As soon as the voicemail picked up, the phone started ringing again. Emily’s number flashed across the screen.
“Jesus God, Emily, it’s too early. Something had better be wrong.”
There was a loud sniff on the other end of the phone.
“Well, it is. They’re dead-set on sending me away next week, Claire. To the farm.” Emily didn’t so much say the last word as wail it. “Are you up? Can I come over? If I have to look at my mom for one more second right now, I’m going to freak out. I am so pissed off !”
Claire rubbed her hand across her eyes. “Wow. I mean, of course you can come over. I’m sorry, Em, I’m not totally awake yet. That’s really, really crappy, though.”
“You’re the best. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Claire stretched and rolled out of bed. She wandered downstairs, looking for Lisbeth. A note sat on the counter, pinned underneath a clean coffee mug.
Claire-bear,
Good morning! Don’t forget, I’m at an all-day yoga retreat and
your mom’s gone to Chicago for the day. If you go anywhere,
please leave me a voicemail, okay?
See you around six!
Love,
Lisbeth
A whole day without anyone looking over her shoulder? That was more than okay with Claire.
She put a pot of coffee on and sat at the island while it brewed, staring out the window. Last night had been so bizarre—but in a much better way than the night before had been. At least now she didn’t feel so out of control, like she was just supposed to sit on her hands and hope everything was okay. If she randomly started to sprout fur, she could fix it. Hell, if she thought someone was talking about her, she could listen in.
Huh.
Could she do that in her normal body, or did she have to be changed?
Claire focused the same way she had the night before, trying again to hear Emily.
Nothing happened. Claire couldn’t hear anything except the coffeepot burbling as it finished brewing.
She thought about transforming and trying again. No one was home, so it wasn’t like anyone would come walking in on her—it would probably take Emily another fifteen minutes to drive over, anyway.
Claire decided to go for it.
Just as she’d closed her eyes, the front door rattled.
“Claire?” Emily’s voice echoed off the marble floors in the entryway.
Shit.
“In the kitchen!” Claire called, silently vowing never to do anything else that stupid. How would she have explained it if Emily had walked in on her while she was covered in fur? To cover the fact that she was totally flustered, Claire got up to pour herself a cup of coffee.
Emily wandered into the kitchen. “Hey. Thanks for getting up early for me.”
“No problem. You must have driven like a bat out of hell to get here so fast,” Claire said, focusing on filling her cup to exactly the right level. Her hand was still shaking.
“Yeah, well, I had to get out of the nightmare that is my house.”
Claire turned to offer her the coffee. Emily’s eyes were red and puffy, and her lips looked pale.
“Do you want a cup?”
Emily shook her head and went to the refrigerator. She pulled out a Diet Coke and popped it open. “What am I going to do? If I have to spend the rest of the summer on the farm, I’ll miss everything! I’ll be so out of the loop by the time school starts that my parents might as well send me away permanently.”
Claire took a long sip of her coffee and tried to push away the feeling that it was her fault that Emily was so upset.
I haven’t done anything wrong. Just because I’m … what I am, this isn’t my fault.
“We’ll figure something out, Em. Seriously. What have you tried?”
Emily ticked it off on her fingers. “I promised them I wouldn’t leave the house after dark, that I’d leave my cell’s GPS on all the time, and that I wouldn’t go anywhere outside alone. Which is, like, the equivalent of putting myself in jail all summer. But practically no one else is allowed to go out after dark, so it’s not like I’d be missing that much. And at least I’d be here. But they won’t listen!” Emily flopped down on one of the bar stools and sighed. “I don’t know why they think the stupid farm is any safer than here, anyway. I mean, there’s way less people out there. If something attacks us on the farm, I’m one of three people for it to pick from. Isn’t that, like, basic statistics?”
Claire smiled at her best friend’s logic and sat down next to Emily.
