by Gwen Hayes
“I didn’t have much choice. She told me she couldn’t leave. I don’t think she was quite . . . the same . . . as you guys described her.” That was as diplomatic as I could get before my first cup.
“She’s been living in a hell realm.” Varnie looked at me like I was an idiot. “It’s going to affect a person.”
I thought of the look in her eye and the way she licked her lips. Theia wasn’t the shy ingénue they’d told me about. She was sexy as hell, though. Literally. “Varn, I think something more is going on. She . . . I guess you could say warned me. She said I wasn’t safe . . . from her.”
Varnie put his turban on, completing the disturbing transformation to Madame Varnie. “I need to take this next appointment. Bring the girls here after school. We’ll figure out what it all means.”
I nodded. “Thanks, man.” I meant thank you for everything he’d done for me, was continuing to do for me. I wondered if he knew that.
Varnie had taken me in shortly after I woke up in the circle on the floor and it became apparent that I’d never make it on my own. Not yet. I didn’t have the right skills to survive in their world—or any other realm.
On top of the memory loss, I had no money. I was able to get my clothes out of the expensive penthouse suite I’d been living in but could no longer afford. I also had a truck. That was it. I sold it after the first week to help Varnie with rent and expenses.
I think Varnie felt guilty for everything that happened that night. As much as he wanted to get out of Serendipity Falls, he wanted to make amends more. So he moved back into the house he’d just left and put a roof over my head. I owed him more than I could say.
Donny picked me up for school, like she had every day for the last month. Gabe didn’t like it. He wasn’t exactly my biggest fan.
Varnie blamed himself for losing Theia.
Gabe blamed me.
“Did you remember anything?” she asked as we pulled away from the curb. She asked every day. It was sort of her version of “Good morning, Haden.”
“No. I still have amnesia,” I answered. I wasn’t sure if I should tell her about going to Under last night. It was probably better to tell everyone at once, after school. Donny wasn’t exactly levelheaded and telling her now would mean she’d be unreasonable all day. I wasn’t technically lying when I told her no, I didn’t remember anything.
But it felt like lying.
Ame would be trickier. It would be in my best interest to avoid spending too much time with her. It was spooky, the way she knew things. Varnie called it her “raw talent.” Whatever she had, it still wasn’t enough for them to get their friend back. They wouldn’t stop trying, though. They were nothing if not tenacious.
I escaped to the library at lunch, mostly to avoid Ame. That wasn’t the only reason, though. Sometimes they were too nice to me. Not a thing to complain about for most people, but I didn’t deserve their kindness. Theia was gone because of me. Until today, nobody even knew if she was still alive.
I knew I was letting them down because I couldn’t remember. I had a head full of knowledge—things most seventeen-year-old kids don’t know, but no memories that would help. It hurt them that I couldn’t remember Theia.
It hurt me too.
Theia had risked everything to save me. They said she loved me. And I repaid her sacrifice by not remembering her.
“There you are.” I thought I’d been pretty clever in finding the small table hidden in the stacks of the library, but my fortress of solitude was no challenge for Brittany. She sashayed over. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“Here I am,” I answered, lamely, of course.
All the kids at school knew I had “amnesia,” but they still treated me like I was the same Haden as I was before the “accident.” Donny told me that was because the sneetches swam in shallow water. She always looked directly at Gabe whenever she made comments like that. To his credit, he ignored her.
There were murmurs up and down the halls that I pretended I couldn’t hear. Theia’s disappearance and my amnesia fed the gossip mill until it churned out all kinds of torrid tales. Another sore spot with the so-called sneetches was the apparent defection of Gabe and me to the “dark side.” They pretended it didn’t bother them, but they spent a lot of time trying to lure me back to the in-crowd. I didn’t especially want to be part of the in-crowd. I didn’t fit in there or anywhere else.
Brittany perched on the corner of the table, her short skirt riding too high for a guy with a pulse not to notice. I swallowed hard and tried not to anyway.
“We should talk about prom, Haden.”
“We should?”
She nodded. Her hair didn’t move when her head did. It was the oddest thing. Hairspray, I guessed. “It’s coming up.”
I knew that, of course. Donny spent a lot of time telling Gabe they weren’t going together, and Ame spent a lot of time trying to coax an invitation from Mike. I had no intention of going to the dance. It felt like a betrayal to think about having fun or spending time with another girl. A betrayal to the girl I didn’t know, couldn’t remember, and who was possibly never coming back.
Brittany drew my chin up with her finger. “Ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“To the dance.” Brittany’s hand coasted along my cheek and into the hair around my ear. “We’ll have fun.”
She was tender, playful. Nobody had touched me recently. And before recently I couldn’t remember anyway—so it was overwhelming how good it felt. Brittany smelled sweet, like cotton candy. I was tempted. God, was I tempted.
I looked into her eyes, and she smiled shyly. It might have been an act, her shyness. The way Donny and Ame went on about the cheerleaders, they were supposedly in the same class as the demon they exorcised from my body that night in the cabin.
