by Amanda Ashby
“I guess it was lucky that I made duplicates.”
“You what?” Cassidy bristled. “So you thought that since I didn’t want to read them once, it would be good to give me a second copy? Especially when I’ve already told you that I’m not doing the school play. Why can’t you respect my decisions?”
“Because you don’t know what you want,” her mom said as she neatly placed the articles on the bench as the microwave began to ding. “You never have. I bet if I asked what your favorite candy bar was, you wouldn’t be able to tell me.”
“Of course I can,” Cassidy replied. It was Snickers . . . no, Mars Bar . . . no, Chunky Kit Kat, or . . . Then she shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “But that’s not the point. This isn’t about chocolate bars, it’s about—”
“What’s going on?” Her dad suddenly appeared, leaning forward on his crutches, sleep still crusting his eyes. Cassidy felt guilty.
“Nothing.” She shook her head and was surprised to see her mom give her a grateful look. Not that Cassidy was doing it for her. She was doing it for her dad. Then she yawned. “Anyway, I’m going to bed now. Try and get some rest, Dad,” she said, before hurrying back to her bedroom. Then she crawled into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.
NINE
Feeble rays of light pushed in through Cassidy’s white drapes, and she was just about to roll over and go back to sleep when she suddenly remembered what had happened yesterday. The owl. The knight called Thomas. The grimoire.
A chill went through her, and she sat up with a start. But as she glanced around the room, there was nothing but the flickering morning sun bouncing off the scissors that she’d used to destroy the book. More important, the eerie sensation that had been her constant companion since she’d discovered the book was no longer with her. She had been right. No book, therefore no stalker knight following her every move.
She pushed aside the drapes and peered out the window to where the trash cans were standing, their tops flipped back like they always were after they’d been emptied. Which meant that not only had she destroyed the grimoire, but it was now sitting in a pile of potato peelings and moldy bread in the back of a stinky truck somewhere.
It was over.
Then she looked at the tattoo on her arm. It no longer burned, but it was stupid to take any chances; she reached for her nail polish remover and vigorously scrubbed it off until her skin was pink and raw. Then she realized that if she was going to get rid of her tattoo, she should get rid of her dad’s as well, just to be on the safe side. She grabbed the remover and hurried to his bedroom, where he was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, with a large pot of tea on the nearby dresser.
“Do you want a cup?” He nodded at the pot, and Cassidy pulled a face. She pretty much loved everything about her dad, but it was going to be a cold day in hell before she drank tea.
“Er, no thanks.” She sat down on the side of the bed, careful not to disturb his knee. “So how are you? Did you sleep okay?”
“Actually, I did,” he said. “By the way, your mom’s gone down to the bakery to grab some croissants, because hey, nothing says Halloween like croissants.”
“Well, the chocolate-filled ones can be pretty scary,” she joked as she fiddled with the nail polish remover. “But I’m pleased you’re feeling better. I was worried that you might have overdone it last night.”
“And I’m wondering why you’re holding a bottle of nail polish remover. Is this going to be like the time you set up a beauty salon and made me have my nails painted?”
“I was ten,” Cassidy reminded him as she opened up the bottle. “I just noticed last night that your tattoo is starting to fade and look ratty, so I thought it was time to take it off.”
“What’s going on?” He looked at her in surprise before noticing that her own tattoo was gone. “Cassidy, are you still worried? Because I thought that we had—”
“No, I promise, this isn’t because I’m worried. I just realized that it was a bit dumb of me to expect you to wear a stupid fake tattoo that came from the mall,” she said in a bright voice while quickly pouring the remover onto a cotton pad and reaching for his arm. “I mean, what will your physical therapists think when they come to visit?”
“I’m pretty sure that they won’t have an opinion on the matter,” he assured her, but all the same he let her scrub his arm clean. She was just screwing the lid back onto the bottle when the doorbell rang. Reluctantly, she got to her feet.
“That will be Nash. Is there anything I can get you before I go?”
“Actually, you could tell me what you’re going to wear to the Halloween party tonight,” her dad said.
“How did you know about that?” Cassidy narrowed her eyes.
“Nash sent me a text message. He said you were worried about me and wanted to stay home to help me with my leg exercises. Which is very nice, but completely unnecessary. Besides, if you do stay at home, you know that your mom will make you open the door and greet all of the trick-or-treaters.”
“Having knee surgery makes you play dirty,” Cassidy answered, while making a private note to kill Nash in a slow and very painful manner for mentioning the party to her dad. “I can’t promise that I will go to the party, but I will think about it. Happy?”
“Yes, thank you.” He gave her a smile as she leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the brow. Then she said her good-byes and went out to where Nash was waiting for her by the door. Today he was wearing a pair of heavy gray army-surplus trousers and a long coat that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a highwayman.
“I thought I would come in to see how your dad is. Plus, I wanted to look at the grimoire and cross-reference it with what I’ve found.”
Cassidy winced. She was pretty sure that once Nash found out what she’d done to the grimoire, he would be crazy-mad—with emphasis on the crazy-mad part—which was why she needed to distract him.
