Fix by Ferrett Steinmetz

She’d spent months telling herself she’d trained in ’mancy, it was safe to hang around people, she wouldn’t rain down unfathomable catastrophes on anyone she called a friend.
    Aliyah bit her fingernails, felt the paint chip in her mouth.
    She opened her backpack, set out the nail files and sponges she’d rescued from Morehead field. She scraped the old polish off, decided she was bored with these colors, mixed her own hues until she was satisfied. She sponged on a quick fade – a gradient from dark green at the cuticles, shading to pale white at the tips.
    Boring. She’d done fade ombres before.
    Frowning, she got out the cat-tail brush, deciding what to put on her nails. She threaded black throughout before realizing these were Minecraft colors, so she drew tiny creepers in the woods and diamond swords and pixelated Steve faces…
    The creepers on her thumbs moved.
    The diamond swords on her pinkies gleamed.
    Aliyah screamed, snapping the brush in half.
    She put her head in her hands, realizing yesterday’s nails had popped into flame when she’d concentrated on them. She just hadn’t thought anything unusual about it at the time.
    It wasn’t videogamemancy she’d done, but fingernailmancy.
    Anything she focused on enough would spark magic.
    Kid, you’re a ’mancer , Aunt Valentine had told her once. Your dreams bleed out of your head and turn into reality. That means you will spend your life alone.
    Even if she’d gotten her nail party with Savannah, she would have ruined it. She’d have gotten bored doing French manicures and tried something crazy, and concentrating on a new nail art would have sparked magic.
    She flung the nail bottles at the wall, shrieking as they shattered. She clawed at the paint –
    She’d destroyed a town full of good people for something that wouldn’t have even made her happy .
    Worse, even with all that, she knew she’d try again. After a couple of years of loneliness, she’d get desperate enough to risk someone else’s life.
    She hugged her knees, curling up in a corner. If she only had the strength to live alone. But family wasn’t the same as friendship, she was starved for friendship–
    The plywood entryway splintered into pieces.
    Aliyah screamed. Had SMASH found them at last? She felt relief – her struggles were over, someone would punish her –
    Aunt Valentine stepped inside with smoking hands, biting her lip with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I panicked when I heard you yell. But your father – he’s summoning a War Table.”
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    â€œ T his is the most secure location you have?” Dad clutched a manila file folder to his chest as they approached a log cabin.
    â€œIt’s so secure you’ll need special glasses to visit Mawmaw,” Uncle Robert assured him, handing out black plastic horn-rimmed glasses. “Mawmaw’s sweet as sugar, but do not take these visors off or it’s Petrificus totalus time.”
    They were prescription lenses that turned Aliyah’s vision into painful blurs. Valentine squinted out of one eye, fumbling her way ahead with outstretched hands towards the cabin, which seemed covered in dilapidated spiderwebs.
    A pair of white-tailed deer stood before the cabin, staring mindlessly at the walls. They didn’t move as Imani crept towards them; the deers’ attention was focused entirely upon the fluttering white webs tacked to the cabin’s side.
    â€œSometimes I pretend this is a really good movie they came to watch,” Robert said. “You know, like one where Bambi goes on a roaring rampage of revenge against all the hunters.”
    Uncle Robert slapped the deer on the flank – they looked startled, then fled.
    â€œThe cabin catches rabbits, raccoons, squirrels – they even found a bear hypnotized out here once. Waking Miss Grizzly up was some good times, I’m