White Witch, Black Curse

Jasmine. That was her name! I thought, elated. That was the name of the black-haired girl I'd hung around with at Trent's dad's make-a-wish camp. "Jasmine!" I whispered, excited as I held the stuffed animal close and smiled with a bitter happiness. The toy made a small spot of warmth against me. I remembered it covering a much larger area when I was younger. Happy, I stretched to set it next to the giraffe on my dresser. I'd never forget again.

"Welcome home, Jasmine," I whispered. Trent had wanted to know Jasmine's name as much as I had, having had a crush on her and nothing to remember her by. Maybe if I told him her name, he might tell me if she'd survived—once he looked her up in his dad's records.

I ought to try to mend that fence, I thought, rummaging to find a toy that didn't have a name or face associated with it that I could take to Ford and Holly. I knew he'd appreciate something to distract and help socialize the young banshee. The two of them were doing great the last time I'd called, though Edden wasn't happy about Ford taking sick days or setting up a nursery in the corner of his office. Not to mention the potty chair in the men's room.

I grinned. Edden had ranted for an entire fifteen minutes about that.

Pulling out the elephant named Raymond and the blue bear named Gummie that had nothing but happy memories associated with them, I set them aside, folding the box closed and setting it atop the other box to take to the hospital. My aura was just about back to normal, and I really wanted to see the kids. The girl in the red pajamas, especially. I needed to talk to her. Tell her the chance was real. If her parents would let me, that is.

I held my breath against the dust as I hoisted the two light boxes, nudging my door open with a foot and taking them to the foyer. The pixies chorused a cheerful hello as I entered the sanctuary, and Rex darted through the cat door to the belfry stairway, spooked when I dropped the boxes on top of the one already there. Her head poked back through the door, and I crouched and extended my hand.

"What's up, Rex?" I crooned, and she came out, tail high as she sedately made her way to me for a little scritch under her chin. She'd been in the foyer when I brought the first box in, too.

The hum of pixy wings pulled our attention up. "Toys for the kids?" Jenks said, his wings a bright red from sitting under the full-spectrum light I had put in my desk lamp.

"Yup, you want to come with me and Ivy when we take them?"

"Sure," he drawled. "I might raid the witch's floor for some fern seed, though."

I harrumphed as I stood. "Be my guest." It was harder to get stuff now that I was shunned, and Jenks was already planning out a third more garden space to compensate for it. There was the black market, but I wasn't going there. If I did, then I'd be saying I agreed with what they'd labeled me as, and I didn't.

Rex went to stand under my coat, and I hesitated when she stood on her hind legs to pat the pocket. My eyebrows rose, and I looked at Jenks. I'd chased her out of the foyer twice now.

"Is one of your kids in there?" I asked Jenks, then jumped for the cat when her nails hooked the felt and started to pull. Her claw disengaged when I scooped her up, but I had to drop her when her back claw dug into my arm. Tail bristled, she ran for the back of the church. There was a brief shout from Jenks's kids, and then disappointment. Having the sanctuary warmer than the rest of the church was better than putting them in a bubble.

Jenks was laughing, but when I pushed my sleeve up, I found a long scratch. "Jenks," I complained. "Your cat needs her nails trimmed. I said I'd do it."

"Rache, look at this."

I tugged my sleeve down, head coming up to find Jenks hovering before me with a blue something in his hands. If I hadn't known better, I would have said it was a little bambino, wrapped up in a blue blanket by the way Jenks was carrying it. "What is it?" I asked, and he dropped it into my waiting hand.

"It was in your pocket," he said, landing on my palm, and we looked at it together in the light coming from the sanctuary. "It's a chrysalis, but I don't know what species," he added, nudging it with his booted toe.

My confusion cleared, and I took a breath, remembered Al curling my fingers around it on New Year's Eve. "Can you tell if it's alive?" I asked.

Hands on his hips, he nodded. "Yup. Where did you get it?"

Jenks flew up as my fingers closed over it and I started for the kitchen to wash my scratch. "Uh, Al gave it to me," I said as we passed through the sanctuary and into the cooler hall. "He was making little blue butterflies out of snow, and this was the only thing that survived."

"Tink's a Disney whore, that is the creepiest thing I've seen since Bis got stuck in the downspout," he said softly, his wings a soft hum in the dark.