by Amy Garvey
“Oh, that was Neddie.” She tosses it off and shrugs. “He’s not around much.”
“He’s cool,” Bay says, and leans back against the wall, one elbow up on the table. His coat is hanging on the wall next to mine and a yellowed rabbit-fur jacket I really hope is fake. I assume it’s Fiona’s.
I don’t know what I expected Bay to wear under that dumb coat. Black pleather? A three-piece tweed suit? But he’s in a totally normal, gray button-down and faded jeans, and up close his face is friendlier and less mysterious than it had seemed after our one brief meeting.
I realize what he’s said a moment too late, and I try to sound casual. “A threat? Is anyone a threat?”
He smiles, and even though it’s simple, instantaneous, I can’t help feeling that there’s something lurking behind it. A shadow that flickers by too quickly to make out. “Not really, no. And Connie’s totally taken care of.”
Taken care of? I’m not sure I like the sound of that, but before I can steal a look at her, Fiona adds, “Simple spell. She doesn’t hear anything we say about the craft.” Her grin is pure delight.
I don’t have to make up an excuse to glance at Connie now—I can hear her shoes on the faded linoleum floor, and when I look, she’s carrying three giant mugs and a pot of steaming water.
“I’ll be right back with the tea stuff and the cake. I assume you cheapskates—oh, I mean, poor, starving students—want three forks, right?” She looks exhausted, and her blue eyes are as faded as the floor.
“Absolutely!” Fiona chirps, and jumps up. “I’ll help.”
“So what kind of spell is that?” I ask Bay when they’re gone.
“Nothing fancy.” He shrugs. “Just takes the right wording. And some power.” He runs his finger around the rim of one mug idly. “Do you use spells?”
“I have,” I say carefully. No way am I saying what for.
His smile is just as slow as Gabriel’s can be, but on him it seems practiced, like he’s acting the part of the mysterious stranger. “But you don’t always need to?”
I think of my mom, of Mari, of the kinds of things Mom has seen me do that startle her.
And then I think of Gabriel, and the way he balked at the show I put on for him last night without even a word.
“No.”
Fiona comes back with the cake and the tea bags just in time to hear Bay say, “Oh, we’re going to have some fun.”
Chapter Eleven
WHEN WE TUMBLE OUT OF THE COFFEE SPOT an hour later, the chilly morning has turned into a diamond-hard afternoon. The sky is bright blue, and the wind is a sharp knife, Fiona is moaning and shivering in her tiny jacket, and the whole thing seems hilarious and perfect.
And I’m not thinking about Gabriel at all.
Bay looks sleek and sated, like a big cat, and he’s still licking the sticky ghost of cake frosting off one fingertip as we head down the block. I don’t know where we’re going, and I don’t really care, as long as this sugar-high happiness lasts.
“Do you know anything about glamours?” Bay asks, eyes scanning the sidewalk. There aren’t many people around over here, not the day after Christmas.
“I’ve heard of them.” I decide not to tell him where I’ve heard of them, as in movies and fairy tales.
He whispers something under his breath, looking over my shoulder at Fiona, and then back at me. “Hey, where’d Fee go?”
She’s gone, and I whirl around, wondering if she ducked into a store. Knowing her, she’s hiding behind a mailbox or something.
“I don’t know,” I say, and look back the way we came. The sidewalk is empty.
Then I hear Fiona’s demented, delighted giggle.
“What did you do?” I ask Bay. In the scheme of things, making one girl invisible for a few minutes is nothing compared to raising someone from the dead, but he did it so quickly, so easily, as if he’d been doing it forever.
I want to know what else he can do. And what he can teach me.
He spreads his hand in the direction of the giggle, and the air shimmers for a split second before Fiona reappears, beaming. “So cool, right?” She claps. “Comes in very handy, let me tell you.”
I can imagine, and for a moment an alarm bell goes off somewhere in my head, but it’s faint. I ignore it.
“Show me something,” Bay says, nudging me with his shoulder. “Show us something.”
“Here?” We’re almost in the center of town again, and there are more people on the sidewalks, cars passing in the street.
