Chapter 3
Jessie doesn’t move.
She should—every instinct she has is screaming run, dive, jump—but her body locks as the Ferris wheel car comes loose, metal shrieking like an animal in pain.
Time stretches.
Martha sees it all in horrifying clarity: the cable snapping, the empty car swinging free, the shadow it casts as it drops.
“SOPHIE!” she screams, because she doesn’t know who else to blame.
Evan reacts faster than any of them expect.
He lunges, tackling Jessie hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. They hit the gravel, rolling. The Ferris wheel car slams into the ground where Jessie had been standing, exploding into twisted metal and shattered plastic.
The sound echoes across the lake.
Silence follows.
Jessie gasps, chest heaving. Evan is on top of her, hands braced on either side of her shoulders, eyes wild.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
She stares at him. “You just saved my life.”
He looks confused—like the words don’t quite land. He glances over her shoulder.
At Sophie.
Something in his face resets.
“Oh,” he says softly, getting to his feet. “I need to check on her.”
Jessie grabs his wrist. “Evan. Wait.”
He pulls free, not roughly, but decisively. Like gravity is tugging him in one direction and he doesn’t have a choice.
Martha is crying without realizing it. Silent tears, shock more than fear.
Sophie hasn’t moved.
She’s staring at the wreckage, pale, book clutched to her chest.
“I didn’t know it would do that,” she whispers.
“You cast a love spell,” Jessie snaps. “What did you think would happen?”
“I thought he’d just… like me,” Sophie says, voice cracking. “Not—this.”
Evan reaches her, touching her arm gently. “You’re shaking.”
She looks up at him.
And smiles.
Just a little.
Jessie sees it.
The satisfaction flickering under the fear.
That’s when Jessie realizes something worse than the magic.
Sophie doesn’t regret it.
They leave Lake Wren in separate cars.
Jessie drops Martha off first. Neither of them speak much—everything feels too fragile to touch.
Before Martha gets out, Jessie says quietly, “You didn’t do this.”
Martha swallows. “I brought the book.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re responsible for what she chooses,” Jessie says.
Martha nods, but she doesn’t believe it.
When Jessie pulls away, Martha watches the taillights disappear and feels more alone than she has in years.
At home, she locks her bedroom door and pulls the book’s copy—the photos she secretly took of every page—out from under her bed.
She didn’t trust Sophie.
She didn’t trust herself either.
She flips to the page Sophie read from.
The margins are different now.
New notes scrawled in tight, slanted handwriting Martha doesn’t recognize.
EVERY WORKING REQUIRES BALANCE.
EVERY GIFT CREATES A DEBT.
THE BOOK WILL COLLECT.
Martha’s phone buzzes.
A local news alert.
FATAL ACCIDENT AT ABANDONED LAKE WREN PARK. ONE CONFIRMED DEAD.
Her heart drops into her stomach.
She refreshes.
The article loads slowly.
The victim is a man in his fifties. A local contractor. He’d been scavenging metal inside the park when part of the Ferris wheel collapsed.
Not Evan.
But someone still died.
Martha sinks onto her bed, trembling.
“We did this,” she whispers.
Sophie doesn’t go home.
She goes to Evan’s.
His apartment overlooks the lake, the water black and glassy under the moonlight. It smells like laundry detergent and cheap cologne.
“You can stay,” he tells her, earnest, devoted. “As long as you want.”
She smiles sweetly. “You’re so good to me.”
He blushes.
She watches him like a scientist watches a reaction.
When he steps into the kitchen, Sophie pulls the book from her bag and opens it again.
The pages flutter.
Stop, she tells herself.
She doesn’t.
She reads another spell—quietly, carefully.
Not for love.
For luck.
The next morning, the town explodes.
A gas station clerk wins the Ohio Mega Jackpot.
Five hundred million dollars.
The clerk is Sophie’s aunt.
Jessie hears about it while taping her ankle at practice. Her phone lights up with messages.
Martha hears about it while shelving lip gloss at the Beauty Barn, hands shaking so badly she drops a display.
Sophie hears about it when Evan lifts her off the ground, laughing, spinning her in the kitchen like they’ve just been handed the world.
“This is insane,” he says. “You’re good luck.”
She kisses him.
Outside, sirens wail.
At the mall, the food court fountain turns red.
Blood.
Not a lot. Just enough to notice.
Martha is the first one to see it.
And written across the tile, in smeared, dripping letters only she seems to notice, are three words:
PAYMENT IS DUE.
Her phone rings.
It’s Jessie.
“Martha,” she says, voice tight with panic. “Where’s Sophie?”
Martha looks down at the book photos in her hand.
“I think,” she says slowly, “we’re running out of time.”
The mall lights flicker.
The doors lock.
And somewhere inside the building, something moves.
