Steels Edge Read online

Page 7

 

  “Charlotte? Are you in there?” A familiar voice called from the front porch. Éléonore.

  “Maybe. ” Charlotte smiled, wrapping the last chunk of ground beef in plastic.

  Éléonore swept into the kitchen. She looked to be around sixty, but she’d let it slip last year that a 112th birthday wasn’t such a bad thing for a woman to endure. Her clothes were an artful mess of tattered and shredded layers, all perfectly clean and smelling faintly of lavender. Her hair was teased into a fluffy gray mess and liberally decorated with charms, twigs, and dry herbs. In the middle of her hair nest sat a small cuckoo clock.

  Éléonore worried her. In the three years Charlotte had known her, the older woman’s physical condition had steadily slid downhill. Her bones were getting thinner, and she was losing muscle. She’d slipped on an iced-over path four months ago and broken her hip. Charlotte healed it, but her talent had its limits. She could only heal up to the existing potential of the body. In children, that potential was high, and she could even regenerate severed digits. But Éléonore’s body was tired. Her bones were brittle, and coaxing them into regrowth proved difficult.

  Old age was the one disease for which there was no cure. In the Edge, as in the Weird, people fueled their life spans with magic, but eventually even magic gave out.

  The cuckoo clock sagged.

  “It’s about to fall,” Charlotte said.

  Éléonore sighed and pulled the clock out of her hair. “It just doesn’t want to stay in there, does it?”

  “Have you tried pins?”

  “I’ve tried everything. ” Éléonore surveyed the island filled with meat and vegetables, all in perfectly sized portions, wrapped in plastic or placed into the Ziploc bags. “You obsess, my dear. ”

  Charlotte laughed. “I like having an organized freezer. ”

  Éléonore opened the freezer and blinked.

  “What?” Charlotte leaned back, trying to figure out what the hedge witch was looking at. Her freezer wasn’t really gapeworthy. It had four wire shelves, each with a neat label written in permanent marker on a piece of white tape: beef, pork and chicken, seafood, and vegetables.

  Éléonore tapped the nearest label with her finger. “There is no hope for you. ” She sank and landed on a stool. “Charlotte, do you ever make a mess just for the fun of it?”

  Charlotte shook her head, hiding a smile. “I like structure. It keeps me grounded. ”

  “If you were any more grounded, you’d sprout roots. ”

  Charlotte laughed. It was true.

  “You and Rose would get along,” Éléonore said. “She was the same way. Everything had to be just so. ”

  Rose was a constant presence in most of their conversations. Charlotte hid a smile. Being a substitute Rose didn’t bother her at all. She long ago realized that for Éléonore there was no higher praise, and she took it as a compliment.

  “I’ve come for a favor,” Éléonore announced. “Because I’m selfish that way. ”

  Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “What may I do for you, your witchiness?”

  “How are you with handling teenage acne?” Éléonore asked.

  “Acne is a side effect of the body’s normal processes. ” Charlotte began stacking her bags into the freezer in neat little towers. “I can treat it, and it will disappear for a while, but eventually it will come back. ”

  “How long is a while?”

  Charlotte skewed her mouth. “Six to eight weeks, give or take. ”

  Éléonore raised her hand. “Sold. A friend of mine, Sunny Rooney, has two granddaughters. Nice girls. Daisy is twenty-three and Tulip is sixteen. The parents have been out of the picture for a while—their mother died a while back, and their dad passed away six months ago. Daisy has a decent job in the Broken, so Tulip lives with her. She’ll be starting a new school in the Broken this fall, except her face is all messed up, and Daisy says it’s causing her a lot of stress. They tried creams and washes, but it won’t go away. They’re in the front yard now, hoping you might take a look. I’ll take care of their bill. I know you just worked on Glen’s stomach problems two days ago, and I do hate to ask, but you’re their last hope. ”

  She’d heard that one before. Charlotte sat the last bag into the freezer, washed her hands, and wiped them on the towel. “Let’s see what we have. ”

  * * *

  THE two girls stood at the edge of the lawn. Short and about sixty pounds overweight, Daisy had a round face, big brown eyes, and a nervous smile. Tulip was her polar opposite. Thin almost to the point of being underdeveloped for her age, she stood half-hiding behind her sister. Her skinny jeans sagged on her. Her tank top, designed to be formfitting, shifted with the wind. She had caked makeup on her face, and the thick pale paste made her skin appear bloodless. If not for the same chocolate hair and big eyes, Charlotte would’ve never guessed they were related.

