by Carla Thorne
“It was at least attempted murder,” I blurted. “Paige and the Purple Arrows are the cause of this. Their little hair-cutting ceremony during the break pushed Corey over the edge. Paige might as well have bought the rope and presented it to her in one of her purple glitter bags. She’s the one guilty of a crime.”
“Ivy, I know you’re upset and angry and you have every right to be, but you have to believe me when I say her teachers and parents and others all knew there was a situation brewing there and everyone was trying to keep her safe.”
“But here we are. Her parents left her alone after the worst weekend of her life.”
“I can’t explain what decisions were made, but I can tell you, in matters of mental health, you can’t always predict or prepare, and you don’t always know what’s going on in the mind of someone who is struggling. That’s why what you did is so important.”
“But it didn’t matter in the end. She still considered dying as her only way out.”
“Oh, yes, it did matter, and don’t ever forget it. You saw and heard things no one else did. You picked up on the signals, you saw the despondency, and you adamantly pursued what you knew didn’t feel or look right.”
He paused and covered his face with his hands. When he took them away, it looked as if he might cry. It wouldn’t have mattered. We were all teary-eyed by then.
“My point,” he continued. “Is that if you hadn’t, Corey might not be alive, and I promise you… We’re going to make a better effort to reach out to the strugglers, and we’re going to figure out ways to help students voice their concerns when they think someone is in trouble.”
Deacon propped himself up on his elbows. “But what about Paige and her Arrows?”
“Leave it to me. They aren’t even a school-sponsored group. I don’t know how that got so out of hand, but it’s gonna stop. And Ivy…” He sent a pointed glance my way. “Corey’s parents are well aware of your friendship and your concern. Don’t be surprised if they want to hear about what happened tonight.”
“Of course. I’ll tell them what I know.”
He slapped his hands on his thighs. “OK. Please tell all your parents not to bother showing up first thing in the morning to scream at me. I’m going to call them all at dawn so they know what’s happening, but I expect you to be honest and talk to them about this. I also expect to see you all in the counselor’s office first thing so you can talk about this some more.” He stood and looked up and down the street. “Deacon, where’s your brother?”
Scout’s grandma stepped forward. “Everyone get in my car. Text him and tell him to go on to bed, Deacon. I’ll make sure they all get home, Mr. Parrington.”
Mr. Parrington stopped to knock grass off his shorts. “I have one more question.” He pondered the sky and pursed his lips for a moment. “How is it you all ended up here tonight? I mean, I know of Ivy’s connection with Corey, but I didn’t know you all were so close.”
As we’d become accustomed to doing, we all glanced at each other and didn’t say a word.
“Really? After all this, you’re not going to tell me how it is that, yet again, I’m in a difficult situation with you four?”
Scout shrugged. “It’s nothing… We’re friends.”
“Yeah,” Deacon said. “We wanted to be here for Corey and for Ivy.”
“OK. OK. That’s it? You’re friends and you all knew to show up here?”
Mary straightened and hooked her thumbs in her back pockets. “Yes.” She stepped forward. “We help. That’s what we do.”
Chapter 35
Mary
After the door slammed, I was able to breathe.
The calm of Scout’s grandma’s car felt like a tub of downy feathers compared to the trauma we’d left on the street.
While she finished up with Mr. Parrington and talked to the policewoman, we sat in dumbfounded silence.
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Ivy said.
Scout rummaged through the console, opened a little bottle, and held it to her nose. “Here. Quick. Sniff this. It’ll calm the nausea.”
Deacon stuck his nose in the air for a whiff. “What is it? Wait. I got it. Peppermint.”
I leaned my head back and contemplated the night’s events. “What do you have in there for when one of your classmates almost hangs herself in their garage?”
He reached back in.
“No, Scout, I wasn’t serious. I wasn’t trying to be funny either. I don’t know what I was thinking. This is all too much.”
“No, I know, but here…” He held up a large bottle. “Rub some of this lavender oil on your wrists. Really.”
Deacon snorted. “Are you kidding me? Tell me you’re kidding me.”
“Don’t be a jerk. Try it.”
He kept digging. “And here. This is the scent I told you about. The one from that night.”
My ears perked. I would never forget that scent from the football field when we were trapped in the hug, or from later than night in my battle with Shanar. “Give me that.”
I studied the bottle in the bit of light cast from the street lamp behind the car.
Frankincense.
The moment the scent hit my nose, I recognized it. “He’s right. Smell this one.”
Ivy capped the peppermint and took a long whiff. “That’s it.”
“Put a drop in your palm and cup your hands over your nose,” Scout said.
Deacon had run out of repulsed facial contortions. He gave in and tipped the bottle. “Just tell me no one will ever know about this.”
Duh. Who would have understood?
“We really did it,” Ivy said. “We completed an assignment.”
“I guess we did,” I agreed. “And it wasn’t even the first one.”
