***

    HADLEY'D BEEN TO A PSYCHIC, ONCE. It was with Morgan, Sebastian and with Gregory he'd gone. Morgan, who wanted to get a tarot reading on the state of her love-life and who, as usual, dragged the rest of them along with her. Despite Gregory's complaining on how it was going to be a waste of money, Sebastian's complaints on how it was going to be a waste of time, and Hadley's complaints on how he really needed to take a piss, they all went along.

  The memory of the tarot reading is vague, as real and tangible as a dream. There was something about wands, and something about choices, and something about good omens, but all that slipped off of Hadley's mind like butter on a slide. What stuck was the place, the location itself. Dim lighting, mason jars lined neatly on shelves, beaded curtains. No, it wasn't that either. It was the room in which all five of them—psychic included—were crammed in, elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder; it was the crease in Morgan's skirt, the cologne coming off of Sebastian, the slow breaths out of Gregory, mirrors throwing Hadley's reflection back at him in a dozen different angles, and the quick, fluttering hands of the psychic as she shuffled the cards and laid them out, face down, for Morgan to pick.

  Of course, he realizes that buzz he'd felt could've been a result from whatever incense she'd been burning. But there, in the dingy little room with the psychic's face glowing faintly, he'd almost believed that magic was real, high or not.

  That's what he expects when he follows David. A buzz, dim lighting, incense burning, crystal balls and fragile things. A sense of wonder.

  He doesn't expect shag carpeting and books stacked everywhere, pizza boxes strewn on the floor and coffee mugs on a coffee table and neon signs covering every available inch of all four walls, flickering uncertainly, throwing light onto the floor like sunlight streaming past stained windows. He doesn't expect David to take his shoes off. He doesn't expect feeling like he's walked into a curious hybrid of a porn shop, a college dorm and a night club lounge. He doesn't expect feeling like the walls are trying to whisper to him.

  Hadley shivers.

  "Well, wonder boy?" David looks at him expectantly, face a deep blue under the neon light of a sign. "Are you going to take your shoes off, or do you I have to do it for you?"

   Hadley doesn't ask why he has to take his shoes off. He assumes it's a cultural thing. Or a psychic thing. Or a magic thing. Not that he believes in magic or anything.

  "I'll do it myself," he says. "Thanks for the offer, though."

  Hadley takes his shoes off and puts them in a corner of the room. David does the same.

  "So," says Hadley. "What now?"

"We go upstairs." David looks up at the ceiling. "A friend of mine should be here."

  "There's a second floor?"

  "There's a third floor, sometimes." David doesn't offer to elaborate.

   Hadley, ever the wiser, doesn't ask about the sometimes part of the statement. Answers first, questions later.

   David leads him deeper into the room and to a door with a stubborn handle which he tries, fruitlessly, to open. He mutters under his breath, "C'mon, not now."

  "Trouble?" Hadley asks.

  "Nothing a little sweet-talking can't fix," answers David. He breathes in, takes a step back and says to the door, "Molly! Who's a good hideout? Who's a good little hideout?"

   Molly, Hadley mouths.

   The ceiling makes an ominous noise.

  "That's right!" David is gushing. "It's you! And if you're a good hideout, you're going to let us in, okay? You're going to let me and pretty boy here through, aren't you?"

     Pretty, Hadley mouths.

    The ceiling makes another sound.

   "I know! But you're going to have to trust me on this, alright?"

    The ceiling—the fucking ceiling—whimpers. It's entirely possible that it's Hadley's imagination, but he's sure it isn't.

    The door swings open.

    Hadley tries very hard not to freak out.

There's a flight of stairs leading up to a second floor, barely lit save for a single light bulb, and so cramped that it would've been impossible for two people to go up the stairs side by side.

  David goes first and says, "Watch your step. It's pretty dark in here."

  "Thanks for the warning, captain obvious."

   David's shoulders shrug. "I try."

   Hadley nearly stumbles on the first step. The walls whisper something indistinct to him.

   "Want me to hold your hand?" David asks, barely turning his head, voice straining with amusement.

