Dad froze for a long time before answering. The room felt humid, almost eerie, as if fog had crept down the mountain to conceal us. “There’s more to love than arrows.”
“Like what?”
“Here.” He handed me a photo. “Her name is Karma Clark. She got pregnant. The couple—the two from that night—they have a family now.” She had these pretty, deep-set big eyes and a mouth that turned up at the corners.
My father held out a second image. “Danny Bader. Get him to propose. Talk to him, reason with him, talk to the girl, too. Karma. Help him fall in love with her.”
I shook my head slowly. “This isn’t going to work.”
“You’re going to Earth as a human.”
Diorthosis, the god who fixed things, stepped into the room but didn’t meet my eyes. He had the features of an ornate sculpture and appeared to be chiseled from gold.
“Everything will be taken care of while you’re there,” Dad said, sliding another item from the folder. Bold letters were typed on the card. We’d learned in prep school about IDs and other objects humans use on Earth. Never thought I’d need them, though. “Use the name Aaryn Jones when you need help. Diorthosis will keep everything straight. He can influence humans to help you.”
“To an extent,” Diorthosis said.
We turned to the sound of someone running toward the door. The curtain snapped aside.
My mother. We hadn’t spent much time together since she and Dad split. The fact that she was here scared me a little. Dark hair billowed around her face—her face, always a source of scorn among the goddesses; a face too beautiful, they warned, like that was a bad thing.
“Aaryn!” She hugged me.
“It’s time to go,” Dad said.
My mother reached to cup my face, an action that showed the golden sun tattoo on her upper arm—the mark that reminded us she was once human. “Promise me you’ll try to enjoy it,” Mom said. Her hand relaxed. She absently touched the tattoo. “You will feel much different than you do now, and…there will be so much to see and feel.”
“Tell Phoebe I’ll be back for her,” I said.
“You’re destined to be powerful,” Dad said. “I know how hard you’ve worked to learn everything. You can do this.”
One of the guards filled a syringe. It didn’t resemble the needles I’d seen on Earth, clear tubes with pinprick noses. This device was made of metal, its end the size of a drinking straw. The liquid that filled its gut was thick and yellow. Mom held three fingers to her mouth and looked like she might cry.
“I love you so much,” she said.
My father’s grim nod was the only command needed for the syringe to be plunged through my skin. I yelled as the serum seared through my body like fire. The world exploded before my eyes.
All I could see after that was Mom’s face leaning toward me, whispering, “You deserve to know the truth.”
And then blackness.
“What did Jen want?”
My face must have given away my worry, because Peyton hitched her hand on her spandex-covered waist and read over my shoulder. Her face scrunched. “ ‘I heard about Danny’?” she read. “What is that supposed to mean? Heard what?”
I arched my back and gave a little roll of my shoulder. “Who knows. Probably some stupid rumor.” The music for my piece blasted from the speakers, but I couldn’t even remember what I was supposed to be doing. Jen knew something about my boyfriend before I did. So?
I didn’t care.
I didn’t care so hard that suddenly it was all I could think about. Across from us Juliette was nagging Svetlana about her form.
“Call him.”
I toyed with my phone. “He probably won’t answer.” I regretted saying that when I noticed the pitying expression on Peyton’s face. “I think he’s at football practice anyway.”
Peyton led me across the room and out the screen door, which creaked as we snuck out, the sound of crickets sharpening. “They’ll hear Nell if she wakes up.” Peyton touched my elbow. “Call him. I know you want to.”
The phone felt clammy in my hands. “Okay.” The narrow porch seemed to spiral as I leaned against the railing, each ring rattling my brain.
Danny didn’t answer. I ended the call and tried to act like I didn’t care that he was ignoring me. “I’ll try him after rehearsal.”
“Did you reply to Jen?”
“No.”
“If she ever messaged me about Nick, acting like she knew more about my boyfriend than I did—I’d flip the frick out on her.” Peyton pointed at me with her eyebrows raised.
