Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4

by Shauna Granger

  “Oh, honey, it’s gorgeous,” she said as she unfurled the scarf from the wrapping. When she twined it about her neck, I was pleased to see it did just what I wanted it to do for her eyes and complexion. She pressed me in another hug and gave me a tiny white box tied with a bright red bow. Inside was a delicate sterling silver star set on a complimentary chain.

  “Did you make this?”

  “Of course.”

  “I love it,” I whispered, pulling the chain out and clasping it around my neck. The star sat at just the right point and glittered in the light. I already owned a pentagram, but what was nice about this charm was that it wasn’t obvious; people would just see a star and think nothing of it.

  “I have gifts for Steven and Jodi as well, but I guess they’ll have to wait.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “I didn’t tell them I was coming, I just needed out of the house. They probably won’t thank me for it later.”

  “So, do you want to tell me why you look so different now, or keep up with the pleasantries for a while?” Deb asked as she sat in her customary chair. She didn’t even surprise me with it. What was more surprising was that she hadn’t asked me sooner, but with the shock of Liam, I suppose it took a backseat for a little while.

  So I sat down and accepted the cup of tea and began to tell her my story. I told her about the half-remembered nightmares and my mom reading her cards. I told her about my reading the cards and getting sick last night. I told her about rushing into the night and becoming lost in the tree, emerging naked and changed. She didn’t say anything for a few minutes, turning my story over in her head. I got the feeling she wanted to ask me about Liam, but I had thrown her a curve ball.

  “You didn’t think Liam had something to do with the way I look, did you?” I couldn’t help but laugh a little. It was just ridiculous.

  “Well, you can never be sure. You kids surprise me every day.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Good. Well then.” She readjusted herself in her chair, taking the moment to pause. “I believe it was just a case of feral magic last night. You were weak and weary and didn’t have any control over yourself and couldn’t protect yourself from the wild magic.” I nodded. “It’s just a good thing you still had some wits about you so the tree couldn’t take you.”

  “To be honest,” I said, “the thought entered my mind. It was tempting.”

  “I’m sure it was. But that’s nothing to be upset about. Being an Elemental as you are, that’s always going to be something that tempts you. In one part of your mind, your soul, it feels like the right thing. It feels natural. I’m sure Jodi and Steven deal with the same temptations.”

  “They’ve never said.” My vision went soft as I thought about my time in the tree, losing my reality and then staring into the face of my mirror spirit. I saw her smile, her finger crooking, telling me to join her. How close I had come to stepping through the glass, how weak I had been.

  “Don’t panic,” Deb said softly, drawing me out of my thoughts and back into the mundane room we sat in. “You have these dreams for a reason. They’re just another ability for you to help people.”

  “But I can’t remember them!” I all but yelled in my frustration. “I can usually remember them, get key points, something from them. But twice now and I’ve got nothing! I don’t even know why I’m there.” I lost it then and started crying. Deb came over, sitting on the arm of my chair and wrapped an arm around me, quietly comforting.

  ***

  Once I composed myself and waited a few minutes for the puffiness of my eyes to fade, I left the store. I promised Deb about a dozen times that I wouldn’t let Liam get to me and that I’d be careful around any open flames. I drove back to my house. When I pulled up out front, my hands were beginning to tremble. I had too much coffee and sugar with too little food. I went straight into the kitchen after dropping my purse on the table and started hunting for something to eat.

  I could feel the churn of my stomach, warning me that I was close to becoming sick instead of hungry. I grabbed a bag of potato chips to munch on while I assembled a sandwich. I poured a large glass of milk and gathered everything up to take back to my room. I settled down in the middle of my area rug that covered the protective pentagram chalked over my floor, different angelic script filling in the spaces between the lines of the star and double circles.

