Triumph of Chaos (Red Magic) (33 page)

I spun around in a circle on the lawn, and Izzy came out to join me. She grabbed my hands and twirled me, and I closed my eyes, feeling the breeze and the cool rain on my face.

“I think we’re winning!”

I grinned at her. “I think you’re right.”

It was still raining softly the next afternoon when I walked downtown to a little strip mall by myself. A large painted eye stared at me from the doorway, but when I walked into the shop, it seemed deserted.

“Hello?”

“With you in a minute!” a voice called from around the cubicle-looking wall standing in the back on the room. I hesitated, shifting on my feet while I looked around.

A young man came out from behind the wall first, fiddling with the square of gauze that covered his forearm. A woman emerged behind him. She was plainly dressed, and she wasn’t wearing any jewelry, which sort of surprised me.

“Keep it clean. Remember to run hot water on it as soon as you get home. Peeling is normal, but call me if you’re worried.” She took the cash he held out, counted it once, and smiled.

After the young man had left, she turned to me. “How can I help you?”

I took a deep breath. “I’d like to get a tattoo.”

She was still smiling, but she squinted her eyes and looked at me. “Do you have parental consent?”

My heart thumped for a moment, and a bubble of grief threatened to overwhelm me. “I—”

“Sorry I’m late.” I hadn’t even heard the door to the shop open, but I recognized the voice.

I turned to look at Persephone, and I froze. She was wearing a gray skirt and a ruffled white blouse. She looked more like a corporate ladder climber than a goddess, and I was stunned. She winked at me and then leaned forward to shake the tattoo artist’s hand. “I’m her guardian.”

The woman nodded. “There are some forms to sign, for both of you.” She eyed the goddess cautiously. “Did you say you were her mother?”

“Legal guardian. Her folks are dead, but her mom and my mom were close.” She tapped the leather briefcase she carried under one arm. “I’ve got the documentation to prove it if you need to see it.”

The woman nodded and handed me a clipboard while Persephone pulled the mysterious paperwork out of her bag. Whatever it said appeased the woman, because she turned to me and said, “While she’s filling these forms out, let’s talk about what you want. Do you have any other tattoos?”

I shook my head.

“Why did you decide to get one now?”

“I wanted to mark a big transition in my life.”

She nodded, throwing a glance at Persephone, and I could almost read her thoughts. “What did you have in mind?”

I pulled the printout from my back pocket and handed it to her. Her eyes widened briefly, and I explained, “It’s the Lorenz attractor.”

“I know what it is. Chaos theory and all that, right?”

I nodded. “I want something like that.”

“You want an image of chaos permanently inked on your skin?”

I pointed to the top of my foot. “Yes. To remind me that even when I’m walking through chaos, I still have control.”

Her face softened. “How long have your parents been gone?”

“A few months.”

She nodded, looking at the butterfly-like image I’d handed her. “Let me see what I can do. Are you ladies in a rush?”

Persephone shook her head. “Take your time. I know she wants this to be perfect.” She sat down next to me on a narrow bench, and the woman disappeared behind the wall. The goddess didn’t say anything, but she reached over and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, grateful that she was there. My palms were sticky, and I realized that the idea of getting a tattoo was making me nervous.

The woman was back in no time. “Check this stencil and tell me if it will work.”

She’d simplified the complex image down to something that almost looked like a butterfly or a figure eight but didn’t quite look like either one. I nodded eagerly. “That’s perfect.”

“I’ll be here waiting.” Persephone smiled at me encouragingly as I followed the woman behind the wall.

“Hop up there for me.” She patted a chair that looked disturbingly like a hospital examination table. “Do you just want the outline of the shape, or would you like to add a little color?”

“Whatever you think, I guess.”

“An outline will be cheaper.”

I smiled at her honesty. “Then let’s just do an outline.”

She pulled up a stool and sat down. “Which foot?”

“My right.”

She pressed the stencil on top of my foot. When she peeled it away, ink marked the outline of the tattoo. “This feels different for everyone. But I should tell you that the top of your foot might be a painful spot.”

“That’s okay. I want it there.”

She nodded and grabbed her needle.

It did hurt. A lot. It was like scraping a razor blade across my foot over and over again. I gritted my teeth at the pain, but she was done faster than I thought possible. She blotted the blood with a gauze pad, and then taped a fresh one across my foot.

“It’ll peel, so don’t pick at it. Keep it clean, and read this.” She handed me a pamphlet as she helped me off the table. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt too much to stand on my foot, but I winced anyway.

“Thanks.” I handed her fifty dollars, and she smiled.

“Call if there’s anything about it worrying you.” She patted my shoulder. “And keep walking through the chaos.”

I nodded. “How did you know the symbol?”

She shrugged. “I studied physics in college.”

