by Gloria Craw
He walked around me with a final warning. “Become invisible to protect your humans, thoughtmaker.”
Now, three years later, I was standing in the sickroom, trying to get blood out of my hair and wondering what use I would be to anyone, dewing or otherwise. My thought transference was weak, unreliable, and limited.
I was twisting my hair into a bun when Ian came in with my glasses. He gave me a teasing smile as he held them out to me and then pulled them back. He was good-looking and he knew it. His hair was bright like sunshine and his eyes were fascinating. In a plain white T-shirt and worn jeans, he looked amazing. I could probably get around those attractions. It was his smile that could get me into trouble. I reminded myself to be on guard with him. I put my hand out for my glasses, and he handed them to me.
“I won’t apologize again,” he said, “but is there anything I can do…to make amends?”
I didn’t intend to say anything, but for a moment my headache made things hazy and the words came tumbling out. “You could give me a ride to work,” I said.
“Okay. I’m parked by the tennis courts. We can discuss our poetry presentation on the way.”
He turned and walked out of the room. “Why did I say that out loud?” I muttered to myself.
Chapter Three
My last class of the day was Art Appreciation. It was popular, which should have made it easy for me to maintain a low profile. Except Brandy was in it, too. My calculus class had run late, so when I got to the room, most of the desks were already taken. Brandy saw me looking over people’s heads for a place to sit and motioned toward the one next to her. There weren’t that many options left, and I didn’t have it in me to pretend I hadn’t seen her, so I reluctantly went to sit down.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” she asked with a bright smile.
“I’ve still got a headache, but other than that I’m good.”
“You look a lot better than the last time I saw you. Honestly, I didn’t think you’d stay for the rest of the day.”
“The nurse gave me the option of going home,” I admitted, “but I’d feel the same way there as I do here.”
She reached out and rested her hand on my arm, not seeming to notice how I froze at her touch. “You should take some ibuprofen,” she suggested sympathetically. “A lot of it.”
She went on to say something about one of her earlier classes. I would have liked to talk with her, but I couldn’t let myself. Instead, I let my gaze wander and kept quiet while she chatted away. I could have been a potted plant for all she cared. She was one of those people that felt perfectly fine carrying on a one-sided conversation. Much like Connor. I rolled my eyes when she wasn’t looking. Two talkers in one day was really bad luck.
Aside from the constant babble, she seemed nice. She was quite pretty, too. Her hair was dark brown and curly. Her eyes were so dark they were almost black. She was fortunate to have a skin tone that would always look tanned. “You and Ian have Byron for the presentation, right?” she asked. Without giving me the time to answer, she moved on to another subject.
As the minutes passed, it became more difficult to be withdrawn with her. Even though she didn’t expect me to contribute much to the conversation, she had a dry wit that drew me in. When she said something funny about Connor trying to help me up from the floor that morning, I laughed. A glance in her direction showed she’d welcome more of it. Like Ian, she wanted to get to know me. I focused my attention on my pencil after that.
When our teacher, Mr. Dawson, walked to the front of the class and asked for our attention, I settled in for another boring first day lecture. I got a surprise instead. Mr. Dawson was middle-aged, short, and rounded, like a garden gnome. He must have been a fan of color, because he was wearing every shade in the rainbow somewhere on his squat frame. The introduction he gave was impressive, largely because he was passionate about the subject matter. He wasn’t just teaching an art curriculum—he was teaching something he loved.
As he paced animatedly back and forth at the front of the room, I began to feel the stirrings of my own excitement. Since transferring to Fillmore, I’d slowed down academically. It was a dodge to avoid accelerated-learning programs where someone might look for me. The excitement I felt as Mr. Dawson talked was because I had no artistic talent whatsoever. The history part of the class would be easy for me, but the subjective aspects were going to be difficult. At least one of my classes would be a challenge, for a change. Like friendship, that was something I missed.
When the bell rang, I packed up and left class as quickly as possible. I thought I’d ditched Brandy, but she came up behind me when I stopped at my locker. “You left this on the floor,” she said, handing me my class schedule.
The stupid thing had caused me nothing but trouble all day. “Thanks,” I replied, stuffing it deep in my pocket.
“So…Ian is driving you to work today,” she said.
“Yep. We’re going to talk about our poetry presentation.”
“He looked for you at lunch. Where did you go?”
I’d just met her and my eating habits were none of her business. My response was stony silence, but it didn’t faze her. She stood there smiling like she was my best friend. Sighing, I replied, “I usually bring something from home and eat by my locker or in my car.”
“That sounds lonely. You should eat with us tomorrow. There’s a lot of something in the cafeteria.”
“I don’t like the something they serve.”
She tried to form an argument in favor of the cafeteria’s food, but it was a hard task. I decided to let her off the hook. “I’ll think about it,” I assured her. “Thanks for the offer.”