   "I'm good," Hadley answers. "What the hell is this place, anyway?"

   "We're in a liminal space, which means reality is a little stretched here." David slows his pace to match Hadley's. He pets the walls affectionately. "This place has a name. Have some respect, wonder boy."

   "You're kidding."

   "Molly," David says, starting to walk again. He trails his hand along the walls as he walks up the stairs. "Be nice, man."

   "Molly," repeats Hadley.

   The staircase creaks.

   "See? She likes you," says David. "And we're here."

  They're on the landing and this close to David, Hadley can smell the lavender coming off of David's two sizes too big jacket, and there's something unbearably uncomfortable about the moment, that Hadley turns his head away. David doesn't seem the type to smell like flowers. Greasy burgers and potato chips, maybe.

   Besides, no boy should smell so much like flowers.

   The room beyond is a stark contrast to the one below. It's just as dim—what is with this place and a lack of lighting?—but there's a window through which sunlight streams past the curtains, turning the ground which it hits into gold. It's warmer, too, and there's the smell of coffee and tea brewing. There's an oak table in the middle of the room, surrounded by chairs.

Someone's sitting on one of the chairs, feet propped up on the table. It's too dim to make out much beyond the person's willowy silhouette.

  "Is this your boy?" asks the person with a voice, low and husky, easily belonging to either man or woman.

   "He's not my boy," says David. "He's his own boy. Isn't that right, wonder boy?"

   "I have a name."

   "Perfect! We can all shake hands and tell each other our names. C'mon," says David, and pushes him into the room.

The person gets up. She's tall, but not as tall as Hadley. Her skin is as dark as—if not darker than—David's. She looks part fox, part supermodel. The closer Hadley gets to her, the more devastatingly pretty she looks.

   "Wonder boy," says David, gesturing at the girl before them, "this is Shani. Shani, this is wonder boy."

   Shani holds out her hand. Hadley's momentarily dumbstruck—is he supposed to kiss her hand, like in days of old?

   A handshake. That's what she wants.

"Like David said," she says, "I'm Shani. And you must be?"

Hadley shakes her hand. "James Bishop Hadley."

The corner of her mouth twists upwards. "Good names. Which one do I pick?"

"Pardon?"

  "Ah, manners and looks. What boy says 'pardon' anymore?" she says a little wistfully. "If I wasn't gay, I'd be all over you in a heartbeat."

    David starts to laugh, but disguises it as a cough.

   "Oh. Um."

   "Am I making you uncomfortable?" she asks, a wicked smile curving her lips. "What I mean, James Bishop Hadley, is that your name's good and all but I only have so much energy to use on someone's name. So what do I call you?"

  "Shani likes conserving energy," David supplies helpfully. "She's a lazy-ass."

  "You didn't make me uncomfortable," mutters Hadley. "And James is fine."

  "Alright, James," she says. "Have a seat. The sooner we get this over with, the better."

  Hadley pulls up a chair and gives the room one last glance—there's a counter-top with an electric kettle on it, along with some cabinets over it—and sits down on a chair with a threadbare cushion serving as the seat.

   "I hope you like tea," says David, who's walking towards the counter.

   "I do," says Hadley, "so long as it's without milk and with sugar."

   "Alright," says Shani, "let's start. Give me your hands."

   Hadley gives her his hands. "What are you going to do, exactly?"

   "I'm going to read your energy and see if I can trace it to a source. Now," she says, her eyelids fluttering, "close your eyes."

"You know, if you want to kiss me, all you have to do is ask."

  David makes a sound that sounds halfway between a laugh and a croak. More croak than laugh, really.

  "I remind you," says Shani, "I'm a lesbian."

   David laughs again, and Shani starts doing her magic.

   It goes like this: Shani holds Hadley's hands, and asks him to think of nightmares, of memories, of dreams and ambitions. He thinks of all of these things with a curious sense of detachment, like he's viewing all this through a screen. He doesn't really much care if magic is real or not, if Shani can actually see what's going on in his head or not. He shows her the nightmare where he gets dragged into the ocean; the nightmare where he's forced to strip in front of everyone he's ever known; the one where he's buried alive.

