A Necklace of Water (9 page)

“What?” I asked.

“Have you been studying displacement spells?”

“No. What’s a—oh, when you move something out of the way? No, you know I haven’t. I’m still learning the bazillion words for herbs.” I tried not to sound bitter, but the amount of sheer memorization required for the craft was overwhelming.

“You haven’t studied anything like that? Has Clio shown you something similar? Or anyone else?”

I thought. “No. I don’t know how I knew it. It was just there. What?” I was starting to feel alarmed at Petra’s expression.

“Okay,” she said, sitting down across from me. “Then what happened?”

“Well, I did the thing, and the little girl was out of the way. But we headed toward the left curb, and I saw that Kevin was unconscious, passed out.”

“Unconscious?” Petra looked awful.

“Yeah—I don’t know what happened. It’s like he’s—diabetic or something and just passes out. The paramedics said it was like he’d been hit by lightning. This happened once before,” I said, the word
lightning
triggering a memory. “That night we
did
get hit by lightning. Remember? Kevin almost passed out, and that guy had to help us. I mean, I wonder what’s wrong with him. Maybe I should talk to his dad or stepmom about it.”

Petra gazed at me with her clear, blue-gray eyes. “He’s not diabetic,” she said.

“How do you know?” Could she really tell without even examining him?

“It’s you. It’s what happens when you make magick around him.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know why you’re able to perform such powerful spells without studying,” Petra said slowly. “But with Kevin—what you’re doing is, essentially, sucking his energy out of him. His life force.”

Horrified, I gaped at her. “What?”

“Magick doesn’t come out of thin air,” Petra explained. “Though it might look like it does. Magick is everywhere, and when you make magick, it’s mostly
gathering
magick. Though you can increase what you have to work with.”

I wasn’t following her.

“Trained witches create boundaries around their spells so they don’t affect any living thing around them, except of course whatever they want to affect. But you’re not trained, and when you do powerful magick, it grabs force from wherever it can. In this case, from Kevin.”

I could hardly take it in. “
I
did that to him? But he was—he was gray. His heart was beating way too fast. He’s at the
hospital.
“

Petra nodded. “It happened before, at the fountain. At the time, I thought maybe the lightning itself had affected him. But now it seems like it was probably you.”

“Oh my God.” I was appalled and felt my throat close and tears spring to my eyes.
I
had done that to Kevin. My making magick had sent him to the hospital. And now all sorts of memories came to me—of Kevin suddenly seeming dizzy a couple of times. Even his stepmother swaying against a door frame. Every time I had called up the tiniest little spell, it had affected him badly. Today the spell had been pretty strong, and it had practically killed him.

“Oh my God,” I repeated. “What am I going to do?”

“You have to learn how to put up boundaries as fast as you can,” said Petra. “But that can take a long time. Or you have to stop making magick of any kind, for any reason, around Kevin—or any other non-witch, for that matter. Witches have a built-in defense mechanism—you’d have to try really hard to take our power.”

I swallowed, not looking at her, steering my mind away from what I wanted to do to Daedalus.

“The third option is, you have to stop seeing Kevin.”

Today, last night, this whole week had been too much. I couldn’t stand it. “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, my voice breaking. Standing up, I didn’t even make it through the doorway before I started crying.

“Thais,” Petra called.

I turned back and saw her looking very serious.

“You need to make some hard choices,” she said, her voice gentle. “But you must make them. Let me know if you need help.”

I nodded and headed upstairs. In the bathroom I pulled the shower curtain around the big old-fashioned tub and turned on the water. I lay in the tub, eyes closed, with the water raining down on me as if it could wash away all my darkness.

“I
’m not sure she wants to talk to you.” Axelle sounded apologetic, but Sophie knew better.

She had come prepared. “I need to speak to Manon now, Axelle.”

