Steadfast

8

NADIA SAT BENEATH THE PROTECTIVE BLUE CEILING OF her attic, poring through the Book of Shadows that had belonged to Goodwife Hale centuries before. So much information was written down in here—spells Nadia had never heard of before, the history that had told her the truth about Elizabeth Pike—but there wasn’t anything about whatever had happened to Mrs. Purdhy a couple of days ago.

She had been able to find specifics about demons, but almost wished she hadn’t. They were only called upon for the darkest, most dangerous magic. And now he was following Verlaine.

Probably he’s following all of us, Nadia thought. Spying for Elizabeth.

Well, let Elizabeth learn what she could. If Nadia perfected this spell of forgetting, Elizabeth would lose this information as well as all her magic.

Right now, though, she was distracted. She’d gotten an email from Faye Walsh today, asking Nadia to schedule a conference. There was no reason for them to have a conference. Not unless Ms. Walsh was about to start asking questions Nadia couldn’t answer.

The way she’d stared at Nadia after the incident at town hall—had Ms. Walsh guessed the truth? Did she somehow know Nadia was a witch?

“Naaaaaaadiaaaaa!” Cole yelled from downstairs. “Dad says we all need to get out of the house for a while!”

Probably that really meant that he’d botched making dinner again. But eating out meant going to a restaurant, which meant Mateo. “Be right there!”

“See, buddy?” Nadia ruffled Cole’s hair as the entire family got settled in their booth at La Catrina. “We made it just fine.”

“Something always happens when we try to go here.” Her little brother looked around at the skeletons on the walls; he didn’t seem to care that they were all happily playing guitars or dancing. “Every time.”

“Not this time. We finally get to try the best Mexican food in town for ourselves.” Dad clapped his hands together. He seemed cheerful—way too cheerful, really, unless he’d had a serious jones for Mexican food the last couple of months and was now more excited about empanadas than any other man on Earth. Nadia felt like he’d been in a weird mood all day, or at least since she got home from school, but probably it was just work crap. Lawyers seemed to deal with that a lot.

Across the room, she finally caught sight of Mateo at the same moment he saw her. Even though he had platters of fajitas in his hands and balanced on his forearms, he grinned at her through the steam.

That was all it took. It was as though the world was in black and white until she saw Mateo, and then it was in color—all the vibrant gold, red, and turquoise of La Catrina coming alive around her, like Dorothy stepping into Oz. As though she’d only listened to the noise of knives on plates and dull conversations and now she could hear the music, Mateo showed her how vivid the world around her really was, how beautiful, if she’d only see.

When he came to their table, he was wearing a smile so broad it almost made her laugh—though probably she looked just as stupid. He only glanced away to slide some crayons and a kids’ place mat to Cole. “Glad you guys stopped by.”

“The hero himself,” Dad said, and held out his hand to shake.

Mateo shrugged as if it had been no big deal, when in fact he’d helped her dad pull Cole out of their wrecked car, then rescued Nadia himself. That was the first time his visions had led him to her, the night they’d met. “Good to see you, Mr. Caldani. Now, do you guys want to hear tonight’s special?”

Nadia ordered her usual without even thinking about it, the better to concentrate on how Mateo looked in his black T-shirt.

Her dad finished, “. . . and a margarita. Could definitely use a margarita. Nadia can drive home, can’t you, honey?”

“Sure thing.” That, too, was surprising. Dad rarely drank around her and Cole.

“Okay, coming right back with your drinks.” Mateo finished writing on his notepad, ducked down to kiss Nadia on the cheek, then hurried to check on yet another new table nearby . . . Kendall Bender, in fact, though instead of her usual troop of loyal Plastics, she was with her family. There seemed to be about a dozen of them, from grandparents to an older sister in a college sweatshirt; they’d be keeping Mateo busy.

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Wait a second. I thought Mateo Perez had a girlfriend.”

“Oh. Well—he didn’t, actually. There was a girl he was hanging around with, but it wasn’t, I mean—” Nadia didn’t even know how to explain the whole Elizabeth situation in a way her father could understand. So she just shrugged and grinned. “Well, he has a girlfriend now.”

“Uh-huh. This is major news. When were you going to tell me?”

Nadia laughed. “When I thought you wouldn’t freak out about it the way you’re doing right this second?”

“Aw, come on. This isn’t freaking out. This is—normal dad curiosity. You know it’s okay with me that you’re dating, right?” Her dad leaned forward, suddenly way more intense than the situation called for. “Mateo’s a great guy. You couldn’t have done any better. And besides, a normal, healthy love life is . . . healthy. And normal.”

She was beginning to think that her dad might be talking about more than her love life now, which wasn’t something she wanted to add to her list of worries. “Yeah. Sure.”

Cole looked up from his coloring. “When you kiss him, does he put his tongue inside your mouth?”

Dad pointed a finger. “You think you’re pulling the innocent-little-kid routine, but we can see right through you. Right through to your bones, just like one of the skeletons on the wall! Want me to get a sombrero for you? Then we can put you on the wall, too.” This made Cole start giggling, and saved Nadia from having to answer that question.

“Be right back,” she said as she scooted out of the booth. Her dad, now coloring with Cole, just nodded.

