_____

  “I think that’s interesting, actually.” Ryan said, sounding mildly curious.

  “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.” I kept my eyes back on the group at the table, and finished eating. Then I could feel Ryan’s gaze on me, and I barely heard him whisper.

  “I don’t think it’s nothing.”

  ____

  We finished the meal and stayed for at least another hour. The time passed slow as I tried to be engaged in the conversation, but Ryan’s words stayed with me.

  I don’t think it’s nothing.

  After we finished our food, I gave in and ordered myself a cup of coffee, and said yes when they offered cream and sugar. Ryan smirked at me when they brought it, and I smiled despite trying to ignore him.

  Finally, we left the restaurant. And even as we stood as a group on the sidewalk as people waited for their rides and chatted, Ryan didn’t participate much in the group, except to answer questions that were specifically directed towards him.

  Despite this, he stood with confidence. And it seemed like it radiated from him. I wondered if he was as conceited as he looked. Though we shared a short conversation earlier, it was hard for me to tell.

  We walked as a group towards our car, and then stopped again as someone had to check their phone to see if their ride was on the way. It felt much colder out now than it had earlier.

  “It was nice meeting you, Kara.” I looked up at Ryan as he moved closer to me.

  “You too.” I smiled politely, and stuffed my hands into the almost nonexistent pockets of Tanya’s dress leather jacket, and hunched against the wind. Ryan was only in his dress shirt, but he looked comfortable, not having even bothered to roll down the sleeves.

  “Give me your hands.” Ryan asked abruptly and turned to me with his hands stretched out. He wasn’t as tall as I expected, only a little bit taller than myself.

  “What?” I asked, my voice coming out quieter than I meant it to be. There was no way I was giving him my hands.

  “Please? Look, my hands are warm and you’re obviously freezing. I’m guessing you don’t have gloves, and I’m really just trying to be nice here.”

  Reluctantly, I removed my hands from my pockets. Mostly because I couldn’t think of a way to say no that didn’t come across as rude.

  He took my hands and placed them between his palms. His hands were freezing like they had been back in the restaurant, but only for a moment. A rush of heat formed over my hands, and my first reaction was to pull back.

  “It’s okay,” He whispered, meeting my eyes. I glanced at the rest of the group, but they were too busy looking at photos on each others phones to notice us. The heat had subsided a little and now I was just left with a comfortable warmth, but I felt awkward just standing there with my hands between his.

  So I thanked him and gently pulled my hands back, returning them to my pockets. Ryan let my hands go and shrugged innocently.

  What was that? It was almost as if — I shook my head and cleared the thought away. There was no way it was possible.

  “Ready to go?” Tanya asked finally, obviously eyeing the distance between Ryan and I. We were facing each other, and clearly separate from the group.

  “Yeah,” I answered too quickly. Ryan nodded and headed off with the other half of the group. He lifted a hand in wave before turning around.

  “So?” Tanya asked excitingly, “What did you think?”

  “Of what?” I asked with fake ignorance as we walked slowly behind Becca and the other guy who I think might be named Andre or Andy.

  “Ryan, of course.” Tanya rolled her eyes but thankfully kept her voice down from the others. I shrugged nonchalantly.

  “I don’t know. He seemed too confident in himself.”

  “Maybe you could use more of it.” She kept her tone light so I knew she didn’t mean it to hurt. I stuck my tongue out at her anyway.

  “I guess he’s okay,” I admitted, but I still didn’t know what to make of him. Curling and uncurling my fingers in my pockets, I realized they were still warm despite the cold night air. Remembering the sharp cold that his hands had been the first moment I touched and then the incredible heat afterwards — it didn’t make sense.

  I was still quiet on the ride home, but this time Tanya left me to my own thoughts. We returned to the apartment and I changed into sweats and a hoodie. Gathering up my piles of clothes and the ones I had borrowed from Tanya to wash.

  It wasn’t too late, thankfully, and the laundry room below would still be open. Hoisting the laundry basket onto my hip I opened the apartment door. I might even have time to do a bit more spell research.

  Walking down the two flights of stairs to the basement, I tried to open the laundry room door, precariously balancing the basket on my knee. When the handle didn’t turn I unceremoniously dropped the full basket onto the floor. Finding the key in my pocket, I heaved my weight against the door the crouched to grab my laundry.

