Bat Out of Spell

by Amanda M. Lee

  I was ready when Tim extended his claws and pounced. I hopped up, allowing my air magic to build and give me some lift. I flew over his head, flipping as I turned mid-air and landing with a solid bounce in my calves. I didn’t need to see the surprise in Tim’s eyes when he realized I was gone. I also didn’t need to wait for him to get his bearings and try again.

  It was my turn to attack.

  I extended my hands and planted them on his back, my lips already moving as I conjured a tiny tsunami to encircle him.

  “Two worlds, one door. One creature, no more.” It wasn’t my best rhyming work, but I didn’t have much time to think. It worked. I could tell the second I took a step back and the whipping winds started wailing.

  Tim twisted and contorted, his eyes flashing fire as they widened. “No!”

  “I told you. You can’t be here. You should’ve listened to me. There are less painful ways to force a trip to the other side. This was your choice, not mine.”

  “You witch!” Tim screamed as the wind whirled so fast it distorted his features. “I will be back.”

  “I’m looking forward to it, Tim. Try to take a bath before the next trip. That scent is a dead giveaway.”

  I barely got the words out before Tim disappeared, the wind remaining for a moment before dissipating, licking my hair and blowing it away from my face before the sun returned and illuminated the clearing.

  Well, that was one less thing on my to-do list.

  I WAS EXHAUSTED ON my way home so I decided to stop at the beachside tiki bar for a drink to calm my nerves. Anchors Away was a kitschy bar that offered sand, a cool breeze, twinkle lights, and a bevy of locals looking to hook up. I was open for all of it tonight … except for the hooking up, of course.

  Captain Mack Shakes (so not his real name) manned the bar. He was all bluster and drunken Johnny Depp impressions when tourists were around. When it was just locals, he was a normal guy. Thankfully he didn’t feel the need to put on a show tonight.

  “Hey, Skye.” Mack beamed as I snagged a stool. “I haven’t seen you around these parts in almost two weeks. What’s the special occasion?”

  “I just want a stiff drink – and no singing.”

  Mack snorted. “I heard about your singing last night. I also heard you weren’t alone.”

  Great. I should’ve known that was coming. “I had a little too much to drink last night. I’m not going to let it happen again. You have my word.”

  “You’re close enough to walk home. I don’t care if you get drunk. Just don’t sing. I heard that you’re so bad when it comes to hitting the right notes the deaf want to ban you from karaoke.”

  “Oh, you’re so funny,” I drawled, rolling my eyes until they landed on the daiquiri machine. “Give me something fruity.”

  “You’ve got it.” Mack left me to my deep thoughts. I only jolted from them when he slid a piña colada in front of me at the same moment I felt a presence move in at my right.

  I already had the straw in my mouth when I turned and found Augie watching me with curious eyes. “Are you following me?”

  “No. I always come here on Saturdays. Everyone knows that. I think you’re following me.”

  “Only you would think that.” I sipped my drink and watched as he ordered something blue from Mack. I was curious about how the rest of his day went, but leery of asking. Thankfully Augie took the decision out of my hands.

  “Where did you go?”

  “When?”

  “You know when.” Augie thanked Mack for his drink and twirled the small umbrella in the glass for a beat. “I thought you were with us right up until we hit the resort, and then I realized you were gone. Why did you stay behind?”

  “I just wanted to see if I could find the source of the smell. I couldn’t. It seemed to dissipate, though. It was really weird.”

  “It was weird,” Augie agreed. “I went back out there looking for you and the smell was completely gone, except for a strange remnant that I could only smell in the field to the west of the pit. It wasn’t strong.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, then you have nothing to complain about.” For lack of anything better to do, I sucked on my straw until I started getting a strong case of brain freeze, and then rubbed my forehead and tried to pretend I didn’t hear Augie chuckling. “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.” Augie took a dainty sip of his drink, as if showing me the proper way to do it, and then turned serious. “I was a little worried about you, Skye. I know that scent could be naturally occurring – I’m not sure how, but it’s possible – but it was powerful enough to knock someone out. I thought maybe that’s what happened to you.”

  That was kind of sweet … and annoying. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t.”

  “And yet you checked on me anyway,” I pointed out. “Did you really think I stayed behind to inhale noxious fumes because I’d somehow find that fun?”

  “No, but you didn’t go home and you weren’t at the newspaper office. I had every reason to be worried.”

  I furrowed my brow. “You checked my house?”

  “I did. The only thing I found was that freaking bat you insist on calling a pet. He was flying around the living room making this weird chirping. I almost thought he was yelling at your cat. By the way, when did you get a cat?”

  “I don’t have a cat.”

  “That hairless stray that bites people when they try to pet it … or wrap it in a sweater … was in your living room. It was sleeping in your laundry.”

  Ugh. I hate that freaking cat! “He gets in the house somehow and makes himself at home. He’s not my pet. He’s a tiny hairless terrorist who takes over my space when he feels like it.”

  Augie’s lips curved. “Ah. Well, the cats on this island are all kinds of weird. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.”

