Autumn Bones

Fifteen

I awoke with a splitting headache, an excruciating toothache, and blurred vision. And I panicked.

Here’s the thing: I don’t get sick. Ever. Oh, I’ve had headaches due to stress or fatigue, like the other night, and I found out the hard way that I can get hangovers, but I’ve never been sick. Never had the flu, the chicken pox, not even the common cold. Toothaches? I’d never even had a cavity. My mom’s theory is that it’s because my average body temperature runs higher than a normal human’s, around a hundred and five degrees. She thinks it kills the germs and bacteria. Maybe it’s even true, although I’ve never known a doctor to sign on to her theory.

So anyway, yeah, I freaked. First at the pain, which seemed to be simultaneously radiating from a molar on the right side of my jaw and pounding like a spike into my sinus cavity; second at the blurred vision.

That was the one that really got me. I pried myself gingerly out of bed, trying to hold my head as still as possible. In the bathroom, I splashed cold water on my face and into my eyes, blinking furiously and willing my vision to clear.

No luck.

Oh, crap.

The small corner of my brain that wasn’t panicking went into damage-control mode. I didn’t know if I was having a stroke or an aneurysm or what, but I knew I needed help. And clothing. Hell if I was going to the emergency room in nothing but a tank top. I fumbled my way to the laundry hamper and pulled out yesterday’s clothes.

Okay, that would work. Sidling along the edge of my bed, I felt atop my nightstand until I found my phone, the shape of it familiar and comforting in my hand.

The problem was that I couldn’t make out the icons on the screen. And when I finally got to the keypad, through dint of trial and error, I couldn’t make out the numbers to call 911. Every time I tried to focus, they shifted and blurred. I kept pushing numbers I didn’t mean to, squinting in an agonized effort, unable to get to that magic combination. It was like a bad dream.

At some point I realized two things. One was that whatever the hell was happening to me, it wasn’t getting any worse. Oh, it was bad. My jaw was throbbing, my head was pounding, and I couldn’t see for shit, but I probably wasn’t dying.

The other was the first inkling of suspicion that whatever the hell was happening to me might not be medical in nature.

If you’re thinking I should have suspected that from the get-go, I’m not arguing. But it’s really, really hard to think straight when your skull feels like it’s being split open with a railroad spike and you can’t see.

And . . . I wasn’t sure what to do with that suspicion.

So instead I hoped like hell it was a medical issue and went through the whole trial-and-error bit to pull up my contacts on my phone. Elusive letters and numbers skittered across my vision, but if I concentrated like crazy, I could make out the contacts with photos assigned to them. Since I was kind of lax about that, there were only two, my mom and Jen. And while, on the one hand, I really wanted my mommy right about now, I also didn’t want to freak her out, so I jabbed at the screen until Jen’s contact came up.

“Hey, Daise.” She answered on the second ring. “What’s going on?” I was so relieved to hear her voice, I had to choke back an involuntary sob. “Daisy?” Jen’s voice sharpened. “What’s up?”

“Not sure,” I whispered. “Either I’m having an aneurysm or I’ve been hexed.”

“Are you serious? Jesus! Did you call 911?”

“No.” I closed my eyes. Blocking out the light helped a very little bit. “Can’t see to dial.”

“Okay, hang on. I’m coming to take you to the ER.”

“Wait, wait!” Now that my panic was ratcheting down a notch, the prospect of massive medical costs alarmed me. As a part-time employee, I didn’t have health insurance, which had never worried me that much because I never got sick. And I’d never had to explain the quirks of my hell-spawn physiognomy to unfamiliar doctors. They’d probably want to hospitalize me for my temperature alone. “I just . . . it really might be a hex, Jen. Or a migraine! What if it’s a migraine?”

“What if it’s not?” she asked with acerbity. “And by the way, why do you think it might be a hex?”

“Long story.” I cupped my right hand over my pulsating jaw. “I’ve got a toothache, too.”

“A toothache?”

“I know, I know! But seriously, it feels like someone’s trying to chisel it in half.”

“Okay, listen.” Jen’s tone was pragmatic. “It doesn’t sound like you’re dying. More like maybe you have an impacted wisdom tooth or something. Maybe you’re having a severe reaction because you never freakin’ get sick. Let me call Doc Howard and see if he can take a look at you, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Call you back in a sec. Oh, and, Daise? If he can’t, I am taking you to the ER,” she warned me.

