69 Joey
Joey
To her credit, it doesn’t take long for Sophie to absorb the whole story.
“You just left me there?” she says in mock fury, but then her face breaks out into a torment of worry. “Let’s go over the plan one more time so I know what I’m doing.”
She looks nervous, so Joey repeats what she thinks would be the best approach. Slow and quiet, so they can get Elena’s attention without alerting Cal. This seems to be enough for Sophie, and they don’t waste any more time talking.
The spell circle is wet, and a little pool has formed in the center, somehow giving what they’re about to do more reverence.
They take their seats anyway, both of them too frantic with what’s at stake to worry about the rain.
Joey waited for Sophie’s doubt, to hear hesitation in her voice when she told her she’d done magic without the book.
But Sophie had given her a supportive nod and just said, sagely, “Intuition.”
Now, Joey is nervous that it’s somehow going to fail her. It might not work a second time. It may have just been a fluke. But when she looks over at Sophie, she sees resolve. She tries to imitate that feeling and finds herself being filled up with the magic. She closes her eyes and speaks out loud.
Within seconds, before Joey has any time to think about whether it worked or to worry that it didn’t, the trees whisper.
The sound is almost like a melody, and it soothes Joey’s ears.
It’s beautiful, she realizes, when the trees whisper.
There is nothing that could sound any more like magic.
She thinks she hears the faint sound of Sophie laughing, and honestly, Joey feels like doing it too.
But she doesn’t. She concentrates, listens, and then repeats the incantation the trees are whispering.
It takes time, but Joey doesn’t doubt that it works.
Not this time. She knows with all the cells in her body that she has command over this magic.
The trees have been here this whole time, and they haven’t been agnostic like she’d always thought.
They have only been silent because no one asked for their help.
And then, just before she opens her eyes, she feels it. There’s a book in her hands. A weathered cover she hasn’t felt in a long time. Tears prick at her eyes and her face feels hot.
“You did it,” says Sophie. A summoning spell. Without the book.
“He’s going to notice,” says Joey, standing and wrapping the book in a wet bag and stuffing it into her trail running backpack. She reaches down for Sophie’s hands. “Time to go.”