Spirit (15 page)

We both looked
at Anthony for his reaction. He stood there, staring down at the lit candle,
slack jawed as if someone had punched him in the gut. His eyes flicked from Steven’s
face to the candle and back again, and yet he couldn’t seem to find anything to
say. He closed his mouth and swallowed audibly, blinking rapidly. When he
opened his mouth again, only unintelligible sounds came out.

“So,” Steven
said, saving Anthony from finding something to say, “like I said, we can do
magic and I control Fire.”

Anthony
collapsed on the edge of the coffee table, still staring stupidly at the
burning candle. Unable to help himself, Anthony reached out and passed his
fingertips through the flame.

“Don’t do that,”
Steven said, pulling the candle back before he blew it out. He tested the wax
to make sure it wouldn’t keep dripping before he set it on the coffee table
next to Anthony. Steven stood up and paced the room.

“Um, I don’t
even know what to say right now,” Anthony finally said, though he didn’t turn
to look at Steven.

“I’m sure you
have a lot of questions, and I’ll answer them, I promise.” Steven spun on his
heel and started to make the track back through the room. “But I don’t really
have time right now. I just need you to understand I’m not bullshitting you.
Jodi, Shay and I can all do magic, but since Shay died, something has happened
to Jodi and me, and we’re suffering for it.”

“What do you
mean?” Anthony’s voice sounded a little stronger.

“I’m not even
really sure, but Jodi doesn’t have as much control over her powers now and mine
are weakening, and she’s acting really weird.”

“How so?”

“Like she
doesn’t want to be around me.”

“She probably
just needs some space.” Anthony stood up and moved toward Steven but then
seemed to have second thoughts about actually reaching out for him. “You
probably just remind her of Shay too much right now, you know?”

“Maybe,” Steven
said dismissively. “But that’s not the part I’m worried the most about right
now.”

“What is then?”

“The electronics
acting weird around me.” Steven took a breath. “I really think Shay is trying
to reach out to me.”

“Like
her spirit?”

“Yes, like she
needs help, and she’s trying to make contact with me.”

“Wait, if you
think that was Shay, then why did you do that whole exorcism thing?” Anthony
asked, his face a mask of confusion.

“A banishing,”
Steven corrected.

“What?”

“I didn’t do an
exorcism; I banished the entity,” Steven said.

“Dude,
whatever,” Anthony said with a roll of his eyes, sounding amazed Steven would
bother with semantics. “If you thought it was Shay, why would you
banish
her?”

“I wasn’t
thinking,” Steven said, lowering his eyes. “I just panicked, and it didn’t
occur to me until just now, when she screamed out my name, that I was sending her
away.”

Anthony said, in
that same slow voice like he was talking to a crazy person, “Okay, so what does
she want?”

“Obviously I
don’t know for sure yet,” Steven said, ignoring Anthony’s tone, “but if it were
me, I’d be trying to come back.”

“Wait, wait,
wait,” Anthony said, waving his hands in front of him, finally spinning to look
at Steven. The look on his face clearly said he thought Steven was losing it.
“You mean
back
, like
back to life
?”

“Yes,” Steven
said with quick breath, “I mean that exactly.”

“All right,
look,” Anthony’s hands were still out in front of him like he was trying to
ward Steven off, “the candle trick was cool, but you’re starting to freak me
out.”

“Damn it,” I
muttered, feeling all the hope go out of me. For one shining moment, I thought
Anthony started to believe him and might help him reach out to me, but hearing
those words, I knew a fight was coming instead.

“
Candle trick
?” Steven repeated, staring
wide-eyed at his boyfriend.

“Yeah, very
clever,” Anthony said quickly, “but this is enough. You’re starting to sound
crazy, Steven.”

“Crazy?”

“Yes, crazy! I
understand you’re grieving right now, but if you keep talking like this, people
are going to have you locked up.”

“Anthony, please
don’t do this.” I could hear the pain in Steven’s voice. He was trying to
control his temper, but the color was rising in his cheeks.

“I’m not doing
anything,” Anthony started to argue, but Steven stopped him.

“What do you
want me to do to prove it to you if the candle wasn’t enough?”

“What?” Anthony
asked lamely.

“What do I have
to do to prove to you I’m not crazy? Just name it and I’ll do it.”

“You don’t have
to prove anything to me.” Anthony sounded a little confused.

“Clearly I do!”
Steven’s voice got louder, angrier. “So what? Do you want me to light a hundred
candles? A thousand? Should I light your fucking curtains on fire?”

“Steven, stop,”
Anthony and I said in unison, though he only heard Anthony. I could see his
hands becoming redder and redder as he got angrier, but Anthony hadn’t noticed
it yet.

“No!” Steven
yelled. “I opened up to you, I told you my biggest secret ever, and you called
me a crazy person!”

“No, I said
people were going to think you’re crazy, not that you are crazy. There’s a difference!”
Anthony rose to Steven’s anger like tinder to a flame, and I just closed my
eyes. The two went at each other, screaming louder and louder, their arguments
making less and less sense as they went on. Anthony started to cry, which
surprised me because Steven was the crier, but Steven was so angry, he just
slipped into Spanish and I couldn’t follow anymore.

 
“Of course I love you!” Anthony yelled back
after Steven had yelled something in Spanish.

“Then explain
the TV and the light, Anthony! Explain you hearing someone you can’t see saying
my name! Explain that,” Steven said, goading him. “Go on, explain what that
was.”

“Maybe a
breeze?”

“Fine, whatever.”
Steven turned away from his boyfriend and walked over to the front door.
Pulling it open with a
woosh,
Steven
hesitated at the threshold. He looked out into the night where he had tried to
banish me and then back into the apartment. His brow was pinched and his free
hand was in a fist.

