“What areyoudoing? I can’t see you!”
“Courtyard.”
I race into the shop, through Candleland, the Garden. Throw open the porch’s screen door. “Do you have a death wish?”
Morgan is kneeling on the brick pavers, soaked from head to heel. He’s trying to herd Romina’s pet chickens into the cage she uses for transporting them to the vet. I recognize the four he’s managed to coax inside, but Miss Fig, the stubbornest of the bunch, is shooting out of grasp with dignified squawks. I realize that what’s preventing him from getting a good grab of her is that he’s only got the use of one hand—his other is pressed to his stomach to protect a rectangular shape stuffed beneath his shirt.
It’s my laptop. I’d completely forgotten that I left it on the picnic table.
I seize Miss Fig, who cusses me out for teaming up with Morgan, and shove her in the cage.
“You shouldn’t be out here.” Morgan’s hair is an onyx river, shirt plastered to skin. The speckles of rain on his glasses trigger a minor breakdown; the emotion coursing fast and inescapable through my system is a strangely wonderful suffering. He saved my laptop. I want to grab his face in my hands. I want to do unspeakable things to his mouth. I want, inexplicably.
But I do not touch him, because he is the worst, and also because right above us a gray funnel is beginning to descend, its swirling tip tasting the air carefully like it’s feeling us out. The chickens are a flurry of wings, jumping over each other. It’s all we can do to keep the cage from flying away.
Flowers in Romina’s garden rip up by the root, obliterated as they ascend into the funnel, the tail of whichchanges color.
The budding cyclone turns green. Bright, electric green.
Morgan, whose gaze has been fastened on my face, looks up just after the green tail is sucked backward into the sky. It implodes with a deafeningclap.
The storm dies at once.
—
“You thought Iwas going to die. And you wereworried.”
I scowl at Morgan.
“You were.” His smile is sunlight sneaking between clouds. “I wish the tornado had picked me up. Not much—just a couple inches. You’d be so grateful I survived that you’d hug me, I bet.”
“I don’t do hugs.”
“Zelda, stop begging me to go out with you. I’m simply too busy right now, but try again in a week and I’ll see what I can do.”
I keep walking. It’s been a few days since the tornado, which my sisters decided was vanquished by the magic in Romina’s garden. I think they expected me to argue this theory, but I’ve googled “green tornadoes” exhaustively and haven’t found anything close to explaining what I saw.
“Slow up,” Morgan entreats. “Why you gotta walk so fast?”
I’m a bloodhound on Bear Run today, armed with my notebook and a backpack containing my lunch. Sweat and mosquito repellent slick my skin. These Betsey Johnson bedazzled skull hiking boots are finally justifying their expensive presence in my collection.
“You check that way,” I tell him, gesturing to an alley.
“You trying to get rid of me?”
It’s a joke, and he smiles as he cheerfully strolls off, but Morgan isn’t wrong: I can’t focus when he’s hanging around.
Once I’m alone, I let my mind relax. I have to loosen my body, imagining that I’m a leaf carried on the breeze, no thoughts in my head. I bet it isn’t like this for Romina and Luna, who flex their magical muscles so often that they probably don’t even have to concentrate on their magic, don’t have to summon it and wait for a response. Their magic is always drawing power, even at rest; the difference between leaving your microwave plugged in so that you can press a button and it instantly starts working, and keeping your microwave stored in a box in the garage between uses. My machinery’s cold and rusty.
Come on, magic, show me which way to go.
To my delight, the answer is instant. My intuition zips upright, shoulders straight.There, it urges, leading me to the right-hand side of the road. I take off, so enthusiastic that I almost cut off a passing car. This is a tiny neighborhood of new-build Craftsman houses in creams and olives, identical down to the sycamore tree and swing set in each yard.That way, the magic taps as I pass an alley, and I double back. I am an explorer. I am going to detect hidden species, something new, something nobody else—
I crash into Morgan.
“Ow.” He stumbles back, wincing. “Did you miss me that much? I’ve only been gone for a minute.”
“Why are you hiding behind a bush?”
