leg and tentatively let go. It didn’t scream, but it suddenly pressed on my senses like it had that time at home. I quickly covered it with my hand and it stopped.
Okay. Sorrow wanted to touch skin. Well it was skin… hmm, what kind? I looked closer. Then recoiled back. This wasn’t deerhide or rabbit skin; this was human. The twisted thing was written on and bound with human skin. I almost heaved up. I won’t lie… I did throw up a little bit in my mouth. Enough that I was forced to steal a swig of Mack’s mouthwash, spitting it into an empty soda bottle.
It was a breach of the Roommate code, but hey, this was an emergency.
The doorknob rattled and I shoved Sorrow under my baggy tee. The knob spun and Mack opened the door.
“Hey, what’s this about a fight? You alright?” he asked. Caeco and Jetta were right behind him, shoving him in to make room.
Under my shirt, I felt Sorrow squirm into place, sticking itself to my skin. My gorge rose again, but I wrestled it down.
“You look sick,” Jetta said.
“Well, ah, I’m a little fucked up, if you wanna know. I mean I just killed some witch in the parking lot and I have no idea why she attacked us.”
Der Test der Trauer.
Yeah, I got it… the test of Sorrow. My face must have been priceless because all three were watching it like a movie screen.
“Why were you with Ryanne?” Caeco asked, her tone suspicious.
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling my temper flare. I just killed someone and she’s… what… jealous?
“How would you not know?” Mack asked, glancing quickly at Caeco.
“She wanted to talk to me, had something to tell me. She was nervous, it had something to do with her family or her sisters or something. She seemed like she thought I was going to be mad. Never got to tell me, as that bitch just blasted her away like a bug.”
“Who was the witch?” Jetta asked.
“No idea of her name, but I’m pretty sure she was the New York City witch that drained that circle. She had a buttload of power… and tricks.”
“Why would she come here?” Caeco asked.
I considered. Tell or no tell. No tell seemed good, but they were my friends. My best friends.
I stood up and faced them, then raised my shirt enough to show them what was stuck to my ribcage.
“Is that…” Caeco started to ask.
“Sorrow? Yeah, it is. I think it drove that witch to come up here. I think it wanted to find me again,” I said.
“Sorrow? What’s sorrow?” Jetta asked at the same time her brother asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
So I explained. I told them about how my aunt had used a spell from Sorrow to create Toni’s necklace, how Sorrow was a half-century-old grimoire from the nastiest witch to ever come out of Germany. How it had been found down south at some old house in North Carolina and Chris had taken it into safekeeping, only to have it disappear.
“You talk about it like it’s alive,” Mack noted.
“Because I kind of think it is. It… well, it talks to me. In German.”
“German? You don’t speak German,” Mack said. “And what do you mean it talks?”
“It puts words into my mind. I’ve been using Google translate.”
“What does it say?” Caeco asked.
“So far that the witch was a test, for me.”
“You should get rid of it,” Jetta said.
Schinden sie für ihre Frechheit
I grabbed my phone and plugged in what it said. It helped that I could actually see the words in my mind.
“It wants you to flay me for my insolence?” Jetta read over my shoulder.
“You are kind of uppity,” Mack said.
“It said the same thing about Gina—out in the parking lot, only I didn’t know it was the book,” I said.
“You said that book was evil… before, when Chris brought it to the restaurant,” Caeco said. “Get rid of it—destroy it.”
Brennen!
“Shut up!” I said to the book.
“What did it say?” Mack asked.
“Brennen, whatever that means,” I said, considering my options.
“Burn them,” Mack said, looking up from his phone. “Hey, good idea.” He dove down to the floor, burrowing in the mess under his bed. A moment later, he popped up with a propane torch, the kind with the trigger lighter. A few seconds later, it was burning fiercely in his hands.
But the flame did nothing when he applied it to the book in my hands. In fact, the hair on my arms