“Well, that’s about all you can do, isn’t it? I mean, unless you swear to stay in your room all the time, and that’s as bad as being sent off to your aunt’s place.”
Emily laid her head on the table. “You’re not helping, Claire.”
Guilt slid through Claire like an oil spill. Maybe she wasn’t trying hard enough. There was a little part of Claire’s brain that was whispering to her that it would be a lot easier to lie to Emily over the phone. And that Emily couldn’t walk in on her midchange while she was on the farm.
“Maybe things will settle down. If I were you, I’d play up the whole ‘the farm is dangerous, too’ angle. Make them panic that you’ll be too far away, that they can’t keep an eye on you. Can you get your aunt to agree to some crazy-late curfew or something?”
“Huh. That’s not bad, actually. I can’t say anything else today or they’ll know I’m just fishing to get out of it, but it might work.”
Claire chewed on a ragged cuticle. “It’s worth a try, at least.”
“Yeah. Okay. So here I am, being totally self-centered. What’s new with you, huh?”
Claire stopped the laugh a millisecond before it hopped out of her mouth. “Um. Not, uh, not much.”
Emily shook her head. “That is so not the truth, Claire. Don’t even try to lie to me.”
Claire’s mouth went dry. She resisted the urge to pat her ears, to make sure Emily hadn’t seen anything that had made her suspicious. Did she know, or could she just tell that Claire was hiding something?
“Um. I don’t—” Stalling for time, Claire lifted her mug and took another drink of coffee, even though her stomach twisted in protest.
“Come on. Matthew. Engle. What’s going on with that, huh?” A smile played at the corner of Emily’s mouth.
“Oh. Oh.” The adrenaline flooding her body left Claire’s fingertips tingling. Okay, Matthew she could talk about. God, hiding things from Emily was hard. They’d just come up with a solution for Emily’s problem. Claire could have used the same sort of help. A lot of help, actually. “Yeah, Matthew. It’s just—it’s really weird, you know? I didn’t really think we’d have much in common, but we had a great time the other night. He’s so easy to talk to.”
“And? Are you seeing him again?” Emily didn’t look nearly as depressed now that they were talking about guys.
“Probably. He wanted to get together today, but you and I had plans, so I put him off.”
Horror flashed through Emily’s eyes. “Oh my God. Claire, you are totally, totally nuts. Why would you do that?”
Claire shrugged. “I mean, I really like him, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to see him.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Claire realized that she’d maybe been a little too honest with Emily. She wasn’t used to censoring herself around her best friend.
Emily looked at her, dumbfounded. “Why on earth would it not be a good idea? You’ve liked him forever . He obviously likes you. What’s the problem?”
Claire took another sip of coffee. Maybe she could ask Emily about this, as long as she worded things very, very carefully.
“Well”—she set the cup down on the counter—“I mean, I know he likes me now, but what if … what if he gets to know me, the real me … and he hates what he sees? That could ruin everything. And I mean, really, everything. Wouldn’t it be better just to stop things now, before anything gets screwed up?”
“Claire, be serio
us. You’re already the real you. That’s why you hate flirting. It’s why you feel awkward at parties. You don’t know how to pretend to be someone you’re not. Trust me. If he likes you now, and he does, then you’re not going to come up with some huge new side of yourself that’s going to shock him into shunning you.”
Claire rubbed a hand across her eyes. Emily had no idea how wrong she was, and there was no way to tell her the truth. “I’m not so sure about that, Em. But I appreciate the pep talk.”
“You’ll feel a lot better when you see him again, you know. Why don’t you call him and tell him I bailed on you? See if he still wants to hang out.”
Claire shook her head. “I’ll call him later, maybe. Right now, I kind of want to hang by the pool for a while. Interested?”
Emily sighed. “Of course. If I’m really going to be exiled to the farm, I want as much time with you as I can get before I go. But I still think you’re nuts. And I have to be home for lunch, so I only have a little while.”
“Great. Let’s get changed.”
