Spellcaster

“I didn’t hit my head.”

“You must have! Because, you know, cars don’t fly. Obviously.”

Verlaine tried the door; it still worked, and she stepped out on shaky legs. “Then how did it get out of the ditch? Do you have a forklift or a crane or something hidden around here, Natalie?”

“It’s Nadia. And of course I don’t. Your car never went into the ditch.”

“Um, yes, it definitely did.”

“It only tilted to one side!” Nadia looked … weird. Like, chugged-a-Butterfinger-Blizzard-in-ninety-seconds-and-got-on-the-Tilt-A-Whirl weird. But she was trying hard to sound reassuring. “Probably it felt like you went into the ditch, but you didn’t. I’m sure it was crazy scary. Can’t believe you didn’t scream! I would definitely have thought anybody in the car would have screamed. Definitely. But you—didn’t.”

“If my car didn’t fall in the ditch, why is there dirt in my hair?” Verlaine grabbed the ends of her nearly waist-length hair; now there were twigs and leaves caught in it, too. “Why are there pine needles all over my backseat? And, oh yeah, why do I remember falling in the ditch?”

Nadia went on the offensive then: “Why are you pretending cars can fly? How would I even make that happen?”

Two very good questions. But Verlaine said only, “I know what I know.”

“When you go home and think about it, and talk about it with your dads, you’ll get it straightened out,” Nadia replied, as if she very much wanted to believe it was true. “If you’re okay, well, I’m going home.”

In silence, Verlaine watched her go. Nadia never once glanced back. Wouldn’t anyone normal glance back after something like that?

Verlaine considered whether this Nadia was in fact severely abnormal. She hadn’t looked like a weirdo; Nadia was beautiful, even a little glamorous, with the kind of designer jeans and funky custom-made jewelry that didn’t appear in the halls of Rodman High very often. But making cars levitate out of a ditch? Definitely not average.

Then a moment of doubt crept in … levitation, flying, all of it sounded like stuff from comic books or fairy tales. It didn’t seem possible for Nadia to do that—and besides, why even assume Nadia was responsible? Yes, she’d been standing right there, and holding her bracelet and her hands in that odd position, but that hardly meant she had powers over gravity. She was also the first person Verlaine had met in a long time, possibly ever, who had even been—well, nice to her. Normal. She didn’t know why Nadia treated her nicely, any more than she knew why everybody else treated her like dirt. What she did know was that it had been a relief to talk to someone like it was no big deal, and maybe that politeness meant she ought to give Nadia the benefit of the doubt.

But the car had flown. For sure. Verlaine didn’t doubt that for a second.

And there was no reason for Nadia to deny that it had, unless she was the person responsible.

Maybe Verlaine was dreaming it. Making it up.

But she didn’t think so.

Something weird was going on. Deeply weird. And Nadia was at the heart of it.

In other words—something interesting was finally happening.

Standing there next to her banged-up car, dirt and leaves still in her hair, Verlaine started to grin.

Nadia rushed blindly away, her head whirling. She knows. Don’t be stupid, she doesn’t know. Unless she’s stupid, she knows. You did magic in front of someone outside the Craft, and then you got too upset to cover your tracks, and now you’re exposed.

But she had to stay calm. Mom had always said that most people exposed to magic ended up explaining it away. They didn’t believe in supernatural forces, so experiencing them made them wonder if they were going crazy. Nobody wanted to think they were going crazy. So they made up lies to believe in instead. I was imagining things. A trick of the light. Just the wind.

Steadier now, Nadia adjusted her backpack and tried to figure out how far she was from her house—only to realize she had no idea where she was.

She’d thought it would be easy to get back home, and it should have been. But Nadia hadn’t been paying attention when she dashed away from Verlaine, had taken a wrong turn, and now was in a totally unfamiliar area. Not surprising, given that almost all of Captive’s Sound besides her house, the high school, and the grocery store were unfamiliar at this point. But she’d thought it was too tiny to even get lost in. Apparently not.

Okay, she told herself. No big deal. This whole town would fit in Lincoln Park. Walk long enough and you’ll see a place you recognize.

Of course, in Chicago she could have hopped on a bus, or hailed a cab....

Never mind. If worse came to worst, she could call her dad to pick her up, but that would only make him feel like he had to worry about her. Dad had enough to deal with. She was supposed to be taking care of him and Cole, not the other way around.

So she wandered through the streets of Captive’s Sound, the first time she’d ever explored it on foot.

And as she went, she realized more and more … something wasn’t right. The weirdness she’d sensed here didn’t begin with the magical barrier or end with whatever was beneath the chem lab. No, the entire town was—sick.

The grass had a yellow cast, and lay limply upon the ground. Every tree seemed to be on the verge of death, with straggly branches and chipped, grayish bark. The sky was darker than it should have been in midafternoon, though maybe that was because it looked likely to rain anytime now. Signs of disrepair were everywhere: The pavement was cracked, the curbs overgrown with straggly weeds. The dank mood seemed to have affected the residents, too; only a handful of houses appeared to have been painted in the last twenty years. Most of the homes, however apparently large or elegant, were chipped and faded. Nobody cared about how it looked. Nobody cared about Captive’s Sound.