“Okay,” I repeated.

Within three minutes, Jen called me back to say Doc Howard would see me and she was on her way to pick me up. Within ten minutes, her ancient LeBaron convertible pulled into the alley. I grabbed my messenger bag, put on my hobgoblin-cracked sunglasses, and fumbled my way down the stairs, my head swimming with pain. Even with the sunglasses, the sunlight hit me like a ton of bricks. Closing my eyes again, I began feeling my way around the LeBaron to the passenger side.

“Jesus!” Jen got out of the car and steered me by the elbow. “You look like crap, Daise. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the ER?”

“Yeah.” I slid into the cracked vinyl seat. “I’m sure.”

“Are you aware that your sunglasses are broken?”

“Uh-huh.” I leaned my head against the headrest.

She put the car in gear. “Just checking. Now what the hell’s up with this hex business?”

I got the gist of the story out on the drive to the doctor’s office. Jen listened in disbelief, saving her commentary until after my appointment. I’d known Doc Howard since I was barely out of diapers. Even though I never got sick, Mom took me to the town doctor for all my regularly scheduled checkups. He took my temperature—which he pronounced Daisy-normal at a hundred and five—and blood pressure, listened to my heart, peered into my ears and eyes and throat with the bright-light scope thingy; or at least he did his best. It hurt so much I had a hard time keeping my eyes open during that part.

Bottom line, there was no sign of anything physically wrong with me, not even an impacted wisdom tooth.

Damn.

A part of me had been hoping for an impacted wisdom tooth.

“Daisy?” Doc Howard’s concerned face floated blurrily in my vision. “I’m going to write you a prescription for migraine medication and recommend that you make an appointment with your dentist as soon as possible just to be sure about that tooth. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

He scribbled on a prescription pad. “But if the headache and blurred vision continue for more than seventy-two hours, call me and I’ll refer you to Appeldoorn Community Hospital for a CT scan.”

I took the slip of paper. “Okay.”

“Have a lollipop,” Doc Howard said sympathetically, holding out a jar I remembered from my childhood. “It might help bring up your blood sugar level. Just be sure to eat something healthy when you get home.”

I tried to smile, but it hurt to move the muscles of my face. “Thanks, Doc.”

Then it was back out into the skull-shattering sunlight. Swear to God, I had no idea pain could be this fucking painful. My head felt like it was swollen to twice its normal size and misshapen, ballooning around the jackhammering agony in my jaw.

Bring it on, bitch.

I had a feeling it had been brung.

“So what’s it going to be?” Jen asked me. “Are we going to the drugstore to get your prescription filled or are we going to go kick some obeah woman ass?”

If I could have laughed, I would have. “Drugstore. Right now, I couldn’t kick Stacey Brooks’s ass.”

Back in downtown Pemkowet, Jen double-parked outside the drugstore and came back with a vial of Imitrex, a bottle of water, and a pair of the darkest cheap sunglasses she could find. “Here.” She popped the lid on the vial and shook out a tablet, handing it to me. “The pharmacist said to take one now, and another in two hours if the migraine persists.”

“Thanks.” I cracked open the bottle of water to wash down the pill.

“What happens if this doesn’t work, Daise?” There was a worried note in her voice. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet.” I switched my hobgoblin-cracked sunglasses for the new ones. “I need to lie down in a dark room and think about it.”

“Okay.”

Jen drove me home and insisted on staying with me while we waited to see if the meds kicked in. She went around the apartment and closed all the shades while I lay on the futon with my eyes closed and held a plastic bag full of ice against my jaw.

“Do you need me to call in to work for you?” she asked softly when the room was as dim as it was going to get.

“Not yet,” I murmured. “I’m not scheduled to go in until this afternoon. What about you? I don’t mean to keep you.”

“It’s okay, I didn’t have anything today but end-of-season cleanup on a couple of places that were just vacated.” Jen worked for the Cassopolis family business, cleaning houses and rental properties. “What about Sinclair? I mean, if this is obeah, he ought to know what to do about it, right? It’s his fucking sister that hexed you.”

“Probably.” It was easier to think while lying prone. “No, don’t call him. Not yet. I need to figure this out on my own.”

“Oh, yeah? How’s that working out for you so far?”

