Free White Cat by Holly Black

around her neck, are as old as curses themselves. Workers make them by cursing stone—the only material that absorbs a whole curse, including the blowback. Then that stone is primed and will swallow up a curse of the same type. So if a luck worker curses a piece of jade and wears it against her skin, and then someone tries to curse her with bad luck, the jade breaks and she’s not affected. You have to get another charm each time you’re worked, and you have to have one for each type of magic, but you’re safe. Only rock is effective, not silver or gold,leather or wood. Certain people prefer one type to another; there are charms made out of everything from gravel to granite. If what I’m holding is a charm, the blue stone is what powers it.
    I wonder if Mom grifted some ancestral heirloom or if it actually belongs to her. It’s kind of funny to think of forgetting a memory charm. I tuck it into my pocket.
    While cleaning the living room, I find a button-making machine, two plastic bags of bubble wrap, a sword with rust staining the blade, three broken dolls I don’t remember anyone owning, an overturned chair that creeped me out as a kid because I swore it looked identical to one I’d seen on television the night before Barron and Philip dragged it home, a hockey stick, and a collection of medals for various different military accomplishments. It’s almost noon by the time I finish, and my hands and the cuffs of my pants are black with filth. I throw away stacks of newspapers and catalogs, bills that probably went unpaid for years, plastic bags of hangers and wires, and the hockey stick.
    The sword I lean against the wall.
    The outside of the house is already piled with garbage bags from the morning’s work. There’s enough stuff that we’re going to have to take a trip to the dump before long. I look over at the neighbors’ tidy houses with their manicured lawns and brightly painted doors, and then back at my own. The shutters hang off kilter on either side of a row of front-facing windows, and one of the panes is broken. The paint is so worn that the cedar shingles look gray. The house is rotting from the inside.
    I’m in the process of dragging the chair out to the side of the road when Grandad comes downstairs and dangles the keys in front of me.
    “Be back in time for dinner,” he says.
    I take the keys, gripping them hard enough for the teeth to dig into my palm. Leaving the chair where it is, I head out the driveway as if I really have an appointment to be late for.

CHAPTER SIX
    THE ADDRESS I GOT OFF the Internet for Dr. Churchill’s office is on the corner of Vandeventer Avenue in the center of Princeton. I park next to a fondue restaurant and check myself in the rearview mirror, finger-combing my hair flat in the hopes of making myself look more like a good kid, reliable. Even though I washed my hands three times in the bathroom of a convenience store when I stopped for coffee, I can still feel the oily grit of dirt on my skin. I try not to rub my fingers against my jeans as I walk into the reception area and up to the desk.
    The woman answering the phone has dyed red curls and glasses hanging around her neck on a beaded chain. I wonder if she made the chain herself; irrationally I associate crafting with friendliness. She looks like she might be in her fifties from the lines on her face and all the silver at her roots. “Hi,” I say. “I have an appointment at two.”
    She looks at me without smiling and taps the keyboard in front of her. I know there’s not going to be anything on her screen about me, but that’s okay. It’s part of my plan.
    “What’s your name?” she asks.
    “Cassel Sharpe.” I try to stick to the truth as much as possible, in case there’s a need for elaboration or photo identification. As she clicks around to figure out who made a mistake, I take stock of the office. There’s a young woman behind the desk, wearing light purple scrubs, and I think she might be a