She could look up every word in the book and still not fully understand what, exactly, it said.
What good would these books do her if she couldn’t read them?
Frustrated, she slammed the books down. She regretted it, afraid she might have damaged them. She was especially careful as she placed them inside her overnight bag with her other books and slid it back under the bed. At least there she knew they would be safe.
She slipped out the window and climbed up to the widow’s walk. It was a cool night. She could almost feel a little hint of winter in it. She stood at the low railing, looking over the neighborhood. There were lights on in the houses across the street—children finishing their homework, parents watching television or doing their own work—people going about their normal, daily routines. She wondered what that was like, to be with one family all of your childhood, to understand the daily routines of the people who love you. To know you are loved without having to ask.
It must be nice.
It seemed like it all came back to family and her lack of one. She wondered if her life would be as uncertain as it was now if she had not been abandoned. Would she be surprised about the symptoms of her insanity, or would she have been looking for them if she knew her parents, if she understood what their medical history was? Or would it still be the shock these last few days had been?
Would it be easier to go insane if she knew she had a loving family around her that would watch out for her even if worst came to worst?
She didn’t suppose insanity would be easy no matter who loved, or didn’t love, her.
But there was still something niggling at her, something about the blood in Tony’s office. There was something not right about that. Then him disappearing into his study with Cei? Why Cei? Why would Tony take Cei into his confidence? Cei was his foster child, a teenager just like Gwen. What could he do or tell Tony that would make this better?
None of it made sense.
Was she really insane? Or was there something else going on?
You must trust in yourself.
Gwen turned around, almost expecting there to be someone standing behind her, the voice had seemed so close. But she was alone.
“Who is that?”
The air, the water, the earth, they are all your friends. Learn to listen to them and they will teach you many things.
“I don’t understand.”
You will.
Gwen turned again, the fear that she had finally lost all sense of reality bringing tears to her eyes. But then she saw a flash of movement in the bushes below her. She leaned over the railing, trying to get a closer look, but she couldn’t see anything.
Something had been there.
She raised her hands to her head and screamed.
Chapter 20
Gwen spent the weekend in her room. She told Theresa she wasn’t feeling well, a cold coming on. That was enough to make everyone stay away. Even Cei.
She had the feeling that she had somehow overstepped with Cei. She wasn’t sure how, but the few times they crossed paths in the hallway or coming out of the bathroom, he seemed distant. Unwilling to talk.
It was probably better that way. She didn’t need to screw up someone else’s life, too.
School promised to be interesting on Monday. She had forgotten about her calculus homework, and there was a project due in French in a few days that she hadn’t even started. She walked up to the front of the building, intending to go to the library to do the math, when Morgan stepped out in front of her.
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Then you must not have been looking.”
Gwen tried to walk past him, but Morgan sidestepped, blocking her path again. She looked up at him, the weariness that had been resting on her shoulders all weekend likely showing in the fierceness of her gaze.
“You look tired, Reese. You been having trouble sleeping?”
“What business is it of yours, Mr. Cecil?”
“Hmm, she has a temper.” Morgan stepped closer to her, so close that she could smell the heavy wood scent of his cologne. “What’s the matter, Cei not living up to his manly duties?”
Gwen stepped back slightly. “Why don’t you go find someone else to play with, Morgan? Someone who gives a crap.”
“I’ve asked you out to lunch twice, and twice you’ve refused.”
“I didn’t refuse the second time, I just didn’t agree to a firm date.”
“I don’t like being turned down,” Morgan said, flicking a piece of her hair out of her face with his fingernail, as though he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch it. “I prefer to have my women fall at my feet with adoration.”
“Then go find someone else.”
“Why don’t you like me, Gwen?”
The tone of his voice changed, as though he really wanted to know. She almost felt sorry for him as she watched a hint of vulnerability try to break free of his normally arrogant façade.
“I don’t have time for your games, Morgan. I have homework.”
“You always have something better to do.”
He sounded like a petulant child. It should have annoyed Gwen, but there was something about Morgan that made it impossible for her to dislike him. She simply couldn’t like him, either.
“There are a whole group of girls at this school who are here because their daddies are alumni and can influence the school board to accept them. Their futures are not dependent on getting good grades, in acing the SAT, and going on to a great college. Mine does.”
“Why?”
“Why?” She snorted a little. She knew it was unladylike, but there was no other way to respond to his stupid question. “Because I’m a foster kid who doesn’t have rich parents to take care of me for the rest of my life. I have to fight for everything I have.”
“Cei doesn’t seem too concerned about those things.”
