The Lingering Grace (24 page)

Eva grabbed her arm, crying something that Alice couldn’t hear. The rushing in her ears … the emptiness in her chest … there was nothing. No air. Only this geyser that was draining her of everything. Her arms stopped moving. She fell back to the floor, barely conscious of her head falling into the golden sphere or the silver geyser that, when it hit the orb, spread. At first, it was only a small, silver dimple in the sphere’s wall, but it quickly grew—eating up the gold, hardening it … Alice could see her face reflected in the mirror-like surface.

She blinked.

Tony
, she thought. How could she die from magic when he had worked so hard to save her from the hotel’s curse?

Tony
.

As she thought his name, the mirror rippled. Her face disappeared. The magical sphere began to collapse in on itself. She tried to shield her face, but her arms lay useless at her sides as silver cascaded over her eyes, nose, and mouth—cold and dark and bitter.

Alice opened her eyes and saw only silver. It was like standing inside a storm cloud; the air was heavy and the light dim. A strong wind carried millions of silver shards, which sparked whenever they collided. Alice stood at the center, the wind circling her, the silver and sparks only a foot from her face.

Where am I?

The minute she thought the question, the wind shifted, flattening the shards into a rippling silver pane. It grew darker; the wind shifted again and the silver wall came straight toward her. She barely had time to panic, to close her eyes …

When she opened them again, the silver was gone. The wind was gone. She was standing in a graveyard.

The headstones weren’t old and the grass was well tended. As far as graveyards went, this one would have been considered only slightly creepy—during the daytime. All graveyards, regardless of condition or age, were creepy at night. And it was a very dark night. The only light came from a nearby road. She turned around, saw the cars shooting by and had the most unsettling feeling that she had been here before.

There was a very large white marble headstone next to her, and the moment she glanced at it, a tremor shot through her from head to toe. The edges of the stone were rounded and smooth, and she knew that if she ran her hand across it, it would be cold. Her hand balled into a fist at the thought, the remembered sensation because she
did
remember and she
had
run her hands across that stone, the stone her mother had helped to select, the physical marker of her aunt’s final resting place.

Why am I here?
she demanded, starting to shake. She hugged herself tightly.

Something was wrong.

A silver wind shot past her and rustled her hair. She turned her face away from it; when she looked back, there was a dark shape lying on the ground twenty feet away from her. As she ran toward it, she saw that it was a person—a man collapsed next to a slim gray headstone. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt. His hair was black.

She knelt down next to him, grabbed his shoulder, flipped him over, and screamed.

She was still screaming as the wind picked up and the graveyard melted into silver shards. She was still screaming when the man’s face turned silver and dissolved in the storm.

She was still screaming when she opened her eyes.

“
Alice!
” Eva was bent over her, grasping her shoulders tightly. “It’s okay, Alice. It’s okay.”

She managed to sound soothing despite her quavering voice and deathly pale cheeks. Alice, however, wasn’t so easily comforted. She couldn’t get the image out of her head: Tony’s face, covered in blood. Tony, lying in a graveyard—dead. When lack of air forced her to stop yelling, she dissolved into sobs and covered her face with her hands to try and block out the image.

Eva stroked her hair. “Shhh, it’s fine … you’re through it. We’re through it.”

“I saw … ” she gasped out.

Eva stopped. “What? What did you see?” she asked.

Alice uncovered her eyes to see Eva gazing at her with wide eyes.

“What did you see?” Eva repeated eagerly.

It was then that Alice realized Eva hadn’t seen the vision. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or distressed; on the one hand, having someone else to corroborate what she had seen might make her feel less confused—and less insane. On the other hand, if Eva hadn’t seen it, maybe it
was
just something she had invented.

“Nothing,” Alice lied. “Just the silver and gold.”

She swore that the words “I saw Tony dead” would never cross her lips. She would not make that fear any more real than it already was.

A sharp tug on her mind startled her, and she was immediately compelled to admit, “That’s not true.” She clapped her hand over her mouth in surprise, realizing that the spell was affecting her ability to tell Eva anything but the truth. Her heart raced in alarm; she couldn’t tell Eva what she had seen, but what if it slipped out without her consent?

Eva must have felt Alice’s fear. She took Alice’s hand, patted it gently, and said, “You don’t need to be afraid to tell me the truth.”

Alice bit her tongue. She wished she were little again, wished she could run to her mother and tell her everything, and be held and feel safe.

But she wasn’t little, and this wasn’t just a nightmare. Eva knew that Alice had enough experience with magic to know when something was more than just a coincidence. Standing in the graveyard, holding Tony’s limp body … that was not a dream. Dreams were muddled and dim, but this memory was a clear one. It was so terribly clear that she could still smell the grass … and the blood.