“Sure.” He shrugs, and Fiona turns around to dance backward in front of me, watching.
Both of them are acting like this is no big deal, but I’m nervous about being out in the open, not to mention performing on demand. I can’t do anything too flashy, and I’m not sure I can do anything anyway—my mind is suddenly blank as I consider the green metal trash bin a few yards away, the traffic light, the sign above the candy shop.
Fiona pulls a cigarette out of her pocket and lights it, tilting her head at me sadly. “Come on, Wren.”
I grab the cigarette out of her hand once she’s taken a drag, and wave it in the air so it trails a thin, gray stream of smoke. Handing it back, I take a deep breath and blow at the hovering smoke as I concentrate.
It blooms like a flower, but instead it’s a balloon, round and silver, with a shiny white string. It spirals up into the air with lazy grace, and Fiona hoots. “Perfect!”
Bay gives me the slow golf clap, with another practiced smile. “Nice. I like someone who can think on her feet.”
It sounds vaguely ominous, as if he expects us to be heading into battle or something, but I ignore him and walk ahead with Fiona, who loops her arm through mine. The echo of spent power tingles warm inside me, and I can’t help grinning with pride. She looks over her shoulder at Bay before she says, “There’s someone you should meet.”
“Aw. Are we going to see the Wizard?” I tease her, and Bay laughs.
“In Fee’s dreams, probably. No, just another friend. You’ll like her.”
For the moment, with the afternoon unfurling before me like big, gorgeous wings, I’m inclined to believe him.
We skirt the busy center of town and head into the neighborhood along its edge, where most of the actual apartment buildings are. There aren’t many, and they’re old and on the small side, but it’s an old town. Bay cuts through the ragged front yard of a four-story brick apartment complex, and Fiona pulls me along behind him.
“Ring the bell, ring the bell,” she chants, and Bay raises his eyebrows.
“Chill. We’re not going to the circus, Fiona.”
For the first time, she actually looks pissed off, but she doesn’t argue. A minute later, someone buzzes us through the front door, and Bay heads upstairs.
Mari lived near here for a while, before she found the apartment she’s in now, but this place in particular is a little seedier than I remember about this neighborhood. The halls are dark and haven’t been painted in years.
Bay stops on the third floor and knocks on the door of the second apartment on the right. It takes a minute, which Fiona spends fidgeting and tapping her foot, but when it opens, a girl is standing on the threshold.
For a minute I wonder if they were messing around with me—this girl doesn’t have the same air of mischief they do. She’s sort of beige all over, lank, dirty-blond hair and faded corduroys and a light brown sweater, and she looks sort of like she’s opening the door to the firing squad instead of friends.
“Jude.” Bay leans in and kisses her cheek, pushing past her before she can invite us in. “Cheer up, kiddo. Where’s your holiday spirit?”
“Wren, this is Jude,” Fiona says, ignoring him, and I’m surprised she’s the one to actually make introductions. “Jude, Wren is the girl I was telling you about.”
“Oh, right.” Jude summons up a weak smile and steps back. “Come on in.”
Bay is already sprawled on the futon, flicking through what looks like a textbook
. “Are we interrupting big plans?”
Jude stares at him for a minute, eyes flat, and the silence in the room is so heavy, I can feel all the air going out of the afternoon. “No,” she says finally. “It’s fine.”
Fiona’s already rummaging in Jude’s small fridge. “God, don’t you have anything not diet?”
“No,” Jude says just as flatly as before, and sits down in a tattered easy chair that looks like it was a thrift-store special. “Hi, Wren. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Same here.” I hope I sound convincing because nothing about this so far is remotely nice.
I’m trying to think of something else to say, but Jude does it for me. “Are you over at UCC? I don’t recognize you from Summerhill.”
Summerhill is the private arts college on the far edge of town, and I blink. “Um, no. I’m a junior. At the high school.”
Jude looks surprised. “Ah.” She glances at Bay, though, who simply smiles.
Fiona settles on the futon next to Bay with a big glass of orange juice. “I hated high school,” she announces.
