Shadows

by Amy Meredith

  Eve slowed down, nearing the hedge that ran along the side of the road and all the way round the house to make sure it was screened from prying eyes. The hedge had been planted way back when the mansion was built, and it was tall and dense and almost impossible to see through.

  A laugh on the wind caught Eve’s attention. She was coming up to one of the public access ways down to the beach – a narrow path through the dunes ending in a creaky old set of rough wooden steps. She’d been down on the beach before, of course, and she remembered the thick iron door in the hedge at the back of the mansion that led out to the pathway. When they were kids, she and Jess used to dare each other to knock on the door. The story was that the rock star’s ghost might answer and let you in, but if he did, you’d never be seen again.

  Eve smiled, remembering. That door onto the beach path probably hadn’t been opened in fifty years, by a ghost or a human or anything. For all she knew, the hedge had grown so thick over the other side that nobody in the rock star’s old house even knew the door was there.

  I should ask Mal about it, she thought. At least it would give her something to say to him.

  Another loud laugh reached her ears, and she hesitated as four guys – they looked like they were probably seniors in high school – trotted up the wooden steps from the path to the road. Eve didn’t recognize them, which was odd. It was past tourist season, and she knew pretty much everyone who lived in town year-round, at least by sight. The guys headed up the street in front of Eve, then turned into Mal’s driveway, where the hedge curved. Maybe they were friends of his from … wherever it was he’d come from. Mr Talkative had never said, but Eve had heard he and his family had moved to Deepdene from Ohio. She smiled. Maybe if they had their accidentally-on-purpose meeting, she’d find out. Maybe she’d even finally find out what Mal was short for!

  Eve reached Mal’s driveway and took a hopeful – and hopefully not too stalkerish – peek down it. The four boys hadn’t gotten far. They were clustered about halfway up the long drive. And they were looking right back at Eve. Mal wasn’t with them, and she didn’t see any sign of a barbecue. Or a security guard. Or anyone else on the whole street who might notice a girl and four guys who had just come up by way of the beach.

  Today’s obviously not the day Mal and I get some non-school time together, Eve thought.

  One of the guys let out a high giggle, like he’d just heard a particularly nasty joke. Then all of them looked at Eve. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a great idea to take a walk past the old, supposedly cursed house. Who cared about the renovation? She picked up her pace.

  ‘Hey! Where are you going so fast?’ one of the guys called out.

  ‘Yeah. Come back, cutie,’ another guy yelled.

  Right. Like that will work, Eve thought, without slowing down. A few seconds later, she heard footsteps, then that same sneering giggle. The guys were coming after her.

  Her heart seemed to skip a beat, and her breath caught in her throat. Deepdene was such a tiny town, it had always seemed like the safest place in the world. Eve didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Should she turn round and confront them, or just act like she didn’t know they were there?

  There wasn’t time to decide. Two of the boys circled around in front of her, blocking her way. The other two took up positions on either side of her. OK, keep it light, Eve advised herself, although she couldn’t stop the prickles of fear snaking through her body.

  ‘Sorry, guys. I can’t hang today,’ Eve told them. ‘My dad has this thing about helping around the house. I’m scheduled to make dinner – even though I always burn everything.’ There. Now at least they’ll think someone’s waiting for me, she thought. It couldn’t hurt for them to know she would be missed. Even though they were just messing around. Probably.

  ‘Not a problem. We’ll take care of Daddy for you.’ The guy to her right – freckled, with way too much product in his hair – threw one arm around her shoulders. Eve wanted to shove it off, but didn’t. She was sticking with the plan of keeping things light, because what else could she do? The houses were all set so far back from the street and so far apart. No one was going to glance out of a window and see that she needed an assist. Maybe if she played along for a while, she’d get lucky and somebody would drive by.

  She kept walking. The two guys in front of her walked backwards to give her room. The guys on either side kept pace with her. Eve’s eyes darted around the road. They were the only ones on it. Her heart sank.

