The Lingering Grace (20 page)

“That’s a little fast … ” Alice said, hesitating.

Eva went on as though she hadn’t heard. “I’ve put out a call for advice on the forums. Of course, I didn’t explain
exactly
what we were doing, but I did ask for general help with putting together original spells. I’ve read a lot about it online, but everyone has their own methods, and it can be dangerous if you don’t get it right the first time. It’s like mixing chemicals when you don’t know anything about them. Who knows how they’ll react? So sometimes you just have to learn from the explosions.”

“Can we just …
not
cause any explosions?” The more she learned about what Eva was trying to do, the more dangerous it seemed to her. She considered pulling out now, telling Eva she couldn’t help, and then running away before she could react. But on the other hand, being a part of something bigger than day-to-day dullness made her feel more alive than she had felt since she came out of the coma.

Plus, there was the bond to be considered; a few days didn’t give it much time to weaken. Would the spell allow her to go back on her word to Eva?

She didn’t have a choice. She would have to go through with the thing, like it or not.

She could only imagine Tony’s reaction if he found out what she was doing. He would
not
take it well. The lecture on the incontrovertible forces of nature and the dangers of magic would be epic.

Fortunately, Tony was too distracted by his brother to pick up on any suspicious behavior. During the car ride that morning, he’d mentioned some plan he was hatching to end this whole thing “once and for all.” Alice hadn’t been listening very closely, though, and she couldn’t remember if he’d gone into detail.

“Alice,” said Eva. She walked into a bathroom and Alice followed. Fortunately, it was empty, and Eva dumped her backpack into the sink and pulled out some lip gloss. “I can’t promise you everything we do will be perfectly safe,” she said, twisting the cap off. “But”—she paused and looked up—“I
promise
it will be worth it. You didn’t know her, but Penny … Penny is worth whatever it takes.”

“I’m not saying she isn’t,” Alice assured her. “I’m just saying that this is really dangerous.”

Eva smacked her lips and applied a layer of sparkly gloss. Alice watched her, unable to reconcile this girl who could have fit in on the cheerleading squad with the weeping girl from the night before. Today’s Eva had the magnetism of a future world leader. Yesterday’s Eva had barely been able to hold herself together. It was almost enough to make Alice wonder if Eva was genuinely unstable—bipolar or manic or something. But then again, Eva’s meltdown and subsequent recovery weren’t totally random events. She had reasons. And it couldn’t have been easy losing her sister; no one could maintain totally sanity through that.

Nor did she feel anything other than focus emanating from Eva. With the bond, she was sure she would know if something was really truly wrong. At least, she hoped she would know. Eva had noticed her distress today, and this
was
supposed to go both ways.

Stowing her lip gloss in her bag, Eva could not have looked more normal or more sane. Unnerved though she was by Eva’s unpredictability, Alice was a little bit proud to be friends with the girl everyone was staring at—the girl everyone suddenly wanted to be.

“So, my house tonight?” asked Eva, checking her hair in the mirror. “We can start with some simple spell combinations and work up to harder ones until we iron out the technique.”

“How about my house?” Alice suggested; she’d rather be just about anywhere than Eva’s dismal home. Besides, Tony would be less worried about Danny’s sneak attacks if he knew she was safely holed up in her own house. Not that she had any doubt his brother knew exactly where she lived. If he’d followed her to Eva’s, then he had most certainly followed her home before.

She wouldn’t mention that to Tony; he was already swallowed up in his plans and she decided it would be better not to distract him—especially since she didn’t want him becoming too interested in what she and Eva were up to.

Eva agreed so quickly that Alice suspected she’d been hoping for just such an offer. “Sure! I’ll let my mom know I won’t be home until late.”

“Will your mom be okay without you?”

“Of course she will. She’s an adult,” Eva said, frowning.

“But … ” Alice didn’t see how the nearly helpless woman she’d seen yesterday would hold up without her daughter’s babysitting. But when Eva shot her a warning glance, Alice swallowed the question. “Never mind. Sorry.”

“My mom’s fine. And even if she isn’t … she will be,” Eva said emphatically.

Alice nodded. She understood Eva’s point perfectly—she was doing her mom more good by working on a cure for the grief than by treating the side effects.

Suddenly, Alice thought of her own mom. If she and Eva managed to bring back Penny, then surely there must be a way for them to fix her mom—to stop the cancer from coming. Alice’s heart quickened. Her mom wouldn’t have to have the surgery, the miserable recovery, the rest of her life living with implants and tattooed nipples. She would be completely healed with none of the pain. Everything would go back to normal. Everything would be perfect.

“Eva,” she said, “after we get Penny back, there’s something I was wondering … it’s a favor … ”

The bell rang, and Eva jumped and grabbed her backpack.

“I have to go—I’m on the other side of campus,” she said, hurrying for the door. “But I’ll meet you in the parking lot after school.” With one hand on the door, she paused and turned around. “Alice—don’t forget that we’re bonded now. Not to mention that when this is over, I’ll owe you big time. Any favor you want, no questions asked.”

She turned and rushed out the door. It slammed shut behind her, and the sound echoed on the tiled floor. Alice knew she needed to go to class, but she remained frozen, head spinning.

