He tried again the next day. This path was through a different set of neighborhoods—old Winoka, with some of the buildings dating back to when this town was known as Pinegrove—but equally long and pointless. It was as if she was on some endless, homeless tour of Winoka.
The third time he followed her, she surveyed the historic downtown, with its riverside antique sellers and coffee shops. She found a place that sold chocolates and candies, and stayed in there for at least an hour. She also spent a good two hours in a clothing boutique, emerging with several shopping bags.
The next day, he presented her with gifts in study hall.
She glared at the two boxes with skepticism. “What’s this?”
“Peace offering.”
The first box she took was the large one. Inside was a lovely green-and-blue sweater blouse in her size (he had asked the boutique cashier, right after Andi had left). The smaller box contained two dozen truffles, of the type she had sampled the day before and loved (or so promised the shop owner, when Skip pressed him).
“Huh. I’m of two minds here.”
“How’s that?”
“On one hand, I have clear evidence that you’re stalking me.”
“True.”
“On the other hand, I think the police can press charges with just the sweater to go on. Saving the chocolates for evidentiary purposes seems like overkill.”
“Probably. Happy birthday.”
She had already popped three truffles in her mouth, before she stopped to give him a quizzical look. “Whafdyoumeanf?”
“We should celebrate it today. Because I’ll bet you don’t know your real birthday.”
She took two large, long bites and then swallowed. “How do you know that?”
“You grew up in a universe where you weren’t happy. If you hadn’t told me so yourself, the wounds on your arm would say enough.” He pointed at her lower arm, covered in long sleeves as usual. “You cut yourself, I’ll bet. Or maybe not that, but you’ve done something to hurt yourself. That’s why you think your time is well spent studying boys’ bathrooms and walking around town aimlessly and alone.”
Some of this was guesswork. From her reaction, he knew he was hitting close to the mark. “Above all, you never talk about parents, or seem to miss them. So I doubt you knew them. And if you didn’t have parents, I’m guessing you didn’t celebrate birthdays. And if you . . .”
“Okay, I get it. You want to kiss my boo-boos and make them all better, because my life up to this point was crap. In fact, it was barely a life at all. Your mother . . .” She paused and rubbed her nose. “Your mother was the only good thing I ever knew. It wasn’t enough, Skip.”
“Neither was living here, without her.”
She downed another two chocolates, quickly. “Thatf’s why I figuredf we could getfalongf. Y’know. Talkf.” She grabbed a bunch more out of the box.
“Um, those cost, like, five dollars each. You should savor—”
The last one jumped into her mouth. “Comef to dinnerf withf me.”
“Where? Home?”
She shrugged. “Do you feel like you have a home here?”
The question knocked him back. It was as if she knew him—even though he could tell she wasn’t trying to enter his mind. She just knew.
“Where do you want to eat?”
“Jennifer told me about a new restaurant in town. Tables of Content. My treat.”
“How’s that possible? Where do you get money from? How do you pay for your clothes? How do you not freeze at night?”
She gave him a tilt of the mouth. “I find a different young boy like you each day, charm them with my eating and shopping habits, and then curl up with them for the night.”
“Hang on, I think I just lost something in my pocket . . .”
“See you there at six!”
He watched, not without admiration, as Andi worked her way through bacon-wrapped scallops, a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup, a plate of linguini with white clam sauce, two salads (romaine with ranch, arugula with Italian), a slice of flourless chocolate cake, and crème brûlée.
“I’ll bet you’ll still be cute, after you grow obese,” he observed, slicing his steak.
“I hope so.” She delicately wiped her mouth and sat back. “Food is the greatest.”
“Food sucked in the old universe?”
“I didn’t get to sample much of it.”
“What, you were in prison?”
She shrugged at this, and he got the hint. Change the subject! “So you cross universes, develop apparently infinite supplies of cash, and decide to spend your time in high school?”
She laughed. The sound delighted him. “I gather I’m crazy for liking it. But I do.”
“Didn’t they have teachers and schools where you were?”
“We did. But for many years, my experience was . . . unique. Things had gotten a little better by the time Jennifer found me—”
“See, now, you’re going to wreck a perfectly nice night.”
She took a gulp of water and crunched the ice. “Hey. If you’ve still got that bad a crush, then ditch me now, find her, and beg her to take you back. Otherwise, get over her.”
“I don’t—”
“Then you should have no problem talking about her.”
“I wish you knew my history with her.”
“So.” Andi crunched another piece of ice. There was something heavenly in the workings of her jaw that Skip could neither explain nor resist. “Tell me.”
To his surprise, he did. After they had talked awhile, he invited her to his aunt’s place.
Aunt Tavia, thrilled her nephew had a guest, nevertheless managed to keep her poise and not hover over them constantly. After a while they retreated to his room and closed the door.
He cleared his throat, suddenly aware he was alone with a girl and a bed for the first time in his life. “So. Um, how was the Quadrivium going to change the universe, exactly?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, but I can’t think of anything else to talk about right now.” Well, there’s your lips, and your chest, and your eyes . . . but somehow . . .
“Our leader, a man named The Crown, was going to kill what he called the most dangerous beaststalker in history.”