“It’s probably nothing.” My skin crawled with worry.
“Maybe you should call her.”
“No!” I clicked the power button, but there were no new messages. “I’ll stop by his house after rehearsal.” I smacked a mosquito on my leg. I really had to get back inside. I didn’t move.
“Okay,” Peyton said. “Talk to him in person. Good. If you want, I’ll take Nell home for you. You can tell me all about it when you get back.”
“Thanks. I’ll switch out the car seat.” I smiled, but I could tell she had a bad feeling about the message.
The rest of rehearsal was agonizing.
—
My phone lit up as I was leaving, and for a second, my heart pounded so loud, I felt dizzy.
The air rushed out of me as I read the display. Leah. “Hey, I can’t talk right now.”
She was eating something loudly. Taffy, maybe. “Do you think you could pick me up a pack of smokes?”
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
“They’re not for me, they’re for Benjamin. He said if I…Well anyway. Pretty please? Just this once? I won’t ask again, I promise.”
I hit the gas and racked my brain for an image of what Benjamin, the mentioned dimwit, looked like. The way Leah switched boyfriends, it was hard to keep them all straight. “I don’t supply cigarettes to minors.”
“Uh-huh. Where are you going?”
I felt a headache coming on, throbbing right between my eyes. “I have to stop at Danny’s.”
“Tonight? Why?”
“None of your bees. Peyton is dropping Nell off. I definitely don’t have time to stop at the gas station. I’m driving, so goodbye.”
“Come on, Karma, please? Remember when you got pregnant and I helped you with everything, even the gross stuff?”
“Stop it.”
“I really need your help.”
“I’m not going to help you date losers. I heard what you were doing at that party. Making out with two guys? I’m telling Mom to put you on birth control.”
“Who told you that?” For a while the only sound was my tires on the gravel road. “Did Danny say something to you?”
“It wasn’t Danny,” I lied. The sound of candy being unwrapped hurt my ear.
“He has no business reporting what I do. You’d think he’d try to be nice to me after everything he did. Guess not.” She had her bratty-little-sister voice on. I could almost imagine the way she was blinking and bobbing her head. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Tell him I said to worry about himself.”
“For your information, Danny and I have moved on.”
“How precious.”
“Good luck getting your cigarettes.” I hung up.
A dark mood filled me. Shana hadn’t meant anything to Danny, though Leah wouldn’t stop reminding me about her, the one-night stand Danny had slept with a week after homecoming. He’d been beyond drunk when she threw herself at him. Leah told me to dump him immediately, but what did she know about love? Danny and I had moved on from him cheating, and I really, really wished she would do the same.
My screen lit up. Leah’s message:
Sorry. Love you.
I rolled my eyes and wrenched the wheel, my car bouncing to a stop at the gas station.
—
My headlights fanned across Danny’s truck in the barnyard. I liked the way the dairy farm looked at night. Peaceful.
Like it hadn’t witnessed the dysfunction of its owners over the years.
Judy answered the door.
“Karma, my goodnesh.” Danny’s barrel-chested mother pulled me against her, the smell of farm and booze turning my stomach. Mom and Juliette had gossiped about how much she drank since her husband had died five years ago. Pete had been a mean, abusive drunk, though Danny never talked about it. “Where’sh Nell? Ish she with you?”
I forced my mouth into a smile. “Is Danny around?” The sound of guys’ voices came from the kitchen. They stopped talking when I walked in.
“Prodigy.” Danny’s chair scraped as he stood to kiss me, just a peck on the cheek. What a sight. Danny, his two brothers, and a couple of their friends sat around a case of beer on the table. Danny’s phone lay beside it.
“Hey.” I tried not to melt at the sight of his sky-blue eyes, that farm-boy chest and shoulders, his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows. Physically he was my opposite, with hair and eyebrows the color of wheat and his suntanned skin not at all like my pale complexion. For a country girl, I spent a lot of time indoors.
