Cold Kiss Part 6

This is bad. I know there are words worse than bad, but I can't even think of them. I was stupid to let Gabriel get close, and now who knows what could happen?

I startle when wood sc.r.a.pes against the bare floor and open my eyes to find Gabriel sitting on the coffee table in front of me. He hands me a gla.s.s of water.

"Here. Until the tea's ready."

I take it, slos.h.i.+ng some over the edge since my hand is still shaking. It's cool and wet and just what I didn't know I needed, and when I'm done, I hand the gla.s.s back to Gabriel.

His eyes are dark gray now, the color of a coming storm, and I swallow hard. He's seen things about me no one has seen, not even Mom, and it's frightening. I don't want to lie all the time, but I don't want to be judged, either.

I do enough of that for everybody.

"Does anyone know?" he says, setting the gla.s.s on the table next to him.

I snort. "Are you high? Who would believe it?"

He doesn't even flinch, and I bite my lip. The snark comes naturally, but he doesn't deserve it.

"Tell me." He leans forward, resting his arms on his knees, and he's so close I catch the scent from my dream, cotton and boy sweat and something else, too, sharp and bright.

It's instinct again that makes me delay the inevitable. "Tell you what?"

"All of it. I mean, I could tell you had power, but this is..." He shakes his head. "Tell me."

I wish I could just let him see instead. It's suddenly so shameful, my grief, my need, my selfish, ridiculous belief that I could have what no one else gets to have without consequences.

I can't believe I was actually stupid enough to think I could bring my boyfriend back from the dead and walk off into some movie happy ending.

I am the kid who sticks her finger in the light socket. I am the person who doesn't check the expiration date on the milk. I am the idiot who has never looked before she leaped. I am the girl who is falling apart, right now.

"Tell me," he repeats, and circles his fingers around the stalk of my ankle.

Instead of intimidating me, it grounds me, connecting us, and I raise my gaze to his face again.

"What did you hear about how he died?"

"Does it matter?"

It doesn't, I guess. Death is death, and if Danny had died of some horrible, lingering disease, I can't imagine I would have mourned differently, or less.

What matters is how much I loved him. How well I loved him. That's where it all started, right or wrong.

I want to tell Gabriel that, explain that much, at least-I didn't do what I did on a whim. I didn't take it lightly, even if I didn't really understand what it would mean.

Before I can say anything, though, he squeezes gently, and nods. "I know. I can ... I know that part. Tell me the rest."

Bringing Danny back was nothing like what I had imagined.

I wasn't exactly functional those first few days after Ryan called with the news. I remember s.n.a.t.c.hes-the smoking hole in my floor, my mother's hand on my head, steady and soft, Jess and Darcia hovering in the door to my room, their faces blurred through my tears and sheer exhaustion. Until the funeral, I didn't move far off my bed, curled up under the covers, even in the July heat, holding on to a green and blue wool scarf of Danny's because it smelled like him.

It wasn't until two days after the funeral, when I saw the pictures of the crash, that I thought of the fragile white paper bird I had created.

I spent the next week on the internet, holed up in my room with the groaning laptop I shared with Mom and Robin. By the end of the third day, my eyes were burned dry and my head hurt from staring at the screen too long, but I had a few ideas about where I could look for spells. Just the thought of it made a nervous thrill ripple beneath my skin-whatever it was that I could do, it had always just happened before. The most I had ever done was concentrate on what I wanted, like the rain in Robin's room. A spell seemed so foreign, strangely official. But I was pretty sure I couldn't just wish Danny back to life.

Once last year, before I met Danny, I had asked Aunt Mari about whether she'd ever looked into incantations or lore about the craft. We were shopping at the thrift store on the south side, picking through old clothes and vintage stuff for her Halloween costume, and she looked up at me over a rack of circa-1980s dresses and frowned.

"I don't think of it that way," she said, and narrowed her eyes as she thought about it. "I know other people do, even people who can do what we do, I guess. But it's more natural than that to me, and that's part of the gift. Figuring out what you can do, using your skill organically, the same way you would if you figured out you were a good cook. Then you might add ingredients to things or create your own recipes."

It sounded a little woo-woo even to me, and I was thankful she'd lowered her voice. But she was serious, and I knew it. When I thought back, I couldn't remember her or Mom ever reading a book of spells, and certainly not brewing up some potion on the stove, what I remembered was how spontaneous it always seemed, spur-of-the-moment magic that just sort of happened.

She grabbed a long black dress off the rack and sucked her cheeks in as she held it up to her chest. "Morticia Addams is probably too much for the preschool Halloween parade, huh?"

