Chapter Twenty Four

When the End Hurts Beautifully

Veda

Intarsia screamed. It was a pitiful sound. The spell my cousins had been working to keep me in a stupor broke. I woke because something had gone wrong.

“She's bleeding again,” Fair Isle said. “Why is she bleeding again?”

“It's not working,” Clementine said, as she dropped her hands from the circle. “Tell me again, Fair Isle. Exactly what happened?”

“Antony was screaming at her. He was using her voice. He was trying to take over her mind.”

Clementine shook her white head and for a moment, she looked old. “I don't think you stopped him from what he was trying to do. I think he may have let you kick him out because he had already accomplished his goal.” Keeping her eyes fixed on the grandfather clock, she took my pulse. “It's slow,” she reported. She flipped my hand over and the real trouble started. “Look at her hands.”

Intarsia screamed again. It sounded strangled.

I forced myself to sit up and look. There were cracks down the backs of my hands that followed the lines of my veins. My hands were so dry the skin had begun to split and bleed. I couldn't feel the pain. Was it really blood? Did that mean, it was finally happening? Was I finally crossing over to the underworld? I always suspected that my hands would be the first to go because I used them to knit the scarf I made with my mother.

I whispered, “My mother is dead.”

“We know,” Fair Isle said with more sensitivity than was customary. “We just don't like to say it, because we know it hurts your feelings and cracks the spells you use to see her, but you have to stop that now, Veda. You know that, right?”

“It's too late. Years ago, my mother did a spell with me, one that won't break. We made something together. I made my half in this world, and she made her half in the world of the dead. She sent me a letter on grad night saying it was time to let go. I did a ritual and sent her our object, so she can't back out on me. I thought I'd have more time to live here and help all of you, but if this continues, I will be dead before morning.”

“Did Antony do this?” Intarsia whispered shakily.

“He did something bad. It was more than just trying to make me his slave in this world. I think he knew my plan to die to be with mum, but how did he know the end was today? Did he see my mother or something?”

“I get it,” Clementine volunteered. “He has been planning to have Veda and Pearl all along. He planned to have Pearl in this world, while he would have Veda in the other world. He knew Veda was planning to die, so she could be with her mother. He read her books and learned her voice so that he would be able to take control of her just before she died. When that happened, her soul would be tied to him and when he spoke in her voice, he could make her do things. She wouldn't be able to be in the part of the spirit world where her mother lives, she would have to stay by his side and serve him.”

“What would he be able to make her do?” Intarsia asked.

Clementine shuddered. “I don't know the limits. He could use Veda to spy on people, so he could learn things no one else in the world could know. He would seem magical. And it would be magic, except a kind that no one should ever perform.” Suddenly, Clementine started talking directly to me, “This is strong. If you die before his spell is countered, he’ll trap your spirit in this world. You have to stay alive!”

“What the crap are you saying?” Fair Isle snarled. “Why aren't we beating her? She just admitted that she has been planning to commit suicide!”

“And what have we done to make her want to stay here?” Clementine spat.

Fair Isle stepped back like she'd been slapped.

Clementine took a breath and softened her tone. “If Veda dies with Antony's spell on her, she will never be able to join her mother. She will be tied to this world in a way Zellica is not. She will only exist to do Antony's bidding.”

“But that's really black magic,” Intarsia whimpered.

“He's already done it. We need help. We need all our mothers. Call them. Get Pearl and her mother too. If Hattie is still around, we can make a coven of nine.”

“Don't be scared, Veda!” Intarsia said, draping herself over me. “We'll save you.”

I didn't think they could. “I want Salinger,” I said. “You've got to find him. Clementine, call your wolf boyfriend. Ask him and Salinger to come. Bring Remy, Intarsia.”

“She wants a coven of men. Smart.”

“To get Salinger, we try his phone, we call my house, and we try Cold as Stone,” Fair Isle said, knowing where he spent most of his time. “Then we try the school, then Pearl's, then Antony's.”

Clementine was the fastest on the phone. She already seemed to communicate with the Grey Wolf telepathically. Her conversation with him went, “Yeah? Not home. No answer. Cold as Stone.” Then she hung up. It was really beautiful. “He's on his way to the store.”

Then she called her mother.

Intarsia pulled my wooden bench into the middle of the room and after ordering Fair Isle to grab my ankles, heaved me onto the bench. It was uncomfortable until Intarsia put a pillow under my head. Then she took out her phone and started making calls with Fair Isle.

Clementine had a pocket knife, she was carving symbols into the floor. A minute later Clementine's mother came in, saw her, pulled a switchblade from her pocket, switched it, and started carving up the floor too.

