Chapter 1 #2
“I’ve never hurt anyone,” I say. My voice is small. Pathetic. Meek. I’m in Margot’s class, but I’m a year younger. Right now, I feel years beneath them, too stupid to handle people like Harrison. “And I’m wearing the bands, Harrison.”
I’m shaking as I pull up my sleeves, revealing the golden bands clasped on either wrist. Harrison already knows I’m wearing them. Everyone knows. They’re only reason I was allowed to live, to have a semi-normal life. With these bands, I can’t cast a simple spell, let alone hurt someone.
“Don’t talk to me, freak,” he snarls. “And don’t ever say my name again.”
He presses forward, yanking my arm, right above the golden band. With a movement too fast to track, he rotates, placing himself between me and my protector. I bump against the reptile booth, nearly knocking over the haphazard stack of fish bowls.
I suck in a tight breath, shrinking as small as I can, hating myself for it.
Margot attempts to move around Harrison, but he shrugs her off.
With a quick glance over his shoulder, as if remembering where we are, Harrison pulls me away from the table.
He surges between the reptile booth and the palm reader’s, taking off down the narrow alleyway behind them.
I have to stumble to keep up, my short legs requiring twice as many steps. He keeps me in front of him, and Margot remains a breath behind, her fists pounding his shoulder blades. He ignores the strikes as if he doesn’t feel them.
“I haven’t hurt anyone,” I repeat. I’m crying and I hate it but I don’t know how to stop. “I didn’t—”
He shoves me against the brick wall. The Ochre Autumnal Festival continues in the street, and though I catch more than one person’s eye, no one interferes.
Even the reptile shop owner, who watched it all unravel, doesn’t say a word.
He keeps his attention on the flourishing market, and he doesn’t look back once.
“Fucking vile,” Harrison tells me.
I’m not sure if he means the way I look or dress or simply the way I am. Like Margot, I’m wearing a long-sleeve dress and a pair of tights, but we are not the same. Where everyone else here wears the color of their family season, I wear black. The color of mourning. The color of death.
I stand out in any crowd, surrounded by yellows and oranges and violets and greens. A black spot of death in an otherwise vibrant field of flowers.
“I never hurt anyone,” I repeat. I’m not even sure if that’s true. Mama Perskey promised I didn’t. Margot’s mama says the same thing. Most people though…they think I did. They think I killed my parents. That I killed Mama Perskey too, even though that’s impossible.
“Take this off,” Harrison snarls.
I don’t know what he’s talking about until his hand fists my hair. With a vicious tug, he rips the elastic tie from my bun. It’s the loveliest shade of yellow, the same color as the tree leaves all through town.
“Stop!” Margot shrieks, but she suddenly seems so small. Thirty pounds below Harrison, if not more. She grabs his wrist, nearly falling when he easily releases the tie to her.
“It’s yours, Margot,” he says, that same gentle voice from before. “I wouldn’t keep it from you.”
“It’s Secora’s,” she argues. She presses the hair tie against my open palm, but I don’t dare grab it. It falls to the gravel between us. Now, she stares at me, the first time since Harrison attacked. “Secora, it’s yours. You can wear it.”
“No, she can’t,” Harrison says, glaring at me. He presses closer, until I can taste his rancid breath on my lips. “Right, stray? You can’t wear it, and you know it.”
I swallow. My throat feels tight, like I’ve taken poison and my entire body is swelling.
“Say it,” he barks. “Say it, freak.”
“I’ll never talk to you again,” Margot says. She’s crying now, but where my tears are silent, slow streaks down my face, hers are loud. Gasping. Panicked.
That’s how Margot is. Alive and bold and striking. Where I barely exist, barely matter.
“I can’t wear it,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” Harrison says. He’s so close our lips are almost touching, and I turn my head, pressing it against the cold brick. I’d rather freeze my skin than feel his cruel touch.
“I hate you,” Margot cries. She punches Harrison’s arm again, then again. “I hate you, and I’m telling Mrs. Raekes.”
“Tell her,” Harrison says lazily. “See what she does.”
He grabs my throat then, hard and fast, like a viper striking. Margot is still crying, still trying uselessly to pull him away. Harrison ignores her, squeezing until I can’t breathe. My mouth bobs, searching desperately for air that won’t come.
He smirks.
Do something, I beg myself. Please, Secora. Do something. Do anything.
I don’t do anything but cry.
Harrison squeezes harder until I start to thrash.
Until I am nothing but a wild animal, fueled by instinct.
Magic surges through me, trapped by the golden bands, but not gone.
It swells until it feels too big to contain, as if it might explode and kill us all.
Just when I’m sure it will, Harrison loosens his grip.
I suck in desperate breaths. It takes everything to stay upright, to not fall at his feet.
“Vile,” he repeats. His hand remains at the base of my neck, mockingly gentle. He’s looking at me—I can feel it—but I don’t dare raise my eyes from the ground.
Margot is gone and tears are leaking down my cheeks and a pathetic sob rips from my throat.
“Stay away from her,” Harrison says. His low voice is an infection, spreading through my body like an incurable disease.
His fingers twitch, as if to tighten again, only to suddenly disappear. Harrison steps away. At first, I think he’s grown bored of me. That, without Margot for an audience, he doesn’t care to torture me. But then, I hear what he clearly already has.
Footsteps. Not Margot’s. Not Mrs. Raekes’.
“What’s going on?”
It’s him.
My entire body tenses.
“Harrison.”
His voice is hard. Loud. Close.
“What are you doing?” Elliot asks.
I don’t want to look.
No, I don’t want him to look. To see me, standing here, humiliated and pathetic.
Head still lowered, I peek through the tangled mess of my hair.
Elliot Lyrie stands before us. He is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my entire life, and as an orphan, I’ve met a lot of people.