Maybe Brittany and Noelle were shallow, but maybe they were just girls who hid behind their popularity the way Donny hid behind her sarcasm. Brittany seemed genuinely nervous about asking me to the dance, but what did I know about genuine feelings? Especially girls’ feelings.
I didn’t get any of it, and hanging out with Gabe and Varnie had taught me that my ignorance had nothing to do with the amnesia. Girls were just difficult to understand. It was one of the things that made them girls.
Brittany bit her lip. “You’re not going to ask me, are you?”
I brought one hand to her hand, the one touching me, and held it gently in mine. “I really can’t.”
“Before you got amnesia, I thought maybe you and I would . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“I’m really sorry, Brittany.”
“It’s because of the English girl, isn’t it?”
“Theia?” I asked.
She nodded. “The thing is, Haden. She’s not here, but I am.”
No, the thing of it was that I was here and Theia wasn’t, but Brittany wouldn’t understand that. “It’s not going to work out. I’m sorry.”
We sat like that for a minute, quiet in our mutual regret. She sighed and placed a kiss on top of my head, allowing me a glance down the V of her top. “You’ll be even sorrier when you see me in my dress.”
She said it good-naturedly, and I had a feeling she was right. It was then I felt the heated stare.
Amelia.
I don’t know how long she’d been there. I know it must have looked bad from where she stood. The shock of my betrayal was clear in her expressive eyes.
“Ame,” I said.
She set her jaw and glared at me before turning on her heel. I knew better than to follow her. I’d straighten it out later. I hoped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Well,” Varnie said, raking a hand through his hair. “This is going well.”
I was blistered. From the inside out.
Ame and Donny were taking turns. There was no good cop, bad cop. Just bad cop and worse cop. They railed at me endlessly. It all jumbled together—sneetches, pond scum, no morals, demon ways, betrayer.
> Even Gabe tried to step in on my behalf. “Ladies, let the man at least try to defend himself.”
“No, it’s okay. Let them get it out,” I replied. We all needed it. I was all those things, even when I wasn’t trying to be, even when I wanted desperately to be something else.
The night I appeared in that cabin, they lost something, someone, very important. The girls were always so careful to make sure I knew they didn’t blame me. But they should have. They would tiptoe around my feelings; make excuses for my lack of anything at all helpful. When they finally let go of that anger on me, it felt like the first real human interaction I’d had with them. I think it purged us all.
After the last harsh word, we all stared at one another, the room filling up with silence. Varnie looked at me like he felt sorry for me because he knew we weren’t done.
No point in putting it off. “I saw Theia last night.”
“What?” Ame clutched Donny’s wrist. “Where? How? I thought you said you didn’t—”
“Miss Amelia, let the man talk,” Varnie interjected.
“I dreamt . . . except it wasn’t a dream. I went to Under, the place you told me she talked about, last night. She’s still there.” I held my hands up to ward off the oncoming barrage of questions. “She wouldn’t come back with me. She said she can’t.”
“We can’t just leave her there.” Donny stood up and began pacing. “I can’t believe you didn’t drag her out with you.”
“I don’t have any special powers anymore, Donny. I don’t know how it works—I asked her to come with me. She said no.”
She spun and looked at Gabe. “You would have dragged me out, wouldn’t you?”
“By your hair,” he answered.
She crossed her arms and glared at me again, vindicated by his answer.
“I wanted to bring her back, I swear.”
Ame looked at Varnie hopefully. “Can we try? Maybe the cards or the crystal ball?”
“Of course,” he answered, taking her hand and leading her into the other room, not looking as optimistic as she did.
Donny and Gabe stayed in the living room with me pretending we were fine, until Donny was strung so tight, I thought she might explode. She was like a rubber band stretched to its very limit, ready to snap.
Gabe’s face was tense with worry. “Babe, you need to relax.”
“Are you kidding me?” she retorted. “My best friend has been living in hell for a month. A month, Gabe. God, a month ago, I didn’t even really believe in all this crap.”
I fought for something to say. “She looked well—healthy, I mean. She was beautiful, and she was playing her violin.”
Donny stared at me like she was trying to pick out words she understood from what I said. “She looked well?”
“She actually seemed . . .” I really didn’t know how to say it without making it sound bad. “She sort of fit in there. Like, it agreed with her.” Like she was ready to hunt me like prey is what I did not say.
“Your mother is a freaking demon and Theia is her prisoner. I don’t think she’s well. We tried to look your mommy up, you know. If she’s who Varnie thinks she is, she is like the patron saint of night terrors.”
I grimaced. “I know.” I had seen the same tome on demonology. If Mara was my mother—and Varnie thought she was—Theia couldn’t last long in that place. “But she still looked okay.”
Gabe looked at me like I was an idiot. He was right. “You have a lot to learn about girls, amnesia boy.”
I agreed and went to the kitchen to grab a Coke so he could calm Donny down in private. I could hear her yelling at Gabe and his calm voice reassuring her. It felt like I was the kryptonite of their group. I made them weaker, broke them apart. And yeah, I could remember what kryptonite was, but not how I met the girl who loved me so much she went to hell in my place.
I was a curse.
