Chapter 9
By the time Orion gets home, I’ve cried nearly all the water from my body. When he shakes me awake, my eyes are crusted with the salty remnants. A mountain of tissues is stacked on the nightstand and my pillow is covered in a still-damp stain.
“So…are you going to explain what you meant earlier?” Orion says. “I tried to ask Gramps, but he was locked in his study and wouldn’t answer the door.”
“That’s my fault. I’m sure he’s busy preemptively mourning his only granddaughter.”
“Mikaela,” Orion snaps. “Talk to me. Now!”
I tell him about the vision. When I’m done, he collapses onto the bed beside me, and we both stare up at the lilac fabric of my canopy in silence.
“That’s some dark shit.” He chews on his fingernail for a moment before sitting up. “We need some outside help. I’ll hit up Malik and see what everybody else is up to.”
“I just told you that I’m about to die in less than a month and you think I want to be social?”
Orion shrugs. “What’s the other option? Rot in bed until the full moon?” He grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. “Look, even if they can’t help, they can at least distract you a little. It’s not like you can get anything done in this state.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “A good rot session never hurt anybody.”
“Mikaela,” he scolds.
Ugh, that’s the thing about my brother: He’s a textbook extrovert. He’s always derived energy and strength from the people around him, while I’m perfectly content to find answers in my books and my cards. But from the look on his face, he’s not going to let me waste away crying all night.
I relent. “Fine.”
He clenches his fists in victory. “Sweet!” He yanks out his phone and immediately blasts a text to the group chat.
Responses fly in immediately and my heart sinks. Half of me hoped that everyone would be busy.
“Wait,” I say. “Don’t mention anything about the vision, okay? I’m not ready to talk to anyone else about that.”
Orion glances up and his smile slips. “I won’t say a word. That’s your business to share.”
“Thank you.”
The car Orion and I share is temporarily out of commission. It’s an old beater we scrounged up the money to buy at the end of junior year. We’re supposed to take turns handling the maintenance, but Orion’s skipped the last two oil changes, and now I refuse to do it out of principle.
So, everyone’s coming over to the house to hang out. Along with Lizzie and Chris, our friend group is rounded out by our cousin Malik.
He’s the grandson of Gramps’s older sister, so that makes us second cousins. A year older than us, he and Orion have always been thick as thieves. The doorbell rings as I’m slipping into a pair of oversize sweats and a tank. My scalp thanks me as I let my braids down from a ponytail.
When I glance in the mirror, I look even gloomier than usual, and not because of my normal all-black attire. Shadows creep in at the edges of my aura. Usually a vibrant indigo, tonight it’s laced with hazy gray strands.
Any other witch capable of sensing auras will know that my head isn’t in the right place. Thankfully, I’m the only one in the coven who can see them.
I plod downstairs, muscles tensed with trepidation. Orion and Malik break off their conversation and turn to stare.
Where Orion is tall and skinny, Malik is short and stout. He keeps his hair cut in a neat fade with a well-trimmed beard to match. His wide smile reveals the gap between his two front teeth.
“Yo, ’Kaela. How’s it been?” He pulls me into a bear hug and then quickly pulls back. “Oh wait, I’m sorry, Madame Witch Queen.” He falls into an exaggerated bow before he and Orion both dissolve into snickers.
Malik and his family weren’t at the gathering on Sunday, but word of my impending title has already spread. With the vision, I’d nearly forgotten, but the reminder only serves to add to my stress.
“Very funny,” I mutter, turning away toward the kitchen.
“No, wait.” He grabs my arm, suddenly serious. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Congrats, little cuz. I mean it.”
The past forty-eight hours have been a roller-coaster ride that I’m eager to get off.
Nothing about this is cause for celebration in my book.
The only reason I’m eligible for the title in the first place is because Gran’s dead, but I’m completely out of my depth.
That doesn’t really matter, though, since according to my vision, I won’t get to be Witch Queen for long.
Orion opens the ancient TV cabinet and flips through our endless stack of DVDs. Gramps refuses to pay for any streaming services, so we’re stuck in the Dark Ages. I curl up in Gran’s recliner while the two of them argue over whether we should watch an action movie or a comedy.
“The girls aren’t gonna want to watch this,” Malik argues. “Somebody gets shot every five minutes.”
“So? It’s not like they haven’t seen fake blood before,” Orion says. “It’s just a movie.”
Three sharp knocks at the door force me to my feet. “I’ll get it,” I say.
I open the door to find Chris and Lizzie on the front porch. “What’s up?” Chris says, sliding past me. Orion and Malik immediately greet him with a series of fist bumps and high fives. Guys always act like it’s been half a century since they last saw each other.
