The Lingering Grace (16 page)

Alice froze on the doorstep, but Eva grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside. She slammed the door, then locked and deadbolted it.

“Eva? Is that you?” Eva’s mom shouted, her muffled voice coming from a room upstairs.

“Yeah, it’s me! I forgot to get the mail!” Eva yelled.

Alice pulled her hand free from Eva’s grip and leaned against the door. She was still breathing heavily. Every beat of her heart was another stab of fear in her chest. Even with the door between her and Danny, Alice didn’t feel protected. Now she was stuck in the house with Eva, too scared to go outside and too uncomfortable to stay. Unfortunately, staying was her only option—at least for the fifteen minutes it took Tony to arrive.

She bitterly regretted agreeing to this sleepover in the first place. It had been a nightmare from the start.

But Eva looked no less alarmed than Alice did. If anything, she looked worse. She stood there with her hand on the lock, her mouth hanging open, staring at Alice as though Alice were at once the most wonderful and terrifying creature in existence.

“Are you okay?” she panted. When she had answered her mom, her voice had been fearless. Now it trembled.

“How did you … Were you watching me?” Alice asked. The thought of Eva spying on her from a window made her shiver, but there was no other way Eva could have known to open the door. Her appearance had hardly been a coincidence.

Eva shook her head and quietly admitted, “It wasn’t that. It was the spell.”

The spell again? What the hell had Eva
really
done to her?

Eva saw the look on her face and clarified. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that the binding spell creates a mental connection. If one of us is in danger, the other one will sense it. And I could just … I could feel that you were afraid. I was coming to help you.”

Alice dropped her backpack and slumped to the floor, pressing her forehead against her palms. “Is there anything
else
you want to tell me about the spell? Are we tethered or something? Will I die if I get too far away from you? What did you
do
to me?
Why didn’t you tell me this?
”

She could hear Eva kneel down next to her though she had the common sense not to get too close. She was wise to give Alice some distance since Alice herself was aching to lash out and slap her, even if it would end up hurting her as well. At least she would have the satisfaction of revenge for a fraction of a second.

“It
is
what I said it was, Alice. It’s a binding spell. But I guess … I mean, maybe I should have mentioned it’s a little bit more than just making sure you don’t turn on someone. It also makes you feel their emotions a little bit—and their pain. It’s supposed to bring people together, actually. Some Wiccans believe the Druids used it to help tribe leaders make peace, and also for … weddings.”

Alice burst out laughing. It was all too much. “Oh, so now we’re married! Funny, I don’t remember saying ‘I do.’”

“We’re not
married
, we’re just … connected for a while. I just … I wanted someone to understand what it felt like … I thought if you understood what it was like, then you would have to help me because how could you not?”

“What
what
was like?”

“Losing her.”

Eva’s voice was so small that it was almost lost in the drafty entryway.

There had been a moment, right before her aunt’s funeral, when Alice had been standing by the coffin with Toby next to her, watching the people come in. He had muttered something under his breath, something about none of it meaning anything. She had asked him what he meant. “Not one of them understands what it feels like,” he had said. “Not one.”

Alice hadn’t known what to say then. She didn’t know what to say now. The anger abated for a moment, and other emotions came rushing into the space it left behind. They were stronger than Alice’s fear and stronger than her fury. They were so strong that she quickly realized they weren’t hers at all. She didn’t want them.

She could not push them away.

Her heart ached with an emptiness that she hadn’t ever experienced before, and even though her brain cried out against it, saying that this was—must be—magic, it didn’t make the experience any less intense or the emotions any less profound. This was Eva’s grief. This was the spell pouring things into her the same way her fear had poured into Eva. She had been too distracted by her own anger to feel it before, but now that it had gained a foothold, it came rushing in with all the burning force of the ball of golden fire.

Whatever lingering anger Alice had been harboring over Eva’s lies disappeared in all of ten seconds. It was impossible to hold a grudge against this girl—not after feeling the grief and the guilt that tortured her. Eva was in too much pain to think reasonably; anyone could see that. Alice looked up and stared at Eva’s pained face. She could have been looking in a mirror because she knew the same hurt was in her own eyes.

Eva took a deep breath. Already, she knew. “You’re going to help me. I knew you would help me.”

She couldn’t destroy Eva’s hope again—not now. And maybe it would be a good thing. Maybe … maybe they actually
could
bring Penny back. They could do magic, after all. Wasn’t anything possible?

Alice’s phone started to ring and she picked it up at once, her mind racing to figure out what she should do—what she should tell Tony. How she could leave Eva.

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m here. Where are you?”

“Inside. Can you wait for just a minute? I need to grab my stuff.”

“Of course. I’ll be here.”

She hung up and stuffed the phone into her pocket.

“Eva,” she said, grabbing her shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. Tears were trickling down Eva’s cheeks, over the delicate bruise forming on her right cheekbone; the more she tried to wipe them away, the faster they fell.

“Eva, when I ran away, I called a friend. He’s here to pick me up.”

“Did you tell him—”

“No. He doesn’t know anything about magic.”

Eva was visibly relieved. “You
can’t
tell him. You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“I promise I won’t.”

“Good,” said Eva, sounding much more like her normal self. “You should go, then. I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. I’ll see you at school tomorrow. And you’ll bring the book? We’ll see if there’s anything in there that might help Penny?”

“Yes,” Alice agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “I will.”

Eva blinked back tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You won’t regret it.”

Alice nodded and tried to smile, but her lips quivered and she turned away. Grabbing her backpack, she waved and hurried out the door, wondering what she had just done.

