Rosa & Andrick

Part One

The Window

“To the window, to the wall,” Rosa sang in a whisper, bobbing her head to the imagined beat as she drew a chalk square onto the dirty brick wall, a mouse skittering in the filth around the base of the metal trash cans beside her.

“Ugh!” Andrick moaned behind her. “Now, I have the image of Betty White dancing around a campfire stuck in my head, thanks to that dumb chick-flick you made me watch.”

She threw a grin over her shoulder at him, smacking her gum. His eyes rolled behind overlong bangs, the blue dye nearly faded out of his stick straight locks, making him look like one of those surly anime characters with a tragic backstory and layers™. She, however, was the hero of this adventure. 

She’d get it back. And Andrick would never have to see that woman again. Rosa would make sure of that! 

But first, she had to get in. She added a larger square around the first, one span of bricks between, and filling the gap with three runes on each side. She tucked the chalk into her hoodie pocket, brushing off her fingers on the threads of her overly distressed jeans. She lined her thumbs and pointer fingers up with opposing corners of the square, sort of like how people did when they were pretending to frame a picture, closing her eyes. 

“Show me again,” she said. She needed to be sure of where she was going. 

Andrick’s fingers slipped up through the back of her tangled black bob, sending goosebumps across her skin as they grew cold against her scalp. 

A picture slowly brightened in her mind. 

A bedroom, overcluttered with antique furniture, all dark wood and gaudy wallpaper, something out of one of those Victorian row houses down on West Ash street. 

She latched on to it, pushing it down her neck, across her shoulder blades, through her arms and into the tiny bones in her fingers. It condensed, funneling out onto the bricks like liquid glass, smoothing into a dark window, wooden trim and all. 

“You’re amazing,” Andrick whispered. 

She glanced over her shoulder at him; his hand was still gently holding the back of her head. Had his eyes always been that bright amber? A shiver rippled through her—Chalk and char! Where did that come from?—and she quickly began an obnoxious, wiggly dance to hide it. 

“Now there’s a window, in the wall,” she sang, wagging finger guns at her work.

“Shut up and open it,” he chuckled, slipping his hand free from her hair and pulling a small crystal box from his pocket. Rosa slid open the pane, taking the box and adding it carefully to her hoodie pocket. 

“I’ll be in and out in four minutes,” she assured him, stepping into his hands for a boost.

Lightening cracked overhead, a fat drop darkening the shoulder of his tee shirt. He locked eyes with her. “Make it two. And Rosa, don’t let her—”

“Stop worrying,” she cut in, sweeping his bangs out of his eyes, her nerves hardening with determination. “I’m going to get it back.”  

Shattered and Smeared

Rosa eased through the window-magic-portal-thing, glancing around the bedroom to be doubly sure it was clear. Chalk and char, this woman had expensive taste! Not that Rosa knew what she was looking at exactly, but dark wood and jewel tones had a way of implying money.

Her eyes immediately fell on the vanity across the room, covered in a hundred glass and crystal do-dads. That’s where she’d find it.

She glanced back at Andrick who stood in the grubby alley behind the deli fifty-seven blocks away. He leaned toward the window, skimming the room. She reached through, shoving against his perfect nose with her finger to back him up a step. 

“You need to get out of here,” she whispered. 

“I’ll keep a look out,” he hissed back, brushing her hand away and tossing his faded blue bangs. 

“No, you’ll leave.” She glared down at him. “If she shows up, I don’t want to worry about fighting you too.” 

Rosa didn’t regret saying it, though her chest pinched at the way his face flickered with hurt and apology. It wasn’t his fault the queen of nasty magic had stollen his heart—and no, that wasn’t a sweet way of saying he was in love with her. Rosa didn’t understand how it worked; it wasn’t literally his heart, but it also… was? All she knew was when her royal gaudy-ness was close, Andrick was hers to command, however unwilling he was. Which is why he needed to scram.

His jaw tightened. “You need me here to know if you find the right one.”  

Rosa snorted. He had a point. Sort of. Not that either of them had ever gone heart hunting before. And how would he know if she found his or someone else’s any better than she would? Did people recognize their own internal organs? Regardless, finding it would be faster than arguing.

“Fine. But stay out of sight,” she hissed, turning for the vanity. Her tattered ballet flats slipped silent across the cushy rug, only one of the floor board creaking beneath her weight. 

