The Crumpled Mirror by Elizabeth Loea (free novel reading sites TXT) 📕

No, not “almost-strangers.” They weren’t strangers anymore. Friendships had been built on less, and so much had been compounded into the last three days that I felt as though I knew them better than some classmates I’d known for years. Besides, there was the magic that tied us together. That was more than enough.

“That’s who those faces are,” Ginger breathed.

“What?”

“The faces. Each of you has a...sort of a secondary face. When I look at you I see—” she made a vague outlining shape in my direction “—I see a bunch of stuff. Emotion stuff. But there’s a distinct face, a child’s face, over your shoulder. Dark hair, freckles, tall for a child. A scowl. She’s not here, but she’s an integral part of what makes you...you.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this?”

She shrugged. “Could be a sibling. You’ve also got other people around you: an older woman, a college-aged girl. A disembodied hand on your right shoulder.”

I slapped my shoulder on instinct.

“Kidding,” she said. “But I get it now.”

There was nothing left to do about that. There was my biggest secret—perhaps the biggest secret all of us had—out in the open.

“The thing is,” I continued, “Vivi followed me here. She was here when I woke up this morning.”

“Is she here now?”

“No.” I glanced at Indigo, who had unscrewed a water bottle and was nursing its contents.

“Is there some sort of pattern when she disappears?” Ginger asked. “My brother disappears when I’m...near certain people.”

The pause and Lilac’s subtle smile was enough for me to know what Ginger meant, and it was enough to give me the confidence for my answer.

“Yeah, Vivi disappears when Indigo’s nearby,” I said, trying my hardest to sound nonchalant.

Indigo spat water across Ginger’s back.

Adrian, never one to miss out on gossip or awkwardness, absolutely crowed when he saw Indigo’s face. I couldn’t look at Indigo, couldn’t do anything except focus on my heartbeat, on bringing it back down from the range of a healthy hummingbird to an anxious human.

“Alright,” Ginger said. “Moving on from that...I don’t know what to call that. Moving on from that whatever, we know that ghosts can get in here, then. But only ones we know, it seems. The others didn’t follow, although they were clearly after us in our worlds. So as long as we stick close to people who keep the ghosts that can get in here away, we should be good, right?”

She shot a surprisingly shy glance in Lilac’s direction.

So did Adrian.

This was going to be a terrible day.

I excused myself from the group about fifteen minutes later, unable to handle another second of that dynamic. The sky above the house was peaceful enough, and even though the others could reach me if they tried, none of them seemed comfortable enough with flying to follow me up there without a good reason.

Particularly Indigo.

Oh, gods.

I pulled Amaranth’s note out of my pocket and flipped through the charms, keeping my bare foot pressed to the driftwood’s charm to avoid plummeting to my doom. Next to the note came the journal page. I flattened it against the board and began to read, my pulse pounding.

The fourth test went well, which was a surprise. I think Jamie and the nameless kid are getting along now, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Both of them are bad influences on the other. Jamie was so kind, so careful, and now he’s just angry a lot of the time.

I don’t know why. There’s a lot to be angry about, but I don’t think it’s the tests or Rose’s secrets that are making him mad.

And the nameless kid is getting more careful. He’s more calculating. He’s kinder, too, which is good, but he’s not blasting holes in anything anymore. That seemed good at first until I realized he was saving his magic for something. Last week, he burned the whole house down. He said it was because he wanted to see how quickly it rebuilt.

He hasn’t used his magic since then. I’m scared to see what he’ll do this week.

Today, he didn’t speak to any of us at all—just Artie. When Artie came up to me after dinner, he looked angry. And scared.

I asked him what was wrong, but he just said he didn’t know if it was the right thing to be taking these tests. He asked me what it was all for. I’m sorry to say I didn’t have a good answer for him.

I’m afraid he’ll cut and run.

I had a vision again tonight, but it was just a voice. It sounded a like a young woman. She said something odd—she said, “it’s not okay.”

I hope she was wrong, whatever she was talking about.

I tucked the note back into my pocket and pulled out Amaranth’s runes. Clearly, this journal tracked the devolution of this group, and, if Amaranth’s pattern held true, the next note I would get would be about the final test.

It couldn’t have gone well, especially considering Mint’s fate.

I looked to the runes again.

All of Amaranth’s notes were drawn, intricate little circles filled with tricky lines that looked as they were going one way and then curved and went another. If I ever wanted to memorize them, I’d have a hell of a time.

One said “Fire,” which sounded like a great idea. If it went well, I’d have a mechanism for self-defense. If it went poorly, I’d set myself on fire and wouldn’t have to handle the group until I got out of the hospital.

When I’d finished with the mark, I held out my palm in the direction of the forest, which seemed to stretch endlessly on from where I floated.

There were no words for this spell, just a mark that looked like it belonged on a poster advertising the Illuminati. I flexed my fingers, pointed, turned my hand in a circle, but nothing until—

“Fire?” I suggested.

A flame shot twenty feet into the air and seared the feathers of a passing seagull.

My scream drew the attention of