Toil & Trouble Page 12

  “Hi, Blythe,” I whisper, even though she can’t respond. “It’s me, Queenie.”

  My hands are sweaty; I wipe them on my jeans. Then I crack my knuckles. I look at the clock. The nurse will be back any minute. I have to start now if I’m going to do this.

  I get as close to the bed as I can. I close my eyes like Big Queenie did, and hold my hands above Blythe. I start at her head, searching for the same energy that my aunt conjured, trying my best to focus only on the task. But my hands are shaking. All I can think of is Becca and how she never left the hospital. How she was in a room just like this because of me.

  I feel stupid standing like this, but I let my shoulders relax and my hands hover closer. And I feel something. It’s not strong, but it’s there. An invisible spark that keeps flickering in and out of the air, like a lantern that won’t quite click on.

  I move my hands to her head, letting the energy guide me. It’s still flickering, but it never disappears. It gets stronger as my hands move above the bandaged spot. I hold my breath because I feel something. If I can just hang on to this, maybe I can help her. Webb would be so happy. He would understand how much I care for him and—

  The spark dies. My hands go cold, and that feeling—that energy—leaves me. I’m back in the present with the beeping machines and a motionless Blythe.

  Shit.

  I try again, but it doesn’t come back. I lost it. And I can’t help wondering if maybe I’m a failure when it comes to using my powers for good.

  Webb is pacing in the hallway. His eyes widen when he sees me.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Come on, Queenie—”

  “It’s not some moral conundrum,” I say. “I don’t know if I can actually do it. I couldn’t focus. I kept thinking of Becca and—” I stop because I don’t want to say that thinking of him distracted me, too.

  “Becca had congenital heart disease—that’s why she died from pneumonia. Her body was already weak.” Webb puts his hands on my shoulders. “You didn’t kill her, Queenie. Even if the spell worked...you didn’t know she was born with that. You didn’t give her heart disease.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I know so. And I’ve told you that before,” he says.

  He has. Maybe I’m just desperate, but for the first time, I think maybe he could be right. If I didn’t have the power to heal Blythe, why would I have the power to inflict harm on someone?

  “I should go,” I say, my throat stinging. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Webb comes over after dinner.

  He doesn’t call, and I’m pretending to do homework with Nia when the doorbell rings. I don’t look up from my world history book, and Nia silently gets up to see who it is.

  She comes back with Webb in tow. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, and everything pauses as I wonder if he’s going to tell me that Blythe died.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s...the same. I just—My parents are treating me like I’m five, and I need a break from the hospital, but I don’t want to be alone.”

  “We have some food left over from dinner.”

  “That’d be good,” he says. “Hospital food is shit.”

  I start to heat up the leftover pork chops and roasted vegetables, but he takes the plate from me and says he’ll eat it cold. I sit across the table while he wolfs it down. If I’ve barely slept, Webb hasn’t closed his eyes in days. They are so tired, the whites of them so crisscrossed with red, that I wonder if he’ll fall asleep here at the table. He scarfs down the rest of the leftovers, but he still looks hungry, so he polishes off a big bowl of ice cream, too.

  “I’m so tired, Queenie,” he says in a low voice. “I’m so, so tired.”

  “You can sleep in the guest room. There are fresh sheets.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” he repeats.

  “Okay.” And I want so much to be able to turn off my feelings for him. But I can’t help wishing that he was asking to stay in my room because he wanted to continue what we started at that party and not because he’s scared about Blythe.

  Webb kicks off his shoes and immediately crawls into my bed. I start to ask if he needs anything, but before I can speak, he’s already snoring. I finish my homework beside him. I look at his chest rising and falling, at his curly eyelashes pressed to the tops of his cheeks. I smooth a hand over the side of his neck. He doesn’t stir and I pull back my hand. I don’t let myself look at him again.

  In the morning I wake to find him bent over, tying his shoes on the other side of the bed.

  “Are you going to the hospital?”

  “Stopping by home first,” he says. “I gotta shower.”

  I sit up, pulling the covers to my chest. “I can come by later.”

  “Okay,” he says. But he doesn’t sound like he thinks it will make a difference.

  He’s almost to my door when I speak again.

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  His shoulders drop. “Queenie...”

  “You’re my best friend. I deserve to know.”

  He turns around, not quite facing me. He looks at my window, but the blinds are still drawn tight, shutting out the sun.

  “I guess I got caught up in the moment.” His voice softens. “We were drinking and—part of me has always wondered what it would be like, you know? You and me.”

  I inhale deeply, waiting for him to go on.

  “That kiss was...it was great,” he continues. “But it was wrong. I—I love Blythe. I know it hasn’t been that long, but I do. And that was selfish, to kiss you. I love you, too, but just as friends. I’m sorry, Queenie.”

  The silence is awful. It’s not often I don’t know what to say to Webb, but this is one of those times. We both stay frozen until I let out a long, audible breath. I’m not surprised by what he said. I just wish I didn’t have to hear it.

  “I’ll be by after school,” I finally say.

  He nods and leaves my room without another word.

  * * *

  Webb looks even worse when I get to the hospital.