  ‘We’ll take care of Daddy. And we’ll take care of you too,’ one of the backwards-walking guys said, with a grin that showed way too many teeth. He was looking at her like a mean little boy might look at an even smaller boy. Like he was figuring out a fun way to torture her. Not that mean little boys usually wore perfectly distressed leather jackets with work boots.

  What now? What now? Eve had to be at least a fifteen-minute walk from town. She had the feeling the boys weren’t going to let her get that far.

  Cell phone, she decided. She pulled out her iPhone. ‘I should at least tell my dad I’m going to be late,’ she announced. Or call the cops on your butts, she silently added.

  ‘We said we’d take care of Daddy.’ Toothy backwards-walking guy grabbed her phone and stuffed it into his pocket. Freckles pulled her closer and tightened his grip. His forearm was lightly pressing into her throat now. Her breath came fast and shallow. She couldn’t get her lungs full enough.

  Time to scream. At least she had a really loud voice when she was furious. Or terrified. And she was definitely both. Eve opened her mouth to yell – and Freckles pushed his arm even harder against her windpipe. Only a weak cry came out, sounding more like a strangled bird than a girl screaming for help. He moved in behind her, pinning her against him with the pressure on her throat and his other arm wrapped around her waist.

  The other boys moved in closer. The giggly one was giggling again. And the one with all the teeth was actually clapping his hands in gleeful anticipation. Were they high?

  Eve could hear them breathing, feel their hot breath on her face and neck. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it was simply vibrating. The blood in her veins felt like it was vibrating too.

  Then her heart exploded. At least that’s what it felt like. She could feel the hot, beating pieces. Her blood escaped her veins, flooding through her entire body like a tidal wave.

  Freckles let out a cry of pain, and Eve felt his arms jerk away from her. She looked over her shoulder. He was pushing himself off the sidewalk as if he’d just been thrown through the air. ‘She shocked me!’ he yelled.

  ‘Stay away from me,’ Eve warned him. ‘I don’t want to hurt you again.’ Lie. ‘I don’t want to hurt any of you.’ Big lie. ‘But I will if I have to.’ God, did she hope that was the truth. Would she have enough power to shock him again? Would she even know how? She hadn’t done it on purpose.

  Eve heard a snarl of anger. She whipped her head towards it. One of the boys who’d been in front – the one with all the teeth – was coming at her. Fast.

  Instinctively Eve threw out her hands, trying to keep him away. Sparks flew out of her fingers. No, not sparks. These were lightning bolts, long, jagged and powerful, tinged with fire. They streamed out of her hands – and straight into the chest of her attacker.

  Is it going to kill him? Eve had time to think, before the guy’s body dissolved into a swirl of grey smoke. Her iPhone clattered to the ground. All Eve could do was stare, stunned, as the smoke flew up into the sky like a flock of dark birds.

  The guy to her left took advantage of her dazed state. He grabbed her arm, digging his fingers into her flesh. Eve willed her heart and blood and body to go on the attack and shock the guy the way they had Freckles. But this time it felt like she really had used up every resource. She felt as if she’d been drained.

  ‘You saw what happened to your friend!’ Eve threatened. ‘Back off!’

  The guy laughed. As if he knew she had nothing left. And
at that moment footsteps pounded on the pavement, and somebody gave a yell of fury. Eve twisted round, trying to see. All the saliva in her mouth dried up. Another guy was running towards them.

  I can’t fight any more, she thought, desperate.

  And then she saw the new guy’s face.

  Mal.

  Relief swept through Eve. It wasn’t just some guy. It was Mal. He charged towards her, lowered his head and slammed into the boy holding Eve’s arm. They both went down, but Mal was back on his feet almost instantly. The other guy stayed down.

  ‘Who’s next?’ Mal demanded, glaring from Freckles to the other boy who was still standing.

  Freckles held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. He quickly took off back down the street towards the beach access. The other guy pulled his friend up from the ground and dragged him after Freckles.

  Eve picked up her iPhone and clutched it to her chest protectively. Her heart was still pounding as she watched the boys disappear down the steps.

  Gently – so, so gently – Mal put his hands on Eve’s shoulders and turned her towards him. ‘Are you OK? Did they hurt you?’ he asked, his voice even huskier than usual.

