Through Fire & Sea

by Nicole Luiken

  Her mother frowned, her gaze narrowing in on the table. “What’s all this?”

  Busted.

  “I, uh—” A plausible explanation suddenly occurred to Holly and she went with it. “I think I was sleepwalking. I woke up downstairs with all this already here.” She gave a little laugh. “Pretty weird, huh?”

  Her mom kept frowning. “You’ve never sleepwalked before. Have you been sleeping well? Are you stressing over something?”

  Holly shook her head. “No, not really.”

  Her mother’s voice gentled. “Have you been having nightmares about what happened?”

  About almost drowning. “Only a couple. Not for days.”

  Her mother bit her lip. “Some reaction to such a terrible event is only normal. But, Holly, please tell me if the nightmares continue or if the sleepwalking happens again.”

  Holly saw where this was headed. “I don’t need a therapist.”

  A sigh. “Seeing a therapist doesn’t mean you’ve gone crazy; it just means you need a little help.”

  Holly took a deep breath. “You’re right. But if I see a therapist, the tabloids will go crazy, and that will stress me out way more than a few nightmares.”

  “Okay, no therapist. But promise me you won’t bottle things up, that you’ll talk to me.”

  “I promise.”

  Her mother gave her a quick hug, and then Holly escaped upstairs. Worry ate at Holly while she pulled on jeans and a yellow tee. Sleepwalking was the most obvious cause for what had happened, but something about the explanation bothered her.

  The problem was that the incident was too similar to when she’d fallen overboard: in both cases she’d looked at her reflection then lost a chunk of time.

  Losing time while awake meant she wasn’t sleepwalking, she was having blackouts. And blackouts were very bad.

  But blackouts were usually from doing drugs or alcohol, and she hadn’t done anything like that. And she felt fine now. “I’m not crazy,” she muttered.

  What if it happened again? This time had been fairly harmless, but she could’ve drowned when she’d blacked out in the water. As she brushed her hair, she superstitiously avoided her eyes in the mirror.

  …

  The Importance of Being Earnest won by a landslide.

  “Tryouts will be next class,” Ms. Prempeh announced. “Go into groups of two, and read some of the lines out loud. Decide what part you’d like to audition for.”

  Missing Shannon, Holly looked around. Dana had already snagged Eleanor, but Ryan still stood alone.

  Her feet froze to the floor. She couldn’t approach him, not after her promise to leave him alone.

  “Does everyone have a partner?” Ms. Prempeh asked. Her gaze fell on them. “Ryan, Holly, you’re together.”

  Holly drifted closer and smiled weakly. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” He looked…not hostile. Wary. As if he wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

  Holly had a sudden thought. What if this morning’s sleepwalking had been some sort of siren post-hypnotic suggestion? What if he’d been testing her to see if she was susceptible to his powers?

  She ought to have been furious, but sweet relief flooded through her. A prank she could handle. In retrospect, the bowls of water were a bit funny.

  Should she call him on it? Or mess with him back by pretending she knew nothing? Ignoring the voice in the back of her head that asked, “What about the mirrors?” Holly put on a friendly smile. Game on. “So are you a Jack or an Algernon?”

  His lips quirked. “Algernon is a dog’s name.”

  “If you’re Jack, then I’ll read Gwendolen.” Holly flipped through her script until she found a scene with both characters. Because of the noise level, they had to stand close together. Holly tried to ignore her awareness of his body.

  “But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?” Ryan asked with exaggerated concern.

  “But your name is Ernest,” Holly replied sweetly.

  At some point, Holly became aware that Ms. Prempeh was lingering next to them, but the teacher soon moved on.

  When the bell rang, Holly felt a pang of disappointment. “That was fun. You’d make a great Jack.”

  Her continued friendliness seemed to make him uneasy. He shrugged.

  Holly hid a smile. “Did you take Drama last year? I took Band.” She was still wildly curious about him.

  They merged into the hallway flow. “I took my grade ten and eleven courses by correspondence.” He sounded distracted.

  Before she could ask why, Ryan moved protectively in front of her. Over his shoulder, Holly saw Kyle Melnichuk pushing his way toward them, his freckles at odds with meanness in his green eyes.

