As if my mother was looking over me, Brenda moaned. She turned her head, and her eyelids flickered. I wiped her lipstick off my mouth, bursting with joy. “Hey there, you gave me a scare. How are you feeling?” I silently thanked my ancestors as I rolled her gently into the recovery position.
Brenda moaned at the movement, but her skin color was better. I patted her shoulder. “Rest and breathe. I have help coming.” It was good she wasn’t asking what happened. I couldonly hope that with the shock of the experience she wouldn’t remember the demon attack.
The bathroom was a disaster. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
I grabbed the mini hand vacuum out of my messenger bag and then returned to Brenda.
“I’m going to do a quick cleanup, okay? You just stay lying there,” I said, checking her breathing again. She nodded and choked out an “Okay.” Her head wound had clotted over. I wondered how much she remembered, but shock had a way of blanking out memories.
With whirlwind speed, I cleansed the room, adding a quick settling spell to vanquish whatever demon energy traces might be left behind. In two minutes flat, the bathroom looked less like a ritual scene and more like the footbath I was going for.
“Everything is going to be fine now,” I said to Brenda, crouching down beside her.
“Okay,” she said again. I took that as a sign of life. I put my head between my knees and sucked in slow breaths, looking for the strength to build shields while avoiding looking at the cursed bracelet.
My situation rolled in my head like movie credits: I had a cursed bracelet attached to me, and I’d faced a demon type I’d never seen before or read about. Brenda had almost died. I’d sworn an oath to my mother never to harm a human. This was pretty close to disaster. I swiped at a tear dripping down my nose.
If I’d gotten proper training, I might have known what to do—but there were only me and the grimoires left to face the world. I’ve never met anyone like me, and I probably never would. Mom, a self-taught hedgewitch, had shared all the spirit mojo my grandmother had taught her, training me to balance energy, but since the Sisters of Luce had ripped her from our world, there wasn’t anyone to help level my otherworldly skills up.
“I want to get up.” Brenda moaned and tried to roll over as sirens approached outside.
“They’re almost here. You should probably stay still for a minute or two more. I have to go downstairs to let them in. Don’t try to get up on your own, okay?”
She nodded, and I raced to the stairs, not wanting to leave her alone for long.
It was the paramedics, but the police arrived before I got back upstairs. Their questions were tougher to deal with. By the time I’d answered everyone, I was choking back sobs and cradling a ball of soaked tissues. The paramedics had bundled up Brenda and rolled her away. She was “stable,” they said. I’d “saved her life,” they said. But they didn’t know it was me who had almost caused her death.
No family showed up, but a couple of nosy neighbors checked in. I gave my contact info to the police, who thanked me again for my quick thinking and getting my CPR certificate. Trembling, I picked up my messenger bag and left.
Outside, I dropped my shades in place to block the glare while furiously texting my bestie Oriana.
Sorrel
Hey, things went south at the client’s house. She almost died.
Ori
Waaa? No. Omgomgomg. Are you okay? What happened? Are you still there?
Sorrel
I’m on the way home. I’ll explain when I see you.
Ori
I’ll cancel my thing and be there ASAP.
Sorrel
Thanks, I could use a hug.
Ori
Sending them. Bringing more. Hang in there. On my way. Take care of you.
Knowing Ori was coming was like taking off a corset. We would figure it out. Ori could pull answers out of a book no one else remembered existed. When we’d first met at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, she’d nearly short-circuited over my unschooling—peppering me with questions about curriculums and diplomas like I was her own walking case study. It took a bunch of chai-fueled chats to explain how unschooling is like homeschooling without the rules. It’s life-led learning. The big thing is I’d gotten to follow what I was passionate about, so green crafting had been my main focus. Ori was in a double major of history and linguistics, but even with her genius brain, that was a lot to wrap her head around. Right now, I needed every last synapse of help to puzzle out what to do about thethingon my wrist.
At the park, I stopped walking and did a self-check. Despite bone-weary fatigue, I was on edge—like something else was around the corner. I’d made a pact to never take a non-demon life, but by accident, I’d come close to not being able to protect Brenda. I leaned against a tree to ground myself.