“You did?” I blurted, looking around the tattoo parlor.
I wouldn’t have expected that!
Immediately, I flushed, but luckily, the woman just laughed.

“Yup. Gotta do what you love, even when it changes.”

Persephone smiled. “And even when it doesn’t,” she said softly. The goddess held the door open for me, and I waved at the woman before following my patron onto the street.

Once we were outside, I paused. “I never thanked you,” I began.

“You don’t need to.”

“I need to for this. For saving my dad.”

She inclined her head. “It wasn’t just for you. Your mother is happier now, and that makes my mother very happy.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Could I visit them sometime?”

Persephone faced me. “Darlena, sometimes it’s better to move on. Most mortals never go to the Underworld until death comes for them.”

I looked away.

She put her hand under my chin and lifted it. “I’ll watch over them. And I’ll watch over you.” She laughed. “Consider me your go-between.”

I nodded sadly. “We’re all lucky to have you.”

Persephone nodded. After a moment, she took a deep breath. “I think you should go back to school.”

I stared at her in surprise. “Where did that come from?”

“Not Trinity. You’re done there.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered under my breath.

The goddess smiled. “I’m talking about college.”

I looked at her blankly.

“You’ll be eighteen in August. It’s time to move on.”

I paused, considering.
Maybe it is
. “Isn’t it too late to apply anywhere?”

She smiled gently. “You’re a Witch. It’s never too late.”

I nodded hesitantly, but then I realized something. “There’s no way to pay for it. Don’t most kids need their parents to sign on loans?”

Persephone’s lips twitched. “Like I said, I’m the go-between. Your parents left a will, Darlena.”

I just looked at her.

“They wrote it up when you were born. It’s very simple, really. All their assets reverted to you upon their death.”

Her words tumbled through my mind. “So, what, does that include the house?”

She nodded. “Everything they owned is now yours. I’m sure you’ll find it easy to go to college.”

“Wow.” I paused. “I feel like Pippi Longstocking.”

Persephone wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know who that is.”

“Just a kid who owned a house when her dad died.” I frowned, suddenly wondering if the storybook character might have been a Witch too. Persephone misinterpreted my confused expression.

“I know that you will continue to mourn them, but you must also think about your life. Where will you go from here?”

I stared up at the sky, letting raindrops fall into my eyes. Finally, I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I have some time to think: the summer’s barely started.”

“Just as long as you start thinking about it.”

“They really left me everything?”

She nodded. “Everything.”

“I did always sort of want to go to UNC,” I began.

Persephone faded into the rain with a smile on her face. I walked the rest of the way home lost in thought, turning over the possibilities that the goddess had presented.

A battered postcard was waiting for me in the mailbox when I got home. The edges looked like they’d been chewed on by a mouse, but the picture on the front made my heart race. I recognized the white towers and dome of the Taj Mahal.

When I flipped it over, I realized my hands were shaking. I read the short message three times, and then I let out a shriek of delight.

“Darlena, Found her. All is well. We’re coming home.”

Home
. I pressed the postcard to my heart and raced inside to tell Izzy everything.

It’s such a strange feeling to be writing these acknowledgements: Darlena and her struggles have been a part of my life for five years, but with the end of this book, the story I wanted to tell about Red Magic comes to a close. I don’t really know what it will be like to live without these characters in my head, but I am thrilled to see the trilogy delivered into your hands. So, first and foremost, I want to thank you, the readers who have fallen into Darlena’s world and made her story your own. You mean the world to me!

Thank you to my publisher, Georgia McBride, and the fabulous team at Month9Books, including Jennifer Million and Jaime Arnold: the story wouldn’t be complete without you! Thank you to JRo for calling me out on weak plot devices, and for being the best CP a girl could ask for. Also, thanks to Beth Revis for planting the seed that would become Rochelle’s motivation when she read the first pages of DAUGHTER years ago. To the YA Valentines, the best debut team/support system/writing friends on the planet: thank you! Eternal gratitude to Kristen Lippert-Martin and Ashley Poston for reading this manuscript when it was ragged, and for helping me tie up all the loose ends. Thank you to the Binders for being a safe space to talk about the writing life, and to the SCBWI and NCWNN communities for giving me such a great home base. Joy and thanks to Deb, Laura, Linda, Angela, Amelia, Meghann, and Deanna for constant encouragement and belief in my words: friends like you are rarer than Red Magic!

To my students and colleagues, past, present, and future:
thank you. You inspire me in more ways than you will ever know. Love and thanks to my family, and especially to Matt and BL: you have lived through the chaos with me, and you are the source of magic when the words are done.

Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).She is also an active reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW. A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. When she isn’t crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches writing composition at a community college. Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time.

DAUGHTER OF CHAOS

GODS OF CHAOS

FIRE IN THE WOODS