by Diane Farr
Making Cheryl Sivic look like a fool.
He wasn’t rude, exactly. He just made it clear that he thought she was rude. There was nothing she could do but retreat. Of course, she was going back to the table full of cheerleaders and football players that ruled Cherry Glen High, and Lance and I were just sitting by ourselves. But Lance made it seem like I had the better place. And for the first time in my long history with Cheryl, I really felt that I did.
“You know, Zara,” he said to me then, “I’m taking you to that dance.”
“Um. You are?” I said faintly. I was still reeling from the shock.
He nodded. “You want to do high school, you said. Okay, then. Do it right.”
Chapter 5
After school, I went to snag my Schwinn from the bike rack. With Lance standing there watching me strap my English textbook, my algebra homework and a couple of folders onto the book rack, it looked less cool to me somehow. I was obviously picking up his opinion by osmosis.
“I love this bike,” I remarked, a little too loudly. “It’s vintage.”
He shrugged. “Good. I like mine too.”
My eyes slid over to the chopper he’d parked nearby, gleaming black and silver. “It wouldn’t be my choice.” I started walking my dusty Schwinn across the parking lot.
He walked with me. “It wouldn’t suit you.”
“We are different,” I agreed.
“Just enough to make things interesting.”
The parking lot was chaotic, swirling with kids heading for home one way or another. Parental vehicles lurked and prowled, seeking their prey. Lines were forming for the buses hunkered by the curb. Juniors and seniors who were lucky enough to have their own cars were jumping in and revving their engines while their friends crowded in beside and behind them, slamming doors and rolling down windows to lean out and converse in shouts with those left behind. Girls were squealing, boys were yelling, everyone was laughing. But Lance and I might as well have been entirely alone.
We looked up when we heard a coughing sort of honk. Alvin’s jeep-thing trundled by with Meg hanging halfway out, waving enthusiastically at us. Her wounded street cruiser was still sticking up in the back end of it. She had texted me, of course, so I knew they were heading for Meg’s house, where Alvin had promised to work on the chain for her.
I stood there with my dorky old Schwinn, watching Meg sail past in a boy’s car, and suddenly felt like an orphaned child. I usually stop at Meg’s on my way home, but today I kinda felt like that might be a bad idea.
“You can hang with me,” Lance said.
I looked sideways at him. “I can’t take you to my house. I’d be grounded for sure.”
He snorted with disbelief. “Has Nonny ever grounded you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I’ve never disobeyed a direct order before. I’m under orders to keep you off our property.”
“So come to my place.”
He sounded so casual, as if this were a perfectly normal suggestion. I stared at him. He grinned. “You thought I didn’t have a place? I told you I came here with Rune. We rented an apartment.”
“Wow. Just you and your uncle, huh? A bachelor pad.” Visions of the Playboy Mansion danced in my brain.
He laughed aloud at that. “In my dreams. Hey, Zara, I’m serious. You should drop by and meet Rune.”
“What’ll I tell Nonny?”
Silence fell. He was going to let me figure this one out for myself.
I sighed. “Okay. I’m not telling Nonny. But that means I can’t stay long.”
“Works for me.”
This situation left me with a bad taste in my mouth. In the final analysis, who do I trust? Nonny. Who has my best interests at heart, no matter what? Nonny. Who has earned my loyalty and respect through years of unwavering devotion? Nonny. And who do I start deceiving and disrespecting the minute Lance enters the picture? Nonny.
Something tells me I am not the first teenager who has faced this dilemma. That doesn’t make it any easier.
To save time, we decided to leave our bikes at school and skatch. But the rules of skatching are a tad complex. We returned my Schwinn to the bike rack and sneaked behind the gym to a place where we could be alone, arguing about how to accomplish the delicate maneuver. Since I’d never been to Lance and Rune’s apartment, I couldn’t skatch directly to it. So we finally agreed that Lance would skatch home and then immediately walk out to meet me, while I took a huge, stupid risk by squatting down, then skatching to a phone booth I knew, on the corner near where he lives.
