Dandelion bowed to me. “As you wish.” He turned and offered his arm to Heather. “Shall we?”
Heather went off in one direction with Dandelion, and Kai led me in another direction. In the ballroom next door, a big band of musicians had started playing, a fast-paced swing song.
I smiled when I recognized the music. “I love this song.”
Kai grinned as he turned to me, his features shifting and his fur disappearing as he transformed into a human for the dance. “I know, that’s why I came to find you.” He started to lead me, and I followed him easily. Kai has always been my favorite swing partner.
After a minute, Kai said, “That Fae seemed really protective of you. Is he actually offended that I wanted to dance with you?”
I shook my head. “I’ve known him for a long time, and he watches out for me. I think at least half of what he says is a joke, though.”
Kai watched my face closely. “Doesn’t it bother you when he flirts like that? I mean, he’s so much older than you.”
I laughed. “I tell him the same thing, but it doesn’t stop him. I promise that it’s a joke. His interest in me is mostly because—” I glanced around and lowered my voice, because talking about oaths wasn’t supposed to be done openly. “He’s the one that I made my pact with, to become a witch.”
“Oh.” The song came to an end, and we turned to clap for the band. While we waited for the next set, Kai leaned closer to me. “What about the new girl? Is it true that her parents are both vampires?”
So that information was already out. “Yeah, they plan on turning Heather into one, too, when she turns eighteen. She’s actually a pretty sweet girl, though.”
“Wow.” Kai’s eyes glittered again. “So you’ve been trying to help her fit in? That’s nice of you.”
“It’s not just that—I think we’re friends now.”
Kai frowned. “How does Lindsey feel about that?”
“I’m allowed to have other friends besides Lindsey,” I said quickly. But I remembered that Lindsey had been avoiding me for most of the week. “Although she doesn’t seem to like Heather much.”
Kai nodded. “You two have been really close for a long time, and Lindsey is the jealous type. Be careful, or Heather may end up getting pushed into the mud, too.”
I sighed and shook my head. “I hope not.”
The band leader stood up and began counting out the beat for the next song. Kai reached for my hand again. “Well, with how popular you are and all of your jealous friends, I hope that you will still have time for me.”
I smiled and followed him into position for the dance. “Of course.”
When I got home some time on Sunday morning after eating a second brunch and taking Heather back to her house, I went straight up to my room and collapsed in bed, where I slept for most of the day. Faeriekin parties are always fun, but I never get much sleep when I’m there, even though the castle’s many buildings are big enough for every guest to have their own room.
I woke up sore in almost every possible way: my feet hurt from dancing, not to mention my legs and back. There were scratches on my hands and arms from—what? Oh, yeah, I’d had a tree climbing race with Glen. I’m not exceptionally athletic, so of course he’d won that. I winced when I moved, which meant that my tail bone was still bruised from falling out of that tree. The night had been pretty crazy.
I took a long, hot shower to soak out the worst of the soreness and to help myself wake up.
I thought about everything that had happened, the highlights and the drama, and I felt pretty happy. There were some bad moments, but it was a good party. I should probably call up Lindsey, or go see her in person so that she could rant about what happened with Robert; that particular piece of drama was not going to get resolved any time soon.
Tomorrow at school was going to be interesting.
For now, I wanted to talk to my parents about Akasha’s school. Dandelion was right: she didn’t fit at Crowther. There had to be another option we could find for her.
When I left my room, I smelled something delicious: my mom was making her homemade pasta sauce for dinner. Some people think that pasta sauce only comes out of a jar. My mom spends most of a day simmering her special sauce with fresh vegetables from her garden, spices, and good red wine. The result is thick and rich and good enough to eat as a meal by itself, but it’s also good when she adds sausage, pours it over fresh pasta, and serves it with a nice crusty bread to soak it up with.
Even after all of the great food that I had at the Faeriekin Court, there was nothing that made me happier or feel more at home than the smell of my mom’s cooking. I went downstairs with a big smile on my face.
Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table when I came in, playing a game of cards. They both looked up and smiled when they saw me. “Did you manage to catch up on your sleep, sweetie?” Mom asked.
I stretched. “Yeah, I got some rest and a shower, but I’m still sore. It was a long weekend.”
Mom’s eyes widened when she saw the scratches and bruises. She stood up and came over to look closer. “Oh no, honey, what happened?”
I gave her a sheepish grin. “I, uh, fell out of a tree. Not flying—I was climbing it. Um, trying to, anyways.”
She turned to one of the cupboards and pulled out a jar. “I have an herbal ointment that will soothe that. Here.”
The astringent smell stung my eyes when she opened it. I started to pull away. “No, Mom, I don’t need that.”
She ignored me and started slathering it on. The smell was even stronger up close, and the ointment made my cuts burn. “Hold still, dear. I know it’s unpleasant, but it’s good for you. It will help you heal faster.”
I winced. “Ouch! Isn’t there a spell you could put on it to make it hurt less, at least?”
“Pain is necessary in healing. It reminds you to take it easy, and it tells you that it’s working.” She finished rubbing the ointment on my arms and went around behind me. She pulled up the back of my shirt and found more scratches on my back, too.
