“Itiswitchcraft,” a sharp girl’s tone trills through the conversation as Twig comes gliding out of a room across from the one I was in. “Thereismagic,” she says pointedly. “Thereisa source.” Her eyes find mine but give nothing away. “You are the tool,” she says to Cadence. “You are the ingredient,” she says to Brennan. “We are the spell.” She walks over and leans down to give Arla an intimate kiss on the lips.
I guess Rock isn’t Twig’s only lover. But ifweare the spell, I wonder who’s casting it?
When she rights herself, she walks by, patting me on the head like a good little pet. “You’re still with us?”
“Where else would I be?” I ask sarcastically. “I was too fucked up to go home last night.” I glance at Arla. “What was in those drinks you kept giving me?”
She makes a face of mock innocence. “I don’t know what you mean. I only gave you one.”
“Well, someone kept refilling it.”
“If you must know, a maiden’s prayer has gin, orange liqueur, orange juice, and lemon juice.” She looks pleased with herself.
“Right, but mine had something else. You told the bartender to give it a ‘kick,’ remember?”
“Ah yes, that would be the liquid THC we added to yours. Alittle something to take the edge off.” She rises from the sofa and wafts toward the room Twig has just come out of.
“You drugged me? Without my permission?”
She pauses at the doorway and looks back over a shoulder. “I did nothing of the kind. You heard me place the order. You could have declined at any time. You could have put the drink down instead of finishing it. Across the evening you had the opportunity to choose differently at any given point. Yet you didn’t.
“Admit it, Jude. You want to be here. You’re one of us now.”
13UNDERGROUND
“I want to show you something.” Arla stands over me after returning from her room, fully dressed in a teal button-down blouse with long puff sleeves and a pair of skin-tight, high-waisted pants. Over them, she’s laced a pair of Dr. Martens boots.
I scramble to my feet. “Okay.”
“Put your shoes on,” she tells me. “You’ll need them where we’re going.”
At that, Cadence jumps up, suddenly balling her hands into tight, excited fists in front of her. “I want to come! Let me get dressed.”
Arla grins. “I’m not waiting. You can catch up. You know the way.”
Cadence dashes into the room we slept in and closes the door.
So, this is something she’s already shown everyone else. My breath quickens, a sick churn beginning to make itself known in my gut. Am I going to the meet the proverbial man behind the curtain? Is Arla the Wizard of Oz, a fantasy cast larger than she actually is, both professor and wizard at once? Or is she being played by another hand? Is she only the projection, a trick of smoke and mirrors, the reality behind her someone far more or far less impressive?
I grab my phone to follow her, but she rounds on me. “Leave it,” she says, her tone indicating there’s no room for argument. “You won’t get a signal where we’re going anyway.”
I set it down on the counter, my intuition rattling like rusty cowbells.We’re in the middle of the city, I tell myself. I’ve followed this woman into far worse. But my palms slick with sweat all the same. A visceral, dangerous curiosity has bloomed in me like black mold, furred and full of toxins. The snake oil glistens in the distance, golden and putrid in its molded glass, and I cannot resist its siren song.
We move around the wall of kitchen cabinets into an elegant entryway where a looming Art Deco door is set with panes of swirling green and blue glass. Wordlessly, Twig, Rock, and Brennan fall into line behind me. I try to recall coming here last night, passing through this very door, noting its flowing design, but my mind only conjures the dance floor.
Arla holds it open. “After you.”
I step into a small, brightly lit room with the flair of a hotel lobby. Brass doors wait on the back wall. Arla presses a button to summon the elevator.
“You live on this whole floor?” I ask, pointing to the fan-printed carpet at our feet.
She smiles. “I own the whole building—Medusa, the penthouse,allof it.”
She places extra significance on the wordall, as if I might not understand the scope of her property. It makes me uncomfortable in a way I can’t explain. I’m used to money, the trappings of it. Growing up at Solidago meant hired help and more rooms than we could live in. It meant finery the likes of which most people never see, even if it wasn’t often directed at me. It meant actualsilverware and getting cut flowers flown in and my grandfather using a lapis elephant from the Qing dynasty—which should have been in a museum—as a goddamn paperweight. But there is a ring to her voice that tells me this is not about money; it’s about something else.
Power,I hear the voice echo inside of me. Money’s evil, elder twin.
“The rest of you do too?” I ask.
