I’m buying next time. –Mr. Raccoon.
I stared at the Chinese food menu in my hand, rereading that single line over and over again. Bad handwriting in bright red ink. A picture of Peking duck circled in the same pen. And a million unspoken words and questions.
I’m buying next time.
He was coming back. He’d told Pipaluk he would, and that he’d explain everything to me when he did. And Pipaluk never lied. The tale he’d related to me was more far-fetched and ridiculous than anything I’d ever heard the mad scientist utter, but I knew it was the truth.
Or at least, he thought it was the truth.
I groaned and dropped the menu on the kitchen table, propping my elbows up on the surface and hiding my face in my hands. Just when I thought I was over it. Just when I thought I could walk away, move on, put it behind me. He had to interfere now, when I thought I’d finally buried the doubts and questions and fears beneath a solid layer of dirt.
But it wasn’t dirt. It was sand. Fine-grained, light, unstable, blown away with a single puff of air.
Starting with a pine cone.
His voice was an echo in my mind, swirling round and round with that stupid guru bit he tried when we met, the stupider argument about Chinese food, all the nonsense and wisdom in between. I slammed my hands down on the table, scattering the memories as I stood. This wasn’t working. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t go through this again.
Starting with a pine cone.
He’d never explained that statement.
I shoved my front door open and stormed out into the Arctic freeze. Biting cold wind stung my cheeks, carrying snowflakes in swirling patterns across the expansive white blanket. Somebody shouted my name; probably Crystal. Probably surprised to see me outside. As a rule, I stayed inside, out of sight, out of reach, safe from the unknown and the chaotic. But inside wasn’t safe anymore.
Temper, temper.
The wind whipped my black hair around my face. I tucked it behind my ear and kept going, away from the houses, away from the suffocating magic prickling my skin. It was messy, a jumble of snowflakes belonging to Crystal, Boris, Aunt Gemma, the warlock next door who liked to watch NASCAR, and all the other snow magicians, dancing and twisting together above ice riddled with magic signatures, no rhyme or reason to any of it. The barrier I’d installed around my house kept it all out and kept me sane, but there was no protection outside, and with my emotions running high, I felt it more strongly than usual.
He probably would have understood. He’d understood my magic in a way nobody else had, not even Mother. And that, more than anything else, was the reason I had been so quick to trust him.
Lily, breathe.
Everything he taught me still worked.
I ripped off the glove covering my right hand, clenching the dark blue leather in my left fist. The magic came roaring toward my bare hand, a flurry of white following me as I walked, drawn to the ice pulsing through my veins. I curled my hand into a fist and then opened it wide in one quick movement, splaying my fingers and sending the white scattering miles away in all directions.
That would buy me an hour of peace.
Slower. Deeper. In, out. In, out.
I took a long, deep breath, slowing my pace in the now clear polar night. No wind, no snow flurries in the crisp, cold air, just the darkness that wouldn’t lift until late March over miles and miles of empty sea ice.
I’d trusted him.
I still trusted him.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? That was the reason I hadn’t told the police about him, even when they arrested me for attempted murder. Even when Crystal showed Ivan the video where the raccoon commandeered my magic to attack Boris, even when Crystal showed me the bookmark with purple magic tainting the white of my enchantment, I hadn’t said a word. I couldn’t believe he’d betray me like that.
Pipaluk’s bizarre recounting of time-travel and possible demonic activity, unseen by normal means, felt more truthful than all of that. It made sense in a way nothing else could. Even though it was nonsensical, even though I knew it was much more likely that the raccoon had magically tricked Pipaluk into believing a lie.
She called me “Mr. Raccoon.” I guess that’s good enough.
Mr. Raccoon.
I laughed aloud. The polar silence took the sound and whisked it away into nothingness.
I’d always hated the sting of everybody else’s magic, but I loved the climate here. The oddity of an entire world below the snow and below the ice, encapsulated in a bubble of ice and dead magic, felt right and natural. It was just the live, active magic above the sea ice that was a problem. The unseen world unfelt by everybody except me.