“He’s feeling much better, but the chances of your seeing him are slim to none,” Cassidy said in a light voice as she crossed her fingers, hoping that her distraction worked. “Thanks to the fact that someone told him about a certain Halloween party. Oh, and in case you didn’t get it, the someone that I’m referring to is you, Nash Peterson.”
“Oh.” Nash had the good grace to look guilty before he shot Cassidy a curious look. “So did it work? I told him to explain to you that science proves teenagers are wired to take risks and move away from their tribe so that they can keep the gene pool expanding. And that it was, therefore, unnatural of you to want to stay at home.”
“Strangely enough, he didn’t lead with that argument,” Cassidy retorted as they finally reached his car. “And I’m not going to change my mind.”
“Fine.” He shrugged. “Now, back to my research. If you won’t let me come in the house, do you at least have the grimoire with you? Because I have found out that—”
“Actually, before we get into that, d-did you notice the night sky last night? There was this amazing constellation, and I was wondering if you knew what it was called, since you think astronomy is so much fun.”
“Astronomy is fun,” he corrected before coming to a halt and narrowing his eyes. “And since when do you care about the stars—especially when you’re in the middle of a crisis. Cassidy Carter-Lewis, what’s going on?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay, so don’t freak out, but I got rid of the grimoire last night.”
“What do you mean ‘got rid of it’? How did you get rid of it?” Nash folded his arms, his voice dangerously low.
“I cut it up and threw it out in the trash, which was collected this morning,” she said in a rush as Nash’s face went completely still, like one of the marble statues that he admired so much. He made a grunting noise before he suddenly walked away from her, his voluminous coat billowing out behind him. Cassidy watched him circle her front yard three times before finally coming back to where she was standing next to his mom’s car.
Then he let out a breath. �
�Cass, my sweets, I love you like the sister that I, thankfully, never had, but I’m struggling with this. I mean, that grimoire was a relic. An artifact. It was completely unique, and its existence might’ve helped us to change our entire perception of how the world really works. And you destroyed it? How could you have done something like that?”
Cassidy was sensing that he didn’t want a blow-by-blow account of her scissors attack, so she took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m sorry, but I had to. It was like something was trying to claw at me from inside out. It felt wrong. It felt evil. And it was all because of the grimoire. Thomas told me that’s how he found me, and I saw on the book the same eyes as were on the owl. The guy might be a knight, but he definitely doesn’t have any shining armor. I just needed to get him and his creepiness away from me. And more important, get it away from my dad. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Nash filled his cheeks with air for a moment before slowly releasing it. Then he sighed. “I’m not mad. Just shocked and, if I’m honest, confused.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I went back to Howard’s. He has an extensive collection of occult books, and he owes me a favor or two, so he let me spend the entire night researching grimoires, and one of the many interesting facts I learned was that they’re imbued with magic, and, as a rule, magic books aren’t that easy to destroy.”
“Well, this one was,” Cassidy assured him. “Not only did it look like confetti by the time I finished with it, but I can tell it’s gone just by the fact that I no longer have the unsettling feeling in my stomach that I’m being watched,” she explained. “It’s over.”
“Yes, but—” However, before he could finish, her mom’s car pulled into the driveway, back from her Halloween croissant run. Cassidy immediately hurried around to the passenger’s side of Nash’s car and nodded for him to get moving. Thankfully, he merely scooped his books off the roof, and while his face didn’t quite lose its strained expression, he got in, fired up the engine, and pulled away before the electronic garage door had even opened.
Thanks to the fact that Nash was a certified brainiac who did advanced everything, Cassidy, with her B-minus average, didn’t see much of him for the rest of the day. She knew he was still pissed at her about destroying the grimoire, but he would come around eventually; he always did.
She rounded the corner as the final bell rang, trying to decide what movie she and her dad should watch tonight, when a backpack slammed into her chest, knocking the wind out of her. She doubled over as tears of pain stung her eyes.
“Watch it,” snapped a large guy wearing deck shoes, as if Cassidy’s chest had somehow damaged his precious backpack. Cassidy vaguely recognized him as Scott Wilson, a senior jock and a full-time conceited idiot.
“I think you’re the one who should watch it, buddy,” someone said, and Cassidy managed to unbend herself enough to see the new guy, Travis, standing next to her, wearing a pair of impossibly faded Levi’s and a well-loved gray T-shirt, while his tangled hair was carelessly pushed back from his smooth brow so that she could feel the full impact of his warm brown eyes.
Scott turned back around and stared at Travis, a look of disbelief spreading across his face. “Seriously, are you talking to me?”
“That’s right,” Travis agreed in a pleasant voice. “It just seems like you forgot to offer”—he paused for a moment and turned to Cassidy—“what’s your name?”
“Cassidy,” she found herself replying in a breathy voice, too surprised to do anything else.
“Thanks.” He grinned at her for a moment before turning back to the other guy, his eyes narrow and intense. “Anyway, it seems that you forgot to offer my good friend Cassidy here an apology.”
“What the—” Scott puffed out his chest like some kind of predator from Animal Planet before suddenly looking at Travis and freezing. There was nothing aggressive or intimidating about Travis, but whatever mojo he had going on, it seemed to be working; Scott suddenly nodded. “Er, right. Yeah, look, I’m sorry about that,” he mumbled before scampering off. The moment he was gone, Travis turned to her.
