“Hey, wait. Don’t run off like that. You’re upset.” Mateo put an arm out, but Verlaine roughly pushed him aside.
“I need to be alone. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer, Verlaine ran out into the chilly gray afternoon. She didn’t want to think about Nadia, or Elizabeth, or magic, or her parents. But the reminder blew around her in the whipping wind, silver and gray, a part of Verlaine forever.
“Nobody ever brought it up,” Mateo said a few minutes later as he and Nadia walked along the street that led to the heart of downtown … at least, as much downtown as Captive’s Sound had.
“How? Two healthy people, not old or anything, and they die of the flu overnight without even calling somebody? That didn’t strike people as bizarre?”
When Nadia was trying to figure something out, she got this little worried look—so serious—and Mateo already felt like he knew that look by heart.
He said only, “Weirder stuff happens all the time. Especially in Captive’s Sound.”
Nadia sighed. “I guess that makes sense. Here, people’s idea of ‘bizarre’ might be … warped. But I wish Verlaine hadn’t run off like that.”
“Sometimes you need some space to deal.” That was as close as Mateo could get to apologizing for the way he’d acted recently. But Nadia didn’t seem to need an apology. When she looked at him with those dark eyes, he felt like she understood everything about him, even the parts he barely understood himself.
He’d missed her so much during the time he tried to stay away. Even though he’d tried not to think about the Craft or the curse or anything like that, it was the subtler things Mateo had missed. That little determined look she got when she focused on a problem. How calm and accepting she was of the craziest things. The way she doodled cubes and pyramids in the margins of her chem notes. How she always looked down at the cafeteria food with fresh despair, its horribleness a surprise to her every single time—like she was always hoping for something better.
When Mateo thought of all those things together, something tightened within his chest, and felt very like the emotion for her that had always welled up in his dreams....
No longer able to meet Nadia’s eyes, Mateo turned his head away and looked into the far distance. Verlaine was nowhere to be seen. She must have sprinted for her car, driven off like a bat out of hell. “What do you think happened to her family?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is that she still bears the scars. Whatever that magic was, it still has some kind of hold on her, even now.”
“Now? You mean, Verlaine’s—is she cursed? Like me?”
“Did you see that halo around her?”
The dark, thorned shape that circled his reflection in the mirror still had the power to turn Mateo’s stomach. It always would, he thought. “No. So, not a curse, then.”
“But what? I have to figure this out. I’ll keep working with Goodwife Hale’s book, see if there’s anything there.” Nadia hesitated. “Which is about five hours of me trying to read something closer to Middle English than anything normal—”
“It’s okay,” Mateo said, though he realized how badly he didn’t want to leave her. “Gotta get my hair cut this afternoon. But—call me tonight? Tell me what you found?”
“I might not find anything.”
“Call anyway.”
She ducked her head, glancing away from him with a small smile on her full lips, and despite the cold fall wind, Mateo felt warm all over. Nadia’s dark eyes rose to meet his again as she said, “Okay.”
He simply lifted his hand in a wave as she walked off.
This is why I never fell for Elizabeth, Mateo thought as he watched her go. Because she’s nothing like Nadia.
Mateo walked into the barbershop more or less on autopilot, hardly seeing anything in front of his eyes. He didn’t have to, though; he’d been coming to Ginger Goncalves for his haircuts as long as he could remember. All he did was nod, barely seeing her as he got into the barber chair. She’d know what to do.
He found that if he stared really hard at his shoes, he didn’t see anything of the terrible halo in the mirror, not even out of the corner of his eye.
As Ginger used the electric razor at the back of his neck, once again he thought of Verlaine, alone and probably terrified. All these years he’d known her, and yet he’d never bothered talking with her—never dreamed they had so much in common, that magic had scarred both their lives as soon as they’d begun. And though he’d heard the story of her parents’ deaths, because old stories never died in small towns, he’d never questioned it. Verlaine’s gray hair was like Ginger’s muteness: a part of her, a small strangeness that on its own meant nothing, but in a larger pattern—
Wait.
He focused on the reflection in the mirror—hard for him to do, with the loathsome halo writhing around his head—but now, behind him, he could see Ginger.
Ginger, with a shadow of that same writhing energy coiled around her throat.
Ginger, who hadn’t spoken since the church fire in 1995.
Nadia had talked about other witches. How there had to have been others in Captive’s Sound sometime.
And men couldn’t be told about witchcraft, but women could.
Did Ginger have any idea what had happened to her? Did she understand at all?
Mateo had no clue how to bring this up, but he figured he had to try. He cleared his throat, and she glanced up at him with a pleasant smile. It was okay to ask her yes or no questions, even to communicate with short notes. But it was still tough to get this out. “Ginger?”