  He’s losing hope, and him not having total faith in me makes me doubt myself. What if I can’t save Blythe? The thought of letting him down makes me want to walk away. But I know I’d be mad at myself forever if I didn’t try to help Webb.

  Blythe is still unmoving in the room full of machines, and it still makes me uncomfortable, but I feel more clearheaded than the last time. As quickly as I think of Becca and Webb, they disappear from my mind. This is about trying to do some good with what I’ve been given. Because as much as I want to will away my powers, I don’t think they’re going anywhere.

  Focus, focus, focus, Big Queenie said.

  I breathe in all the air I can, imagining the calm of Big Queenie and her healing hands.

  “Hi, Blythe,” I say in a strong, clear voice as I approach her. “I’m sorry about what happened. You didn’t deserve any of this.” I pause. “So, I’m here because—what Webb told you is true. My family...we’re healers. I’m a healer and...”

  I want to round out the sentence with something meaningful or poetic, like Big Queenie would, but there’s nothing else to say.

  It’s time to do.

  I close my eyes. My mind is clear: of regret for the past and disappointment in the present and concern about the future. There is no negative energy in me or in this room. Just hope—and more belief in the power within me than I’ve ever had.

  I hold out my hands over her head, and the spark appears instantly. But this time, it stays. Strong and steady and growing. I feel the current in the air, unimpeded by my doubts. I put all my faith, all my energy into healing Blythe.

  Not for her fans or her mother and not even for Webb.

&nbs
p; I do it for me, because if I don’t accept all the parts of myself, how can I be who I really am? I’ve spent all this time worrying about the damage I may have caused instead of focusing on the good I could do.

  The current spreads as I move my hands, and I feel it inside me, too. It feels right, what I’m doing.

  Under my hands, Blythe stirs.

  * * * * *

  THE MOONAPPLE MENAGERIE

  by Shveta Thakrar

  ...[W]alk among long dappled grass,

  And pluck till time and times are done,

  The silver apples of the moon,

  The golden apples of the sun.

  —“The Song of Wandering Aengus,” William Butler Yeats

  STIRRED BY AN enchanted breeze, a ring of trees laden with autumnal fruit shivered and began to rain down their fey bounty: apples with skin the rich gold of afternoon sunshine, apples with skin silver as the moon’s brightest face. But rather than plummet to the earth, these apples soared through the air and departed the clearing, shining heralds of the Moonapple Menagerie’s latest production.

  Though she had watched Sabrina cast this spell four times now, ever since their coven had formed as many summers ago, Shalini still loved it. Only those adventurous enough to eat the edible invitations—the dreamers, the poets and artists, those bored and searching for something more—would get the details of the upcoming performance. With one exception, their little coven never knew who it would be. “Works better than any flyer.”

  “I still want to eat one,” Sabrina told Shalini and Gabrielle as the three of them settled over the grassy hill in their animal forms—Sabrina a barn owl, Gabrielle a fluffy fox, and Shalini a gleaming green-black serpent—and gazed up at the vividly painted open-air stage. “Or maybe five. I bet they taste like fairy tales.”

  “I almost did,” Gabrielle confessed, the orange-red of her soft pelt the same color as her flowing hair in human form. “I was really hungry, and my sandwich looked boring, so I was this close to eating a golden one.” Sabrina swatted at her vulpine nose, and Gabrielle yelped. “But I didn’t! Why do I need an invitation to my own party?”

  Madhu rolled up on her red mobility scooter, which she’d decorated with stickers and rhinestones. Even the crutches nestled in the back had been woven through with bits of feather boas. Madhu herself wore shimmering silk salwar kameez in all the shades of her peacock aspect, along with a matching feather crown that set off the medium brown of her skin. “I finished our costume designs! Just wait until you see.”

  “You guys, you guys!” Bianca came scampering down the hill, layers of black frilly skirts and ornate necklaces flying behind her. With her purple-tipped hair and rainbow highlighter on her pale cheeks, she looked like her animal aspect should be a unicorn rather than the black cat it actually was. “The emotion’s going to be amazing! Wait until we’re fighting the mermaids. It’ll feel like it’s really happening.”

  “You did it!” Shalini bared her fangs in a grin. Normally they staged classical dramas from around the world, with spells going back generations through each of their family lines, the formulas preserved in bottles and books. But this year, the coven was trying something new. Shalini had written an original play, which meant they had to make everything up from raw magic.

  “The spells are in my rings, ready to go, just like Gabrielle’s.” Bianca held up a hand to display the poison rings that contained spells like smoke, waiting to be dispersed.

  Sabrina fluttered over to Bianca’s shoulder, then used a wing to pat Bianca’s head. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

  Bianca gestured in the direction of the bone palace not far from the Moonapple Menagerie, where a yakshini and her sisterhood of strange creatures dwelled. “Do you think she ever eats the apple?”

  Each summer the coven sent one invitation to the bone palace in thanks for the yakshini allowing them to host their theater in her woods, and each summer the mysterious nature spirit failed to respond.

