Spellcaster

He lay in bed, clutching his covers up to his chin, which was always a sign of bad dreams or at least potential monsters in the closet. “No,” he snuffled.

“It’s okay. I promise.” Nadia came to sit on the side of his bed and ruffled his hair with her fingers. “Was it seeing the ambulance tonight? Nobody got hurt, not really, but I guess that was pretty scary anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Cole said. He looked so small, lying there. These days, when he ran around like crazy and could eat almost half a pizza by himself, Nadia sometimes forgot how little he still was. “But I woke up and I wanted Mommy.”

Then he started to cry again—almost like he was ashamed. A little boy in first grade shouldn’t have been ashamed of still wanting his mom. And Mom should have been here for him.

Nadia’s throat tightened, but she didn’t let herself lose it, too. Instead she whispered, “Scoot over, huh?” When he did, she lay down beside him, atop the covers, but still able to hug him tight.

Cole cuddled next to her, even as he said, “I thought I was too big now.”

She’d told him that during the summer, mostly to try to get him used to sleeping on his own again; Dad had said they had to help Cole start acting like everything was back to normal. He did now, mostly. So she could make an exception. “Not if you have a bad dream. Nobody’s so big that they don’t want a hug after they have a bad dream.”

“Okay.” Cole closed his eyes almost right away; he’d always been quick to soothe, but Nadia knew she’d need to stay until he was fast asleep.

Going after Elizabeth meant risking more than her own safety. More than Verlaine’s, more than Mateo’s. It meant risking Dad, and Cole.

She looked over at him, with his chubby cheeks and fat little hands; lined up along the wall were his favorite toys, the race cars and the LEGOs and the sock monkey. Despite Mom’s abandonment, despite the move and everything they’d been through, his world was still so innocent.

Nadia took a deep breath and tried not to think about Elizabeth, or curses, or the monsters in the closet.

The next day, Mateo impatiently went through the various tests the doctors wanted to run. He had to pretend to be concerned, but since last night was definitely not a “seizure,” it was all a huge waste of time.

What he wanted to do was to find out what the hell actually had happened to him—what Ginger had done. Nadia would know. But using cell phones near the hospital machines was forbidden, and since she’d be in school until three p.m., he was stuck for the time being. Hours of bad food, useless tests, and the smell of Lysol awaited.

That, and his dad freaking out nonstop. “You’re not using steroids, are you?” he said as he paced the floor. “If you are, you know you can tell me. We’ll deal with it together.”

Mateo somehow managed not to roll his eyes. “Dad. I’m not using steroids.”

“You’re going out for baseball again this spring, right? I know that’s a lot of pressure.”

“Seriously, do you remember where we live? This is Captive’s Sound. If you try out, you’re on the team. They made a couple people try out last year who didn’t want to.”

His father didn’t seem to hear any of this. “You promise me? Because if something’s making you sick, we need to know.”

Mateo nearly snapped at him, but he realized how tired Dad looked; probably he hadn’t slept. Thinking about how badly Dad had been scared made Mateo feel like crap. “I absolutely promise.”

After school was out, Nadia and Verlaine came by—but they got there about five minutes after Gage, who had brought him a flash drive with some TV shows on it and one of those oversize chocolate bars, which at any other time would have been awesome. But as it was, talking about what had really happened was pretty much impossible, and Dad returned long before Gage left. That didn’t give Nadia any chance to explain.

He wanted more than an explanation, though. Mateo wanted her near—close to him, beside him—

The dreams, he reminded himself. And hadn’t there been one last night? The drugs had dimmed it; Mateo knew he’d had some kind of vision of her again but couldn’t recall the details.

And—he realized—he wanted to.

The visions—the ones that had cursed his family for centuries, the same ones that were beginning to ravage his own mind—Mateo wanted them. He needed them. Because they told him when Nadia was in danger, and gave him a chance to keep her safe. He’d said that before, but he’d never felt it as strongly as he did right now. Before he’d been willing to accept the visions of the future; now he wanted them.

Nothing was worth more than Nadia’s safety. If he had to suffer for it—go crazy for it, be like his mother and grandfather before him—then that was just how it was.

“Hey, are you okay?” Gage looked worried. “You kinda went away for a second there.”

Verlaine nodded. “Your eyes did this kind of misty thing.” She shot Nadia a look like, Is that magic?

Nadia didn’t see it; she was looking only at Mateo, and a shadow of the yearning he felt flickered in her eyes, too.

Even Verlaine must have been able to see it, because she hurriedly said, “Gage, Mr. Perez, could I talk to you guys for a second?”

They glanced at each other, then back at Verlaine. Gage shrugged. “Yeah, but why?”

“We’re doing a special on this in the Lightning Rod. About how even teenagers need to watch their health, because stuff like this can happen to anyone.” Verlaine’s expression was so serious and businesslike that Mateo had to cover his mouth like he was yawning, just to hide the smile. “Mr. Perez, your eyewitness account would of course be the most compelling—and Gage, you’re the ‘guy on the street,’ the average high school student confronting his mortality for the first time.”