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. Then another. ‘I’m not sure I would have stayed OK if you hadn’t shown up,’ she told him. ‘But I’m all right now.’

  ‘Good.’ As usual, Mal wasn’t saying much, but he had packed all kinds of emotion into that one word – relief, tenderness, leftover anger.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  He just nodded, his dark eyes still worried.

  Eve stared up at him, her heart pounding for a different reason now. She wanted to stand right here with Mal, if not for ever, then for a very long time.

  Mal reached out and touched her hair – and a zap of electricity shot out of it with a snapping sound.

  ‘What … ?’ Eve’s hand flew to her hair, and to her horror, she discovered that it was standing straight up, as if she’d been rubbing a balloon all over it. My powers, she realized. They send lightning shooting from my fingertips and they ruin romantic moments by making me look like a clown.

  Mal’s half-smile made her wonder if he knew what she was thinking. ‘I’m not touching you again,’ he said. ‘But I think you’d better come inside.’

  Chapter Eight

  Mal pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and guided Eve into it. No guy had ever done that for her before. It seemed like something out of an old movie. Did real guys pull out chairs for girls? Well, obviously one did. Mal. Eve was starting to think he was one of a kind. He was so … gallant. Such an old-fashioned word, but it fitted. Like that day in bio lab when he knelt down in front of her and removed the sliver of glass from her finger, so gently she didn’t even feel it. That was gallant.

  And saving her from a bunch of thugs? Gallant.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Mal asked.

  ‘I’m really OK. I promise,’ Eve told him. She twisted her hair into a knot on top of her head. It was feeling less frizzified, but she wanted the knot to be on the safe side. A horrifying thought hit her. Had Mal seen her zapping the guys? Had he seen her turn that one into a swirl of smoke?

  No, he couldn’t have, she reassured herself. He was treating her like a normal human girl. He’d be treating her like an extreme freak if he’d seen. Anyone would. Smoking a person was a whole bunch of steps beyond setting a piece of paper on fire. Even Luke probably wouldn’t have been able to deal with what she’d just done.

  Mal headed to the fridge and started pulling stuff out. He peeled an orange and put the segments into the blender with some strawberries, vanilla yogurt and apple juice. Then he pulled a package of almonds out of the cabinet, put a handful on the chopping board, grabbed a knife and pfft, pfft, pfft – they were diced into tiny pieces. He tossed them into the blender too, then started it up.

  ‘Wow,’ Eve said when Mal put a frothy smoothie in front of her. ‘You can cook.’

  ‘I can blend.’ Mal sat down across from her with a smoothie of his own. He set a plate of Oreos between them. ‘I’ve heard that chocolate reduces stress,’ he added.

  ‘Works for me.’ Eve took a cookie. Then she laughed.

  ‘What?’ Mal asked.

  It was so weird to have smouldering Mal waiting on her. ‘Nothing,’ Eve said.

  Mal raised one of his perfectly arched eyebrows. And waited.

  ‘It’s just that before you were all dark and mysterious – and now you’re making me a snack, which is so, well, non-mysterious, although I guess still dark,’ Eve blurted out. Was that more or less pathetic than the you smell good line? Tough call.

  ‘And?’ Mal asked.

  He was back to single words.

  ‘Like that!’ Eve told him. ‘You don’t use words. I mean, you don’t use many words. It’s like you don’t want anyone to know a single thing about you.’

  ‘So, I’m back to being mysterious?’ Mal leaned back in his chair, his eyes locked on her face, studying her.

  ‘Maybe it’s just me. I’m confused now. You confuse me.’ Eve twisted the top off her Oreo. Usually she’d lick off the white stuff in the centre. But she felt a little self-conscious doing that in front of Mal. She took a small bite of the chocolate cookie top.

  Mal gave her his half-smile, the one that always seemed to hint that he could read her mind. He picked up an Oreo, twisted it open and started licking the centre. Slowly. Mockingly. Eve hadn’t even known it was possible to lick mockingly.