After another hour, Ame came out of the other room looking like a kicked puppy. The three of them left without much of a good-bye. I questioned Varnie with my eyes, but he just shook his head solemnly and I followed him back into the kitchen while he got himself a beer.
“I’ll take one of those.”
“I don’t think so.” He did, however, hand me another Coke.
“I thought I was one hundred and seventy years old,” I argued.
“Your ID says seventeen.”
“Your ID says nineteen.”
“Nobody cards Madame Varnie.” And they didn’t. He used that costume shamelessly to fill the fridge with beer. Beer he wouldn’t let me drink.
“So, no luck finding Theia?” I asked, even though it was obvious he hadn’t found her.
Varnie shook his head. “Neither of us can get a bead on her. It’s frustrating. Especially since now we know to focus the energy to Under. Before it was shots in the dark, but this should have worked. I don’t understand why we can’t bring her out this time.” He took a long pull from the bottle. “You doing okay, man? They were pretty rough on you.”
“No rougher than I deserve. They’re right. It should be me in that hell, not Theia.”
“So why were you hitting on that girl?”
I cast him an are-you-kidding-me look. “I wasn’t. She wanted me to ask her to prom. I said no.” How many times did they need to hear that?
Varnie hiked himself onto the counter. “Is Ame going to prom?”
I choked on my drink. “Wow, that was subtle.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Obvious.
“You interested in Amelia?”
“No,” he scoffed and peeled the corner off his label. “Why? Has she said anything about me?”
I didn’t really want to get into the fact that Ame only had eyes for Mike Matheny, the guy who could barely string three words together for a sentence but ate every meal like it had been a week since his last. So I just said, “I’d be the last person she talked to.”
He nodded, realizing I was right. When Amelia saw me in the corner being fondled by Brittany, I lost her trust. Since I wasn’t sure how I had gotten her trust in the first place, I was clueless as to how I was going to get it back.
Or if I deserved it.
“Tell me about the night in the cabin,” I said, thinking maybe there was something we’d missed. The key to my memories.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“You always do that. It’s so frustrating. Look, I understand that nobody wanted to overdo it with the intel when I first woke up. I get it—but I’ve been around for a while now. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get my memories back on my own.”
Varnie shrugged. “I’ve told you everything now. We summoned you, but we didn’t know only the demon and your body could make the trip, which meant we managed to lose your soul somewhere along the way. Luckily, because I summoned you, the demon was bound to me, though I’m sure he would have figured a way around that eventually. Something happened—we assume now that it was your mother coming—and Theia sent us outside.” He paused, remembering the last time they’d seen Theia alive. “When we came back in, she was gone and we were stuck with the demon.”
“But you still didn’t know where my soul was?”
Varnie shook his head. “No, and you were a real bastard. Well, I mean the demon part of you. Donny made a comment about wishing she’d paid more attention during The Exorcist, which made Ame think we should give exorcism a try.”
“Okay,” I broke in. “So then you exorcised the demon out of the body, and I—well, my soul—came back into it.”
“With no memories,” he added. He winced and looked off into the distance. “I still can’t figure out what went wrong there. A missed word in the chant, one too many eyes of newt? It doesn’t make any sense. Where did your memories go?”
“I am more concerned with where the demon went, Varnie.”
“Out.” He drained the bottle and tossed it across the room, missing the recycle bin, and it thunked onto the linoleum.
“Out wher
e?”
“I have no idea. If you recall, which you don’t, of course, that was one of my arguments for not exorcising the demon that night. Of course, I hadn’t wanted to summon you in the first place, but the Betties had other opinions.”
I picked up his bottle and set it on top of the other glass. “So, my demon half is just out there, circling around, waiting for another chance to make himself at home in my body. Which, I suppose is technically half his.”
“Well, we threw him out of this realm, so he’d have to be invited back into your body. I think.”
“You think?”
“Sorry, I’m not proficient at exorcism. Or spell casting. I’m a psychic. It’s like asking a podiatrist to perform brain surgery.” Varnie rubbed his face in exasperation. “By the way, I hate spells. I’d like to never do another one. I don’t mind poking around in my visions—I’m used to those. But I’m not really interested in auditioning for Charmed.”
“I’ll make a note of it.”
“Maybe I should update my Facebook page.” We laughed, but the lines on his forehead came back. “I don’t know where the demon is, dude.”
That news wasn’t reassuring. “Are you sure I can’t have one of those beers?” I asked.
“Go to bed. You have school in the morning.”
I nodded and passed him on my way into the guest room. “Yes, Mom.”
I took a long, steamy shower. The hot water stung the scrapes, but part of me wanted the burn, the penance. Once in bed, I stared at the ceiling for a long time, willing sleep to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I heard a giggle and saw a flash of red darting between the trees. I blinked hard. What the hell? Where was I?
I was surrounded by trees as wide around as a full-grown man was tall. They stretched to the sky so far that I couldn’t see the tops, the boughs providing a canopy of lush, wet green tenting over me and creating a strange, insular world. Moss draped over some branches like tinsel, and in other places it clung like a dense carpet. The air was thick with moisture, but the temperature was moderate, almost cool.