  Hadley's nightmares are plenty, but dreams are harder to come by.

  Shani pulls her hands away from Hadley's. She lets out a long and rattled breath.

  "Christ," she whispers. "You're in some deep shit."

  "That's reassuring," says Hadley, looking at his hands. "How deep in shit am I?"

  "Watch your profanity," says David, as he sets a tray of mugs onto the table. "Take a break. You've been at it for a while now."

  "I could use a break," says Shani, and she takes a mug from the tray and sips daintily at her mug. She scowls at the mug. "This is too sweet."

   "I didn't put any sugar in it," says David. He's smiling. It occurs to Hadley that David seems like he can't go more than a minute without smiling.

  Shani shrugs and goes back to sipping her tea.

  Hadley leans back in his chair, and gazes at a point past David's head. Time here, in this room, feels unrushed and slow, as warm and radiant as honey in the sun. There's a level of comfort here that Hadley didn't think possible. In books and movies and in fiction, maybe, but not in real life. Then again, he had the same hesitating belief in magic, and look where that got him.

  Maybe it's the pictures hanging on the wall, maybe it's the floorboards that look like they've been smoothed down by a hundred bare feet, maybe it's the warm cup of tea in his hand, but this room he's been in for half an hour feels infinitely more like a home than the house he's lived in for his whole life. And Hadley can't decide if it's the sentient building pulling some voodoo shit on him, or if this room really is that cozy.

  He looks at Shani, who's intent in finishing her tea as noiselessly and quickly as possible.

  He asks her, "What are you?"

   "I'm Sri Lankan." She takes another sip.

  "No, I meant—" he lets out a breath of a laugh—"how did you see—"

  "I'm a witch," she says, never taking her eyes off her mug.

  "A witch."

  "More oneiromancer than witch, really, but a witch all the same. I can't turn you into a toad or anything—I know a girl who can, though—but I know your basic spells. I'm better at the spiritual side of things."

   "Like a Wiccan?" Hadley asks.

   "An entirely different practice. No, I'm not a Wiccan. I'm a witch. I do magic when I feel like it. Otherwise, it's too much of a waste of energy," she says. "Vic, however, really loves showing off."

  "Speaking of Vic," says David, after taking a swig from his mug, "where is she?"

  "Working," says Shani, an eyebrow raised.

  "Hassan?"

  "Working."

  "Jeanne?"

  "Working."

  "Francis?"

  "Lamenting over a broken heart."

   That there are more people part of whatever goes on in behind these walls doesn't fail to intrigue Hadley. How many people come here? he wants to ask. What do you do here? Why am I here?

  "What is this place?" he asks.

  "Curse club," say Shani and David, in unison.

  "And what's curse club?"

   So much for the answers first, questions later thing.

  "What it says on the label," she says. She leans back in her chair and stretches her arms. "We come here every Sunday, Saturday and Wednesday and we sit and we talk about curses."

  "It's boring," says David. He slurps up his tea, ignoring Shani's pointed glare.

   Hadley asks Shani, "Is that it?"

  "Not really. Officially, that's what curse club does. Unofficially, we get paid to keep this place running. Invite anyone with the slightest of thaumaturgic inclinations." After a pause, she adds, "Have you heard of breakers?"

  "Not really," says Hadley. He'd heard of them in passing, nothing more than urban myths spoken of in conversations when you ran out of topics. 

  "Well, they're professional curse breakers. That's a thing, if you can believe it. We work as a sort of archive for them. They come in here, cough up a fee, and we let them go through whatever research we have." Shani looks at Hadley with an indecipherable glint in her eye. "There are new curses every day, and sometimes there aren't always answers on how to break them. Learning the hows and whys of a curse makes breaking one go over much easier."

   "Like I said," says David, finishing off the rest of his tea in one big gulp, "boring."

