She looks so much more like our mom than I do. I have Dad’s blue eyes, not Mom’s brown ones; Connie even got her mannerisms—not to mention her great hair.
“It’s all taken care of,” I say, pushing away my feelings. Her eyes widen as she examines the alley, which is covered in green guts.
“Did Pop come?” she asks.
“No,” I say with a smile.
“Gran?” I shake my head. She scrunches up her nose, “Then who did this?”
I clear my throat and hold my shoulders higher. “I did.”
Connie laughs. I glare at her.
“You can’t do this. Don’t lie to me. It’s okay if you had help.”
“I did it, Connie. Me.”
She looks around the alley and harrumphs, bracelets clinking together as she moves her hands around and mutters an incantation. The mess of demon guts disappears around us. I look at my little sister. There are only eleven months between us, though sometimes it feels like decades. She doesn’t believe me. Not that I blame her. I probably wouldn’t believe me if I hadn’t done it.
“How did you do it alone?”
I smile at her. “I think I found the demon.”
Connie stares at me, like she’s not sure if I’m real or not. “The demon that—”
“Ours. Mine. The one that took my power.”
Chapter Two
I glance out the window of the garage. I can see Connie sitting in the backyard; she’s sprawled out on the grass, and she’s waving her phone in the air. She wants me to read the messages she’s been sending but I already know they mean she’s done trying. I refuse to give up. I refocus on the shelf in front of me, perfectly lined with all the things I’ve been trying to blow up. Or move. Or levitate. At this point I’d settle for making them glow. I call on the magic, but all I feel is nothing. And it’s annoying.
Two hours ago, I expelled a demon. I had magic all on my own. And now? Now it feels like that moment right before my first kiss, after three torturous weeks of listening to Jason Prevoy talk about his car, only to learn too late that he slobbered like a Saint Bernard. That poor purple sweater never recovered.
I count to three and try again, reciting every spell I can think of and focusing so hard I probably look constipated. Then the objects start to move, and for a second I believe I’m doing it. Then Connie barges in through the back door the same moment a paint bucket topples to the ground.
I turn to her and groan. “Con, I wasn’t done! Go back out there.”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but you’ve been trying to blow up that vase for two hours, Penelope.” Connie grabs my hand. In a moment the vase shatters to pieces and I pull my hand away, but she looks satisfied. “Can we admit that maybe it didn’t happen like you think?”
“I was there. I expelled him, Connie. Demon guts and all.”
“Maybe it was—”
“It wasn’t,” I yell a little too loudly. When Connie yells, sometimes the house shakes. I want that. I feel so ineffective.
Connie touches my arm, causing a little prickle of magic within me. It’s gone as soon as she lets go. Is my magical worth going to be tied to my baby sister forever? If it is, then I am not okay with that. I’ve already had to share a last name, a birth year, a grade, and a classroom. I need this to be my own.
“Maybe it was a fluke. We’ve tested your magic before and we both know it doesn’t work alone,” she says.
I press a hand to my temple, a dull ache starting to form. I’ve been thinking too hard today.
Every month that first year we realized I didn’t have magic on my own anymore, my family “experimented.” I had some small sliver of essence inside me that connected to my family. I could touch any of them and have power. Gran or Pop could be in the same room, and I could pull my magic from them. Connie could be anywhere in the same twenty feet and six inches of space as me and I could pull from her. But one centimeter beyond that twenty feet and sixteen inches and I had nothing. That’s why I made her wait on the other side of the yard while I tried in the garage: it’s the exact distance away that our powers don’t connect.
“You were nowhere near me. You said so yourself.”
“It wasn’t you, Penelope. I know you don’t want to hear that, but look at the evidence,” Connie says.
She’s right: I don’t want to hear that my magic doesn’t work. I’m tired of it not working. I want to be able to blow up things, move things, and save people anytime I want. Obviously, I can’t. There’s a line of evidence stretched out before me on a shelf and the floor: an old TV, a bucket of paint, and pieces of the vase. They all mock me. They’re all waiting for me to destroy them with my Jedi mind tricks. Lucky bastards get to live a little longer.
“I’m going to get my magic back for real,” I say softly. Connie looks at me in that way that only she can do, a cross between worrying and encouraging that makes me question my sanity, but this time I stand firm. Even her looks can’t sway me. “I’m going to become an Enforcer and then find that demon; I’m going to get my power back.”
It’s been my plan all along, since that first year when nothing worked. Inside the Nucleus House, home of everything in the magical community, there’s a library. The library has what I need. But I need special access in order to enter, and being an Enforcer is the only way to get inside. Getting into the library will allow me to find my demon and to get my magic back. It’s a solid plan; I’ve been working toward this for years. Mostly solid, I guess, because I have no control over my success.
“You don’t even know if that will work, Penelope. The whole magical restoration ritual could be a trap.”
“It’s not. I’ve been researching the ritual. It’s real,” I say.
I need to believe it. When I was nine, a demon killed my parents and stole my essence, my source power. Witches die if they lose their essence. I didn’t. Why that happened we have no idea. What I do know is that I will get my magic back. All I have to do is find which demon it was. Once I know that, I can focus on understanding and completing the ritual I’ve discovered that will give me my magic back.
Before the ritual, before anything, I need the demon. To get the demon, I need to be an Enforcer, with access to the library. I believe that demon is out there, and it will make itself known sometime. I just have to wait for it all to come together.
I also believe Zac Efron will come to town and fall madly in love with me, so maybe I’m just too hopeful.
“We’ll find it.” Connie smiles. It doesn’t stretch across her whole face and her cheeks turn red, which is a sign she’s lying. I don’t blame her; it’s a lot to hope for.
A cell phone vibrates and Connie’s switch to a cheesy grin reveals that it’s a text from Thomas. They’re that sickeningly cute couple that everyone love/hates. I sigh and go inside. As soon as I open the door, I smell blueberry pie. Delicious. Gran used to make cake, prize-winning gorgeous cakes, but she stopped after Mom died. She said pies were easier since she had us now, but I think cakes make her miss Mom. It was the thing they did together.
“Girls?” Gran calls out as I slide off my pink glitter flats, sans demon guts.
Connie answers her, jumping around on a foot to take off her heeled boots. How does she walk in those things? She stumbles and holds on to me for support.
“You have a weird look on your face. Don’t act weird or she’ll know something happened today,” she whispers in my ear. Her tall black shoe falls to the ground, then she switches feet.