Terror so great it paralyzes.
Hope so desperate it aches.
Courage so strong it survives.
Nadia closed her eyes as she brought them fully into her mind—tried to wrap her consciousness around the memory and somehow around the car, too. Weirdly, it seemed to her that she could feel it, the bulk and metal of it balancing against her mind—
Lying in the wreck of the car that night, hearing Cole shriek and not knowing for a moment whether her baby brother was hurt, or how badly.
That first night after Mom left, when the phone rang, and she and Dad looked at each other in wild hope before she dove for it—but it wasn’t Mom, only some survey that wanted to know if they were buying a new television this year.
Getting up the morning after that, not crying once, and making breakfast for Dad and Cole like Mom used to, and how they all ate together like it was normal, like it was fine, because they were going to be fine without her somehow.
Nadia heard a solid thunk and the creaking of old shock absorbers. Tentatively she opened her eyes to see—the car, still rocking back and forth in its new place next to the ditch. She grinned in triumph.
And then her face fell … as someone sat up in the driver’s seat.
Verlaine.
Who was now staring at Nadia in a way that made it absolutely clear that, even though she might not have known what just happened, she knew exactly who was responsible.
She’d been caught doing witchcraft.
4
ONE MINUTE, VERLAINE HAD BEEN HANGING OUT IN HER car, stretched out on the old-fashioned front seat, trying to work a tangle out of her hair and watching videos on her phone. She’d planned to stay late enough that Uncle Gary and Uncle Dave would think she had friends to spend time with; that way they wouldn’t worry so much, or at least they’d stop nagging her about being alone so often. The next, the ground had swallowed her car. She’d been too startled even to scream.
And that wasn’t even the freakiest thing that had happened to her today—not compared to the part where her car flew out of the ditch again.
Or where that new girl was the one responsible.
She dropped her hand right away, like that would make Verlaine not suspect her. Maybe it was kind of a crazy thing to suspect somebody of. But, hello, the car just flew, so welcome to Crazyville, and besides—she knew.
The new girl said, “Hey, are you all right?”
Verlaine had to swallow hard before she could speak. “How did you make the car fly?”
That first split second—that was the tell. Yeah, the new girl, Natalie or whatever her name was, she tried hard to cover. But her first reaction had been total guilt and horror, which made her awkward smile afterward that much more unconvincing. “Wow, you must have hit your head.”
“I didn’t hit my head.”
“You must have! Because, you know, cars don’t fly. Obviously.”
Verlaine tried the door; it still worked, and she stepped out on shaky legs. “Then how did it get out of the ditch? Do you have a forklift or a crane or something hidden around here, Natalie?”
“It’s Nadia. And of course I don’t. Your car never went into the ditch.”
“Um, yes, it definitely did.”
“It only tilted to one side!” Nadia looked … weird. Like, chugged-a-Butterfinger-Blizzard-in-ninety-seconds-and-got-on-the-Tilt-A-Whirl weird. But she was trying hard to sound reassuring. “Probably it felt like you went into the ditch, but you didn’t. I’m sure it was crazy scary. Can’t believe you didn’t scream! I would definitely have thought anybody in the car would have screamed. Definitely. But you—didn’t.”
“If my car didn’t fall in the ditch, why is there dirt in my hair?” Verlaine grabbed the ends of her nearly waist-length hair; now there were twigs and leaves caught in it, too. “Why are there pine needles all over my backseat? And, oh yeah, why do I remember falling in the ditch?”
Nadia went on the offensive then: “Why are you pretending cars can fly? How would I even make that happen?”
Two very good questions. But Verlaine said only, “I know what I know.”
“When you go home and think about it, and talk about it with your dads, you’ll get it straightened out,” Nadia replied, as if she very much wanted to believe it was true. “If you’re okay, well, I’m going home.”
In silence, Verlaine watched her go. Nadia never once glanced back. Wouldn’t anyone normal glance back after something like that?
Verlaine considered whether this Nadia was in fact severely abnormal. She hadn’t looked like a weirdo; Nadia was beautiful, even a little glamorous, with the kind of designer jeans and funky custom-made jewelry that didn’t appear in the halls of Rodman High very often. But making cars levitate out of a ditch? Definitely not average.
Then a moment of doubt crept in … levitation, flying, all of it sounded like stuff from comic books or fairy tales. It didn’t seem possible for Nadia to do that—and besides, why even assume Nadia was responsible? Yes, she’d been standing right there, and holding her bracelet and her hands in that odd position, but that hardly meant she had powers over gravity. She was also the first person Verlaine had met in a long time, possibly ever, who had even been—well, nice to her. Normal. She didn’t know why Nadia treated her nicely, any more than she knew why everybody else treated her like dirt. What she did know was that it had been a relief to talk to someone like it was no big deal, and maybe that politeness meant she ought to give Nadia the benefit of the doubt.
But the car had flown. For sure. Verlaine didn’t doubt that for a second.
And there was no reason for Nadia to deny that it had, unless she was the person responsible.
Maybe Verlaine was dreaming it. Making it up.
But she didn’t think so.
Something weird was going on. Deeply weird. And Nadia was at the heart of it.
In other words—something interesting was finally happening.
Standing there next to her banged-up car, dirt and leaves still in her hair, Verlaine started to grin.
Nadia rushed blindly away, her head whirling. She knows. Don’t be stupid, she doesn’t know. Unless she’s stupid, she knows. You did magic in front of someone outside the Craft, and then you got too upset to cover your tracks, and now you’re exposed.
But she had to stay calm. Mom had always said that most people exposed to magic ended up explaining it away. They didn’t believe in supernatural forces, so experiencing them made them wonder if they were going crazy. Nobody wanted to think they were going crazy. So they made up lies to believe in instead. I was imagining things. A trick of the light. Just the wind.