  “Why did they make the laundry room door so heavy, and why was it always locked?” I muttered to myself. I dug the token for the washers out of my pocket and set it in the coin tray. After loading my clothes and putting laundry pod into it, I pressed the coin tray forward to put in the token.

  A sharp pain shot up my arm and I gasped jerking back. My wrist felt like it was burning and I moved the left sleeve of my sweater back to look at it. A bruise had formed, looking like a grey smudge across my wrist, like it had been painted with ash. Or like a painful kind of shadow had fallen over my wrist. I rubbed it, but it didn’t go away, and the stinging, burning feeling remained.

  Deep down, I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to admit it. It wasn’t a good sign. Turning the dials on the washing machine to the settings I wanted, I pushed start, and pulled down my sleeve to cover my wrist as I walked back upstairs.

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  It didn’t matter though, Tanya was already in her room. By the time I had sat down on my bed and placed the empty basket on the floor, my wrist had stopped burning. Fading to a dull ache.

  Bringing my laptop to my bed, I searched through the files I had bookmarked, and quickly found what I was looking for: A spell that I had tried two days ago that had given me with a really bad headache.

  Searching through the forum, a few new comments had been posted:

  I tried this three nights ago. Not only did it not work, it left me with a migraine. And this morning my leg started burning. I have a grey smudge on it now, like a kind of bruise. I put healing salve on it, but it still aches. Help?

  There weren’t any comments or answers under that post yet. But on a different post:

  Grey mark on my neck from this, can’t get rid of it. Any ideas?

  This one had a response.

  Don’t mess with this. It doesn’t get better. I tried it again, tweaking some of the things from the original. It gets worse. My leg and both of my arms both have the dark smudges on them. The aching doesn’t stop. It’s not worth it, and doesn’t seem to work anyway.

  At least now I knew for sure what the mark on my wrist was from, but no one had seemed to have any luck with the spell yet. Or getting rid of the marks.

  “Guess I should’ve washed more long-sleeved t-shirts,” I whispered to myself, but kept scrolling, seeing if any of the older posts had any new comments. I noticed the word “alive” on a post, and scrolled up a bit to read it from the beginning.

  THE SPELL DOES WORK. BUT WITH SIDE EFFECTS. THE BRUISES GET WORSE, THE ACHING GETS WORSE. CAN’T CUTE IT YET, BUT IT WORKS!!!! My best friend is alive again, this is incredible. Everything hurts all the time, and I have to wear clothing on most of my body to hide the shadows of grey - that is the cost. Think about what you’re messing with. It took me a year and a half to get it. You just have to keep at it, every couple of days, do the spell. It takes a lot. Use at your own risk.

  There was no way for me to know if this was true. A quick search told me this was the only post that listed a success. The question was: Was I willing to go through the pain of this, and the potential for complications, given the smudges to bring back my brother?

  Of course.

  This wasn’t a decision for me. I had already made the choice the moment I found out he was dead.

  I leaned back against my pillows and stared at the list of posts on my laptop screen. The successful post could be fake, someone who just said it worked to mess with people. It wasn’t uncommon, I’d made that mistake before, trusting online sources, with other simpler spells.

  But I had a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time: Hope. There was a chance that this could work. And I owed it to my brother to try.

  Placing the laptop on the desk again, I pulled open the doors to my closet and stared at it. It wasn’t a traditional closet, even for spell work.

  Most of my jars were unlabeled, and most shelves just held scraps of paper with spells ideas and a bunch of ingredients that didn’t work. It had been a long summer of trial and error.

  I had small bags of things strewn across the shelving too, and even I had to admit once school started and I still hadn’t made any progress, that I really didn’t know what I was doing.

  “She does things.” For the second time today, that memory came to mind. We had been sitting on the floor together in our shared bedroom when my brother screamed for my parents. They came rushing into the room, finding my brother with a cut across his face. My mother picked him up, and he started sobbing. The cut ran along his cheek, bleeding, but not deep. He wasn’t badly injured, but frightened.

  “What did you do?” My father demanded. I burst into tears too, matching my brother, knowing I had done something wrong. I hadn’t meant to, but I knew I would be in trouble for it. And I think that was the first time I lied about what I could do.