The giant oval mirror filled with her reflection. Her black bob cut was tangled and sticking out on the right, patches of ache on her cheeks and chin the only color in her complexion, oversized hoody smudged with soot and grime. Charcoal, she looked a wreck. Too bad her magic couldn’t do something useful, like get them a decent meal and a shower. 

Well, it could. If she was willing to steal things besides what had been stolen from them. And she wasn’t. Or… maybe. She could take just enough to get them by for a bit. After all, this lady was a nasty piece of trash, so she’d just be getting the same as she dealt out, right?

She blinked hard, pushing the thoughts aside. She wasn’t here for something as trivial as money. 

She skimmed the collection of cut glass containers, all different shapes and sizes, hesitant to touch at the risk of breaking something. It was a menagerie of gross; mysterious liquids swirling in some, pebbles or dice resting in another, something that looked kinda like spaghetti coiled in the one right beside her hand. Ew. 

They said your heart was as big as your fist—or was that the serving size of meat you were supposed to take?—so she inspected the larger containers along the back. Gross, grosser, and grossest wiggled inside the first few, giving her goosebumps.

But something pattered softly inside a crystal urn, tugging at her. She held her breath, carefully lifting the lid. 

It was smaller than she expected, and kind of translucent, as if it were made of smoke, or maybe a shadow of a real heart. Was this Andrick’s, or someone else’s? She carefully picked up the urn, reaching inside with one finger. She brushed against it, surprised at how much substance it had. 

A soft gasp came from outside the window. 

“Gotcha,” Rosa whispered, reaching for the crystal box in her hoody pocket so that the urn wouldn’t be missed. 

“Indeed,” a voice said behind her. 

Rosa looked up, a tall figure reflected in the mirror over her shoulder. 

She really did look like a queen, regal and beautiful, even with the scar at the edge of her mouth that hooked her lips up in a perpetual twisted smirk. “I’d be grateful if you’d put that down before you break something.”

Rosa turned, one hand still in her pocket, pulling the urn tight to her chest. “Or, I could just…not.” 

Chalk! She really wanted to come back with something snarky or clever. But words were hard to find when you were staring down somebody that could manipulate people like puppets and kept a personal collection of disgusting witchy ingredients on their bedroom vanity.

Rosa cleared her throat, her hand squeezing the piece of chalk she had tucked away after drawing the window. 

The woman’s eyes darkened. “Give me back the heart.” 

“Go suck a potato.” Dumb, but it got the point across. 

“Fine.” The woman’s perfect brow arched, one hand stretching toward Rosa’s window. 

A strangled cry echoed the ally. 

“Andrick!” She lurched toward the window, pausing as he stepped in front of it. 

His arms jerked, veins in his hands bulging as he took hold of the frame, face twisting as he fought against his own body. 

“Rosa, run!” he grit out through clenched teeth.

“Welcome back, Andrick.” The woman’s voice was syrup, overly sweet and cloying. “Seems the spell isn’t quite cured yet. I thought it might need another few days or so, but since you’re here, might as well move forward with things. Do come in.” 

If Andrick came through the window, there was no way he would get away again. But he was already halfway through, losing the fight, obeying even as sweat soaked his hair and shirt. 

Not sweat. Rain! That meant—

Something exploded on the table beside Rosa, glass and heat smashing across the side of her face. She screamed, shielding her head too late as she hit the floor, fighting to keep the urn safe against her. 

A sweet chuckle barely reached her through the ringing in her ears. She turned to glare up at the woman. 

The evil queen held out a hand, the twisted smirk even more demented now. 

But Rosa was focused on the boy in the window, now gasping for air, half in-half out. He’d stopped?

Rosa glanced at the queen, rage filling the woman’s beautiful face, then at the urn in her arms. The heart had slipped out, resting on Rosa’s chest. 

She didn’t stop to think. 

One hand chucked the urn at the woman’s face, the other cupped the heart and held it tight against her as she rolled, scampering and scraping across the floor. 

A scream and a crash filled the room. Rosa dove, hitting Andrick square in the torso, both of them tumbling out of the window, smashing into trashcans and hitting the concrete hard. 

Rosa didn’t pause, shoving herself up out of the disgusting puddles that now filled the alley, clutching Andrick’s heart to her chest as she turned back to the window, the queen lunging across the room. Rosa smashed her soggy sleeve against the brick, smearing across the chalk runes she had drawn, scrubbing as hard as she could. 