I can heal Mom.

The thought repeated endlessly and with such intensity that she almost believed she was hearing the words out loud. Her agreement with Eva, which had up to this point seemed like a risky adventure-for-a-cause, now took on a far more serious hue. This wasn’t pro bono work anymore; this was a battle that Alice couldn’t afford to lose.

And yet a niggling voice in the back of her mind asked if she was expecting too much for too little. After all, bringing a person back from the dead was very serious magic. Powerful magic had a heavy price and heavy consequences—Alice knew that. Eva’s confidence that it was possible was reassuring, though, and Alice ignored the doubt.

She could only imagine what Tony would say if he knew her plan. Something philosophical and troubling, no doubt.
But Alice, don’t you think that if people knew how to heal cancer and bring back dead people, people wouldn’t ever get cancer or die in the first place? Don’t you think there might be a
reason
why other witches don’t do this magic? What’s the sacrifice? What’s the price?

Alice didn’t have a good answer for that, and it made her more determined than ever to keep Tony totally in the dark. The last thing she needed was him making her doubt herself—not when she needed to feel more powerful than ever.

But the question didn’t come from Tony’s head. It came from mine.

She put her hands over her ears as if that could drown out the doubts that were assaulting her. But there was no way she could protect herself from the mutiny of her own mind, and the questions kept coming, each more insistent than the last.

“No,” she said aloud. “No! I am
doing
this.”

Her words echoed in the bathroom. It started to dawn on her that the noise in the hallway had shrunk to a mere murmur when the second bell rang.

Alice ran out of the bathroom all the way to the next building over, where she slipped into the back of her French classroom, breathing heavily. She was almost grateful for school today, for the busy work and the wasted hours. Anything to distract her from the questions that really mattered. Anything at all.

As Alice had predicted, Tony was delighted to learn she was going straight home after school.

Tony: My mom says Danny’s home, but let me know that you get back okay anyway.

She shook her head. Weren’t boys supposed to nag
less
than girls? The more Alice got to know Tony, the more she realized that there was just as much variety among guys as there was among girls. Some stereotypes rang absolutely true while others couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Something wrong?” Eva asked, glancing at her from the driver’s seat. They were almost to her house—thank goodness Eva had her car. Otherwise Alice would have had to beg a ride from her dad. She could only imagine how that would have gone over if he’d had a full afternoon of meetings. She probably could have walked home faster.

“No,” Alice said, “it’s just my boyfriend.” She put a little extra emphasis on “boyfriend,” and enjoyed sounding cool for once. Maybe she was imagining it, but Alice could have sworn Eva eyed her with a little more respect as she asked, “Well where does he go to school? Is this the ‘friend’ you called last night to drive you home?”

“Yeah, his name is Tony. He’s one district over—San Marco High.”

“Hmm,” said Eva, though Alice could tell she couldn’t have cared less where Tony went to school. It was with genuine interest, though, that she asked, “And does he know anything about … this?”

Alice didn’t meet her probing glance. “No, he doesn’t.”

“And are you planning on telling him?”

“No, I’m not.”

Eva nodded and briskly said, “Good. I think it’s better to keep this all as … simple … as possible.”

Although Alice agreed, Eva’s occasional way of treating her less like a friend and more like an accomplice made her uncomfortable. She didn’t appreciate being told who she was and was not allowed to talk to.

“I think we left ‘simple’ behind a long time ago,” Alice noted flatly.

“Just because people don’t burn witches at the stake anymore doesn’t mean there aren’t people who would take advantage. I’ve heard about cults that approach members of the Wiccan community, trying to pressure them to sell spells, or just trying to control them. It’s not that I don’t trust your boyfriend, it’s just that—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Alice sighed.

“No, I want you to understand … I’m not saying your boyfriend is a bad guy, but you never know how people are going to behave when they get their hands on a little power. I don’t trust anyone else right now. Just you. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

What could she say to that? Alice bit her lip as she looked out the window, unable to untangle her own feelings. Maybe it was another side effect of the binding spell, but when she was with Eva, she had a sense of belonging that she didn’t feel anywhere else. It wasn’t exactly comfortable; it was heavy, unshakeable, and ever-present—a thick rope coiled around her heart. And yet the thought of being free of it was equally unbearable because being tethered to Eva was something reliable in her shifting world. If she cut that cord, what hope would she have to save her mom and make things right again?

She hadn’t been exactly chatty on the drive to Alice’s house, but Eva grew noticeably quieter the closer they got to the house. As they walked up the driveway, Alice noticed how tightly Eva was gripping the straps of her bag.

“You ok?” she asked.

Eva nodded and glanced over her shoulder at her car. Alice looked as well and realized with a pang of embarrassment that the beat-up minivan could not have looked more out of place on her pristine street. Next to the SUVs and sports cars glistening in every other driveway, the red minivan looked even older and dustier than it was.

Eva noticed Alice staring and turned back, adjusting her dress. Her discomfort was palpable and Alice remembered how unnerved Eva had been after seeing her house for the first time. But just as she was about to make a Stepford Wives joke to set Eva at ease, she straightened up, shook back her hair, and pasted a grin on her face.

“Hi, girls!”