She leans forward to adjust her candle, but the blonde screams, "Okay. Okay, just, please make him human."

This does surprise Bennie. She stares at the blonde, for the first time realizing that the girl was on the cheerleading squad also, last year, but she stopped coming to practice. She is curvy in jeans and a fishnet top, and her nose is as pink as new flesh. The bites on this girl's neck are clearly human, and Bennie wonders what other marks might be hiding on the girl's skin. Marks that a cheerleader uniform wouldn't hide.

Bennie says the words under her breath, makes it so.

"Done."

The blonde waits, maybe for something other than Bennie's word, but there is nothing to see between these two goal posts. The proof will be with the boyfriend, the one who bites, whose humanity must be as fractured as everyone else's. Bennie doesn't know if mending the fracture will help him keep his teeth to himself. It might cause him to walk off a cliff. There's a cost to everything.

Later at game time, Bennie sits as the other girls rehearse their jumps and flips. She doesn't need practice. She doesn't need to worry. Under the stadium glow, the flock of helmets look like pearls. Bennie could pluck them by the skull like a crushed girl picking petals from roses. She closes her eyes and imagines all the heads her grandmother would have needed to save her own life, rewind time, undo the Middle Passage, or board a different boat.

The frizzy blonde appears on the bench beside Bennie and yells, "Thank you," above the sideline noise. She looks no better, hair still a mess as she shivers in her net top.

"For what?" Bennie asks.

"You fixed him," the girl says.

Bennie does not feel bad for this girl who would rather beg a witch for help than find a different partner. Girls who plot, sway, crush, and wreck do not always make good choices, fall into perfect marriages, or worship different gods. Bennie reaches under the bench for her bag and then passes the girl a small black bottle.

"Next time, fix him yourself," she says.

The game reaches the right score. 36-14. Just as directed. Bennie slips around pompoms and cheerleaders and stands toes to the bold white line marking out of bounds. The noise in the stands turns to white noise as the teams line up for the two-point conversion. Bennie has done her part. The rest is as inevitable as frontline death and civilian casualties. First the whistle, then the charge of bodies, and finally, the hand off to the running back. A young man, jersey number 12, clutches the ball to his chest and freezes, feet rooted in place. The other team comes crashing down on top of him. Bennie knows his bones have snapped. He'll meet her on the field the next business day in crutches. She will make him better and make him worse. The solution is the tragedy. She owns nothing. Conversion failed. Game won.