The Price Guide to the Occult(23)
Outside the Tower, they paused, and Reed ran his hands up and down Nor’s arms as if to warm them. She tugged at the sleeves of her sweater, making sure they covered her scars, then reached up and pressed her hand lightly against the scratches on Reed’s face and felt the stubble on his cheeks.
“They don’t look too bad,” Nor started to say — and then gasped softly when the scratches on his face disappeared at her touch. She pulled her hand away in alarm as pain, delicate as freshly mown blades of grass, fluttered to the ground. Shit. She hadn’t meant to do that. She needed to be more careful.
Fortunately, Reed didn’t seem to notice either her reaction or that she’d healed his cheek. And instead of running away, spooked by this girl who was more than simply weird, he kissed her cheek good night, pressing his lips just close enough to Nor’s ear to send shivers down her neck.
A few days after Nor’s seventeenth birthday, her mother was scheduled to appear on a popular morning talk show. Despite Nor’s initial intention — that there was no way in hell she was going to acknowledge the highly publicized event, let alone watch it — in the end, the temptation was an itch she had to scratch. With an exasperated sigh, she sat up in bed, pushed her wild hair out of her eyes, and turned on her phone.
She launched the search engine, typed in her mother’s name, and after scrolling through the hundreds of hits that came up, found what she was looking for. And then there she was, her comely face filling the cracked screen of Nor’s cell phone: Fern Blackburn. The host oohed and aahed along with the delighted studio audience as, in the blink of an eye, Fern transformed a homely young woman into a beauty almost as fetching as Fern herself. Then a child, stripped of her sight as an infant, saw her parents for the first time. The only thing missing from the show was a lame man dropping his crutches and walking across the stage.
“How stunning you are,” the host crooned. “And yet how humble.” Everyone in the audience murmured their approval of this striking visionary who would selflessly guide them all into the light of the future. That Fern Blackburn could make wishes come true was no longer in doubt.
Nor squinted at the screen, searching her mother’s face for any signs of the incredible strain and sacrifice Nor knew was necessary for Fern to perform such “miracles.” She saw none and grew more alarmed. There was nothing, not a single flaw, not a bruise or a blemish, not even a broken capillary. Only fern tattoos spiraling across her porcelain skin. Nor remembered what her mother had had to do in the past to practice magic outside her own Burden. She remembered being on the roof with Fern that night. She remembered how her mother’s skin had split open, how her mother’s blood had trickled across the roof. And she remembered how the blood had poured from the wounds Fern had then made on Nor’s skin when her own blood wasn’t enough. If Fern wasn’t paying the price for her spells herself, then someone else certainly was.
The audience rose to its feet and applauded. Nor turned off her phone in disgust and tried not to think about the terrible cost someone had paid for restoring that little girl’s sight.
Nor shuffled downstairs and found Apothia in the kitchen preparing a tray of assorted breakfast foods: fresh bagels and sliced strawberries, hazelnut spread, and a jar of honey. A greasy-smelling hash sizzled on the stove. There was also orange juice, a pot of what smelled like peppermint tea, a French coffee press, and a pitcher of Bloody Mary mix.
“After seeing Fern’s little demonstration on national television,” Apothia said, “your grandmother and I decided we needed something to give us strength. We haven’t yet decided if that strength will come from food or from vodka.”
Through the glass of the parlor door, Nor could make out Judd’s massive silhouette, stretched across the small divan.
When she had first moved into the Tower, Nor had seen the parlor only through the wavy lead windows on the door. For generations, the room had been used only at night, during the dark, lonely hours when desperate islanders would arrive with their whispered desires and frantic pleas. Those few times when the door had been left open, all those trapped, desperate voices had rushed out in gusts of I must haves and please help mes and I can’t live withouts like a wretched case of bad breath.
Apothia placed her hand, soft and dry, against Nor’s forehead as if checking for fever. “You look pale,” she fretted, her eyes flicking over the scarred skin peeking out from along the collar of Nor’s pajamas.
“You always say that,” Nor muttered, popping a sliced bagel onto a plate. Slathering it with hazelnut spread and sliced strawberries, she considered telling Apothia about the strangely vicious plants on the way to the beach, about those strangers who knew more about her than they should, and about the whales and sharks gathering close to the shore. Telling Apothia was another way of telling Judd, minus the scrutinizing glare. But something held her back. Maybe because those things happened on the same night Nor had unintentionally healed Reed’s cheek. She wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. She wasn’t sure what Judd or Apothia would do with that information. Practicing magic outside a witch’s own Burden was black magic. It was . . . well, it was what her mother was doing. If they knew what Nor could do — all that she could do — wouldn’t they look at her and see another Fern? How could they not? No, it was probably better for Nor not to say anything about that night at all.