I know everyone assumed that just because I couldn’t respond from my catatonic state I was also unaware of what had been going on around me.
Man, that would have been way better. Trust me.
It’s really claustrophobic to be trapped in your own head, unable to talk or control your body. Unable to help or explain to your friends what you know is happening and ways to stop it.
I know Theia totally blamed herself for all this. She believed that we should have left her in Under to begin with. That all of our problems would have been gone and we would have been safe from Mara.
Theia was very, very wrong.
I was still trapped, though now I was sitting in a hard wooden chair in a room that I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t in the cabin and I was alone. The wall in front of me was stone. Not brick but cold, gray stone, and it bled. The wall pulsed like wounded skin under the rivulets of red.
That’s all I could see because it was all that was directly in front of me and I had no control over my eyes. They stared straight ahead and I blinked occasionally, though not when I tried. I couldn’t even control my own eyelids. This was totally a mega-suck.
I’d never been in a castle before, but I guessed that’s where I was now—Mara’s castle in Under. I’d have shivered if I could. She was bad enough when she was on our home field; I hated the thought that I was on hers now.
And then I felt Varnie. He wasn’t in the room with me, but he was near. Maybe not physically, but awareness of him blew around me like a breeze. His name, his face, his heart—the things I counted on every day swished through my head and around my senses. But something was off.
I wanted to push through, find that bond, hold on to it. I thought that I probably could. But I hesitated.
Which I’m not good at, by the way, hesitating.
If I had learned that skill—that one that makes you think before you leap—it’s possible that none of us would have been in this situation to begin with. No one but me knew that I was the reason Mara was in our lives. Me. Not Theia. I realized that the moment I saw who Mara was at the bowling alley—the moment I recognized her.
Somehow I had to find a way to make it right again.
So before I reached through the veil to find Varnie, I hesitated to think. Was that what I really wanted? Was it for the best? If he was in trouble, would I distract him? Would he then be too worried about me to take care of himself? He made a big show of being a coward, but he wasn’t. Not really. Varnie was there every time I turned. If he had been my partner in the trust-building exercises we had in contemporary issues class last week, I wouldn’t have fallen on my butt during the fall-back-and-your-classmate-will-catch-you segment.
Varnie would always catch me.
Mike Matheny wouldn’t even realize I was falling. I knew that. I’d always known that.
I’d heard Theia in the cabin when she said she saw something ugly connecting the two of us and I knew exactly what that was now, even if Mike didn’t. Part of me really wanted to strengthen that connection, but that would have been a mistake. No matter how much I wanted him to love me, he didn’t. And now I knew why I couldn’t let go.
The thing that connected me to Mike wouldn’t let me. The vile magic that hugged my heart like a noose pulsed and throbbed and tied me to him forever.
Amelia.
Varnie was looking for me. I sensed him stronger than ever.
I stilled the freak-out parts of my brain that were going nuts because I was essentially trapped in a box of my own body and reached out to his voice through the bond we’d made metaphysically the past few months.
Varnie?
When I heard nothing, I shouted his name in my head again, but I realized I was not the only one shouting. Disembodied voices were screaming and moaning all around us. There was whimpering too, but I think that was me.
The anguish the voices projected was awful. What had happened to them all? I was frightened, but I was also angry. They were evidence of Mara’s appetite for destruction. They were lost, angry, sad, humiliated—and they were all trapped here. Just like me. Just like Varnie.
I centered myself, like Varnie had taught me to do, and let the sounds wash over me, trying to figure out where they were coming from and what was going on.
Through the din, I heard his voice, strong and true. “The beach, Miss Amelia.”
Our favorite visualization place.
I had to open all my senses, which wasn’t easy because I was totally freaking out. I visualized myself sitting cross-legged on a sandy beach, focusing on the briny smells, the sound of the surf and the gulls, the texture of the sand. And then I concentrated on Varnie. His shaggy blond hair, his sun-kissed nose, the way he made me laugh. For a brief second he was there, in front of me, and then he was gone again.