“Louisiana Shtate!” Judy raised her beer, and a few of the guys said, “Cheers!”
“Ma, stop that,” Danny said gently. “And it’s Central Louisiana.”
“Can we talk?” I said.
Danny slugged a pull from his beer and crunched the can as he followed me out. He hauled his arm back and chucked the empty toward the buzzing electric fence. It bounced off a rail, clanging into the night.
“Jen messaged me.” My hand skimmed his forearm and instantly my breath caught in the back of my throat. Whenever we touched, I felt better, like all the worry and anger didn’t matter.
“That’s what you wanted to talk about?” he said. “A message?”
I inhaled the musky country air, catching a hint of manure from the barn, but it wasn’t repulsive. It smelled like home. It smelled like the place I loved to be.
“I got accepted to Central Louisiana State University,” he said.
I stared at him. His eyes glittered from the floodlight over the barn. Above the light a horde of moths and insects dove and swirled.
“On scholarship,” he added. He watched me, waiting for my reaction.
“Louisiana?” He hadn’t told me he’d applied to any other schools besides the tech school in New York, which he’d only planned to attend on an extremely part-time basis. He obviously hadn’t thought of asking me if I would think about, even consider for a second, giving up my New York.
Our New York.
“You accepted?” He couldn’t be serious. An offer was one thing. Accepting it was another. But his nod was all the sign I needed for the crashing reality to hit. Our dream wasn’t our dream at all. He continued to nod, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
“I’ll even be on the football team. It’s really happening, Karma.”
I couldn’t cancel my enrollment to Wist. No way. “Danny. What the hell?”
He sighed, as if explaining to me was such a bother, so inconvenient, when there was cold beer to drink inside.
“What do you want from me?” he said.
“I don’t know—consideration? We could talk about it first? Is that too much to ask?”
His arms shot out sideways. “This is such a goddamn buzzkill.”
“I didn’t even know you applied there.” My voice felt small—me, one person against Danny’s scholarship, while inside, the rest of the Bader family celebrated. I glanced toward the barn, thinking his father’s ghost was probably leering at my discomfort. Getting Danny to return my phone calls seemed like nothing now. Keeping our family together? How about that?
“Well, I did. Josh helped me fill out the application. They loved my highlight video and the rest is history.”
“What about our history?” I said. “Louisiana is really far. How can you be a dad that far away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nell needs you.”
“God, Karma, I know. Don’t put your baggage on me. I’m a good dad.”
My eyes stung from staring so long. “Louisiana,” I said, trying to get used to the word. “Maybe there’s a dance program at one of the schools around there. I’ll have to check.”
He studied me as if thinking very hard on what I’d said. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said. My mouth had a sour taste. Could he say something more than maybe?
“Thanks. I gotta get back in. See you at school.”
He turned, but I pulled him in for a hug and let my cheek rest against his neck for a long time, a safe, beloved place. “See you,” I said. I clung to that promise, like seeing him tomorrow would save me.
Like it would save us.
On the way home, for the first time since I’d found out I was pregnant, I smoked a whole cigarette. There was something therapeutic about the bitter taste on my tongue…the sting of it in my throat and lungs. I could see why people liked smoking.
The only part that didn’t feel right was the buzz. There was nothing euphoric about what I’d learned that night. Peyton was waiting, but I wasn’t ready to talk. I squished the butt into the driveway and walked toward my house, feeling as if all my plans for the future had burned up, just…
Like.
That.
Day 1
My eyes snapped open, then squinted at the bright sky. Birds flew overhead. I didn’t follow any particular one as they darted across my vision, frantic black specks. The sky had never seemed so far away. Bursts of song, like bells screaming, came from the trees where the birds landed.
Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
The thud of my heart.
