Spellcaster

  “It’s not that.” I rubbed my knuckles as I looked critically at his eye. It was starting to get red. How he didn’t feel it, I had no idea. I did know, however, that I really had one hell of a right hook.

  He looked down at the raw skin on my knuckles—I’d ripped open the scabs that had started to heal from Friday at the Cloisters—then blinked, twitching his left eye. I could practically see the lightbulb go on over his head.

  “There was no other way!” I sniffled again, choking back more tears. “I’m so sorry!”

  “You had to punch me?” Brendan’s voice rose as he reached up to his cheekbone, his fingers prodding the tender skin.

  “I’m sorry.” I cringed as I saw the red blotchiness blooming across his cheekbone. “Can we go put ice on it?”

  “Don’t. Apologize.” He took a deep breath and very gingerly took my hands in his, looking at my sore knuckles.

  My phone went off from the other side of the library—Angelique’s personalized ringtone blaring out.

  “Why is your phone all the way over… Oh,” Brendan said flatly, his face falling even more as he figured out what had happened.

  “That’s Angelique, right? You should answer it,” Brendan said, his voice numb. I found my phone—scratched and dented, but in working order—and answered it on the third ring.

  “Are you guys okay?” Angelique practically shouted into the receiver. “I just got a text message from Megan saying she’s quite proud of her latest accomplishment and asked if I was around to see it in action.”

  I looked over to where Brendan had gotten off the floor. He was picking up the heavy cart, turning it upright, and returning the scattered books to their shelves. Brendan was definitely on autopilot, but he looked anything but okay.

  “The binding spell didn’t work. It failed epically,” I told her in a shaking voice. “Megan possessed Brendan. I don’t know what happened or how she even did it, but his eyes turned completely black.”

  “Black—wait, black? Like, no iris, no white, nothing?”

  “Like an alien,” I whispered, cautiously watching Brendan. I didn’t want to say anything to upset him, but I had to tell Angelique the whole story.

  “What?” she screamed through the phone, and I had to pull it away from my ear. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s here with me in the library.”

  “Is he still evil?” she asked. “Did he start saying horrible things to you?”

  “How did you know that?” I asked suspiciously, watching as Brendan put the last book on its shelf. I picked up one of the overturned chairs and sat in it—checking it first to make sure it wasn’t the one he’d cracked. I had no idea how we were going to hide that from Emerson.

  “There was a story in Hadrian’s. I wonder if Megan’s gotten a hold of a copy somehow.”

  “Hold on a second?” I asked as Brendan approached me—very slowly, his hands out of his pockets the way a suspect would approach a cop.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, his tone solemn. “I’m going to get something cold for your hand.”

  “Brendan, I’m fine. Let me just finish talking to Angelique—”

  “I need to be alone for a second,” Brendan replied, keeping his eyes downcast, staring at my raw hand.

  “Okay. Will you come back?”

  Brendan just nodded, turned on his heel and walked out. He was still a little wobbly, and he clipped the edge of a bookshelf with his shoulder as he exited the library.

  “I don’t think I should have let him go alone,” I confessed to Angelique once the library door shut.

  “Let him go,” she ordered firmly, causing me to blink in surprise. “I guarantee you that boy is torturing himself even worse than ever. All he wants is to make you happy, and he’s always at the center of whatever hurricane is ripping your life apart. Give him a minute. Let him go do his stupid hair or something. And while he’s gone, you can tell me just how bad it got.”

  “It was bad,” I said, exhaling a shaky breath. “He attacked me in the library, pinned me down, and said all these cruel things that Brendan would never say.” But you’ve always feared he secretly thought. I bit back a second round of sobbing, standing up and busying myself with returning all the upended chairs to their rightful places. I leaned the broken chair against a table, trying to hide the busted leg as best as I could.

  “So what happened, did he just snap out of it?” Angelique asked.

  “I made him snap out of it. I used a spell that was in Randi’s grimoire to break it.”

  “Really? That’s awesome! Well, not awesome,” Angelique added, amending her statement. “But it’s pretty awesome that you were able to pull off a spell like that with no preparation whatsoever.”

  “I guess,” I replied numbly. “I’m just glad it worked. I have no idea what I would have done otherwise.”

  “How is he?

  “He’s okay now. Well, he’s upset, but he’s okay as in, he’s not possessed.” My voice wavered when I thought of his terrifying black-eyed attack.

  “How about you?” Angelique asked.

  “I’m telling him I’m okay, but I’m sure I’m going to cry hysterically once I’m alone in my room tonight. It was really scary, Angelique,” I admitted in a small voice. “He’s my…sanctuary, and Megan just set it on fire.”

  “I can imagine,” she said, sounding sympathetic.

  “But more than I’m upset, I’m furious,” I said, gritting my teeth. “If Megan was able to do this to him once, she can do it again, can’t she?”

  “Probably,” Angelique affirmed. “If it’s the same spell from Hadrian’s, you need something of the cursed person’s, like with the spell with Ashley. Except instead of making Brendan unconscious, Megan made him the embodiment of everything you fear. It’s very targeted—it’s really a spell to bring you anguish. He becomes everything you’ve ever feared about him. If I were there, I would have heard him saying different things—because I have different fears.”

