“Cal’s the nice one.”
Diana gave me a withering look, which must have hurt the bruise on her face, because she winced.
“All right, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll make sure she’s properly cautioned about getting involved with the Waters boys.”
Diana shifted in her seat and raised a hand to her face, but didn’t touch the bruise; she held her hand over it like it radiated heat. I backed the car out of Kay’s driveway and started for home. “Did you have an okay time, Ari?”
I’d been blackmailed and my best friend had bashed her face in.
In my mind, we ran up the dune again and again. I stumbled over and over; I couldn’t find my footing. It was funny at the time. The sand slid and reshaped itself.
Was I holding on to Diana’s arm when she fell? Could I have tipped her over? Did I make her as unstable as I was?
Was she better off without me?
I managed to smile at Diana, though it didn’t feel right. My smiles had become as clumsy as the rest of me. I pushed harder, and the effort hurt my cheeks, my teeth, and the very back of my neck. “Sure. Very memorable.”
Diana dropped me off and promised to call later. I went to my room and did my exercises like usual, which is to say, I did them terribly.
The only way I was going to get better was to push through it. This was my plan: keep practicing until I could re-teach myself grace.
After that first attempt at ballet the Friday after I’d taken the spell, I had tried to get the side effects reversed. It seemed obvious. Whip up another spell and make it go back to the way it was. Whoever this dead boy was, there was no way he was worth screwing up my career.
So I had gone straight from that disastrous dance class to the hekamist’s house. The familiar middle-aged woman with curly gray hair and a foggy look in her eye answered the door.
“I know you,” she said.
I blinked. “I was here yesterday,” I said.
“Was it yesterday?” She smiled and made a gesture with her hand like she was waving away moths.
“So,” I said. “About that spell . . .”
The hekamist leaned against the doorframe. Behind her I could see the crowded living room and a dingy kitchen. I knew I’d been there the day before, but it looked familiar in a distant way, as if I’d only seen photos of it in a book.
“I hope it worked,” she said. “No refunds.”
“The spell worked. But I can’t dance anymore.”
“You’re a dancer? Oh. How lovely.”
“It seems like I’m dancing, like my brain is telling me to move, to be graceful, but my body won’t listen.” I shifted on my feet. “I fell down in class.”
She shrugged. “Some side effects are to be expected. I’m sure I mentioned it.”
“This isn’t ‘some side effects.’ I can’t do anything I used to be able to do.”
“But you’ve forgotten your dead boyfriend. You feel better.”
“I guess. I don’t remember how I felt before.”
“True, true. So strange, memory spells. When they work, everyone always wonders why they got them.” She looked up and down the road behind me, blinking. It occurred to me that she was going crazy. Hekamists go crazy when the rest of their coven dies. I’d heard about it, but I didn’t know what it looked like until then. She pressed her cheek into the door frame, covering one eye and letting the other one focus in and out slowly. “You’re unhappy about your side effects. Hmm. Have you had other spells?”
I wanted to scream with frustration, but instead I gripped my swollen left wrist and pinched the pain down. “Yes. I had one when I was eight years old. Permanent trauma removal.”
“Oh. I see. You didn’t say that yesterday.” She kept her face smashed into the door frame, still staring at me closely. “Trauma spell. That means memory, too. Boyfriend dead. Memory gone. Two permanent memory spells. Sad, sad, sad, aren’t you?”
My wrist throbbed. “My parents—died. In a fire. I saw the house burn down. Apparently I had nightmares.”
“A fire. An accident?”
I gritted my teeth and squeezed my toes in my shoes. “Someone broke in. Lit fireworks in the fireplace.”
Her mouth dropped open and she moved away from the door frame. “Oh.”
“Listen, you have to undo this spell. Please. I’m going to New York in August to study ballet and I can’t even—”
“No,” she said. “Those memories are gone and there’s no way to get them back.”
“Fine. Whatever. I don’t care about the memories. I want my body to work right. Can you fix that?”