For the next couple of hours, Emily’s chatter and the glitter of the hot sun on the surface of the pool kept Claire mostly distracted. Still, her mind did wander—wondering about what had happened in the woods last night. What else could she do besides hear people talking miles away, and hunt? She wished there was someone she could ask. Someone who would talk to her.
“Helloooo.” Emily waved a handful of polish-wet fingernails in front of Claire’s face. The sharp, chemical smell did as much to snap Claire out of her thoughts as Emily’s irritated voice. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Um, no, actually. Sorry. I got sort of distracted.”
Emily searched Claire’s face. “You’re thinking about Matthew, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” The lie rolled off her tongue like a marble. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’d be distracted too.” Emily checked her phone. “I’ve gotta go anyway. The last thing I need is to give my parents any reason not to listen to me, you know?”
Claire nodded. “Call me and let me know how things go, yeah?”
“Of course.” Emily sighed and slid on her flip-flops. “It’s gonna be a dicey couple of days.”
Yeah. You can say that again.
Claire stayed by the pool after Emily left. The treetops were motionless in the thick, hot air. Her brain felt fried, short-circuited by too much thinking and too much heat. She stood up, thinking that maybe a quick swim would clear her head. Before she’d even taken a step toward the crystal-clear water, her phone rang.
An unfamiliar number flashed across the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hey. Claire. I’m glad I caught you.” The voice was familiar but not recognizable.
“Um, yeah. Sorry—who is this, again?”
A low, throaty laugh echoed on the other end. “It’s Zahlia. Sorry. I should have said.”
“Oh my God. No, it’s fine. I’m glad you called. Actually, I’m really glad you called.” Claire sank down onto the scorching-hot concrete at the edge of the pool and dangled her feet in the water.
“I figured you might have some questions, and I heard that your mom went to Chicago. Not that she’d likely answer them, anyway.”
“Yeah. Why is that, exactly?”
“Your mom is just really … traditional. So—has everything been okay?”
The fist that was clenched around Claire’s sternum loosened. “Actually, everything’s been pretty crappy. But I think I’ve figured out a couple of things.” She heard the pride creep into her voice as she admitted that, but she couldn’t stop it. “I—I was trying to change, you know, in the forest?”
“Good. Were you successful?”
“Yeah, I was. But the weird thing was that while I was trying, I heard Lisbeth talking. And she was at our house. Is that normal?”
There was a pause at the other end of the phone. “Not everyone can do it, but yeah, long-distance hearing is one of the more common gifts.”
“So, I could only hear half of the conversation. Can you hear more than one person at a time? Do you have to be a wolf to do it?”
“I can’t do it at all, but I think Beatrice can hear multiple people at once. I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of practice. And yeah, even though you have heightened senses all the time, you have to be in your true form to use any of your actual gifts.”
“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”
“So—you said you were in the woods. Does your mom know that you’re trying this stuff ?”
A little butterfly-flutter of panic stirred inside Claire. “Um, no. You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
Zahlia laughed. “No. I’m not. She wouldn’t approve of it, and I don’t agree with her about that. Why waste these three months? You’ll be a better pack member if you know what you’re doing when your transformation is complete.”
“Okay. Good.”
“So, listen, you’ll have my number in your phone now, and if you need anything, you let me know. I remember how hard those first few months were.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Claire hung up and swung her feet against the resistance of the water, making the surface ripple and burble. If she had someone who would actually help her—who could actually help her, unlike Emily—then maybe she could get through this after all. With a flick of her wrist, Claire tossed the phone onto the cushioned deck chair behind her and slid into the cool, quiet pool.
The conversation with Zahlia and a good set of laps in the pool had made Claire just calm and tired enough to think that calling Matthew was a good idea.
“Hello?”
“Um, hey, Matthew. It’s Claire. How are you?”
