Page 13

Penny

PENNY PARKS THE PRIUS IN FRONT OF VILLAGE BLUES RECORDS. Drinking black coffee was a bad idea; it canceled out her anxiety medication and her body is buzzing like an engine. Not an ideal emotional state for what she’s about to do.

And yet here she is, parked next to Alonso’s rusty blue car.

Alonso has worked at Village Blues Records since at least sophomore year. He might be their only employee, actually, because his car is there every day. The store is down the street from the café, in a converted house next to the grimy Boxer’s Irish Pub. There’s an old wheelchair ramp leading to the record store’s front door, and it squeaks under Penny’s Adidas sneakers.

Penny puts her hand on the door handle, but she can’t make herself open it.

“C’mon, Penny,” she mutters. “Think about the coffee orders.”

Back when Penny entered middle school, when her anxiety set in, she promptly forgot how to socialize. Even telling cafeteria workers whether she wanted lasagna or a burger was impossible. So Anita plopped Penny behind the counter at Horizon Café and made her take orders until it was terrifying instead of impossible, then tolerable instead of terrifying.

If Penny got through that, she can get through anything. She just has to pretend the stakes aren’t life or death.

She opens the front door.

Early seventies punk music blares over the speakers. The store is filled with headphones, used turntables, and records lined up in wire bins. The walls are covered with posters, band T-shirts, and tragically mismatched wallpaper.

Alonso has his back to the front door. He’s placing orange price stickers on tattered vinyl covers, his movements mechanical. Right when Penny is about to say something—she’s not even sure what—she triggers the sensor. It announces her with a recording of George Harrison’s “Ding Dong, Ding Dong . ”

“Can I help you?” Alonso says without turning around.

Penny is already hiding behind a stack of old amplifiers, pretending she didn’t hear him.

“Whatever,” Alonso mutters, and the rhythmic smack of the price-tag gun starts up again.

Penny presses a hand to her mouth to muffle her breathing. She needs to get out of here and regroup. Let this coffee get out of her system. She’ll come back in a few hours.

At least, that’s the plan until a familiar head of curly hair catches her eye. Penny turns to one of the band posters, and there, gazing at her with blue eyes that are a mirror of her own, is her dad.

It’s a faded poster of him with his band, Quicklime. It sits in a plastic black frame on the wall, its torn edges lovingly reassembled so they’re barely noticeable behind the glass. And underneath it is a sign:

QUICKLIME

IDLEWOOD’S GRUNGE LEGENDS

RIP NATHAN EMBERLY

“I have all of their albums.”

Penny’s breath catches in her throat. She uses the sleeve of her jacket to quickly wipe away the tears—she blames it on the coffee and the trauma—and she turns to face him.

Alonso stands at the end of the aisle, the price-tag gun propped on his shoulder like an actual weapon. He watches her with an emotion Penny can’t identify.

“Did you put this up?” Penny asks.

“Yep.”

“Oh.” Penny searches for the right words, but all she comes up with is a weak “Thanks.”

Alonso glares. “I didn’t do it for you.”

The venom in his tone brings Penny crashing back to reality. It takes her a second to realize she’s laughing. It’s official: She’s delirious.

Alonso’s lips thin. “What?”

“I know you didn’t do it for me. And I’m saying thank you anyway.”

Alonso shifts on his feet, looking away from her. “Right. Happy shopping, I guess.”

“Wait.” Penny steps forward, willing her voice to be less squeaky. “Do you have a minute to talk?”

Alonso holds his arms out. “Does it look like I’m busy?”

Penny glances around the empty store. “No?”

“So talk.”

Penny opens her mouth, but words have abandoned her again. Her eyes are drawn to a brown glass bottle sitting in the pocket of Alonso’s jacket—or is it a robe?—and she barely keeps her jaw from dropping.

Alonso follows her gaze. “What? You want one?”

“I drove here,” Penny says, as if Alonso would care about something like that.

Alonso frowns. Slowly he lifts the bottle out of his jacket so Penny can see the label: FIZZY BARREL ROOT BEER .

“That’s… not booze?”

“I don’t drink.”

Penny’s face grows red, even as something about Alonso not drinking strikes her as strange. Why did she think he drank in the first place?

“S-sorry. I just say weird stuff when I’m nervous.”

There’s a pause. “I know,” Alonso says, his voice soft.

He knows? Penny is so caught off guard that she meets his eyes. They’re a strange gray color, but they’re not cold. They’re questioning.

About what, though? Penny can’t tell. She’s too distracted by the fact that he doesn’t seem so scary right now. Even though he’s already snapped at her, and even though she just implied he was drunk at work, he seems… fine. Maybe even nice, or nice-adjacent.

So she chooses this moment to say the words:

“My mom had an accident.”

It’s immediately clear this was a mistake. Alonso’s eyes narrow, and the edge returns to his voice. “You think I don’t pay attention?”

Penny vacillates between anxiety and exasperation. Exasperation wins, and she throws her hands up. “I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. I know your mom is in the hospital. Did you have a point?”

“My point ,” Penny says, “is that I think it has something to do with you.”

Alonso stares at her like she just molted.

“Me,” he says.

“Yes.”

“And who told you that?”

Penny presses her lips together. “I think you can guess.”

“Wait.” Alonso’s mouth hangs open as he processes something, his gray eyes unfocused. “Corey actually told you?”

Penny braces herself for rage. “I… I don’t know if we’re talking about the same thing.”