“You women are animals,” Fair Isle commented as she pulled a marker that could only be used for graffiti out of her pocket. Then she dropped to her knees and started drawing the magic circle with them.

I looked at my hands. The splits in my skin were getting longer and as the women worked, the growth of the scratches stalled, though they did not heal. They were getting close to finishing, even without Intarsia's help. She was on the phone with Pearl. That was a hard fight and she might not win. I could hear Pearl's mother in the background giving reasons why everything that happened to me was my own fault and I did not deserve help. I had done something that stupid. According to her, I should never have let Antony in the house.

I shuddered.

However, listening to Intarsia's side of the conversation was soothing. “She's one of us… She never did anything to hurt you… We were all fooled by him… I'll bring you. I'll drive... No, I wouldn’t be leaving her alone. There's a coven of three here, even without me… Yes, we need you. It’s bad… I'll talk to your mother. Put her on the phone… Auntie, you need to see her before you say those things… I'll wait.”

Listening to those words, my eyes felt heavy, and though I could feel the blood in fresh droplets dripping from my ears and the last moment before the tiny stream trickled against my scalp. My hair was spoiled. I had no energy to maintain it. It fell limp like my hands.

Heavy as tungsten, I felt myself fall.

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Perhaps I died. Was dying like reading a spell book?

I found myself in a hospital room. I was in a wheelchair and Salinger was in front of me, changing the sheets on the bed.

He didn't notice me looking at him. I had never seen a man change the sheets on a bed before. He was in my book. He'd got it from Antony and he was reading my story. I knew this story. He was supposed to give me the needle in the pocket of his lab coat, but he hadn’t. Instead, he was changing the sheets. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that he looked unusually handsome as he tucked it in. Had he always been that handsome?

I said to him, “I was fifteen when I wrote this story. I threw it in the garbage because I didn't want anyone to know this was my plan. I thought that when I died, someone might read all my books and I didn't want them to know that this,” I indicated the blood dripping from my nose, “was how I felt living without my parents.”

“You wanted to die?”

“Not the whole time. I didn't know until I was fifteen that my mother’s visits would stop when I got too old. Her visits came half as often. She tried to make it sound as though we were seeing each other less often because I was growing away from her. She thought I'd naturally want to spend less time with her as I got older.”

“That wasn't what happened, was it?”

I groaned. “I haven't been able to imagine a future for myself. My cousins have their own lives. Whenever I do a reading, to see who will be the next generation of witches here, I have always been excluded. Where am I supposed to go? I can’t afford my house! There’s no place for me here! Our school has fewer enrollment numbers every year. I do not have a future here as a teacher. What am I supposed to do? I have always been happiest when my mother was visiting and I never once felt like I truly belonged with my cousins. There is one place I belong.”

“The spirit world?” Salinger asked, sounding remarkably unimpressed.

“My father is there too.”

He was unfazed. “And my mother who disappeared.”

So, the word disappear had meant dead. I averted my eyes from his pain… so like mine. Maybe Salinger was the only person who could understand how I felt. I turned to look at him again, but I didn’t know what his expression meant.

“But I don't want my mother,” he said abruptly.

I was surprised. “No?”

“I want you. Whether my mother is dead or not is far from the issue. Even if my mother were in the room right now, I wouldn't want her, I'd want you.”

I sighed, “You got over her, then?”

“It was probably easier for me than for you. I'm not comparing us. I had my father. I had my brothers. Your feelings are understandable. I'm saying, it's okay to let the dead go now.”

“That's adorable,” I said caustically. “Do you know why you’re talking to the real me instead of the shadow me that only exists as a character inside this book? It's because I'm bleeding from my ears and from split skin up to my elbows in the real world. Clementine and the others are doing their best to stop the blood, but the way I see it, they won't be able to break the spells in time to save me.”

“Wait. Why are you bleeding in real life?”

“Because Antony's spells are working beside spells I put in place myself to gently take me to the underworld. I'm scared, Salinger. If I die tonight, and I might, he's bound my soul to him.”

“How?”

I told Salinger what I knew. When I was finished, he looked hopeful, like there was a way.

“I can break the spell. His spell is only working because of your spell that you worked with your mother. Your mother brought me the scarf,” he said the words all in a rush. “If I can just get out of this book, I can unravel it. It's wrapped around the handles of the front doors at Cold as Stone.”

“But you can't get out of this spell book unless you kill me,” I reminded him. “If you kill me here, I'll be dead in the real world.”

