Cassandra, who was apparently going through a rebellious phase, was about Amelia’s size and loaned her some clothes, a hair brush and a purple cardboard box with tampons and pads in it. That way, Amelia didn’t need to go get anything from home.

While Amelia and Dennis started packing other essentials, I snuck to my own home. I didn’t really know what to take with me, so I stuffed my backpack with some extra clothes, my walkman and CDs and one hundred dollars worth of bills that Killian kept in his office.

I then crossed the street once more to go to Elvira and Fiona’s. I didn’t even glance at the kitchen. I went straight upstairs to the bedroom. I wasn’t sure if it would still be there — it felt like something Elvira should’ve taken with her, but maybe she hadn’t deemed it important enough.

But against all odds, it sat in the same place I had found it well over a year ago. The wooden box with Gaelic carved on the lid.

I opened it very briefly, just to check everything was still there. The key was still missing, as was the picture of Fiona and Elvira together on a beach, but everything else remained; the strange vial, the silver coin, the rest of the photos and the leather pouch. I tucked the box under my arm, hoping there would be some use for the things inside.

—

“When me and Dennis drove from Virginia, it took us about five days,” Amelia said behind the wheel. We had just reached Oakland, and the sun was starting to rise. I felt guilty not even saying goodbye to Marina, but we all knew she wouldn’t have let us go.

Charon did the maths in his head. “So if everything goes right, we should be there by Thursday next week.”

“We won’t miss much more than a week of school if we’re lucky,” Amelia said.

It was a bit daunting, in my mind, that it was the first time in my life leaving the state. As the metropolis fell behind and buildings grew scarcer and smaller, a cold feeling settled in my chest. I was really leaving home, and I wasn’t sure if I was ever coming back alive.

My body still ached from the magical outburst earlier. My mind was hazy — from the exhaustion, the shock, or likely both. I barely heard the Green Day album playing in the background, or felt the cool breeze that flowed in and out through open windows because the car had no working air conditioning.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether my uncle was still alive. A part of me wanted to believe that if he did die, I’d somehow know. Maybe there would be a chill down my spine, or I’d come face to face with the crow again. Since there was none of that, I was hopeful.

Charon, who always sat in the back because there would be no peace if Amelia and him sat together in the front, was going through everything we had brought with us. “We should’ve packed food,” he’d mutter every now and then, or: “What if it rains? We don’t have extra shoes.”

Amelia was chewing the insides of her cheeks, a bad habit she had adopted from me. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel along with the music and every now and then softly sung the lyrics. Out of all of us I think she was the calmest, but only just.

It struck me that we were just three kids on the road with barely enough money to afford food, gas and maybe a night or two in a motel, a stolen car and basically no plan whatsoever except to get to Washington. We had no idea what we were doing.

—

“Shit,” Amelia muttered that afternoon. We were still in California; according to Amelia we had passed Los Angeles a few hours ago. We had almost reached Colorado river, which made the border between California and Arizona.

“What?” Charon asked, instantly stressed.

“We’re running out of gas already,” Amelia said. She was right; the needle in the meter had fallen dangerously low.

“Can we last until Arizona?” I asked. We had decided our first resting stop would be there; for some reason, getting out of California before taking a break felt essential.

“Yeah, barely,” Amelia answered.

The first gas station we came across in Arizona wasn’t anything special, but we decided it would do well. The store was small and there was a tiny souvenir stall outside the entrance, attended by an old woman wearing so many colours and accessories I could barely see her face. Every time she moved, her outfit jingled.

While Amelia and Charon went inside, I stayed to browse. I considered buying Dennis a gift, as an apology for taking his car.

“See anything you like?” the old woman asked. She had a strange accent, not one I could place. When she smiled, I could only spot two off-white teeth. The rest were either gold replacements — four of them — or empty spots.

“Uh…” I answered.

I had expected mugs and keychains, maybe some cacti and cowboy hats, but not this. The woman sold real-looking (were they real?) bones. Skulls, spines, arms, legs, a few whole skeletons of various animals.

One in particular interested me. It was laid gently on a red satin cloth next to what looked like a rat skeleton. I couldn’t tell for sure because, well, I was fifteen and not a bone expert, but to me it looked like a human finger bone. I asked if I could take a closer look, and the old lady nodded excitedly. It didn’t feel like wood or plastic, and it felt cold in my hand despite having been in the sun all day.

“That one has history,” the woman said.

“Really?” I asked disinterestedly. It was probably just a sales trick, but it’s not like I had much else to do.

