Luis sits at a massive dining room table, across from me, staring with nervous, giddy energy buried behind a stoic face and wide eyes.

  “I just need access to the gallery. I need privacy from you, from cameras, from Juan.”

  “Juan paid the subscription for his ears, finally, but I got him drunk so he should be in the basement sleeping it off.”

  This is way too easy. “What do you want?”

  “Magic.”

  “No can do.”

  “Why not?”

  “What you’re talking about is called a borrowing. A witch gives a single spell to a mortal. It’s- dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  I don’t tell him about Randy, I’m not ready to. “Spells go bad, eventually. They grow too much, make you power crazy, turn you into a monster. You’d need me to take it back.”

  “Well then, you can just take it back when it goes bad, can’t you?” He asks. There’s a subtle thrill to him thinking I’m a witch, to look at my life through the eyes of someone on the outside.

  “What if I’m dead?” I ask.

  “Why would you be dead?”

  I gesture around the room. “I’m not supposed to be where I am right now.”

  “You’re invited, this time. Any time.”

  “Listen, it’s just out of the question right now. I have no spells to borrow out.”

  “Okay. How about- can you make magic stuff?”

  “What, you want a broomstick?”

  “Yes,” he says, looking embarrassed. “Just to fly around during the witching hour, I’m not going to get caught.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I promise I won’t disturb you.”

  “Thank you Luis,” I say. I’m staring at him critically. What is his deal?

  “I promise,” he repeats.

  “What, you want me to cast a spell on you again?”

  “It was- strange. Like I still can’t speak about you, I tried to write in my diary and it didn’t- work,” he looks down at the table, smiles, is he blushing? I get a prickle of shame, like he knows the ways I’m misusing my magic.

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  “Luis, I’m just going to take you at your word. If there’s a fire or Juan shows up or something, you can disturb me.”

  He looks disappointed as he nods and agrees. Yep. Boy’s got a fetish for magical bondage. A witch wandering into his life and having her way with him. Relatable.

  In the gallery I go statue by statue, looking for the silhouette of medusa, and struggle to find her. I start peaking under dust covers for her bare stone feet. No sign.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, is she gone? I go fully under the dust covers, crawl around on my hands and knees like a crazy person. Pedestals with animal skulls, modern art and Joan of arc and a big metal bull and-

  Wait.

  I go back to Joan of Arc. She’s still larger than life, but now the painted stone is representing a smaller woman, buried in armor, armed with sword and battle standard, every detail of the folds of cloth caught in the chisel marks. She’s looking down at me, face captured in a stoic, neutral expression, but there’s a wrinkling to her eyes.

  “Hi Medusa,” I say.

  “Hello Heidi,” Joan of arc replies, smiling as she speaks, bending down to my level.

  “I sent that letter,” I say. “Not going to get a reply, so I guess we’ll see when it comes out.”

  “You fixed it, Heidi,” Joan says. “I have a gift to thank you.”

  “Sazwa said that might happen- that it might be gross.”

  Joan moves, shedding the cover from around us with her battle standard, then pointing it to the nearest pedestal.

  I follow her point, walking a few steps away to remove its own dust cover, stare face to face with the bobcat skull.

  “What is it?”

  “Yours.”

  I pick it up, football sized, heavy, delicate, and a little badass. I like animals, I think half the reason I started sleeping with Vern was to spend more overnights with his dog. I stuff it in my backpack. When I look back, the dust cover is over Joan again.

  I go back to her. And now it’s not Joan of Arc, it’s the bust of a woman, half submerged in water, holding a blade.

  “Joan? Medusa?” I ask.

  “Nimue,” she corrects. “The lady of the lake.”

  “Who?”

  “She who leant her sword to King Arthur," Nimue says. “Among other feats.”

  “So you’re just- a different kinda scary lady every time I talk to you?”

  “A woman wielding power,” she says. “I am Mary, mother of god, I am Mary Magdalene, I am bloody Mary. I am Sappho, I am Lorraine Hansberry, I am JK Rowling.”

  “Was with you till that last one,” I say.

  “I am greatness, Heidi, not goodness. I am Medusa, but I am also Athena who cursed her, and sent her champion to slay her.”

  “Is that what you want to be?”

  “It is what I am,” she says, less than emotionless, I don’t even see comprehension behind her fey features, her eyes with the light painted on them.

  “But- what do you want?”

  This she understands. “I want an original prop from Xena, Warrior Princess that’s in a private collection to be on a public display instead.”

  I can’t help but smile. “You- You have some odd requests, Nimue.”

  “You entertain them so sweetly,” she says. Her stone hand reaches out, her granite eyes crinkle, and she cups my cheek in a hand cold and coarse and far too large to be called human, and yet gentle. I lean into it. Simple comfort, simple trust, simple kindness. She might be made of greatness, but she’s good.

  “Hey Nimue?”

  “Yes, Heidi?"

  “You’re not going to spend the rest of your life under a dusty tarp all alone. Okay? I promise, I’m gonna make this better.”

  She smiles the kind of smile you learn watching your beloved orange cat meowing at the wall. She might not care, or understand, but I said the word, and even if there was no contract, no snap or handshake or magic threads wound around my heart, I was in this now.