“Why? Antony read this book! Antony killed you to get out of it. Why would it kill the real you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because he killed a figment of my imagination, a false girl who was only a purple carbon copy of me. I'm here now, the real me. It would have been fine if you had killed me immediately when I was still simply part of the book instead of babying me. But perhaps I’m only alive because you were reading this book and gave my flighty spirit a place to go instead of the spirit world. Who knows? But now, we’re out of options. You and I stay here together until my body dies, or someone else figures out how to break my spell.” I felt my lip tremble.

“There has to be a better way,” he said.

“There isn't a better way. Why did you read this stupid spell book?”

“Your mother trapped me inside Cold as Stone with your books. I thought I had to read them before her spell locking me in the store would wear off.”

“I don't know,” I said, breaking down into a tearful wail. “I don't know why she would have done that. I don't know what she would have wanted for me, exactly. The last time I saw her with my own eyes was a really long time ago. The last few times have been in dreams. All I felt was love… I thought she wanted me to join her, but if she’s given you the scarf… it feels like she doesn’t want me.”

Salinger rubbed my back and tried to search my face. “She does want you! She just wants more for you than for you to be with her. She wants you to be happy, have a life, feel love… from what she said to me, she wants you to feel love, but she knows it’s hard for you to feel it. That’s why you’ve never felt love from your cousins and your family because it’s hard for you to feel it. She knows I love you, and she gave me the scarf so I could give you love you can feel.”

“It doesn't matter anymore,” I said, ravaging my hair with my fingertips. “We can't get out of this story! It doesn't matter what anyone wanted anymore!”

Salinger stuck his tongue around in his mouth, making his cheek stick out. “I've already tried to dispose of the syringe. It has to be used before the story can end.”

I stared at him. I didn't like where his logic was taking him.

He put his hand in the pocket of his lab coat.

I reached out to stop him, but I was too late. He didn't take the syringe out of his pocket like I thought he would. With one hand, he removed the cap and jabbed the needle through his lab coat, through his pants, and into his thigh.

It was too late before I could even touch him.

I screamed.

“It’ll be okay,” he said soothingly.

“I've never heard of someone dying in a spell book and living,” I barked, my face flushed and my nervous system on fire. “If you die in the book, you die in real life.”

“How many heartbeats do I have before it kicks in?”

I groaned. “Not many.”

“I love you, Veda.”

“Why would you say that now?”

“To drown out Antony's voice.”

“It's not his voice. It's my voice. That's what I'm hearing in my head. My voice. I don't even know what he put in there or how he could use it to control me. It just feels like me talking to myself.”

“Then remember my voice! I love you!”

I was about to tell him that he couldn't mean that when he lost his strength and slowly lowered himself onto the bed.

“Forever,” he breathed.

I couldn't answer him. I just sat there stupidly, breathing huskily, not knowing what to do. I couldn't even touch him. I hated to be touched. Then I thought of it a different way. He wouldn't be touching me. I would be touching him. I eased myself out of the wheelchair and took the two steps over to him. “How could it be forever?” I asked. “We only just met.”

“How could it only be for this moment?” he replied. “When I have been waiting for you all my life?”

I put my hand out and he grasped it. The feeling wasn't repulsive like it usually was. It was safe. I was safe. I sat next to him and let my leg and my side touch his.

Then he whispered warm words in my ear and the feeling was magical. The heat of his breath hit me in a place inside my head that was never warm. It was the first place to get cold when the wind blew, when the snow fell, and when the blankets didn't come high enough.

He whispered. “I love you, forever. You are all I ever hoped to find. You'll never have to worry if you are enough or if what you are is right. You are perfect to me.”

At that moment, I felt warmth spread out to cover all of me, Salinger's strength was spent. His hand dropped and his body slumped. He was dead. I couldn't believe it. How could a book I had written have the power to kill someone? His body fell sideways and his face looked at rest, exactly the way I had described my dead body. It would have been the last thing the reader saw before they were jolted back to reality.

Was that what was going to happen to me now?

If Salinger was able to unravel the scarf my mother and I made… I tried to push the thought away. All my plans were ruined. What future did I have? Something had changed inside me when Salinger took the poison and whispered in my ear. When I tried to analyze the change, I couldn't pinpoint it, except that it felt like the opposite of what Antony had done to me. Instead of binding me to a fate, Salinger was going to set me free. I could feel it, but what had given him the power to do that? I didn't understand. There were things he said that were similar to what Antony said and yet the feeling was polar.

I slipped my hand around Salinger's dead body. It was still him and yet it wasn't. Was this what he was like when he was asleep? I thought I'd like to see that. I wondered what I was like when he dreamed about me. I let my body fall next to his, with both our legs hanging off the edge of the bed. Even though he wasn't there to comfort me, or tell me if he was okay, I felt warm and safe. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he loved me, and for the first time in my life, while holding his corpse, I felt love.

I felt it.