   If Hadley's being honest, some part of him thinks this is all a crock of shit. He doesn't let that show, though. He puts a hand on his chin, and says, "So what kind of a curse do I have, oh mighty researcher?"

  Shani shifts in her chair with visible discomfort. "Well, you just have to keep in mind that I'm not the best at what I do—"

  "Bullshit," says David, with pride. "She is the best. No need to be modest, Shani. It doesn't suit you."

  She looks even more uncomfortable. "Thank you, David."

  "So," Hadley prompts, half-joking without realizing it, "what kind of a curse?"

   David is looking at her expectantly, head tilted.

   "A death curse," she says, quietly.

   Hadley wants to get up and leave the room.

  "I'm sorry," she says. "I really am. I couldn't even trace it to a source. I could be wrong."

  "No," says David, not looking at either of them. "Shani's never wrong."

   It's like someone's scooped out all of Hadley's organs and left him like this, a shell. He can't feel anything. Every cell in his body's gone numb. He almost wishes he'd felt a rush of emotion instead of this, this nothingness that's chewing him, inside out. He feels like every synonym that exists for the word empty, in every language.

  "You could contact a professional. A curse breaker could help you—"

  "No," says David, more to himself than anyone else.

   Hadley and Shani both look at him.

  "A curse breaker can't help him," he says, his eyes set on Hadley's mug. "A death curse, Shani. It takes, what, like two years at best to break one?"

   Shani bites her lip.

  "How long do I have?" asks Hadley, voice hollow.

   "A year at best," says Shani. "This thing, James, has been going on long before you were born. You're only just feeling the effects now."

   "There's something else, too, isn't there?" says David.

   "Yes," says Shani, and lets out a sigh. "There's a block on you. Normally, I'd be able to tell who placed the curse on you, but this block, well, it blocks. It's like its pushing me back. Whoever put this curse on you is incredibly powerful, and your safest bet would be a curse breaker. I could put you in contact with some people I know."

  "They're not going to help," says David. "Even if they did, they couldn't do much."

  "What are you proposing then?" snaps Shani. "That we let him die without any hope?"

   "I'm proposing that I break this curse."

   Shani sags back into her chair. "Oh my God. If a fucking curse breaker can't break a curse in time, what makes you think that you can?"

   "I'm not a breaker," says David. "And I'm better at this than all of them are. Tell me that isn't true."

    "I'm not betting someone's life on your damn pride! Just because you broke a couple of curses when no one was looking—"

    "A couple? Five in a week, when most breakers would take months!"

   "Who the fuck are you trying to impress?"

    "I'm not trying to impress anybody—"

    Shani laughs, a cruel and mocking laugh. "This is about Charlie, isn't it?"

    Hadley, who until now was gazing impassively at his own hands, looks up. It's almost marvelous the effect one name has on David, who's grown very still, eyes wide with something Hadley can't quite recognize.

     "Oh, shit," says Shani. "David, I'm sorry—"

    Wordlessly, David stands up so abruptly he nearly knocks back the chair down. He walks out of the room, without glancing behind him.

    "David, wait!" Shani calls after him, but he doesn't respond. He's probably out of the building by now.

   The walls make a moaning sound.

   "Oh, shut up!" Shani screams. "Oh, god, I can't believe—"

   "Should I go after him?" Hadley asks.

   "Yes! Of course you should! It's your life he's trying to save, you buffoon!" Shani grips Hadley's upper arm with enough force to make him wince, and she hauls him out of the chair and shoves him towards the door. "Go! Tell him I'm sorry!"

  Hadley stumbles down the staircase, feeling the walls for support. The walls still haven't given up in trying to communicate with Hadley with their indistinct language, and Hadley dimly thinks that if he were anyone else, he'd be absolutely losing his goddamn mind.

   David isn't in the room below, but he is outside, standing on the sidewalk trying fruitlessly to turn a lighter on. Even at this distance, Hadley can see that David's hands are shaking badly.

  "Need help?" asks Hadley, when he's close enough to offer it.

  David glances at him and gives him a wry smile. "I sure do."

