The Book of Speculation: A Novel

A heavy volume, Binding Charms and Defixione has an almost sinister look to it, a thick black leather binding, title embossed but not gilded, the pages soft with years of oil from fingertips of the curious. I touched it and felt almost the same shiver I had when touching the book—our book. I’ll sit with it once my head is clear.

Something grabs my hair and yanks from the roots. A rush of air blinds me. I jerk to the side and a hand clamps around my arm. I try to wrench free, but the water makes me slow. The grip is tight. The fingers release my hair and grab my other arm. My gut spasms and the last of my breath is in front of me. Arms lock under my shoulders. I pull, but they don’t move. Fight hits my tongue, bitter. I kick. The light grows wider and brighter as I’m dragged upward.

I choke, struggling to get free, pulled backward, stomach to the sky, water pouring into me. The arms slip higher, crush my neck, block my airway. I claw. Can’t breathe. Can’t spit the water out. Blackness slides in. Speckled shadows move until there is only dark. I flail. Try to break free. Breathe. Breathe.

Shit, we are cursed.

*

I’m on my back, a sand flea gnawing on my shoulder. Something on the outer edge of my hearing. A voice. A hand slaps my face. Eyes open. A head blocks the sun, shadows swallowing features. Not shadows—a tattoo. Doyle.

“Hey, guy. You okay? I squeezed harder than I thought. Really sorry.”

I launch at him. I pop up fast, but am unsteady.

Tentacled fingers wrap around my fist, inches from his face. He holds it, turning my hand, as if examining the blue of each vein. He says something; it sounds like “Ease up, Bro.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” I spit. Swing with my left hand. He brushes it away.

“The fuck?” he says. “You were drowning.” He’s unruffled, like we’re talking over a beer. I push, but he twists my elbow behind my back. “Dude, you do not want to hit me.” He locks me in a bear hug. “Chill, man,” he says. “You’re just freaked. No air. Makes your head all wonky.” He’s not even breathing hard.

From up the cliff, a shriek. Enola. The stairs—it takes a full minute to run them and the pounding means she’s already started. I struggle, but it’s just fighting shame. A single punch. I couldn’t even get in a single punch.

“Dude, I saw you go under. I yelled but you didn’t hear. You were down way too long, man.”

“I was fine.”

When Enola reaches us she smacks Doyle on the shoulder. “Let him go.” He drops his hold, and she squeezes me tight. I can feel her panting, shaking against me. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“Your boyfriend tried to kill me.” She lets me go so quickly I lose my balance, and then she’s hitting—not hard, but if she stays at it long enough I’ll have a dead arm.

“He did not. He wouldn’t do that.” The rest is high-pitched squealing. I grab her arms and hold them at her sides. Doyle stands a few feet back. I can feel him smiling.

“Easy, Little Bird,” he says.

She is the opposite of easy. I am not easy. We will never at any point be easy.

Once she realizes I have no intention of letting her go, she sinks her teeth into my shoulder. I shout and she scoots free to look Doyle over for bruises. He mumbles, “I’m good.”

I check my shoulder. There are white half-moon marks from Enola’s teeth. “I swear he strangled me,” I say.

She turns on Doyle, fists ready.

“He was drowning, I pulled him up.” Hands in the air, innocent.

“Don’t be stupid. My brother doesn’t drown.”

In spite of myself, I grin. “That’s what I told him.”

“He’s a swimmer,” she says. “He can hold his breath a really long time.”

“Ten minutes long?” He makes a whistling sound with his teeth.

“Ten minutes?” Accusations all around.

“He tried to choke me.”

“Doyle’s a pacifist.” This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard her say. “I told him to come get you. There’s a contractor at the house. Frank sent him. You need to talk to the guy.”

We are on the stairs, Doyle climbing ahead of us with simian ease, when she taps my shoulder. “Been doing that a lot?”

“Getting choked by your boyfriends? No. You should come home more. Almost dying is fun.”

“Ten minutes is dangerous even for you,” she says.

I’d say that Doyle exaggerated, but I don’t know how long I was down. Her hands twitch inside her pockets. I see a quick flash of a card with what looks like a leg with a hoof. The Devil? But not like the one in The Tenets. Enola tucks it away.

“Sure,” I say.

*