by Geof Johnson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Geof Johnson
Cover Art by Dan Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Thanks to Valerie Johnson for her helpful suggestions and editing expertise, and to Barbara B. for catching some of the blunders.
ISBN: 9781483551944
Chapter 1
Jamie shifted in his seat and struggled to focus on the professor lecturing at the front of the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still see the young woman watching him from the chair to his immediate right. She wasn’t staring at him, but she was casting regular glances his way. More than a normal college student would. More than enough to make him nervous.
The class was Environmental Science, a freshman-level course with 125 students. Jamie preferred being near the front, but when the young woman had begun sitting near him two weeks earlier, he’d become restless and moved to another seat farther back. Today, he’d gotten up in the middle of the lecture and moved to the last row, and the woman had followed him.
She’s creeping me out. Jamie ground his teeth and stared straight ahead, uncomfortably aware of her presence a few feet away.
Dr. Tindall was talking again about the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet, a topic Jamie usually found fascinating, but he wasn’t getting much out of it at the moment. He was too distracted. When the professor finally dismissed them, Jamie bolted from his chair to the exit, stuffing his pen and spiral notebook into his backpack as he went.
He almost made it to the front doors of the building before he heard an insistent female voice behind him. “Excuse me.”
Jamie glanced over his shoulder to see the young woman from his class, pushing through the crush of students in the hall, heading his way. She’s stalking me. He pretended he didn’t hear her and shoved the door open, but she caught up with him just as he stepped outside. “Jamie?”
He ground his teeth as he stopped and turned on the broad, concrete landing. “Do I know you?”
“I’m Ashley. From Enviro Science.” They had to move aside to let other students get through the door, and she maneuvered around him so that she stood between him and the wide steps that led down to the sidewalk. “Can I ask you something? I noticed you’re really great in that class and you seem to know all the answers and stuff, and the teacher calls on you a lot. I was wondering if maybe you could help me study sometime.”
Jamie looked past her to the courtyard and saw Fred and Nova coming toward him. Fred stared straight at him and her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. Great. Now Fred’s gonna be mad. Jamie turned back to the young woman. She was trim and athletic-looking, with a nice face and medium-length dark blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, but up close, he could tell that she was older than he was. And she was a little too close. Barely a step away.
“Um….” Jamie cleared his throat. “I’m kinda busy, with classes and cross country practice and everything.”
“Oh, you’re a runner? I ran track in high school.”
By this time, Fred and Nova had nearly reached him, and Fred looked angry enough to spit fire.
The young woman moved even closer to Jamie and he edged backward, bumping into the building, trapped against the wall. The brick felt harder than it should, and rough. She put her hand on his arm and said, “I could really use the help with that class. I’ll make you a nice dinner or something and then we can study.”
“Look, uh, Ashley,” he said quickly, “I’d love to talk, but I’m meeting my girlfriend right now.” Fred and Nova were climbing the five concrete steps and Jamie gestured at them. “She’s here now.”
A flicker of annoyance passed through the young woman’s eyes, but then she smiled, spun, and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Ashley. Which one of you is Jamie’s girlfriend?”
“I am,” Fred said coolly, without accepting the handshake.
“This is Fred,” Jamie said. “And her friend is Nova.” He cleared his throat again. “I mean, our friend. She’s my friend, too.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” the young woman said. “I was just telling Jamie how I could use some help in that science class. I registered late for it, and I’m struggling to keep up, but Jamie always seems to know what’s going on. The teacher calls on him all the time.”
“Yeah.” Fred’s eyes narrowed even further, to mere slits. “He’s a science geek. But why are you taking a freshman course? You’re too old for that, aren’t you? You’re must be at least thirty-five.”
The young woman’s mouth tensed for a split-second, then she tossed her head and laughed. “Oh, I’m a freshman, but I’m twenty-two. I worked for a few years out of high school so I could save money for college.”
Jamie checked his watch and said, “Look, we’d like to stay and chat, but we have a meeting with somebody, and we’re late already.”
“Oh.” She glanced at Fred and Nova, then back at Jamie. “All right. I gotta go, too. Think about my offer, okay?”
She skipped down the steps and walked away, and Fred said to Jamie, “What offer?”
“She said she’d cook me dinner if I helped her study.”
“Did she now?” Fred said icily. “And did you take her up on it?”
“Of course not!”
“You certainly were standing close enough to her.”
“She chased me down and cornered me. I was stuck, until you came along.”
“How convenient.”
“Fred, you know me better than that. She was stalking me, that’s all. I didn’t encourage her.”
“Excuse me,” Nova said, “I hate to interrupt a good fight, but he’s telling the truth. He wasn’t using the block just then, and I could feel anxiety pouring off of him like crazy.” She was referring to the special technique, the block, as they called it, that Momma Sue and Mrs. Malley had taught them for hiding their emotions from Nova’s power.
Fred pinched up her mouth and sniffed. “You didn’t have to let her get so close.”
