What Gifts She Carried Read online

  Everyone needed to see it, whether they were Sorceress, human, or werewolf. They needed to see the Trammeler Sorceress marked by death riding around town on her bicycle at mad speeds to try to find a way to save them all. Maybe it would spark a touch of sympathy for someone so young to have this much responsibility. And maybe they’d even offer to help. Jo was right—I needed help, and I would invite everyone to my pity party if they could offer me some kind of clue to keep alive.

  “Our Trammeler,” the librarian said in a squeaky voice, “you shouldn’t be here.”

  The news about Tram must’ve travelled fast through the blab chain. I guessed everybody knew I’d unofficially taken his place, too.

  “Then where should I be?” It came out as a shout when I really didn’t mean it to. I couldn’t blame this guy for being scared of me.

  Everyone stopped and stared at the crazy goth-punk girl with a tattoo and glass in her hair. One mother standing next to the new releases with her kid covered his eyes to hide him from the terror that was me.

  The librarian’s face reddened as he adjusted his wire glasses and waved me to the side of the circulation desk. “I didn’t mean to offend, but wherever you go, they could come, too.” He leaned in close enough for me to smell the onions dipped in the nuclear explosion of garlic seasoning he’d had for lunch. “I know what happened in the basement here.”

  “Well, as long as I’m not bleeding, I think we’ll be okay,” I said, leaning away from him and his lunch breath.

  With pursed lips, he tracked his gaze over all the fresh cuts on my arms from that morning’s meeting with the screen door.

  “As long as I’m not bleeding a lot, I think we’ll be okay,” I said. “Listen, I need to see Mrs. Star. Is she here?” Mrs. Star worked in the basement and had helped rid me of my three tattoo the first time I’d sported it, but One and Two had showed up and wreaked havoc.

  He shook his head. “She hasn’t been here since they came. She said something about going to find a garden to end all this once and for all.”

  “A garden?” I paused while that mother who’d shielded her son’s eyes ushered him past and out the door at a run. “Well, do you have any spell books?”

  “There isn’t really such a thing as those except for the one on...” He leaned in again, and I turned my head away from his killer breath. “Dark magic. Resurrection.”

  “I’ll take it.” It twisted my gut to think I’d been there and done that in terms of dark magic, but I was running out of options. I would use whatever worked—light, dark, or clear, the color of magic didn’t matter.

  “We only have one in the basement.” He reached for a slip of paper and pencil next to a computer and scribbled down a title.

  “Resurrection: Dark Magic to Bring Back...” I started to read and then pressed my fingertips to my eyes to gouge the words out of them. “I know that one already.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s the only one we have. It’s funny you’ve read that one, though.”

  I glared up at him so the spots exploding behind my eyes from all the gouging would stop. “Funny?”

  “Not funny,” he said, shaking his head and pushing his lips together tight. “Curious is the better word for it since it was written by...” He scrawled something else on the paper.

  Gretchen, it read.

  “She wrote it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “As kind of an instruction manual for her sister, I think, in case she was ever captured. The book is even dedicated to her sister.”

  I’d never bothered to look at anything other than the title because the whole thing made me sick. So Gretchen must’ve known she would be caught by Trammelers at some point.

  “What was One’s real name?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  He scribbled something else onto the paper. Did he think they would show up if he called them by their name or something? What did he think this was? A scene from Before Merlin’s Beard?

  “Gabriella Mason,” I read. “It sounds so normal.”

  “The book is rare,” the librarian said. “We found one on eBay, though, so we bought it.”

  “I think I will check it out. And do you have any books about lilacs?”

  THE PUNGENT SMELL OF death drowned in buckets of bleach burned my nose. The last time I’d set foot inside a hospital, it was to see Grandma—Dad’s mom—and I promised myself I would never come back. Tubes came out of places they shouldn’t. Bright curtains dividing the beds did nothing to cheer the stark white rooms or clear them of the gloom that clung to the sick and dying. The constant beeping machines and drone of doctors and nurses made me want to punch someone in the throat.