  Kyle’s mouth opened as if to taunt his former friend, but at the last minute he jostled Ryan’s shoulder instead.

  Oh-kay. What was that about?

  …

  Tryouts.

  When Holly’s turn came, she cleared her throat. “Actually, I’d rather do hair and makeup.” No, wait, that would involve standing in front of mirrors. “Or stage setting.” Her mom could help find antiques.

  Ms. Prempeh scuttled that plan. “Everyone auditions. Once I’ve cast the parts, we’ll discuss the production side. You read Gwendolen last week—do that.”

  Swallowing hard, Holly climbed onto the small, carpeted stage. She stumbled on the last step and almost fell. Her face flushed. Ryan was going to have a front row seat as she made a fool of herself.

  Ms. Prempeh called a short, grade-ten boy up to read opposite Holly. “Start at ‘Charming day.’”

  “Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax,” the boy said woodenly.

  “Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing,” Holly said.

  “Louder,” Ms. Prempeh sang out. “I can’t hear you.”

  Holly wanted to disappear but raised her voice for her next line. The sprightly dialogue carried her along until she heard someone whisper, “Did you know she’s Joseph Beecher’s daughter?”

  Holly froze and lost her place in the script.

  After an embarrassing silence, she said, “Passionately!” and then realized she’d skipped two lines. Her reading partner responded with the previous line, “You really love me, Gwendolen?” Instead of sounding smitten, he glared at his two smirking friends.

  Holly repeated herself, “Passionately!”

  Finally, finally, Ms. Prempeh called a halt. Holly escaped the stage and lurked against a wall.

  The auditions limped long. There seemed to be a goodly number of grade-ten boys in Drama who’d probably thought it’d be an easy elective. They were all terrible.

  Holly judged one of the grade-ten girls, Paige, as passable and thought a tall, thin boy named Daniel would make a good Algernon. Only Eleanor was willing to read for Aunt Augusta, and she nailed the part.

  Ryan and Dana read together last. Dana looked unenthusiastic about her partner—today Ryan was wearing a hideous orange-and-green rugby shirt—but she held herself with confidence and put some life in her voice. Ryan, on the other hand, held everyone spellbound.

  If Ms. Prempeh didn’t cast the two of them as Jack and Gwendolen, Holly would eat her script.

  …

  Holly breathed a sigh of relief when Ms. Prempeh cast Paige as Miss Prism and not Holly. She’d worried that she might get stuck in one of the play’s minor roles like that of Cecily’s governess.

  “Ryan will play Jack, Daniel will play Algernon, and Eleanor is Aunt Augusta,” Ms. Prempeh announced. No surprises there.

  “Holly will play the part of Gwendolen—”

  Ears ringing, Holly stared at Ms. Prempeh in disbelief. She’d assumed Dana would get Gwendolen’s part. From her mulish expression, so had Dana.

  “…and Dana will play Cecily,” Ms. Prempeh finished.

  Dana looked mollified. Holly felt nauseated.

  “I want to start blocking next class,” the drama teacher continued. “Cast
members start memorizing Act One. The rest of us will tackle set design and…”

  Holly took her script to a corner but couldn’t get past the first page. Every time she thought about getting up onstage, her stomach somersaulted. Finally, she closed her eyes and forced herself to calm down. This was fixable. As soon as class ended, she would ask Ms. Prempeh to cast someone else as Gwendolen. Simple.

  Her breathing eased, and she sneaked a glance at Ryan. He was sitting on the steps ten feet away from her, the muscled line of his back bent over his script. Too bad she couldn’t act—playing Gwendolen to Ryan’s Jack would’ve given her a ton of opportunities to spend time with him.

  When the bell rang, Holly hurried to catch the teacher before she vanished into the staff room. “Ms. Prempeh? Could you cast someone else as Gwendolen? Please? I think I’d do better backstage.”

  Ms. Prempeh directed a level look her way. “Be that as it may, I have cast you as Gwendolen. I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.” She moved toward the door again.