  Shalini pressed her lips together. Everyone in the coven had seen the bone palace and marveled at the grace of its whorls and scalloped arches, but only she had ventured into the foyer. Only she knew for certain that the previous years’ apples sat untouched on a marble table. “She probably has better things to do.”

  She did wonder, though, what a yakshini could possibly do with her evenings that made even the prospect of luminous fruit and outdoor musicals seem dull in comparison. Maybe their next play could be about that—if Shalini could get this one right first.

  “Costume time!” Madhu waited for everyone to take human shape, then cast a light cantrip and tossed a handful of flower petals into the air. The petals transformed into illusions of fine gowns that settled firmly over the other girls, so Madhu could measure and adjust and snip as necessary before spell-sewing the real garments into being. “Shoes and jewelry are coming as soon as I get these altered,” she promised, a virtual pin already in her mouth.

  But even Madhu’s gorgeous new designs couldn’t distract Shalini from the fact that the play wasn’t finished. Her coven sisters trusted her enough to go ahead and announce production. They believed she would come up with the perfect ending before opening night, just a week away. For now, they had been rehearsing with a placeholder conclusion.

  While everyone else gushed in delight over Madhu’s creations, Shalini fretted. Her friends were counting on her, but her creative well felt as dry and stale as week-old cake. What if they were wrong? What if she couldn’t do it?

  Shalini wished there was a spell for silencing the doubts in her head. Some things, though, you had to do without your sisters.

  That was why she would never tell them she’d petitioned the bone palace for help.

  * * *

  That night, Shalini rested on the edge of the stage, bathed in the soft silver-white glow of the full moon. Legend held it wasn’t the same moon as outside the woods, but one hung by a human woman and the yakshini of the bone palace. The human had mosaicked the moon together from wishes ungranted, dreams unspoken, and milky moonstones, and in return, the yakshini had welcomed the woman into her strange sisterhood.

  Was it true? Shalini couldn’t say. Still, she loved the idea of it, and she often drank up the moon’s intoxicating radiance, stirring it into her thoughts and letting it illuminate her heart. The storytelling spell worked with any light, but there was something special about the softness of moonbeams.

  Shalini hoped, her hope fierce and bright, that the moon would light her way now. She turned and let her eyes skim over the blue-and-green theater walls. Gabrielle had been so proud when she’d finished painting the gold and silver apples and the winding yellow ribbon inscribed with the last four lines of the Yeats poem that gave the Moonapple Menagerie its name. Together, the coven had put on three successful performances here. Her play would be the fourth—Shalini would make sure of it.

  After chanting a quick mantra to the goddess Sarasvati, divine patroness of the arts, she opened her jewel-encrusted journal to a blank page.

  Shalini’s play was about a group of intrepid explorers on a quest. They would travel through the ocean, an ice dragon’s crystal cave, and the night sky to return a bracelet of shining stars that had fallen from the heavens. They would battle mermaids and makaras and nagas and sea witches, sometimes through fighting, but mostly through clever wrangling of words and wit. It had promise.

  But what Shalini didn’t know, and what she’d been hoping to discover before anyone else realized she didn’t know, was the heart of this story. Why did it matter if these explorers got the starry bracelet back to the apsara who’d lost it? What was at stake? To find the ending, she had to figure that out first.

  When she wrote, Shalini reached deep into the fertile field of her imagination, digging until she found the roots of her story, then grafting branches grown from many different seeds onto the plant—and sometimes undoing the graf
ts—and finally pruning until she reached the desired shape. Sometimes everything fell into place, and inspiration surged, effortless, from her brain to the pen, producing a faerie tree like a sunset, with leaves in pinks and purples and oranges and reds. Those times felt like soaring through the cosmos on wings that would never tire. Other times, all that work resulted in a misshapen, rotting mess only good for firewood, and she couldn’t grab the lighter fluid soon enough.

  This play was fast veering into firewood territory.

  The rest of the coven had already gone home. She should be having dinner with her family, too, eating the masala khichdi her dad had made. Yet how could she worry about eating when she had to fix this?

  Her coven was the best thing she’d ever had. Her throat ached at the thought of losing it.

  The others were all so sure of themselves, so comfortable in their roles. Sure, they groused sometimes about the work being hard, but they did it. As set designer and stage manager, Gabrielle knew how to translate the vision in her head into beguiling backdrops that drew in even the most jaded of viewers. Madhu combined fabrics and gemstones in ways that made magic tangible; she even sold some of her outfits to a local consignment shop. Sabrina, a self-proclaimed karaoke junkie, channeled her love of music into songs that made the listener sob and snicker all at once. As director, Bianca gathered and guided these various bits and pieces into a cohesive production that still managed to feel as fey, as unrestrained, as a patch of sky-blue roses from a folktale.

  And then there was Shalini. What did she do besides try to make up stories? In fact, until this year, she hadn’t even done that much. The others had encouraged her while she honed her craft, insisting that being able to create stories was magical, and she would get there soon enough. She had to justify their faith in her.

  Now she cast her spell. The moonlight should be plucking the words from her mind and writing them on the page. But if she didn’t know what was supposed to happen, the spell certainly didn’t.