“Okay then.”
Then on Monday he handed me the envelope in between fourth and fifth periods. I put it in my locker and felt it beating like a heart all day.
But then what did I do? Did I go to Echo’s house and hand it over right away? Did I finally feel like I had permission to bite into the sandwich slowly growing stale in my sock drawer? Did I do anything at all?
No.
First I took it home, emptied the bills out of the envelope onto my bed, and stared at the pile—more money than I’d ever seen in my life, all in one place. It was so much more than I’d imagined it would be. A towering stack. Twenties, mostly, but also some wrinkly tens and fives and ones and a fake-looking hundred—fake-looking because a hundred-dollar bill was one of those things that only fictional rich people in movies ever had in their wallet.
Five thousand dollars could buy Kara braces. It could get my mom a new (used) car, to replace the one that kept stalling out at intersections. If I put it in a savings account it could make more money just sitting there. Five thousand dollars would make my mother so happy, or at least relieve her of worry for a few days or weeks. I could help her—not be a burden for once.
But I was planning on using it to make myself happy instead.
So selfish. Such a waste.
The same five thousand dollars could help Echo get out of town, find other hekamists, and convince them to save her mother’s life. Save her own life, too. Save mine.
So how was I supposed to weigh it? My mother and Kara versus Echo and her mother—it didn’t seem fair to choose. Or should I have ignored all that and just chosen for me?
I stuffed the money back into the envelope. I heard my mother at the front door, calling my name. I tucked the envelope into my waistband and pulled down my shirt.
If she found the money on me or in my room, she’d want to know where I had gotten it. She would assume something terrible: drugs or thievery or worse. She’d blame herself for being a bad mom. She’d want to talk about it, and get me to tell her what it meant.
And that, in the end, is what decided it. How would I explain to her where I’d gotten the sudden windfall? She’d be humiliated if she knew I took it from Markos. It would ruin the happy feeling of giving her something to help make her life easier.
Later that night, I went to Ari’s. While she was talking to her aunt, I hid the envelope at the very back of her closet in a half-crumpled empty shoebox. I knew I could always retrieve it from the box if necessary and my mom wouldn’t accidentally find it and ask questions. Keeping it with Ari and out of my house made me feel less like a selfish dick, less like I’d chosen myself over my family. I could put the money almost out of my mind completely.
Getting close to the end here. The final wrap-up. I had the money, the spell, I had Markos and Ari and Echo, everything’s seconds away from resolving perfectly—the pop-up fly to end the inning sailing straight for me.
It’s the calm before it all falls apart.
PART IV
Three days after Kay’s birthday (three days after the day I was supposed to move to New York), I fell over while trying to fouetté in my bedroom. I hadn’t talked to Diana or Kay since that dinner, and I’d been avoiding Jess and her suddenly endless supply of well-meaning hugs since she made me go to Dr. Pitts. I hadn’t gone to Echo’s house, either, even though I knew she said she was ready to make me the spell—something about our last conversation had unsettled me, not knowing what she and Win were cooking up, not knowing how I was supposed to react. So in my little isolated bubble I had a lot of time to worry that every stubbed toe, missed stair, and paper cut was the work of a malicious spell.
When I fell, I landed on my bed, pushing the mattress out of alignment with the box spring. A journal that had been stuck in between fell out onto the floor, an unfamiliar book hidden in an unfamiliar spot full of very familiar handwriting. I rubbed my hip where I’d landed and sat on the floor to read it.
Looking at the journal, I could dredge up a memory of placing it under the bed, in that distant removed way I recalled a lot of the past year. I could not remember having written anything in the book, but it was full of my handwriting. I opened the notebook with the same curiosity that made me stare at the dance videos: maybe this would finally explain why I’d done what I’d done.
But the journal didn’t explain. Not exactly.
In the front of the book there was the jagged edge of a page ripped out—where I had written the note to myself the night I took my spell. Then, near the middle, a few pages were written in cramped letters.