That satisfied her and she ambled off, humming some tune I didn’t recognize. Opening my locker, I straightened the mirror on the door and looked at the side of my face. As I’d expected, it was healing quickly. The swelling was entirely gone, but in its place was a multicolored bruise. The bruise wouldn’t last long, either. It was the pounding in my head that concerned me most. It hadn’t let up at all.
I squeezed out the school doors with the rest of the crowd and squinted in the bright sunlight. Putting my hand up to shield my eyes from the glare coming off the pavement, I mentally kicked myself for asking Ian to take me to work. I still didn’t understand how it had happened. It was like some unseen force had pulled the thought out of my brain and sent it straight out of my mouth.
Ian and Brandy had become complications that I needed to get rid of. I understood that they were new at school and trying to make connections. I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. With my head injury, I hadn’t been able to use transference to get rid of them. Now I was left with only my own charming personality to work with. I didn’t doubt I could be repellent, but I needed to strike just the right balance. I needed something that would be off-putting without being cruel. Cruel people were the most difficult to forget.
I was a sweaty mess when Ian came toward me. “Been waiting long?” he asked.
He stood with his backpack slung over his shoulder and a couple of books under his arm. The sun lit his eyes and glinted off his hair. I reminded myself not to be impressed. “Yeah,” I replied.
“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. I had to talk to my physics teacher. I think the class isn’t advanced enough for me, so he’s letting me switch to the honors class tomorrow.”
I nodded, deciding the best thing to do was come off as dull as dirt while we were together.
“Brandy said she has sixth period with you,” he continued. “Art history, right?”
“Yep.”
“That’s a great elective.”
“I guess so.”
He gave me a fleeting glance, probably wondering if I’d lost brain function since leaving the sickroom that morning.
We got in his navy-blue Audi, and he turned the key in the ignition. The speakers banged to life with Daft Punk. It made the thumping in my head intensify.
“Sorry about that,” he said, turning the v
olume down.
The car was sweltering, so he turned the air-conditioning on full blast. It worked a lot better in his nice car than it did in my junker. I was a little jealous.
“Where am I taking you?” he asked, running his hands through his hair. It stood in little spikes when he finished.
“The new-and-used bookstore off of Vine.”
“The Shadow Box?”
“Yes,” I replied, surprised that he knew the place.
“That’s not far from where I live. I’ve been in a few times, but the only person I’ve ever seen there is the angry-looking old woman behind the counter.”
“That would be Lillian. She’s not angry, she’s just…Lillian.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Figuring a discussion about Lillian was neutral territory, I went on. “She owns the Shadow Box. It doesn’t attract a lot of customers, but that’s okay because she really doesn’t need the money. She makes a boatload of cash as a rare-book dealer.”
“Why does she keep a place like that going if she doesn’t need to?”
“She says she likes the smell of books around her while she works.”
He glanced sideways at me. “The inside of that store smells like feet. Do you like working in the dark, cramped, stinky little space?”
“I like it well enough,” I replied. “The hours are good, and I can usually finish my homework before I leave. The big bonus is that Lillian lets me take anything I want out of the used section as long as I return it. And just so you know, the smell is aged paper. According to Lillian, it’s like the bouquet of a fine wine.”
He chuckled. “So you have a passion for books, like Lillian?”
The conversation had taken a personal turn. “Not for smelling them, but I like reading them,” I replied in monotone.
From that point on, I kept my gaze focused out the side window and refused to say more than three words at a time. Ian got the message and turned the conversation to the business of our Byron presentation. As the minutes passed, it became clear he loved books as much as I did. We would have no trouble giving our presentation on George Gordon Byron, because Ian was one of his biggest fans.
I caught him looking over at me a couple of times as we talked. I tried not to read too much into it, but it was surprising that he found anything interesting to look at where I was concerned. I thought I’d done an awesome job guarding against male interest. I certainly hadn’t inspired any boys’ attention before, which was good and bad.
Boys had been a complication since I’d taken my vow of invisibility. At first, I’d been frustrated by the necessity of keeping my distance from them, but the idea of a romantic relationship lost a lot of its appeal when I realized how much power I’d have over a boyfriend. There were limits to what I could do, but a hormonal teenage boy would be like putty in my hands. I could have my mental way with him, and he’d never know it.
There was also the fact that I didn’t know how the interspecies thing worked. Maybe I’d turn green and sprout horns if I kissed a human boy. I’d had my share of crushes, but knowing the risk factors, I’d grudgingly come to terms with remaining a single undefined species.
Whether I understood why or not, I had registered on Ian’s radar. It made me nervous. Fortunately, I had a natural preference for tall, dark, and handsome types. Ian was too Captain America for my taste.
When he pulled the Audi in front of the Shadow Box, he asked, “How are you going to get home after work?”
“I’ll take the bus,” I said.
“I could come around and get you. This place closes at seven, right?”
“Yes, but I’m taking the bus home tonight. Thanks for the ride to work.”
Lillian was sitting at her messy desk behind the counter when I went in. She watched with disapproval as Ian’s car drove away. “Who was that?” she asked.
“Ian Palmer from school.”
“I’ve never seen him before. Why did he drive you here?”