“The only problem is, Mr. Parrington thinks I stayed on Corey and made the right call tonight because I am a good and observant friend.”
Scout put the bottles away. “You are a good and observant friend.”
“Yes, but I also had the benefit of the vision and the voice in my head.”
“True,” Deacon said. “But we didn’t and we still knew to come when you texted because something was going down.”
“Did your hands heat up?”
“No, but they didn’t need to, did they?”
I took another sniff of the frankincense on my hand. “Because we’re learning to trust each other and the assignment.”
“Right.” Scout twisted in the seat. “As long as we trust each other and our abilities—though mine is still not clear—”
“Maybe you’re the oil man,” Deacon offered.
“As I was saying, as long as we trust ourselves, each other, and our abilities, we’ll be OK.”
“Yes, but that still doesn’t answer my basic question,” Ivy said. “Would Corey and I still be friends if she hadn’t been placed in my direct path that night and if we didn’t have singing in common and if I didn’t have the vision…and so on? Are we friends because she was my assignment? Or was the assignment because we are friends?”
“Does it really matter?” Deacon asked. “You’ll still be friends when she gets better.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You won’t stop talking and singing together because of tonight.”
“So, do you think the assignment’s over? Or do I have to watch out for Corey the rest of my life?”
It was a valid question. “No. I think we’ve established it’s an assignment by assignment deal. We’re not feeling drawn to help Mr. Berry, right?”
“Exactly,” Deacon said. “And I’m sure not feelin’ the need to do anything about that copperhead from the garden. No amount of frankincense would ever make me do that again.”
“Never say never,” I said.
“And I’m not worried about any more cafeteria carts,” Ivy said. “But what about the other basic question? The one about all the other hurting people tonight who don’t have someone to call? Who is watching them?”
I took her hand. “Loo
k, Ivy, you did an amazing job tonight. I don’t have any answers. Not even close. But as my coach would say, tonight was a win. Take it. Take it and prepare for the next battle.”
Ivy squeezed my hand before she let go. “I think Trinity might be right.”
“Trinity? She’s one of the biggest Arrows. What does she have to do with all this?”
Ivy gazed into the darkness outside the car. “Nothing. She has nothing to do with this, but she did tell me to do something one time, and I can’t shake it.”
“What did she tell you to do?”
“She told me to trust the Creator.”
Chapter 36
Ivy
I slipped my old, crappy guitar case behind the deep purple velvet curtain and tried not to puke in it.
If I was going to keep up with semi-superpowers and supernatural occurrences, I was gonna have to learn to control my stomach. Between the visions and voices and an attempted suicide, I was in a constant state of queasy.
Never mind that.
I had to be on that stage and sing a solo rendition of Mary, Did You Know? while my duet partner got her brain rewired from a gaslighting brush with a psycho Purple Arrow.
I was also going to take control of the moment and do the bravest thing I’d ever done.
I was going to hijack the holiday show.
The tuxedoed emcee—AKA our school’s regular choir director—stepped away from the mic as he said my name. No one was more surprised than my piano accompanist when I walked out with my ratty guitar. The strings were old and the body was scarred, but it was all I had to learn on, and the night I got home from Corey’s attempt, the words and chords poured out of me in less than fifteen minutes. I’d heard that’s how all great songs came to be. I didn’t know about that. I’d never written a song before. I was sure it wasn’t great, but it was honest.
“Hello,” I said to the audience. “I’m Ivy Van Camp, and I’m going to sing Mary, Did You Know?” I paused. “In a minute.” I looked for my mom and Aunt Connie and for Scout and Mary and Deacon, but I couldn’t see a thing past the lights. That was for the best. “But first, I’m going to sing a song I wrote for my friend who is having a hard time, and for anyone else who is struggling.”
I started a pattern of the only four chords I knew, and willed my heart not to take off on me. The choir director flailed his arms backstage to get my attention.
I sent him a glance that dared him to come and stop me. What was he going to do? Drag me off the stage? My mom and Aunt Connie would have shoved that bowtie down his throat.
When I’d gathered enough breath, I sang.
You think it is too hard to stay here
You would rather just leave today,
You should know it’s never that simple
Nothing is better if you go away.
Something is tangled up in your brain
All is pointless, random, mundane
With cluttered thoughts you’re not thinking clearly
With crushing doubt, you feel way past insane
But no one will know your side of the story
Your truth is lost if you don’t explain,
Don’t keep the secret until it’s too hard
Someone will listen if you share your pain
Life hurt your feelings when you tried to live it
You think love is fragile, lost, and unreal,
Someone took your hope but you can’t reclaim it
If you are not present to say what you feel.
The battle is raging and you have to fight it
Do not surrender, hide, or conceal
Death is no answer to life’s ugly questions
You must ask for help before you can heal.
You think it is too hard to stay here
You would rather just leave today,
You should know it’s never that simple
Nothing is better if you go away.
Nothing is better if you go away.
Chapter 37
Mary
Ivy was amazing.
