Watch Me Burn: The December People, Book Two (4 page)

“You always take her side,” Emmy said, and collapsed onto her own bed.

“Emmy, is there a summer witch on the Sugar Land volleyball team?” Dad asked.

Emmy sat up, and stared at him.

“What? Why?”

Dad took a crumpled looking flyer out of his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Emmy. Emmy’s stomach squeezed. She had truly hated Julie. But now, she was on a missing child flyer. Emmy didn’t know if that made her feel sad, but it felt
wrong
. She thought those things didn’t happen to the good wizards.

“What happened to her?”

“She’s missing,” Dad explained, unhelpfully.

“But why do you have her photo? Do you know her?”

“I got this off the bulletin board at the gas station. I saw that she played volleyball, and I thought you might know her.”

Emmy stared at her knees.

Dad came in and sat next to her on the bed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“You do know her?”

“No. Well, yes. I mean, I’ve never talked to her. But we were at camp the same time last year. And I’ve seen her at games.”

“Your mother thinks she’s a summer witch because of the bracelet she’s wearing in the photo. Do you think she is?”

“Definitely.”

Evangeline sat on Emmy’s other side, surrounding her. Evangeline took the flyer from Dad.

“I’ve never met a summer witch,” Evangeline said.

“Do yourself a favor and keep it that way,” Emmy said.

Evangeline handed the flyer to Emmy and she passed it back to Dad quickly, not wanting to look again.

“It can’t be that bad, right? Can bad things happen to summer witches?” she asked, echoing Emmy’s own thoughts.

“Bad things almost happened to her when I met her,” Emmy said. “She’s got this warm, fuzzy vibe about her that makes everyone fall in love. All the Mundanes, anyway. Not me. I hated her on sight. I don’t know how summer wizards aren’t extinct. You’d think if they crossed paths with any winter wizard who was even slightly messed up in the head, they’d get slaughtered…Why are you asking me about her? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

“No reason, I thought you might know something useful.”

“So, you think I kidnapped her?” Emmy was joking, but not completely. If anyone knew how much Emmy had hated Julie, it might make sense to accuse her.

“Of course not.”

“Well, good. Because I didn’t. It’s not like there is room to store her in here anyway. Check the closet if you want, but there isn’t even room for my clothes in there.”

“Was there anyone who had a problem with her? Any jerk boyfriends? Or other weird stuff? Anyone not like her?”

Emmy smirked.
You mean, other than me?
“No, Dad. Everybody in the world loves her. Like I said, we’re not friends. I don’t know anything about boyfriends or anything like that. If you want to know who would want to hurt her, I would say, all dark wizards. Just being around her made me want to claw off my skin, or her skin.”

Dad’s face turned green at this.

“Jesus, Dad. I’m just saying. I didn’t claw off her skin.”

David’s discussion with Emmy made the humming of the spell grow louder. David excelled at reading people, and not only in the Mundane sense. He couldn’t read minds, but one of his magical skills was understanding people’s intentions and whether people told him the truth. And Emmy had told the truth. About all of it. She knew Julie. She hated Julie. But learning Julie had gone missing surprised her, and upset her. He doubted she knew anything else—at least he didn’t suspect she was hiding anything. And as suspected, Evangeline had no more than a detached curiosity about Julie. She had lived outside of society for the first twelve years of her life, and aside from attending a small progressive, private school the second half of last school year, she still hadn’t joined society in any meaningful way.

So, David didn’t know why the spell had intensified. The girls didn’t know anything useful. But the magic pushed at his knees and coursed through his body like extra adrenaline. The spell seemed…excited?

He could ask the boys, but they probably wouldn’t have any useful information. Xavier was more detached from the world than his sister. Through years of trauma he had found a way to use magic to numb himself into a state of near non-existence. He barely seemed to recognize his own family, let alone strangers. Patrick had never been social, and had become even less so lately. He had stopped going out to visit the few friends he had. The only time he left the house was for his summer job as a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool.

Therefore, David doubted that either of his sons would know Julie. But David appreciated any excuse to engage his sons in conversation. His daughters bickered and cast frivolous spells on each other, but he could handle that. In fact, he had trouble stopping himself from smiling when he saw them fighting. They may not have gotten along, but they acted like sisters, and that made his heart swell.

The boys got along fine, but he’d rather they fight. If they fought, he could see the life in them. At least shouting was communication. David wanted Xavier to feel something, anything—a selfish wish perhaps, because he knew Xavier needed a way to protect himself. If he started to feel things, some of it would be painful. But David feared what would happen if he kept fading. Could he fade away completely? Snuff out his soul altogether? Would David one day wake up to find nothing behind his eyes?