And that was that. I didn't push, not then, and after Danny was dead I definitely didn't want anyone to suspect what I was thinking about, so I just started poking around the web and the library, looking up anything I could find on the occult.

The occult. Even the thought that what I was doing qualified as the occult seemed wrong somehow, not that it stopped me. I hopped a train into the city one Sat.u.r.day morning, and it was sort of frightening, how easy some of the stuff was to find, once I knew where to look. Maybe no one without the power I had could work a spell, but maybe they could. And there were road maps all over the place, it turned out, for anyone who wanted to make the trip.

I found the book I needed in a little store way down on the Lower East Side. It was tiny, down a short flight of steps in the bas.e.m.e.nt of an old row house, and the whole place wore its coat of dust as if it just couldn't be bothered to take it off anymore. Half of the shelves were empty, and the signs behind the register were all badly hand-lettered on ancient, yellowing pieces of notebook paper.

I don't know what I was expecting, but the guy behind the counter looked like my seventh-grade science teacher. His hair was combed over sideways to hide a bald spot, and he had on a stained white b.u.t.ton-down and khakis that looked like the grime was the only thing holding them together.

"We do a lot of business on the web," he said when he caught me looking around, "special orders."

"I'm thrilled for you," I said, and started through the books lining one shelf. A lot of them looked like they were Wicca Lite, but there was a good handful of older books, too, well-thumbed volumes with cracked leather or cloth bindings. I picked three and carried them up to the counter, where Creepy Guy raised a thick black eyebrow.

"Pretty heavy reading there, kid."

"I'm in Mensa," I said, getting out my wallet.

"Smart doesn't have anything to do with this stuff."

"Cool. Then maybe you'll want to borrow them when I'm done." I gave him a sweet smile and waited. "You going to give me a price or what?"

He shook his head, but he toted up The Burnside Grimoire, The Compendium of Shadow Magick, and a book by Aleister Crowley. I'd read on the internet that he was some famous occult guy from the turn of the century who was into all kinds of what he called "magick." I was lucky I had my ticket home-I was out nearly a hundred dollars, all the money I had saved at the moment.

"Good luck," Creepy Guy called as I left, the brown paper bag of books stuffed into my backpack. I closed my eyes and focused, and just as the door shut behind me, a cloud of slate-colored smoke mushroomed into the shop, tickling the back of my legs.

It was just smoke, not fire, and it was petty and wrong, but I didn't care. I paid for a soda from a cart on the corner when I knew I had enough money left for the subway, and spent the ride home sneezing, my nose buried in the musty books.

It should have gotten scarier the more I researched. When you find yourself buying mandrake root on the internet, it's probably a good time to question what you're doing.

But the more I read, page after page of incantations and phases of the moon and streams of energy, the better I could see Danny's face again. Not the waxy, blank one I had seen in his casket. Danny, laughing, shaking the hair off his forehead, rolling his eyes at Becker's weak Borat impression, leaning in to kiss me, his wide, soft mouth curved up on one side.

I wanted him back. I wanted him back so much I couldn't think about anything else. Everywhere I looked was suddenly somewhere Danny wasn't. My hands were empty because Danny wasn't holding them. My room echoed with quiet because Danny wasn't there whispering ridiculous things to make me laugh, or make me s.h.i.+ver.

It seemed so right. Danny was mine, I was his, and that wasn't going to work if he was dead. So I would make him not dead, not anymore. I didn't think any further than what it would feel like to kiss him again, to wrap my arms around him and bury my head against his shoulder.

That was my first mistake. It also turned out to be the biggest.

Gabriel pushes a hand through his hair, mouth set in a tight line. "Then what?"

I finished the strong tea he brought halfway through my story, and now my throat is dry. "I had to wait for the right time."

"Full moon?"

I nod, hating the look in his eyes. Pity, horror, something a little like awe, but not the good kind. The kind that "awful" comes from.

"Tell me," he says for probably the thirtieth time. "The details, Wren."

"Why does it matter?" I huff out a breath and sink back against the sofa. "You know how it turned out."

"It matters, Wren." The sharp edge of his voice slices through the room. "It matters because it determines what you brought back."

"What are you talking about? I brought back Danny."

"Come on, Wren." For the first time in over an hour, he gets up, and the coffee table screeches against the floor as he pushes off it. He rakes his fingers through his hair again as he paces toward the windows. "Is he really the Danny you knew?"

The cold knot in my stomach tightens. I swallow back a wave of nausea. "Yes. Mostly."

"Wren." Gabriel turns around, head tilted to one side. "Be honest."

"He is." I sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees again. "He's a little ... different, but it's him. It is, Gabriel. He is."

