The Lingering Grace (30 page)

His gaze left her face and focused just over her shoulder.

“I’ll explain it later,” she assured him, stroking his hand. “It’s all so confusing. And Eva … ”

Eva.
She had nearly forgotten that Eva was still there, even with the spell connecting them. It tugged and rippled between them like a plucked chord; the thin whine of it rang in Alice’s ears. Just as Tony pointed at something in the distance, Alice turned over her shoulder to look where she knew Eva must be. She didn’t spot her at first; it wasn’t until she followed Tony’s wide-eyed stare that she saw Eva on the ground.

She was lying spread-eagle on the grass. Her limbs were dark, but her abdomen pulsed with light—light that the golden funnel gobbled up as quickly as it came. The twisting rope stretched from the grave to her belly, like a cross between a rainbow and an umbilical cord. As the light from Eva weakened, the funnel grew stronger and brighter and wilder, thrashing in spiraling waves.

“Eva!” Alice screamed, but her voice was lost in the wind. She looked at Tony, then back at her friend. She was afraid to leave him, but Eva was dying before her eyes.

“Go,” Tony said, weakly pushing her hand away. “I’m okay.”

She doubted that. He was so weak that he swayed dangerously when she took her hand off his back. She tried to grab his shoulder, but he dizzily pushed her away.

“Go!”

Alice hesitated just a second longer, then turned and ran to Eva. As she sprinted away from Tony, she nearly tripped over her own feet. It was easy to forget that she wasn’t at her strongest either. But she made it to Eva’s side and fell to her knees next to her. Eva’s eyes were half-closed; blood streamed from her nose and split into two paths that rushed down each side of her face. Her breathing came in long, weak rattles, but when she saw Alice, she managed to gasp out, “No.”

“Eva, I know there are rules, but still … there
must
be a way to stop this!” Alice cried, searching the ground for Eva’s incantation. It was nowhere in sight; considering the tremendous wind, it could be a miles away already. Alice gave up. Grabbing Eva’s hand, she leaned over and begged, “Help me! We can stop it. You
must
know how.”

But Eva shook her head. “Let it happen,” she moaned. “
Let it happen.
”

Alice ignored her. She jumped to her feet and half-heartedly batted at the funnel. Her hand went straight through and the funnel twisted as though nothing had happened. She hadn’t expected it to work; she was sure that only some kind of magic could break the incantation. Alice regretted not paying more attention to Eva when they were crafting the spell. The only spells she had actually mastered were the simple incantations for fire and ice.

As she looked at the fiery rope, it hit her.
Ice
. Her knees were shaking as she dropped to them in front of the grave.

“Blue to silver,” she whispered, “Silver to white … ”

The base of the funnel started to crackle and stiffen. A hard white shell inched its way up from the ground; the light from the rope faded to a pale yellow.

“Gold in morning … ”

Just as Alice was starting to think this might actually work, Eva screamed—not a cry of pain but of anger—and stretched out her hand. Alice could see her mouth move, though she couldn’t hear the words, and stumbled backward in horror as the ice around the rope began to steam. In just a few seconds, it had evaporated completely; the funnel swirled back up to speed and Eva (with a true yelp of pain now) fell limply back to the ground.

“NO!” Alice shouted, confused and angry. She pulled herself up and ran back to Eva’s side. “You have to let me
stop
it!” she cried. “I’m trying to save you, Eva,
please
!”

Eva’s eyes were almost completely closed now, but Alice could see two slits of white—two half-moons in her ever-paler face. “You’re trying …” she groaned, “To
kill
her.”

And then the realization hit her. Alice had known it all along, but in the panic over Tony and the rush to save Eva, she hadn’t understood what it actually meant—or what it meant to Eva.

That golden rope was Penny’s lifeline. It was searching for a source of life to draw from, to funnel into Penny’s body, to transfer someone else’s life force to her. If Alice stopped the spell while it was in progress, Penny would die—a second time.

But knowing this didn’t change anything. The spell tried to take Tony’s life and now it was killing Eva. If not Eva, it would hunt down another person. It would leap to her, or back to Tony. It would keep searching until it managed to take what it had been created to take—a life. Entire, whole. The empty body cast away like a useless shell.

“We have to let her go,” Alice told Eva desperately. The light coming from Eva’s abdomen had slowed to a trickle; she didn’t have much time. “We didn’t know that the spell would do this. Eva, if you bring her back, it’ll kill you.”

“I … know … ” she rasped. “It’s okay.”

“No—it’s
not
ok! I’m going to freeze the spell again and I need you to let me do it—”

Eva’s eyes popped open. With surprising strength, she grabbed Alice’s wrist.

“Don’t.”

“I can’t let you, Eva, I told you. I already told you!”

“I know. And I don’t want to die … But I knew I had to. Ever since Penny died … it was my fault … and I knew this was the only way to fix it. So I’m fixing it.”

Her voice was nearly drowned out by the wind.

“This doesn’t fix anything!” Alice protested. “Let me stop the spell—”

“
NO!
” Eva cried.

Her grip on Alice’s wrist faltered. Her eyelids fluttered.

“This is how it
works
,” she whispered. “A life … for a life.
I
killed her, and
I’m
bringing her back.” Eva’s voice trailed off and her hand fell to the ground, her eyes closing. The light had nearly stopped flowing from her. It came in fits and starts—weak, yellow, dying gasps.

“Eva?
Eva
!”

Alice stared at Eva’s face, almost unable to comprehend what was happening. If she just kept waiting, Eva would open her eyes—she had to. But she didn’t. She was barely breathing. The funnel, its work almost complete, began to shrink and shorten, looking less like a whirlwind and more like a snake.

