“Diana!” Ari said, as if Diana had just said something offensive.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Everyone knows I got a spell. Lots of people get spells, actually, you just can’t always see the results.”
Ari rubbed her wrist, and I remembered, too late, about her parents and the fire and her old spell. Diana stepped closer to Ari as if to comfort her, but Ari shrank away. I’d never seen Ari hug or touch anyone except Win.
“The spell was in a microwave burrito,” I said. Stupid. The silence stretched open and I stepped into it blindly. “I thought that was so weird. Have you ever heard of anything so weird? Ari, what was your spell in—no, never mind, that’s not what I wanted to—um—I think it’s so crazy all the stuff people get spelled for, because I only wanted a little, uh, you know.” I gestured at my face and twisted the end of my always-smooth hair. “The hekamist was so nice about it, actually. Didn’t try to flatter me and tell me I didn’t need it. I appreciated that. When you’re ugly you’re ugly, you know?”
Sometimes when I’m talking I wish I’d gotten more spells than beauty. Wit, for example. Ari spoke so fast I couldn’t always follow her. Then when I’d try to keep up, I ended up saying nonsense.
“You weren’t ugly,” Diana said.
“Oh, yeah, well, you have to say that.” I laughed, and the sound was whipped away by wind almost immediately.
“Hey,” Ari said. Her expression turned fierce, and even though she’s half a foot shorter than me, I shrank back. “Don’t be like that. You’re great. We’re all great, okay?”
Diana giggled. “I’m so awesome I can hardly stand it.”
“Yes! Diana gets it.” Ari turned to me, her face set. “The thing is, Kay, I’m awesome and I’m not friends with people who aren’t awesome, ergo, etcetera. Can you be on board with that?”
I didn’t really have any idea what she was talking about, but it sounded wonderful, whatever it was—it sounded like a promise—so I nodded and said, “Yes.”
We kept walking, three friends, out late celebrating on our miserable little island.
And I could picture the next few months so clearly, I nearly burst with it. I had friends who liked me and who’d be there for me and who’d defend me—even against myself.
We had almost turned the corner away from the hekamist’s house when the full picture of the future came into focus. We would be best friends, and summer would come, and they would leave me. Diana for horse camp. Ari for the Manhattan Ballet.
Meanwhile, it would be summertime in Cape Cod. Happy people spilling out of the hotels and rentals and beaches and shops.
Only I’d be alone.
I stopped walking.
They stopped a step or two later. Turned and faced me. Ari’s small, sharp, dramatic face and Diana’s smooth skin and large eyes and long, thick, dark blond hair. They were naturally beautiful; they would never quite understand what it was like to not be. But I loved them for not understanding, for insisting that their worldview was the right one, despite my years of evidence to the contrary.
“You okay, Kay?” Ari asked, and elbowed Diana at her own joke.
“Fine,” I said. “Fine. Actually, I’m awesome. I know that now.”
Reassured, they kept walking. I looked back at the hekamist’s house and made a decision.
When it was light, I would come back. I would knock on the door and not be afraid. I would take the cash from my mother’s wallet and ask for exactly what I needed.
And I did. Four days later, I gave Ari and Diana each a cookie baked for friendship and got to keep my best friends.
Once they’d taken the spell, they couldn’t leave me. Within the week, Diana’s horse camp closed because of bedbugs and Ari’s aunt decided they wouldn’t move to New York until the beginning of August, right before Ari’s apprenticeship started.
I didn’t want to change who they were—didn’t want to force them to feel things they didn’t feel. The spell wasn’t about making something out of nothing and inventing a whole relationship. Instead, I could be me and they could be them, only they spell would nudge them to me at least once every three days, and they wouldn’t be able to go more than fifty miles away, and luck and chance would bend them to me like flowers growing toward the sun. The hekamist called it a hook.
They would be loyal. They would be constant. They wouldn’t leave me to go traveling the world. They couldn’t leave me—the spell kept them near.
My spells worked better than I could’ve ever imagined. I had Diana and Ari and a better face and I was happy. As long as their lives went a little bit badly, we were together.
THE DAY BEFORE