  But I didn’t. All I wanted to do was get in, see Mrs. Rios, and get out. She lay in the bed closest to the window in the room. A stupid happy face curtain shielded her so I couldn’t even see from my post by the door.

  “Family or friend?” a chipper voice asked from behind me.

  I turned to see a nurse not much older than me in dyed black pigtails and black nail polish. “Um...student.”

  She nodded. “It’s nice of you to come. She’s doing better. She’s responding well to stimulus, so hopefully it won’t be too long before she can get out of here.”

  “So...” I swallowed, looking back inside at the dizzying number of smiley faces. “I can talk to her?”

  “Yep. You can go on in whenever you’re ready. Wicked tattoo by the way.”

  “Um, thanks,” I whispered as she smiled and walked away.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside the room. Thankfully the bed next to hers was empty so I didn’t have to walk past someone and be all awkward about it.

  I peeked around the happy face curtain, just in case I had the wrong room number. She lay there next to a beeping machine with tubes sticking out of her nose.

  “Mrs. Rios?” I whispered. “It’s me. Leigh. Leigh Baxton from school? What used to be school anyway...”

  Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. A lock of dark hair had worked its way loose from behind her ear and streaked across her bruised and cut face next to her eye. She was always shaking her head to get hair off her face. That chunk was probably driving her nuts. I stepped to the side of the bed and smoothed it back.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened to you and...Ms. Hansen.”

  She didn’t know Ms. Hansen was dead. How could she? But even if she could hear me, now wasn’t the time to tell her about that or that I’d been chosen as Three. She needed to heal before I hurt her even worse.

  “I wish I knew who attacked you that night Ica was resurrected. Her great aunts? Someone else in Gretchen’s cult?” I sighed and reached for her bandaged hand. Tons of questions and very few answers seemed to be the story of my life.

  “I’ll do the best I can to make everything right...” I let the ‘but’ and everything after linger in my mouth until I swallowed back the sharp tang of doubt.

  Her thumb twitched over mine, and for the briefest second, she squeezed my hand. That tiny bit of effort brought a smile to my face and lessened some of that bitter doubt. She believed in me, even with my terrible Spanish pronunciation and less than stellar magical skills, she still believed in me. She was the last Sorceress left on my side, and even though she couldn’t help me, I could help her.

  I dug in my zipper pocket for the scrap of wax paper with a few dead lilac petals pressed between its fold. When they were dead, they couldn’t hurt me. But when they were alive and kept alive even from a sort of dead Trammeler Sorceresses like me, they worked at keeping dark magic away. I found that out in the book I’d checked out from the library.

  The lilacs Mom planted outside the house prevented anyone who’d used dark magic to come too close, which explained Darby’s aversion to the front door. She must have had a run-in with them, too. Now that I’d used dark magic, I would never be able to get near them again, either. That fact crushed me, almost as much as Mom’s death. Their ear-lobe soft petals held so many memories of her, as though
they’d captured her love way down in their roots.

  Mrs. Rios’s mouth opened with a plopping sound as I tilted her chin down with my thumb. I dumped the petals inside and gently closed her mouth again. Whatever happened tonight, they would protect her from dark magic.

  “Break the ties that bind you to death,” I whispered, and then I shot out of there before the lilacs could laser me down.

  I OBEYED MOST OF THE stop signs and stuck to the side streets, the pump of my legs trying to keep time with my heartbeat. Deep breaths filled my aching lungs, but it was a good kind of hurt inside them. Not like Death’s scythe biting into my neck a little more with every drop of the sun, a constant reminder that time was just about out.

  This would be my last stop of the day before Darby came home. When I turned onto Sarah’s street, her lawn slowed my pace. Just days before, it had looked like the Wizard of Oz designed both our yards, even though neither of us lived on a yellow brick road, but now darkness blanketed the grass. Branches of the naked tree looked like twisted, broken fingers bending toward the black trunk. Lily wasn’t here to fix her yard anymore. She’d been a good friend to Sarah, and Sarah deserved to know about it.