I glanced at my dad with a pleading look, but he just shrugged and said, “Your mother knows what she’s doing.”
I gritted my teeth and waited while she continued to rub the foul-smelling goop on me. By the end, I was so sticky and stinky that I wanted to take another shower.
While Mom put away the jar of ointment, I sat down gingerly in the chair next to my dad’s. “I have something that I wanted to talk to you guys about.”
Dad sat up straighter. “Sure, what’s wrong?”
“Well, it’s about Akasha.” I glanced back at Mom. “Do you remember how I told you about how she doesn’t like school anymore?”
Mom sat down and looked at Dad. “Yes, I talked to her about it, but it sounded like she was just disappointed that other girl switched schools. She’ll get over it when she starts to make other friends.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it got me thinking: is it really the best school for her to be at?”
“Crowther is a great school. You love it there.”
“It’s a great school for me,” I said, pointing at myself. “But what does Akasha get out of it? She’s a normal human, she doesn’t need to learn about sorcery or magitek, they don’t teach witchcraft—”
Dad cleared his throat. “That’s not all that you have at your school. It has a great music program, and she’s on the school paper.”
I held up a finger. “She doesn’t get to do anything on the paper because all of the older kids take the good jobs. Other schools around here also have good music programs. And because this school is so small, it doesn’t have a lot of the extra stuff that she used to do at her old school. So why doesn’t she go somewhere else if she hates this one?”
Mom sighed and patted my hand. “It’s nice that you’re so concerned about your sister, dear,” she said. “But we went over all of her options last year, and this seemed like the best choice.”
I shook my head. “Well, it’s not the best choice anymore, s
o you need to look at them again. There’s got to be somewhere else that she would be happier.”
She narrowed her eyes and frowned at me. “We can’t send her to that Catholic school with this other girl she’s friends with.”
“I know that.” I spread my hands. “She had friends in elementary school who went to other middle schools around here. What about them?”
Dad shook his head. “I always thought that private schools would give you girls a better education. The public school was convenient for the first few years, but now I want to give you girls the best opportunities to get into a good college.”
“Public schools aren’t bad. She’s still a good student—”
There was a loud scratching at the back door.
Mom looked over at the door. “That must be the cat. Will you go let her in, dear?” She patted my hand again.
I got up from the table, noticing that as I did, my muscles weren’t aching quite so bad when I moved—maybe my mom’s ointment was starting to work. I opened the door.
Menolly walked halfway in the doorway, sniffed a spot on the floor, and looked up at me.
“Okay, whenever you’re ready,” I said with a sigh. I continued to stand there holding the door open.
Mom made kissing noises and patted her lap. “Come here, Menolly. Come to Mama.”
Menolly finally walked the rest of the way in and twined around my legs. I closed the door. “We should make her a cat door or something.”
“It’s such a nice door,” Dad said. “I’d hate to have to cut a hole in it.”
When I went back to my chair, Menolly followed. As soon as I sat down, she jumped up into my lap. I obliged her by scratching behind her ears.
Mom jumped up and walked into the kitchen to stir the pot of simmering pasta sauce. “I think it’s almost finished. Would you two like a taste?”
“Mm, yes dear, it smells delicious,” Dad said.
I accepted a spoonful of sauce. It was just as good as she always made it, full of rich, complex flavors like roasted garlic and fresh herbs. “Wow, Mom, this is great.”
Mom went back to the stove and set a pot of water to boil for the pasta.
Dad picked up the cards and began to shuffle them together. “Would you like to play a round?” he asked me.
I frowned, scratching the cat. What had we just been talking about? It must have not been that important, because I couldn’t remember what it was. “Sure, deal me in.”
The next day, it rained. It didn’t rain a lot, but it was the first rain of the season after a long dry summer. It only lasted for a little while in the early morning when I was still getting ready for school and trying to get Akasha to hurry up, but I grabbed a coat anyways, and then I yelled at Akasha again because I wanted to leave early. The first rain always made people drive like idiots. The last thing that I needed on a Monday after a long weekend was to end up late to school because I got stuck in traffic caused by a stupid accident.
When I came downstairs to wait for my sister, I saw that my dad was still at home, sitting on the couch in the living room and reading a medical journal. He glanced up at me. “It’s raining a little, so make sure you drive carefully,” he said. “There’s bound to be accidents today. You should probably leave early.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m trying to get Akasha to move her butt.—Akasha!” I turned and yelled up the stairs again.
“I’m right here,” Akasha muttered, stepping out of the hall bathroom. She glared at me as she passed me at the bottom of the stairs.
Dad closed his medical journal and let it rest on his lap. “Hi, pumpkin. Are you getting your pre-algebra test back today?”
She looked at the floor, but she nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Dad said, “Well, you’ll probably go over it in class, but if you have any other questions, you can show me when I get home tonight, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. She turned and went into the kitchen.
Dad looked at me. “She doesn’t sound very excited about it.”