The window disappeared.  

Rosa stared at the wall in front of her, trying to slow down her breathing before she hyperventilated, her heart racing an erratic double time. No, some of the beats weren’t hers. 

She looked down, the little ghosty heart thrumming in her hand. She turned. 

Andrick lay on his back, arms sprawled out, eyes closed, rain splattering his pale face as his chest rose and fell with half breaths.

“No,” Rosa whispered, pain cutting into her knees as she crashed to the ground beside him, her empty hand fluttering uselessly over him. “Andrick. Andrick, please be okay. I promise I won’t make you watch anymore stupid chick flicks, just please—”

“Yes, you will.” His voice was strangled, his half open eyes filled with fear and pain, but a fake smile tightened across his face. 

A single sob ripped out of her before she tightened it back down. 

“Your face,” he mumbled, the smile disappearing. 

“I’ll be fine,” she said, angling her head so that he wouldn’t see whatever mess of imbedded glass and burns were there. She wiped her free hand on her pants, trying to clean it off as best she could, then carefully cupped the heart in both hands, lowering it onto Andrick’s chest. 

It sat there, thumping a staggered rhythm at odds with his strangled breathing.

“How… How do I put it back?” she grumbled, guarding to make sure it didn’t roll off of him into the filth, her own heart speeding up again. She barely knew how to work her own magic. How did she undo someone else’s? “Is there like, a secret word or something? Do I just push it back in?”

“Please, don’t,” Andrick croaked, eye’s falling shut.

“I was kidding.” She tried to chuckle, but both of them barely managed a half smile. She held her hands over his heart to keep it from getting rained on, panic swelling as she realized it was colder than before. “I—”

“Rosa?” 

She spun, scooping Andrick’s heart back into her hands and clutching it to her chest again. The deli owner stomped toward them down the alley, rain darkening his white apron. 

“Imari, hey! How’s it going? Sorry, we didn’t mean to make such a racket, we just—” 

“Hush,” Imari commanded, kneeling down on the other side of Andrick, checking his pulse and eyeing Rosa’s cupped hands. He locked eyes with her. “You need a vessel.”

“What?” 

“For his heart,” Imari said quickly. “The vessel is what keeps it captive, but it’s also what preserves it. You need something to put it in.”

Rosa’s mouth fell open, and she stared at the middle aged deli owner for a full two seconds before snapping back to reality—if that’s what you could call this messed up day they were living. She dug into her hoody for the crystal box Andrick had given her earlier. 

Half of it came out. The other half tinkled inside her pocket in pieces. 

“Oh, no,” she said almost casually, save for the wobble in her voice, chest screwing tighter. 

Imari cussed, tearing off his apron and tucking it carefully under Andrick’s head. He took a deep breath. “You need to put it in something that will protect it. The longer you wait, the weaker he’ll get.” 

“But I don’t have another crystal box, and the urn—”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Imari broke in, drawing runes Rosa didn’t recognize on Andrick’s chest with his finger. “You have to find a vessel. Anything!”

Rosa leapt up, dashing down the alley and shoving through the front door of Imari’s deli, crashing into the counter and stretching across, popping an empty soda cup from the dispenser and tipping the translucent little heart into it. She snatched a plastic lid from next to the soda machine, her hands shaking as she used her piece of chalk to scribble a protection rune onto it before clicking it on, clutching the red and white cup carefully against her as she jogged back outside and down the alley. 

Imari looked up as she neared, eyeing the soda cup with surprise before shrugging and turning back to Andrick. “He should level out now. We’ll give him a minute before we get out of this rain.” 

Rosa knelt on the other side of Andrick, watching his chest rise and fall more consistently, each breath deeper than the last. She reached out, brushing his wet bangs off his forehead, the feeling in her face coming back with a burning vengeance that she was too tired to acknowledge. 

“Imari,” she toyed with Andrick’s bangs again. “You knew what to do.” 

Cold rain soaked slowly to her scalp, the tiny thrumming inside in the cup somehow comforting, calming her scattered brain. She looked up into Imari’s dark face, seeing a stranger instead of the deli owner she had known for years. “You don’t have to tell me how you knew. Just tell me how to fix this.” 

Imari sighed, dragging a hand across his bald head. “I don’t know how to fix it.” 

