“I was?”
“Yes. Really brilliant. You inspired me. You actually showed me the play.”
“Thank you.” She bows her head low. She can’t show me her happiness at my praise. It’s too indecent. “Well,” she tells the floor, “I’m sure Briana will be great too.”
I stare at the dull dark hair of Ellie, the blond roots peeking through. I notice there have been a few attempts at purple streaks, now faded.
“Sure,” I say. “Sure she will be.”
“I heard she was sick today,” she whispers. She looks up, her gray eyes wide open.
“Sick?” Panic in my gut. No, not panic, why panic? Anger, more like. I should be angry. She’s obviously faking. Milking this moment as only she can.
“Trevor told me after rehearsal. Apparently, she’s been in bed all day. She couldn’t even get out of bed, he said. She told him through text. She said it hurt to move. It hurt to even text.”
I don’t say anything. My turn to lower my head. I feel a smile. Unholy. Twitching on my face.
“Maybe it’s a flu,” Ellie offers, so kindly filling in the silence.
“Maybe,” I say.
“I’ve had one of those before once. Where it hurt to move. It hurt to text. It hurt to breathe even.”
I nod at the floor. Such a hard floor. Did she really sit out here so long?
“It is flu season, Ellie. Better bundle up. Things are going around.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
“Professor Fitch?”
“Miranda, please, Ellie. I’ve told you. Call me Miranda.”
“Miranda. I just wanted to ask you a question. I would have asked earlier but I didn’t want to bother you. When I looked in the theater, you just seemed so… rapt.”
So you waited out here for four hours? Sitting in the dark with your tangerine?
“What is it?”
“Well, I just wondered if you’d tried my bath.”
“Bath? What bath?”
“I made you a bath, remember?”
And then I do remember. The pungent little baggie of dried herbs, oils, and salt I found tucked into my purse last night when I left the theater. Peppered here and there with the petals of dried flowers. Bearing a little purple note. From Ellie. It’s currently funking up my glove compartment—making my whole car smell like a boreal forest crossed with a field of sage.
“Oh, your bath. Yes. Of course,” I lie. “It was wonderful. Just the thing.”
I look at her and smile. Does she believe it? Absolutely. She’s positively beaming.
“Really? So it worked!”
“Worked?”
“Well, I cast a bit of a spell on it. To help you heal. It’s a restorative bath, like I said.” She looks away now. Embarrassed perhaps by her dabblings in the occult.
“Did you?”
She nods solemnly. “Yes. And I have to say, I think it’s working. You seem better, Miranda.”
“I do? Yes, I do. You know, I was wondering what it might be. But now you’ve solved it, Ellie. Thank you.” I say it seriously, like I mean it.
Ellie beams again. Hideously. There is something loathsome about her intensity, her passion, I can’t deny it. The depth and breadth of it—how fiercely it burns under her unassuming skin. For a second, I see what Grace sees, which is just a plain, grim-featured girl. A wanting girl. But then all of this is what makes her a great Helen.
“Good night, Ellie,” I say. “And remember to bundle up.”
I’m walking down the hall. Feeling her watching me go.
“Should I make you another one, Miranda?” she calls after me.
“Another?” I ask her, turning.
“Another bath.” Her silhouette so hopeful. So full of faith in her own witchy powers. Can’t burst that bubble.
“Oh, yes. Sure, why not?”
CHAPTER 13
“BETTER?” MARK REPEATS. His bro face is shocked. Did I really just speak this word here in the basement gym of SpineWorks?
I’m sitting on a medical table in a row of medical tables, gazing up at Mark, who is gazing down at my right leg, how it’s swinging wildly. Better? Me? A word that I treat as verboten, a word that whenever anyone says it in my vicinity causes me to shake my head violently. No, no. Not better. Definitely not better. Not me. Never better, please. Worse, always worse. Always and forever.
“I think so,” I whisper. “I think it is better.” I say it softly, hesitantly. “Maybe it’s just been a good couple of days.” Days in which my pill bottles have remained rattling in my pockets, unopened. Still close at hand in case. “I mean, I don’t know for sure.”