I rolled onto my side. Blades and blades and blades of grass slid from focus. A beetle. Flickering rays of sun. I winced as something dug into my leg. I pulled a wallet out of my pocket and slid the cards out slowly: a Florida driver’s license, a Social Security card, a bank card. My identity as Aaryn Jones was already in motion. My photo on the license was awful, one eye half closed, my expression lifeless.
With a sharp breath, I extended my arm and turned it in the light, my same olive skin, my same hand.
But I was human.
I froze at the sound of a girl’s voice.
“I swear, I saw someone. He was—”
I stood and the four teenage girls coming my way stopped dead in their tracks. They were wearing workout clothes, and two of them were twins. We stayed like that for a while, staring the way you might at an animal you find in the woods.
“Hi,” I said. I crossed my arms over my bare stomach, feeling exposed with no shirt on. “I’m Aaryn.” Then I added, “Aaryn Jones.” I made a quick scan of the area—lots of trees, a building, and a pond. I’d landed there for a reason. An unknown reason, but still.
“I know this sounds crazy, but can one of you tell me where I am?”
The twins had turned and started walking away. One of the two remaining girls pursed her lips. Her T-shirt said I Live to Dance. “Uh, yeah. We have to go.” She took the other girl’s arm. They didn’t waste time turning around.
I stumbled to follow them. “Is this your house?”
The other girl glanced over her shoulder, her red hair pulled back in a tight ponytail that fluttered in the wind. They kept walking.
Hmm. I knew her somehow.
Oh wow.
I half tripped, then snapped off the end of a wildflower as the memory got clearer. It was her! The girl Phoebe shot—one half of the tongue-war couple.
I rounded the corner of the building. The girls were standing on the porch. “If you wouldn’t mind helping me out for a minute.” I grimaced. “I was on a hike. Got a little lost.” I really wished I had a shirt.
“Wait here,” said the redhead. They all went inside.
“What do you mean, you found him…”
A woman pushed the screen door open and let it slap against the frame behind her. She was barefoot and wearing a sundress and sunglasses. She held a half-
eaten carrot in one hand.
“Can I help you?” she said. She frowned.
“Hi,” I said, hoping to sound normal. “Nice place you have here.”
“Yes, well, you were just caught trespassing.” She whipped off her sunglasses.
“I got lost. Long hike.” I held out my hand. “Aaryn Jones.”
And the moment I said my name, her frown disappeared. She blinked. “Aaryn.” Took my hand. “Aaryn Jones, of course.” She smiled. “I had a feeling we knew each other from somewhere. I’m Juliette Girard.” She indicated the girls standing beside her. “This is Peyton and Monique. Two of my students here at Shining Waters.”
Both girls gaped at their teacher.
Diorthosis. “Nice to, uh, see you,” I said.
“Now, how can I help you?” she said.
“I, uh, well, I don’t really know why—I mean how—I ended up here, but—”
“Do you have a place to stay? How about a ride? You’re a couple of miles from town, you know.”
Peyton grabbed Monique’s elbow. “How do you think she knows him?” she muttered.
“I lost my phone,” I said, thinking fast. “Maybe you could, uh, take me to the store to get a new one?”
“You must be hungry.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Whoa. I shifted uncomfortably. I’d never needed to eat until now. Food on Mount Olympus wasn’t eaten to survive—it was eaten for show, or for enjoyment.
“One of the philosophies here at Shining Waters is that we should feed our whole selves—body, mind, and spirit. If those things aren’t fed, you won’t be your best.” Juliette pointed to the steps. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Minutes later she returned with a huge salad and a bottle of water. She perched on the other side of the steps and finished her carrot while I ate.
“Thanks,” I said, spearing a cucumber. “It’s really good.”
“Good.” She slid her sunglasses into the neck of her dress. “Remind me where you’re from?”
I had memorized my ID. “Tallahassee, Florida. That’s where I went to college. And I—” I stopped for a bit so the birds could fill in the silence. “I came here to simplify my life. I’m hoping to get a job at the high school.”
Arrows Page 3
