“I told you I can pay,” I say. The money’s stuffed into the pocket of my jacket, still in the folded manila envelope I found it in. I can feel it against my ribs. Exactly five thousand dollars. I found it in the very back of my closet yesterday, in a half-crushed shoebox, while I was looking for something to wear that didn’t remind me of Win. I hadn’t known it was there before, and I’m not sure it actually belongs to me, but I didn’t know who else could’ve put it there and I couldn’t help feeling that finding the money was a sign, confirmation that getting this spell is what I’m supposed to do.
“I don’t mean money. The spell asks its own payment. A beauty spell might kill a few brain cells. For something like this?” She considers me, and I try to look like this is new information. It’s not. I got the whole side effects speech the first time around; the pain in my wrist is my proof. “Most people experience aches and pains after a memory spell, at the very least. Might affect muscle or nerve or something else. Can’t predict it exactly.”
It’ll be worth the money, worth the collateral damage, not to have to feel this crushing weight anymore. I imagine it like falling asleep and waking up in someone else’s body. Blank. Empty. Happy. Free.
“Oh!” the hekamist says, knocking on her head with a knuckle. “I’m supposed to ask, silly me, silly me. Have you ever had any other spellwork done in the past?”
“No.”
“Because multiple spells get messy. Muddled. Mixed up. Side effects aren’t doubled, they’re increased ex-po-nen-tial-ly.” She squints at me, her small eyes disappearing into the folds of her face. “Silly, so silly. You look familiar.”
“I promise I’ve never had any other spells.” I say it quickly so I don’t have time to be caught in the lie. I’m a horrible liar; if she presses me, I’ll crack. I resist the urge to grab my wrist again and massage the pain. It’s been acting up all week, as if in warning: This is what happens when you take spells. Instead I stare down at my feet. Inside the sneakers they’re red and sore. I’ve lost or am in the process of losing another big toenail. Lost toenails: a dancer’s pride.
If she knew the truth, she’d refuse me for my own good, to avoid those compound side effects. But I can deal with more side effects like my wrist—that’s what I deal with every day in ballet. Pain. Struggle.
Physical pain and physical struggle, though. What’s a few busted muscles compared to the pain of losing Win?
If my body has to pay the price, so be it.
“All right, then,” the hekamist says.
She stands and moves to the small kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards and rummaging through drawers. She dumps ingredients into a dented pot on the stove. “How about some chicken noodle soup?”
As she works, I pull out the worn envelope of bills and place it on the table in front of me, then surreptitiously rub my aching wrist. She glances over at the envelope and nods.
“You’re a junior?” she asks, standing over the pot. When the soup spits and sparks, she lifts the pot over the counter—and it rests there in midair. Or so it seems from where I’m sitting.
“Yes,” I say. “Well, technically a senior, I guess. School just got out.”
“I have a daughter. She’s a little older than you.”
“Oh.”
“She’s special, my daughter. I know all parents think that, but it’s true.”
And just when I think I can’t feel any worse, I get one of those unexpected pangs for my mother. It’s an old pain, too, and normally I can go weeks without it flaring up—the pain in my wrist is much more persistent—but it happens. A photo in a gift catalog. A kid crying on the beach. Families coming in to the Sweet Shoppe together. And now I’m jealous of a hekamist’s daughter.
As I take a deep breath and push the feeling down, the light in the apartment dims. Cold air presses in from the cracks in the walls and floor. My wrist pulses with a heartbeat. The hekamist, at the stovetop with her back to me, pulls up her sleeve and makes a quick motion with a stone held in her other hand. I can’t tell what’s happening with the pot of soup; she’s in the way.
“You seem determined. That’s good. Know your mind, know yourself. But young people don’t always think things through, and no one talks about what hekame does. Not anymore. You think it’s dangerous, now. If it’s illegal to become a hekamist it must be bad, right? Shameful. Silly, so silly.” It’s almost pitch-black in the apartment except for a glow from the pot behind the hekamist. She watches it. “It’s not dangerous the way you think. But memory spells can be awkward, especially when you run into this boyfriend again. Walking down the street, he tries to say hi, you don’t know him, he’s confused or angry—or some such and so forth.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say. I breathe and sip my tea. Tastes like Lipton—needs milk. In the dark and cold while my salvation’s being brewed, it’s easy to say the hardest thing in the world. “He’s dead.”
FIVE MONTHS BEFORE