one
Gentry
Gentry growled at the witch who offered her the pill. The other patients in line snickered and her blood grew hot.Fuck these naive assholes.She hoped they all died from whatever curses they supposedly had. After all, unlike Gentry, their diagnosed status allowed them to visit their families without wearing an iron chainmail bodysuit to contain their curses. The magic-resistant metal mesh encasing her arms, chest, and shoulders added a good thirty pounds onto Gentry’s frame, making her sway from foot to foot in the outdated government hallway. Rather than rest her back onto the asbestos-riddled wall, she dug her heels in.
“C’mon, take the pill, please,” the witch — a big guy who could be no older than twenty and the most patient of the ‘state-sanctioned mages’ who babysat them — begged as he shoved the green pill beneath her nose, “we’re behind schedule as is. The families are here. Don’t you want to see your mom on your birthday, Greenbriar?”
Gentry’s nose wrinkled as the witch placed the pill at her lips like she was a dog. For a second, she thought of her mother, whodesperately wished to see her. Her little sister who’d joke yet again that the iron mail coif covering her face made her resemble a demented falconry bird with its hood on. With her sister’s wild cackle playing in her mind, Gentry almost opened her mouth to accept the pill onto her tongue.
But then she remembered her plan, and how taking that pill would ruin everything, and how if she gave in to another witch again, she’d go insane with disgust with herself. Love for her family warred against logic and rage. The rage incinerated the competition. Gentry doubled down and spat past the green pill onto the witch’s plain white nursing sneakers.
The entire floor of patients groaned in dismay. Face purpling beneath his scraggly facial hair, the witch raised his hand in preparation to strike her.
Gentry gritted her teeth together in preparation for the impact. Experience taught her that a bitten tongue sucked way worse than a bruised cheek. The witch only healed the cheek.
A giggle belonging to a tall, shaggy-haired patient beside Gentry broke the tension and the witch faltered. The distraction came from none other than Gentry’s chronically altered roommate, Mykel. “C’mon, Justin,” she slurred, “leave her be. I think she likes getting hit by you guys. So what if she doesn’t take her pill right away? It’s wasted on her.” She winked at the witch as if they were old friends. Considering Mykel had slept with more than one mage for drugs of all varieties, them being friends wasn’t much of a stretch. “Besides, her mommy will raise another stink if you cancel the visit again.”
Justin stepped back from Gentry, his muscular frame stiff as he closed his eyes and let out a huff of air. He deflated like a balloon as he pinched his brow to massage away a headache, the spit-covered green pill between his fingers glistening underneath the fluorescent lights. “Fine,” he said at last, “you take your pill after the visit, Gentry. Everyone, let’s go.”
Not quite believing her luck, Gentry shifted uncomfortably in her chainmail before following the other patients and Justin through the massive labyrinth of a building, going down two floors. The rehabilitation center of the Curse Ward department stretched the length of two football fields. Or, at least that’s what the head mage had told her, her mom, and physician when they toured it five years ago. She wasn’t sure she believed it since every hallway looked the same. A disillusionment spell so they couldn’t escape? With no magic of her own, she had no way of telling.
Countless windowless doors came and went, and Gentry recalled with the same old bitterness that the tour had boasted display windows and laboratories and dumb inspirational posters in different sections. Those had been real. She’d confirmed it with her mother one visit.
At last, they stopped at another identical door and Justin beckoned them through to the visitor’s center. It bloomed open into a tastefully painted room full of circular wooden tables, its inspirational posters matching the Curse Ward of Gentry’s memories. Mothers, their faces haggard with worry, sprang to their feet, their husbands following dutifully behind as they found their poor cursed children. A few wives and husbands from the few older patients stood up, content to not join the fray of hysterical families. Squeals and trills of laughter from some of the younger visitors, siblings or children of the patients, filled the space with joy. Gentry’s fellow patients broke formation to hug and greet their loved ones.
Gentry looked in the direction of the table where her mother and sister always sat. Sure enough, a round woman with dark curls piled atop her head beamed in her direction. A young girl with straight black hair, light olive skin, and almond-shaped green eyes, around twelve years old, scrunched her face in sarcastic welcome. She smiled back. A small blue-frostedcake sat between them, an absurd amount of burning candles clustered on top. Without counting, she knew the bits of purple wax amounted to twenty-three.