The sob building in Rosa’s chest nearly exploded out of her, but she grappled against it, holding it in. She was the protagonist of this story, the one who was supposed to win the day, defeat the queen of darkness, and save the dude in distress. Yet, she had barely gotten them out, and had broken the box somewhere along the way. The evil queen was only fifty-seven blocks away, madder than ever. And now, here she sat, in the rain, holding her best friend’s heart in a soda cup. 

The tiny patter inside the paper cup thumped lighting between her hands. She couldn’t just give up. 

“Okay. Then we’ll hide so she can’t find us. ‘Til Andrick is stronger and we can figure out our next step.” 

“That cup won’t last long,” Imari sighed. “Maybe a week. And transferring it to a third vessel isn’t an option.” 

Rosa’s mouth went dry. “I… I can’t give up. I can’t let him die.” 

“I didn’t say you should.” Imari looked up, his gaze locking with hers. Was that anger in his eyes? Or something else? “I might know some people who can help. But it won’t come cheap.”

“I don’t have any money.”

Imari glanced at the chalk on the wall, the remnants of her portal window. “I didn’t say they’d want money.”

Part Two

Rewind

Rosa jumped as the front door squawked, unsure if the exuberant cussing was a sign of success or failure. Footsteps thumped into the apartment’s front hallway, duffle bags fwumping down. Patience. She could wait until they were all in and had a moment to breathe.

“Hey, grab the first aid kit!”

Nope.

Rosa tossed the outdated magazine to the side, snatching the red and white paper cup off the cluttered coffee table-careful not to dislodge the thin gold chain scotch taped around it-and hobbled toward the doorway, her wrapped ankle whining.

“I dibs shower first!”

“Pick up your mess! This place is already-”

“-better next time. That was too close for comfort.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

The smell of smoke hit Rosa in the face.

She clutched the paper cup to her chest, the smokey little heart inside thumping harder. She stretched up on tip toes, searching between shoulders and heads. “Andrick?”

One of the muscle heads shoved past her, soot smeared across his cheek and neck.

“Damn cops,” he growled.

Cops? Smoke? What happened?

“Andrick!” Rosa pushed into the tiny hall, ignoring glares and curses, the quickening thuds of her heart outpacing the timid thumps inside the cup.

“Rosa!” Sid laughed, his signature black leather jacket and slicked back hair both disheveled, but a smug grin firmly in place. “Chill, kid! He’s fine. Did his bit like a pro, even when things started turning sideways. Didn’t ya, Frosty?”  

Andrick leaned with his back against the door, faded blue bangs stuck to his sweat covered face, a thin cut running along his jaw.

“Chalk ‘n char!” Rosa hissed, pushing the cup against his chest, the plastic lid half popping off, a strip of duct tape keeping it mostly in place. She tried to wrap one of Andrick’s shaking hands around the cup, but his arm was like a fifty pound noodle.

“Can you hold it?” he sighed, leaning forward and resting his head against her shoulder.

“Yeah, I got it.” She swallowed her heart back down, unsure if it had jumped into her throat over Andrick’s breath on her neck or because he looked way too much like a zombie from that old tv show.

She glared at Sid. “You had him out too long.”

Sid shrugged. “He could have brought the cup with. Or, if you hadn’t gotten clumsy on the last job,” he glanced at Rosa’s ankle, “you could have come. Made one of your fancy window portals to get him back quicker.”  

Rosa’s insides squished in on themselves.

Nisa-the half hearted team mom-leaned into the hallway, hold up the rubbing alcohol. “Andrick, let’s get that face of yours cleaned up.”

“S’fine. I just need to lie down,” Andrick mumbled, pushing off the door and stumbling into Rosa.

Nisa shrugged. “Fine. But don’t let it get infected. We need you on the next one.”

“He’s been on every job lately!” Rosa snapped. “Even the little gigs to get supplies!”

Nisa shrugged, handing Rosa the rubbing alcohol. “That mind trick of his, it’s handy.”

“Both of you take it easy,” Sid said as he headed into the kitchen with Nisa. “After today’s success, we’re now ready for phase three. And you’re our lynch pin, little Rosa.” He rolled the r in her name obnoxiously.

Once again, no snarky comebacks could be found in her static fuzz channel of a brain. Exhaustion was a real kick in the backside.

“Now,” Sid called over his shoulder, “you’ll get to start making a real dent on your debt!”