“Shayna,” Steven
said, his head swinging back and forth, not sure where to look.

“Yes, Drake?” I answered,
unable to help myself.

“I’m going to
help you.” He stepped outside, slamming the door behind him.

***

I rocked back to
my heels before falling to sit on the ground, knocking out what little breath I
still had. Balor had been sitting up, so his head was a little higher than mine.
He whined and I placed my hand on his back, absentmindedly petting him as I
stared forward. I had never seen Anthony and Steven fight before; it was more
than a little jarring. Guilt gnawed at the back of my head. If I had waited to
try to contact Steven when he was alone, this might not have happened. If I had
tried to reach out to Jodi, it definitely wouldn’t have. More than that, I
wouldn’t be in this forsaken place. I had royally screwed things up.

“What I say?”
the sprite woman asked as she threw a bundle of herbs into the water, making it
steam and boil, clearing the image of Steven. “What’s it good for? Now you sit
and you cries.”

“I’m not
crying,” I snapped back, scrubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands.

“Meh,” she said
again before she reached up and grabbed the cauldron handle and pulled it off
the fire. Her scale-like skin protected her from the heat that would’ve melted
the skin on my hands.

“Wait, wait,” I
said frantically, reaching out for her. “I want to see more.” Balor yipped as
if he could stop her for me.

“You saw
enough,” she said.

“Oh, please,” I
begged, getting to my feet and rushing to get in front of her, trying to stop
her. Balor’s claws scrabbled against the ground as he stood to follow me. She
just kept walking as though she could walk right through me, forcing me to walk
backward for fear of the caldron, its bottom still orange with heat.

“Away,” she
snapped. “I lets you see, you leave me alone now. It is enough!”

“Oh, please,
that was days ago. I have so much more to see,” I begged.

“I told you,
what good does it do?” She sidestepped around Balor and me. “You can’t do
nothing with it. It’s just a torment, you saw. You saw enough.” She reached her
cart, and with a strength I didn’t think she had, she hefted the caldron in the
back of the cart before she hopped inside. There was a well-worn charred circle
where the cauldron always sat. She settled down, pulling a dusty old blanket
over her legs, and picked up a bowl of cooling soup and began to eat.

“It gives me
peace of mind, that’s what it does,” I insisted, standing at the end of the
cart. It was low enough to the ground I could see over the edge of the
tailgate. Sipping her soup slowly and loudly, she refused to look at me. I
chewed the inside of my cheek as I watched her while I tried to decide what to
do. I knew I couldn’t reach out to anyone in the vision, but it was like not
being allowed to look at the clock in class; I just had to know the time.

Impatience
nearly got the better of me and I almost turned around to storm off, but I had
nowhere to go, nothing to do, so I climbed up into the cart. She lifted her
eyes to glare, but she didn’t tell me to leave. I glared back, daring her
silently to tell me to get out of her cart. When she didn’t, I sat down, close
enough to feel the heat radiating off the cauldron. I wondered how it hadn’t
set the cart on fire, but I didn’t care about that right then.

Balor whined,
sitting, his whip-like tail swishing back and forth on the ground. I looked
over at him and shushed him with a finger to my mouth. He laid down, placed his
head on top of his paws, and huffed. It was almost enough to make me smile.
Turning back to the tiny woman, I stared at her, wondering what I could do to
get her to talk to me.

“That soup
smells good,” I lied, but my stomach was starting to hurt from hunger. Her
mouth twitched in a grimace. After a few tense moments, she reached for another
bowl. She ladled some soup from a smaller caldron at the head of the cart into
it before passing it to me. I felt the urge to say “thank you” as I took the
wooden bowl, but I managed to keep my mouth closed, giving her a nod of appreciation
instead.

“Hmph,” she
replied to my nod before going back to her own soup. With a few vegetable
peelings floating in it, it was more of a broth than a soup, but it was warm
and salty with just enough flavor to satisfy my grumbling stomach. We sat there
with only our sipping and slurping breaking the silence. When I was down to the
dregs and peelings, I leaned over the back of the cart and held the bowl out to
Balor. He picked up his head, stuck his large snout into it, and snatched up
the bits in the bottom happily.

“That was nice
of you,” I said, handing her the empty bowl. When she still refused to say
anything, I cleared my throat and tried another tactic. “My name is Shayna,” I
said, lifting my eyebrows, waiting for her to reply.

“We knows.” She
stared at me as if I was an idiot.

“Oh,” I said
stupidly, “I didn’t realize. Okay, well, can you tell me your name?”

“We could.” She
bobbed her head before putting her mouth to the edge of the bowl and upending it,
slurping the last bit.

“Let’s try this
again,” I said slowly, trying to control my temper. “What is your name?” I
would give up all magic forever if it meant I didn’t have to play these stupid
faerie word games ever again.

“Mab,” she said
so quickly that at first I thought she had just made another sound of
dismissal.

“Mab?” I repeated,
but she didn’t answer me, so I just had to accept I had it right. “All right,
Mab, I’m not asking for much, but I still have a chance to get out of here,
okay? I might be able to go home. I just want to see if my friends are trying
to help me make that happen.”

“They are
friends,” she said.

“Yes, they are
my friends,” I repeated.

“Then they
help,” she said simply.

“Yes,” I agreed,
“I’m sure they want to help, but I don’t know if they know how to help.”

“They help if
they can; they don’t if they can’t,” she said. She pulled the blanket up around
her shoulders, tucked it under her pointy chin, and closed her eyes.

“What does it
matter to you?” I demanded. “Does it take something out of you to give this to
me? If it’s a matter of payment, then just say so and maybe can work something
out, but I don’t understand why you’re refusing.”

“It takes
something from you,” she said, opening her eyes to look at me.