Ignoring the other families’ parting to avoid her and her ‘containment suit’, she hurried to her birthday cake and leaned over to blow the candles out. Her chainmail hood dangled when she leaned, threatening to smear the frosting.
“God,” her sister, Beckett, whined, “no matter how many times I see it, I want armor too. You know that thing is illegal on the streets, right?”
Gentry shot her sister a grateful grin. The monthly visits had livened up with Beck showcasing her wicked sense of humor, a far cry from when Gentry had first been committed. Back then, all the seven-year-old Beck did during their visits was cry. “You’ll have to be a nutter like me to get one. They put me in the suit cause they’re scared of me,” she joked. “Hell, a mage turned himself into a frog just to get away from me.”
“Language,” her mother chastised absent-mindedly as Beckett giggled. Aya Greenbriar’s dark eyes were far away, their honey color the one trait she hadn’t passed on to her daughters. They both had their father’s pale green eyes. A small remnant of the man, which, in Gentry’s estimation, was too much.
The soberness on her mother’s face chased away her joy at the cake. Her mother was too tough, too organized to not have said happy birthday to her yet. “Mom. What’s wrong?”
Her mother started slicing the cake, her movements slow and methodical, just like she was with everything. “The head mage talked to me two days ago. You’re still not in good standing, Gentry. Do you know what that means?”
She stared at the piece of cake her mother shoved her direction, no longer craving the sugary goodness. “Yes, I know what it means.” It meant that they’d ship her off to a subsidiary facility several provinces away. Only patients with good standinggot to stay at Curse Ward in Tunsa, where the Mage Corps headquarters were. It was considered a privilege. “Did Lucinda say how long I have?”
“In two weeks they’re submitting the paperwork for a transfer. They’re not changing their minds unless — and I’m quoting thathorriblewoman — ‘a miracle and a personality change happens’. You better make the miracle happen, you hear? We cannot afford to visit you once a month if they ship you off.”
“Oh,” Gentry whispered, her brain stalling at the news, “is that all?” She didn’t know what else to say. They were a hair's breadth away from the argument they always had. At the heart of the matter, she and her mother both wanted the same thing—for her to get discharged from the Curse Ward. It was thehowthey disagreed on.
Her mother pushed on as Beckett dug into her own plate of cake, the younger girl accustomed to their fights. “I won’t be able to protect you as well either. Do you know how many phone calls it takes to make sure these people are treating you right? Walking in is far more effective irritant to them. If they transfer you, you’ll have to play by their games, Gentry. Not yours.”
There it was. Indignation filled her. She spoke slowly. “No matter what I do, I’m not getting a good score, Mom. Even when I was complying, they had it out for me. They put me through more tests, gave me more pills than anyone else when I was playing to their tune. I’m not like the other patients. None of their diagnoses explained my symptoms. They’re lying to us.” Cuts that sliced across her skin as if by a ghostly dagger. Exhaustion so intense her limbs sometimes felt like lead. And, to top it all off, hemophilia. That’s what her pill was for now, a preemptive healing potion so that she didn’t bleed out at the smallest of wounds. For years, she hadn’t known what was wrong with her, had believed the mages knew what was best for her. That was, until she remembered the truth.
Her mother scoffed. “Why does it matter whether they’re lying or not? They’re the ones who get to decide when you are discharged. If they tell you to act like a chicken, get bocking, girl. If they say you have three eyes, you better start feeling enlightened. Your admittance is government-ordered. I fought tooth and nail to keep you home, but it’s out of our hands now. Stop hurting us with your own stubbornness. Come home. Please.”
A deep flush creeping up her neck, Gentry watched her sister scarf down cake with more than a little envy. God, how her birthday had gone sideways. She wanted to eat cake. She wanted her mother to see things the way she did. Those witches never intended to let her go. It went against the deal her father had made when he sold her out.
“Here you go, a young healthy person, doctor physical notes included,” her father’s frightened voice warbled out, “my debt’s paid.” He didn’t look at where she was shackled to her knees on the freezing concrete of the warehouse floor. In fact, he never looked at her again, his scrawny, cowardly face drawn in equal parts grief and terror. If she could speak past the gag in her mouth, Gentry would’ve told him how pathetic he looked as he cowered before the masked witches circling her.
“What a witch you are, Maxwell,” an elderly woman wearing a hawk mask sneered, her warbly voice and wrinkled, bejeweled hands giving up her age, “I wonder what poor mother is looking for the daughter you kidnapped.”
Somehow, the truth was far worse.