Her mind was a whirling mess of half-formed thoughts and unanswered questions. The noise of the wind had lessened, but her tangled thoughts seemed to pound ever more insistently against her skull. Her ears were buzzing.

Alice jumped to her feet and clapped her hands over her ears. Everywhere she looked, she saw disaster. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Tony still hunched over, apparently unaware of Eva’s situation. She thought she saw, of all things, a camera flash, and turned back around. But all was dark besides the still golden funnel, still lapping up the last dregs of Eva’s life.

She began to shake her head, still covering her ears, unable to stand the noise. The world spun and she could see no answer, no way out. Her heart had never pounded so hard in her life; all she could hear was the drumming that told her she was still alive. It was not a welcome reminder. What could she do? She was the last one standing and here she was, useless.

Not useless, she realized in a flash. The freezing spell. If Eva couldn’t stop her this time … if she could just finish …

She stumbled forward, toward the grave and the root of the funnel, but as she did, something cracked beneath her feet. At the same time, the funnel bucked and faltered; a few golden drops fell back onto Eva.

Alice bent down, peering into the grass. She had stepped on one of the chicken bones, lying in the grass where she had dropped it. The other four lay next to it in the grass.

Almost without thought, Alice grabbed another bone and snapped it in half. Again, the funnel shuddered. The arch sagged. The gold swirling inside switched directions and began to flow out of the grave and back into Eva.

The hope that surged through her was just as strong as her desperation. She was so dizzy with it that, as she reached for the remaining bones, she nearly fell. Catching herself, she grabbed the third bone and the fourth, trying to snap them simultaneously. It was too difficult; her hands ached as she tossed one back to the ground. With a snap, the third bone cracked in half. Eva’s life poured back into her body faster than it had ever spilled out. She began to stir; her eyelids opened.

Alice wondered why the bonding spell had not forced her to obey Eva’s request. Then she realized—the spell was supposed to stop one party from hurting the other. She was going against Eva’s wishes, but she was doing it to save her life.

With the fourth bone, the spell started to collapse. The funnel shrank to the thickness of rope and faded to pastel yellow. Only one more bone remained. Alice tried to snap it in two as she had with the others, but whether it was larger or her hands were weaker, she couldn’t break it. She threw it back to the ground, stood up, raised her foot, and …

She was thrown to the ground.

As she fell, Alice was sure that it was all over, that the magic had somehow gone rogue and retaliated and the spell would not—could not—be stopped. The attack happened so quickly that she didn’t have time to look around to see what force was driving her toward the ground. Her head hit the dirt, there was a crash and a muffled bang, and Alice blacked out for half a second.

When she opened her eyes, she immediately realized that this was no magical intervention. Eva was on top of her, holding Alice’s arms at her sides. Eva’s hair stuck straight out around her face; her eyes were wide, her lips parted as she panted. Eva’s own wrists turned white, then red, reflecting perfectly the tightness of her hold on Alice.

“
No
,” she said between gasps. “I won’t let you kill her.”

Alice tried to pull her arm free, but the spell had returned all the stolen strength. Instead of restoring the energy to each person, it simply dumped all of it onto the last human it touched. Now Eva’s strength was superhuman while Tony was still on the ground.

“You’re not thinking clearly right now, Eva! I said I couldn’t let you die and I meant it.” Eva’s grip on her wrists tightened and both of them cried out in pain.

“No,
you
don’t understand! There’s no way for me to live with this! I can’t live like this—knowing that I killed her!”

Flecks of spittle hit Alice in the face. There was a muffled cry to her left and, turning her head, she saw Tony trying to crawl toward them. He was going nowhere quickly. He could hardly pull himself forward without stopping to catch his breath.

“Why didn’t you just
tell
me how you felt? Dragging me here, trying to trick me into letting you trade your life for hers. You had to know I wouldn’t let you do it.” Alice demanded, trying to distract Eva just in case, by some miracle, Tony made it the last twenty feet and was able to come to her aid. “You wanted a friend and you got one.”

“You think I just needed to
talk
to someone? Go to therapy? You think this is something you could fix?”

Alice didn’t answer.

“You’re wrong! And you weren’t supposed to be
able
to turn on me. That’s what the bonding spell was for.”

“I never turned on you, Eva! I was trying to
help
you! The spell can’t stop me from helping you.”

Eva licked her lips. She was foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal. The force of her anger was so overwhelming that Alice felt it hit her face like a cold ocean wave. “Your boyfriend shouldn’t have been here. I thought no one was here! The spell was supposed to take me—it wasn’t supposed to go searching for someone else.”

“What about me?” Alice demanded. “How did you know it wouldn’t take
me
?”

Eva tossed her head, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t let it. I knew I could intercept the funnel.”

“Intercept the funnel … ?” Alice repeated, then remembered how the spell had inexplicably receded when she was trying to save Tony. She realized now what had happened: Eva had jumped in front of it.

“Yes, I intercepted it—to save you. And to save him. Don’t you see? It
has
to happen this way. You
have
to let me do this. Give me the bone! The spell won’t have died out yet—we can try again.”

“
We’re
not doing anything,” Alice said. She tried to roll over and free herself, but again Eva just tightened her hold.

“Give me the bone, Alice! Before it’s too late!”

As she struggled, something dug sharply into the small of Alice’s back. She rocked her hips back and forth, trying to inch herself forward. If she could only get enough force …

Using every ounce of strength she had, Alice lifted her upper body off of the ground. Immediately, Eva threw her back down. But as Alice fell on top of the final bone, it cracked under her shoulder.

With a flash of silver light, the last of the funnel disappeared. The wind died away. The night was dark and calm again; crickets chirped in the distance. A gentle breeze tossed trees in the distance, and Alice gasped in the clear air.

Frantically, Eva released Alice and turned around, running to the grave.