Page 41 of Truly Madly Magically

I can’t deal with how gross this all feels tonight, or how little I want to see some of the things I can see on the faces of people I know will smile and say hello to me on the street tomorrow. I have to gear up for a Summoning.

In front of everyone.

Lucky for me, spite is a great motivator.

“By all means,” Carol says with a titter, aimed toward her supporters in the crowd, who all laugh along. “Please produce these invisible sponsors of yours.”

She might as well have called us kindergartners with invisible friends.

Focus, Frost tells us all, every inch of him the first, best Praeceptor who taught everyone in this room everything they know, directly or indirectly.

So that’s what we do.

We don’t do a full ritual. We don’t pull out candles or draw runes on the ground. It’s not necessary with our ghost friends already on this side of the veil. We still do everything needed to protect me and our ghosts in the center of our circle.

It’s even hotter up here in front of everyone. Like the lights have been amped up or the heat is suddenly on full blast. Tricks I would not put beneath the Joywood, so I let that feed the spitefulness inside me. I feel a trickle of sweat trail down my back, but I shrug it away while Emerson explains what we’re doing to the crowd.

Despite my effort to cuddle on up to that spite and make it work for me, I can’t seem to focus on her words. Because I’m starting to feel wildly nauseated.

I tell myself it’s panic, but the breaths I take to calm myself down only seem to make it worse. Then much worse, like I’m really going to be sick right here in front of everyone.

It has to be nerves. I keep telling myself that, but it reminds me of something.

This year’s Beltane prom that we were all forced to attend, as grown-ass adults. Where I felt really sick. Like I’d been poisoned.

I couldn’t have been pregnant then, is the thing. That happened later that same night.

At the prom I felt as if I had acid inside me. In my blood, beneath my skin. Throbbing at the backs of my eyes.

I feel that way again now, so bad it makes me think back almost fondly to the bouts of morning sickness I had earlier in the summer that I thought were somehow related to all that. Morning sickness was a holiday on the beach next to how terrible I feel now—

Emerson looks to me, the sign for me to begin the Summoning.

Like it or not, I have to reveal Elizabeth and Zachariah to the crowd here tonight. I have to make this happen, even if it kills me.

So I ignore the cramping and nausea sweeping through me. I focus.

I say my words quietly. There’s magic, there’s power, and then there’s that sickening thing inside of me, growing stronger. Nausea, pain, exhaustion. Like something bad is working its way through my body, and fast.

It feels black. It feels thick and oily, and it leeches into my bones.

That’s almost a good thing, however awful it makes me feel, because it reminds me of that shadow outside Zander’s apartment. It makes me think black magic, and if I know anything about the Joywood, it’s that they aren’t afraid of using a little black magic when it suits them.

Since they are the law, they can also hold themselves above it.

This seems so obvious to me that I almost laugh. Why wouldn’t they poison me with this unfurling black that’s sucking me under? I’m only surprised they haven’t targeted all of us yet.

I remind myself that I’ve fought it once already. I lived through Beltane prom. I lived it up Beltane night—hell, I have the baby to prove it.

The baby.

They came at me once, and it was bad, but I won’t let them get at my child.

I decide this, like a prophecy, at the same moment I lift my athame toward the sky and reveal Zachariah and Elizabeth to the crowd. I use my other hand to grip Zander’s pendant, like a promise that the baby will be okay.

Everyone murmurs, shifting in their seats, as the ghosts begin their speech. Like whatever Emerson said beforehand, I can’t concentrate on any of their words. It’s taking all I have to hold my baby safe inside me and to make sure the ghosts stay visible and audible to all.

Meanwhile, that darkness rolls through me, hot and boiling and mean.

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