“I wasn’t enjoying it, so relax. Okay?”
“Something else you should know,” Nova said. “She lied about almost everything she said, except for the part about registering late. Her name’s not Ashley, she’s not a freshman, and she’s not twenty-two.”
“I don’t need a Reader to tell me that,” Fred said with a scowl. “She’s old as the hills.”
“She’s not that old,” Jamie said, and Fred shot him a sharp look, broken glass and daggers.
“Seems like she’s in her late twenties, to me,” Nova said.
Jamie checked his watch again. “Can we talk about this later? We’re going to miss the meeting with Dr. Tindall if we don’t hurry.”
“Hmph.” Fred’s scowl faded to a frown. “Where’s her office?”
“Second floor of this building. Can we go now?”
There was a note taped to the professor’s office door: Jamie — had to run. Something came up. Let’s try Wednesday — Dr. T.
Jamie read it and shook his head, standing in the hall with Fred and Nova. “We were too slow.”
“That’s because somebody was busy talking to a floozie,” Fred said.
Jamie ignored her comment. “Can you guys come back on Wednesday, same time?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Fred said.
“W
e need Dr. Tindall’s help. I wish I had thought of it sooner.”
“You’re going to have to give her the magic oath, you know. It seems like an awful lot of people have done that lately. Aren’t you worried about somebody slipping up and blabbing about our magic?”
“I don’t think they can,” Nova said. “After I took that oath, something changed inside me. I couldn’t spill our secret if I had to. If I even just think about saying something about it to a stranger, I feel this…thing, clamp down inside my brain. It’s strong.”
“Good,” Jamie said. “And I believe that Dr. Tindall is the right person to help us with this problem. Uncle Charlie said I should trust my instincts, and my instincts say I should get Dr. Tindall to help.”
* * *
Sammi reached the top of the basement stairs and was greeted by the warm aroma of something cooking. Something good, she thought as she went into the kitchen, where she found Lisa stirring a pot on the stove.
“That smells good, Mommy. What are we having?”
“Rosemary chicken breast. It’s in the oven.” Lisa set the long wooden spoon on a paper towel on the counter. “These are butter beans, and everything’s almost done. What’s your father doing?”
“He’s checking his genealogy site on the computer.”
“Why don’t you run downstairs and give him the five-minute warning?” Sammi started to leave, and Lisa said, “Wait. I’ve been so busy with dinner that I forgot to ask you how school was today.”
“It was fine. We practiced for the Thanksgiving play.”
“That’s this Thursday night, isn’t it? Gosh, this year is flying by.” She leaned one hip against the counter, cocked her head at an easy angle and smiled. “Seems like only yesterday that you’d just run away from home and that horrible foster father of yours, knocking on our front door. With that old, dirty backpack and worn-out clothes, scared as anything.”
“I’m not scared anymore.” Sammi smiled too, but it dimmed quickly and her gaze fell to the floor. “I…I heard voices again today.”
“Oh, my. Was it during school?”
“No, it was when I was riding home with Mrs. Sikes. I’ve been using that new block Momma Sue and Mrs. Malley came up with, so I don’t hear things with my magic during class.”
“Whew, that’s good. I don’t want to get any more calls from your teacher, thinking you’re having a seizure.” Lisa crossed her arms loosely and said, “What did the voices say?”
“I don’t know. They sounded funny. I guess they were talking in another language.”
“I think we should call Fred tonight and tell her.”
* * *
Fred watched as Jamie materialized in her dream. She had decided to use her dream-living room for the setting, one of his favorites, so that he was lying on his back with his head in her lap, on the gold sofa.
“Hey,” he said, once he got his bearings, and reached up with one hand and wrapped his fingers in her red curls.
“Hey yourself,” she said, finishing their ritual greeting.
“Something’s up. I can tell by the look on your face.”
“I wanted to talk some more about what happened with that woman who calls herself Ashley.”
“I wasn’t flirting with her, Fred. I promise.”
“I know you weren’t, it’s just…it’s weird, don’t you think? The way she lied about so many things?”
“Maybe she’s a compulsive liar.”
“Maybe. I can understand her lying about her age, but lying about the other stuff doesn’t make sense.”
“I have that class again on Wednesday. Will you meet me out front with Nova, in case the same thing happens?”
“You bet your booties I will. I’ll bring Melanie, too. I talked to her about it before we went to bed, and she wants to grill this lady and find out what else she’s lying about.” Fred put a hand on his forehead and gently brushed his blond curls from his face. “Sammi called me tonight. She heard the voices again, the ones she can’t understand.”
“This is probably something important, don’t you think? I don’t she’d hear them, otherwise.”
“I agree. They’re in a foreign language again, so how do we go about figuring out what she’s hearing?”
“Didn’t Sammi say that she can remember every word of every conversation she’s ever heard with her magic?”
“What good will that do if she doesn’t understand the language?”
