P isn’t conscious. He’s suspended over the wheel, chin bobbing up and loose, chest held against the belt, airbag billowing against his face like some giant jellyfish. I have to get him out, but in the tangle of our bodies, the wheel, the still downward motion of the vehicle through the water – not a lake, I realise; a much deeperreservoir– it’s impossible to reach around him to the belt buckle. I should have unfastened him before the windshield blew, but instinctive magicdoesn’t work like that. My hands fumble frantically. I can hardly see a thing in the glinting greenbrown half-light of the water.
My lungs are burning. I’m running out of air.
A memory comes to me, dizzily. Pierre, Mom, and me driving to the beach one day. I’m about seven or eight, and excited because Pierre’s told me he packed marshmallows and is going to teach me to make s’mores. A song from an animated movie I love comes on the radio, and I start throwing myself around in the backseat singing along. Mom’s head snaps around.Seatbelt, Harper.
I shake my head. Continue bouncing and trilling the lyrics:If I were Queeeen, My royal decreeee, Would beeeee, That every day is a GOOD DAY!Mom starts getting angry.Harper! Do it.She’s reaching back to try and lock in my belt and I flail at her.
It’s about to turn nasty, Mom scolding, me having a tantrum, when I see P’s big brown eyes on me in the rearview mirror. I freeze, suddenly ashamed that he’s seeing me act up like this.It’s because we love you, Harper, he says, with a goofy smile so I don’t wail about how corny he is.
And I do it. Snap that seatbelt right in.
It’s because we love you, Harper.
I can’t let him go. I can’t!
Black spots are dancing before my eyes. My kicks are weakening as I writhe and grapple with the belt. I’m trying to dig into my jean pocket for the little silver knife, but the water has pasted the fabric to my skin. This can’t be happening. I’ve enough magic to kill a man. Surely I can save one?
But when my desperate lungs suck in a mouthful of water, and I choke, my body understands what my heart can’t accept. It flips out of the space where the windshield was, as the last air inside me buoys me toward the surface.
As I crawl up the bank into some bracken and lie there gasping, I sob without a sound.
Love you more, P.
8
MAGGIE
It’s the slowest of slow days in the office – glacial, in fact – when what sounds like a fight breaks out in the parking lot below.
In the months since Bittershore, when I scored an arrest on a possible serial killer, but also shot the son of a sitting congresswoman, Remy has had me mopping up the most anodyne of drug cases. Kid mules, who’re barely out of elementary school and are more likely to crumple and cry when you catch them than pull out firearms. It’s heart-mending work, because they’re still young enough to be turned away from a life of crime, but the heap of paperwork that goes with it is taller than Denali. So when I hear the squeal of tyres I join the gaggle at the window.
And see the unmistakable figure of Sarah Fenn, trembling but upright like an aspen, between two of my colleagues. As we all watch, one of them gets on the radio, giving urgent instructions. No doubt calling up a pursuit vehicle for whatever car just tore out of the lot. The other pulls Fenn away. For a moment, she resists, before lifting her chin and shaking off the hand on her arm. Walking of her own free will wherever they’re trying to get her to go.
I was out of the office yesterday. Home visit to a couple of kids over in Capen. So I hadn’t taken in all the new signageabout the witch registration. It looks so clinical, like the mandatory testing stations that went up in agricultural areas during the last bird-flu scare. I can’t decide if the effect is reassuring or disturbing. But I sure as hell don’t like the idea that Sarah Fenn is being brought to a police facility against her will. And who was in the vehicle that raced away? Taking the stairs two at a time, I bump into my boss, Remy. He eyes me narrowly.
‘Stay out of it, Mags. I don’t want you going anywhere near Fenn.’
‘Out of what?’ I ask, doing my best innocent face. ‘Mid-afternoon sugar-drop, boss. I’m heading to the canteen. Can I get you anything? Donut? Caramel frappucino?’
Remy pats his six-pack through his smart button-down, as if to reassure himself it’s still there even though he just turned forty.
‘Nothing for me, thanks. And it’ll be Ozempic for you if you don’t cut the sweet stuff, Maggie. Hey, only saying it because I care.’
He raises his hands and backs off, as I flip him the bird and laugh. Whatever it takes to get him gone. Remy’s too sharp by far. Breezing through the open-plan traffic department, I lift a radio receiver off an unattended desk. Slip it in my pocket. Twirl down the stairs to the fire exit with the disabled alarm where the smokers gather for a puff. From there, it’s easy to wander into the dismal bit of landscaping that attempts to humanise our office, and tune into to the radio frequency used for pursuits.
I sink to the ground beneath a sapling that never thrived, clutching the radio in both hands, when the usual narrative of a chase is broken by a curse.
‘Martineau’s vehicle has gone off the road. Fuck – the reservoir! The reservoir!’
No, I think.No. Not Pierre. And he’d only be speeding away from here on account of one person. Harper Fenn. The girl who survived a whole town trying to kill her. The guy with the gap-toothed smile who helped me rescue her.
‘Confirm, the car has gone in. No one is at the surface. Dive Unit required.’
No!I grip the receiver so hard I might break my own fingers. I sit there for long minutes, for half an hour, curled around myself, willing my colleagues not to disturb me as I press the receiver to my ear. I’ve turned the volume right down, as though if I can’t hear its pitiless narration, it won’t be true.
‘One body strapped in the vehicle. Looks like Martineau.’
‘No sign of the Fenn kid,’ says a second voice. ‘We’ve been combing the banks. Dive team may have to quadrant and search the reservoir in case she went through the windshield, ’cause that’s totally gone.’
