DANTE scrubbed at his face and looked around the living room. He couldn’t remember the moment he and Cully had released their clasped hands after they’d walked in, but Cully was nowhere to be seen. The sewing machine whirred in Cully’s bedroom, though, which usually indicated he was in the middle of creating costumes for the next show he’d been hired for. It wasn’t always sewing things from scratch, although it looked like that a lot. Cully was a master at repurposing old costumes, even old fabric, and making something new and exciting.
As if to answer Dante’s thoughts, a pile of clothes appeared on the battered black-surfaced kitchen table they rarely used.
Wait. Appeared?
Yes. Yes, most definitely. Dante had looked at the bare table and then seen the mound of clothes appear, like they so often seemed to as he and Cully knocked about the house together.
But not usually from thin air.
Dante squinted and shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz of unreality from it. That spell the night before, and those birds—and Jesus, the snake in the apple tree. He tried to anchor himself in his and Cully’s home, which he knew as well as he knew anything else in the world.
Cully had decorated, of course. Most of their furniture was hand-me-down, but Cully had taken a battered and cat-clawed sofa and love seat and covered them in bright purple and fuchsia tropical fabric, to match the carpet runner down the hall. Then he’d painted plain boards that same fuchsia, and Dante had mounted them as shelving. Cully coordinated turquoise and forest-green picture frames and tchotchkes on the shelves—all of which matched a truly eyeball-popping tapestry on the wall—right across from sports pop-ups of the Seattle Seahawks and the New Orleans Saints.
The result was bright and eclectic, and the picture frames had pictures of the two of them, Jordan and the other coven members, and, front and center, Glinda, their magical dog Cully had found from a breeder of mixed-breed small dogs about a minute after they graduated and moved in.
She was in an eight-by-ten-inch polished silver frame, placed in the center of the shelves because she was the center of their world.
As if to prove it, she pattered up and nuzzled his ankle, looking for attention.
“Hey, girl,” Dante purred, scooping her up and rubbing her tummy. Glinda made adorable piglet sounds, because she knew her daddy loved her. “Did we feed you today? Here, let’s see if we fed you today.”
He checked her food and water bowls—which were appallingly empty—and had a real moment of worry. How distracted were they that they’d let the dog go hungry and thirsty? And wait, had they even walked her? Dante went looking for her leash and then realized that since Cully had carried her to the house, they must have left the leash at Alex and Barty’s place.
“Cully!” he called. “Hey, Cully, I’m gonna go get Glinda’s leash. Did you walk her?”
But Cully didn’t answer—he must not have heard Dante’s question. Dante was about to call again, but then he noticed something outside the window. Wait, was that more birds? Was that an owl, sitting on Cully’s little window-box herb garden, peering in at them?
Dante took an involuntary step back, and suddenly—oh wow, like he’d just appeared there, like the clothes on the table—Alex was in their living room.
“Augh!” Alex, whom Jordan had met about a month into school, was the coven’s quietest, most practical member. Dante had liked him immediately, but part of that was he’d learned by then that Jordan’s taste in friends was impeccable. Neither shy like Bartholomew nor intense like Jordan, Alex was simply self-contained. He once kept major warfare from erupting in the dorms by simply listening to all the combatants and then raising his hand and asking everyone if they didn’t have finals to study for. Poof! Like that! No more arguing co-eds, and the dorms were finally quiet enough for everybody to study.
Dante’s chest-flutter of fear eased up a little, although Alex was the one holding his hand to his heart.
“What’s wrong?” Dante asked, surprised because, well, this wasn’t Alex being practical and self-contained.
“You startled me,” Alex said, his voice high and stressed for no reason Dante could fathom. “Uhm… have you and Cully noticed anything… uhm, odd since this morning?”
“Naw,” Dante told him, not wanting to talk about the birds or this weird, disorienting vertigo that kept trying to whirl him inside. “Like what?”
“Barty had some, erm, trouble at the con,” Alex said, his green eyes enormous. “Is that Cully in the other room, sewing?”
“Yeah, I guess he’s got a project to finish,” Dante said. Then he hollered, “Cully! Dude, come talk to Alex.”
His attention shifted to the window again, and he was barely pulled away from staring the owl in the eyes when Alex made a little squeaking sound.
“What?” Dante asked. “Oh hey, look at him go. I didn’t even see these here!” A whole new pile of costumes had appeared on the back of the couch. Wow, Cully was really cooking in there!
“Where did these come from?” Alex asked almost desperately.
“I don’t know. He’s got a new show, I guess.” Dante smiled proudly. “Man, that kid can really hustle. I don’t think he’s ever not had a show to prep for. He’s wanted as far away as San Francisco. Did you know that?”
Alex nodded gravely. “Yeah, Dante. You told us that last year. Uhm….”
At that moment Glinda started barking at, well, nothing, right in the middle of the living room. Dante was going to scoop her up, but Alex beat him to it. In fact, he was almost hugging the dog, like a stuffed animal or something.
Glinda whimpered and licked Alex’s face, and Alex regarded the little dog with affection and worry. “Did, uhm, you guys get a chance to walk her?” he asked.
“You know, I was just going to do that!” Dante said. “But the leash is back at your place. How about you go hook her up and I’ll meet you outside in a minute?”
“Great!” Alex said, keeping tight hold on Glinda—who didn’t seem to mind, which was weird. Usually she was a wriggle worm, but right now she seemed pretty clingy. “I’ll see you out front!”
And with that, Alex took the dog and almost sprinted outside, leaving Dante to wonder if he’d forgotten to shower.
He chuckled then. Well, of course he had. They all had. But what he really wanted was his jacket, and to talk to Cully. The floor still seemed to pitch and yaw under his feet. He hadn’t wanted to tell Alex—the poor kid looked freaked-out already, his skin so pale his ginger freckles stood out in stark relief—but Dante really was having the weirdest day!
“Cully!” he called. “Cully, I’m gonna go out and get a bit of fresh air.”
Buttonholed
CULLY watched the miracle of linen and velveteen under his hands as it passed through the zipper foot and the sewing machine looped thread and punctured fabric and stitched the whole thing together. From far away, he heard Dante calling him about walking the dog, but Dante knew him well enough to know when he was in a creative haze, Cully often didn’t seem to be able to snap out of it.
It was one of the things that had driven his father crazy when he’d lived at home, but Dante… Dante hadn’t really batted an eyelash at it, even when they’d been jammed in that tiny dorm together and Cully’s projects had taken over the room….