While I’m wiping charcoal from my face and fingers, Laurie wanders through my room. It’s an impressive feat, given that wandering doesn’t normally lend itself to a nine-by-ten space. He tries to sneak glances at my sketch. I don’t bother to hide it, seeing no reason to cover up my blurry quasi-map of the space between our apartment and the Upper East Side.
Realizing I’m not going to spill my guts after a few moments of silence and his awkward staring, he goes for faux casual.
“So whatcha drawing?”
“The neighborhood.”
Laurie cranes his neck, hoping to catch me in a lie. But the neighborhood, plus a bit more, it is.
“New storyline?” he asks.
I make a noncommittal sound.
“Josie!” Laurie shouts my name in a whiny growl. He grabs fistfuls of his hair and tugs on it till it stands up in all directions. That gets my attention. He used to do it all the time when he was little and really frustrated with me. I’m particularly alarmed because the hair thing was usually followed by an all-out, tomato-faced, shrieking tantrum.
“Laurie . . .” I start.
“No.” He interrupts me, forcing himself to take deep breaths while I gaze in amazement at his purpling face.
“Listen . . . to . . . me . . .” Laurie’s intimidating gaze becomes a lot more convincing.
I nod, a little worried that he might pass out.
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on,” he says. “I was trying to be unintrusive about it, but you’re forcing me to go all intrusive on you.”
“Ummm.” I have no answer for him, but his face is pastel pink now instead of purple. I take that as a good sign.
“Despite all of this insanity that is in fact reality, you are still my sister and I love you.”
A couple beats pass and I say, “Okay.”
“And you know what that means.”
“I do?” I’m not sure I do.
Laurie nods. “It means that I am in this with you. And you are going to tell me what’s going on with you, what you’re plotting, and how I can help. Because I’m going to help. Don’t make me hold your art supplies hostage. We know how ugly that can get.”
I crack a smile, to which he responds, “Good. So talk.”
“I think Millie was right,” I tell him, conceding victory. Holding up my rough sketch so he can get a better look, I explain. “She said that Arbus might have been trying to draw me out. I don’t know if he was looking for me in particular, but I have a feeling he was after a spellseeker.”
“Your spidey sense is tingling?”
“Yup.” I set the page aside. “That was just me thinking on paper. Trying to sort out where else he might have gone.”
Laurie glances at the sketch again. “You think he’s hanging out in our neighborhood?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
“How in any possible way is that not a bad thing?” Laurie asks.
I run my fingers over the paper, smudging the lines, crisscrossing Central Park with a spiderweb of shadows. “Because it means I might be able to draw him out.”
Laurie’s face pinches. “And why would you want to do that?”
“So I can get a better handle on what I’m dealing with,” I say with more confidence than I feel.
“But what about everything Millie’s said about him?” Laurie stands up, shaking his head. “You don’t go toe to toe with a guy like Maxwell Arbus.”
“I don’t think there is any other way to deal with him. He’s the big bad. We man up and take him out.”
“First of all, I’m going to pretend you didn’t say ‘man up.’ Second . . . okay, I have no second. Everything you’ve just said is crazy. That’s all.”
“Just listen.” I’m suddenly eager to try out my theories on Laurie. “What you said before—I think you’re right.”
“About ‘man up’?” Laurie lifts his eyebrows. “Of course I’m right. No one should say that. It’s not only gender injustice. It’s lame as hell.”
“No,” I tell him. “I mean about Millie’s warnings about Arbus. I don’t think she’s shown all her cards. She’s holding something—maybe something vital—back. Definitely about Stephen’s grandfather. Possibly about spellseeking.”
“Where are you heading with this?” Laurie frowns.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I’m thinking about going head to head. About fighting back. If I can dismantle curses after they’ve been made, who’s to say I can’t stop them at their source?”
“Elizabeth, come on.” Laurie’s face becomes lines and curves of anxiety and love.
“If you want to be part of this, it means we find him,” I tell Laurie.
My brother drops onto the bed beside me. Now he’s the one who looks defeated. “I can’t begin to tell you what a bad feeling I have about this.”
“I’m the magically inclined sibling.” I elbow him. “When it comes to feelings and hunches, we go with my spidey sense.”
“Fine,” he says, but he sounds distracted, and I know he’s thinking about something else. Guessing what that something else is comes easily.
“You have to promise me,” I tell him, summoning words like stern and flinty while I wait for him to look at me.
He meets my gaze and groans, knowing he’s caught. “Promise you what?”
“That you won’t tell Stephen.” It’s not at all easy to say, but I have to say it. “He’s too close to this. We have to find out what I can do to stop Arbus without him—at least for now.”
Laurie answers much too quickly. “Fine. As long as you promise to really let me help you. No more secrets. And asking me to cover for you with Mom does not count as help.”
“Fine,” I tell him, even though I saw him quickly tuck his left hand behind his back and know that no doubt he’s crossed his fingers to permit his lie. Laurie is a sucker for traditional loopholes.
I’ll have to pretend I didn’t see it, though. Even without breaking his promise in what he considers a fair way, I know Laurie would have cracked and spilled all my plans to Stephen. I don’t blame him.