I trudged to my room and slumped down on the bed. I considered calling her again, but it didn’t matter. The phone made a crackling sound, and the connection fizzled out. I nodded again and dropped my arm before I realized what I was doing. I’ll be there in ten minutes-fifteen tops if I have trouble getting past the water line. Cora’s dead.Īunt Sara’s next words sounded more alert. She killed herself, I shouted upward toward the phone. I reached my other hand above my head and hit the button to switch the phone’s mode to speaker. Maddy? she said when she picked up, her voice thick and low with half sleep.

I raised it above my head, and the flickering stopped. And just like him, she’d know what to do in a crisis. I hadn’t talked to her for more than five minutes at a time since my father’s death almost two years ago-she reminded me too much of him. I disconnected the call and dialed Aunt Sara. I’d plugged it in last night, but it hadn’t charged, thanks to the magic around here. My phone beeped a warning that its power was almost depleted. The woman said something else in her too-polite voice, but it didn’t matter. My voice broke to pieces, and each shard stung my throat. What’s your emergency? came a polite voice from the other end of the line.Ĭora. During the wait, I tried not to think of Cora, her wrists slit halfway to the elbows, her body empty of blood, her knife discarded beside her. Magic trumped technology, and that rarely went well for phone calls in this house. Phone held high, I ran into the family room, then the kitchen, searching for a spot with weaker magic. I went to try again, but the screen had gone black and lifeless. A thick layer of blood filled the bottom of the basin. On the other side of this door, my stepmother Cora lay in a bathtub. Now, I stood outside the master bedroom of my home, cell phone clutched in hand, my mouth pasty-dry from losing my breakfast in the bathroom sink. I’d heard of people cutting their wrists, but I’d never seen it.

Blood Spells by Alicia Ellis