It worked, but only because we were right that nobody uses phone booths anymore. My destination was empty. The hunker-down move placed me in the booth below the glass part, so my sudden arrival didn’t catch anyone’s eye. Of course, had anyone been looking at the phone booth, they would have seen me pop up like a jack-in-the-box, but at least I didn’t materialize out of thin air.
Like I said, it was a stupid, risky thing to do.
The booth stank of mildew and I had a bad moment or two when I couldn’t open the folding doors. I fought feebly with them for a few seconds, feeling like an idiot, and finally managed to exit the booth, wrinkling my nose in disgust. I cast an anxious glance at the people in the vicinity, but the only person looking at me was Lance. He was strolling down the sidewalk toward me, grinning.
I swear, the boy enjoys danger for its own sake. I don’t. I don’t even like roller coasters.
His grin was infectious, though. I couldn’t help smiling back. I guess it is kind of exciting to run an moronic risk and get away with it. But I’ll never be a danger junkie.
I looked around me. I’d been here before—well, obviously, or I couldn’t have skatched—but now I assessed it with new eyes, knowing it was Lance’s neighborhood. The reason why the phone booth remained, relic of a bygone era, was that this block was adjacent to the town square and was therefore part of Cherry Glen’s “retro” section. I don’t know if we’re trying to appeal to tourists or attract more ranchette-dwellers or what, but our dinky downtown is suffocatingly cute. Which didn’t seem to suit Lance’s style at all.
“You’re smiling,” Lance said, sounding mildly surprised. I guess I don’t smile much around him. “What’s funny?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Picturing you, apartment-hunting in Cherry Glen.”
He glanced at my thoughts and gave a wry shrug. “Yeah. Cherry Glen wouldn’t be my first choice. But hey, where you go, I go.”
I rolled my eyes.
Actually, I was nervous. I don’t usually disrespect Nonny, so that was buzzing me with a low-grade anxiety current. Plus I was about to meet another spellspinner. Or was I?
Lance answered my unspoken question. “Yeah, he’s home. You think he’d miss this? Everybody’s eager to meet you, cupcake.”
I shivered. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. And don’t call me ‘cupcake.’”
But we were already climbing the stairs to the front stoop. It was a Victorian-era wooden townhouse, duplex-style. Two front doors side-by-side on the porch; big bay windows swelling out on either side, one for each apartment. Lots of architectural gingerbread. I would have thought it charming if I weren’t shaking in my boots.
“Um,” I said. “What, exactly, is the point of my meeting Rune? Refresh my memory.”
Lance looked grim. “You want him on your side.”
His thoughts were unformed, wordless, but I caught the dark shape of ominous images gathering there. Hostile forces were marshalling against us. Against me. My existence, hitherto a rumor, was now an established fact—thanks to Lance’s summer adventures in Cherry Glen. Spellspinners are a closed society. I hadn’t meant to crash the party, but apparently I was going to pay for my unknown parents’ rule-breaking when they created me. Not a pleasant prospect.
“Great,” I muttered as the door swung open.
One more thing, Lance warned me silently. Don’t let him know we have wholesoul.
Why not?
J
ust don’t. And he ushered me inside.
It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. All the shades were drawn against the bright afternoon and only one lamp was lit, a stained-glass affair that was more useful for atmosphere than illumination. A shadowy figure rose from the armchair beside the lamp.
Lance’s impeccable manners stepped into the breach. “Zara, I’d like you to meet Rune Donavan. Rune, this is Zara Norland.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but this man wasn’t it. He was middle-aged, slim and silver-haired, with the lithe and lethal spellspinner grace I’d found so attractive in Lance. He moved like a cat. I stared, fascinated, as Rune set down his book and crossed the room toward me. Most men nowadays are not graceful. The way Rune moved made him appear courtly, for want of a better word. He wasn’t wearing lace cuffs or a plumed hat or anything, but if he had been, he would have looked right at home in them.
