Waiting for Sunday

chapter 13 - smoke and mirrors

Realization crosses his face then, sudden and earnest, as all of Felix's expressions are. He takes Lillie's wrist in his hand and Lillie gasps a little at the sudden, nearly feverish warmth of his fingers. "Did it do anything to you?" Felix asks, his gaze switching, urgent, between her eyes and the tender skin at the base of her palm. "You're okay, right?"

"I'm fine, Felix. Shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?"

His lips quirk in a sheepish smile, and he lowers Lillie's wrist again. "Fair," he allows. "Maybe...maybe we should reconsider our plan."

"It was hardly a plan in the first place, to be honest," says Lillie ruefully. Her eyes dart away, tracing the whorls in the design of the couch's upholstery. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Felix repeats, but the edge of the word breaks into a brief coughing fit. Lillie stands to get him a cup of water or something anyway, but he waves her off. "Lillie, this was my idea. What the hell do you have to be sorry for?"

"But I started all of this, didn't I? I'm the one who insisted we do something about this."

"I'm glad you did," Felix says, and his expression shifts then, a subtle and inscrutable darkness passing over his face that places a furrow between his brows. "It was about time somebody woke me up, at least."

Lillie is still trying to figure out what he could mean by that when Quincy returns from the kitchen. Lillie's relieved to see she comes back with none of Nao's potion ingredients, but just her cell phone in her hand. The look on her face, however, is unpromising, like a doctor tasked with delivering bad news.

"Q?" Felix says, likely picking up on the same thing.

"It's Reina," she says, gesturing at the phone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say anything, but you know how she is—"

"Felix," says a voice from the other side of the phone, just loud enough for a crunch of static to punctuate the words. "What are you doing? Where are you? What the fuck's gotten into you?"

Felix shakes his head, a silent plea in his eyes, but Quincy just looks at him apologetically, folding the device into his hands.

For a while after Lillie passes, Mira lingers there in the vestibule, unsure what to do with herself. Inside is Lillie and a wall of words neither one of them want to say. Outside is the wonky witch doctor guy and country silence and other lesser known eldritch things. It dawns on Mira that she has done exactly what she did not want to do—get herself into a situation out of which she has no immediate exit.

It's another moment before she decides she at least doesn't want to be in this house anymore, with its overbearing scent of spiced old wood and its strange aura that makes her feel as though she's constantly being watched. Mira heaves a long breath and steps out onto the porch.

She has one foot on the steps leading down into the drive when Nao says from behind her, "Is he alive?"

The question bewilders Mira enough that her guard slips. She turns to face him where he sits on the porch swing. "You saved him and you don't know that?"

"Sort of. I mean, I was pretty damn sure. But pretty damn sure ain't positive, really, is it?"

"He's fine," Mira says, and turns to go again, mumbling the rest to herself: "Thank God, because He's gotta be the only reason no one died tonight."

"I thought we just agreed I saved him."

"Oh, get over yourself—" Mira whirls again, but stops when she finds Nao at the top of the stoop, much closer than he was before. Though the sky's gone ink-colored, in the gold porch light the farmer's skin gleams sun-kissed and tawny brown, dark moles sprayed across his face and neck in at once a very vague and specific arrangement. His eyebrows are thick and nearly geometrical, expressive as he regards Mira.

"What do you want?" Mira says, though the fire has slid out of her voice. She's not quite sure where it went. "You should go check on your patient."

"Why did you come with them?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You didn't want to. You've been dragging your feet the whole time; I noticed. Everyone else seems to have agreed to all this madness 'cause they believed in at least some of it," Nao says, and cocks his head. "Do you?"

The more he talks the less Mira understands him, and this unnerves her. People are equations she has always been able to solve; usually, it is only a matter of finding which formula goes where. Yet all that stares her in the face when she looks at Nao is a massive question mark. She has never wanted to stay and leave so much at the same time.

"I believe in Lillie. That's the only reason I'm here," Mira says. "Sorry we troubled you; I'm sure as soon as Felix is better we'll be out of your hair for good. Any other burning questions? Or can I go?"

Though Mira asks, she does not wait for his permission. She turns to go, and only stops when his hand closes around hers, pulling her arm taut. It is once again only divine intervention that she doesn't topple down the steps.

Mira turns, livid. "Let me go—"

"Felix is lying to all of you," Nao says, and reconsiders. "Well. Maybe not to the ginger. But to the rest of y'all, at least."

Mira stares at him, then flicks her gaze over his shoulder, as if she can peer through the house's walls. "About what? And how do you even know that?"

A flicker of uncertainty passes Nao's face, his eyes leaving hers for a moment as if searching for something before returning to her. "I've seen a lot of curses in my life, but none like his. I'm just saying. I don't think he's giving you the full picture."

"But—"

The creak of a door opening interrupts her, and Mira looks up as Lillie steps into the vestibule.

"I'm telling you this because I think you're the only one who will listen," Nao whispers. He releases her hand, but not her gaze. "Good luck, sweetheart."

He turns around just as Lillie steps out onto the porch, Moses beside her. Just behind them, Felix has his eyepatch on again, with his arm linked in Quincy's. Mira is watching a bead of sweat trickle from the black edge of Nao's hairline beneath the collar of his flannel, but his voice is steady when he says, "Back from the dead, I see."

Felix cringes. "I'd rather you didn't say it like that."

"What was that, anyway?" Moses asks, parking his hands on his hips. "The freaky plant, I mean. You never said."

"I did say, didn't I? A failed incantation," Nao answers, resting his elbow on the railing. "If Shay had done it right, it would've had purifying effects, certainly good for curses. But she butchered it, and getting a spell wrong is just like getting medicine wrong. There's gonna be side effects."

Felix clears his throat aggressively. "We'll...keep that in mind next time," he said. "And um. Thank you. You really didn't have to do all of this, and for a stranger, no less."

Nao says, "I don't like to let people die when I know there's something I can do about it. Personal preference, you could say."

Though Felix laughs, Mira notices Lillie's expression is a lot less cordial, and a lot more complicated.

"We'll get out of your hair," she tells Nao, and begins to lead the way down the steps, brushing past them both. "Mira? Are you coming or what?"

Nao gives her a look, though whether that look includes a plea or demand, it is hard to tell. She turns away from him without another word.