The boys had left the door open, so David walked in. They played Grand Theft Auto with glazed eyes. They hadn’t known each other for most of their lives, but they still looked right as brothers. In looks at least, as they reminded David of himself and his own brother, James. Xavier looked like David…almost exactly like David. They both had hair and eyes a bland color of brown, and eyebrows that made them look serious all the time. Patrick looked similar, but warmer in every way. In the right light, his brown eyes had hints of red and gold.

“Can you pause?” David asked.

The game paused, but they didn’t stop looking at the screen.

“And can you also turn around, and look at me while I’m talking to you?” David added.

They did…slowly.

“This will just take a second.” David held the photo of the girl out for them to see. “I don’t know if you’ve seen on the news…”

David stopped. He felt a deep chill that made his skull tingle. Patrick’s eyes sparked to life, all sign of boredom or apathy squelched. He stared at the photo. He didn’t appear to breathe or blink. His face paled, as if David had shown him a picture of a demon or rotting corpse, and not a sweet, happy girl in a volleyball uniform.

Xavier glanced at the photo, but then turned his attention toward Patrick, a rare flicker of life in his eyes. But David could tell he was just reacting to Patrick. He didn’t look twice at the picture of the girl.

A long moment passed. “What?” Patrick asked.

“What?” David echoed in the same confused, ghostly whisper.

“I’m sorry. Did you ask me something?” Patrick asked. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I…didn’t ask anything yet. I planned to ask if you had seen her before.”

“I…” Patrick looked at the photo again, swallowed hard, and then looked away. “No. I haven’t seen her before.”

Now it was David’s turn to stare for ten seconds. His mouth felt dry and he didn’t know if his tongue would work if he used it. Finally he said, “Okay…thanks,” and left the room.

he only times Patrick had felt happy since finding out he was a wizard were with Samantha. Or the times with Samantha
before
his brother had raped her and she had left for New Orleans to live with some crazy aunt. Since then, he could think of only one happy day. The Fourth of July. On that day, things still sucked, of course. Unthinkable horrors filled the past, present, and future. But his family had fun that day.
Fun
—something winter wizards rarely experienced, and certainly not the Vandergraffs.

On the Fourth of July, they played with fire. And not in the controlled way they had on the solstice. They just played. Even though his parents no longer forbid magic, Patrick equated it with other dangerous activities such as drinking, driving, or sex—weighed down with rules and warnings. And Mom and Dad never let them forget it. “Approved” magic reminded Patrick of commercials for prescription drugs. The narrator talked pleasantly about all the nice things the drug could do for about five seconds, then the for the next thirty seconds they read the FDA warnings about all the horrible side effects. But on the Fourth of July, Mom had said, “If the Mundane kids can play with fireworks, I don’t see why you can’t too…for once, magic is probably less dangerous.”

They went to a small park close to their house with a playscape and a few picnic tables. They chose a place far away from the city fireworks. Dad grilled burgers and Mom set out a spread of other picnic stuff, such as potato salad and iced tea. That would have all seemed super normal, even idyllic, if it hadn’t been ten-o-clock at night, in a poorly lit park. But they wanted space to play with fire.

They set up a repelling spell around the area so no one would disturb them. Even though no one in the family, save for maybe Xavier and Evangeline, were good at magic, they found if they all agreed on one spell and cast it together, they could get the job done without much problem. Of course, agreeing on a spell was easier said than done. In most ways, trying to do magic felt like trying to survive in a foreign land when you only knew about ten words of the language.

But simple spells like repelling were so easy it was stupid. They just had to want it. Patrick would picture a bubble of darkness around them, not a scary darkness, but a safe darkness—one that could hide you from danger. He couldn’t say for sure whether his visualization did any good or not, since they all cast the spell. He could sense the magic radiating off the others. It seeped into him, making him feel more powerful. Their dark energy filled the air, little demons floating around them as dark bodyguards. When he cast his spell, the already-circling demons stopped being wisps of smoke, and formed one solid impenetrable mass around them.

After he cast his spell, he turned toward the beckoning food on the table and saw Evangeline looking at him.
Looking
was the best way to describe it. She didn’t glare, or a stare, or a gape. Evangeline’s face didn’t betray any emotion. She just
looked
, and he never quite knew why. But when she looked at him, Patrick knew she planned to cast a spell on him sometime soon. For his first predictions, he’d only been able to see big stuff that would happen seconds later, but his skills had improved.