I still feel guilt that I’ve pulled Elizabeth and Laurie into this. Now that I know how it destroyed my mother, I don’t want it to destroy anyone else.
When we get back to our floor, Elizabeth lingers in the hallway. Laurie gets the hint and heads back into their apartment, leaving the two of us alone.
“You’re allowed to walk away,” I tell her.
She smiles. “I know. But in this case, I think I’d rather walk towards.”
Still, I can see there’s a lot going on inside her. I might not be a spellseeker, but I can certainly read a face.
She’s scared. Strong, but scared.
Chapter 14
I LIE IN STEPHEN’S ARMS, twining and untwining my fingers with his. I think I’ve been here an hour, maybe two. I came back to Stephen’s apartment the moment I heard Mom leave for work. When Stephen answered my knock at his door, we didn’t speak. He took my hand and led me to the couch where we’ve been curled up ever since. Time seems meaningless—an arbitrary marker in a world that is full of possibilities and problems I’d never dreamed of before today.
We haven’t been talking, but the absence of futile words that fail to put together everything we’ve seen and heard in the past few days is comforting. His eyes meeting mine helps to clear my addled brain. His hands tracing the shape of my body, and his lips on mine, can make me forget everything I’ve just learned to be afraid of. At least for a little while.
Even so, I’m starting to fidget. The brief wash of calm offered by his touch is giving way to another flood of questions about who I am. I’m realizing, somewhat ashamedly, that all along I’ve thought of this as all about Stephen. His invisibility. His problem. His curse. His family. My involvement is only a fluke.
But as it happens, this whole mess is about me too. I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know who I am anymore.
“You okay?” Stephen asks.
“Yeah,” I say, but I sound as unconvincing as I feel.
Stephen doesn’t try to stop me as I sit up. “You need to be alone again.”
I give him a smile, grateful that he can read my moods so easily. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be.” He brushes his hair out of his eyes. Dark hair that only I can see. I reach out to touch it. Wondering why it’s me. Wondering why he is visible to my eyes alone. Even another person like me can’t see him . . . another spellseeker . . . It’s still so strange to have a new category to place myself in. Before, I was Elizabeth . . . Jo . . . daughter . . . sister . . . would-be writer/artist. Now this.
I let my hand drop before my fingers touch Stephen’s hair, the impulse borne away by a renewed frenzy of thoughts.
“It’s a lot to process,” he says, watching me as I begin to shift my weight.
“Yeah,” I say again. Great. My new identity has transformed me into an obsessive narcissist. I can’t stop thinking about who I am and what it means, but Stephen is still invisible. Still cursed.
“Honestly, I need to sleep for a while longer,” he says; the weariness in his eyes lets me know he’s passed as restless a night as I had.
I nod, trying to smile at his affection, but remain distracted.
“You know where to find me.” He’s already wandering out of the room, and it occurs to me that I’m not the only distracted one. Both of our worlds have been shaken up. He needs time to sort out all the layers of family, magic, and betrayal that I do. We had our time to hold each other. To simply be. But now we’re being pulled apart by divergent needs. We each need to figure out what our stories are. Some things we’ll be able to do together. Others will leave us on our own.
The moment he’s out of sight, I’m regretting saying I needed alone time. My stomach feels hollow, the way it does when I wake up from a nightmare and remember that I’m too old to call out for my mother.
I head back to my apartment and, like Stephen, make a beeline for my room. Laurie isn’t in sight, but when I’m walking down the hall, I hear him on the phone. I consider popping my head in to make sure he hasn’t decided to share the outcome of our quest with Sean. But I’m just too tired to risk any sort of argument, so I pass his door and go to my room.
I think I’ll go back to bed, just like Stephen said he planned to. But a few minutes after flopping onto the mattress, I know sleep is not an option. My mind won’t stop. The noise in my head is like a ceaseless drumroll where the cymbal crash never comes. It is maddening.
I roll onto my side, pulling my art supplies out from under the bed. When in doubt: draw. Free sketching is not an option. I need something that will completely absorb me in the work, so I decide to throw myself into the story I’ve been working on. It’s what I hope someday to pitch to Vertigo or Dark Horse to make my way into the world of graphic novels and comics.
Flipping through the sketches—some complete with inks and dialogue, others only husks of scenes—my hands slow as I’m turning the pages. I’d been calling it The Shadowbound because it’s a story about people whose steps are dogged by an unseen force that shapes each moment of their existence, usually for the worse. I stare at the page, peering at my own work. My hands begin to shake.
I lied to Millie.
And to myself.
“They’re cursed,” I whisper. I go back, gazing at each drawing, watching as the unfinished illustrations uncover a world full of people tormented by magics they don’t understand and are desperate to be free of.
I can see the spells. I’ve been drawing them all along. That’s why I can draw Stephen, while Millie can sense him but not see him.
I’ve discovered my natural talent. It’s been within me, latent, waiting to be recognized for what it is.
I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to perfect a maniacal laugh that will get me checked into a mental institution so I don’t accidentally see anything I’m not ready to deal with. Then I wonder if half the people in mental institutions are there because of curses.
Pushing the portfolio away like it might burn me, I back towards my bedroom door. Then suddenly I’m whirling around, slamming it behind me as I bolt through the apartment.
“Hey!” Laurie shouts from the couch where he’s watching TV. “Where’s the fire?”
I don’t answer as I throw open the front door and run down the hall. I skip the elevator. I can’t wait for anything. I’m running down the stairs.