  ‘You’re bad,’ Eve told him, trying not to focus on his tongue slowly licking the cookie. It was actually a little – not uncomfortable, but unsettling being alone with him. All alone. It didn’t look like either of his parents was home.

  ‘Bad. Mysterious.’ Mal’s smile widened to a grin. ‘Blender King.’ He popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of the smoothie. ‘Is there no end to my talents?’

  ‘Well, now you’re just a typical gross boy,’ Eve said.

  Mal nodded, and his smile faded. ‘Speaking of which … those guys,’ he said. ‘Did you know them?’

  Eve’s stomach twisted. It felt as if the four guys were suddenly right there in the room with her. ‘I’ve never seen them before,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t shown up …’ She tried to take a sip of her smoothie, but when she picked up the glass, she realized that her hand was shaking.

  Mal reached over, took the glass away from her and set it down. He wrapped his warm fingers around her trembling ones. ‘I shouldn’t make you talk about it.’

  ‘You rescued me. If you’d gotten there any later, who knows what would’ve happened,’ she said. And if he’d been a few moments earlier, he would have seen her lightning-ing one of the guys into a swirling cloud of smoke. Eve couldn’t help wondering if Mal would still be holding her hand if he’d caught that show. Not many guys would want to hold hands with a freak.

  Mal’s unique, she reminded herself. But she was still glad she hadn’t had to find out if he was unique enough to want to hold hands with a … whatever it was Eve had become.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to go through this,’ Mal said.

  ‘It was getting scary,’ she admitted, finding that she wanted to talk to Mal about what had happened, even if she had to leave out some key details. ‘At first I thought they were just your basic jerks. You know, guys that yell at girls on the street. “Hey, Baby,” and all that. But then one of them grabbed me.’

  Eve’s breath started coming fast. Maybe talking about those guys was a bad idea, after all. ‘Tour of the house!’ she cried, jumping to her feet.

  Mal looked surprised.

  ‘I need a tour,’ Eve said desperately. ‘This place was about to fall into the ocean before your family bought it! I want to see everything.’

  ‘O-O-O-K.’ Mal seemed to get her need for distraction. He stood up and gestured around the room. ‘Kitchen.’

  Eve forced herself to focus on the kitchen, on the house, on anything other than
the fact that she’d been attacked and had then turned somebody into smoke. Or had she imagined the smoke part? No, he was there, then he wasn’t, then there was smoke. It had happened. And she’d done it. She’d felt the power blasting out of her …

  ‘Very nice,’ she said. Really, very nice. All sleek appliances and granite-topped counters, with chrome chairs at the glass kitchen table.

  ‘A lot of the rooms aren’t furnished yet,’ he warned her.

  ‘This place has a lot of rooms. It would take a while to fill them up.’ Eve followed Mal into the – empty – dining room. The only thing in place was a beautiful carpet with intricate pale blue flowers on a background of cream. Eve wondered how old it was. In places it was worn thin.

  ‘From Nain,’ Mal said, following her gaze. ‘My parents were in Iran last year. Who knows what they’ll come back with from Cambodia.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re on your own a lot,’ Eve commented.

  ‘I have an older brother. He lives here, but he has, um, let’s call it a full social calendar,’ Mal answered as he ushered her into the – empty – living room. The poor guy didn’t even have a TV or a stereo. It had to be lonely drifting around in this huge place. Although there were some amazing bathrooms. Eve could have moved right into the master bath. It was so Zen, with long Mizu Umi tiles covering the walls. Eve had campaigned for her parents to get the Japanese crackle-glaze tiles when they’d remodelled their bathroom, but they didn’t go for it. Her dad hated anything he thought of as ‘modern’. But in Mal’s bathroom, the shower had eight jets and steam, and the tub didn’t just go on for days. It went on for weeks!

  They finished up the tour with the room Eve was most curious about – Mal’s room. She’d been sure she’d get some insight into Mr Mystery when she saw it. But she was disappointed. The room was gorgeous. The bed looked like it weighed a ton, and the dark wood had a glossy sheen. An ornately carved bookcase stretched almost to the ceiling, but the only books on it were Mal’s textbooks. And the textbooks were the most personal things in sight.