  “So that’s why he basically ripped my heart out and showed it to me,” I said, flinching when I recalled the harsh things he said under Megan’s control. “Well, at least I can take some comfort in knowing that he doesn’t really think those things about me.”

  I took a deep breath. “So how can I protect him from getting possessed again?”

  “I don’t think you can. But it’s good to know you can snap him out of it if he does. Who’s to know what else she’s stolen from him? What’s he missing?”

  I thought about it for a moment, and then looked at where his coat was hanging off the back of a chair, his headphones dangling out of the front pocket.

  “His headphones,” I nearly shouted, slamming my palm on the table emphatically. “Someone stole his headphones on Friday. Right from under the lab desk,” I added.

  “And Friday’s when it all started,” Angelique mused. “So we’ve got to figure out who is helping Megan, and find a way to stop her, all before Wednesday.”

  “I thought she could attack me anytime—that it didn’t have to be before the lunar eclipse.”

  “She could attack you anytime, but I got a few more texts from our friendly neighborhood psychopath,” Angelique said. I could picture her scowling as she spoke. “Megan wants you to meet her Wednesday night during the full moon, alone, or she promised more payback—and she said no one would be safe. Especially him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, gripping the edge of the table.

  “Her exact words were, ‘Brendan will never be the same again.’”

  “I have to do something to protect him,” I said desperately. Even if it means giving in.

  “I know what we can do!” Angelique exclaimed excitedly. “It’s easy. Let’s just ignore her. I’ll tell her w
hatever spell she tried to do didn’t work, and she’s out of luck.”

  “But it did work. Which means she could follow through on her other threats. No,” I said adamantly. It was one thing to threaten me. But to put Ashley’s health in danger…what if she had the power to go after Aunt Christine next? Or Angelique? Or Cisco? Or if she targeted my cousin again—and inflicted some real, lasting damage to her?

  And then there was the worst of it: what she was threatening to do to Brendan. I didn’t know if Megan was talking about putting him in a state of unconsciousness as she had with Ashley—or something more permanent and damaging—but I didn’t want to find out.

  “If I gave in to her, do you think she would end this?” I asked Angelique, who just remained quiet.

  “It’s just going to make her more powerful,” she admitted, and I sighed deeply.

  “We need a plan A,” I said. “Because right now, giving in to her is plan B.”

  “That’s such a bad idea,” Angelique complained.

  “It’ll keep everyone safe—possibly even you,” I pointed out.

  “Please, I can handle that scrawny little waste of space,” she huffed.

  “Good, because we need a plan A.”

  Brendan came back into the library, holding a sweaty can of soda against his cheekbone. He sat across from me, sliding another one across the tabletop.

  “Hey, I gotta go, okay?” I asked Angelique.

  “Brendan’s back?” she asked, and I nodded. Then I realized she couldn’t see me. “Yes,” I replied.

  “Yeah, talk to him. We’ll figure this out,” she promised. “Bye.”

  I hung up the phone and took the cold can of soda, rolling it across the tops of my knuckles. The cuff of my button-down shirt kicked up, and Brendan gasped.

  “What happened to your wrist?” he asked, reaching over and gently taking my hand in his. He slid my sleeve up, and wrapped his other hand around my wrist, trying to match the red marks to his fingers.

  I jerked my hand away from his. “Don’t torture yourself,” I ordered. “I know it wasn’t you.”

  “Emma, I have to know,” Brendan begged, setting the can of soda down. “What happened? Why did you have to punch me? What did I do?”

  “You wouldn’t let go.” I cringed at a memory, looking down.

  “What do you mean, let go?”

  “You held me down and said things,” I confessed. I felt a sob or two bubbling in my chest when I thought about the hurtful, cruelly precise insults he hurled my way, but when I looked at Brendan’s face, so full of concern and love—and sheer anguish over what he’d unconsciously done—I knew that the things Megan forced him to say weren’t true. They were just my own insecurities—used as a weapon against me. Megan’s going to be hamburger when you’re done with her.

  “What did I say?” Brendan asked quietly, but I could hear the dread in his voice.

  “Things I know that aren’t true,” I said, forcing a confident smile on my face. “The spell was supposed to torture me with all my biggest fears. But I don’t have anything to be afraid of with you.”

  “Except me attacking you in a library,” Brendan said bitterly. “Emma, I’m so sorry.” His voice broke on the last word. He got up and switched chairs so he was sitting next to me, and he brushed my bangs out of my face.

  “I feel like a monster,” he admitted. “I stay here to make sure you’re okay, and I’m the one who hurts you. But if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in trouble to begin with.”

  “Brendan, I know it wasn’t you—it didn’t even sound like you,” I reminded him. But he just shook his head forcefully.

  “I love you too much to put you at risk like this,” he whispered. “I’ll still send the car. And I’ll be close enough if you need me but right now I’m the biggest danger to you.”

  “You stop it!” I snapped. “You stop it right now.”

  I stood up and threw the soda on the table. The can hit the polished wood with a loud metallic bang, and the sound shocked Brendan right out of his self-loathing.

