Conjured

The antlered girl, Victoria’s sister, had worn silks and velvets, Eve remembered. But she never wore shoes. She’d run through the forest at dawn while the undergrowth was still damp with dew and the air filled with birdsong. Eve had watched her, her bare feet pounding down the same path every morning. She’d skip over a brook, and it would burble and babble at her feet. Her footfalls were soft on the needles, but she was still loud enough to startle birds out of the underbrush and cause the squirrels to scurry to the tops of the trees. She had run alone.

Eve moved to the photo marked number two, the boy with tattoos. She leaned close until her nose almost touched the bulletin board. The tattoos looked like serpents that were woven so tightly together it was impossible to tell where one snake began and another ended. The scales bled into one another. She could picture a box with a clasp encrusted in silver serpents, a replica of those tattoos.

There’s truth in my visions, she thought, and she felt her stomach churn. She tasted bile. If her visions were memories, or even twisted versions of real memories …

She realized both Lou and Malcolm were watching her. Arms crossed, Lou was drumming his fingers on his bicep. She wondered how many visions she’d already had and what she’d seen, and realized she was shaking.

Lou exhaled in a puff. “Just do it. Every moment you waste—”

“But I’ll lose days!” For every memory she gave them, she lost dozens more. “How many times have we had this conversation? How many times have I forgotten everything I’ve done?” She waved her hand at all the photos on the bulletin board. “How many times have I forgotten everything I thought, felt, decided, believed? Everything I cared about? Everything I am?”

Malcolm was silent. He looked at Lou.

“We have had this conversation three times,” Lou said. “And we will have it again. And you will remember because otherwise people will die.”

Eve felt herself deflate.

“You will be here the entire time.” Malcolm’s voice was soothing, and he steered her gently to the couch. “You will be safe. You don’t have to be afraid.”

“Was I afraid before?” Eve lay down. She crossed her arms over her chest and felt as if she were lying in a coffin. The couch cushions were stiff and smelled of smoke.

Malcolm hesitated, as if he wanted to lie. “Every time.”

She leaned back onto the pillows. Her heart was pounding hard, so hard that it hurt. She laid her hands over her chest as if it were a bird that she wanted to hold inside her ribs. Her ribs were a cage, and her heart was a bird, and it was fluttering its wings so very fast. It would escape, and it would fly to the sky and leave her body to die, heartless and without memories on the couch.

“You don’t always forget.” Malcolm patted her hand. “Sometimes you remember—at least until next time.” He smiled as if this should reassure her. It didn’t.

“Get on with it,” Lou said.

She thought of a bit of magic she could do, harmless magic. She remembered the flowers that Zach had grown in the library. She spread her hands and imagined there were flowers growing from them. Bark spread over her hands. Leaves sprouted between her fingers.

“Don’t transform!” Lou said sharply.

But it was too late. She was wood inside. She felt it spread, calming her, steadying her. She felt his voice recede until it was merely wind. He was shouting; she could see his lips move, and doctors were rushing into the office. Then bark sealed over her eyes, and she saw nothing until the smoke rolled in.

* * *

Smoke curls around me in shapes: a snake, a dragon, a cat, a hand … and then it dissipates into a formless haze. I am suspended in the smoke. Ropes are wrapped around my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders, my knees, my neck.

I feel safe.

Cocooned, I spin slowly, and the ropes wrap tighter around me. And then I spin in the other direction, and the ropes unwrap. I twist. I untwist.

And then the ropes loosen, and I fall.

The ropes snap. I scream.

I am lying facedown in the muddy dirt. My arms shake as if they have never been used before, but I push myself upright.