When Axelle continued to block her apartment door, Sophie brushed past her and entered the cool, dark interior. It was amazing, Sophie thought, how they each managed to find their own environments in whatever city they happened to be living in. Axelle’s apartments always looked like this. Daedalus’s were unmistakably his. Wherever she and Manon settled, it had always seemed homey and warm, welcoming and safe.

Except now. Now Manon was gone, most of her clothes out of their closet. It felt unbearably bleak and empty, awful to come home to. And she’d been gone only four days.

Axelle’s small, dark foyer opened up into the large main room on the right and a small galley kitchen on the left, separated from the hallway by a half counter. A black cat sat on the counter, drinking water from a bowl.

It took a moment for Sophie’s eyes to adjust—the kitchen light was on, but the main room was lit by only two inadequate lamps. The first thing she saw was Marcel’s bright, copper-penny hair, starkly visible against the black and white of the kitchen. What was he doing here?

“Sophie,” he said, nodding at her.

“Hi,” she said, flustered, and then turned toward the main room. To her relief she saw Manon, draped over both arms of a big leather chair, reading a
Marie Claire
magazine.

“Hi,” Sophie said, hurrying over to her. She sank down beside Manon’s chair, gazing up at the face she’d loved for more than a hundred years. Manon looked tired, unhappy, and Sophie wanted to pull her into her arms, hold her tightly, tell her everything was going to be all right. Reaching out, she touched Manon’s denim-covered knee, but Manon pulled away. Sophie’s heart sank lower.

“Can we talk, please?” she asked in a low voice, all too aware of Marcel and Axelle.

Manon’s expression was unforgiving. “We’ve talked.”

Sophie glanced behind her to see Axelle making no effort to disguise the fact that she was listening in. She was making a gin and tonic at the kitchen counter while Marcel watched her, frowning slightly. Why was he here, anyway? He couldn’t stand Axelle.

“Please, honey,” Sophie said. “Please, let’s just talk it out. You know I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

“No, but you would hurt me for
you
,” Manon replied quietly.

The words stung. Sophie wanted to deny them, but deep down she knew they were true. She’d been willing to sentence Manon to an endless lifetime of unhappiness and frustration just so that she, Sophie, wouldn’t lose her. The really bitter thing was that she hadn’t had to do anything at all—they’d seen that even a much more powerful suicide spell wouldn’t work. If she had done nothing, if she had even pretended to support Manon’s wishes, she would still have had the outcome she wanted.

And Manon wouldn’t have left her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, looking down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “I know it was wrong. You’re right—it was inexcusably selfish of me. But I did it out of love—because I love you so much I can’t bear the thought of living without you.”

“That’s the thing,” Manon said slowly, standing up. Sophie scrambled to her feet, watching the sweet, perfect face that had frozen in time when Manon was thirteen years old. “I believe that you did it because you couldn’t bear the thought of living alone. But I don’t know if that was about me, really
me
, or just about you being afraid to live alone.” “What are you talking about?” Sophie cried, following Manon to the kitchen. Glancing uncomfortably at Axelle and Marcel, she saw they were watching with undisguised interest. “Manon—can we talk about it in private? Please?”

“I don’t want to talk about it at all.” Manon’s voice was bleak. She got a glass out of a cupboard and helped herself to some gin and tonic. There was a lime already sliced, and Manon squeezed a piece into her drink, then dropped it in.

“You have to forgive me.” Sophie was growing ever more alarmed. She and Manon had had fights before—had even broken up for a few days at a time—but that had felt different than this. Manon seemed so cold, so unyielding.

Manon sipped her drink, watching Sophie over the rim. “No, I don’t.” The words sounded sad rather than angry.

Sophie’s heart froze. “Manon—can’t you see that I need you? That I love you more than anything?”

“I believe that you need me.”

“You think I don’t
love
you?” This was beyond humiliation, having to beg like this. But Sophie was past caring. All that mattered was that Manon relented and came back.

