or starve. And without Susanah, it’s going to be a lot harder for everybody. Especially Mowse.”
I was quiet. A part of me was still angry with them for stealing from us in the first place. But I thought of the girl, Mowse, and another, larger part of me remembered how it was to see someone I loved die. To see Mama waste away and be forced to stand by, powerless, as I became an orphan. As I became a burden. And, thieves or not, I didn’t want anybody else to have to know that feeling.
Then I had an idea. I reached into my spell component pockets, feeling around to make sure it hadn’t fallen out during the journey. Then I felt it: the smooth white stone, the one that Mother Morevna had given me. The one that would undo one of Mother Morevna’s trapdoor spells.
“Wait,” I said, “I want to help.”
Zo rolled her eyes. “Like I said—”
“I didn’t do this, but I think I can undo it.” I looked directly into Zo’s eyes, challenging her. “I think I can heal her.”
Zo was quiet, eyes narrowed, unsure.
“Zo,” said the other girl near the doorway, pale and worried. “It doesn’t look like she’s got long.…”
Zo looked at me very seriously, scanning my face to see if I was telling the truth, then nodded. “Come on, then,” she said. “But if you fail…”
“I won’t,” I said. Across from me, Asa nodded. Then Zo led me up into the train car.
It was dark inside, and the air was heavy with a feeling I knew well: worry and grief.
Toward the back of the room, the girls were clustered: Olivia and Cassie and the little girl, Mowse, kneeling by a cot made out of what looked like old blankets. On the cot, a young woman, Kiowa or Comanche, maybe, was lying on her back with her eyes closed. Her long hair was spread over her chest and on her pillow in sweaty black strings. Olivia heard us enter and turned.
“Zo, what the hell are you doing? Get her out! Now!”
“She says she can heal Susanah. Says she knows how to break the curse.”
“You do?” It was Mowse’s voice this time, small and hoarse and hopeful.
“Yes,” I said. “I think I can heal her.”
“Olivia, please,” said Mowse from the floor. “Please let her.”
Every eye was on Olivia, but Olivia’s were on Susanah.
“… All right,” she said. Then, to me, “Get over here and do it.”
I went to the bedside and looked down at the girl on it. Susanah was older than me, in her early twenties, probably. She had plainly been strong once, but now she was sunken-cheeked and hollow-chested. Her lips were dry and flaky, and her eyes had begun to sink inward like a dead person’s. Mama looked like this before she died, I thought with the shallow pang of old grief. She wasn’t long for this world. Mother Morevna’s spell had drained her slowly, like a hole in a tire. They were lucky that it had been only her and not all of them.
Feeling the other girls’ eyes on my back, I pulled out my stone and placed it on her chest. It barely moved when she breathed. Then I cleared my mind and focused my magic into my hands. The penny on my chest warmed to life. With my eyes closed, I raised my right hand to my mouth and bit into my thumb, hard, until I tasted blood. Set it right, Mother Morevna had said. Setzen Sie es richtig.
“Setzen Sie es richtig,” I said, and as I smeared my own blood on the stone, I felt power throb through my veins and into it. The pulse rocked through the girl lying there, and she began to change like a field when the storm clouds roll away. Her dull skin grew bright and healthy. Her hair seemed to change too, become thicker and blacker almost, and her breathing was no longer a shallow wheeze, but deep and regular. I took the stone back; the magic had been done. The girls were around me, watching. I could feel all of them holding their breath. Then Susanah’s eyes fluttered open. She looked up at me in confusion.
“Susanah!” cried a small voice.
“Kahúu!” Susanah said, her face breaking into a wide smile. “My little mouse, come here!” Her voice was weak, but she reached down and pulled the little girl, Mowse, to her side.
“I thought you were gonna die,” sobbed the little girl.
“No! No, no, no, no,