Conjured

Eve opened her mouth to say he couldn’t—she was broken with pieces missing, except that she didn’t feel broken anymore, thanks to Zach.

“But you found someone else to do all of that. Tell me about him, Evy. Who is this human boy who caught your eye and captured your heart?” He caressed her cheek and then curled his fingers in her hair. His hand tightened into a fist. “What can he do for you that I can’t?”

“He can make me fly.” She pulled away, and several strands of her hair, still knotted around his fingers, yanked out of her scalp. She spun away from him and ran to her bedroom.

“Evy!”

She shut her door and leaned against it. She scanned the room—the only other door led to a closet, and the window was locked with a padlock. And she realized she’d spoken the truth. She’d flown with Zach—and she hadn’t had a vision.

He’d fixed her. He’d cured her.

She didn’t have to be the broken girl anymore, afraid of herself, afraid of what she could do, afraid of what was inside of her.

She strode to her dresser and opened the top drawer. “Go back,” she told the paper birds. “Be as you were.” Eve felt wind in her face as the paper birds fluttered in the drawer. They rose out in a spiral. Backing toward the bed, she watched them dive and soar around the room before flying toward branches in the wallpaper and settling against them. She saw a bird melt into the paper—before she pitched backward, unconscious.

* * *

The Magician has a black felt hat. He flips it off his head and tosses it up and down his arms and across his back. He throws it into the air, and I can’t see it against the glare of the stage lights. He catches it, plunges his hand in, and pulls out a bouquet of tissue roses, held by the severed hand of a girl. The hand is rigid and bloodless.

The audience laughs, but it’s a tinny sound, as if it were an old recording. It cuts off abruptly. I can’t see the audience from where I lie, wrapped in stage curtains like a shroud, but I see a girl step onto the stage.

She has freckles, red-brown hair, and antlers like a deer.

The Magician gives her the flowers, and the severed hand begins to bleed. Red flows down the antlered girl’s arms. It pools at her feet.

And then she and the Magician are gone. I lie unmoving in the silence.

* * *

Eve stumbled to the bathroom. She clutched the sides of the sink and tried to force the remnants of the vision out of her mind. It’s not real, she told herself. This is real. This sink. This house. These people. This life. This body. She splashed water on her face.

Breathe in, she ordered herself. Out. In.

She thought of Zach.

He hadn’t fixed her.

She pictured him next to her—if he were here, he’d be telling her facts about sinks or toilets or mirrors or toothpaste or whatever caught his attention. Closing her eyes, she listened to his voice in her imagination. It was like wrapping herself in a warm, soft quilt.

When her breathing was under control again, she listened for sounds of who was in the house. She heard a clatter and then sizzling from the kitchen. At least one person was here.

Leaving the bathroom, Eve followed the sounds to the kitchen. Aunt Nicki was at the stove, stirring hunks of meat in a skillet. She glanced at Eve and then shook pepper onto the meat.

“What’s today?” Eve asked. “Have I forgotten again?”

“Don’t know.” Aunt Nicki stirred more. “It’s the day you nearly gave Malcolm heart failure and broke Aidan’s heart all in one fell swoop. I’d call that a twofer. You really dove into the traditional teenage rebellion with flair.”

It was the same day. She hadn’t lost any new memories, at least not yet. Eve exhaled heavily and sank into one of the chairs. “I saw an agency car outside Zach’s house. Is he all right?”

Aunt Nicki twisted her head to look over her shoulder at Eve. “You actually care. Astonishing. This is not unlike discovering that one’s cat has an appreciation for fine art.”

“Did I endanger him?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“What do I do?”