“You mean Mayor Glory Seabright?”
She nodded, but added nothing.
“Geez, that’s all? That changed history?” He found himself irritated at Edmund Slider and the rest of the Quadrivium. “Why all the time travel and sorcery? Why not kill her now, and make the future brighter for the next generation?”
“Killing her deeper in time prevented many werachnid deaths. Also, killing her when she was younger was decidedly easier than killing her now.”
“I’ll bet I could do it.”
Her eyes went wide. “Skip, get serious.”
“Who’s joking? Give me a gun and I’ll shoot her. Bam, look at me, I’m more powerful than the Quadrivium.”
“You’d never get close enough. Not even for a gun.”
“You’re saying she’s invincible?”
“I’m saying distance, talent, and luck are all issues. She’s a genetic marvel.”
“So get the Quadrivium to go back in time and find a relative to kill her.”
“That’s not funny.”
“You sure are sensitive about all this Quadrivium crap.”
“Can we talk about something else? Maybe you could do some more sketches.”
“Sure, I guess.” He pulled down a new sketchbook from his bookshelf and sharpened his pencils. In less than a minute, he was sketching an efficient line of shapes resembling half ladybugs, half scorpions around the border of the page.
“Pretty,” she said, her breath warming his shoulder.
“Check this out.”
She chortled as the eight-legged lady-scorps with spotted segments began a congo line that shimmied across the paper.
“I think it,” he said smugly, leaning back so her face
was closer, “and they do it.”
“Brilliant. Can you get them to fetch you snacks?”
“It’s always about the food with you, isn’t it? No, they can’t really touch anything. They stay two-dimensional.” He shrugged an apology, suddenly feeling like maybe this wasn’t such a great accomplishment after all. She was Quadrivium material. What did she care if he drew self-animated cartoons? How would that be impressive to her?
He looked up and saw she was—What was she doing? She was humming under her breath, a light, pretty tune he’d never heard. And now her hands were touching his shoulders. Was she going to give him a back rub? Then her hands clamped, hard, the humming got louder, and he nearly yelped. When he saw the paper, he did yelp.
His lady-scorps were now three-dimensional, round bodies shimmying and hopping.
“Andi, that’s—you’re—how did you do that?”
“How did you manage to draw them and get them to move in the first place?”
“That’s just . . . what I do.”
“Well, then. This is just what I do.”
Like clay animations, the bugs leapt off the desk and twirled in a square dance. Skip couldn’t help it; he wanted to know if they could do a square dance.
“Is it the music you sing? Can you teach me?”
“No more than you could teach me your power. Acting alone, all I can do with music is pull things across dimensions. It’s a talent, but there’s no control. You have control, but . . .”
“No talent?”
She giggled. “We each have our gifts, Skip. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me we’re better together than apart. So. Do you still want me to—how did you put it back then?—fuck off and leave you alone? Or do you think we can be friends?”
“Friends? Andi, you’re not leaving this room until you show me everything you can do!”
He reddened as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but she collapsed to the carpet, writhing with giggles.
“Don’t laugh at me. I didn’t mean—”
“Skip,” she managed between chuckles, “if you don’t let me laugh at you, there’s nothing in this relationship for me.”
She laughed harder, and he threatened to get angry if she didn’t stop, but he didn’t mean it, because her mood was contagious. The threats and laughter evolved into tickling, which turned into other things. All the while, the strange creatures they had created together danced around them in a primal ritual.
CHAPTER 12
Multiplication
“That’s it,” Skip told his mentor with a grin, as Andi finished her song behind him. “They’ll have popped. Right in the mayor’s office!”
Edmund Slider returned the smile. “I’m glad you told me about these arachnids you can draw, Skip. It made it much easier to get a message safely to Glory Seabright, without anyone else seeing it. I’m also glad that Andi could make them pop off the wall.” He nodded at the brunette, who smiled shyly.
“It won’t have hurt her,” she pointed out. “Skip and I are working on how to make them last longer, and do more things.”
“Don’t apologize—you were marvelous. And Skip, I’m glad you trusted me enough to come to me and show me what you could do. I promise I will repay that faith.”
Skip didn’t doubt him. “Do you think she’ll know who sent them?” He wasn’t sure which answer, yes or no, would please him more.
“She’ll think someone reckless sent them. That’s the point, as you may have guessed. We want her overconfident. We want her thinking we cannot handle ourselves. We want her,” he finished with a flourish of fingers through his hair, “to show up alone.”
“Alone? She can’t be that crazy.”
“There are very few situations that Mayor Seabright cannot handle alone. With luck, a few nights from now she’ll face one on that bridge.”
Skip felt the thrill of conspiracy. “All right. So what do we do next?”
Slider’s sad smile dampened Skip’s mood. “The next steps are for me alone to take. What I have in mind will require considerable preparation and effort.”
“So let me help! I’m kicked out of school. I sit around here all day drawing freaking insects . . . I’m going crazy!”
Slider gave a teacher’s frown. “You have yourself to blame. By walking out on her at school, you handed her and Mr. Mouton a terrific reason to suspend you.”