“Didn’t we all.” Bay sounds bored and puts down the book to sit forward and rest his elbows on his knees, as if he’s waiting to be entertained.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, I tell myself. That the rest of them are in college, or at least a few years older than me. It’s not like I wandered into some official Grown-up Convention or whatever. But I can’t help wondering if her reaction to me being in high school is as pointed as it seems.
Anyway, it gives me a chance to ask a few questions myself, which I haven’t gotten around to yet. “Do you two know each other from Summerhill?” I ask Bay, and he nods.
“I’m a freshman, and I live in the dorm,” he says, his eyes never leaving Jude’s face. She’s tracing the frayed arm of the chair with one finger. “Jude sort of adopted me last year.”
“So you’re . . . not a freshman?”
When she raises her face to me, the weary sadness there is impossible to ignore. “Nope. I’m a junior, too. Thought I’d try life outside the dorms for a while, especially since they’re so small.”
I’m not sure she got the better end of the deal—her apartment is tiny, and “dump” is a kind word for it, and since she’s here today, all alone, she clearly didn’t have money to go home for winter break. Maybe it’s no surprise she seems so unhappy.
I smile at her, since there doesn’t seem to be anything to say to that. “What about you, Fiona?”
“Fiona here is our resident dropout,” Bay says. “Got herself kicked out of Saint Francis in her junior year, and is now a student of life.” He intones the last part with melodrama, and Fiona rolls her eyes.
“I’ll get my GED eventually. Maybe.” She laughs and licks orange juice off her upper lip. “We’ve been showing off with the craft today, since we have a new playmate. It’s your turn, Jude.”
The way Fiona says “the craft” makes my stomach roll uneasily—it sounds too much like a weird, dangerous cult on her pointed pink tongue, and what’s worse is that it sounds as if she likes it that way.
“You go ahead, Fee,” Jude says with another weak smile. “You want something to drink, Wren? I have Diet Coke and, well, water.”
I probably don’t need the caffeine, but I want it anyway. Maybe I just want the buzz of discovery and freedom back. “I’ll take a Diet Coke if you can spare it.”
For the first time, warmth flickers in her eyes like a guttering flame. “Sure.”
Fiona chants something that sounds like Latin, and a moment later, trembling strings of pink lights hang from the ceiling. She adds another word, and a butterfly like I’ve never seen before swoops between them. It’s huge, practically a small bird, and its wings are purple and blue streaked with white.
The fridge door shuts with more force than necessary, and I look up to see Jude coming toward me with a can of soda.
“Very pretty, Fee,” Bay says, and stretches an arm along the back of the futon. “Isn’t it, Jude?”
“Yeah, pink lights are just what the place needed.” I hate how brittle her voice is—one wrong word and it’s going to snap, slicing someone in half.
I haven’t cracked open the soda yet, and suddenly I don’t want to. I need to get outside, where the air is cold and clean and not so toxic. Whatever is going on between Jude and Bay, or Jude and Fiona, is none of my business. The shine on this day is going to wear off fast if I stick around.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, pretending it vibrated. I turned it off after talking to Fiona this morning, just to avoid the sound of Gabriel texting. “Oh wow. I didn’t realize what time it was. I have a thing later. You know, family. I should go.” I hand the soda back to Jude. “Keep it. I don’t want to take a soda and run.”
She looks relieved, but I have the odd feeling she’s relieved for me and I can’t understand why.
“We just got here,” Fiona protests. She’s already pouting, and her plum lipstick is smeared where she wiped her mouth.
Bay is regarding me silently, and I look straight back at him. I give him my best “want to make something of it?” face, and wave at the room in general. “I know my way home.” I make it a joke, as if there’s any doubt, and call over my shoulder, “Talk to you later. Nice to meet you, Jude.”
The freezing chill of the afternoon is delicious when I step outside, and I breathe it in hungrily. The weird thing is, it was nice to meet Jude—she seems like an okay person. But I felt like I ended a daylong carnival by walking into a wake, and for someone I didn’t even know.