“I think she’s just stressing out about being at a new school,” I said. “By the way, I’m getting back my Social Studies test today.”
“I’m sure you did fine.” He picked up his journal and started reading again.
I managed to get us to school safely and on time. The rain had stopped, but it was still cloudy outside, which made the temperature at least ten degrees cooler than it had been—last week had been a miniature heatwave, reaching up to nearly ninety. Everyone was wearing their jackets with their school uniforms. I saw Daniela getting out of Robert’s car while he held the door open for her and rolled my eyes.
Lindsey came up to me in the hall, and I knew by her face that she’d already seen Robert with Daniela, because she was scowling. “This is going to be a very long day,” she said.
“Yeah, I guessed. Speaking of which,” I added before I forgot. “During lunch today, I’m supposed to take Heather to the photo lab so I can help her develop her first rolls of film.”
Lindsey pouted at me. “You’ll make me eat lunch alone?”
“Where’s Peter?”
“He and I are ‘taking a break’,” she said, making air quotes with her fingers. “He doesn’t want our relationship to turn into something that I use to get back at Robert. And now you want to spend all of your time with the new girl instead of me. Why does everyone hate me all of a sudden?”
I sighed. I’d already tried to be nice to her when she was complaining to me over the phone the night before, and now I was getting fed up with her selfishness. “Linds, you kind of brought this on yourself. They weren’t going to put up with your games forever, and now it’s getting out of hand. You owe both of them an apology, and probably Daniela, too.”
Lindsey took a step back and stared at me. “Are you saying that this is my fault?”
I nodded. “You’ve been trying to make two boys chase after you, and now you could lose both of them.”
Lindsey opened her mouth, closed it again, and then her face began to scrunch up and turn red. “I can’t believe you would say something like that,” she said, her voice and her lower lip quivering like she was about to cry. “I thought you were my friend.”
“Sometimes friends have to tell each other the hard truth—”
“Friends are supposed to understand!”
I folded my arms and glared at her. “Friends also don’t abandon each other the minute a boy smiles at them. You accused me of spending all of my time with Heather, but that’s because all last week, you would rather be with Peter than with me.”
“Well, now I guess you can be happy that my heart is broken and you can have me all to yourself, but I’m not going to come crying back to you!” Lindsey stormed off down the hallway.
I was hurt and angry about her temper tantrum, but I also felt guilty. Had I taken it too far?
I turned and saw Kai watching me. He tried to look away and pretend to be interested in something else, but I marched up to him. “You had better not put any of this online,” I said.
He looked at me and smirked a little. “I’m not sure that I need to. I think that the word has already gotten around.”
I leaned closer so that my face was right in his. “I don’t need you making it any worse by putting it up where she’ll read it again.”
“Okay,” Kai said, putting his hands up in surrender. “I try not to post anything that’s actually going to hurt anyone.”
“Thanks.”
I stalked off into the restroom by myself. I sat down in a stall and put my head between my hands. It wasn’t the first time that I’d thought about telling Lindsey off, but now that I’d gone and done it, all I felt was emptiness. I had no idea what I should do next. Should I apologize, or should I wait to see if she would admit she was wrong?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pride
I didn’t apologize to Lindsey that day, and she gave me the silent treatment. That put me in a bad mood, which my ot
her friends were good enough to recognize, and they left me alone out of sympathy. “Call me if you want to talk or anything,” Heather said. Ashleigh didn’t say anything, just gave me a hug, and Glen looked sympathetic.
When school finally let out, I was looking forward to just going home and taking it easy—but I knew that wasn’t going to happen when I saw Akasha waiting for me in the parking lot. She looked like she’d been crying.
“What happened?” I asked, and she immediately burst into tears again.
I went over and put my arms around her, patting her on her back until she calmed down a little. “Let’s get in the car and you can tell me all about it. Do you want to stop by the Drip on the way home and get a hot chocolate or something?”
“No,” Akasha gasped out, wiping off her face with the back of her sleeve. “I just want to go home.”
I unlocked the car and let her get in so we could talk without attracting another crowd of students, but I didn’t start the engine yet. “Did you get hurt?”
Akasha was looking down at the floor of the car. A few tears were still trickling down her cheeks. “No,” she mumbled. “Nothing like that.”
“Then what has you so upset? Don’t tell me it’s nothing.” Akasha isn’t the kind of kid who cries a lot, so I knew it had to be fairly drastic to set her off.
“It’s embarrassing to talk about.”
I sat there and waited. After a few minutes, she gave in.
“I—I got my math test back today. It wasn’t good.”
I could guess what that meant to my over-achieving sister. “What did you get, a B?”
“No-o-o,” she said, drawing the word out into a tortured moan. She hid her face in her hands. “I failed it.”
I stared at her. “You’re joking.”
Akasha shook her head.
“Well, maybe it’s not so bad. How much was the test worth?”
“It was a section review. Almost half of my grade.”
I whistled low. I never expected this to happen. “Were you just having a bad day or something? Maybe you can talk to your teacher and ask to take it again.”
Small Town Witch (The Fae of Calaveras County) Page 9