“I’m bored out of my skull. Seriously. It’s too hot to go for a run and my dad’s getting ready for some sort of big meeting, so he’s kind of taken over the house. I’m actually thinking of doing my summer reading assignment. It’s that bad.”
Claire laughed. “It must be bad if you’re willing to do schoolwork.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty awful. But, A Separate Peace actually looks sort of interesting. And it’s short.”
Claire stretched, smiling. She’d guessed he was smart—not in a geeky, chess club way, but a quiet kind of smart. She liked that. She liked it a lot. “Well, Emily bailed on me around lunchtime and you don’t hear me resorting to trigonometry,” she teased.
“Hey, hey, hey, not so fast. I said nothing about doing math,” he shot back. Claire could hear him grinning. “So, do you want to rescue me from my boredom before I resort to doing something productive? I could come pick you up, maybe grab a smoothie or something?”
Claire hesitated. There were plenty of reasons to say no—like the fact that his dad was hunting her family, that she might slip and give something away. But it was so easy to talk to him. And he was so cute.
“Sure,” she said, trying to shut up the part of her brain that was second-guessing her even as she agreed to go. “That sounds fun.”
“Great! A half hour from now okay with you?”
“Perfect.” Claire was already halfway up the stairs, mentally scanning the contents of her closet. “See you then.”
While she was dressing, Claire called Lisbeth and left her a message. She put on a little makeup and the sapphire earrings her mom had given her for her birthday.
Pretty, but not as good as a car.
She sighed and headed downstairs to wait for Matthew.
The outside of Matthew’s car was coated in a thin layer of dust—almost everyone’s was, because the drought had dried everything out so badly—but Claire was surprised to find the inside was really clean. No soda cans rolling around on the floor, no dirty soccer cleats stashed behind the seats.
“What?” he asked, clearly amused at the amazement on her face.
Damn. I’ve got to be a little less see-through than that if I want this to work.
�
�N-nothing. It’s just—I didn’t expect your car to be so, um … ,” she faltered.
“Clean?” he offered, pulling out onto the street.
“Yeah.”
Matthew shrugged. “I ruined a really expensive jersey once—it was behind the seat and I threw a soda can back there. Turned out, the can wasn’t quite empty. Ever since then, I’m pretty good about keeping it clean.”
Claire thought about the piles of clothes on her floor and the nest of covers on her unmade bed. Maybe they weren’t as alike as she’d first thought.
“My room’s another story,” Matthew said. “It’s usually a disaster.”
Claire stifled the laugh that bubbled up in her chest. “Mine’s pretty bad most of the time too.”
They got to The Juice Junction and stood studying the menu.
“Are you ready?” Matthew asked, putting a hand on the small of her back. His touch sent a wave of fire through her and Claire swallowed hard. She managed to nod.
They got their drinks—Mango Tango for Claire and Strawberry Blast for Matthew—and sat at a sticky-topped table. Claire sipped at the sweet, frosty slush, trying to get her head back together. Her back still tingled where Matthew had touched her, and the memory of him almost kissing her on his couch was extremely distracting.
“So, what else is new?” Matthew wadded up his straw paper and stuffed it in his pocket.
Claire shrugged. “Emily’s parents are freaking out about the werewolf. They’re sending her to her aunt’s farm for the rest of the summer, which she’s freaking out about.”
“That sucks. I mean, the killings are horrible, but still.”
“Yeah, well, everyone’s panicking about it, right?” Claire held her breath. If there was one thing she shouldn’t be talking about, this was it. But somehow, she couldn’t resist feeling him out. If he was the same sort of fanatic his dad was, she’d probably be better off finding out now.
Matthew sighed. “Yeah. I dunno. The whole thing kind of makes me uneasy.”
Claire tilted her head to one side. “Uneasy how?”
Matthew fiddled with his straw. “This isn’t something—with my dad being who he is, it’s hard to talk about, you know? He doesn’t exactly approve of what I think.”
Claire de Lune Page 7
