There’s a rattling coming from the closet near the stairs to Uncle Jed’s shining room, and my cousin Ben emerges with our mop, the loop-ends so dark they look like tangled strands of a witch’s wig. He slaps it on the floor, over that same spot he always cleans, where one of Jed’s lightweight regulars lost control on a shot of Jed’s shine last year and got sick in the corner. The government says this place won’t be ours anymore in a few weeks, but Ben and I have both become experts at living in denial.
“Just forget it,” I say. “That stain’s never coming out.”
“Gotta try, right? In case the Drummond loan officer shows up?” Ben huffs and puffs as he sends the mop slogging across the thick plank floor.
I let a tiny bubble of hope rise inside my chest, despite how smart it may be to pop it. “You got Jed to finally sign the paperwork?”
Ben doesn’t meet my eyes, and the thrusts of the mop become stronger. “No, I had to forge it.”
I nearly sling back what I really think of Jed, but somehow I manage to bite my tongue. Ain’t Ben’s fault his pop’s a waste of breath and bones. Besides, the peace under our roof is delicate, something that needs to be handled with care. “I guess considering all the ways we’re breaking the law, forgery’s the least of our worries,” I say, and start slotting the glasses underneath the bar.
“Here’s hoping to God this bank man pulls through, Joan. ’Cause I don’t think we’ve got another option.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, to remind us both. “We always do.” And it’s the truth. We will, because we have to. Because that’s my charge—to fight and scrape my family out of the hole Uncle Jed and I dug them into.
But Ben doesn’t answer. Most probably ’cause everything that could be said has already been said before. We’ve had this conversation over a dozen times since Uncle Jed got the cabin repossession notice. Not that we know exactly when it came—Jed stumbled out one night he was half-fit enough to work and shoved the crumpled thing under Ben’s nose, mumbling about not understanding the “legalese.”
“I’m opening. You ready?” Ben flicks off the lock on the door across from the bar. He takes the little sign off the floor that says OPEN FOR BUSINESS and hangs it from the nail on the outside. “Fridays always bring the best crowd. If we can get my pop downstairs on time for the early performance, we’ve got a chance of making a few bucks before Charlie opens.”
Charlie is Charlie Newman, the only other sorcerer in Parsonage besides Jed, at least since Mama passed six months ago. Charlie’s shining room is our only real competition—next one’s someplace about ten miles south on the way to Drummond—and his place puts our dingy basement to shame. I’ve heard it has an honest-to-God performance stage with bleachers around it for his tricks, a couple cozy chairs for settling in for his sorcerer’s shine that’s always served after. Not that we ever worried about Charlie before: people don’t come to shining rooms for bleachers and cozy chairs. They come for magic, in and out of the bottle, and Jed used to perform circles around Charlie.
But then Jed got hooked on drinking his own shine, got all cracked up. And the night of Mama’s death broke him wide open. Just like the rest of us under this roof.
“Ruby still resting?”
Ben nods. “Thought I’d let her be.”
“All right, go on, straighten up downstairs,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I duck under the bar and walk through the flap door that leads to the front half of our cabin. Uncle Jed’s bedroom is closed off like always, his thin, grating wheeze throttling behind the door like a failing steam train. Across the stub of a hall is the room I share with Ruby and Ben. I don’t knock, ’cause I don’t want to startle my sister. I just crack it open and quietly slip in.
The room feels thick, hot and dark like a mouth, tastes like sweat and heavy sleeping. Our three cots swallow most of the room, so I kneel down at the corner of Ruby’s and slide my way around till I can see her little face. It’s slack, her breath long and deep. Ruby hasn’t had a real fever in almost a month, but she still lies around here most of the day. Town doc wrote it off as the sleepy sickness, since he can’t figure out what’s wrong with her. But his field is science, not magic. And I know too well what magic can do, why it’s even more dangerous than the lawmen touted when they got on their soapboxes about the need for the Eighteenth Amendment. How it’s a living, breathing thing, something that makes ties and connections, appreciates sacrifice, a power that can have a mind of its own. It’s Mama’s old tracking spell that’s poisoning Ruby, the last traces of Mama’s blood still swimming inside of my sister, the magic that once let Mama keep close tabs on spirited Ruby’s whereabouts now a foreign, powerful poison. But the blood’s hold won’t last forever, and Ruby’s body is fighting it. She’s getting better, I know it, I can see it, she’ll survive.
“Ruby.” I gently shake her. “Ruby, you need something to eat? Shining room’s opening.” She doesn’t move, so I carefully touch her forehead. She’s soft and warm. Six years old and sleepy, flushed perfection.
“Joan?” Ruby finally flutters her eyes.
“Did you take some of the dinner I left in the kitchen before you rested?”