“And your crown jewel?” he asks once I’ve exhausted my list. I’m not sure what he means, and it must show on my face because he says, “The mind manipulation spell. The one you thought would be in there?”
I’m still not sure what he’s talking about, but then I realize he must be referring to the mind-healing spell.Manipulationmakes it sound ugly, but it has the potential to be so beautiful. It has the potential to change people and, most essential of all, it has the potential to help my friends.
“Yes,” I tell him. I dream of what I can do with that spell. I will start with Tanner, probably, because, after the other night, I’m afraid of what he might do. Then Joey’s mom. Then Collingswood. Then my dad. Then, who knows? There are millions of people who need healing. This magic could change the world.
“I can’t wait to tell my friends,” I say. And it’s true. This changes everything. I finally realize that even though it would mean telling them I’ve broken the rules and facing their confusion and disappointment, it’s still a whole world of magic they didn’t know existed. They deserve to know.
He smiles, and I see a hunger in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. “I’m not sure they’ll understand,” he says. “You went behind their backs. You lied to them. I think it has to be just you and me now. We need to stay together. I want to be by your side when you change the world.” He brushes a stray hair away from my cheek and looks down at me, cupping my neck in his hands. “I want to change it with you.”
Then he runs his fingertips up through my hair, over my shoulders, and down to my chest. His palms flatten against my rib cage, right above my heart, which is still skittering. His eyes meet mine as he leans down to meet my eyes at the same level and says quietly, “Now, I want you to tell me about bloodspell.”
I can’t hide my surprise. I know what bloodspell is. I saw it in the spell book. But I don’t know how he knows about it. Somewhere from the depths of my brain, I can hear Joey saying,“We have a responsibility to keep the magic safe.”
But Joey isn’t here. And maybe he’s right. Maybe it has to be just the two of us now.
So I tell him.
42Elena
Elena sees Gael rounding the corner onto Front Street, loping the way fourteen-year-olds do. His camera is tucked under his shirt and out of the drizzle like it’s an appendage. She is not one to self-reflect, especially when she’s insulted, but she can’t help wondering if she’s been a good mom. She can’t help but think that she’s done it all wrong, that she should have maybe come back here all those years ago and tried to make it work or at least find someone else who could have been a father figure. She’s tried so hard, done the best she could to make sure he was always fed and always clothed. But is he happy? Does he love her?
Gael sees her then and offers her a nod like he’s on his way, but he doesn’t hurry. It’s not cool to hurry; she gets it. She wipes the rain off her face.
She’s distracted by an incoming text. She lifts her phone, protecting it with one hand, and sees that the message is from Cal Pierce.
Rehearsal at the house (out of the rain) at 5?
“Hey,” says Gael, who is standing in front of her now. They begin to walk toward Barbara’s. He clears his throat with obvious intention. She thinks he’s about to regale her with tales of shutter speed and overexposure—and other photography details she is completely clueless about. But instead, he says, “I know you think I came here so I could find out who my dad is.”
Elena almost stops dead, but she forces herself to keep her momentum going.
“Mom,” he says. “I’m fourteen and a half. And you’re thirty-two.”
Elena swallows. She doesn’t speak, just lets him get it out.
“I know you were a teenager when you had me. And I know you lived here when you were a teenager. And I know I’m supposed to care. I guess maybe a part of me is curious, but mostly, I don’t really care. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by not having a dad, honestly. I just always assumed you thought he wasn’t a great guy. Otherwise, he’d be in our lives. And I was totally okay with that. I am okay with that.”
Elena has to take several deep breaths. She feels like she should speak, that she should apologize, but he doesn’t sound like he needs it.
“Want to know why I really came this week?” He asks her this in full stride, without looking at her.
“Yes,” she manages.
“I wanted to see your hometown. I’ve been dying to come ever since you told me about it. And then you said you were going back for the first time in however long I’ve been alive, and you weren’t going to bring me with you? Hell no. I was not going to let you come without me. And now that I’m here, I’m just—it’s awesome. Your friends are cool, the locals are cool. The mountains are insane. It’s been fun to hear stories about what you were like as a kid, to see the school where you used to go, to look at old pictures.”
She looks at him sharply, and he laughs. “Barbara showed me.” Helowers his voice. “She also told me lots of stuff about your friend Quinn. She seemed like a cool person.”
Elena is struck by the sheer maturity of this boy walking next to her. Where did he come from? She bites her lip to keep the tears at bay because, goddammit, she will not cry. She will not.
“Okay, last thing,” he says, pulling at her arm to stop her. They’re at the end of Barbara’s street now, standing beneath the streetlight where she saw the figure on their first night here, where they saw the photo of the man watching them. It sends a chill through her. It’s daytime now, but she thinks of that first night, how she thought she had to protect Gael, and here he is, showing her that he didn’t need her to. But Sophie is wrong. Elena has had almost no bearing on who he is at his core. Because Elena is certain that, however emotionally intelligent he is, that’s just who he is. No matter what she did, he would always be that person. She looks into his eyes, as deeply as she can, hoping to send him a message this way.“I’m so proud,”she wants to say.“And I’m so sorry for the way our lives have been.”
Before she can say anything, he clears his throat. “Promise me you’ll keep up with the acting,” he says. “That you won’t find some excuse to give up. Because I know you can do it. I know that one day, you will be rich and famous, and we will move out of our apartment and into a mansion with a butler, and we will buy a house here too, and maybe one in Maui. And Joey and Sophie and Barbara can come stay with us whenever they want.”
She laughs, but in truth, Gael’s words have filled her. Elena thinks of Cal’s message. She thinks of her role as Teacher Number Two. Beneath the cold of the rain, she thinks she can feel the tingle of it beneath her skin. It’s so cheesy, so horribly cliché, but Gael saying these things to her makes it feel true: This is her big break. In more ways than one.
She is not going to fuck this up.
43Sophie