  Just being there made me feel a little better. I forced myself to eat slowly, counting my bites before I swallowed so that I wouldn’t get sick. A glance at the clock showed me that it was the middle of the afternoon already. I would have to start getting ready for tonight soon. I wondered if Steven and Jodi would come over to get ready, if Steven planned to do our make-up for us. I just wanted to curl up into a ball under my covers and forget about going out tonight. Nothing can get to you under the covers so long as you resist the urge to peek.

  “I never asked for this,” I muttered to myself, dropping the last two bites of my sandwich back on my plate. I crossed my arms over my chest and sat in the middle of my floor, pouting. It felt good to give over to the bitter feelings for a few moments. It felt good to feel like an angry teenager just then. I felt my teeth grinding against each other and the pain starting to creep up my jaw.

  “Jodi and I never did sneak out to meet boys and do something stupid like we promised ourselves over the summer,” I said to the empty room. When Jodi and I snuck out of my house to rescue a boy from a megalomaniac air sylph, we told each other we would do something totally stupid as a reward. It never happened. I knew I was stretching myself too thin. I was going to have to allow myself some pointless, reckless fun soon or go mad from the lack.

  The next thing I knew, the tiny voice of Sully Erna was ringing nearby, waking me. I pushed away from the floor, feeling the prickly bite of my area rug in the skin of my cheek and a twinge in my neck. Sully’s song was almost over when I finally snatched my phone from the edge of my desk. Jodi’s number and picture flashed on the screen before I answered.

  “Hey,” I said as I pushed to stand, rubbing the pins and needles out of my right hip.

  “Dude, lose track of time?” Jodi asked. I glanced at my clock and realized I had been asleep for hours on my floor, desperately cutting into my time to get ready.

  “Yeah, guess so,” I answered.

  “You sound groggy; you weren’t sleeping, were you?”

  “Yeah, sorry, I won’t be long.”

  “It’s cool, take your time. If you don’t, Steven will attack your face, you know,” Jodi said, making me feel a little better about being late.

  “True. All right, give me like half an hour?”

  “Sure, I’ll tell Steven and Anthony to come over here and you can just pick us all up at once.”

  “Cool, see you then,” I said and we hung up. I walked over to my mirror and shook my head at the mess my face and hair had become. My cheek was as red and puckered as I thought and my hair looked like a bad impression of an eighties hair band’s lead singer. Luckily I hadn’t put makeup on that morning, otherwise I might’ve broken half my eyelashes during my impromptu nap. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, pulling in the cold winter’s bite, feeling it cool my skin and ease the redness on my face. When I looked again, my cheeks matched.

  I didn’t bother to style my hair with so little time; instead I pulled it up into a high ponytail, smoothing my hair against my scalp and spraying way too much hairspray to keep the flyaways at bay. I did take a little extra time with my makeup though, knowing Jodi was right about what Steven would do if he didn’t think I had done a good enough job. I looked a little more human with the mascara and smoky eye shadow on, but I didn’t bother with powder or foundation – it just makes me feel itchy.

  I pulled on dark blue jeans, my purple boots, a flattering black sweater, and a green scarf before I grabbed my coat and hurried out of my room. I was just grabbing my purse from the kitchen table when I heard my mom call for me in the living room
.

  “Hey,” I said casually as I came around. I bent over my dad in his recliner to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Be safe tonight, honey,” he said, and I smiled before walking over to my mom to give her a hug.

  “I always am,” I said as I hugged my mom around the shoulders.

  “Shay,” my mom started, holding on to my hand when I went to pull away. I saw a look cross her face, but I wasn’t sure what it was. She looked confused. I let our channel flood through me and realized she was having a moment of déjà vu as she stared at me.

  “I promise, I’ll be careful,” I said again. “No drinking, no drugs.”

  “Yeah,” my mom said vaguely, nodding. She squeezed my hand before she let go.

  “Happy New Year’s!” I said, trying to get my mom to snap out of it, but she just kept staring at me. I waved at both of them and left, locking the door behind me.

  Chapter 16

  Steven still tried to attack my face when they piled into the car, but Jodi effectively beat his hands back and shoved him away from the front seat.