“Long ago, there was a young witch,” she began. I tried not to look startled. I reminded myself that if the woman was dangerous, Charon would have noticed. “She was very powerful, one they call a mythic. But the element she mastered was dangerous. It was death.”

“Death?” I repeated.

“Yes. She talked to ghosts, turned to them for advice. She could bring the dead back, but they never turned out quite right,” she continued. “Of course, the people around her wanted none of that. They despised her. They killed her own baby fearing it would turn out like her.”

“So what did she do?” I asked. My interest was piqued, even if it was just a story for tourists.

“She cursed herself.”

“Herself? How does that make any sense?” I questioned.

“One of the most heinous curses of all, saved only for those who wish true revenge. The curse of immortality.” The woman took the bone from me and brought it to sunlight. I could barely make out some sort of symbols carved on it. “One part of the ritual required her to cut off her own finger, eat its raw meat and then bury the bone.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“What happens if the bone is dug up?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

The woman chuckled. “Nothing, if it’s kept safely locked away. If it falls into wrong hands, however…”

I shivered. The bone, if real, was a product of necromancy. “But it’s only a story, right?” I said.

“Of course,” she answered, grinning. She gave the bone back to me, and I inspected it again. The symbols were simple little images, which were so faded by time they were hard to depict. One looked like an eye, and one could have been some kind of an animal head. One was a tree. The others I wasn’t sure about.

“How much?” I asked. I didn’t have much money to spare, but the bone felt heavy in my hand — important.

“You have it. Keep it safe, will you?” the woman said. She took my hand and closed my fingers around the bone.

“Thank you,” I said. In the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t a smart thing to do to accept cursed items from strangers, especially for free.

“Good luck on your journey,” the woman said.

I tucked the bone safely into my pocket and thanked the woman once more before I finally made my way inside the store. I found Amelia and Charon stocking up on snacks since there wasn’t much actual food available.

“We should buy more fruits and stuff,” Charon said, eyeing some the few apples and bananas available.

“No, we should buy something that actually keeps hunger away,” Amelia argued.

“You know what pirates got out of a diet like that? Scurvy,” Charon said.

“We’ll be on the road, like, less than two weeks! We’re not gonna get scurvy,” Amelia said.

“It’s still not healthy!” Charon insisted.

“Who gives a shit about healthy? And it’s not like you need any of that,” Amelia said.

I left them to argue. If I had to break their fights every time they did it for the whole trip, I wouldn’t have energy for the journey back. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even make it five days.

Instead, I started collecting my own rations. Crackers, jerky, probably too many bars of chocolate, a six pack of coke, an unappetising sandwich wrapped in plastic, and some sour candy. It was no proper meal, but it was enough to keep me going until the next stop.

When we left the store, the old woman and her bone stall had completely vanished. Dumbfounded, I asked: “Where’d she go?”

“Who?” Amelia asked.

“The lady who sold… souvenirs,” I said. I patted the bone in my pocket; it was still there, cool against my thigh even through clothing. I couldn’t have imagined it.

“Did you see her?” Amelia asked Charon.

“No, but it smells weird in here,” Charon said and scrunched his nose. His eyes fell on me. “You smell weird.”

I took the bone out and laid it on my palm to show it to them. “I got this from her,” I said.

“It’s fake, right?” Amelia said unsurely.

Charon shook his head and said: “It still smells like death.”

“Are bones supposed to smell like death?” I asked.

“Not ones that old. There are traces of magic on it,” Charon said.

“Are you sure you want to keep it?” Amelia said.

“No, but I feel like I have to.” I put it back into my pocket and hoped I was right.

There was a faded plastic picnic table next to the store, so we laid out our feast on it and started eating. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until I bit into my stale sandwich. It had probably been sitting in the warm store for at least two days, but I was so starved it tasted like heaven.

“We’re gonna have to sleep in the car for most nights. I don’t think we can afford more than one in a motel at this rate,” Charon said as he counted our bills.

“God, don’t talk about sleep. I’m so tired already,” said Amelia, who had driven almost ten hours that day. She was the only one witch a license.

“You’re a witch, can’t you make the car drive for you?” Charon pointed out.

“That’s really complicated, and I don’t know how to make my own spells yet,” Amelia mumbled.

“How does that work anyway? Making spells,” I said, because no one had ever told me.

“Each family has a spell-book,” Amelia started. “It’s always in the possession of the current head witch of that family — for you that’s Killian, and for me Dennis. We’re small families so it’s not too bad, but bigger ones have fights about it and everything. They usually have several head witches, and they rotate every couple of years.”