Lizzie takes one look at my face and tugs me outside over to the rocking chairs. Her short hair is styled into Bantu knots all over her head. Her bracelets clink together as she reaches over to grab my hand.
“Ri told me that something happened, but he wouldn’t say what.”
I don’t know whether to strangle my brother or thank him.
Lizzie’s my closest friend; I should be able to tell her anything, but I can’t bring myself to say this.
I’m going to die in a month unless I can find a way to alter my vision.
Also, the girl who’s fated to kill me is so cute I can’t stand it.
“Don’t try to hide it from me,” Lizzie scolds. “I can read you like one of your cards.”
“I—”
There’s so much I could say, and I haven’t even begun to unravel what Gramps and I saw on Saturday night—how we saved Marian’s life.
I sigh, releasing all the air in my lungs and a whole lot of pent-up sadness. “It’s nothing,” I mutter, deciding to play it safe. “Just this girl I met today who’s got me all tied up in knots.”
Lizzie sits up straight. Her smile shines brighter than the dim porch lamp. “A girl?! Oh, you know you’ve got to spill the tea, right?”
Joelle appears in my mind, striding toward me with a confident gleam in her eye. She’s so beautiful, and I barely know anything about her. Before the vision, I wanted to know everything. Now I dread peeling back her layers of secrets.
“I met her in the shop today,” I begin, gripping the arms of the chair as it rocks back and forth. “She’s starting classes at Tulane and, um, well, Gramps gave her a job.”
Lizzie smacks my arm. “Go, Gramps! This is good! Maybe you can ask her out—”
“I can’t let myself like her,” I rush to say.
Her eyebrows draw together. “Why not?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the vision replays anyway. There’s the sharp intake of breath as the blade of the knife pierces my chest, the gurgle of blood, and Joelle’s wide-eyed gaze.
“She’s got baggage,” I blurt out. “I gave her a reading, and it was bad. Like, colossally so. I can’t date this girl; we have no future together.”
Lizzie huffs and pushes out of her seat. She paces across the porch, clenching and unclenching her fists.
“You spend too much time thinking about the future!” she scolds, standing in front of me with her hands on both hips.
“I guess it makes sense. I’m sure I would too if I could see visions, but you can’t let them stop you from living your life.
You had a bad reading. So what? If you like her, then go for it. ”
“It’s not that easy,” I say.
“Yeah, I know you’re not telling me the whole story.” She smirks when my mouth drops open. “Didn’t I just say that I can read you? I know when you’re keeping secrets, and that’s okay!” she rushes to add. “But please don’t count yourself out before you’ve even tried. She could be so good for you.”
Honestly, I think she could be, too—in another version of reality. One where I’m also enrolled at Tulane and I’m able to take her out on a real date. In that version, we’d just be two girls who want to get to know each other better.
But the vision has destroyed any chances of that happening.
“I can’t, Lizzie. End of story.”
She frowns and sinks back into the chair next to me. Her tone is low when she speaks. “If you won’t even pull the trigger on getting to know this girl, then will you go after anything you want in life? Or have you settled?”
Anger washes over me. I know what she’s implying. It’s the same thing Aunt Roberta said at Gran’s remembrance party. They both think I’m not doing enough and that I’m wasting my potential by not going to college right away.
“Lizzie,” I warn.
“It’s so simple,” she says.
“But it’s not! Can’t you see that?” I look away from her, at a car passing by the house. “Nothing in my life is simple.”
I wish more than anything that I could be a normal girl. The power in my blood complicates everything.
The front door swings open, and Orion pokes his head out. “Hey, we’re watching John Wick. Get in here.”
Lizzie and I settle in on the love seat with a bowl of popcorn. As the movie begins, I glance around the room at all these people who love me, and my heart stings with the knowledge that I’m keeping such a huge secret from them.
But there’s no way I can breathe a word of this, even if Gramps allowed me to. Because after I tell people outside of the family, the vision becomes real. At least that’s the twisted logic my stressed brain is operating under.
There’s something else, too: I’m not so sure I’m going to be able to save my own life. And I’m not ready for my friends to look at me like a dead girl walking.
All of a sudden, every phone in the room lights up with an incoming notification. I glance down at my screen to see a message from the coven group chat.
Emergency meeting at the rec center. 9:30 tonight.
“Y’all know anything about this?” Chris asks.
“Not a clue,” I say, just as another text pops up from Gramps. This time, it’s been sent only to Orion and me.
There’s been a death…