Millie looks grumpy again. “I don’t see how that’s germane,” she huffs.
“Ten years? Twenty?”
“Twenty-seven, okay? It’s been twenty-seven years!”
“That’s quite a long time. You must be very lonely.”
“You have no idea!” Millie is near tears now. “A girl like you—so young! You have absolutely no idea.”
“Millie, I want to be able to trust you. I want us to be able to talk about things. But I can’t do that—I can’t come back here—unless you help me break Stephen’s curse. Because if I can’t do that, I don’t really want to be a spellseeker at all.”
“But you can’t!”
“I can’t what? Give it up?”
“No—his curse. You can’t break his curse!”
“Surely,” Elizabeth says calmly, “in some of the books in your hexatarium—”
“Hexatorium.”
“Hexatorium. Surely there must be things in these books that can help us. Or stories of curses that have been broken.”
Millie shakes her head. “Yes, but not one . . .” She trails off.
“Not one . . . ?”
“Not one by Maxwell Arbus, okay? Never! Not one!”
“So you do know who Stephen’s grandfather is.”
“You see, that’s why I can’t be involved. I knew from the moment I saw him. I said to myself, ‘That’s Maxwell Arbus’s work, and you shouldn’t get involved. Because if he finds out you tried to break one of his curses, you’re doomed.’ Those were my exact words.”
“But how would he know?” Elizabeth asks.
“Because he’s been here! Not in this room, but in the city. I’ve sensed him at work. But I’ve never seen him.”
“Has he left a body count?” Laurie asks.
Millie looks at him with utter disdain. “Only indirectly. You do know, don’t you, that curses can never directly kill someone? That’s why they’re curses—you have to live with them, in agony, for a very long time.”
I can certainly vouch for that. And, I think, my mother could have vouched for it even more.
But I have to block that out for a moment. I can’t think of her, or the agony. Millie’s other words are sinking in.
“He’s been here?” I ask. “You’re sure of it?”
“Yes,” Millie says. Then she catches herself. “But I said I wasn’t going to talk about it, didn’t I?”
Elizabeth makes to move out of her chair. “Well, then, I guess we’ll leave. And I’ll never see you again.”
“No!” Millie protests. Then she regains her composure. “Rather, that would be inadvisable. Why don’t we do this? Give me a little time to mull this over. Why don’t you come back the day after tomorrow at one? We can talk again then.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth says. But before she can get up, Millie leans over and takes her chin in her hand.
“Look at me,” she says. “I can teach you. There are many, many things I can teach you. You will never know what to see until you are taught how to see. Not fully. Don’t underestimate that.”
Elizabeth waits until Millie takes her hand away. Then she stands.
“I know,” she says. “But you’re going to have to help me first.”
We make our own way out.
We don’t speak until we’re safely outside, three blocks away.
It’s like it suddenly hits Elizabeth. One moment she’s walking, and the next she’s shaking. We sit her down on a park bench, tell her to take deep breaths.
“Sorry,” she says. “I just need to . . .”
“Release it,” Laurie says.
We sit down next to her.
“You were brilliant,” I say.
“You really saw that stuff, didn’t you?” Laurie asks. “About her sister.”
Elizabeth nods. “It was so unbelievably strange. It was just . . . there. She was right—it’s like a sense. Only I hadn’t known to use it before.”
“And what you said about her not seeing another spellseeker for twenty years—that was amazing,” Laurie says. “You saw that too?”
“No,” Elizabeth tells him. “That was just a guess.”
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” I tell her.
“What? Why?”
“For dragging you into this. I mean, this is a whole lot to deal with. And if you’d never met me, you never would have known.”
“I have a feeling this was going to happen sooner or later,” Elizabeth tells me. “Maybe I wouldn’t have guessed this week, but whatever. What’s done is done. And I’m not going to regret meeting you.”
“Not yet,” I say.
“Never,” she swears.
“Lovebirds?” Laurie interjects. “Can we put off the mating call for a sec? Methinks we have some bigger issues on the table. You know, the whole magic-exists-in-the-world thing? Am I the only one who’s a little freaked out by that?”
“It’s not much of a surprise to me,” I admit. “Then again, I have been invisible my whole life.”
“I’m completely freaked out,” Elizabeth says. “To the point that I’m afraid of what I’m going to see, now that I know I’m supposed to be able to see spells and curses. I mean, I imagine it would be more productive to be able to see, like, parking spots. Or people having emergencies I can actually help with.”
“I, for one, am feeling a little left out of the magic bandwagon,” Laurie proclaims. “Unless, of course, I’m really a spellcaster. I mean, I’ve cast spells on plenty of boys. But, wait—that wasn’t magic. That was just because I’m so damn purty.”
Elizabeth swats his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re taking this seriously. Really, I appreciate it.”
“I’m just trying to have some quality bonding time with you before they send you off to magic school.”
I know I should jump in and banter too—it’s definitely improving Elizabeth’s mood, and it’s making the situation a little less scary than it felt when we were in Millie’s hexatorium. But we’re also dodging the big question—which is, what should we do next?