“I don’t know,” said Manon quietly, touching an ice cube with one fingertip, not looking at Sophie. “Maybe you just can’t be alone.”

“
What?
Manon, how can you say that?” Sophie exclaimed, feeling close to tears. “I love you! You’re the only person I’ve ever loved!” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she had a cold, sinking feeling. But maybe Manon wouldn’t remember …

“That’s not entirely true,” Manon said evenly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I mean, a
lot
of time. And now I wonder if I wasn’t always second best.”

Sophie gaped at her, horrified.
Oh no, oh no, oh no
—
don’t say it, don’t go there
—

“Compared to how much you loved Marcel.”

There was dead silence in the small kitchen. Outside, someone shrieked with laughter; a car horn blared. Sophie felt far removed from this bright, untidy kitchen, with plates piled in the sink, Minou leaning down from a counter, pawing through the trash. She stared at Manon’s small, heart-shaped face, aware only of a desperate, desperate hope that she had misheard, that Manon hadn’t just said that in front of these two, that Manon would never betray her …

… the way she had betrayed Manon the night of the rite.

Oh goddess.

Sophie pressed her hand to her mouth, feeling like she was going to be sick.

“Whaaat?” Axelle asked with fascination, her black eyes darting from Manon to Marcel to Sophie.

Sophie couldn’t move, couldn’t believe this was happening. She took rapid, shallow breaths, aware of Axelle and Marcel on either side of her in her periphery. Her eyes were locked on Manon’s sad, angry, ashamed, triumphant face.

“Uh …” said Marcel, sounding shocked.

What was he doing? Thinking back over the last 240 years, looking for clues? Sophie thought hysterically.

“My God,” said Axelle softly. “None of us knew. Except Manon.”

“I have to go,” Sophie breathed through clenched jaws. Blindly she turned and stumbled toward the front door. Her car keys jingled in one pocket; she had no idea where her purse was. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She clawed frantically at the locks, yanked the door
open, and ran out into the courtyard. A motion sensor light came on, flashing white light into her face. Sophie shaded her eyes and ran down the flagstone alley to the street. She tried to remember where she had parked, but her mind was a complete blank. Instead she hurried down one block and then another, not knowing where she was going, not caring.

She couldn’t believe Manon had done that to her. Now Marcel knew. Manon might be giving them all the details even now, details Sophie had confided to her more than a hundred years ago, in the early stages of their affair.

Finally she collapsed against an old brick wall overhung with long canes of a Lady Banks rose, trailing to the sidewalk. Pressing her face against the soft orange brick, Sophie sobbed.

This, more than anything, meant that she and Manon were over for good.

T
his time last year, I’d been juggling three different guys, including a twenty-two-year-old paralegal I’d met at Amadeo’s. Every Friday and Saturday night had been taken; I’d been so busy I could hardly catch my breath.

Look at me this year: my only romance in the last three months had ended in humiliating disaster. Other than that, I had the occasional, incendiary smash-mouth with Richard, who I didn’t like and who didn’t like me.

Now here I was on a Saturday morning, in a cemetery, with a man old enough to be my grandfather, like, a million times over. Yet this seemed more important than social butterflying—not that anyone would ever believe I thought that.

“Okay, now, is the whole earth going to crumble into lifeless powder when I do this?” I sounded grumpy, probably to hide my fear and distaste. The last time I’d done this, a beautiful crystal had turned to horrible, dead-feeling powder in my hand because I’d taken its life force. Its energy. Its chi. You might think a crystal is already pretty dead, and yeah, it isn’t alive in the same way that a squirrel is, or a freshman, or an amoeba. But magickally, there’s a huge, striking, palpable difference between a regular crystal, solid and integral, and what had been left after I’d taken its chi. The powder had felt repulsive to me, dead. I’d thought about it since then and decided it felt like anti-life, anti-magick. Not just
nothing
, but a horrible absence of something. It had been like holding death, and it made my skin crawl.