“You’re telling me you were polite to her when she was asking you questions?”
“I’m an adult. I’ve already paid my dues. If you want to survive long enough to come into your true powers, I suggest you learn to show more respect to authority figures.”
“Show respect to auth—Hi, my name is Skip Wilson. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Cute. Let’s bring this back around to the consequences of your actions. You’ve made keeping an eye on you that much more difficult. Your aunt’s been worried sick about leaving you at home alone. I can’t help her and keep my job—and heaven help me, I’ve tried to spend my time in this town doing what I can to help Winoka’s children think more logically.”
“Why can’t you take just a few—”
“Your aunt has considered asking family to come help. You know how hard that is for her. Arachnids are loners enough, and her family . . . well . . . let’s just say, they’re true to type.”
“Fine, I feel bad. So give me something to do, to make up for it!”
Slider shrugged. “It’s not personal, Skip. It’s not a two-person job. I can’t use you here, or even Andi. As you may know, our kind has a saying, ‘Eight legs is enough.’ ”
“But you don’t have eight legs!” As soon as he said it, Andi gasped and Skip wished he could take it back. He saw his teacher’s face lengthen. “All I mean is, I could—”
“I’m doing this alone, Skip.” The wheelchair whirred and Slider’s body swiveled around with it. “When the day comes, we’ll all go to the bridge together and negotiate with Her Honor.”
“Negotiate? She doesn’t negotiate with arachnids!”
Slider’s chair paused, and his head turned enough for Skip to see the man’s sharp nose. “Glorianna Seabright has negotiated with arachnids before. She’ll do it again.”
“She’s too powerful.” Skip shifted his feet. He didn’t know how else to say what he wanted to say—that he didn’t want to lose Slider, like he had lost everyone else.
The blond head nodded. “She is powerful, Skip. Which is why she’s ripe to learn a valuable lesson. Power carries a cost.”
It was too cold to be crisp on the night that Skip, Tavia, and Andi watched restlessly from a cluster of riverside bushes as Edmund Slider ran his motorized wheelchair down the pedestrian walkway of Winoka Bridge. They had crossed over the bridge earlier and scouted the woods by the eastern side to ensure no beaststalkers were waiting at inconvenient points. Slider had pointed out that it was fruitless to scout the western side—that was where Winoka lay, and Glorianna could decide to bring an army if she wished. But when she appeared from the west, striding down the center of the highway in white dress robes, Skip saw no one else.
Tavia let a tsk out. “She walks down the bridge like she owns the road.”
Skip scanned the highway for traffic. There was none. “Maybe she does.”
Slider stopped his chair when he got about a third of the way across, under one of the amber streetlights. This forced Glorianna to walk farther before the two could speak.
“Edmund Slider,” she drawled. “The source behind that lovely message.”
“The messengers you received at city hall were not mine,” he replied. “I agreed to be the one to speak with you, Your Honor.” He managed to make the honorific sound like an insult.
The mayor’s sharp white eyes narrowed, and she immediately scanned beyond Slider toward the bushes where Skip and the others were hiding. “Three more,” she called out without hesitation. “Though I can’t see who they are. I assume a reborn Quadrivium?”
From his pl
ace in the bushes, Skip felt Andi grip his shoulder. He recalled how the topic of the Quadrivium’s plot on Glory made her tense. He put a reassuring hand on top of hers. No need to worry, he told himself more than her. She can’t see our faces.
“You assume incorrectly,” Edmund Slider told her as if he were talking to a wayward geometry student. “The Quadrivium is no more. The people in the bushes are here to collect me, should you see fit to amuse yourself by posing me on the bridge railing.”
“Our first date was special, Edmund. Sometimes I wish I had gone all the way with you.”
“Yet you spared me. And again, at the beaststalker trial not long ago. And then again at the high school interrogation. Sloppy of you, to keep letting me slip through your fingers.”
“Honestly, I haven’t considered you worth killing. Until tonight.”
“Before you pull your weapon out from under those robes and slice me apart, Your Honor, I thought we might talk.”
Glorianna returned her gaze to the bushes. Skip felt Andi’s breath quicken on his neck. “Dianna told me about her, but I’ve never seen her before today,” she whispered. Her hand trembled in his. “Not in either universe. I guess I didn’t realize how old . . . or how much time . . .”
The mayor finally gave up on the bushes. “Talk, then.”
“I propose a cessation of hostilities.”
“Cessation of hostilities? That is completely up to you,” Glorianna growled. “You’ve not endured any hostilities of mine for years, Edmund Slider. And what you did endure, you brought upon yourself by breaking the law. I’ve tolerated your return to this town—as a public school teacher, no less—for the past several months. The only reason you’re not dead is because I didn’t order you killed. I consider that grace unhostile. You, meanwhile, conspired to murder me and wipe those who follow me from the earth. Or do you deny participating in this failed scheme?”
“I don’t deny it. And for the record, it did succeed. By my estimate, for about a week.”
“What a wonderful week that must have been for you.”
“I wish I remembered it—this brief seven-day miracle, this world without narcissistic megalomaniacs like Your Honor slicing people’s spines and chopping their heads off.”
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