“Sounds inconvenient,” Charon commented.

Amelia ignored him. “The head witch writes down the spells they create. The spells are blessed with their own blood, which is why only family can use those specific spells,” she explained.

“What does that mean?” I said.

“Well, usually they’ll find a word that they think embodies the spell, and they write it with blood,” she said. I remembered the vial of red liquid in Fiona’s box and shuddered. “I don’t know how the specifics go. I haven’t gotten that far in my studies.”

“That’s fucking morbid,” Charon said.

“Sirens eat people,” Amelia snapped back.

“Witches—“

“Guys, stop,” I interrupted tiredly. “We’re in this together, right?”

“Sorry,” they mumbled.

“Are you up for driving a few more hours today or are we calling it a day?” I asked Amelia, mainly to change the subject.

“I can do a few more. I don’t think there’s any point in quitting this early in the day. I just wanna rest a little longer first, if that’s okay,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said.

Once we were done with our food, we packed the leftovers into our bags in the trunk. Amelia — who apparently was a stress-sleeper — took a nap in the backseats, so Charon and I elected to stretch our legs and take a walk. Amelia told us to stay close just in case, so we did.

There wasn’t much to see. We spotted a gun shop and debated whether or not to get one just in case, but we decided guns wouldn’t do us any good in magical fights. At one point I was sure I saw a rattlesnake. When we saw an advert for a burger place, I regretted not seeing it earlier and made a note to suggest burgers the next day.

“Be honest. Do you think we’ll make it to Washington?” I asked as we started making our way back to the gas station.

“Sure. Why wouldn’t we?” Charon said.

“I admire your optimism,” I said dryly.

“We made it out of California, didn’t we?” he pointed out.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

—

We found a cheap enough motel in a small western town near Flagstaff. It was run down, but surprisingly clean. Amelia charmed the receptionist into seeing her ID say a different birth year, but to be fair I don’t think he would’ve given a single shit even if she hadn’t.

Our room was on the second floor and overlooked the quiet main road. By main road, I mean basically the whole town. A lot of the businesses looked like they had been abandoned years, if not decades ago. The only one that seemed to flourish was an old saloon, which had patrons coming in and out every now and then.

We all took turns to shower because none of us knew when the next chance to do so would be. When it was my turn, I closed my eyes and pretended I was home. I imagined that when I got out, I could go into my own room and change into clothes that didn’t smell like the cheez-its I had spilled into my backpack, and that Killian would be waiting downstairs with a leftover lasagna from Fiona.

Of course, when I opened my eyes, I only saw a cockroach scatter out of the drain. I ended the shower there.

The room had two beds, one of which was a double and the other single. We had a rock-paper-scissors tournament over who could have the single, and Amelia won. She fell asleep instantly, and Charon did shortly after her.

I took longer. I tried to avoid tossing and turning in order to not disturb Charon, which felt like it only made my insomnia worse. I was afraid of dreams. I had a feeling that the next time I saw the crow, it would tell me Killian was dead.

I did finally fall asleep at nearly four in the morning. I didn’t feel rested at all when Charon woke me up for breakfast, but the sleep had been dreamless and that’s all that mattered.

We had sour candy and potato chips for breakfast, collected our things and left the room. It had been nice to rest for a while, but the fact that we had spent one day on the road already and hadn’t even gotten out of Arizona scared me. I was more than ready to get back in the car.

Charon sat in the passenger seat that day. I could tell he and Amelia tried hard not to have a row, but that just meant they didn’t talk at all. I didn’t mind, really, because I wasn’t in a mood for talking. I took the opportunity to lean back and watch the endless desert scenery pass while I ate my last chocolate bars.

The second day of our trip was uneventful. There were no more old ladies selling bones with mysterious backgrounds, no crows in my dreams or in real life, and surprisingly little fighting between Amelia and Charon.

We made it all the way to Texas that day and called it a night when Charon caught Amelia falling asleep on the wheel. We grabbed some food at a gas station again. This time there were hot dogs at half price, which we took as a great opportunity and indulged on the hood of the car as we watched the sun set.

We decided to sleep in the car that night to save money. This time, the rock-paper-scissor tournament decided who got to curl up on the back seats and who had to sleep upright in the front. This time Charon won, so I switched places with him for the night. I didn’t look forward to the neck pain.

While the others slept, I took out the finger bone in my pocket again and inspected it in the moonlight. I wondered if the old lady’s story was real, and if it was, how dangerous of an item the bone was. Something in me knew it would play a bigger part in my story — I just didn’t know how.