You're the One That I Don't Want - By Alexandra Potter Page 0,93
sound like a total fruit loop.
I set off walking back to the apartment. Well, that’s that, then. If I can’t find the feathers, I won’t be able to do the spell. Feeling a secret beat of relief at being let off the hook, I turn the corner, where I’m hit by an unexpected gust of warm summer wind. Litter blows all around me, a plastic bag gets whipped up and twirls like a ballerina, and then I notice something flutter past and fall in front of me on the pavement. I glance down.
Two feathers. Two black feathers.
widt cI’m not superstitious, but that’s what I’d call a sign.
At nine thirty I’m all packed and ready to go. Well, almost.
‘Feathers?’ asks Robyn. Armed with a list of everything I need, she’s going through a final check to make sure I have everything.
I tug them out of my bag and wave them.
‘Check.’ Robyn solemnly ticks them off her list. She’s taking it all super seriously. It’s almost like a military operation: Operation Good Riddance.
‘Red string?’
I do the same again.
‘Check.’
‘Hambone?’
I dig it out of my backpack. It’s wrapped in his boxer shorts. I’d returned Nate’s dry-cleaning, but those I’d kept. Partly because I needed an item of his clothing for the spell, but mostly because Nate has no business wearing those boxer shorts. Not with me. Not with any girl. They have to go. I’m thinking of it as a strike for all womankind. Like getting the vote, or equal rights: no woman after me will ever have to suffer the horror of the novelty pineapple boxer shorts.
‘Awesome!’ Having finished her checklist, Robyn beams broadly. ‘Well, good luck!’
‘Thanks.’ I smile uncertainly. Something tells me I’m going to need it.
I’d wanted Robyn to come with me, but she couldn’t, as she was going to her reiki healing class. Plus she said that I had to do this alone, otherwise the spell wouldn’t work. ‘Magic demands that,’ she’d informed me.
Magic, it seemed, demanded rather a lot.
I leave the apartment and set off towards a tiny park a few streets away. Well, it’s not even a park, more a small triangle with a couple of benches, some flowerbeds and a patch of grass. In the daytime it’s usually filled with people sitting on the benches eating their lunch, or sprawled on the grass chatting, reading the paper or just delighted to be soaking up a tiny spot of nature amid the steel skyscrapers, the flowers bright splashes of colour against the grey concrete.
But now, at night, it’s completely empty and in darkness. Not that anywhere in Manhattan every really gets dark, with all the city lights. It’s dark enough, though, I think, with a tremor of apprehension.
I try the gate. It’s locked. I’m going to need t `€ing to nãed o climb over.
Not for the first time I question my sanity, but like my sister instructed, I have to keep my eye on the bigger picture. ‘Forget it’s the journey, not the destination,’ she’d barked. ‘It’s all about the destination! The journey is immaterial.’
Unknown
A couple stroll past and I drop to the ground and pretend...
There’s a brief moment when I think I might get impaled and my sex life flashes before my eyes, but then I’m over and down the other side. I feel a flash of triumph. I’m in! Jittery with nerves and excitement, I quickly make my way over to the flowerbeds. OK, I need to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, then get out of here. Lighting my candle, I hold the flame to the piece of paper with Nate’s name and date of birth on it. It immediately catches alight. Much faster than I thought it would, in fact.
Shit, where’s the poem? I mean chant. Shit.
Frantically I dig around for another scrap of paper – and for a brief second there’s a panic that I’m burning the wrong piece of paper – fuck – but then I find it. Thank God. I take a deep breath. Heavens, I’m like a nervous wreck.
‘“Winds of the North, East, South and West . . .”’I begin rattling through it. Robyn told me I had to close my eyes and breathe in every word, but I race through it as quickly as I can. ‘“ . . . and let his mind be away from me.”’
I watch as the piece of paper disintegrates into ash and is carried away into the night air.
Brilliant. That bit’s done. Now I just have to bury the