Ironminder

A Drop of Magic

I was up as quickly as I could, but it didn't stop the desperation from adding a certain taint of clumsiness to my movements. I clipped the door jam as I shoved myself against the front door, using my weight to shove against the release bar and out into the humid night. 

As always, the Florida night was mean-spirited, causing lines of sweat to slick down my spine before the sea breeze snuck in under my shirt and chilled me. The panic and the need to distance myself from where Peggy and our RA could find me dulled the pain, turning it into a muted ache just beneath the roaring sound of adrenaline in my ears. 

What's my best bet? I'd only had one summons to Faerie since coming here and it was easily neighborhoods away down a steep incline into a glorified ditch. You'll never make it there, much less open a doorway if that one's closed.

And I knew it would be. The doors always closed near immediately, only open for those fractions of time when some creature or another pooled enough power to throw one open. 

So, I needed another option, which was what led me back to the times I'd been summoned back home in Louisiana, the places that had always been a bit fuzzy. Mushroom circles. Bogs. Marshlands. Mammoth trees. Back Alley Archways. Woods that smelled like cinnamon.

None of those things translated, not with my limited knowledge of the art city at hand. But, I needed them to translate and quickly.

I shuffled past the tennis courts that lined the high-rise dorm on the east side, there were a few people there playing some semblance of a game. They paid no heed to my passage. 

I'd made it almost to the corner of the backside of the dorm before I heard Peggy's shout, "Lyn?"

It rang out over the yard, and despite the others' inattention, it was only a matter of time before her concern translated into their curiosity. 

"Fuck," the curse was out before I even knew it, but it was fitting as I flung myself into the nearby hedgerows. The neatly manicured branches cut into my skin, I added the sensation to the list of aches and pains that were bound to come back sometime after the shock and panic wore off. Or until you die...

No time for that. 

"Dammit, Lyn! Where are you?" Peggy's voice got louder along with the deeper bass of our RA. 

Human promises were made to be broken, of that I was certain, but Peggy was a different breed entirely. I knew next to nothing about her save three simple certainties: her mothers adopted her from Vietnam 20 years ago, she was a Virgo, and she was without a doubt my friend in both the most and least convenient way. "Goddamnit."

Her form streaked past me in a blur, hunting the sidewalk I'd only just vacated. 

She'll never believe you. It's no use. What can she do to help you? You've managed all of this time on your own, why bother changing now? With every thought, the throbbing pain strengthened radiating up towards my shoulder, causing my arm to hang limply at my side more often than not. 

With a savage snarl, I fumbled with my jeans pocket, pulling out my cellphone, "Damn us all, Peggy Conden." I dialed her number quickly. 

She answered on the first ring. "Where the hell are you?"

"Under a bush outside the dorm. I'll be honest with you about what's going on if you promise not to bring Bobby." There was silence on the other side of the line.

"Promises aren't useful."

"The human variety rarely are." 

She retraced her steps this time slower, her eyes tracking the lines of the branches until they fell on me, just barely hidden behind the leaves, "What the fuck is going on, Lyn."

"I'll tell you about it, but it isn't a kind story and I don't have the luxury of time."

Her attention was pulled from me for a moment, looking back towards the front of the building I saw a look of indecision flash across her face as her eyes betrayed my hiding space for only a moment. 

"Have you found her?" Bobby. I'd recognize his voice easily enough.

She took a moment too long, but finally, she responded, "No. Not yet. I was just trying to see if I could reach her on her cell. Do you think she went to the clinic on her own?"

"I'll check. Did you check around the back of the dorm?"

"I'll head there now." Peggy placed the phone back in her pocket and shooed Bobby away from my hiding spot. When he retreated around the corner she turned to me with fire in her eyes, "You owe me."

"Consider it a debt."

"Fuck that bullshit, Lyn. I'm your friend. It's not a debt, just let me help you." As she said it, she was folding herself underneath the brush to sit in the little space there was between the bushes and the stucco wall of the dorm building. 

When she glanced at my arm her stare lingered, "Why would you do this to yourself."

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. It had grown there after years and years of silence, becoming the most formidable foe I'd yet to face. "I didn't...or at least not in the way you think."

She looked like she didn't believe me.

"I'm begging you, for one night Peggy please, to just believe in nonsense. For this night only, please believe every word that comes out of my mouth. You can forget it tomorrow if it makes it easier, but I need help. And despite everything I am telling you you're right about most things, except this one: I am foolish, but I'm no fool."

"Okay." Her dark eyebrows were pulled down into a look I'd once interpreted as angry, but now knew was simply concentration, "Hit me."

"I've come into a bargain of an unkind nature. If I can't fulfill it by sunrise it will kill me."

She was silent for a breath before she spit out, "You're more than a fool." She grabbed my arm, viciously yanking it toward her before she pressed the cool lick of a ring against my wrist. 

For a moment there was nothing and then there was a blinding burn. The fire in my arm erupted twining in and over itself and writhing beneath my skin so furiously I was sure it would split my veins and carve fissures out of my skin entirely. I managed the hint of a strangled cry before she removed the ring. 

Her eyes lingered on my arm in a way that made me wonder if she could see it too, the flickering embers that moved angrily beneath the surface of my wrist. "You've made a fool's bargain, and sit here and say you aren't a fool. It's only a small blessing that I know you're human."

I choked up a laugh, "That's a more interesting way to call me a liar than I've ever heard before, Peg."

"Peggy," she hissed at me. "What impossible task do you have to do before tomorrow?"

"Find my way back to Faerie."

The air hissed through her teeth when she bared them at me, "Why would you ever make that bargain."

I wasn't honestly certain I had. No bargain had been struck, no offer of my services was given nor had any payment been agreed upon. This predicament simply felt like...an order. And yet the magic pursued me with a vicious singularity that I was hard-pressed to see at as anything other than what it was. "In all honesty, I have no Earthly idea."

"Now at least that isn't a surprise. You've roped yourself in with creatures that shouldn't have been messed with. No Promises. No Bargains. My mothers--"

"What are your mothers?" I couldn't keep the curiosity out of my voice. I couldn't help it. I wanted to know the type of women that would instill old traditions in a modern era.

I couldn't staunch that faint hope that maybe I'd finally come across someone similar to me, someone with answers. 

"Pagan," was all the answer that she gave me. That and "cautious".

We sat in silence for a moment too long for how quickly my limited time was escaping me. 

"So how do you plan to get back?" 

"Hopefully, with a drop of magic."