  “Gee, Steven, you sure do know how to make a girl feel pretty,” I said, staring at him through the rearview mirror. He squirmed in his seat, clearly unsure how to answer that.

  “No,” he finally said, rallying. “You look fine, but you’re way too subtle with your makeup. I mean, it is New Year’s after all.”

  “Well, I think you look lovely,” Anthony said, and I smiled at him in the mirror.

  “Thank you, Anthony,” I said as I headed towards the freeway onramp. It was only seven o’clock, so the freeway wasn’t yet a parking lot, which made me very grateful. That sandwich hadn’t been nearly enough and my stomach was already grumbling. The plan was to eat first and then figure out which club we could all agree on to ring in the New Year.

  Our luck with traffic ran out as soon as I got off the freeway near State Street. Everyone groaned as we saw the cars lined up, bumper to bumper, even on the side streets. All of the free parking lots had signs stating we would have to pay to park tonight, but they were all full anyway. We ended up parking about half a mile away from State Street, making me more than grateful for my choice in footwear.

  “Seriously?” Jodi whined when she realized how far we would be walking.

  “Sorry, babe, not much choice.” I shrugged, considering if I wanted to bring my coat with me or not. When I saw my breath puff out in white clouds, I decided to bring it.

  “Ugh,” she sighed before sitting back down in the passenger seat and pulling off her heels. After the concert, she’d learned her lesson and had black ballet flats in her purse. She pulled them on and got back out of the car, her shoulders slumping forward when she realized how much shorter she was now.

  “Aw, don’t feel bad, babe,” I said, coming around the car and putting my arm around her shoulders, hugging her to me. “You’re no shorter than me.”

  “Yeah, I guess so, but look.” She picked up her right foot and jiggled the cuff of her jeans, which were too long now.

  “That’s our lot in life,” I said with a shrug. We headed on our hike towards State Street, Jodi’s and my stomachs grumbling the whole way. Steven and Anthony walked behind us, hand in hand, talking low and laughing quietly together. After his break down in my car, it warmed something inside of me to see him so happy, so at peace. At least one of us had someone to kiss at midnight.

  Dinner ended up being fast food at a tiny pizza place because all of the regular restaurants were packed and the wait times were over an hour. I think I would’ve killed someone and eaten them if I’d had to wait an hour to eat. We were standing at a tall table, grease coating our fingers, munching on large, New York style slices as we people watched, Jodi and Steven offering their colorful commentary of the choice of clothing and hairstyles of the passersby.

  “Yes, I do think lingerie was the best choice she could’ve made, you know, for the fifty-two degree weather,” Jodi said, making Steven snort into his soda. I pulled a piece of pepperoni off of my slice and popped it into my mouth, smiling and shaking my head. At least they couldn’t hear us through the window, the poor bastards.

  “So, where are we going?” Anthony asked. He was shaking a liberal amount of crushed red peppers onto his slice as he spoke, making me grin as I thought about Steven’s roasted red pepper signature. Curious about our plan as well, I glanced at Jodi and Steven. The sidewalks were thick with crowds and all of the clubs and bars seemed to boil over with people.

  “I guess anywhere we can get in,” Steven offered and Jodi nodded in agreement.

  “I don’t mean to be the stick in the mud here, but I’m not really all that excited about going into a place where you can’t even move without getting overly intimate with a hundred strangers,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Anthony agreed. “I mean, all of downtown almost looks like an outdoor club. Might be just as much fun to hang out outside.” I smiled at Anthony for backing me against his own boyfriend and he nodded slightly.

  “Hmm, well, that’s an idea,” Steven said. “Jodi?”

  “I guess so. I mean, we’ll probably just end up standing in line all night and never get in anyway.”