Gwen glanced over to where Morgan gestured, saw Cei with his group of friends. They were all athletes, all overachievers who had quite a following in the girls at the school. There was one group in particular that seemed to always be around them, satellites to their powerful atmospheres. Cei looked over at them, as though he could sense their gaze on him. But he didn’t seem too interested in what he saw.
“Cei has his own problems.”
“And they don’t seem to involve you.”
Gwen pushed against Morgan’s shoulder. “Why don’t you let me go and we’ll pretend I don’t know that you’re jealous of Cei.”
“Jealous? Is that what you think?”
“Aren’t you?” Gwen gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “You’re always watching him, always seeking him out in the hallways, and you sit next to him in every class the two of you share. It’s not hard to see that you admire him.”
Morgan stepped back then, his face turning a beet red. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should be a little less obvious if you don’t want people to see what’s going on in your head.”
“Bitch,” he hissed as she brushed past him and walked into the school.
She almost laughed. Now she knew how to get under his skin.
***
Time seemed to move slowly. She got through Monday and barely made it through Tuesday. Wednesday Melanie tried to pick a fight over a broken glass one morning before breakfast. Gwen hadn’t even been in the kitchen when it got broken, but Melanie managed to make it seem like it was entirely her fault just the same. Crossing Melanie was not the best idea, but Gwen had dealt with jealous teens like her before. Ignoring her was usually the best option.
Gwen had taken to eating her lunch in the library. As much as she liked being outside, she wasn’t sure she wanted to sit too close to that tree anymore. She didn’t go up on the widow’s walk much anymore, either. For the same reason. If she stayed away from the places where she heard voices, maybe she wouldn’t hear them anymore. Not exactly sound, scientific reasoning, but it seemed t
o be working.
She walked slowly across the school campus Thursday afternoon, smiling as she watched a couple of boys playing keep away with a couple of girls. Carefree. That was a word she didn’t think she had ever used to describe herself.
Tony had tried to talk her out of coming here anymore after his little injury—which he still insisted was a simple fall. But he paid her eight dollars an hour, and she needed every penny she could save for the great trek to Columbia. It took a few days and Theresa’s reluctant support, but she finally convinced him as long as she came straight from school and rode home with him every night.
That was pretty simple. She could do that.
The public bus had a stop on the corner of the busy thoroughfare that ran alongside the bus, about three blocks away. She was nearly there, could see it and the half dozen kids who rode the bus as a general rule most days hanging around the antique-like bench, when the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end. She had never had that happen before. It was one of the weirdest things she had ever felt.
West Texas was famous for its strong winds, but the weather had been relatively mild this fall. Until that moment. The wind suddenly turned from a soft, northwesterly breeze into a gusting southern wind that nearly knocked Gwen into the low wrought iron fence that adorned the athletic field to her right. She had to catch herself on the fence, or she might have tumbled onto the field.
The wind died down for a moment, long enough for her to straighten herself, brush off her jeans, and begin walking again. Then another gust of wind tossed her hair into a cyclone around her face, leaves and dust brushing so hard against her arms it felt like someone had brushed her with fine sandpaper.
“What now?”
As though in answer to her question, a car burst around the far corner and nearly hit three kids when it slammed into the bus stop.
Another half second and Gwen would have been standing there.
Instinct told her to help. She rushed forward, approaching the car just as the kids were dusting themselves off and asking each other if anyone was hurt. The windows on the car were darkly tinted, so dark she couldn’t tell if anyone was inside. Someone must have been, however, or else the car wouldn’t have been able to make such a tight turn. She tried the handle on the passenger side door, but it seemed to be jammed. She tugged at it again, but still nothing.
And then she felt a stinging jolt to her right shoulder.
She cried out, letting go of the door to touch the spot. Her fingers came away with blood on them. As she stood there like an idiot staring at the stains on her fingers, a dark object flew just a hair past her cheek, close enough that she could feel the wind it created. She swerved to the left belatedly, her eyes jumping to the place where the object must have come from. She wasn’t terribly surprised to see a familiar, beautiful face.
The woman cocked her arm, loaded and ready with another of those rock-like things. Gwen had enough presence of mind to drop into a low squat, hiding behind the bulk of the car. The object flew high over her head, landing on the asphalt of the street, melting as it had done under the tree. A little slower this time, as though the lack of actual earth impeded its transformation, but it melted just the same.
Gwen scooted sideways, not sure what she was after, but instinctively trying to get behind the car before the woman came looking for her. It was a big car, one of those seventies style four door sedans with more engine space than trunk space. She tugged herself around the back of the car, scratching her fingers on the sharp metal of the bumper as she used it to propel herself. The world had suddenly gone silent, the low hum of the students’ voices seeming to have dropped into the background, like what a sound engineer might do while preparing the sound for a movie scene. She could distinctly hear footsteps moving around the side of the car. They were so loud, it was like they were pounding inside her head.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are, little one.”
