Conjured

Zach’s mother’s eyes focused on me, as if the sight of me didn’t compute in her brain. And then she blinked and plastered a bright smile on her face. “Eve! This is unexpected. Did you expect her, Zach? I didn’t expect her.”

“Eve, why are you here?” Zach asked, his voice strained.

Shooting a look at the kitchen window, I stepped into the room. “I thought you could rescue me. But I think … you need rescuing.”

Zach made himself laugh. “Me?”

“You don’t lie,” I reminded him.

His face crumpled as if I’d snipped the puppet strings that had pulled his lips into a smile. “Only about this,” he said softly.

“Zach.” His father’s voice held a warning note.

“You’re with them, aren’t you?” his mother said to me. Her lips had blotches of dark purple-red between the lipstick, as did her gums. The wine bottle near the sink was nearly empty. “Checking up on us. Well, there’s nothing to see here. We’re fine. We’re all fine. Fine, fine, fine!”

“She’s not with them,” his father said. “She’s just a girl.”

“The cars outside … Are they …?” Zach trailed off, but I knew what he was asking. He’d guessed the cars were for me.

“You know why they’re here, why she’s here,” Zach’s mother said. She slid to the floor, her back against the marble island in the middle of the kitchen. “Sophie. My poor, sweet Sophie.” She began to cry, ugly heaving sobs that shook her shoulders.

His father’s fists curled. “It’s been nine years! It’s over!”

She raised her head. Makeup smeared under her eyes, looking like black-and-purple bruises. Her eyes looked hollow. “It’s never over! It will never be over. I dream about her. Who she was supposed to be. What she would have been like. All of us, together.”

“Jesus, why won’t you stop?” his father said.

“Because I deserve this pain!” she said. “Because I should be dead, not her. Because life is cruel. Life is brutish, short, and …” She searched for the word. “Short.”

“But it’s not,” Zach said. “It can be magical and—”

“And you, shut up,” his father said. “Don’t you see you’re making it worse? You always make it worse.”

Zach paled.

“Zach.” I held out my hand. “You can take my breath if you want it.” He’d have to walk past his father to reach me. I saw him realize this, calculate the distance. “You don’t need to be powerless.”

His father’s face flushed darker, and he shot a glance at me. “This isn’t what it looks like.” He knelt beside Zach’s mother and began to tend to her. He fetched a paper towel and dabbed it on her lip. Blood had welled in the middle of her bottom lip, just a drop. “She took a nasty spill. Slippery floor.”

“I’d just mopped it,” Zach’s mother agreed.

“And the bruises?” Zach asked. “Are you going to claim the floor made them as well?”

Rising, his father leveled a finger at him. “No more.”

“You’re right,” Zach said. “No more.” In three strides, he brushed past him and crossed to me. He wrapped his hand around mine, fingers laced tight. His hand was slick with sweat.

His father slammed his hand on the counter. “You don’t—”

Zach leaned his forehead against mine, and I exhaled, giving him whatever magic he wanted. Behind us, on the counter, the red wine caught fire.

His parents spun toward the flames. His father shouted for a fire extinguisher. Shrieking, his mother raced from cabinet to cabinet. The fire alarm wailed. His father yanked the extinguisher off the wall next to the stove and sprayed white mist on the flames. Foam coated the counter and floor.

Zach pulled me away, and hand in hand we walked out of the kitchen. He turned toward the front door, but I tugged his hand and drew him through the hall, past the family photographs, to the back porch. The yard looked empty. We went out onto the patio.

“Should we walk, drive, or fly?” Zach asked, his voice grim but steady.

“Definitely fly,” I said.

“Oh yes, definitely.”

We kissed and rose into the air. Spiraling upward, we reached the level of the roof. I felt Zach’s heart beat fast through his shirt. Mine was thumping too. Entwined, we soared higher.

* * *

Quiet wrapped around us. Up here, the cars were only a distant buzz, like cicadas, and the wind smelled like freshly cut lawns. It was more peaceful than I’d imagined, to be untethered from the earth. I felt as if I could cocoon myself in clouds and drift away from all fear. Below, I saw the marshals rush toward Zach’s house, drawn by the shrieking.

“They’re after you, aren’t they?” Zach asked.

“Yes. I … I’m in the witness protection program. But I’m leaving. I left. And they want me back. They want to know what I can’t remember, and I think … I think when they have my memories, they plan to kill me.”

His arms wrapped tighter around me. “I knew you were in danger.”

“I thought they were keeping me safe, but now … I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I know I’m not … from here. And I have these visions. But I don’t know if they’re true, and I don’t know who to trust.”

“Trust me,” Zach said automatically, and then as if he knew he’d spoken too quickly to be believed, he repeated it. “You can trust me.”