New people are hard, I think as I head home. But not always bad—Fiona and Bay definitely aren’t the villains I’d imagined them to be. Next time, I’ll veto going to Jude’s and let them work out their drama on their own time.
I’m daydreaming, wondering how to replicate those amazing lights, if not the slightly freaky butterfly, and before I know it I’m back in town, turning the corner onto Elm.
Where I nearly run smack into Jess and Darcia.
“Where have you been?” Jess demands. Her cheeks are pink with cold, and the shopping bag over her arm means she’s been out spending gift certificates. “I’ve been calling you and texting you since last night.”
“Did something happen?” Dar asks. She’s bundled into a funny wool cap with a huge pom-pom and fuzzy red mittens. “How was Christmas with Gabriel?”
It’s so good to see them—no matter how cool today was, Jess and Dar are practically extensions of me, but with them my thoughts of Gabriel come rushing back.
All I can think of is explaining what happened with Gabriel—or trying to, since I can’t tell the whole story—and the day’s last bubble of fun pops. I can pretend I didn’t use Fiona and Bay to ignore what happened with Gabriel, and it might be partly true, but not completely.
I don’t know what shows on my face, but before I can form a coherent response, Jess grabs my chin and looks at me closely. “Uh-oh. You look like you could use a mocha. Come with us.”
I might not want to spill all the ugly, upsetting details of my fight with Gabriel, but I know one thing as I let Jess march me toward Bliss—being with the two of them is much better than being alone with my thoughts of him.
Chapter Twelve
I KNOW I CAN’T AVOID GABRIEL FOREVER. BUT for the next two days, I manage to do a pretty decent job.
With Jess’s and Dar’s help, of course. Jess treats us both to a movie the night I run into them in town, and on Tuesday, Dar comes over to help me clean my room. That one was Mom’s idea, and I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a distraction, but I don’t really mind. It’s a pit anyway, and I find three shirts I thought the washing machine had eaten, and a history paper I never turned in.
I don’t tell Mom about that.
It’s not bad—we turn music on, and Robin comes in for a while to sit on the bed and make snarky remarks about slobs and other lower forms of life, but I don’t shoo her out. She loves Darcia, and I figure if I’m not ready t
o call our dad yet, I can at least throw her a smaller bone.
“You are so lucky,” Darcia says, sitting on the bed next to Robin and stroking her thick, straight hair.
“Are you kidding?” Robin says, but she’s blushing. “I love your hair. It’s a lot like Aunt Mari’s.”
“I see no one wants my hair,” I point out. “Thanks. Also, no one is helping anymore.”
“We’re taking a break,” the two of them say in unison and laugh.
I groan and turn back to the bookcase I emptied out all over the floor, and my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I can’t keep it off all the time, since Jess and Dar are apparently on Wren Watch and need to be in touch every minute, but I’m always afraid it’s going to be Gabriel. He stopped leaving voice mails by Monday, and the texts are coming in a little slower now, but he hasn’t given up entirely.
I can’t decide if I’m secretly happy about that or not.
But it isn’t Gabriel—it’s Bay. Crap.
I wander into the hallway casually, since Robin and Dar are still cooing at each other’s heads, and answer. “Hey.”
“What’s with the disappearing act? I thought we were making friends.” He sounds far away, his voice crackling.
“You texted me this morning and I answered you,” I say. “Don’t pull a stalker on me.”
He laughs, and I can hear Fiona in the background, shouting something about balloons. “No stalking. Just wanted to hang again. You up for it?”
I bite my bottom lip and glance back into my bedroom. Mom already announced she was getting stuff for homemade pizza tonight, and Jess is coming over later. Mari, too, with a new DVD. There’s no way I can get out of it.
“Maybe Thursday afternoon?” By then I can probably make up an extra shift at the café, even though Geoff gave me most of the week off with pay for my Christmas gift. “I’m not ducking you, I swear.”
“Hmmm.” He hushes Fiona then, and says, “I suppose the fairy princess over here can wait. But if she shows up on your doorstep, don’t blame me.”
