green energy. Wisps of smoke rose into the night sky. If she had worked the spell properly, everything would dissipate now that she had completed the hex.
Magic worked in threes. Three balls. Three hexes. Stomach, heart, fire.
Her hand shook a little as she picked up each ball and put it back in the can. They bobbled like trapped birds as she sealed the end with the plastic lid. Jonah had happily tossed them over the fence for her, and so Mr. Bright had received them from the hand of an innocent. That had set the curses in motion.
She murmured an incantation in backwards Latin and if the back door was locked, it wasn’t now. It swung open as she approached.
“You’re dead, you bastard,” she whispered, and violated his house. To her surprise, it was clean, orderly, giving no hint of the destruction Mr. Bright had caused. The screaming, weeping, wishing of her parents, and her bargaining.
The plotting, the planning, and the learning:
A spell to find the driver who had hit Mark and left him for dead. A spell to kill him. A spell to send the unrepentant murderer’s soul to hell.
She had found Mr. Arnold Bright, who lived next to the Goodes on Leland Street. Now his body was in the morgue, and she was in his house.
But soon he would dwell elsewhere, somewhere horrible, forever.
There was hardly anything in his house—the kitchen counters were barren. There were no pictures on the walls of the family room. Just one easy chair, and a TV. Cursed. Miserable.
Good.
But the next room was busier; there was an old oak dining table piled high with manila folders. She crossed to it and opened the first folder:
Her brother’s smiling face stared up at her from a news clipping about the accident—the crime. Hit and run. Unidentified driver, who took off.
All the clippings, collected in folder after folder. She smiled grimly, glad to see that he had been haunted by what he’d done. That was the curse she had learned for the killer of her brother: that he, or she, shouldn’t have a moment of peace. In his mind’s eye, he’d see the wreck he’d walked away from, the boy whose life he could have saved if he hadn’t so callously fled.
“Good,” she muttered. “I’m glad.”
But the second stack of folders was different: they contained pamphlets from Alcoholics Anonymous about taking everything one day at a time. There was a computer chart that told a story of its own: One Day Sober, One Week, One Month, Ninety Days.
A picture of Jesus and a Bible verse:
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
She slowly sat in the chair Arnold Bright must have sat in. She looked at the clippings, each one. She found part of an email printout:
I have to make amends. It will give the family closure if I come forward.
And an answer:
—Yes, but it will ruin your life if you do. Do other things, great things, and find peace.
Then there were clippings about donations to charities, about an anonymous “good Samaritan” who went around cleaning up trash and performing good deeds. Never identified. Never discovered. What a saint.
Another email:
— I’m so proud of you.
Another answer:
I never dreamed my life would turn around so completely because I did something so wrong. I’m forgiven. I’m happy. Fulfilled.
She clenched her fists and clamped her jaw in fury.
“No,” she said, “this is wrong.”
The moon blazed full through the window. Three tennis balls to curse him, and a soul to seal the deal.
A weakened, aching, miserable soul.
She had thought it would be his, Mr. Arnold Bright’s.
But now…she wasn’t so sure.
She stared down at her dead brother’s happy face. At the emails.
The can of tennis balls wiggled on the table.
She smelled the sulfur. She felt the heat.
The One was standing behind the chair. Her hair stood on end and she began to shake.
She said, “You said that if I served you, you would take the soul of the
Magic worked in threes. Three balls. Three hexes. Stomach, heart, fire.
Her hand shook a little as she picked up each ball and put it back in the can. They bobbled like trapped birds as she sealed the end with the plastic lid. Jonah had happily tossed them over the fence for her, and so Mr. Bright had received them from the hand of an innocent. That had set the curses in motion.
She murmured an incantation in backwards Latin and if the back door was locked, it wasn’t now. It swung open as she approached.
“You’re dead, you bastard,” she whispered, and violated his house. To her surprise, it was clean, orderly, giving no hint of the destruction Mr. Bright had caused. The screaming, weeping, wishing of her parents, and her bargaining.
The plotting, the planning, and the learning:
A spell to find the driver who had hit Mark and left him for dead. A spell to kill him. A spell to send the unrepentant murderer’s soul to hell.
She had found Mr. Arnold Bright, who lived next to the Goodes on Leland Street. Now his body was in the morgue, and she was in his house.
But soon he would dwell elsewhere, somewhere horrible, forever.
There was hardly anything in his house—the kitchen counters were barren. There were no pictures on the walls of the family room. Just one easy chair, and a TV. Cursed. Miserable.
Good.
But the next room was busier; there was an old oak dining table piled high with manila folders. She crossed to it and opened the first folder:
Her brother’s smiling face stared up at her from a news clipping about the accident—the crime. Hit and run. Unidentified driver, who took off.
All the clippings, collected in folder after folder. She smiled grimly, glad to see that he had been haunted by what he’d done. That was the curse she had learned for the killer of her brother: that he, or she, shouldn’t have a moment of peace. In his mind’s eye, he’d see the wreck he’d walked away from, the boy whose life he could have saved if he hadn’t so callously fled.
“Good,” she muttered. “I’m glad.”
But the second stack of folders was different: they contained pamphlets from Alcoholics Anonymous about taking everything one day at a time. There was a computer chart that told a story of its own: One Day Sober, One Week, One Month, Ninety Days.
A picture of Jesus and a Bible verse:
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
She slowly sat in the chair Arnold Bright must have sat in. She looked at the clippings, each one. She found part of an email printout:
I have to make amends. It will give the family closure if I come forward.
And an answer:
—Yes, but it will ruin your life if you do. Do other things, great things, and find peace.
Then there were clippings about donations to charities, about an anonymous “good Samaritan” who went around cleaning up trash and performing good deeds. Never identified. Never discovered. What a saint.
Another email:
— I’m so proud of you.
Another answer:
I never dreamed my life would turn around so completely because I did something so wrong. I’m forgiven. I’m happy. Fulfilled.
She clenched her fists and clamped her jaw in fury.
“No,” she said, “this is wrong.”
The moon blazed full through the window. Three tennis balls to curse him, and a soul to seal the deal.
A weakened, aching, miserable soul.
She had thought it would be his, Mr. Arnold Bright’s.
But now…she wasn’t so sure.
She stared down at her dead brother’s happy face. At the emails.
The can of tennis balls wiggled on the table.
She smelled the sulfur. She felt the heat.
The One was standing behind the chair. Her hair stood on end and she began to shake.
She said, “You said that if I served you, you would take the soul of the
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