  Over the regular wooden fence on each side of the house, someone had built a barbed wire one that stretched up from the ground and curled over the top so no one could climb up. Three-inch long metal spikes that reminded me of thorns jutted out in all directions from top to bottom. Someone really wanted to keep people out. And Sarah in.

  I checked my back pocket as I wheeled up the empty driveway to make sure what I needed was still there. This should’ve been done a long time ago.

  The porch steps creaked under my boots. Boards blocked the windows along the front of the house, probably to keep the neighborhood kids from spying on the scary dead girl.

  Before my finger made it to the doorbell, the door opened as far as the chain on the other side would let it. Blue eyes squinted through the crack. Over the top of a rifle barrel aimed at my face.

  My heartbeat skipped. “Whoa.” I held up my hands and backed down the stairs. “I just want to see Sarah.” My boot didn’t quite catch the step, though, and I tumbled down the rest of the way. Thankfully, I caught myself on the railing before I crashed into the sidewalk.

  “Who are you?” a voice behind the gun demanded.

  “I’m Leigh. I’m a friend of Sarah’s.” As soon as the words tumbled from my mouth, I knew them to be true. In every sense of the word, Sarah was my friend, and I would scream it from the rooftops if it meant that gun would point somewhere else. “She knows me. She’s been trying to help me. All I want to do is talk to her.”

  “Are you a scientist?”

  “I...I’m pretty sure I failed science. Or I was failing before my school burned down, so...” I swallowed, mentally slapping myself. Of course I couldn’t go with a simple no answer.

  The door slammed. I sagged against the railing in defeat. All I needed to do was see Sarah for five minutes. But then the door opened again, and a blonde woman who might’ve looked like Sarah once tipped the gun down to my boots.

  I allowed myself a small exhale. If she still decided to shoot me, she would at least blow off my feet instead of my head. Not much of a trade, but I would take it. I kept my gaze locked on the woman, trying to ignore the gun and hoping she would, too.

  Deep frown lines around the woman’s mouth pulled at her face to give her a constant pissed-off look. Blonde hair streaked with silver fell limply past her shoulders, but it still shined just as much as Sarah’s used to. Blue eyes with lashes clumped with too much mascara gave me a harsh once over.

  “Leigh Baxton, right?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “You mom was buried just after my baby...” Her mouth kept moving but nothing else came out. She blinked at a spot on the porch while her whole being seemed to crumble before my eyes.

  “She was,” I said, but didn’t know what else to say. Sarah’s mom and I had a lot in common. We’d both lost someone, and they’d both come back. But if Mom hadn’t been buried in her grave again, I would be aiming rifles at people’s faces, too. I dared to move so I could stand up straight. “Um, Mrs. Henderson, all I want to do is talk to her.”

  “She’s dead. She can’t talk.”

  “Well...does it matter really?”

  A strand of blonde hair fell across her cheek. Her frown lifted some, and her whole face softened, making her look about ten years younger. “She’ll always be my baby. No matter what.” She fell silent for a long moment while she rolled her lips over each other.

  “Come inside,” she said and held the door open wider with her hip, still armed but pointing the gun at the sky. The door gave an awful creak, and her gaze stuck on the hinges while I edged past her.

  “Matthew promised he’d fix these so they don’t squeal.” She blinked at my face and must’ve seen a question there. “My husband. Sarah’s father. He packed up a moving van and left after...” She glanced over her shoulder, through the living room and dining room, and out the sliding glass window. “She’s in the shed in the backyard.”

  A heaviness pinched my stomach. She’d been banished to the shed? I swallowed and stepped over the tiles near the front door, wondering if I should take my boots off before I went any further, but a quick glance at the piles of mail on the coffee table and dirty dishes on the couch hinted that I didn’t need to worry about that.

  The door squawked shut, and Mrs. Henderson led the way through the living room. As soon as she opened the sliding glass door, dead Sarah stink rushed for my nose and took my breath. A shed squatted in the far corner of the small backyard, surrounded by dead grass.