“Ha ha. If I call Sinclair, he’ll confront dear Emmy,” I said. “And I don’t want her thinking I needed her brother’s help to beat this.”

“Even if you do?” Jen sounded skeptical. “No offense, Daise, but isn’t pride one of the Seven Deadlies you’re supposed to worry about?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not just pride. It’s about status, too. That’s a big deal in the eldritch community. I need to show Emmeline Palmer she can’t sail into Pemkowet and fuck with Hel’s liaison without consequences, which means I need to fix this before Sinclair hears about it.”

“How?”

“Good question.”

Now that I was past the panicking stage, my wits were working again. Slowly and painfully, but they were working. Option one: I could try to strong-arm Emmeline into unhexing me. Well, not me personally, not in this condition, but I could call on allies. The fact that Emmeline was wearing some kind of protective ward strong enough to make a two-hundred-year-old ghoul wary was an issue, but I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t dissuade oh, say, Lurine. No matter what mojo dear Emmy was packing, I doubted it was a match for an eldritch being with fond memories of the Bronze Age and the physical capability of crushing her to death one vertebra at the time. Or maybe Gus the ogre. He could always threaten to bash her over the head and eat her.

Of course, that also meant getting someone else to fight my battle. Which wasn’t entirely unappealing—delegating wisely is an important skill and dear Emmy ought to know that there was more to Pemkowet’s eldritch community than sparkly fairies and one brother-dating hell-spawn.

On the other hand, there was option two: I could get myself unhexed without the assistance of either of the Palmer Wonder Twins. It would require the Fabulous Casimir’s aid, but again, he was a legitimate ally.

Somewhere in a dark part of my mind, my father’s voice whispered to me that there was a third option, an option that was always an option. I could claim my birthright, and all the powers it included.

You have but to ask. . . .

I sighed, pushing the thought away. Okay, so it probably wasn’t a great idea to involve Lurine or Gus unless I was actually willing to let Emmeline come to grievous bodily harm, which I wasn’t. Or at least I was cognizant of the fact that to do so would be inappropriate in my role as Hel’s liaison.

So, decision made.

“Hey, Jen,” I said. “Let’s go see Casimir.”

“Are you sure?” She checked her phone. “It’s only been about half an hour since you took the meds.”

“I’m sure. If they’re going to work, then they’ll work. But I don’t want to waste time waiting if they’re not.”

She shrugged. “Let’s go.”

Luckily for me, the Sisters of Selene was only a block and a half away. I still had to hold on to Jen’s arm the whole way, wincing at the sunlight behind my dark glasses as she steered me around the lingering tourists and reemergent locals on the sidewalks.

“Hey, Miss Dais—” Casimir began greeting me as we entered the shop. “Holy Hecate! Girl, you look like seven miles of bad road.”

I wished he’d lower his voice. “I feel like it. Cas, I need a favor. I’ve been hexed. Can you undo it?”

Casimir came out from behind the counter to lock the front door and turn the OPEN sign to CLOSED. “I don’t know, sugar, but I’ll do my best. Tell me all about it.”

I filled him in on the details to the best of my ability. He let out a long, low whistle when I finished.

“Damn! Bitch has balls.” There was a hint of admiration in his voice. “Did she get her hands on something personal of yours? Hair, nail clippings?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure?” he pressed. “Maybe a few strands of hair caught in your boyfriend’s hairbrush? Pillow? Towel?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe. I did borrow his toothbrush. But I don’t know how she’d know that.”

“Neither do I,” Casimir said. “But I told you before, I don’t know a lot about obeah.”

“So you’re saying this bitch hexed Daisy with a fucking toothbrush?” Jen asked in disbelief.

“I’m saying it’s possible, Miss Jenny-bird,” Casimir said to her. “If you can take a DNA sample from a cheek swab, you can build a spell around a toothbrush.”

All of this standing upright and talking was setting off fresh waves of agony in my pounding skull. “So can you undo it?”

“Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” He beckoned, or at least the two overlapping blurred figures of Casimir made a gesture that I interpreted as beckoning. “Come into my altar room, Miss Daisy. Ritual participants only,” he added apologetically to Jen. “But there are some back issues of Vogue and Occult Monthly under the counter.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

Casimir led me through the door at the rear of the shop into his altar room. From what I could make out, it was a lot more clean and spare than I would have expected given his relative flamboyance.