I’ve lived in orphanages and strange homes, switched schools more than once.
I’ve seen too many people to harbor a guess.
And without a doubt, Elliot is the most stunning of them all.
He has dark hair, thick and wavy, with a single strand that curls over his forehead.
His eyes are mostly brown with hints of gold and green and even a bit of blue in the right lighting.
He’s taller than Harrison, but leaner. His muscles come from running and playing groundball, not from terrorizing orphans.
Where Margot is wearing yellow today, Elliot and Harrison both wear shades of burnt orange. It looks stupid on Harrison. Too muddled, too dark, with his pale hair and blue eyes. On Elliot, it looks like art, like the colors were created purely for his use.
“Are you okay?” Elliot asks.
Harrison makes a show of rolling his eyes. He shoves his hands in his pockets, scoffing as Elliot comes between us.
“Really, Elliot?” he asks. It’s a condescending yet good-natured response. “We were just talking. Right, Secora?”
My mouth is too dry to answer, not that I would anyway.
No one, aside from Margot, will believe that Harrison is a cruel villain.
Because while he obviously hates me, he seems to love everyone else.
He’s created a picture-perfect golden boy persona, and if I weren’t so intimately familiar with his cruelty, even I would believe it.
“Oh thank the Mother!” Margot calls.
We all startle to look at her. She sprints down the alleyway, halting at Elliot’s side. She’s panting hard, face red from exertion.
“I got Mrs. Raekes,” she says between heavy breaths. She glances over me before glaring at Harrison. “I told her what you did.”
“We were just talking,” Harrison says again. He shifts slightly, the first show of nerves, but then looks at me with an expectant expression. “Right, Secora?”
For reasons I can’t explain, even to myself, I find myself replying, “right.”
Maybe because I want this to be over. Maybe because I can’t stand the way Elliot is looking at me. Like I’m a sad, neglected dog.
“You’re such an asshole,” Margot says. Turning to Elliot, she adds, “He’s tormenting her.”
I’ve rarely heard my sister curse, and I don’t like it. I hate that it’s because of me that she’s doing it. That loving me requires this hardened version of her.
“For Mother’s sake!” Harrison snarls. “I’m trying to protect you, Margot.”
“The only person I need protection from is you,” she says. She’s crying again, and it’s hard not to feel like I’m at fault.
“Are you okay?” Elliot asks.
He’s standing right in front of me. Beautiful and calm and far kinder than he has any reason being.
His best friend is a monster. His mother isn’t much better.
But Elliot…
“Secora,” he says. His voice is as soft as a new blanket, as melodic as a songbird. “Are you okay?”
I can’t look at him. I can’t speak a single word.
It takes everything I have to force a nod.
Please don’t look at me, I want to say. Don’t see what he sees. What everyone does.
“Time to leave, children!” a woman calls.
It isn’t Mrs. Raekes but Virginia. She’s an augur, one of the most powerful types of witches in the Echo.
There aren’t many of them, and they all share an eerie home on the main square.
They travel around the Day Realm, identifying different types of magic and scouting witches with promising potential.
And sometimes, like twelve years ago, augurs deem particularly dangerous witches as Dark Ones.
It’s a label I’ll never escape and one I’ll detest until the day I die.
Still, I can’t help but like Virginia. She’s one of the few adults who shows me kindness.
Just yesterday, she chased off a boy who was making fun of my black clothes.
Now, Virginia stands at the opening of the alleyway, hands planted on her hips. She’s frowning, eyes flicking between all of us. Though a part of me hopes she’ll punish Harrison, that’s foolish thinking. His mama is an augur, like her, which makes him untouchable.
“The trolley is here,” Virginia says. “Best not to keep it waiting.”
I should be hurt that she doesn’t ask what’s going on, that she clearly doesn’t care. Right now, I’m too distracted by the gentle press of Elliot’s hand on my wrist. The way he’s staring at me with soft, unreadable emotion. It’s too lovely an expression to be wasted on me.
Remembering myself, I pull my hand away and lower my eyes.
“C’mon,” Harrison says. He playfully slaps Elliot’s shoulder as he heads for Virginia. Torment, temporarily forgotten.
Margot tugs me along moments later, rushing through a surplus of apologies, promising Harrison’s cruelty won’t go unpunished. I’m barely listening. It’s taking every ounce of self-control not to look back at Elliot.
The memory ends, and I come back to my bedroom.
The Initia Stone is still on my lap, the ingredients in their careful line, but the smoke has receded.
Now, the green memory thrashes over the stone, threatening to fall onto my blankets.
I pinch it between my fingers, glaring as I return it to its jar.
Once I’ve put the Initia Stone and the collection of ingredients back on my nightstand, I grab the waiting vial of Dismemrate. It’s dull red and gelatinous, a powerful elixir made of human blood, ghoul’s teeth, and raw magic. Enough for only a swallow, Dismemrate is an expensive, difficult spell.
It’s also the fastest way to wipe my memory. It’ll take the last thirty minutes, give or take. Soon enough, I won’t remember the Autumnal Festival or the feeling of Harrison’s hand on my throat.
I take the Dismemrate in one swallow. It’s foul and bitter, and the only thing that will clear my palate is green tea. Before I make my way to the kitchen though, I scrawl notes on a scrap of parchment. I include anything and everything I knew about Ochre Village and the augur in that memory.
By the time I finish, abandoning the parchment on my nightstand and moving into the kitchen, the memory is all but gone.
Ochre Village and Virginia, Harrison and Margot, Elliot and his gentle touch…
they all disappear. I chug giant gulps of green tea, letting the dull flavor burn any taste of Dismemrate from my tongue.
Once I’m done, I lean against the kitchen and breathe deep.
Finally, there is nothing but the present, where no one knows the truth of my past.
Not even me.