  Neither of the young women made any effort to approach. A ring of small plain stones, each sitting a few feet apart from each other, circled the house, and both Daisy and Tulip kept well away from it. The stones didn’t affect Éléonore—she had put them there in the first place.

  “You left them outside of the ward stones?” Charlotte murmured.

  “It’s your house,” Éléonore murmured back.

  Charlotte walked down the path and picked up the nearest stone. Magic nipped at her. A small rock the size of her fist, the ward stone was rooted to the ground. Together, the stones formed a magic barrier that guarded the house better than any fence. The Edge wasn’t the safest of places. The Weird had sheriffs, the Broken had cops, but in the Edge, wards and guns were people’s only defense.

  “Come on in,” Charlotte invited.

  The women hurried to the house, and she dropped the rock back in its place.

  “Hi!” Daisy offered her a hand, and Charlotte shook it. “It’s so nice to meet you. Say hi, Tulip. ”

  Tulip promptly hid behind her sister.

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte told her. “I need you to wash your face. The bathroom is straight through there. ”

  “Come, I’ll take you,” Éléonore offered.

  She smiled, and Tulip followed her up the porch steps and right into the house.

  “Thank you so much for seeing us,” Daisy said.

  “No problem,” Charlotte said.

  “God, this is awkward. I’m sorry. ” Daisy shifted from foot to foot. “It’s just that we tried all the creams and prescriptions, and they’re saying laser treatment is the only option. I’m a CPA. I make okay money but not that kind of money, you know?” She laughed nervously.

  And that’s what always got her, Charlotte reflected. That uncomfortable pleading look in the eyes. People looked at you like you were the answer to all their prayers. She wanted to help—she always wanted to help—but there were limits to what magic could do.

  Daisy offered an awkward smile. “Mrs. Drayton said you might be tired. Thank you for seeing us anyway. ”

  “Not a problem. ” Charlotte smiled. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen?”

  In the kitchen, they sat at the island, and she poured two glasses of iced tea. Daisy perched on the edge of her chair, looking like she wanted to bolt.

  “This used to be Rose’s house,” Daisy said. “My best friend’s sister went to high school with her. I saw her flash at the Graduation Fair. It was crazy. Pure white. Nobody from the Edge ever flashes white. Do you flash?”

  In the Edge, most people had a magic talent. Some were useful, some not, but every magic user could flash with practice and proper training. Flash was a pure stream of magic. It looked like a ribbon of light, or sometimes, a whip of lightning. The brighter and paler the flash, the stronger the magic. The strongest flash, pure white, could cut through a body like a cleaver through a stick of warm butter. It was a lethal weapon, and Charlotte had seen the wounds it left, in great detail.

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p; “I don’t flash,” Charlotte said. She’d never learned to do it because there was no need. “That’s not my talent. ”

  Daisy sighed. “Of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned Rose. ”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Charlotte said. “Éléonore talks about her and the boys all the time. ”

  Daisy fidgeted in her seat. “So how do you know Mrs. Drayton? You’re friends, I take it?”

  Éléonore was more than a friend. The older woman was her chosen family. “When I first came to the Edge, I came out more to the west, near Ricket. I’d walked away from my horse for a minute to relieve myself, and someone stole it and all of my money. “

  “That’s the Edge for you. ” Daisy sighed.

  “The plan was to find work, but nobody would let me heal them. I walked from settlement to settlement, trying to find a place to fit in, and when I came to East Laporte, I was starving. No money, no place to stay, my clothes were torn up and filthy. I was at the end of my rope. Éléonore found me on the side of the road and took me in. She made me welcome and got me my first clients. She’d go with me to all of my appointments and chat people up while I worked. I owe her everything. ”

  There was more to it than simple gratitude. Éléonore missed her grandchildren terribly. The older woman had such a strong urge, almost a need, to take care of someone, Charlotte reflected, just as she herself felt the same urge to cure an illness or fix a broken limb. They were kindred spirits.

  Éléonore emerged from the bathroom, leading Tulip by the hand. The girl’s face was a sea of hard red bumps buried under the skin. Cystic acne. The precursors to scarring were already there.

  “Sit,” Charlotte invited.

  Tulip obediently sat on the stool. Éléonore put a small mirror on the island. “Just in case. ”