Page 5 of When We Were Magic
How can I explain what it’s like?
It’s like that feeling when you’ve been cooped up inside all day and then you finally go outside and remember what fresh air tastes like.
It’s like when you get up in the middle of the night and your mouth is gross and dry and you take a drink of water and the water is sweet.
It’s like watching someone dive into a pool without leaving a ripple.
It’s like waking up.
Threads of light swirl up around each of us like spun sugar rising up out of a cotton candy machine. We all do different things with our magic, and we all usually look different when we do it. It’s always kind of like light, and kind of like thread, and kind of like neither of those things at all. But when Iris is in control, we all make magic that looks similar. It looks like raw material. Pure. When we work together, Iris’s magicis white, and Roya’s is pink, and Marcelina’s and Paulie’s are both blue. I can’t see my own. I can see when my hands glow a little, but I can never see the magic coming out of them. Almost none of us can see our own, except for Iris. So, I don’t know what mine looks like, but Roya told me once that it’s a bright dark purple. I asked how it could be dark when it’s bright, and she shrugged and said she didn’t make the rules.
She also said it was really pretty. Not that it matters, but she said it, is all. She thinks it’s pretty.
A cloud of power roils overhead as we all give ourselves over to Iris. We’ll be exhausted after this, but it’s worth it to see what she can do. To see the shape of her plan. She reaches up and swirls her hand through the light that’s filling the room. She pulls at it and pushes it and wraps her light around ours and clenches her fist tight and then she says “NOW” and we all stop.
Stopping feels like holding your breath—awful and suffocating and a little dizzying after the first minute. But you get used to feeling like that.
Iris lets go of the gathered light she’s holding. It settles over Josh’s body in a big sheet. We all slump a little as the magic leaves us. The light flares, and as it does, time slows. This doesn’t happen with every spell, but this is a big one, andI guess things are different with magic this size. Or maybe it’s just adrenaline making me see every single detail of what happens—I don’t know. All I know is, his blood shimmers like oil on water. I can feel it growing hot on my face, on my lips, on the tip of my tongue where I didn’t even notice it until now, which seems wrong. You should notice when a boy’s blood is on your tongue.
I feel his blood get hot, and I watch it shine on every surface in the room. The pink water lets off a few wisps of steam. The blood that’s on my skin hurts. It hurts so much, but I don’t let myself cry out and I don’t let myself flinch because I know in my heart that I deserve so much more than this taste of pain.
I did this. It’s my fault. I deserve worse than what I’m getting.
And then, faster than should be possible, the light of the spell fades, and he’s gone. Josh is gone. One second he was there, and everything was covered in blood, and the next—he’s not there anymore. All the blood is gone. The strange rush that comes with pain suddenly disappearing washes over me.
It totally worked. I smile, even though I don’t really feel happy. It’s over. I can pretend that it was all a bad dream.
He’s gone.
And then Iris yells and her knees buckle and it’s not over after all.
Marcelina grabs Iris before she falls. Her eyes are glowing again, brighter than they usually do—they’re blue-white and painful to look at. She’s biting her lip hard, making a sound like a held-in scream. Her skin is so pale that her frecklesstand out like ink spatters across her cheeks. She clutches at Marcelina’s black dress. I hear the fabric rip, and then a louder ripping-fabric sound that can’t be Marcelina’s dress, it’s so loud. It’s too loud.
There’s a flare of light on the bed. At the exact same moment, Iris faints.
Her dress is pooled around her, a puddle of white satin and gold sequins. Marcelina and Roya drop to the floor beside her without hesitating. They both know CPR—Roya from being on the swim team, Marcelina from when she used to be a Girl Scout—and they’re checking her pulse and looking inside her mouth and saying things quietly to each other that I don’t really understand.
“She’s okay, I think,” Roya says.
“She … doesn’t look okay,” Paulie replies.
Roya ignores Paulie. She puts her hands on Iris’s temples. A soft pink glow shines out from under her palms. Her jaw clenches—she should be drained of magic right now. She must be drawing on some deep reserve. Iris’s eyes flutter open, and she looks at Roya with a dreamy kind of smile.
I look away.
That’s when I notice Josh.
“Um, guys?” I say it too quietly at first and nobody notices me. “Guys,” I say again. “We’ve got a problem.”
They all look up at me, and I point at the bed.
“No way,” Paulie says.
Marcelina looks up at the bed. “Way,” she responds quietly.
“What is it?” Iris says from the floor. Her words are a little slurred. She tries to sit up, and Roya puts a hand on her chest, gently pushing her back to the floor.
“Josh is back,” I say.