Another kinsman. I think I would have known it, had we encountered each other by chance in a shop or on the street. Meeting him here, like this, I felt goose bumps prickling my arms. As with Amber, I couldn’t read him the way I read Lance, but the call of our shared nature was there, visible in our resemblance to each other and all-but-audible in the air vibrating between us. His eyes were deep-set, hooded, but I could feel them lock on mine and sense his mind searching to touch my thoughts. Instinctively, I blocked him.
He smiled. “Zara,” he said cordially, reaching for my hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I instantly knew that was an understatement.
I shook his hand warily. When our fingers touched, my sense of him sharpened. I assumed the same was true for him. I couldn’t read his thoughts word for word, but I picked up the tone of what he was feeling. Curiosity, mostly. A little hostility, too. He must have perceived my skittishness about being on his turf, but he didn’t let on. For the first time, I wondered about spellspinner etiquette. Was it considered bad form to notice or comment on a fellow spellspinner’s fears?
Yet another area where Lance had proven to be a less-than-ideal mentor. I added ‘manners and customs’ to my mental list of things I needed to understand.
Meanwhile, I offered a strained smile. “Hello, Mr. Donovan.”
“Call me Rune.” He waved me toward a low sofa. “Would you like something to drink?”
Yeah, a stiff one, I thought. Shaken, not stirred. “A Pepsi or something would be great, if you’ve got it. Thanks.”
Lance disappeared into the kitchen while Rune and I sat opposite each other, sizing each other up. I was getting some very strange vibes.
He must have caught my questioning gaze because he gave me a rueful smile. “You’re definitely one of us,” Rune said softly. Regretfully.
“You were hoping I wasn’t?”
“I wondered if Lance might be wrong.” His smile turned apologetic.
I frowned. “Didn’t Lance tell you about last summer? No offense, but honestly—what else could I be?”
I felt his thoughts slide away from me as his glance did, evading my directness. “I didn’t disbelieve him, Zara. I just hoped—for all our sakes—that he was mistaken somehow. It was a foolish hope. I was clutching at straws.”
He must have sensed my exasperation because he gave a low chuckle. “Not very flattering, is it?”
“Not hardly,” I retorted. “Excuse me, but my existence is not my fault. It would be nice if my long-lost relatives would bear that in mind, you know? This antagonism—“ I waved my hand vaguely at the ambient air, as if I could clear it like smoke. “It’s misplaced, if you ask me.”
Rune nodded. “Point taken. I am not usually rude to new acquaintances, I’ll have you know. But meeting you is…unsettling.” His air of polite amusement seemed mocking, but it occurred to me that he might be mocking himself rather than me. “I wasn’t expecting to like you.” He rose, walked to the window and flicked open the blinds. “Come here, child.”
Sensing no evil intent on his part, I obeyed. He took my chin in one hand and tilted my face toward the light. His fingers were cool and strong, his touch impersonal. It was like being examined by a doctor. Rune’s eyes, I noticed, were blue—but no blue I’d ever seen before in human eyes. They were singularly beautiful, a light blue, clear and frosty. His eyes were the color of the shallow end of a swimming pool. And they searched my face intently, studying it as if through a microscope.
“Yes,” he murmured to himself. “The true amethyst. But something …” He frowned and shook his head. “Interesting,” he remarked. He dropped his hand and reclosed the blinds.
“What?” I asked, unnerved. “Something what?”
“Do you have your power stone with you?”
I blinked. The room seemed very dark after the brief flood of sunlight. “My what?”
“Your…” Rune halted mid-phrase. His abrupt stillness reminded me of a wild creature; he froze the way squirrels freeze, halfway across the road, or lizards freeze mid-stride as they race across a stone. In the kitchen, I felt Lance freeze too. Then he appeared in the doorway, frowning.
“What is it?” he demanded. His eyes were fixed on Rune. “What’s going on?”
But Rune had shuttered his mind from us. He was thinking furiously, but neither Lance nor I could read his thoughts.
“Spill it, Rune.” Lance’s voice was rough with worry.
