pay them.” Depressed, I tossed the soggy tissue into the trash barrel and returned to the stage. It was the story of my life. I was among the most powerful people in Cincinnati, and I was basically broke, had no real job prospects, and was living on my dead, former boyfriend’s boat. “Maybe I’m doing this wrong,” I whispered as I brushed the sawdust off Ivy’s couch and sat down.
Jenks’s sparkles dimmed as he dropped to the rafters. “There’s no right way to live, Rache. It’s just a bad patch. You need anything from the belfry?”
“Um, magnetic chalk?” I said, remembering I didn’t have any, and he darted off, content.
But I was anything but. The silence was oppressive as I unpacked what I’d brought from the boat. The feeling of being displaced was hard on me, and my fingers felt clumsy as I set my snips and hunk of beeswax from Trent’s hives on the table. I should have been able to jump here, not have to borrow Trent’s car. I felt stunted, lacking, and my mood darkened as I ran one of Trent’s silk handkerchiefs over the table to remove stray ions. But feeling as though I wasn’t good enough wasn’t anything new. Deal with it, Rachel, I thought as Jenks returned.
“There’s a shoebox full of ley line stuff up there,” Jenks said as he skidded to a landing on the table with a broken stick of magnetic chalk. “You want anything from the garden?”
“Isn’t it too cold?” I asked.
“Not for a quick trip,” he said confidently, but my phone said it was, like, fifty out there, workable, but not if he got damp. Still, a quick foray would tell me his limits.
“I’m not sure yet.” I unwrapped my ceremonial knife as I thought about what I might need. “Do you know if the ivy growing by the trash cans survived the fire? I’ve always had good luck with the aerial roots.”
Jenks rose back up. “I’ll go see.” He touched the hilt of his sword and flew to one of the boarded-up windows and out a crack. Slowly the dust he left behind faded.
“Maybe a ten-pointed star,” I muttered as I took up a stick of magnetic chalk and drew one for practice right on the table. Ten points ought to double the sensitivity of the original curse, but going from a pentagon to a ten-pointed star would be tricky. I could draw a ten-pointed star easily enough, but the space made from the star’s lines was too large and disconnected from the center point, where the lines running point to point touched.
Unless I add a pentagon inside it, I thought, drawing one in the center of the star, the ten crossed lines marking the points and midsections. And like that, I had it. It wasn’t a ten-pointed star I wanted, but two five-pointed stars, one shifted a few degrees widdershins. The curse would use the original pentagon start point, and if I could manage to turn it without losing the first star, I’d get a ten-pointed star.
“Oh, this has potential,” I muttered, wondering how I could get it to turn. There were lots of ley line charms to turn things—just as many earth-magic fixes to do the same. Between the ley line stuff in the belfry and the herbs in the garden, I bet I could do it.
Hunched over the table, I began to make a grocery list of possibilities, listing on the slate everything I had that turned or evolved. Cedar, I thought, chalk whispering. It was a sun plant, and it was good for getting rid of bad dreams, too. I could use that as a stylus. Chicory, which also belonged to the sun and was good in charms that unlocked doors and hearts. The moon turned. We had wintergreen out there, and wintergreen was linked to the moon. It was good for breaking hexes. I wasn’t breaking a hex, but splintering an aura might be close, and I added it to the list. Dandelion because of its tenacity and divided nature, a straw from a broom for its nature to push together, and a drop of water from a spiderweb, as it reflects the world. All good choices.
From the ley line side of things, I probably had a crystal in the belfry to refract my desires. And there was the glyph itself, the ten-sided figure stemming from a five-sided glyph. Combine that with the blood samples Ivy was bringing over, and it might be enough.