The hekamist herself wears a tattered housecoat. She offers me a cup of tea and I say yes, even though I know you’re never supposed to drink or eat anything from strangers—let alone from a hekamist. But it seems rude not to.

My left wrist aches. Inside, under the muscle and bone. An
old pain. My side effect. I clutch the wrist with my other hand under the table.

“Love spells don’t work, you know,” the hekamist says, dunking what looks like regular Lipton tea bags into two brightly colored mugs. “Whoever it is, they’ll kiss you, they’ll say the words, they’ll believe it. But you won’t. Love needs struggle.” She smiles at me, a distracted smile, as if she’s not sure for a second who I am or why I’m in her kitchen, and I focus on the gap between her two front teeth so as not to look in her eye and think of Win and love and struggle. “Of course I’ll sell it to you. But that’s my disclaimer.”

“I’m not here for a love spell,” I say.

She hands me one of the mugs of tea and raises her eyebrows. “Oh, I’ve assumed. Silly me, silly me. Tell me, then. A prom makeover? Calculus for the AP test?”

I’m glad for the heat of the mug in my hands; it distracts me from the pain in my wrist and keeps me from shivering all over. I could change my mind—say anything. Tell her I want luck or confidence. Beg for a little help with the SATs. Ask for a gift for Jess or Diana, something temporary and fun. But I’ve made it this far—I’m so close to finishing this. Just a little while longer and I’ll never have to feel this way again.

As if the walls are closing in on me, even when I’m outside. As if the air is thinner than it used to be, as if every gasp brings less and less oxygen into my lungs. I want to cry, but if I start, I’m afraid of what will happen. I’m afraid of what I’ll become.

Diana always teased me for not wanting to talk about my
feelings. True, but that never meant I didn’t have any. Only meant I didn’t want to let them out all at once, let them take me over. And right now, I can’t hold on any longer.

Just like nine years ago, I need this.

I take a deep breath and will the tears back. “I want you to make me forget my boyfriend.”

The hekamist sips her tea. Looks at me. I can’t bring myself to lift my mug to my mouth.

“Permanently,” I say. “None of this temporary crap.”

“Permanent is more expensive. Let’s say . . . five thousand dollars.” I nod. Perfect. “Well, if you have the money, I can do that. Of course. Can brew it right now, in fact—you’ll take it before bedtime, be emptied out in no time—forever.”

“Thank you.” The relief is huge, a wave that almost knocks me down. Not to have to think of Win.

No more picking me up for school in his truck. No more looking into my eyes at Homecoming, telling me he loves me. No more seeing him in the front row of my performances, watching me, glowing only for me. No more kisses and promises and plans. No more love.

No more last night on the beach. No more words in anger. No more waking up to the call from his mother. No more long walk home from the beach with sand and seaweed in my hair, stomach churning, eyes too pinched and dry to cry. All the pain of the past five days—gone.

The hekamist’s hand taps the table for my attention. “But there’s a cost.”

“I told you I can pay,” I say. The money’s stuffed into the pocket of my jacket, still in the folded manila envelope I found it in. I can feel it against my ribs. Exactly five thousand dollars. I found it in the very back of my closet yesterday, in a half-crushed shoebox, while I was looking for something to wear that didn’t remind me of Win. I hadn’t known it was there before, and I’m not sure it actually belongs to me, but I didn’t know who else could’ve put it there and I couldn’t help feeling that finding the money was a sign, confirmation that getting this spell is what I’m supposed to do.

“I don’t mean money. The spell asks its own payment. A beauty spell might kill a few brain cells. For something like this?” She considers me, and I try to look like this is new information. It’s not. I got the whole side effects speech the first time around; the pain in my wrist is my proof. “Most people experience aches and pains after a memory spell, at the very least. Might affect muscle or nerve or something else. Can’t predict it exactly.”

It’ll be worth the money, worth the collateral damage, not to have to feel this crushing weight anymore. I imagine it like falling asleep and waking up in someone else’s body. Blank. Empty. Happy. Free.

“Oh!” the hekamist says, knocking on her head with a knuckle. “I’m supposed to ask, silly me, silly me. Have you ever had any other spellwork done in the past?”

“No.”

“Because multiple spells get messy. Muddled. Mixed up. Side effects aren’t doubled, they’re increased
ex-po-nen-tial-ly
.” She
squints at me, her small eyes disappearing into the folds of her face. “Silly, so silly. You look familiar.”

“I promise I’ve never had any other spells.” I say it quickly so I don’t have time to be caught in the lie. I’m a horrible liar; if she presses me, I’ll crack. I resist the urge to grab my wrist again and massage the pain. It’s been acting up all week, as if in warning:
This is what happens when you take spells.
Instead I stare down at my feet. Inside the sneakers they’re red and sore. I’ve lost or am in the process of losing another big toenail. Lost toenails: a dancer’s pride.

If she knew the truth, she’d refuse me for my own good, to avoid those compound side effects. But I can deal with more side effects like my wrist—that’s what I deal with every day in ballet. Pain. Struggle.

Physical
pain and
physical
struggle, though. What’s a few busted muscles compared to the pain of losing Win?

If my body has to pay the price, so be it.

“All right, then,” the hekamist says.

She stands and moves to the small kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards and rummaging through drawers. She dumps ingredients into a dented pot on the stove. “How about some chicken noodle soup?”

As she works, I pull out the worn envelope of bills and place it on the table in front of me, then surreptitiously rub my aching wrist. She glances over at the envelope and nods.

“You’re a junior?” she asks, standing over the pot. When the soup spits and sparks, she lifts the pot over the counter—and it
rests there in midair. Or so it seems from where I’m sitting.

“Yes,” I say. “Well, technically a senior, I guess. School just got out.”

“I have a daughter. She’s a little older than you.”

“Oh.”

“She’s special, my daughter. I know all parents think that, but it’s true.”

And just when I think I can’t feel any worse, I get one of those unexpected pangs for my mother. It’s an old pain, too, and normally I can go weeks without it flaring up—the pain in my wrist is much more persistent—but it happens. A photo in a gift catalog. A kid crying on the beach. Families coming in to the Sweet Shoppe together. And now I’m jealous of a hekamist’s daughter.

As I take a deep breath and push the feeling down, the light in the apartment dims. Cold air presses in from the cracks in the walls and floor. My wrist pulses with a heartbeat. The hekamist, at the stovetop with her back to me, pulls up her sleeve and makes a quick motion with a stone held in her other hand. I can’t tell what’s happening with the pot of soup; she’s in the way.

“You seem determined. That’s good. Know your mind, know yourself. But young people don’t always think things through, and no one talks about what hekame does. Not anymore. You think it’s dangerous, now. If it’s illegal to become a hekamist it must be bad, right? Shameful. Silly, so silly.” It’s almost pitch-black in the apartment except for a glow from the pot behind the hekamist. She watches it. “It’s not dangerous the way you
think. But memory spells can be awkward, especially when you run into this boyfriend again. Walking down the street, he tries to say hi, you don’t know him, he’s confused or angry—or some such and so forth.”

“That’s not a problem,” I say. I breathe and sip my tea. Tastes like Lipton—needs milk. In the dark and cold while my salvation’s being brewed, it’s easy to say the hardest thing in the world. “He’s dead.”