Page 60 of Death is My BFF

“Iam your friend,” she said, and then she hugged me to her chest.

We sat in silence, her fingers combing absently through my hair.

“What is this?” she inquired, poking the toe of her sandal against the hill of dirt where I’d buried the blade—buried it too shallow.

The hilt of the weapon lifted up from the dirt, and I lurched to the ground to cover it.

“Nothing.” I buried it again and shot a nervous glance at my mother, my heart racing in my ribs. “An old treasure I found in the fields.”

“That is notnothing.” Mama nudged me to the side as she knelt to the ground, digging up the weapon and brushing it off. Anger filled her emerald gaze, and for a sliver of a moment, I visualized my father’s rage, and my leg muscles tightened to run. “This is a weapon!

Alexandru, you have lied to me again. Where did you find this?” Her fingertips traced the inky symbols lining the weapon. “Black magic is engraved into its blade, words not even I can translate. Perhaps it is from the Helm of Darkness!”

“It is not a dagger of Hades,” I said, snatching it from her.

I tucked it into my pants and stood up. “I made sure it was not enchanted, like you taught me. I found it, and so it is mine.”

“Alex—”

“May I go play? I want to sift for rocks in the stream. I will be back well before dusk.”

She gaped at me as if I had two heads. I had skillfully dismissed the subject of the weapon, and she didn’t have the time to question it further. She was leaving today to attend to her clients in the city.

“Your father will not be pleased.”

I smiled mischievously. “Only if he finds out.”

“You will not go anywhere until you promise me this: you will get rid of that blade and be back long before the sun falls.Promiseme, Alexandru.”

“I promise.”

She kissed me good-bye, and I took off toward the woods.

“Alexandru,” she yelled after me, “not too late!”

I ran through the woods until I arrived at an empty dirt road.

Kneeling in the bushes, I waited. A rider on a tan horse trotted down the dirt path. When he neared my hiding spot, I threw myself into the middle of the road and landed on all fours. The man brought his beast to an abrupt halt. As he was distracted by the reins, I bared my teeth at the horse and released a hiss. The horse’s nostrils went wide.

It kicked up its hooves, dancing restlessly in place as if I were a snake.

“What are you doing, boy?” The rider calmed his horse and glared down at me. “I could have killed you!”

“I need your help!” I wept, feigning fear. “My friend, he’s dying!

He’s in the forest!” I thrust my finger toward the opposite side of the road, where the ominous trees swayed. “You have to help him,please!”

The rider tied up his anxious horse and followed me through the woods. We ran for a long time, when the man urgently asked,

“Where is your trapped friend?”

“Right here, follow me!”

We came to an opening near a body of water and flat moss, where an old willow tree stood. My hands gripped a cluster of vines at the base of the tree trunk, and I tugged my arms to the side, wrenching free the blanket of camouflage I’d laid there. This revealed an aging mirror made of silver, since it was created before mirrors were glass.

“My friend . . . he is inside the mirror,” I said. “He says I am different, because I can communicate to lost spirits such as his. The souls lost to the shadows between here and . . . elsewhere. That is where he is, and he is scared. Trapped.”

“What’s your name, boy?”

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