“It’s nothing.” Rune returned to his armchair and settled in, still thinking. The lie was so obvious, even he seemed to realize we would never buy it. Lies, I perceived, were not easily told between spellspinners. And secrets not easily kept. We were too tuned-in to each other.
Lance and I waited.
“Let me gather my thoughts,” Rune said testily. “It just threw me for a moment, that’s all.”
I heard Lance in my head. What did he ask you?
I replied the same way. Power stone? and let him feel my puzzlement.
Lance’s eyes cut to mine, his eyebrows flying up. His thoughts had become one big exclamation mark. What did you tell him?
I spoke aloud. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Lance. Clue me in.”
But Rune was speaking again. “Maybe you don’t call it that. Maybe you have another word for it. I forgot that you weren’t raised a spellspinner.”
I could feel his emotions. They were a strange mix. Excitement and curiosity, the hint that Rune felt he was on the verge of a huge, important discovery. And also reluctance. He was kicking himself for ever mentioning ‘power stone,’ whatever that meant.
So Lance isn’t the only spellspinner who would dearly love to keep secrets from me.
“Just tell me,” I said, exasperated. “It’s not fair. I know you hate to let anyone in who isn’t already part of your circle, but come on. I’m one of you. I should be told.”
Rune leaned forward in his chair, the better to watch my face. “But are you one of us? Are you really? Some would say no.” His voice went dry. “In fact, you yourself would say no. Or so Lance tells me.”
He had a point.
Lance spoke then. “Her spells come undone.” We both looked at him. Anger at his betrayal shot through me, but I felt his mind reach out, sending me reassuring thoughts. You can yell at me later, he told me. To Rune, he said, “Does that tell you anything?” And he disappeared back into the kitchen.
Rune’s face was lit with a sort of amazed excitement. He reminded me of Megan in the throes of scientific inquiry. “Yes,” he said. “I think it might.” He sucked in a breath, looking dazed. “It might have that effect. How intriguing.”
I dropped back onto the sofa, flinging my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, I give up. Just talk about me as if I weren’t here. Maybe I’ll learn more that way.”
Lance reappeared, bearing frosty glasses of something dark. “Grape soda,” he said, handing me one. “To match your eyes.”
How romantic. “Thanks,” I muttered. I was careful not to let my fingers touch his.
I notice
d that the atmosphere in the room had shifted. Rune seemed to have forgotten any enmity he felt when we first met. He was entirely focused on chasing down the mystery.
Thus the power of discovery to the scientific mind.
He was now pacing back and forth, thinking. I could almost hear the gears spinning, although I still couldn’t pick out specific thoughts. He tossed words over his shoulder at us.
“If she doesn’t have her power stone, that might have a number of effects. One of them could be that her power only manifests itself temporarily.”
“Could be?” Lance frowned. “You don’t know?”
“Can’t know. The situation is unique.”
“But you’re the history guy.”
“Yes.” Rune sounded impatient. “And there have been instances, of course, where a spellspinner has been separated from his power stone. Centuries ago, they were routinely taken in battle or stolen by enemies.”
“And when that happened?”
“The spellspinner lost most of his powers. Which is why this is so exciting, frankly.” He spun to face us, his strange, light eyes blazing. “Why is Zara able to do so much? Her spells don’t last, correct? But they are unusually powerful, even so.”
Unusually powerful? I tucked that interesting tidbit away for future pondering. Meanwhile, Rune dropped back in his chair. “There are several possibilities.” He started ticking them off on his fingers. “One, that she has a power stone after all.” He looked keenly at me. “Is there a piece of jewelry that you keep somewhere special? Or wear all the time? It would be purple, by the way. An amethyst.”
I shook my head. “I’m not really a jewelry person.”
“Very well. So we move on to number two, which is that her power stone is hidden from her—but still near enough that she can draw on it unconsciously.”
Lance sat beside me on the sofa, leaving only an inch or two of space between us. Living dangerously, as usual. “Who would hide it from her?”
Okay, I’d had enough. It was time to interrupt. “Go back one step, please,” I said. “What is a power stone?”