  She was going to just walk away. Panic tightened Holly’s chest. “You can’t do this,” she burst out. “I mean, you saw me up onstage, right? I tripped over my own feet, I didn’t speak loudly enough, and I screwed up my lines. Both Dana and”—Holly scrambled to remember the name of the girl cast as Miss Prism—“and Paige were much better than me.”

  “Dana did perform better than you,” Ms. Prempeh admitted, with barely restrained impatience. “However, I have cast her as Cecily. You and Paige were about equal, but I thought you had better chemistry with Ryan.”

  Equal? Holly had been terrible. Any impartial judge would have given Paige or Dana the part—

  Mystery solved. Holly clenched her shaking hands into fists. “You cast me because Joseph Beecher is my father.”

  Ms. Prempeh looked taken aback.

  “Let me guess, you want my dad to donate to the Build a New Stage fund,” Holly said bitterly. What better way to open up Joseph Beecher’s wallet than to cast his daughter in a leading role?

  “I don’t know what it is you’re accusing me of,” Ms. Prempeh said frostily, her British accent growing stronger, “but I’ll tell you exactly what I told everyone else: my casting decision is final. Arguing with the director is not a good way to make a career in the performing arts.”

  “You can’t force me,” Holly said bluntly.

  “I can flunk you. If you didn’t want to act, you shouldn’t have signed up for my class.” Ms. Prempeh sailed out the door, her head held like a queen’s.

  Blinded by tears, Holly stumbled out into the hallway. Not wanting to be seen, she exited into the schoolyard.

  Heavy gray clouds swathed the sun. A mist-laden breeze cooled her cheeks as she leaned against the school, shoulders heaving.

  She remembered her time on the set of Flight of Fear: the hot lights, the sighs of impatience when she forgot her lines, enduring take after take after take at four in the morning. Nothing she did had pleased her dad. She’d cry, which would make her mom mad at her dad, and they’d yell at each other. By the end of the film, she’d hated every minute of it.

  This time would be even worse, because the performance would be live. Everyone would see her fumble around.

  The door opened.

  Instantly, Holly faced the brick wall, hoping whoever came out wouldn’t see her.

  “Not that it isn’t a nice wall—bricks all nicely lined up—but why are you staring at it?” Ryan asked.

  Holly turned and saw him standing several feet away with his hands in the pockets of his ripped jeans.

  At the sight of her blotched face, he dropped the humor. “What’s wrong?”

  “I tried to talk Ms. Prempeh out of it,” she said starkly, “but she’s got some maggot in her brain about my father and publicity.” The whole story spilled out.

  Ryan listened. “So you don’t want to play Gwendolen?”

  He meant play Gwendolen opposite his Jack. She didn’t blame him for sounding incredulous when she’d been chasing him. “I don’t want to humiliate myself in front of the entire school. I’m really sorry,” she apologized.

  “Okay.” He paused. “For what?”

  “My performance will ruin the play for everyone, but you most of all because you’re really good, and I suck.” Holly swiped away more tears.

  He studied her, his face grave. “You don’t suck.”

  She snorted. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, maybe a bit, but when it comes to sucking you’re more of a straw than a vacuum cleaner,” he teased. “You just have a little stage fright.”

  “Yeah, and the Titanic was a rubber raft.”

  “I’m going to regret this, but…if you want, I’ll help you.”

  Holly stopped breathing. Was he serious? She stared into his eyes, seeing wariness there, but if he was willing to call a truce, she wasn’t going to argue. “Thanks. That would be…great.” Her mind revved into overdrive. “When would be a good time? After school?”

  Ryan scuffed the grass with his running shoe; she noticed a hole in the toe. “I have to work.”

  “Why don’t I give you my cell phone number? Or you could give me yours.” Then she could text him and—

  He stared at the red bricks. “I don’t have a cell phone. Or a Blackberry or any other type of fruit.”

  Right. Mermen didn’t have pockets. Feeling stupid, Holly started prattling, “Yeah, my mom didn’t want me to have one, either. She finally caved last year, but I have to pay for the minutes—”

  “You don’t get it.” His gaze challenged her. “I can’t afford a cell phone. Some months they cut off our landline, because we can’t pay the bill.”