I pulled my dark green work apron off its hook, wondering who the stranger inhabiting my boss’s body was. Lillian never asked me questions about my personal life. It was one of the things I liked best about her.
“My mom insisted on driving me to school this morning,” I explained. “Then she couldn’t pick me up. Ian physically assaulted me after first period, so he drove me here as penance.”
She got up and came toward me. “He did what?”
I chuckled a little. “Don’t worry. It was an accident. He knocked me off balance, and I hit my head on the corner of a desk. I’m fine.”
She looked at the bandage on the side of my face and didn’t appear convinced. I couldn’t blame her. The bruise was pretty nasty looking.
“I was planning to run errands,” she said, “but maybe I should stay.”
“Go on. This is what you pay me to do.”
She paused for a moment and then started looking for her car keys. Lillian was constantly misplacing important things. It was easy enough to do in the messes she created. I spotted her keys poking out from under the cash register and pointed toward them.
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be back around seven.”
The bells above the door jingled as she left.
As usual, haphazard stacks of books had been piled on the floors, on the chairs, and behind the counter. Reshelving the tripping hazards was a big part of my job, so I started sorting through the piles. I found a copy of Dragonsong at the bottom of one of them. There were some powerful memories attached to the title, because it was the first book I’d bought when I found the Shadow Box.
After I met the dewing man in the park, my life had sunk to a new and depressing low. Detaching and then isolating myself from my friends left me bored and miserable. I’d started reading everything I could get my hands on so I wouldn’t dwell on my own misery. The only downside to my new hobby was the price. My money went farther when I got books from the used section at the Shadow Box, and the dim, cramped space was comforting rather than repellent to me. There was the added benefit that not many people shopped there. Though it was a bus ride away, the store quickly became my favorite haunt.
I’d been a weekly regular for over a year when Lillian had approached me and asked if I was sixteen. She’d followed that question with, “Do you want to work here?”
Those were the longest sentences she’d ever said, and it had totally freaked me out. I’d scooted out the door as fast as I could, but I thought it through that night and accepted the job the next day. It was the best decision I could have made. My job was perfect. I was able to save money and get out of the house, and Lillian practically ignored my existence.
I only had one customer come in during my shift, and she didn’t buy anything. By six thirty, I’d straightened the store and finished my homework. Bored, I walked back to the used section to check for new arrivals. There weren’t any, but there was an unopened box stuck under the bottom of the bookcase. Assuming it was an order I needed to check in, I pushed the package out with my foot. Then I felt in my apron pocket for the utility knife I kept there.
When the bells above the door jingled, I glanced up to see a heavyset man wearing a dark fedora standing at the counter. “I’ll be with you in just a minute,” I said, finishing a cut on the box.
“Actually, that might be what I’m looking for,” he replied in a thick voice. “A package meant for me was left here by mistake today.”
There was no shipping address on it, which was strange. Still, I wasn’t going to hand it over to him without checking to make sure it wasn’t for the store. I started to open the cardboard flaps, but his huge hand closed over my wrist. Jumping to my feet, I stepped away from him. “Yes, this is it,” he said.
“I can’t let you have it,” I replied shakily. “You need to come back when my boss is here and check with her.”
The man wasn’t listening to me, or he simply didn’t care, because he picked the box up and turned away. I knew what I was supposed to do under the circum
stances. Lillian had made me promise never to put the money in the register or a book before my personal safety. I should have let the guy take the package, but for some reason, I really didn’t want him to have it.
Gripping the utility knife tight, I shouted the thought Put the box down at him. Just as before, my head throbbed from the effort and it didn’t work.
I ran up behind the man and grabbed a corner of the box. It surprised him enough that he loosened his grip. The box fell to the floor, bursting open. A large book spilled out of it. I didn’t need Lillian around to tell me it was old and valuable. The leather binding had darkened with age, the cover was embossed, and the pages were gilded with gold.
I was quicker than the bulky man, and I got ahold of the book before he did. I held my utility knife out to look as threatening as I could. The man wasn’t intimidated, though. He slammed his fist into the side of my face, and I went flying backward, landing next to a bookcase. The fall completely winded me, but I hadn’t let go of the book.
I struggled to catch my breath while he stood looking down at me. My headache intensified, and a cruel joy spread over his face. I kicked out, hoping to connect with his feet. He dodged, laughed, and then kicked me in the ribs. I had no strength left to hold on as he wrenched the book out of my hand.
The bells above the door jingled when he left.
A few seconds later, they jingled again.
Chapter Four
Figuring the man had come back, I played dead.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ian said from somewhere above me, in voice full of worry.
I opened an eye to find him staring down at me. “What happened this time?” he asked, kneeling next to me.
“Ugh,” I replied.
My hair had come out of its bun and was splayed everywhere. He pushed it back from my face to assess the damage. His nose wrinkled in sympathy. “The cut has opened up again. There’s a lot of blood. Where’s the bathroom?”
I pointed.
His light eyes met mine. “Don’t move until I get back,” he said.