  “No, they’re psychos. My only pet is Swoops. I promise you that.”

  “Good to know.” Augie kicked back in his chair and smiled. “By the way, when I stopped at the newspaper office I thought I smelled something in your wishing well.”

  Uh-oh. “Did you look inside? Maybe an animal crawled in there and died.”

  “It looked empty, although the water was kind of green.”

  “Huh.” Seriously, what did he expect me to say to that? “I can’t really say I’ve ever paid much attention to the well.”

  “I have. I used to make wishes all the time when I was a kid.”

  “Oh, yeah? What did you wish for?”

  “When I was little I wished for a Nintendo. When I was older I wished for a pretty girl to play Nintendo with.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “Well, at least you were consistent. What would you wish for today?”

  “I don’t know, but something tells me whatever it is wouldn’t be nearly as easy to handle as those earlier wishes.” As if to prove there was double meaning to his words, he slid his cocktail umbrella behind my ear. “Not nearly as easy to handle at all.”

  Oh, geez! Why must things always get complicated at the exact moment I think they’re going to get easier?

  “Give me another drink,” I called out, resigned.

  “When will the singing start?” Mack asked, winking. “I heard you guys are great at duets.”

  “I heard that, too.” Augie didn’t seem nearly as upset by the statement as I felt. “We’ll definitely have to polish up our act.”

  Now that was a frightening thought.

  Seventeen

  I didn’t mean to stay for more than one drink. My original plan was to drink my piña colada and then head home for a good night’s sleep. I needed to think through my strategy for approaching Sheridan Whitney now that my original idea turned out to be a bust.

  That’s not how things went.

  “Do you want to take a walk on the beach?” Augie used a cocktail napkin to wipe the corners of
his mouth before standing and reaching for his wallet.

  The question seemed to come from nowhere so I had no idea how to answer. One moment we’d been having a perfectly snarky time at the bar – Mack making a fuss over our singing and dancing skills, which he’d apparently seen video footage of – and the banter was more playful than flirty. Now, when I least expected it, he was asking me to walk on the beach. That seemed more flirty than playful.

  “I don’t know,” I said after a beat. “I should probably get home. I have some thinking to do if I expect to find a way to get close to Sheridan Whitney and ask her about her best friend, a woman who very well might’ve had a hand in killing her mother.”

  “Okay.” Augie blinked twice and shook his head. “Or we could take a walk and talk about how best to approach her together. You know … I mean … two heads are clearly better than one.”

  It was a lame attempt. I’d had three drinks over the course of two hours, which meant a lame attempt wouldn’t work on me. There was absolutely no way I could allow whatever this was to continue.

  “Okay.” The single word was out of my mouth before I even grasped what I was about to say. I hopped down from my chair and reached for my purse. “Just let me settle up with Mack.”

  “I’ve got it,” Augie said hurriedly.

  “Oh, no, I can’t let you do that.”

  Augie gently placed his hand on mine to stop me from unzipping my purse. “I’ve got it. It’s three drinks. It’s not as if that’s going to break me.”

  I thought about arguing further, but knew it would simply serve as a way to draw attention to us. “I guess that’s okay. Um … thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  I waited for Augie to square up with Mack, doing my best to ignore the gregarious bartender when he shot me an enthusiastic thumbs-up before heading down the beach. It was harder to pretend I didn’t know what was going through his head when he called after us.

  “Be safe,” Mack yelled to our backs. “Have fun. Wear protection, Augie! I can’t imagine how obnoxious a kid with half your genes and half Skye’s genes would be.”

  It was a good thing it was dark because my cheeks burned so hot I knew there was no way Augie could miss it if we had proper lighting. Thankfully he seemed as nervous as me as he chuckled and shook his head.

  “That Mack is a trip, huh?”

  That’s not the word I’d use for him. “He’s … something,” I said, taking a moment to lift my head and inhale the salty air. “I love this time of year. I love walking on the beach and dipping my toes in the shallows. Not too far or anything, but I love squinching my toes in the sand as the night tide rolls in.”

  “So, let’s do that.” Augie plopped down on the sand and reached for his shoes. “I like a nice walk on the beach, too.”

  I stared at his profile, my stomach twisting as my head started lobbing vulgarities at me due to my rather unnatural thoughts. “You’re kind of cute when you want to be.”

  Augie snapped his head in my direction, the smile that flitted across his face a mixture of pleasant surprise and mirth. “You’re kind of cute, too.”

  I wrinkled my nose as I lowered myself to the ground and tugged off my sandals. “You didn’t always think I was cute,” I pointed out. “You used to tell me I was ugly even for a nun when I first started going to Eternal Springs High School.”

  Augie balked. “I never called you ugly.”

  “You did. You said you could see why I wanted to be a nun because with a face like mine I could never get a husband.”

  Augie’s shoulders sagged as mortification slid across his face. “I am so sorry.”

  I wasn’t used to this contrite creature sitting next to me. I didn’t know what to make of him. I much preferred the cocky Augie I more regularly saw during my daily travels. “It’s not the end of the world. I clearly survived.”