Everyone clapped for what seemed like forever. She deserved it for what she’d done, and she couldn’t have done it any better.
I hoped she’d still be able to slip away to the reflection garden as we’d planned. Last I spotted her at the reception, she was knee deep in Christmas punch and adoring fans.
Scout was already there with his bundle of flowers as Deacon and I made our way to the well-lit spot where we’d all first met.
Deacon stayed close as we passed the large rocks. “I am not fighting a snake tonight.”
“Too cold,” Scout said. “No snakes out here tonight.”
“How do you know that for sure? Huh? There could be a viper behind that tree.”
“There isn’t,” Ivy said from behind his left shoulder.
And he predictably screamed. “Stop sneaking up on me in the dark!”
“How was she sneaking up? I knew she was back there and gaining ground fast, and you would have too if you hadn’t been so busy whining about snakes.”
“Snakes are not the problem,” Scout said. “But I did see an armadillo scurry by.”
“Do they bite?”
I elbowed Deac in the side. “They can barely see. Now, can we talk a minute so Ivy can get back to her party?” I pulled her into a tight embrace. “You were amazing. And I want to say I know it’s been a rough few months and an even rougher week, but you made it. We all did.”
“Yeah we did,” she said. “And once I got over wanting to barf in my guitar case, I felt pretty good up there.”
Scout extended his Christmas-themed bundle of pink roses. “You looked good too. Uh…” He turned an overripe shade of tomato. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” She sniffed the bouquet. “These are beautiful. No one’s ever given me flowers before.”
Deacon went in for his hug. “It’s tradition. Of course, I forgot to bring anything, but you better get used to the gifts if you’re going to keep performing like that.”
She held the flowers against her chest. “Thank you all for sticking with me even when I didn’t know what was happening.”
“No worries,” Deac said. “We got you.”
“We’ve got each other,” she said. “And I better get back before my mom and Aunt Connie start looking for me.” She held her hand out for Scout. “You comin’ back in?”
He looked like he had a seizure as he scrambled to her side. Poor guy was gonna hurt himself.
Deacon stopped cold as we made to leave. “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything, scaredy-cat,” I said. “Probably an earthworm, and no, it won’t bite you.”
Ivy moved her flowers. “It was probably the crinkly wrapping on this bouquet.”
He glanced at his hands. “No. Hang on.”
Ivy stepped closer to look at his palms. “For real? Now?” She scanned the area. “I don’t feel a thing.”
“I don’t either,” I said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Scout added.
Deac shook out his hands. “It’s gone.”
“Has that ever happened before?”
“Not like that. Could something have entered our space and then gone away?”
“I guess,” I said. “But what would be the point? Assignment? No assignment? Danger or no danger?”
Then we all heard the noise.
And it wasn’t a small creature noise. It was a full-blown bear-rummaging-in-the-woods noise.
The air around us was calm. There seemed to be no urgent need to react as a very large—and kinda dirty and rough-looking man—stepped out of the brush and into the rays of a bright landscaping light. Long, dark, wavy hair rested on his shoulders in a messy heap as black eyes studied us.
I glanced at Deacon as he came to my side. He raised his hands and shook his head. He had nothing.
Scout tried to stand in front of Ivy, but she nudged him to her side.
The stand-off began.
The giant smile
d.
I was not impressed. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Deacon leaned to my ear. “This is probably not the time, but girl, you are killin’ this supernatural power gig. Is there anything you’re afraid of?”
“No.”
The man pointed my way. “You’re Mary.”
Then he pointed to my right. “And you’re Deacon.”
Deacon smiled. “’Sup?”
Chapter 38
Deacon
What?
Had I totally just used a ‘sup? on a total stranger who had cornered us in the woods?
I wiped the stupid smile off my face and puffed out my chest. I could be as big and bad as Mary. “I don’t know you. How do you know my name?”
“I know all your names.” He nodded to the others. “Scout. Ivy. You’re kind of a big deal, and it took great effort to reach you. The atmosphere of protection that surrounds you is tricky to navigate, even for me.” He bowed. “It’s a great honor to be at your service.”
Ivy rolled her eyes. “Please.” She pointed her roses his way. “Look here, homeless person, you could have read about us or saw us on the news. You know nothing else. If you’re hungry, head up to the auditorium and get a snack before anyone figures out you don’t belong there. Other than that, we’ve had a long week and we need to go.”
“I am neither homeless nor hungry, Ivy, but thank you for thinking of me. And let me say congratulations on your work with Corey.”
“That’s it. Scout, where’s your phone? Mine is backstage. Call 911.”
“Please, Scout,” the man said. “Don’t do that. I would not be here when they arrive.” He took a step forward. “I only wanted to make contact. I thought it was time. Perhaps I was wrong.”
I waited for my hands to do something, but not a shred of heat or fear or a call to defense activated in my body. “What do you mean contact? Are you an alien or something?”
