Conjured

“She’s more dangerous than you begin to comprehend.” The Storyteller sat beside me and stroked my hair. Her fingers worked through knots in my hair, untangling it as she spoke. She then jerked her hands away as if she hadn’t meant to touch me. “Dangerous to both of us, as much as I wish it were otherwise.”

“She’s a miracle! She left us broken, and she came back perfect!”

Gently, the Storyteller looped yarn around my neck as if the yarn were a necklace. “She shouldn’t have come back. That fact seals her fate.” She pulled the yarn tighter, and it bit into my skin. The fibers felt like metal, cool and unyielding. “I’ll make it quick. You don’t have to watch.”

“Father!” I cried. I drew on my magic. But before I could release it, the Magician’s hand shot out, and he knocked her back with a rush of wind that flew from the palms of his hands.

Sailing across the room, the Storyteller knocked into the bench that lined the opposite wall. The wagon rocked. The boxes on the ribbon swayed. The skulls tapped against each other, and the bottles clinked.

She didn’t move.

He’s killed her, I thought. My heart began to thud faster and more wildly, as if it were a bird thrashing inside a bone cage.

But she spoke, soft at first. “Everything I have done has been for you. Everything. You felt alone; I gave you companionship. You felt old; I gave you youth. You felt weak; I gave you power. And you cast me aside. Imprison me. Strike me!” She rose, shaking. “But even if you despise me for it, I will protect you from yourself. I will destroy her—for you!”

Knitting needles flew at me, sharp and fast. Again before I could react, the Magician held up one hand, and the needles reversed—shooting back fast and straight. Two needles embedded themselves in the Storyteller’s heart.

She clutched at them, and then she toppled forward onto her knees, hard.

I heard screaming. My scream. It tore out of my throat and filled the air, and I couldn’t stop. Blood welled on her breast, staining her clothes.

The Magician fell to his knees in front of her. “No! No, no, what have I done?” He cradled her as she slumped to the ground. Quickly, he lifted her and carried her to me. Her breathing was ragged. A drop of blood dotted the corner of her mouth.

He slammed his lips onto mine and inhaled so deeply that it felt as if he were swallowing my scream. He broke away, my scream silenced, and he focused on her.

Her face shifted, smoothing. Her white hair darkened and softened. Her eyes cleared, ivory whites and brown irises. I’d seen her with this face in my visions, her younger self. The Magician yanked the needles from her chest, and he pressed his hands over the wounds. They didn’t heal. He didn’t—I didn’t—have the power to heal so grave a wound.

As he concentrated, her body shifted again: first, she became a dog; blood seeped into her short gray fur. Then she changed again, shrinking into a cat. Her wounds didn’t close. He changed her into a bird, a songbird that lay limp in his hands. Then an owl. Then a mouse. Pressing himself against me, he inhaled again. I saw tears bright in his eyes, unshed. Determined, he continued, trying to find some form that wouldn’t bear her wounds. He transformed her into a tree, rooted in the floor. Sap still leaked from gashes in her bark. “There, there, you’ll be all right, yes, yes.” He put his hand over the bark. “You won’t die. You can’t.” He changed her again, back to the woman with the silk black hair. She was paler now, her skin almost frostbitten. “No!” He changed her again—a stone. It was smooth and flawless. He transformed her back.

She was still dying.

No matter what form he chose, when he returned her to human, she was weaker than before. She put her hand, gnarled despite the youth of her face, on his wrist. “Enough,” she whispered. “We never … drained one … who could heal.”

His voice was broken. “I am sorry.”

“Do it. Don’t waste my strength.”

I watched the color drain from his face. But he said nothing.

The Magician found a stick of chalk. With shaking hands, he drew a circle on the floor of the wagon. He marked it with symbols—I’d seen the symbols before, both on his Tarot cards and on this same floor. I felt memories bubble inside of me. Those symbols … “You can’t!”

He didn’t respond.

“Please, not to her!” The Storyteller used to soothe me with stories as we traveled between worlds. Her stories had power of their own. They wrapped around you and forced you to listen. I remembered she used to do puppet shows for the children at the carnival, drawing her audience with her voice. Sometimes she’d use me in them. She’d tie strings around my wrists and ankles, and I’d dance on the stage. She’d praise me if I danced well, and I’d reveled in her praise.