“What do you want from me?” Gwen asked as she continued to move around the back of the car.
“I don’t want anything from you. I want you gone.”
“Why?”
“So you won’t reverse the curse, of course.”
“What curse?”
The footsteps hesitated. And then laughter suddenly floated over the air toward her.
“They haven’t told you.”
The idea must have been extremely fascinating to her because she stayed in the same spot for a full minute, giving Gwen the opportunity she needed to move around to the front bumper of the car where it was pressed up against the remnants of the bench. She sifted through the splinters of wood until she found one that was about twelve inches long, the broken end twisted into something that looked like a point. A wooden stake. Not the best weapon in the world, but better than nothing.
The other students were gathered a few feet behind Gwen, most of them with their cellphones in their hands as they took selfies around the wreck and posted them to Instagram or Facebook. None of them seemed to notice Gwen or her bleeding shoulder. Why should this be any different than any other moment? They never seemed to notice her.
The footsteps began again. Gwen risked climbing to her feet where she could see the woman sliding along the back of the car as she followed Gwen’s own movements.
“What curse am I supposed to break?”
The woman twisted around, that same smile Gwen remembered from their last encounter still adorning her supermodel features. “No need to worry about it now. There’s no one here to save you this time.”
She threw another of those rock things. Gwen ducked, but not quickly enough. It grazed the side of her neck, burning as it tore through her flesh. She cried out, falling back against the wrought iron fence. She banged her head hard enough against the lowest rung of the fence that her vision faded out for a second. The woman was there, jumping on top of her the moment Gwen was vulnerable. They wrestled for a moment, the woman working to pin Gwen’s arms to the ground. Gwen reached behind her, searching for some sort of handhold, for the stake that she’d lost the moment she fell. All her fingers found was grass.
“Get off of me!” she cried. “Someone, help me!”
The teens, though, still seemed completely oblivious to what was going on right under their noses.
Gwen twisted her fingers into the grass, the image of a dagger passing through her mind. She wasn’t sure where it had come from—perhaps from a description in Here Be Dragons—but it was long and thin, with a simple hilt that bore little in the way of decoration. But sharp. Very sharp.
And then it was just there. As though the earth had conjured it up from the thought in her head. She swung upward the moment she felt its weight, slammed the rounded top of the dagger’s hilt into the back of the woman’s head. She cried out, more in anger than pain if the expression on her face was any indication, and she redoubled her efforts to hold Gwen’s arms down. Gwen managed to keep that arm free, twisting it away from the woman’s weakened grip, and swung it again.
“Get off of her,” a voice suddenly yelled.
Gwen thought that maybe one of the students standing at the bus stop had finally realized what was happened. The woman was lifted off of her, her body slamming into the hood of the car. Someone had tossed her as though she weighed little more than a stuffed animal. She bounded off the car, but Gwen didn’t see where she went. She wasn’t about to lie there and wait to be attacked again. She rolled away, sliding under the wrought iron fence. She climbed to her feet and ran, not sure where she was headed, but done with this fight. Her shoulder ached; her neck burned. She didn’t want any more of this insanity.
The dagger was gone, if it had ever been there in the first place. Her backpack was missing, too. Not that it mattered at the moment. All she could think about was getting somewhere far from here.
She was halfway to the main building of the high school when the steel went out of her spine. Her knees buckled, and she fell forward. The last thing she remembered seeing
as she slid to the ground was that oak tree.
It was reaching its limbs out to her.
Chapter 21
“Some guardian you are. Why weren’t you with her?”
“I was delayed in class. My French teacher thinks I’m just a regular student, remember?”
“And what would have happened if I hadn’t happened by? You would have lost another one.”
“I wouldn’t have lost the last one if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Don’t reopen that can of worms, old friend.”
The voices floated over Gwen as she lay still on a soft surface, afraid to open her eyes because of the sense of weightlessness that had settled in her head. She knew when she opened her eyes, the room would spin around her.
She didn’t know where she was. Her head was throbbing, but not nearly as badly as her shoulder. Her neck burned, but her shoulder felt as though it had been pulverized by one of those meat grinding machines.
“They’re too close,” the first voice said, his tone a little calmer than it had been a moment ago. “You can’t let her go wandering off on her own.”
“Don’t you think I know that? But I thought Tony was watching her.”
“Where is Tony, anyway?”
SONS of DON Page 13