  Holly didn’t know what to say.

  “Talk to you later.” He put his hand on the door.

  “Wait!” If they were going to be working together, she had to know what game he was playing. She put her cards on the table. “A few nights ago, I sleepwalked.” She watched his expression, but he didn’t sneer or smirk.

  One dark eyebrow lifted. “That’s…nice?”

  He waited, but when she didn’t say anything more, he strolled back inside the school.

  She couldn’t catch her breath, stunned.

  Ryan hadn’t had anything to do with her sleepwalking episode. Was she going crazy, after all? The only other explanation was even nastier: that when she’d looked into her reflection, someone else had taken over her body.

  Chapter Nine

  Soul Mate

  Leah might have barred the door, but she refused to abandon Gideon. She sat huddled with an ear against the metal. She heard him groan, then a large crash as if something had thrown him across the room. A ghost like the one in the story about the cursed man? But ghosts were insubstantial. Something else?

  The sounds grew worse: a muffled shriek accompanied by the clatter of the lunch bucket rolling away. Louder groans.

  Leah put her hand on the bar in an agony of indecision. She couldn’t stand by and listen to Gideon being tortured—but he’d been so certain that the curse wouldn’t kill him. He’d begged her to stay safe.

  A pause, then a strangled scream.

  Was he dead? Dying?

  Biting her lip, Leah opened the door a crack and peered into the darkened room beyond.

  At first she saw nothing, and then the moonlight picked out the diamond crystal glint of a huge eye surrounded by black scales.

  A dragon’s eye. Looking right at her.

  With a yelp, Leah slammed the door shut and dropped the bar back into place. Not a ghost, the dragon. The noise she’d heard earlier must have been it landing on the balcony. Her skin crawled. Gideon was in there. With a dragon. How could he survive?

  Steam puffed around the edges of the door. The metal vibrated under her hands as if the dragon had ticked it with one talon.

  She bit her wrist to keep from screaming.

  If Qeturah thought the door could keep out the dragon, she was deluded. One blow and—

  The dragon grunt
ed. The air seemed to solidify in her lungs. She heard movement, then a rush of wind and a noise like wet sheets flapping. It must’ve flown out the balcony.

  Her hands shook, but she lifted the bar and pushed the door open. She had to know. “Gideon?” Her throat ached with fear.

  He didn’t answer.

  Pictures of Gideon’s mangled body filled her head and made her frantic. She searched every shadow but couldn’t find him. Where was the dragon taking him? What did it want with him?

  He’d sworn the curse wouldn’t kill him, that by morning he would be back. She had to have faith in that, in him.

  All the same, she couldn’t bear to return to her own bed. After prudently retreating to the landing and rebarring the door, she sat and waited for dawn.

  …

  Claws scrabbling on stone…

  Jerking awake, Leah straightened from where she’d fallen asleep huddled against the door. She ignored her aching neck, her heart hammering with hope. Had Gideon returned?

  She pressed her ear to the metal. Yes. She could hear something moving inside.

  It was barely dawn, and the dragon might still be there, but she needed to see if Gideon was alive. All but sobbing, she pulled up the bar and rushed inside.

  Gideon stood near the bed, doing up the drawstring of his trousers. He yanked on a shirt when he saw her. “Leah!” His smile wobbled as if he were both pleased to see her and afraid of what she might say. “Why are—”

  She hurled herself into his arms.

  He folded her close; the forge-like heat he gave off burned away the chill in her soul. “Thank goodness the beast didn’t hurt you,” he said.

  Leah stared up at him in astonishment. “Hurt me? You were the one locked in with a dragon.” She shuddered. “I saw it through the door.”

  “I wish you hadn’t had to see it,” Gideon murmured. He pressed his lips to her hair.

  Remembering the groans he’d made last night, she pushed against his chest. “Sit. Where are you hurt?”

  “I’m not.” He blinked innocently up at her.

  Leah eyed him doubtfully. Her instincts proved correct; she discovered a red stain on the left side of his white linen shirt. “You’re bleeding,” she accused.

  “What, that? It’s nothing,” Gideon scoffed.