“Maybe we can find somebody who does. Let’s see if Sammi can repeat the words, even if she doesn’t understand them. Think that’s possible?”
“It’s worth a try. But what if she can? Then what?”
“We’ll record it and try to find somebody to translate it.”
“What if it’s about magic?”
“Boy…I hadn’t thought of that. I guess we’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
Fred pressed her mouth into a line and closed her eyes for a moment. “Jamie, the real reason I made this dream tonight is that I want to apologize for getting so jealous today. That was immature and totally uncalled for.”
“Apology accepted,” he said with a grin.
“I’m not done, yet.” She patted his forehead. “It’s hard, being in college. I didn’t expect there to be so many pretty girls here, and some of them are interested in you, I can tell.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Yes, they are. They’re checking you out all the time, but you don’t notice because girls are sneakier about it than boys. It’s even worse when you’re walking through campus with Rollie and Bryce. You’re not just cute anymore, Jamie, you’re handsome. Girls can’t help but look at you, and it’s hard on me.”
“Fred….” He took a long breath. “Two things here. One, you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. You’ve always been beautiful, and now that you’re getting older, you are even more so. You make the angels jealous, you’re so pretty.”
“You really think so?”
“Absolutely. When you walk through campus with Melanie and Nova, every guy turns to stare, I mean, all of them. They can’t help it, with three pretty girls together.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
He shook his head. “And also, because of our special bond, I could never ever be happy with anyone else. I’d never be able to forget the special tingle we get when we kiss. I just wish we got that when we kiss here in dream land.”
“Are you saying you don’t like to kiss me when we’re dreaming?”
“I like to kiss you anytime.”
“Prove it.”
And he did.
* * *
Early the next evening, Jamie, Rollie, Bryce, Fred, Melanie, and Nova all packed into the dorm room that Fred and Melanie shared. It was only thirteen feet wide and twenty feet long, and it had to hold two single beds, two dressers, two desks, and two closets. When Jamie and his friends gathered into that tight space, there wasn’t much room for them to move.
Fred sat at her desk and watched as her laptop booted up. “Sammi just texted me from my mom’s phone. She should be in front of the computer in the basement now.”
“Jamie?” Melanie said. “Wouldn’t this be easier if you just made a doorway to Fred’s house?”
“No, because then I’d have to go visit with my parents, or they’d get their feelings hurt, and Rollie would have to go see his parents, and this would take an hour instead of ten minutes.”
Bryce grunted. “I don’t have an hour. I gotta study for a test.”
“Exactly. Let’s just do this by video chat, if you don’t mind.”
Fred pressed a key on her laptop and Sammi’s smiling face filled the screen, all big dark eyes and dimples. “Fred!”
“Hey kiddo. Where are Mom and Dad?”
“Mommy’s cooking and Daddy’s on his way home from work. When are you coming home?”
“Friday, after my last class. Jamie’s making a big doorway for us so we can all drive our
cars back.”
“Nova, are you coming then?”
“I gotta go home to Hampstead, first. I’ll probably come to your house on Sunday afternoon.”
Sammi’s lower lip poked out and her dark eyebrows drew down. “Why don’t you come on Friday with Fred?”
“I wish I could, but I have to spend a little time with my mom or she’ll get mad. It was the only way she’d let me stay with you guys for Thanksgiving. Otherwise I’d have to go to Savannah with her and visit her weird relatives.”
“Fred, are we going to Momma Sue’s on Sunday for witchin’ lessons?”
“No, Sammi. She’s going to stay with some friends in Mobile.”
“Oh. Well, Nova, is your daddy still coming up to visit from Atlanta?”
“Thanksgiving night, then he and I are going up to a cabin in the mountains for the weekend and do some hiking, just the two of us.”
Sammi counted silently on her fingers and then frowned. “But that’s only four nights. Can’t you stay with us longer?”
“You’ll be sick of me by then. And it’ll be good to spend some time with my dad, since I never really have, you know?” Nova had only recently reconnected with her father, whom she hadn’t seen since she was a baby.
Sammi’s frown remained in place, so Nova added, “But while I’m at your house, I’ll spend as much time with you as I can. We can watch movies together and stuff, anything you want.”
“Little Mermaid!” Sammi said brightly.
“Yeah, sure,” Nova said flatly. “Little. Mermaid.”
“For the fifty-millionth time,” Fred muttered.
Rollie tapped Fred’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Can we get on with this? It’s almost dinnertime and I’m hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
Jamie scratched his ear while he stared at Sammi’s image on the screen. “Sammi, tell us a little more about the strange voices you’ve been hearing lately. How many times have you heard them now?”
“Three, but I don’t know what they’re saying. It’s a man talking in a funny language to another man and some women.”
Jamie rested one hand on the desk and leaned closer to the laptop. “You told me once that you can remember every word to every conversation that you’ve ever heard. Can you remember these strange ones, too?”
