Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two (19 page)

“No,” she said too quickly. “I don’t think so.”

Xavier stared her down, and she shrunk more.
Had he always been so frightening?
Her mouth felt dry and she appreciated Patrick’s presence. Xavier’s eyes looked different. They had always looked so empty, but not anymore. Instead of Evangeline’s disappearance causing him to shrink back more into his shell, it had brought him to life. His no-longer-empty eyes—so much like Dad’s—focused on her. She didn’t think he’d ever held eye contact with her so long.

“They said you can go?” Patrick asked, ignoring Xavier’s unexplained hunt for summer wizards.

Emmy nodded again.

“You’re sunburned,” Patrick said.

Emmy shrugged, feeling defensive, as if she needed to argue this fact.

“Come on,” Patrick said. He took her hand to pull her up. Emmy must have imagined any accusation. Patrick pulled her into a quick hug. She couldn’t remember that
ever
happening before.

She buried her face in his shoulder and didn’t want to let go. She felt herself shaking and hoped he couldn’t feel it too.

“Where’s Dad?” Emmy asked.

“Uh…let’s get out of here. And I’ll tell you.”

Emmy scrunched her nose at this evasion. She didn’t like the sound of it, but feared the answers too much to ask any questions. She grabbed her phone and discharge paperwork and followed her brothers out of the ER.

omeone slapped David in the face. The slap must not have satisfied the assailant, because then he was punched. When the pain exploded in his jaw, blood rushed back to his brain as well. He looked up and saw the face of his brother-in-law, Carson, right before he punched him again.

“Stop it, honey. That’s not helping anything.” That sensible woman’s voice had to be Jess, Carson’s wife.

For a split second, seeing his former best friend again made him smile, even though he had just punched him. But then he remembered the whole Oppenheimer family—Carson, Jess, and Amanda’s own parents—had turned their back on their family when they learned they were practicing magic. At least they finally reappeared when things got bad enough, but David should be the one doing the punching.

David must have slipped out of reality again, and he wanted to go back. Back to the nothing. But seeing Carson’s mean blue eyes, made him think of Amanda’s mean blue eyes. And that made him think of his children. All the people who needed him here in reality. For about the hundredth time, he wished he was a stronger man. A better man. But until then, he would have to fake it for the people he loved.

“David?” Jess asked. “Are you with us?”

“Yes.”

“See, punching helped,” Carson said.

“Where am I? Where are the kids? Amanda?”

“Oh, so now you care,” Carson said.

“Stop it,” Jess said. “He’s not himself.”

“I’m not so sure,” Carson said.

“What’s wrong with me?” David asked.

“I don’t know,” Jess said.

“I know,” Carson said. “He’s lost his mind. Just given up and gone like so many of his kind. Too weak to stay and fight like a man—bails when things get tough.”

“Perhaps, but can you imagine what it must be like? How would you feel if you were in his shoes? How would you feel if you lost me and one of your girls in the same day?”

This argument did quell Carson. “Don’t even say things like that.”

“Exactly. A reality too horrible to consider. But that’s his, so you are the one who needs to man up, and show a little compassion.”

It took David a moment to understand they were talking about him. As soon as the reality needled back in, he could swat it away like a buzzing fly.

“Lost?” David asked. “Amanda didn’t…?”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Jess said. “I didn’t mean that. No one is
lost
. I…” Jess must have run out of things to say, mid-sentence. “It’s going to be okay,” she concluded, finally.

“Oh my God,” David said. Reality floated back in now in stronger waves and he tried to hang on, no matter how much it hurt. “Evangeline. I…what is wrong with me? Why do I keep forgetting? I need to go find her.”

The horror floated in now at full strength. Evangeline’s disappearance was made more frightening by the fact that he couldn’t keep hold of his mind long enough to do anything about it. He felt as if he had forgotten something important, but a hundred times worse. He had wanted to float out of reality the way Xavier did, and he had managed it. Now, he had to find his way back.

He grabbed Jess’s arm and must have done it too aggressively because Carson looked ready to punch him again. He backed away from her.

“Jess, please. You have to help me. What is this magic? Is it some kind of misdirection spell meant to confuse me? Or am I losing my mind?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know. It could be either. It could be both.”

“How do I make it stop?”

Jess shook her head. Her deep brown eyes implored Carson. “You know more about this kind of magic.”

“Yes. A little too much,” Carson said. “There’s nothing that can be done.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jess said. “Think about your sister. Think about your Patrick and Emmy. There has to be something.”

“I don’t know any spell or anything, if that’s what you mean.” Carson looked David in the eye now. “Our parents taught us we have choices. Wizards always think they’re subject to forces outside of themselves they cannot control. And that’s true. But it’s not the only thing that’s true. Free will is a real thing. And sometimes the simplest magic is the strongest. If you want something bad enough, it can be so. But you have to be strong person to have a will strong enough to counteract other magic.”

David could tell Carson didn’t think he was up to the task, and he agreed with him. “So I can make it go away?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.
Be a man.
The darkness can’t take you if you don’t let it. They need you. Be a husband. Be a father. Just do it.”

David’s head swam. He could feel the darkness polluting his brain, its own kind of cancer. He saw how easily it could make its way in. He only had to lose hope for a second, and he began to drown in it. He had never lost hope so thoroughly as he had today. And now he knew. One more second of lost hope and he would lose himself, and lose everything he loved along with it. If he almost slid into oblivion now, he knew he wouldn’t survive losing his talisman.

“Okay,” David said.

“Okay?” Carson asked.

“You’re right. I can do it. I have to do it. Just point me in the right direction, please.”

“Go home,” Jess said.

Home. Right. But home wasn’t a place. Home was his family, and that wasn’t one single place he could go. He had to go back to the hospital to be with Amanda. He had to go to the forest to look for Evangeline. And he had to go back to his other children, and be there for them.

Jess seemed to read his mind. “The police are looking for Evangeline. The doctors are taking care of Amanda. For now, go home.”

David knew the Mundane police wouldn’t find Evangeline any more than they had found Julie. And the Mundane doctors couldn’t do whatever needed to be done. He was alone.

atrick thought he ought to stop believing in God. He didn’t know why his parents still did. God hated them. Maybe since Patrick was a fall wizard, and not inherently evil, God would spare him. But he didn’t care. He loved his family. And if God didn’t love them, he had no use for God. And God seemed to want to destroy them.

“Patrick, tell me what you know. I
need
to know there is hope. It’s important,” Dad said. He sat in the living room with Dad, Xavier, and Emmy. A way-too-small version of their family.

Patrick sighed. “I told you. I can’t tell you the future. I told you about my vision of Julie. That’s all I have, I’m sorry.”

“There has to be more. Please.”

Patrick stared at Julie’s bracelet on the table. Emmy had shown it to all of them, and none of them had any idea how it got in the truck. The only person left to ask was Mom.

Dad, Emmy, and Xavier all continued to stare at Patrick as he stared at the bracelet. Pleading in their eyes. Waiting to lap up whatever he had to say like water in the desert. All three of them wanting him to do something so badly at the same time gave off a tangible energy that made his stomach burn. He had a feeling of power over them, and he didn’t like the way that felt. He wanted them to turn away. Leave him alone. But the time for inaction had come and gone. He knew if he could do anything to help Evangeline and make them feel better, he should.