  “Brendan. Alexander. Salinger.” I said each name distinctly, forcefully. “I’m not having this conversation with you again. When I didn’t tell you about the spell that had scared me at Angelique’s house, what did you tell me?”

  A ghostlike hint of a smile touched the corner of his mouth.

  “Well?” I punctuated my demand with a stomp of my foot. My emotions had run the gamut today, why not add bratty and petulant to the list?

  “I told you that you didn’t have to go through anything alone,” he admitted.

  “Well, that goes both ways,” I declared. “You saved me from Anthony. You broke the curse that—hello?—was going to eventually kill me. You almost killed yourself saving me, remember? So, today I saved you. Tomorrow, well, you’ll probably have to save me again, but either way, we’re in this together. Especially today, you were just as much a victim of this as I was.”

  “Emma, but—” he began, and I shushed him.

  “No Emma buts except for the one I sit on,” I ordered, and a genuine smile flashed across his face before disappearing. He stood up slowly, keeping his stance wide so he was eye-level with me.

  “I hurt you, though,” he said in a grave voice. “I hurt you physically. And I know I hurt your feelings even though you won’t tell me. What if I end up really hurting you, in a way you can’t recover from?” Like what Megan is threatening for him.

  “You know how you want to protect me from Megan?”

  “Of course—” he began, but I put my finger to his lips to shush him.

  “Then can’t you see that I want to do that for you?”

  Brendan looked like he was going to protest, but something in my expression finally made him relent.

  He shook his head, taking the soda from where I’d tossed it on the table.

  “Keep this on,” he insisted gently, pressing the can against my knuckles. “From the way my face feels, you definitely put some power behind that.”

  “I’m so sorry, Brendan.” I cringed as I looked at his red and slightly puffy cheekbone. I wondered if he’d have a black eye.

  “Don’t be,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I’m the one who taught you how to do it. I’m glad you know how, since it’s coming in way too useful these days. I still feel like you’re not telling me how bad it was. Whatever happened, it deserved a punch.”

  He searched my face and I didn’t answer, drawing patterns in the water droplets the soda left on the lacquered table. He was right: I didn’t tell him all the gory physical details. It would do no good to tell him.

  A look of horror crossed his face, and I was hit by how much he was suffering. I couldn’t imagine waking up and finding out that I’d been possessed, my body doing horrible things to Brendan.

  “Stop torturing yourself. I know it wasn’t—”

  “Yeah, I know, it wasn’t me.” He finished my sentence sharply.

  “Please stop. You sitting here terrorizing yourself is the same as me feeling bad that Anthony got a few good licks in when you guys fought at Belvedere Castle,” I argued.

  “That’s so different.”

  “It’s so not.”

  Brendan gave me a wry smile, reaching out to touch my cheek with the back of his hand. “You know, you’re kind of amazing, Emma,” he said softly. “Everything that’s happened, and you’re still here with me, and you’re still going strong.”

  I didn’t feel strong. Whatever stitches were holding me together felt like they were fraying and could unravel at any second. I just knew I didn’t want to give up. And now that I had Brendan, I knew I would fight twice as hard. Because we needed me to fight for both of us.

  Chapter 14

  We left the
school a little after six—giving my puffy, sob-swollen eyes some extra time look more human, less candy-apple-red, and giving Brendan some time to embrace his inner MacGyver and pull together a fix for the broken chair. He used some Scotch tape left on Emerson’s librarian desk to hold together the splintered legs of the broken chair, admitting that there were more surreptitiously fixed things around the school than I realized. We hid the chair in the back of the library and Brendan took me home in the car service, promising to pick me up the next morning, as well. He couldn’t very well come upstairs with the start of a black eye—Aunt Christine finally seemed to be giving him straight A’s on the boyfriend report card, and the last thing he needed to do was come strolling in with a shiner. Besides, his parents were coming back that night—as if Megan wasn’t terrifying enough, his mother was back in town. Cue the horror music.

  Dinner with Aunt Christine was takeout Thai—Chicken Pad Thai for her, Pad Prik King for me—and I kept my eyes on my food, memorizing every pepper, every string bean, since Christine’s eyes were drilling into me like she was trying to hang shelves on my forehead. She’d asked me if I was okay, and I’d told her I was fine, but nothing got past her—really, nothing. So while telling me about her day, Christine scrutinized me with her laser-accurate Stare of Truth. I tried not to squirm underneath it, but it was like she had a superpower. I ate my dinner left-handed, keeping my banged up right hand in my lap.

  After dinner, I headed head straight into my room. I shut the door, resting my back against the mirror hanging on it. I’d told Angelique I was going to cry my eyes out, but my eyes were dry. My head, however, was pounding from rage—I finally knew where the phrase “my blood was boiling” came from. I could feel it simmering in my veins, as I grabbed Randi’s grimoire from under my mattress, scouring it for anything I could use against Megan. It was Randi’s spell that helped me save Brendan, after all. And I wanted vengeance. I wanted justice. I wanted something other than just sitting there, letting Megan call the shots—and right now, this was the only thing I could think of that felt like I was doing something.

  After a few hours, my phone buzzed, interrupting my study session.