Back in a Spell (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #3)(89)
A stupid, maybe-evil hunk of metal was not stronger than me.
But I needed help; that much, I did know, even if it felt like chewing on poison ivy, the sting of nettles down my throat. With my free hand, I fumbled in my pockets for my phone. Ivy was the first contact in my favorites, above Emmy and Uncle James, and she answered on the first ring, almost as if she’d been expecting my call.
Maybe she had; Thorns could be odd that way, as if they had a specialized sonar for long-distance emotional distress.
“Hey, Lilah,” she said, her warm voice like a balm, an aural tincture with a honey base. Ivy had a beautiful singing voice; years ago, back when we’d still been together rather than best friends, she’d often sung me lullabies while I lay pillowed on top of her collarbone, the sweet vibration of her vocal cords thrumming through my cheek. Some of that natural melody carried over into her speech. “What’s going on, boo? Shouldn’t you be in bed with your tea and cheerios?”
Yes, I damned well should have been. Most nights, I’d have long since been snuggled under my weighted blanket with a book, a mug of chamomile-and-lavender tea, and snack cup of cheerios and peanut M&M’s. Once upon a time, the ritual had included a nightcap, a lowball of negroni instead of tea; but I’d found out the hard way that alcohol didn’t play well with the aftermath of the oblivion glamour.
Yet another thing, a small pleasure it had stolen from me.
“I went up to Hallows to harvest viridian teardrops,” I said without preamble, my teeth chattering a little. My tank top was soaked through, stuck to me, and the balmy breeze felt almost chilly against the clinging film of sweat sheeting my skin. “I just got back, and I’m trying to open my door but then I—I forgot again, Ivy. Now I’m, I’m holding this thing, and I don’t know what it is but it seems fairly awful and I . . . I’m afraid of it?”
A tiny mewling sob escaped past my teeth before I could call it back. I clenched my jaw, furious with myself, struggling to latch on to some semblance of control.
“Okay, honey, I’m with you so far,” Ivy said, sounding sublimely unruffled; even just the timbre of her voice was soothing. “You got home, and it sounds like you were trying to unlock your door. What does it look like, Lilah, the thing you’re afraid of? Can you describe it to me?”
Gritting my teeth, I rattled off as objective a description of the Mystery Fucking Object as I could muster, without mentioning any of my suspicions about weaponry or baneful magics. I didn’t want to bias her.
“Ah,” Ivy sighed once I’d finished. Her pitch didn’t change, but I could still somehow feel the wealth of aching sympathy rolling off her and through the line. “I got you. It’s a key, honey. You’re holding your house key—you know what that is. It fits into the lock, you turn it, and it undoes the mechanism keeping your door closed. Is that sounding more familiar now?”
A key. A fucking key had scared me out of my entire wits.
Because I remembered what it was, almost as soon as she’d begun explaining it to me. Often it worked that way, when the oblivion clouded my memory of mundane objects, infusing them with a pervasive sense of alien malevolence. It didn’t happen often, but each time it did felt like the first—in the midst of an episode, I couldn’t even recall that this displacement and confusion had crept over me before. I needed a grounding reminder, a brief, simple, externally derived explanation of what the object was.
But it had to come from someone else. I couldn’t mantra myself out of a spiral like this, not when it was an everyday object that I’d suddenly forgotten. I hated this utter helplessness—this mortifying dependence on Ivy’s help, the imposition and burden it turned me into, a flailing, needy creature instead of her steadfast friend—more than any other part of my miserable recovery. I hated it so much the loathing felt close to rage, a bubbling cauldron of vitriol I couldn’t tamp down, that threatened to boil over any minute and scorch everything around me into bitter dregs.
And beneath the fury was another, darker fear, a leviathan’s shadow surging deep beneath the ocean’s surface. What if, one day, the thing I forgot was my phone? How was I supposed to summon Ivy then, my best friend and my lifeline, the tether that kept me sane and reeled me back in to myself?
Flames and stars, what would happen to me then?
I started to cry, raw, croaking sobs that I could do nothing to suppress. “I’m sorry,” I wept, swiping a hand over my horrid snotty face, succeeding only in smearing myself more. “Ivy, I’m so sorry to . . . to be like this. To do this to you.”
“Lilah, honey, cut that shit out,” she ordered, in the gentle and completely uncompromising tone she probably also used with the more overbearing tourists she handled at the Honeycake Orchards bakery. “Let me remind you that I love you, and that I volunteered for this. We agreed I’d be your person when you needed it. Tell me, did we not agree?”
“We did agree,” I said damply, nodding as if she could see me. “We did. But you—you don’t deserve this bullshit all the time. Having to, to fucking handle me like this, be on call at any time of day or night. Like I can’t take care of myself. Like I’m this utter, useless waste of space.”
“Welp, that’s it,” she replied briskly, and I could hear the soft rustling of thrown-back sheets—she, apparently, had been in bed. A shared love of early bedtimes had always been one of our mutual things. “I’m coming over.”