  “I threw a toy, I didn’t — I didn’t — I didn’t” I couldn’t catch my breath through the sobs, and my dad just sighed, but let it go.

  “You shouldn’t throw toys, Kara, you know better.” My father lifted me up then, and sternly lectured me on being more careful. I never did magic in front of anyone, ever again.

  Except for that last time, when he died.

  “Eric,” I whispered out loud into my bedroom. “I’m going to get you back.”

  #

  I didn’t perform the spell that night. I wanted to see if the aching would go away the next day. But when I got up, I found myself immediately rubbing my wrist. The ache had settled, just a throb now, like if you have a bad sprain — but it was constant.

  Getting up a bit earlier than normal, I packed a lunch for class and tucked my laptop into my bag. I had an hour and a half break for lunch today, so I could do some more research.

  Digging through the cabinet for a granola bar, I noticed the box of crackers, and was reminded of the fox. Maybe I would see him again? Pulling out a small plastic bag, I took some of the crackers, just in case.

  “You must have made an impression last night.” Tanya’s voice sounded in the kitchen as she walked in, still in her pajamas, and grinning at me.

  “What?” I asked, finally finding the box of granola bars. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” She took her phone out of the pocket of her pajama pants and showed me a screen of text messages. The name ‘Ryan’ was at the top. I briefly read the conversation and my eyes caught my name in the last one.

  Hey Tanya, could you give Kara my number? I’d like to talk with her again.

  It was a simple enough message, but I felt my heart rate increase as I read it. Why would he want to talk to me? I shrugged, feigning nonchalance as I put my sandwich and snacks into my bag.

  Glancing at the clock on the stove reading 7:38am, I was going to have to leave soon.

  “You have to message him.” Tanya said.

  “Fine, I’ll take his number, but that’s it.” I knew Tanya wouldn’t let go, so I unlocked my phone and gave it to her. “Put him in my contact and I’ll message him on my way to class. I have to get going.”

  I headed back to my room and looked at the new name in my contacts before sliding it into my jeans pocket. Opening my closet I took out a small journal that held the spell I was currently working on, and the sleeve of my sweater moved up as I reached for the top shelf. A good reminder of what I was getting into, I thought, as I covered it before heading back into the kitchen and saying goodbye to Tanya.

  I walked down the street towards the university. I t was small, but thankfully it was only a few blocks away. It was my second year in Psychology, but my classes were still pretty generalized. That, and I wasn’t taking a full course load since I also needed to work.

  Walking, I had to mentally tell myself not to rub my wrist, but it was difficult. For a while, I could probably tell people that I had hit it against something, but how long would that work for? If I really was stuck with this mark, I was going to have to be creative eventually.

  Pulling open the heavy doors of the Humanities building, I headed for my English class, and wondered about the person who had posted that the shadows were over most of their body. How did they deal with that? No more swimsuits, I guess.

  Watching all the other students walked to class, or stopped and chatted in groups. Then remembered Ryan’s number in my phone. Pulling it out, I quickly selected “R” and started a new message. I kept it simple, just a quick hello, stating who I was, and that we had met last night.

  I hit send, and before I took my seat in the class, I felt my phone vibrate.

  Glad to hear from you. I would like to talk to you again, preferably away from Tanya’s gossip crowd. Would you be willing to meet again at the same place? I’ll make sure the coffee comes with lots of cream and sugar.

  I smiled despite myself. The memory of his hands holding mine resurfaced. The shocking cold at first, then the immense heat coming from his hands as they held mine. I had to know if there was more to it. Though, I thought to myself, if I was being honest, I was really wondering if he was like me.

  I texted him: Sure, except I’ll need to find a way there first. I’m free on Thursday, anytime after 4pm, does that work for you?

  Maybe I could ask someone at work to give me a ride, though I’d have to pay them a bit for the cost of has. I put my phone in my pocket and pulled my notebook and pen out of my bag, waiting for the class to start. My phone vibrated in my pocket.

  I’ll pick you up at your place. Send me your address later. I’ll see you at 6pm on Thursday.

  I guess that solved my ride problem, I thought, grinning at the thought of seeing him again.