The picture in my mind kept shorting out, the way the television loses the satellite signal at my house whenever someone uses the microwave. I focused harder. I felt him hovering, then disappearing. The next time he reappeared in front of me, I grabbed him, pulling him towards me with all my strength. I wouldn’t let go.
I. Would. Not. Let. Go.
Varnie began dissipating again, so I grappled at him more, harder.
Stay with me, damn it!
We tumbled backwards on the sand, Varnie landing on top of me. He tried to ease up a bit, since I was carrying all his weight, but I was terrified he would disappear, so I clutched him tighter.
“Miss Amelia,” he said, his face less than an inch from mine. “Did you just swear?”
Without thought, I scrunched my hands into his sun-bleached hair and removed that last inch between us with a kiss I didn’t know I had in me.
Varnie responded instantly. In a distant part of my thought process, I’m sure I understood that this wasn’t real. We weren’t really on a beach. We weren’t even really together.
I poured everything I had ever felt, ever, into that kiss. My fears, my joy, my excitement, my dread—he would know what to do with them all. And he did. He took them like they were the first drink of water after crossing a desert.
And then suddenly we stopped kissing and stared at each other.
Hello, awkward moment.
I felt guilty because I knew my heart didn’t belong to me. It belonged to Mike, and even though I finally understood that it was a lie, I couldn’t stop the wrongness from creeping in. As for Varnie, he probably wondered why the hell he was kissing some high school kid.
“Are you okay?” he asked finally, after years and years of uncomfortable silence.
I nodded, aware of all the distance that was so not between our bodies at that very moment.
“Am I hurting you?”
I shook my head.
“Good,” he said. But he didn’t move. His eyes were so intense. He didn’t seem like his usual humble, shy dude. He seemed like a guy who ate his Wheaties, saw the finish line, and wasn’t going to let anything get in his way.
That was so hot.
I blinked hard, trying to clear the jumble of thoughts I wasn’t used to having. This wasn’t right. Varnie wasn’t Mike. And then I tried to rethink that as well, because I knew one of those thoughts didn’t matter. I just didn’t know which one. Finally I gave up. I couldn’t do this on my own anymore.
“I have to tell you something.” My voice sounded very grave. I didn’t like feeling all serious and stuff. It wasn’t me.
“Okay,” he said amiably, and then he began kissing me again.
I never thought about kissing anyone who wasn’t Mike before. I think I’d just become accustomed to the fact that I might never have my first kiss because, well, Mike didn’t know I was alive and I would never give my heart, or my lips, to someone who wasn’t him. I wished I’d thought to wonder why I didn’t think it was strange that I’d let that happen—that I’d let myself be dismissed and write off love.
I know my friends thought it was weird. After the first year of my “harmless crush” they’d tried getting me interested in other guys. It was like
most of my brain agreed with them but there was this voice inside my brain that said, “Under no circumstances.” My heart was available only to Mike Matheny and that’s all there was to it.
And the only person I could blame for my stupidity was myself.
So as I kissed Varnie on the beach like in a scene from some cheesy movie (without the surf splashing over us), I felt equal parts amazement and guilt. The voice was screaming at me to stop. The rest of me felt like I’d been waiting for this moment my whole life.
Maybe we could stay like this forever. Maybe whatever happened to our bodies in Under didn’t matter now.
He stopped kissing me, his eyes dimming in intensity and changing to concern. “Miss Amelia, you’re crying.”
“I am?”
Varnie wiped a tear with a careful swipe. “I have to admit it’s a first. I’ve never made a girl cry by kissing her before.”
“It’s not you, it’s—”
Something about his eyes made me shut up. He pushed off of me and I missed him so much I thought I would break into a million pieces.
I sat up and ran my fingers through my sandy, clumped hair. “Varnie, you don’t understand—”
“I’d rather we not have the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ conversation right now. We can save the demoralizing for a different day maybe. What are you doing Thursday?”