“Are you okay?”
“Um, y-yeah, I’m fine,” she stammered, still feeling the lingering sting where the backpack had hit her and wondering whether her cheeks were blotchy. “And thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. That guy was a jerk for doing it in the first place.”
“Definitely,” Cassidy agreed as she glanced around the hallway to where all the other students were getting jostled and pushed around by the seniors. “And by the way, welcome to Raiser Heights High. Land of the jerks. So how did you get him to apologize anyway?”
“I guess I appealed to his better self?” Travis gave a modest shrug before glancing at the time on his cell phone. “Anyway, if you’re okay, I’d better go. I need to get to the library before it shuts to get a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Turns out that being new doesn’t get you out of doing the book report that’s due on Monday.”
“Oh.” Cassidy shook her head in surprise while wondering what sort of school he’d gone to before. “You won’t have any luck. The library has only two copies, and they probably won’t be returned until some time next term.”
“Really?” Surprise crossed his face. “Well, that will make the report more interesting to do.”
“Just don’t try to lift anything from the Internet, because Mrs. Webster has one of those programs that can tell,” Cassidy warned before she nodded for him to follow her. “Look, you can borrow my copy if you want.”
“You want to give me your book?” He immediately frowned, which somehow made him even better looking. “What are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got Nash,” Cassidy assured him as they reached her locker and she punched in her code, only then remembering that her locker was stuffed full of various belts, necklaces, and cardigans that she’d worn and then halfway through the day decided were stupid and ended up taking off. If he saw that mess, he would run a mile.
“Nash?” Travis knitted his brows as Cassidy tried her best to block her locker and grab the book for him at the same time. “What’s a Nash?”
Cassidy found herself laughing. “Nash is a person. He’s my friend, and he also happens to be a genius. Very handy when it comes to book reports.”
“I can imagine.” Travis grinned as Cassidy held out the battered copy that was her dad’s from when he was in school. Travis gave a reverent nod as he took it, somehow seeming to understand that it was important to her.
“Thank you. You are very kind, Cassidy.” As he spoke, his dark eyes caught hers, and Cassidy felt her face start to heat up. But before she could say anything else Celeste Gilbert and a group of her friends walked past, and when they saw Travis, they immediately beelined toward him.
“Travis, there you are,” another senior, Rachel Brett, squealed as she possessively hooked her arm under his. “Mrs. Jenkins from the office wants to see you. She had a question about your transfer papers, and she wants to get it sorted out today.”
“And since we’re not doing anything else,” Celeste added, once again ignoring Cassidy, “we told her that we would escort you there.”
“Oh.” Travis politely nodded his head. “Sure, I guess.”
“Good, come on then.” Rachel began to drag him off. As he went Travis rolled his eyes and mouthed good-bye in a pained way, clutching at the book she’d given him as if it was a life raft. Of course, considering that Travis had managed to get Scott Wilson to apologize, Cassidy was pretty sure that he could have avoided being dragged off by Celeste and Rachel if he’d really wanted to. But still, she couldn’t help smiling at the thought that he was holding her book. Then she heard Rachel’s voice ringing out in the distance.
“By the way, Travis, you still haven’t told me what you’re wearing to Cade Taylor’s Halloween party tonight.”
Before Cassidy could hear his answer, Nash appeared. “There you are. I’ve been waiting outside for ages,”
he started to say, before suddenly noticing something. He narrowed his eyes. “You look like you’ve just won the lottery. Why are you smiling?”
TEN
Cassidy stared into the mirror. An Audrey Hepburn zombie stared back at her. She readjusted her tiara and tried to decide if she’d overdone the fake blood, which was covering her chin. Would anyone even think that she was a zombie? Perhaps she just looked like Courtney Love on a bad makeup day, which definitely wasn’t the look she was going for. Especially since Travis was going to be there.
Travis was going to be there!
Just thinking his name caused a stab of indecision to go racing through her, and she hurried over to her bed and studied the other costumes that were lying there. She picked up the Lara Croft one. She’d almost worn that last year before Nash convinced her they should go as Bonnie and Clyde. But at least no one would mistake her for a crazy person if she was wearing it. Then she turned to the giant Angry Bird outfit, which she’d spent far too much money on, but decided red wasn’t her color. She chewed at her fake-blood-stained lip, but before she could make up her mind, she heard Nash’s car pull up, so she grabbed the Lara Croft costume and stuffed it into her oversize handbag. At least her choice was now between just two.
As she raced down the hallway, she caught sight of her dad sitting up in his bed, his knee elevated, just as the doctor had ordered. She poked her head in.
“Hey, I just thought I would say good-bye,” she said, walking over to his bedside.
“Wow, you look great. Though I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s again without thinking of blood.” Her dad smiled as he put his book aside. “I’m pleased that you’re going out tonight. What made you change your mind?”
“Nothing,” she said a little bit too quickly, trying not to think about her run-in with Travis this afternoon.
“Is that code for boy?” her dad asked with interest, and Cassidy let out an embarrassed groan.
