Conjured

A girl walks out of the audience and onto the stage. She takes a card. It is an image of a blindfolded woman, but the eyes are the last thing that the girl loses. I close my eyes and wish I could close my ears too. There is screaming. And then suddenly, there isn’t.

I hear a soft snip. And then another. And another. I feel cool metal brush against my neck. Snip. Snip. The Storyteller is humming softly.

The ropes release and flutter to the ground. I look down. They lie around me in a circle, limp. I am standing before a silver mirror outside the wagon. The tent is behind me.

In the mirror, I look like the dead girl, but I know the mirror lies. My reflection does not have a red scarf sewn over her mouth; I still do. I feel the even stitches tear at my cheeks. In the polished silver, I also see the wagon and the Storyteller with her sewing shears in her hand. She’s middle-aged now, though her eyes are milky white and surrounded by wrinkles. She snips the scarf away from my mouth.

“Seek your fortune,” she says. “And don’t ever look back.”

She shoves me toward the mirror, and I melt into the silver.

* * *

Lying on the floor of the bedroom, I looked up at the cracks in the plaster ceiling. Every muscle shook, every nerve quivered, and my skin felt thick and bumpy. I lifted my hand in the air and studied it. It looked smooth and perfect.

I could feel a cramp in my left calf. Stretching my foot, I breathed in deeply. The air smelled like dried roses and lemon with a hint of mildew. I pushed myself up to a sitting position and listened.

Silence.

Even the air in the house was still.

The hat lay against the wall where Malcolm had thrown it—a vivid reminder that I couldn’t stay here. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the cell phone that Malcolm had used to track me to Zach’s and slid it under the bed. Feeling as wobbly as a just-hatched bird, I tottered to the bedroom door. I inched it open and heard nothing from the rest of the house. Moving as silently as I could, I crept through the hallway to the front door. Pressing my back against the wall, I peeked through the window next to the door.

A black car was parked beneath the tree across the street.

Quickly, I stepped back. Of course the house was being watched. I stared at the door for a long moment as if it could solve this for me. If I left through the front door or even any of the windows on the front or side of the house, whoever was in that car would see me.

My bedroom was the only room in the back of the house that had a window, but I knew that window was sealed shut. I retreated to my bedroom anyway and looked outside. The backyard was deliciously empty. It beckoned me. I ran my fingers around the edge of the caulk and thought about breaking the window … but my watcher might hear it.

I could use magic.

But then I’d lose consciousness and be helpless. An agent could find me. I don’t have a choice, I thought. Stay and be caught, or flee and maybe be caught.

I took a deep breath, and walked through the wall.

It slid through me as though I were walking through a dry waterfall. It felt as if dust were sprinkling over my skin and down my throat and into my lungs and into my blood, traveling to every inch of my body. I emerged on the other side of the wall, and the dust dissolved inside me until I felt human again. I sank into the bushes and waited for the vision to claim me.

I didn’t have to wait long.

* * *