He joked, but he was wounded. I’d probably been hurting him for months. That was a shame. I’d spent my life being the girl who looked out for people, who took care of their feelings, and all the while I’d been stomping his heart into the ground without even thinking about it.
“You need to listen.” I scooted closer to him, but he returned his gaze to the water, shutting me out, ignoring my tentative touch on his arm. “It really is me. You’re a great guy—”
“Amelia.” He growled.
“Just listen. When I was a freshman, Mike Matheny . . . Don’t you start tuning me out, Archibald Egnatius Varnie—you need to listen.”
He stared at me now, with wide-open eyes. “How did you figure out my whole name?”
I groaned. “I looked through your wallet one day when you went to the bathroom.”
“You looked through my wallet?”
“Can we focus for a minute?” I rubbed the sand from my palms onto my pants. “So, I thought Mike was cute. I had a little crush and I was just starting to get into the metaphysical. And I was thirteen. It was kind of a bad combination. Sort of the perfect storm of uncontrolled feelings meeting uncontrollable forces.”
His brow furrowed. “What . . . you did a spell?”
“Sort of.” I couldn’t look at him. I was so ashamed.
“Miss Amelia, lots of girls do love spells who know nothing about magic. It’s a layperson’s playground. They’re simple charms but they don’t carry real weight. It’s like playing a harmless game. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“It’s not such a harmless game when you live in Serendipity Falls and accidentally summon someone.” I snuck a peek at him through my hair. “I didn’t know who she was until I saw her again the night at the bowling alley.”
A slow wave of understanding passed over his face. “You summoned Mara?” He exploded from a sitting position into full-on angry pacing, kicking up sand as he went. “I can’t believe this. How could you not tell anyone?”
I covered my face with my hands. “I didn’t know. Everything happened so fast at the bowling alley and then when I realized where I knew her from—well, then it was too late. I’ve been trying to figure it out, but it wasn’t until Theia saw the . . . intestinal thing between me and Mike that I put it all together.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Could you sit, please? You’re making me nervous.” He glared at me again, but took a seat. “Okay, so I was thirteen and crushing on the new guy. I Googled some love spells and put out some serious mojo but nothing seemed to happen. Then one night I woke up and Mara—who I didn’t know was an evil demon at the time, thank you very much—was in my room. She was wearing a pretty dress and was all glowy and she told me she could bind me to Mike forever.”
Varnie jumped up again. “And you let her?”
“I thought she was some kind of angel,” I protested. “I didn’t understand what she was offering. I was thirteen. Forever is a different concept when you’re thirteen.” I kicked at the sand. “I thought I was being offered the fairy tale, so she did a spell, took a hank of my hair, and was gone.” God, if I could take the night back. “Obviously, Mike didn’t wake up in love with me. I chalked it up to a very strange dream.”
“But you never got over him?”
I shook my head. “I’m still not, Varnie. That’s what I’m trying to say. Logically, I know that what I feel for Mike isn’t real. It’s manufactured. She bound me to him, but not him to me. But my heart . . . my heart doesn’t understand the difference.” I got brave and looked at Varnie, really looked at him. “My heart isn’t free.”
He reached for my hand and gripped it firmly, possessively. “It certainly doesn’t belong to Mike Matheny, I can promise you that.” He forced me to look at him, not letting my gaze retreat.
Even knowing that I was bespelled to love Mike didn’t change the fact that I did love him. “You understand, don’t you? I brought Mara here. It’s my fault she’s obsessed with us. I summoned her, unintentionally, but I did it.”
“You can’t blame yourself for Mara’s appearance four years ago or now. Like you said, you didn’t know what she was. She’s evil. You can’t be held accountable for her actions.” He pulled me up, and we stood facing each other. Holding both my hands, he closed his eyes. “It’s time to unbespell you.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m certainly going to try.”