  “Still … that’s not how I felt. Not even then.”

  “Oh, yeah? How did you feel?” It seemed an odd conversation to have given our location and yet the progression felt somehow natural. Augie and I had spent so much time hating one another that the shift to liking one another – er, well, at least working together – opened up a mountain of questions about the past.

  “We were all surprised when we heard you were coming to school with us. Everyone used to be fascinated with St. Joan of Arc – mostly because you guys weren’t allowed to hang out in town without a chaperone – but no one ever got to spend time with you, so the only thing we knew is what our imaginations led us to believe.”

  I guess that made sense. I never thought about it from Augie’s point of view. “What were you told when we started attending school with you?”

  “Well, for starters, the school burning down was big news.” Augie let some sand filter between his fingers. “The night it happened, I remember my mother waking me up and insisting that we had to run out there. There was a real fear that girls would die in the fire.”

  Hmm. “I remember that night differently. You were outside looking in. I was inside desperately trying to get out.”

  Augie slid me a sidelong look. “What do you mean?”

  I couldn’t tell him everything. He couldn’t handle everything. “I was in the basement when the first alarm sounded. I was awake, but the alarm jolted me all the same.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “No. Kenna, Evian, and Zola were with me.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  I shrugged. “The basement filled with smoke quickly.” Mostly because one of the monsters that made it through the gate breathed fire and headed for the curtains first. “I knew the space really well, but I couldn’t see through the smoke.”

  Augie leaned closer. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

  I waved off his concern. “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.”

  “And yet you look like you’re re-living it.”

  “I re-live it all the time.” Sure, it’s mostly in dreams, but I’ve re-lived it other times as well. “We had to call out to each other. Three of us found each other quickly, but it took longer to find Evian. We did, though, and then we had to find the stairs.”

  To my surprise, Augie reached over and carefully gathered my hand in his. “From outside, we could hear the building going. We heard screams inside, and people wanted to run and help, but we were ordered back because it wasn’t safe.

  “I still remember when the first group of girls came through,” he continued. “They were crying, but all together in a line. I thought that was everybody even though I knew it wasn’t. I’d seen you and the older girls before and knew you weren’t outside with the first group, yet I assumed you were safe somehow.

  “That only lasted until a woman started shrieking at the fire chief, who also happened to be the barber at the time,” he said. “She had short hair. It was brown and stood up. I don’t know why I remember that. She was yelling that four girls were still missing. That’s when I realized you were one of them.”

  I was taken aback. “You knew who I was before the fire?”

  He nodded. “I saw you around. I was a teenager. We used to hang out in the woods to drink a little beer now and then. We found a spot where we could watch you guys in the courtyard and we used to hang out and lament the fact that you were going to become nuns. We thought it was a waste.”

  I didn’t want to laugh. It was a serious moment, after all. I couldn’t stop myself. “That’s kind of funny.”

  “Your hair stood out. It was so light and it seemed to have a mind of its own when you walked. You know how people say models walk as if they have wind in their hair? You always walked that way.”

  I was absurdly touched by the admission. “I didn’t know you were there the night of the fire. I don’t remember much about it other than we were frightened until we found our way out.”

  “They were making plans to search for you.” Augie adopted a far-off expression. “I told my mom I wanted to
help search for you, but she told me to stop acting crazy. I was determined to try. Then we heard this noise – as if the building was going to fall in on itself – and the fire chief started yelling for everyone to get back.

  “The woman who said you were still inside yelled … something,” he continued. “I swear it was a language I didn’t recognize. Then, as if by magic, the four of you stumbled through the front door at the same time part of the roof toward the back of the building collapsed. You just made it out.”

  I remembered things a little differently. The woman was Jadis, and she yelled to cast a spell to clear the smoke so we wouldn’t become overwhelmed and not be able to find our way out. “It was a tense evening,” I conceded. “It’s one of those times I’ll never be able to forget.”

  “Yeah, well, when word came down that some of you were going to start going to school with us it was big news,” Augie explained. “You have to understand, all that we knew about you is that you were going to be nuns. When you showed up at school and seemed relatively normal – I mean kind of normal, not totally normal – no one knew what to make of it.

  “We thought you would wear those outfits, habits, and stuff, and we were afraid to hang out with you,” he continued. “Everyone thought you were pretty and wanted to ask you out, but my mother said you guys were already married to God so I shouldn’t push it because I couldn’t compete.”

  He was so earnest I could do nothing but press my lips together to keep from laughing.

  “I can tell what you’re thinking,” Augie grumbled. “You think I’m being an idiot.” He kept his hand on top of mine, either because he forgot to move it or because he liked the feel of skin against skin. “I kept waiting for you to magically turn into a nun after graduation. I thought you’d leave. Then I thought they would rebuild the school. But you stayed and didn’t magically turn into a nun.”

  “You sound disappointed about that.”

  “I don’t think ‘disappointed’ is the right word. I was more confused.”