   "I didn't think you'd smoke," says Hadley, as David hands him the lighter.

   "Today's just full of surprises, isn't it?" David jokes. He takes a pack of Lights from one of the many pockets on his jacket, and with ease and practise, takes one and puts it into his mouth. "Want one?" he says around the cigarette.

   "No thanks. I'm trying to kick the habit."

   David leans into Hadley's hand, and Hadley catches a whiff of lavender. "Habit? You don't seem the type."

    "Surprises, surprises." Hadley flicks the lighter on and watches the end of David's cigarette glow red. David moves his head away.

   Hadley looks at David. David looks at Hadley. David takes off an amulet from around his neck, takes Hadley's hand and presses the amulet into Hadley's hand. 

"What?" says Hadley. "No, I can't take this."

"Just look at it, man."

  Hadley takes it in his hand and holds it up to his eyes. It's a smooth and round blue amulet, with some foreign pattern painted on it in black and white. If Hadley tilts it a certain way, it catches the sun and looks like it glows from inside. He'd almost have been convinced it was magical, if it wasn't made from plastic.

  "Um, thanks?"

  "Don't mention it. They make these things by the ton in some parts of the world. Pretty easy to come by." David pokes the amulet in Hadley's hand. "It wards off the evil eye, so it's something. Some protection, at least."

  Hadley taps the amulet with his finger. It's plastic, through and through.

"You say you can break my curse in time?"

  David inhales through the cigarette. "Yup."

"And you'd be cheaper than most breakers, right?"

David exhales, sending smoke billowing out of his mouth. "Yup."

  "Then I'd like you to break my curse."

   David, dumbstruck, blinks at him. "What?"

  "You heard me," says Hadley. "Just—just don't make me regret this."

   David spits the cigarette out of his mouth, crushes it with his heel and beams at Hadley. "You won't regret this, I swear. I'll give you a refund if I fail."

   "I'd be dead if you failed."

   "Then I won't fail. Oh, I'm going to have start now, oh boy, this is going to be exciting. Now, if you'll just—" he takes the amulet from Hadley's hand and hangs it around Hadley's neck, and the smell of lavender coming off of him overpowers Hadley— "wear this, you'll be fine for a while."

   "So, what now?"

   "You leave, I research, and we meet again when I call you."

   "That's it?"

  "Well, do you want me to break your curse or not? I have to plan this and stuff. Okay, I need Hassan and Vic and maybe Jeanne—oh, and you don't have to cough up any money now for Shani's reading, by the way. It's all going to go straight to your bill, which you'll have to pay later, of course."

Hadley shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I'm not even going to question this anymore. Jesus, this is going by too fast."

  David grins at him. "You're not very smart, are you?"

"I'm plenty smart," says Hadley, "I have a 4.0 GPA."

  David laughs—really laughs—so loudly that several passersby look at him with eyebrows raised. He keeps laughing, hands clasping his knees, gasping for breath. There wasn't anything funny about what Hadley said. At least, Hadley doesn't think so.

  That doesn't stop a warm flush from creeping up Hadley's neck.

  He shoulders past David, knocking his shoulder into David's collar bone, and rushes towards his car, embarrassment flaming his cheeks.

  "Wonder boy!"

  Hadley stops mid-way and turns his head.

  "Take care!" David half-shouts, wiping a tear from his eye. "The world would be a duller place without people like you!"

  David waves at him. Hadley turns away and walks to his car. The distance between his car and him seems much shorter, suddenly.

  Back in the warmth and safety of his car, Hadley finds himself wishing he waved back.

***

[a/n]: *seductively exposes my smooth, long and shiny leg thru my one leg-slit diaphanous white night gown* so.... *throws myself onto the wall* ... it seems... you're reading this pile of dung... *flings myself onto you* oh dear... *runs my red-nailed and recently manicured hand along your jaw*...how can i ever repay you...for this?

also! thank you so so so much for a hundred votes! words cannot describe the immense gratitude i feel towards everyone who voted and took the time to comment! id also like to thank the academy,