  “Cool, maybe we can go get coffee after this and we’ll just find some place to hang out,” I said and everyone agreed, to my great relief. I had better control over my empathy and blocking out larger groups of people, but these clubs looked worse than sardine tins and just as oily. We finished our pizza and breadsticks and gathered up our coats and left. I snagged Jodi’s arm and walked arm in arm, with Steven and Anthony behind us again. We waded through the crowds of people, heading towards the coffee shop. I was surprised how much warmer State Street was than everywhere else tonight, but with so many people out, they were heating the chilly air. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad out tonight.

  Or so I thought. It took nearly an hour just to get our coffee between wading through the mass of people and then standing in a line that went out of the store and curved on the sidewalk. Clearly we weren’t the only ones who’d given up on the idea of getting in anywhere. By the time we all had our coffees and were huddled together back on the sidewalk, the crowds had grown thicker as we got closer to midnight.

  “We should’ve just stayed in Ventura and gone to a party or something,” Anthony said, his breath visible in the air before him.

  “No kidding,” I agreed before taking a careful sip of my chocolate flavored coffee. Jodi and Steven didn’t say anything. I could feel their mutual disappointment like tinfoil between my teeth; this wasn’t how our first “grown up” New Year’s was supposed to go.

  “Hey,” Steven said, looking past mine and Jodi’s heads, “isn’t that Trevor from school?” We turned as one to see who Steven was looking at. A few yards and a hundred people away, we saw the boy Steven meant; Trevor was medium height and medium build with chestnut brown hair, but he had a baby-face and a light sprinkling of freckles on his nose and cheeks that most of the girls in our year thought were adorable. Couple that with his Buddy Holly glasses and easy smile and he was one of the most in-demand guys in school. He was also incredibly smart, so much so not even our advance placement math and science classes were hard enough for him and he’d been taking classes as the local community college.

  He saw us staring and lifted a hand in greeting. We all waved back, but Jodi’s wave might’ve been a little more enthusiastic. I heard Steven snicker behind her back and stomped on his foot, making him curse while I thought at him, Shut up! It had been a lovely evening, all things considered, and I did not want a repeat of the bonfire.

  “Wonder what he’s doing tonight,” Jodi said, trying for a light tone, but I could feel her curiosity like an urging hand on my back.

  “Why don’t we go say hi?” I offered, taking Jodi’s arm and leading the way before she could pretend to protest. After the first couple of steps, she stopped pulling against me and started walking with me. I could feel Steven following us like a portable heater at my back. I
f Anthony hadn’t been with us, I would’ve cuddled up to him for his heat by now. Once we finally got close enough to Trevor to talk at normal levels, I let go of Jodi and managed a small smile, which Trevor returned with his own bright version. Yeah, he was a real cutie.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, nodding to the boys behind us after Jodi practically melted from his smile.

  “How’s it going?” I nodded back to him, cupping my hands in front of my face and trying to breathe some heat into them, wishing I had remembered gloves.

  “Eh, this is kinda crazy, right?” He indicated the crowd around us. I didn’t recognize any of the people he was standing with, so I figured they were probably people from his college classes.

  “I know, right?” Jodi answered, laughing lightly. I stepped on Steven’s foot before he could so much as breathe.

  “You know, my friends said there’s a big party at the botanical gardens,” Trevor said, glancing at said friends, who all nodded in agreement.

  “Really?” I asked. “Like a legal party or…” I let the sentence hang and Trevor grinned, shrugging his shoulders.

  “I guess that depends on your definition of ‘legal.’” He made air quotes with his fingers.

  “How do you mean?” I pressed. I had been in enough trouble with the police lately. I really didn’t need anymore, especially since I was eighteen now.

  “Well, we’re not breaking in, if that’s what you’re worried about,” one of Trevor’s friends said.

  “So you guys are going then?” Jodi asked, cutting me off from asking any more questions. I could feel her annoyance.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Trevor said, turning to his friends for confirmation. Some nodded, some agreed aloud. Jodi turned to me, her face open and hopeful like I was her mom and she needed my permission. I was a little embarrassed by it, even though it was my car, so really it was my call, but still; was I that much of the mom in our group?