Page 97 of Girls Night
Like blood dried in the sun on a scalding July afternoon.
I drop the flower and stand up. My joints pop and I rub my eyes. It has been a long drive, filled with grainy country music fizzling from the radio and memories of Electra I wish to forget, to take back. If there are two things I regret most in life, it’s letting her lead me down the haphazard path of nonchalant magic-use… And losing her for good.
Copper-Eye never liked Electra, said she was trouble. She wasn’t wrong, but then again, my adoptive mother didn’t like a lot of people.
I open the trunk of my car and unzip my tote bag. I’d only brought a change of clothes with me, some toiletries, a gift inside a velvet pouch and a flashlight. I’m a regular member of the Scooby-Doo Gang.
A bird, somewhere far away, coos and my ears prick up. It dawns on me that that is the first sound I’ve heard here.
From my tote, I take out the velvet pouch. Inside is an Irish fae ring, given to me by Copper-Eye when I turned sixteen. I shake it out into my palm. It’s the size of an old American dollar coin, wound together by silver and gold snakes.In the most anxious of times, the ring will allow you to see and listen to the spirit world, she had told me. I’d always assumed it was a joke, but in the past I have been proven wrong.
I fix my eyes on the fae ring, making sure not to blink. In a matter of seconds, the snakes heat up ever so slightly, and the center glimmers like light waves reflected on a bubble. I bring it to my ear, hold my breath and wait.
At first, I hear only agonizing groans. But as the fae ring gets warmer and warmer against my ear, the groans give way to shrieks — countless men, women and children howling in bloodcurdling horror — in every direction, trapping me against my car. Begging. Roaring. Dying. Coming from the flowers blooming all around.
“Enough!” I shout over the noise and yank the fae ring from my ear. Shivers drag nails down my spine as I put the ring back in its bag. Cotton Rock has returned to its eerie silence.
With the tote bag strung over my shoulder, I leave my car outside the post office and head deeper into the town, beginning the search for clues. I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for. All Alectra had written on the table at the Three Blind Mice was the name of this town and nothing more.
I decide to start my search at the town square and work my way from there, so I pull out my phone and thumb Google Maps until it shows me where to go. Luckily, there’s still signal. On the way, I pass a tourist bus parked in the middle of the street. It seems fairly new, unlike the other cars I have seen left abandoned and rusted over. However, stems from scars in the road have looped and twirled themselves around the wheels, as though holding it in place, afraid it will leave Cotton Rock in the dust. Roses and chrysanthemums of every imaginable color grow from its broken windows where passengers may have sat and looked out from not so long ago.
When I pass a strip of storefronts, I see them. People in faded color and black and white. Smiling, staring out at me with grim expressions. Their dark eyes follow me from behind the overgrowth as I walk down the street. There are hundreds of them pasted to the walls and windows. Some have come loose and flap in the breeze.Missing. Missing. Missing. The word is everywhere in desperate, blocky font.
Faces… Why do I see faces everywhere?
I grip the strap of my tote bag and squeeze it. What the hell am I doing here? It’s not like I want Copper-Eye back in my life after how our relationship ended. Was it closure I subconsciously sought when I performed the disastrous tracker spell, or stepped into the Three Blind Mice? An apology from her perhaps? What was my logic for getting into the car this morning and gunning it for Cotton Rock?
“Fuck!” I switch my phone off and shove it into my pocket. Turning on the balls of my feet, I march back down the street from where I came. I couldn’t care less about Copper-Eye or her mysterious flower. Or being on probation with magic too, for that matter. Or the disgusting botflies. And, most of all —
The car door of a blistered sedan bursts open a few meters away and a man tumbles out onto the sidewalk. He’s scruffy and covered in dirt and blood. When he rolls onto his back, I see the crotch of his pants is soaked.
He turns his head my way, but it’s hard to tell whether the expression on his face is afraid or relieved because of the pale magnolias sprouting from his left cheek.
For the second time in forty-eight hours, I reach for the switchblade in my pocket.
He coughs, and four pink petals shoot from his mouth, floating down to his chest. “My… tour group,” he rasps, hugging himself. “I have to… Find…”
My hold on the switchblade thaws. I scan the street for any other signs of life. There’s nothing, save the colorful flora surrounding us. “What is going on here?”
The man attempts to sit up, but his arms are knobbled and thin. They quake under his weight. He drops back to the sidewalk and wheezes. “Must find them… They’re just kids… Oldest is only twenty-one.” He opens his mouth wide, then his jaw goes slack.
I creep toward him, taking in the strange magnolias. To think, up until this moment, I assumed there was nothing more disturbing than botflies laying their eggs inside Wendy’s face. Kneeling at his side, I take my tote bag off and lay it beside me. I ask him again: “What is going on here?”
The man’s eyes roll inside their sockets. His pupils are dilated to the size of saucers. A tear rolls down his cheek, the one that hasn’t become a botanical art show. “Ask…her,” he whispers, then grits his teeth. “The lady… In the blue house on the hill. She’s —”
His face contorts and his body starts to convulse as dozens of green shoots burst from his swelling head.
I want to crawl away and run, but I cannot move. I watch, absolutely powerless, as the stems grow wild and blossom until there’s nothing left of the man but a bush of pale and startlingly beautiful magnolias.
Chapter Seven
Garden of Eden
When I was fourteen years old, I’d finally gathered what little courage I had to knock on the door to Copper-Eye’s study late one evening and ask her why she didn’t want me to specialize.
My other adopted siblings were told explicitly what field of magic Copper-Eye intended for them to study when they first arrived in the house. Blood and swamp magic were assigned to my sisters. Dirt and navigation, my brothers. Copper-Eye would tell us tales of other children she had taken under her wing in the past who she’d trained to become psycho mages. The craft had eaten away at their minds, she had said. They’d committed suicide before their studies were complete. They were only eight years old. Unwilling to make the same mistake again, my adoptive mother banned all forms of psychedelic magic from the house. Because of this, the first eye mage I’d ever met was Electra. I’ve yet to encounter a psycho mage, but I’m told they exist. It can’t be easy to live amongst others when you spend a lifetime digging into people’s minds in search of answers you may not wish to find.
That evening in the study, Copper-Eye had me sit on the rug by the blackened fireplace and explained to me that I was the first child she’d met who she couldn’t comfortably place into a certain sub-type of magic. I was her experiment. She wished to groom me into the very first hybrid mage to walk this earth. She had me believe it was an honor above all honors. So, while my siblings were given a purpose and eventually thrived in their own various disciplines, I floundered. I had nothing to anchor me in place, always jumping from one sub-type to the next. I became restless, bored, and, worst of all, arrogant.