Rosa’s thumb touched the chain wrapped around the cup.

She wrapped an arm around Andrick, the two of them managing to hobble down the hallway and into the bedroom they shared with two others. The past three months here had been a loop for both of them. The team wasn’t keen to having highschoolers around, no matter how much Sid praised their magic. Meaning, they were assigned the big jobs from Sid and grunt chores from everyone else.

Pause, rewind, play. Everyday.

Andrick collapsed into his mattress, sagging into the corner and barely keeping the cup upright in his lap.

Rosa sat the rubbing alcohol on the carpet, snagging her pillow from her sleeping bag and jamming it behind him. “Andrick, what happened? And why do you all smell like a bonfire?”

“Cuz there was a fire,” he sighed, taking another slow breath.

“Doofus!” She smacked him. Gently. Sort of. “This job was straight forward. Con the house staff, grab the charms, and get out. Why was there a fire?”

His stared at the floor.

“Andrick!”

He flinched. Rosa bit her lip.

“I…” He sat with his mouth half open, eyes unfocused.

She scooted closer, gently taking his hand and resting it against the back of her neck. “Show me what happened,” she said softly.

He eyed the half open door, then slid his fingers up into her hair.

His fingers turned to ice against her scalp, images slipping into her mind.

A fancy front door. A man in a suit answering. Sid nodding, arms full. A dropped paper. The man bending. Andrick’s fingers on the suited man’s neck. Andrick and Sid being waved in.

The images flashed faster, each step of the plan in crisp detail. Until it wasn’t. The pictures grew blurred, rushed, events deviating from plan A, B and C. Too many people, too many missteps. How many memories did Andrick alter? No wonder he was exhausted. What was Sid thinking, pushing forward with- Was that a gun?

“Whoa! Rewind!” Rosa commanded.

The images stopped, then backed up.

Rosa gagged, leaning back quickly to escape the red splatter, Andrick’s hand coming free.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to show you that part.”

“Andrick…”

“Sid said a fire would be a diversion.” He pulled a lighter from his pocket, letting it drop onto the floor.  

Her chest tightened, hands shaking as they balled into fists. She crawled to the door, clicking it shut and twisting the flimsy lock.

“Rosa?” Andrick’s head lifted.

“We didn’t sign up for this.” She pulled a piece of chalk from her hoodie pocket, roughing out a large square on the beige wall. “Stealing magic items from crooked rich people is one thing. Taking a life, anyone’s life…”

“Hold on.” Andrick’s voice was tight and breathless as she scratched a second box, adding runes along the edges. “They won’t just let us leave. Not with-”

They both looked at the red cup, the gold chain wrapped around it winking.

She grabbed his hand before he could even start to unwrap it. “Your heart won’t last without that.”

“And Sid won’t let us leave with it.”

The door thunked. Someone cussed in the hall, banging a fist against the door.

“Sid won’t let us leave either way, now. We’re too handy, too good at covering up his mistakes.” Rosa lined up her fingers and thumbs at opposite corners of the chalk box. She should have seen it before today. Maybe she did, she was just too desparate.

Rosa poured magic into the wall, glass forming faster ever before.

“Rosa, you can’t get rid of the window on the other side,” he hissed. “They’ll follow us!”

“We’ll figure it out.” She shoved it open

“You first then. I’ll hold them back.”

More voices and beating fists.

“Not with the shape you’re in.” She grabbed her bag, the strap catching the lighter on the floor and tumbling it towards her. She glanced at the cup in his hand. Her cup. He would hate her. But there was no time.

Andrick’s eyes grew wide. “Rosa, no.”

“Andrick, go through the window,” she said.

The smell of magic sparked within the room. Andrick’s face contorted, his body flinching as he fought it, but he couldn’t stop. He climbed through the window as Rosa’s gut sank with self-loathing.

“Rosa!” Sid yelled in the hall. Door slamming intensified. “Unlock the damn door!”

Rosa snagged the rubbing alcohol, dumping the entire bottle over the carpet as she shimmied backward into the window. The lighter’s wheel dug into her thumb as she ground it into motion, sparks jumping, but no flame. She held it closer to the floor, grinding it again. Again. Again!

The door split, crashing into the wall.

“Brat!” Sid screamed. “Don’t you dare!”

Flames whooshed to life around her. Rosa shoved herself backwards out the window.