In the bathroom, Nadia ran her fingers through her hair, checked her outfit, straightened up. It wasn’t like Mateo cared—he’d seen her covered with soot, soaked with seawater, you name it—but still. The more a guy thought you were beautiful no matter what, the more you wanted to be beautiful for him. If you liked me all grimy with cobwebs, you won’t even be able to handle me now.

“Oh, hey,” Kendall said, managing to reapply her lipstick and talk at the same time. “You sure do come here a lot. Like, all the time. I would’ve thought you guys would want Italian food sometimes.”

Even by Kendall standards, this made no sense. Nadia frowned. “Why?”

“You’re Italian, right? Caldani?”

“Actually, no.” Dad usually said the name was Persian. That was an old habit, going back to when he was a little boy in the 1970s and his family had to deal with a lot of prejudice; the fact that his family had actually fled the Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t stop people from blaming them for his rule. Nadia preferred the direct approach. “We’re Iranian.”

Mom’s half was part Scottish, part Greek, but Nadia didn’t bother mentioning that. It was too much fun watching Kendall’s eyes get wider. “I thought you were American.”

“We are American. You didn’t think I was actually from Italy before, did you?” Nadia took another look at herself in the mirror. Gray T-shirt tucked into jeans, sari-print scarf knotted around her neck just so, earrings dangling instead of caught: Everything looked right.

“Well, no, but.” Kendall said this like it somehow made sense. “Are you guys Muslim?”

“No. We’re Chaldean Catholics. Well, at least in theory. Not many Chaldean Catholic churches around in the United States.” There had been one in Chicago, but in Rhode Island, particularly Captive’s Sound? Forget it. “What would it matter if we were Muslim anyway?”

But Kendall had already moved on to the subject that, clearly, had interested her all along. “So, looks like you and Mateo are a thing.”

Nadia felt an irrational stab of annoyance. It wasn’t like Mateo would ever in a thousand years go for Kendall—and to be fair, Kendall didn’t seem to be into Mateo, either. But she was always sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. Still—Nadia was proud of loving Mateo, being with him. Why not tell Kendall? “Yeah. We’re together.”

“Does Elizabeth Pike know?”

“Definitely.”

“Bet she’s not happy.”

Halloween night, Kendall had seen Mateo under Elizabeth’s spell. Nadia decided to bunt. “They decided they’re better off as friends.”

“Interesting” was the only reply, in a tone of voice that told Nadia the entire school would hear about this by tomorrow morning, if not within the hour. Kendall Bender was sort of a one-woman amplification system for gossip.

Good, she decided. Let the whole world know.

She said, “See you,” and left the bathroom as quickly as she could, giving Kendall a smile so warm it would have to confuse her.

As she went back to her family’s booth, Nadia glanced over her shoulder to see Mateo taking the check to yet another table. He had the most wonderful lopsided grin, and he seemed to be kind to everybody, even customers who were questioning the tab. This wasn’t a guy whose love she had to fear.

There’s no spell to break. Mateo wouldn’t leave you. He’s not going anywhere.

Kendall’s voice rang out, sharp with fear, cutting through all the other chatter like a knife. “Riley?”

When Nadia looked over at the Bender family’s table, she saw the older girl, the one in the Brown sweatshirt, putting her hands to her throat. That was the sign for choking, and Mateo ran toward the table—but he froze just as Nadia gasped in horror, just as Riley opened her mouth and black liquid began dribbling out.

Everything was a blur after that. Kendall screamed, and Mateo grabbed his phone to dial 9-1-1, and Cole began crying. Although Nadia swept him into her arms, she never took her eyes away from Riley Bender. The panic in her eyes, the gruesome smell of death, the burns that dark, tarry stuff left on the table: All of it was just like what had happened to Mrs. Purdhy, who was still in a coma at the hospital.

And if this was the same thing that had happened to Mrs. Purdhy, that meant . . .

Nadia turned to see Elizabeth standing in the doorway of La Catrina. Even as everyone else ran around in a panic, Elizabeth walked slowly through the crowd, weaving her way through the onlookers. Mateo didn’t see her—he was on his knees trying to talk to Riley while her family held her head upright so she wouldn’t choke. But it seemed to Nadia like he ought to feel Elizabeth approaching, like a chill in the air or a tremor of the earth. Cold snaked through the place behind her, around her.

“Hi, Nadia,” Elizabeth said as though nothing were going on. “Hi there, Mr. Caldani.” Her father’s face went very red, for some reason.

“What are you doing?” Nadia whispered. “Why are you doing this?”

Of course Elizabeth didn’t answer. She only stooped beside the Benders’ table, right by a smoldering puddle of the black liquid. Once again she dipped her fingers into it and painted it onto her upper arm, ignoring the searing of her own flesh. Nobody around her noticed that, or thought it was odd. As always, her magic protected her from unwelcome attention—while she was choking Riley Bender from the inside out.

Riley slumped over into the booth, unconscious. Her family’s wailing was drowned out only by the sound of ambulance sirens approaching. Elizabeth rose to her feet, and there was nothing for Nadia to do but hold on to Cole and watch her go.