I sat cross-legged on the ice and pulled the glove from my left hand, dropping it with the right glove in my lap. Specks of ice gathered on my fingertips, glittering crystals falling from my hands.
No effort. No magical expenditure. No depletion of the torrent rushing through my veins.
Nobody understood this. But everybody said I lacked control. He’d said that, too.
I believed him.
Starting with a pine cone.
I closed my eyes, took a breath, and envisioned a pine cone. Wider at the base, narrower at the top, layers of overlapping scales opening like flower petals. A female cone. The male cones were smaller and less impressive. And the cone I envisioned, the typical image that came to mind, was mature and open to release its seeds, which meant the weather was dry.
I’d done some research after the police released me, wondering if the secret lay within Wikipedia. I still didn’t know what, if anything, any of this have to do with my magic. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe he’d made it up.
I took another deep breath and opened my eyes. It danced in the air before me, a glistening fabrication knit from magic, imagination, and ice. A pine cone. Just a pine cone. Nothing special about it. I’d done this before with other objects. I held out my right hand, and it came to rest on my palm the same way the magic in town came to me.
“What’s that?”
I shrieked in surprise and sent the pine cone flying toward the unknown voice without a thought. Judging by the shout of pain behind me, it made contact well before I’d jumped to my feet and spun to face the speaker.
“Ouch! Call it off!”
The man lay crumpled on the ice, curled up in a ball to protect his face as the ice pine cone pelted him from all sides. A snow warlock, judging by his size and relatively thin clothing. Santa’s elves didn’t appreciate the cold the way snow magicians did.
“Ouch! Ouch! I’m sorry! Just make it stop!”
“Oh, uh, s-sorry.” I held out my hand again, and the pine cone came obediently to rest upon my palm.
The warlock held his position for a moment before slowly uncurling, peeking through his fingers at me warily. “Is it safe?”
“Uh, yes, sorry. I, um…you startled me.”
“Obviously.” He stood, dusting snow from his jeans and rubbing his forehead. A conspicuous red mark lit up his fair skin like a red dot on an Indian woman’s forehead.
What was that called? I’d need to Google that later.*
“Bet nobody ever throws you a surprise party, huh?” he commented, cracking a smile.
I stared at him. He looked a lot like Ivan, the police officer who had arrested me seven months ago, but his smile was brighter. More genuine. Even though I’d just attacked him with an ice pine cone.
Then again, he wasn’t arresting me for attempted murder. A pine cone was nothing compared to that.
“Um…actually, I’ve had surprise parties before…”
“Really? How many casualties?”
Why was he suddenly so relaxed? And walking toward me? Did I need to get the pine cone ready again?
“I, um…who are you?”
“You don’t recognize me?” His face fell, but then he shrugged his shoulders and smiled again. “I guess it’s not so weird. You’re never outside. I’m your neighbor, Evan. Nice to meet you.”
I looked down at his outstretched hand and back at his green eyes. “Um…nice to meet you, too,” I mumbled, switching the pine cone to my left hand so I could give him a quick shake with my right before taking a step back. “Did you follow me?”
His eyes stayed on my hands. “Did you know you’re…leaking? Or…what…are you doing?”
“Um, it’s just, um…just a minute.” I turned away from him quickly, scanning the ice and snow for my gloves. The dark blue stuck out among the white well enough. I pulled them back on and turned back to him, asking hastily, “What was it you wanted?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said, his eyes lingering on my now gloved hands for another moment before returning to my face. He gave me an apologetic grin and rubbed the back of his neck. “This probably seems weird, doesn’t it? Well, I’m actually a police officer. I’m sure you remember my cousin, Ivan? He’s off duty today, but that raccoon turned itself in at the police station, and I thought you should know.”
Author's note: Please excuse any perceived cultural insensitivity from Lily. She’s a snow witch who’s lived her entire life in the North Pole or Nebraska, and while Santa’s elves are very culturally aware, snow magicians like to keep to themselves.
It’s called a ‘bindi,’ by the way.116Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoGbUW5XqUL