I should want this. I should want Varnie to help me bludgeon the ball and chain that had kept me from moving on for four years. But I didn’t. I wanted to clutch the endless longing I had for Mike like a security blanket. I began to tremble. “I can’t do this.” I didn’t want to stop loving Mike. It was all I knew.
“Amelia, that is fear talking.”
“I don’t care.” I wrenched my hands out of Varnie’s grip. “You don’t know him like I do. You don’t understand.” Even as I said the words, I was shouting from within, Don’t listen to me, Varnie.
I was irrationally angry. It was the spell talking, I’m sure. It was ripping me to shreds inside. God, when I had seen Mike on the ground, unconscious, my whole psyche shut down. The spell was strong. Stronger than me.
“You can still love him.”
I met him with a startled gaze. “What?”
“You can still love Mike.” Varnie circled me slowly, like he was afraid I was going to bolt. Then I realized he was actually toeing a circle in the sand. Our circles have power. “I’m not asking you to change what you feel in your heart.”
My eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. “I don’t believe you.” I followed his movements from inside the circle. “You want me for yourself.” I slapped my forehead. “Oh God, Varnie. I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I said that. It’s like there are two people fighting for control of who I am right now.”
Varnie stepped into the circle and palmed my shoulders. “There now, hush. It’s the magic. It’s trying to protect itself. That’s probably what’s got you catatonic too. Just relax and look at me.”
I inhaled shallow breaths that did the opposite of relaxing me.
“I swear, Amelia. You don’t have to give him up. You can love Mike Matheny.” He paused, his lips thinning as he tightened his jaw and said the words he didn’t want to say. “You can love him until the day you die, if you want. We just need to get the dark magic out, okay?”
I nodded. Justifying it. He was right. I could still love Mike. “Okay, I’m ready.” And then the panic set in again.
Varnie held my arms firmly, his eyes closed. He would use a different sense to look inside of me. “Let me see it. Let me see the spell.”
I twisted in his grasp, but he didn’t loosen or relax his hold. I could feel something burn inside. Varnie was using his psychic light to find the darkness coiled deep in my heart like a cancer. It burned hotter, like a hot knife in slick butter. He was strong but I was stronger. I could push him out. I could . . . I closed my eyes, and I saw it too. It was so ugly, the dark magic. God, that had been inside me all this time? It looked like putrid flesh decomposing into . . . jelly. I gagged. That thing had been living in me for years. “Get it out, get it out, get it out!”
“Easy, Miss Amelia. I can’t get it if you don’t relax.”
Breathing had never been so difficult.
“Open your eyes for a second,” he told me.
I focused on him. Waiting.
“You have to trust me,” he said finally, when he was sure I was paying attention.
“I do.”
“No . . . I mean really, really trust me.”
“I do,” I repeated. “Wait, why?”
“Do you understand that I care about you?”
“Yes. Varnie, what is going on?”
“Do you know that I would never do anything to hurt you?”
“You’re freaking me out here,” I answered. Panic began churning in my stomach like a shaken can of Coke freshly opened.
Varnie rested his forehead on mine. “The thing, Mara’s spell, has entwined with your own energy. I think that’s part of the reason you’ve become so strong in magic so quickly, why you’re so intuitive. It’s going to hurt you a lot to separate the two, and you might not have the same . . . strength.” He took a deep breath. “I have to tear you apart to put you back together again.”
I could feel the darkness slithering inside me. I’d enjoyed the magical intuition it had given me. I liked being special, seeing things nobody else could see, controlling elements, being strong. But it was wrong, evil. “Get it out. I trust you.”
I think it would have hurt less if he had been ripping out my actual organs instead of the foul binding Mara had implanted in me. I felt things being tugged loose that I didn’t want to lose—faith, hope, dreams. They were all seamed together with ugly lies and manipulation and it was as if he reached into me with a hot poker and singed the good with the bad. I was losing more than Mike. I was losing me.