“Step over the circle.” He guided me unobtrusively. “Good girl. Now, just make yourself comfortable on the kneeling pad while I get everything ready.”

Getting everything ready turned out to be a pretty complicated business involving numerous invocations, the donning of a tasseled and knotted scarlet cord around the waist, the lighting of candles and incense, the consecration of water with salt, the blessing of various instruments including an athamé knife and a sharpened quill feather, and the grinding of special ink in a mortar.

If I hadn’t been in excruciating pain, it would have been fascinating. I’d never actually seen the Fabulous Casimir—or anyone, fabulous or otherwise—perform a ritual like this before. Under the circumstances, I pretty much just knelt quietly in front of the altar with my eyes closed and let it all wash over me, clutching my messenger bag and concentrating on remaining upright.

“Okay, Daisy.” Casimir knelt opposite me. “I need you to hold still while I draw the seal.”

“No problem.”

He dipped the quill in the magic ink and began tracing a design onto my forehead. “This is a seal of protection. If it works, you’ll be protected for as long as the image lasts, about as long as a henna tattoo.”

Great, so I was going to look like a freak with a henna tattoo on my forehead.

The tip of the quill scratched against my skin. “You’ll still need to find the charm and dismantle it to be safe.”

“What charm?” I did my best to ask without moving my head.

“Whatever she used to fix the spell,” Casimir said patiently. “Hair, toothbrush, whatever. It could even be a photo of you.”

“Like a voodoo doll?”

“It’s the same general idea.” He dipped the quill again. “Sympathetic magic, basically. You know, in your line of work, you really should invest in a high-quality amulet,” he added. “Or ideally, a permanent tattoo.”

“On my forehead?” I said in alarm.

“Hold still,” he reprimanded me, which I thought was a bit unfair under the circumstances. Kind of like when the dental hygienist asks you a question, then sticks an instrument in your mouth. “No, it doesn’t have to be on your forehead, Miss Daisy. Protection spells work a lot better if you employ them before you’re the victim of a magical attack.”

I squinted at his blurred face. “Cooper said she had a ward. A powerful one. Is that like a protection spell?”

“Mm-hmm.” Having drawn what felt like a couple of circles and a series of straight lines, Casimir began drawing smaller, squigglier bits. “Who’s Cooper?”

“A ghoul,” I said. “He wouldn’t touch her.”

“Really.” Casimir’s hand went still. “That would be a powerful ward,” he mused, more to himself than me.

“I think it was a cowry shell.”

He resumed his squiggly drawing. “Cowry shells have a long, rich history of occult association.”

Too much talking. The pain in my head protested by rising to a fresh crescendo. I squeezed my eyes shut, taking refuge in the darkness. I couldn’t let myself rest there, though. “Cas?”

“Hmm?”

“Would a powerful ward protect dear Emmy from a physical ass-kicking?”

“Not in the slightest,” he assured me.

“Good.”

“All right, my dear.” There were bustling sounds as Casimir fussed with his implements. “I’m going to invoke the spell. Try to keep your eyes open.”

I cracked my eyelids and peered at his vague double image as he took up the black-handled athamé blade.

“Bound be all powers of adversity from the north, south, east, and west,” Casimir chanted, touching the blade lightly around me. “Bound be all ill-wishers and those who practice violence against the bearer of my seal! Bound and sealed by my hand and name shall be all who to seek to harm Daisy Johanssen.” He pressed the tip of the athamé against the center of the seal etched onto my brow. “By my will, so mote it be!”

Light flared around me.

For a brief, blessed instant, the pain simply vanished. It went away as though it had never been, and I could have wept with gratitude for the absence I’d taken for granted all of my healthy life. My vision cleared. The Fabulous Casimir’s face sprang into sharp focus. He was wearing a bouffant wig today, looking like a 1950s housewife. I could see the pores of his skin beneath a thick layer of makeup, his shrewd, concerned eyes studying me behind the long false lashes he wore.

And then the seal on my forehead contracted with a sizzling sound, drawing my skin tight. I doubled over in agony as the pain came thudding back—the spike between my eyes, the jackhammer in my jaw.

Through blurred eyes, I saw bits of dried ink sift to the floor like rusty snowflakes.

“Well,” Casimir said, “that didn’t work.”