“Please don’t make me,” Alice begged.

“Did you see Penny?”

This time Alice answered truthfully. “No. It was about me … and Tony.”

Eva considered Alice for a moment, then let go of her hand. “Your boyfriend? It didn’t involve me at all?”

“No.”

Her interest quickly faded once she realized that Alice was telling the truth—that she and her sister had not been in the vision at all. She said, a little pityingly, “You know, if things don’t work out with you and Tony, there are a lot of other boys in the world.”

Eva must think Alice had seen Tony breaking up with her or something. This was perfectly fine with her; she nodded and changed the subject. “Something went wrong, didn’t it? With the spell?”

“It was my fault,” Eva said. “I lost focus and you had to carry us through the end. The spell drained both of us—but mostly you. And I guess it didn’t even work. It was too unstable.”

Alice nodded. She closed her eyes again; her head pounded and she wished Eva weren’t there.

“We have to try again. I think we almost had it.”

“I can’t,” Alice moaned. “I just can’t right now.”

Eva didn’t answer for a moment, then she patted Alice’s shoulder and said, “You’re right. We’re both too tired. Let’s just do something else. Let’s find some spells that we can work into ours. Maybe we can start writing it later.”

Alice didn’t move. She slumped over, resting her forehead on her knees; her mind was swirling and she didn’t know how to make sense of any of it. The spell was supposed to show the near future, but what would Tony be doing in the graveyard where they had buried her aunt? It made no sense. There must have been some mistake, after all—the spell
was
unstable. Alice must have somehow suggested the course of the vision. She was thinking of Tony and she was afraid, so she saw Tony in a condition that manifested her fear of losing him. It was that simple; any psychologist would agree.

But even this plausible explanation didn’t make her feel much better. She tried to stand up and a wave of nausea nearly knocked her back to her knees.

“Bathroom,” she muttered to Eva.

And she ran from the room.

All night Alice dreamed about the graveyard. She would wake up in a sweat, look at the clock, and realize that it was only half an hour later than the last time she checked. She had texted Tony right after the vision and again before she went to sleep—just little texts. “How’s it going?” and “Goodnight.” There was no reason to come right out and say, “Hey, are you still alive?” He had answered both texts within minutes, and she’d gotten out of him that he’d been home all night. That should have been comforting, but it didn’t even dampen the worry. There was no saying when the ‘near future’ would be. Alice was sure that, even if a year passed without incident, what she had seen would still haunt her, that she would still struggle to live with this nebulous threat.

At about six o’clock, she gave up on sleep entirely and went downstairs to sneak a cup of her dad’s emergency instant coffee. But when she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw a light on in the kitchen and froze. As she very quietly tried to turn around, her mother called out, “Is someone there?”

Alice was tempted to sprint back up to her room; it wasn’t that she had anything to hide from her mom; she was allowed to wander into the kitchen whenever she wanted. But she felt drained this morning, as though she’d been studying all night instead of sleeping. Her heart was worn too thin to take much more of a beating, and seeing her mom, seeing her struggling …

She had cried on and off all night. Her eyelids were swollen and she was sick of blowing her nose.

But just as Alice had decided to make a run for it, her mom got up off the couch and turned around, peering suspiciously into the darkness.

“Alice? Is that you, sweetie?”

Alice sighed. “Yes.”

She turned around and padded over to the pantry, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor. The last thing she needed was her mom seeing the state of her eyes.

“Just getting a snack,” she said. Neither of her parents knew about her coffee habit. She had a feeling they wouldn’t care too much, but no point rocking the boat if she could avoid it. And she didn’t need to hear her mom’s inevitable lecture on the risk of tooth stains.

Alice might have made it to the pantry and back to her room without further questioning if her mom hadn’t flipped on the overhead kitchen lights.

Seeing Alice’s face, she immediately went into mothering mode.

“Oh, honey,” she said, embracing Alice in a hug. “Are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?”

Wrapped in her mom’s arms, Alice was having a hard time not bursting into tears again. She wanted to cry, to be held and comforted, but if she started crying, she wasn’t sure she would have the self-control to stop. Not when she was already so exhausted.

Alice couldn’t trust herself to talk, so she didn’t answer. Her mom hugged her tighter.

“Oh, Alice.” She rubbed Alice’s back and said, slowly and heavily, “I’m so sorry this is hard for you. It’s hard for me too. I wish it didn’t have to be such a burden on you and Jeremy.”

It took Alice a few seconds to realize that her mom wasn’t talking about Tony. At that point, it didn’t seem right to correct her. Nor was Alice totally sure that her nightmares
weren’t
tied up in her mom’s diagnosis somehow.

“You’re never a burden, Mom,” she whispered. “I just … I wish I could fix you.”