We weren’t on the jitney for more than a minute when the tingle crept into my forehead, soft and slow, before it moved down my neck, to my shoulders. I heard music: that Bruce Springsteen song that people around here played all the time, that I couldn’t help but know the words to. It was about being in love with a Jersey Girl, Springsteen’s voice crackling through a staticky radio. A song about dancing all night, holding hands under the spangle of carnival lights. About how being in love made everything else seem okay. I looked around as the music got louder, then so loud that my ears throbbed.

“I wish he’d turn that down.”

Des jumped and dug her nails into my arm. “Jesus! Turn what down? Why are you yelling?”

“Shit. Nothing,” I said, trying to lower my voice, even though I couldn’t hear myself over the wail of the saxophone. I leaned my head against the window, closed my eyes. The jitney smelled sour, like lemon cleaning solution, but for a moment I felt sun and fresh, cool air on my face. I was filled with a thrilling sense of speed, and of hope. I tasted caramel on my teeth.

The song fading to a tinny whine in my ears, I opened my eyes as the jitney lurched to a stop outside of the casino entrance. After I stepped off the bus, I stood in the sunlight and looked around, but there wasn’t anyone else nearby, aside from the hot dog vendor who clanked his metal tongs against his cart. I dug the heels of my palms into my eyes. What had I done with that spell?

“What’s with you?” Des asked. “This was your idea. I need you to be focused.”

“Give me a second. I … I feel carsick.”

“You don’t get carsick.”

I didn’t want to tell Des about any of it. That I had done a spell in the first place. That I thought it might have worked, that now I was seeing things, hearing things, tasting things that I didn’t understand. Des applied another coat of red lip gloss, air kissed the little circle of her compact mirror. Her mouth had the hard, wet sheen of patent leather. The song finally went quiet, but I didn’t like the way Des was looking at me. Like I was making her nervous. I felt something against my thigh, a quick brush of sensation, like a bit of string or a hair stuck to the skin, but when I looked down there was nothing there. Des watched me scratch at it. I felt it again, on my shoulder blade, but ordered myself not to move.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.” I pushed the song and the skin-crawling feeling and the bloodied tooth from my mind, shook my hair from its ponytail, and we stepped inside, the dim of the casino familiar and cool.

LILY