As she hurried down the driveway, Tony threw the car door open for her.

“Alice! What’s wrong?” he called before she was even within ten feet of the car.

He looked her over from head to toe as she approached, and, seeing the bruise on her cheek, immediately went into let-me-at-them mode.

“Who hurt you? What happened? Was it a guy?” He asked the questions through clenched teeth, not stopping to take a breath.

“It’s nothing,” Alice assured him, stepping into the front seat and slamming the door closed. “I’ll explain everything on the way home. But please—can we just go?”

He glanced up at the house, as though considering charging inside to challenge Alice’s assailant.

“Please,” she pled, her voice breaking.

She didn’t need to ask again. Without another word, Tony stepped on the gas and the car charged forward. Alice watched Eva’s house disappear as they turned the corner, and the minute it was out of sight, a series of shivers went down her spine. Her breathing eased but her head ached, and she found herself barely able to hold back tears. It was only now—safe in Tony’s car—that the stress of the evening hit her full force.

“Alice, you have to tell me what happened,” said Tony after a full minute of silence.

This was what she had been dreading, but she found that it was easier than she had expected to skirt the truth. She told the story mostly as it had happened, leaving out only the parts that involved magic, and Tony listened in silence.

When she got to the argument, she skipped right over the reason for it and hoped he wouldn’t notice. “She slapped me,” Alice said, “and then I took my stuff and left.”

Her abdomen tensed, as though bracing for a punch in the ribs. How much would the spell allow her to reveal? Was revealing Eva’s attack too much? But a second passed and nothing happened; Alice relaxed.

“Why were you in the house when I came to pick you up?” he asked. She couldn’t read his voice, and it was too dark to see his face clearly.

“Because I ran into your brother,” she said quietly. “And he scared me.”

Tony was pulling to a stop at a red light, and when he heard this, he slammed on the brakes so hard they were both thrown forward in their seats. Gasping, he pulled back against his seatbelt, loosening it to get some air. Alice gripped the armrests tightly as she sat back in her chair, chest stinging where the belt had caught her. She would have a nice burn mark tomorrow.

“Sorry,” said Tony, as the car behind them honked and switched lanes. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He nodded stiffly.

The light turned green and they eased forward again.

“How do you know it was Danny?” Tony asked.

“He told me so himself. I didn’t believe it at first, but he looks a little like you.”

Tony scoffed. “Hardly.”

“Brown, kind of curly hair. A little taller than you. He has your eyes.”

Tony’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, but he remained unconvinced. “Did you see his car? What kind of car was he driving?”

“I didn’t see his car,” Alice admitted. “But Tony, I know it was him. He said … he said he saw the picture of the two of us in your room, on your dresser.”

Tony nodded slowly. The car, on the other hand, sped up. Alice glanced at the speedometer and saw it creep up to fifty-five mph. If there were any speed traps, they were in trouble.

“So Danny was there,” he said, sounding resigned. “Did he say why?”

“He said he had friends he was visiting.” She left out that he had probably been lying, waiting to see what Tony would say.

“Friends?” he said. “Danny has, like, maybe
one
friend. And he lives twenty miles in the other direction. He had that one girl who wrote him letters when he was in prison, but I think she’s in San Fran. No way he was visiting friends.”

“I … didn’t think so either,” Alice admitted, grateful now more than ever that she hadn’t accepted his offer of a ride.

Tony shook his head. “I was afraid this would happen,” he said.

“Afraid I would meet your brother? It was bound to happen eventually,” Alice pointed out.

But Tony’s lips tightened and she could tell he disagreed. “I was hoping …” he sighed, then shrugged. “At this point it’s not important anyway.”

“You really don’t trust him at all, do you?” The nagging question about Danny’s crime popped into her mind again, but she didn’t voice it. She was closer to getting an answer to that than she had ever come before.

“I trust him for about two minutes at a time.”

“That’s pretty specific.”

Tony laughed, but it was a cold, hard, mirthless sound that made Alice cringe. “Oh, the two-minute rule goes way, way back. My mom used to say that you could get Danny to do or not do just about anything—for two minutes. She would tell him to clean his room. Two minutes later, he’d be playing in the backyard.”

He paused, then added, “The night he got arrested, I talked to him on the phone. He called me to ask the key code for the lockbox at our dad’s cabin. I told him. I probably shouldn’t have, but I told him. He wouldn’t tell me what he was up to, but I made him promise he wouldn’t do anything stupid. Two minutes later, we got the call from the police.”

Alice waited for him to explain. The silence was oppressive. A car zoomed around them, rock music blaring out of its open windows.

Tony glared at the speeding car’s retreating taillights and said with a sigh, “So yeah, I trust Danny for two minutes.”

“What happened at the cabin?” Alice prodded.

The car slowed and Tony rapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I haven’t ever talked to anyone about this. Anyone beside Mom.”

“I’m not going to tell,” Alice assured him.

“No, I’m not worried about you telling.” He groaned. “I don’t know why I feel so bad about it. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course it wasn’t.”

He seemed comforted by her reassurance; some of the tightness in his shoulders eased.

“I was in the fifth grade and Danny was in the tenth,” he began. “I was friends with this girl Sofia, and her older sister was in Danny’s science class. Sometimes Sofi would come over after school and her sister would come to pick her up. Her name was Marcela, and she and Danny would talk. Little things—nothing important. Just say hi, talk about class. You know.”

Alice nodded, gripping the armrests too tightly. She could only think of a few ways this story could end with Danny in prison. None of them were good.