  “Just knock when you’re ready to leave,” Mrs. Henderson said.

  “Thanks,” I whispered, and it mingled with the other faint ones that came from the shed. The closer I drew, the more powerful the smell became. I brought my sleeve to my nose to fight off a gag. Each crumbly step tossed my stomach.

  How could she and her mom live like this? Maybe a third of my bedroom could fit inside the shed, if that. This couldn’t be the life Sarah wanted even if she was dead.

  My knock vibrated over the metal door. It didn’t take long for her to open it, and when she did, the smell doubled me over. I propped my fists on my knees and wished the nauseous feeling away. The smell had lived in there with her for who knew how long, growing in intensity in the enclosed space.

  Eventually my stomach settled enough so I could straighten and offer a small wave to Sarah. She gazed at me with her sad blue eyes while her frantic whispers spun around my head.

  The sun brightened the inside of the shed enough to see over Sarah’s bony shoulder. Thousands and thousands of those green pine-scented air fresheners dangled from the ceiling and walls, probably more for her mom’s benefit than Sarah’s. A cot lined the right side. Behind it stood a small table with a lamp on top, and next to that sat a straight-backed chair. A dresser decorated the wall opposite the bed, and above it hung a framed picture of Jesus. Rakes and various sized shovels hung on either side of him.

  “Sarah...” Where to start?

  Her gaze had caught on my red hair, and then she seemed to search the curves of my three tattoo for answers. Her whispers became frenzied.

  “Everything’s so screwed up, and I played a huge part in making it that way. And I can’t help but wonder if you wouldn’t have been trapped here, if you could’ve helped me avoid some of it because...you’ve helped me so much already,” I said and dug in my pocket to fish out the wire cutters I’d taken from my garage. “So, it’s my turn to help you.” I held them out to her until her skinny, pale fingers closed over the handle. “You can cut your way out. Maybe find a loose board in the fence or open the gate and cut a hole there if you think your mom won’t notice. That way you can go visit your baby any time you want to.”

  Her sad eyes met mine, and there seemed to be a glimmer of hope there.

  “Ryan Henderson is your baby, huh? His grav
estone is perfect and you should see it. But I...I don’t remember ever seeing you pregnant.”

  She looked down at the dead grass. Even though I couldn’t hear her endless silent scream, I could feel the pain radiating from her in waves.

  “You lost the baby somehow, and that’s why you committed suicide.”

  She tracked a finger over the blazing red cut over her arm like she was confirming what I said or remembering what it had felt like.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah,” I said softly. “And you didn’t tell anyone, not even your closest friends. But Lily was a better friend than you might’ve thought. I bet you could’ve talked to her about everything and she would’ve kept it a secret. She was the one who brought your yard back.”

  Sarah looked up sharply. Lily really had been good at keeping secrets.

  “But Lily...” Maybe Sarah didn’t need to know everything. Maybe somehow she already did. I cleared my throat. “She can’t do that anymore, but I watched her do it. Once I leave, I’ll bring your yard back, but I just have one more thing.” I rooted through my pocket until I found the wax paper with the lilacs inside and handed it to Sarah. “This is for protection from One and Ica, but I don’t know if it will work on you with you being dead and all. It might even hurt you.”

  Her grip on the wax paper loosened, and she glanced from me to it and back again.

  “It’s for protection against dark magic, but I don’t think you have an ounce of dark inside you.” Even though she was resurrected by dark magic. I chewed at the inside of my cheek, staring at the contents through the see-through paper. “How much do you trust me?”

  Sarah’s hold tightened on the paper then she unfolded it on the palm of her hand.

  I smiled and started to back away. “That’s good. Now, put them in your mouth if you’re feeling particularly brave.”

  She did.

  When I stood in front of the sliding glass door, I called out, “Thanks for being my friend, Sarah” and then, once outside on her front lawn, I said the words that would bring everything except her back to life, if only for a little while until her gloom killed it again.