The Witch with No Name

Trent’s brow furrowed. “Okay,” he said, arms going all the way around me. “No more spelling today,” he added, and my stomach lurched as he lifted me.

“Trent, I’m fine,” I protested, but it was all I could do to put my arms around his neck and hold on. “I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything.”

“And you haven’t had anything to eat today but half a waffle and a handful of chips.”

I looked over his shoulder at the dishes by the fireplace. It hadn’t been a real sit-down lunch, but there’d been a lot of calories in it, and it hadn’t been that long ago. “I ate more than that!” I said, making a little wiggle. “If you felt it, then it wasn’t anything I did.”

“Right.” Huffing, he started for the hallway. “We’re done for today.”

“Trent. I’m fine. Put me down.” I stiffened. Feeling it, he hesitated at the top of the stairs, his jaw tightening before swinging me down.

My feet hit the floor, and I staggered, hand going behind my back to prop myself up on the rail without him seeing. I held my breath, pulse thundering as the world swam and steadied. Maybe that curse had taken something from me after all. But I knew it hadn’t. I had just needed everything I had to fight it off. Trent looked mad, his hand ready to catch me. I thought of the dwindling daylight, then my queasy feeling. I couldn’t spell like this and get any usable results.

“Maybe we should turn on the news,” I said meekly.

Immediately Trent’s irate expression eased, telling me how hard it had been for him to stand there and wait for me to come to the same conclusion he had. I couldn’t help a tiny little smile. He cared, not only that I was okay, but that I made my own decisions even if he felt they were the wrong ones.

“Why are you smiling?” he grumbled as he followed me down the stairs, hovering almost.

“Because I love you, too,” I said, and he chuckled, the last of his anger vanishing.

My balance shifted as I stepped down for the next step, and I froze, unable to move as a sudden uproar exploded in my mind. I cowered, hands over my head. It was the collective. Something had happened in the ever-after. Thoughts of revenge and joy were a slurry of contrasts. Trent’s hand touched me, and like a knob twisting the focus, it swamped me.

I woke up at the bottom of the stairs. My elbow hurt, and I stared up at Trent as he held my head to his chest. He looked scared. I was too.

“Trent, what’s going on?” I warbled, and his expression hardened.

“I don’t know.” His eyes looked deep into mine until he was sure I was okay. “I’m carrying you to the couch. Don’t try to stop me.”

Fear kept me silent. The memory of being helpless sifted to the topmost of my thoughts, scaring me even more as he lurched upright with me. I knew how to be passive. I knew how to be still to preserve my strength. That didn’t mean I liked doing it. This too will pass, I thought, pinning my fraying calm to it. Something had happened. I was okay. But it might happen again.

Trent set me gently into the cushions. It felt different from this morning, and I pulled my knees to my chin, making room for him as he pointed the remote and turned on the TV.

A sitcom blared out, the laugh track sounding trite. Trent began flipping through the channels. My tension wound tighter, fear growing as I put distance between myself and both the attack and the outcry from the demon collective. I couldn’t have been the only one who’d felt it.

Trent paused at a news station. The woman was professionally charming, and the man flirted harmlessly as they discussed the new school format being implemented. “Nothing on ICTV,” he said, arm extended to change the channel.

“Try the weather channel,” I said, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Are you serious?”

I nodded. “They don’t have to check the validity of their stories like the national news.”

Frowning, Trent looked at the back of the remote where Takata had taped a mini guide. “Okay. The weather channel.” Arm pointed, he clicked again.

“. . . strange phenomena in the sky observed over the Atlantic Ocean tonight,” an uncomfortable-looking woman on the beach was saying, the wind shifting her jacket even as her eyes kept darting to the surf. “Experts at the local marine study outpost are trying to link it to the sudden crab migration you see about me.”

She jerked, kicking at something outside of the camera’s lens. “The beaches are covered with the rarely seen but not uncommon tomato crab. Most mass migrations are tied to full moons and high or low tides, and it has local and international animal behaviorists stumped.”

And the woman standing there with them creeped out, I thought.

Trent’s arm lowered. “That’s . . . odd.”

My lip curled. Revenge and thoughts of punishment had searched my soul, tried to take me. There was usually a reason for the myths and symbols that dogged some animal species like flies, snakes, and . . . crabs. Crabs were the worst.