It's nearly four thirty, and the light outside is already dying. Backlit by the windows, Gabriel's face is hard to read-I can't make out more than the angular line of his profile and the hard set of his jaw. When he suddenly moves across the room to turn on a lamp, I'm startled, and I flinch when he drops down next to me on the sofa.

"Just tell me."

I take a deep breath. He's so close, there's only an afterthought of s.p.a.ce between his thigh and my hip. The lamplight is a dirty gold puddle across the room, and in it the apartment looks even more like Early Fallout Shelter crossed with Garage Sale Reject.

I focus on a torn cardboard box spilling T-s.h.i.+rts and towels onto the faded floorboards. "I had to wait for a full moon. So I figured out when the next one would be and got everything I needed while I waited."

"What spell did you use?"

I flick my gaze sideways. "I wrote it myself."

His eyes widen. "Seriously?"

I shrug. "Seriously. I mean, I got my ideas from a few different books, but yeah."

His mouth is still hanging open a little when he makes a "go on" motion with one hand.

"I needed some things I couldn't find around here," I continue, staring at the toe of my boot over my knee. "Mandrake root. A ritual, um, blade. They call them-"

"Athames, I know. My grandmother had one she gave my mom when she died."

I swallow again. I wasn't expecting that. "I wrote it all out, and collected the other things I needed-saffron, poppy, hemlock. I sort of scoped out the cemetery a few nights before the full moon, to make sure no one would be around. And to, well, get used to it, you know?"

I s.h.i.+vered as I remembered those nights before the moon was due to rise full, and I sat near Danny's grave, sometimes resting my cheek on the simple stone, tracing the letters of his name, engraved in the marble. DANIEL FRANCIS GREER. I had never known his middle name was Francis.

"And on that night?"Gabriel sounds almost angry now.

"I was there at eleven, waiting for midnight. I had a picture of him, and a T-s.h.i.+rt of his, and all the other things. I had already blessed the athame, too."

I can feel the slight motion as he nods. "Then?"

I close my eyes to picture it. I don't think about it much anymore-it was hyper real at the time, too many sensations, the chill of the earth even in late July, the damp kiss of the gra.s.s on my knees, the flat, chalky smell of the stone, the dark blanket of sky overhead.

I had everything ready-a candle, a bowl and a small container of milk, the herbs, and the blade. I laid it all out, trying to ignore the way my hands shook, the faint crackling of squirrels in the trees, the gra.s.shoppers' steady hum.

"At about five minutes to midnight, I poured the milk in the bowl and wrapped the mandrake root in Danny's s.h.i.+rt. I put that in the bowl, submerging it, and then added the saffron and the poppy and the hemlock." I glance at Gabriel, and his brow is twisted into a crooked, unhappy line.

"I laid the picture of him on the grave," I say, and my voice trembles a little then. It was a picture I loved-everything in it was perfectly Danny, from his Stooges T-s.h.i.+rt to the sun in his hair to the sleepy, soft smile on his face. "And I got out the knife."

"s.h.i.+t, Wren."

I ignore him, plowing ahead, determined to get the rest of it out now. "I p.r.i.c.ked my finger and smeared the blood on the picture. Then I cut my hand, here"-I hold out my right hand and show him the scar in the center of my palm-"and waited. As soon as it was midnight, I started the spell and squeezed my hand over the bowl."

I can remember the words even now, the smooth weight of them on my tongue, the sound of my voice in the silence. It had taken me almost a week to get it right, or as close to right as I thought it could be.

This night I seek to rekindle Life's bright fire Fire stolen too soon by the cold grasp of Death Untimely Death.

Spirits bright Spirits dark Spirits undecided and in between Witness my invocation.

Life taken from you, Danny, return!

Love awaits you.

Death has no hold on you.

By candlelight By starlight By moonlight growing stronger I command this to be.

With this symbol of Danny With my blood I command this to be.

Return to life Return to me Return to life Return to me Return to life Return to me.

Gabriel closes his eyes and scrubs a hand over his face when I repeat the spell to him, and I bite my lip. It sounds wrong here in this shabby room, on the sofa that smells like ancient must and smoke. It sounds crazy, wrong and crazy, but I have to tell him the rest.

"I took the blade and drove it through his picture and into the ground, into the dirt." My heart is pounding now, remembering the racing thrill in my veins as I waited, the air in the graveyard swelling, pus.h.i.+ng out, and the cool breeze that licked at the candle until it guttered and went out.

"And?"Gabriel says. He leans closer, folds his hand around my ankle again.

My voice is nothing more than a whisper. "I opened my eyes and Danny was there."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.