Alonso takes a step closer, and Penny reflexively moves back. He notices, and he runs his tongue over his teeth. Penny’s stomach twists.

“He said the curse is our fault, right?” Alonso says.

The curse . Those are the words that have been running laps in Penny’s head since the night she ran into Corey at the hospital. Hearing them out loud is enough to force all the air from her lungs.

“What else did he tell you about us?” Alonso asks.

Penny clears her throat. “Corey said you and your family are, um…”

“Say it. Out loud.”

It takes Penny a second before she gasps. “Is that a Twilight reference? I thought you were a witch?” She gasps again. “Oh my god, are vampires real, too?”

“No, vampires aren’t real.” Alonso pauses, suddenly thoughtful. “I mean, I don’t think they’re real. I guess they could be—”

“Stop!” Penny holds up both hands in surrender. “Please. No more revelations this week.” Her shoulders sag. “So the curse is real.”

Alonso nods, once.

“And your family…?”

“It was my grandpa. The curse was his handiwork.”

“So…” Penny struggles to word her question. “How do we stop it?”

Alonso lets out a hiss between his teeth. “We don’t. Did Corey leave that part out?”

Penny feels every muscle in her body go tense. “But… but can’t we—”

“My grandpa is the only person who could break the curse, and he’s been dead a long time. If my family could fix it, we would.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Suddenly he can’t look at her again. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry. Strange words coming from Alonso. Even stranger, he sounds like he means it.

Penny had walked into the record store believing Alonso would be angry. Maybe he would even magic her to another dimension, or at least yell a little bit. Instead, she found out Alonso has created a shrine to her dad’s band. That he doesn’t drink. That he’s not even mad that Penny wanted to talk to him about the curse—or that she knows he’s a witch.

Their conversation about her yearbook pops into her mind. Who is Alonso, really? Should Penny actually be afraid of him?

And if Penny pushed him, is there a chance he’d help her?

“You said only one person could break the curse?” Penny asks.

“Yeah, my grandpa.”

“Okay, hear me out.” Penny holds up her hands as if she’s a magician and she’s presenting Alonso as her amazing assistant.

Alonso blinks at her. “I’m listening.”

She gestures more deliberately in his direction.

“I’m sorry, I don’t do telepathy.”

“Alonso!” she says. “You’re a witch!”

“So?”

“So you have magic ! What if there’s a way to save my mom that you don’t even know about? There must be a million spells out there—”

“There’s only one spell in existence that can break a curse, and it has to be cast by the person who cursed you in the first place.”

“But you’re from the same family.”

“Technically the same coven.”

Penny gulps. “Fine. Coven. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

Alonso glares at her, though it’s less intimidating than past glares. Then he returns to the front of the store and starts smacking the price-tag gun against boxes of cheap earbuds. The message is clear: Conversation over.

Penny follows him. “Don’t you want to break the curse?”

This time, Alonso slams the sticker gun down. “I guess Corey forgot to tell you all the details, huh? He didn’t mention that my family doesn’t have magic anymore?”

Whatever hope Penny had wavers like a flame. “But you said you’re a witch!”

“There’s a very powerful witch council, okay? When my grandpa cursed the Barrions, he basically committed a witch felony. And the Council punished us by sealing our magic.”

“Which means…?”

“It means we’ve got nothing . Whatever magic is in our blood is dormant now.” Alonso is only a foot away, and his eyes are bright under his wild blue hair. “My ancestors used to make medicine for people, you know? They used to see the future . They would know if a storm was coming, or if the crops would die. They weren’t evil, but that didn’t matter. My grandpa fucked up, and we were all punished for it. So no, Penny, I can’t help you.”

This can’t be real life—standing here listening to Alonso vent about his family’s lost magic while Penny’s mom lies unconscious in a hospital bed. It’s like falling down the rabbit hole, but when Penny hits the ground, she won’t be in a fantasy land. She’ll still be in Idlewood, and her mom will be dead.

Penny’s panic turns to something darker. Something like anger.

“You don’t have magic?” Penny says.

“I never have,” Alonso says, and his tone is forceful. Final.

“You’re lying.”

Alonso’s shock is quickly replaced with anger. Somehow, they’ve moved even closer, and his scent is overwhelming—amber and earth.

“What did you say?” he whispers.

“You said you don’t have magic,” Penny says. “So explain the cat.”

Alonso’s gray eyes open wide, and the expression takes away his hard edges. For a second, he looks like the boy Penny saw in the woods near Elkie Lake ten years ago.

“What cat?”

Penny’s feet are rooted to the floor. Too late to run away now. “The cat you brought back to life. I was there. I saw the whole thing.”

Alonso doesn’t move. He just watches her with that same wide-eyed, unreadable expression.

Then, without warning, he turns back to his work. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but you were wrong. I’m as magic-free as the rest of my family.”

“If you don’t want to help me, at least have the courage to say it,” Penny says. “Don’t give me some bullshit excuse.”

“If you’re done, you can leave. I would say don’t tell anyone about all this stuff, but half the town thinks my family is evil anyway. Just stay away from this curse unless you want to end up in the ground right next to your parents.”

Penny grits her teeth. “My mom isn’t dead.”

“She might as well be.”

The words bite deep, and all the fight leaves Penny’s body. She has nothing to say back.

Coming here was a mistake after all.

Penny’s feet take her out of the store, across the gravel, back to her car. She’s already crying as she turns it on. As she drives away from her last resort, all Penny can think is: What now?