“Look,” she said finally, expression a hair softer than before. “I’ll give you a break. If you can come up with four thousand, we can call it even.”
I thought of the money I’d saved working at the Sweet Shoppe, and the money I’d pocketed from not buying new pointe shoes all the time. Still, I didn’t even have a quarter of that. “I might be able to get you a thousand.”
Echo bit her bottom lip and ran her right hand up and down her left arm. Finally she shook her head. “Not good enough. I need at least four to be sure, and I need it now.” She muttered to herself something that sounded like, “Running out of time.”
“You should take my thousand and leave me alone. Four thousand imaginary dollars is the same as five thousand imaginary dollars. Might as well make it five hundred thousand. I can’t pay.”
“How do you think this is going to go?” she asked, leaning onto the glass countertop so she could whisper. There was a line forming behind her, but I didn’t dare tell her to leave, even with my manager glaring from the register. “I was at the funeral. It was packed, but I saw you up front with his mom and sister, pretending to be sad. Pretending you gave a shit. Everyone saw you. Everyone felt so bad for you. The whole town came out, all of them pitying poor Ari Madrigal. People with real grief. People who were actually sad—who are still sad, and who don’t know what to do about it.” The tremor in her voice came through despite the whisper. She blinked rapidly and leaned in closer. “What do you think’s going to be their reaction when I tell them all that you were faking it all along? That you took a spell to make things easier for yourself? That you never deserved someone like Win in the first place?”
“Please . . . don’t,” I said. The pointlessness of asking made me wince.
“It’s not up to me. I’m already giving you a break.”
“I’m trying!”
“People pity you, but everybody loved Win. You may not remember, but I do. Everyone. Loved. Win. Are you ready for people to hate you instead of pity you?”
The people in the line behind her started to grumble. I could see my manager out of the corner of my eye, frowning. “I don’t have it.”
“Really? No spare insurance money lurking around? Nothing your aunt couldn’t lend you?”
“We’re moving to New York in two weeks. We need that money.”
Her face twisted. “Right. New York.”
“To dance. I got accepted to the Manhattan Ballet junior corps.” I was going to New York. I had to go to New York. I didn’t know why I was explaining myself to Echo, but I repeated myself to make the words sound true. “I’m going to be a dancer.”
“So get out, then. Leave.” She said it like a dare. “Doesn’t matter if everyone knows your secret if you’re gone, right? Go ahead.” I didn’t say anything, and she tapped the glass once more for emphasis. “If you’re still here, though, you’re going to owe me. One more week.”
She left, and I should’ve gone straight back to bend, scoop, plop, extend. The line of customers approached and made their orders, expecting me to obey. My manager turned back to the register, content now that the black cloud was gone.
But I didn’t keep working. My mind raced, totally out of the rhythm. I dropped the scoop into a tub of chocolate and took off after Echo, not even bothering to remove my pink frilly apron.
I followed her past the downtown shops, through the residential neighborhood where Markos and Diana lived, past the high school, across the playing fields, and straight to the old hekamist’s house. Echo unlocked the door and went inside.
Echo lived there too.
The hekamist’s daughter. She’d said she had one—I remembered her mentioning it, in one of the only full memories I have of the day I got my spell.
I sat across the road and watched the house. Sad, shuffling people came and went, but no Echo. When the door opened, I caught sight of the hekamist.
So that was how Echo knew about my spell. Maybe the whole thing was some sort of con they were running, a mother-daughter grift, the hekamist making spells for people and then the daughter asking them to pay to keep the secret.
At one point, Echo left the house again. But the hekamist kept answering the door, ushering people in and out. Probably offering them a cup of tea.
When it started to get dark, the hekamist opened the door to no one, and stood on the front steps staring at me.
After thirty seconds of eye contact, she began to cross the street. She took every step deliberately, watching me the whole way. I tried to stand, but my balance was all off and my feet tingled painfully, and so I wobbled in the dirt.
“I thought it was you,” she said.
“It’s me.”
“The ballet dancer. Are you ballet dancing again?”
“No. I still can’t.”
“Traded it in. Lost and gained. Prices paid.” She spoke casually, with the intonations of a regular conversation but none of its meaning.