Hidden Realms

by Dean Murray

  Drake caught my eye and winked. I bit my lip and looked away, my face flushed with warmth. I couldn't believe that the most popular guy in school, the quarterback of the football team and son of one of the richest families in town, was flirting with me. It was like I had been reborn while I was sick and a new life had been given to me. A better life.

  Tori's life.

  I shook the thought away. No, this wasn't about Tori.

  Friday afternoon came fast. As I was contemplating putting a temporary demon tattoo on my cheek for the game, something caught my eye out by the barn. Jackson Hunt was down there watching me through the window.

  It wasn't the first time I'd seen him staring at me, either. After that first day in the courtyard when he interrupted me and Drake, I'd seen him watching me a lot. Both at school and here at Shadowford. Looking down at him now, I suddenly had a flash of memory. I'd seen him down there that first day I moved to Shadowford. Agnes had told me he was trouble and that we weren't supposed to be talking to him.

  He waved up at me, but I didn't wave back. There was something so sad about him. It clouded my new happiness and brought back that same fuzziness that I'd felt when I first came out of the fever. I didn't like feeling like that. I wanted to be happy. I liked my new friendships, even if I didn't totally understand why I had them.

  I turned away from the window and walked into the bathroom to put the demon on my face.

  I Must Have Seen it Wrong

  At the game, Agnes asked me where I wanted to sit. She'd barely even talked to me the whole week, and I was surprised she even cared where I was sitting. Still, I hated to admit I'd been invited to the reserved section.

  “Of course,” she said. “Next thing I know, you'll be showing up at the tryouts next week to audition for the squad.” There was so much bitterness in her voice.

  I couldn't look her in the eye. “Agnes...” I'd been trying to figure out how to break the news to her, and now that the time had come, I wasn't sure what to say. Guilt twisted my stomach. Was I wrong to want something better for myself?

  “You've got to be kidding me.” She looked at me as if I'd just slapped her across the face. “I didn't think you'd actually do it. You know how much this means to me, Harper. And since when do you want to be a cheerleader? When you moved here, what was it you said about them? That they were ego-maniac airheads? My, my how things have changed.”

  “Agnes,” I said. “Don't be upset. I'm sorry. It's not like I expected things to turn out like this… but—”

  “But, what? You're going to stab me in the back, anyway?” Tears formed in her eyes. “Come on, Courtney, let's go. We're not good enough to sit in the reserved section with Harper.”

  Courtney shrugged apologetically and gave me a little wave.

  I felt like a real jerk. I knew how important the squad was to Agnes, but at the same time, didn't I deserve to be happy too? Never in my life had a group of people invited me into their circle the way the cheerleaders had. It was the first time I felt special, and I didn't want to give it up for anyone.

  I made my way through the crowd to the small reserved section of bleachers just in front of where the cheerleaders stood. Mrs. King was already there and she smiled brightly when she saw me.

  “Harper, I'm so glad you made it,” she said. “Brooke told me you girls are going to her house to practice tonight, and I think that's such a great idea. Some of the other girls trying out were there for the auditions last year, so a lot of them will already be familiar with the cheers and the dances. It's really sweet that the girls are spending so much time with you. Friendship on the squad is so important, and even though we want to pick the best girls for the team, it doesn't hurt that you already get along with them so well.”

  I smiled. “I really feel lucky to be included,” I said.

  This game was much more exciting than the first one I'd gone to. I tried to pay special attention to all the cheers, but the thought of having to learn everything in just one week made me nervous. Plus, I couldn't help watching for Drake out on the field. He was really a star out there. A couple of times when the defense was out on the field, I caught Drake watching me from the sidelines.

  Everything was going great until the pyramid incident.

  Sometime near the end of the third quarter, the cheerleaders did a cheer that had them piling up into a giant pyramid. A small brunette climbed to the top and stood, then with a little bounce, she was thrown high into the air. It was a beautiful stunt at first. She did a full flip in the air, but something went wrong on the landing. Her foot got caught on someone's arm and I gasped as she fell to the ground. Sitting so close to the squad, I had a clear view of the entire stunt. The girl's fall happened so fast. I jumped up, helpless to stop her. I could swear I heard a crack as her head hit the ground.

  I screamed and jumped from my seat. The crowd around me gasped, then went silent. Mrs. King rushed out to where the other girls had huddled around the injured girl. I looked around, waiting for the paramedics to rush over, but I didn't see them.

  My pulse hammered in my veins. She had to be hurt really bad. Possibly paralyzed. I watched as Mrs. King emerged from the huddle. She was smiling.

  The small brunette stood up and waved to the crowd. Applause broke out all around me, but I stood there, stunned. How could that be possible? She had fallen at least ten feet straight down on her head. There was no way she was fine.

  “Sherry never misses that toss,” Mrs. King said. “Good thing Ella broke her fall.”

  I shook my head. “Are you sure she's all right? I could have sworn—”

  “Goodness Harper, don't worry so much.” Mrs. King laughed like it was nothing. “She's fine. In fact, I'm almost more worried about Ella's leg. Sherry fell practically right on top of it.”

  “I guess I must have seen it wrong,” I said. But to be honest, I didn't think I had.

  It's Not That Simple

  Peachville won the game 21-7. Lark ran up to me in the bleachers, grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me out onto the field with her and the rest of the squad.

  “You should go say hi to Drake,” she said with a giggle. “He's so into you.”

  I blushed. “You really think so?”

  “Duh. Don't even try to pretend you don't know he likes you,” she said, then pushed me toward him on the field.

  “Harper!” Drake called. He grabbed me up in a big bear hug and lifted me several inches off the ground.

  I laughed harder than I remembered laughing in a very long time. “You were great,” I said when he finally put me down.

  “That's because I had the prettiest girl in the whole school right there, front and center,” he said. “I wanted to impress you.”

  Me? The prettiest girl in school? Something about this felt so fake, but there was a part of me that wanted to believe it could be real.

  “Have fun tonight,” he said. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head, then ran off to join the rest of the team.

  Afterward, at Brooke's, the girls grilled me about my relationship with Drake. We had all changed into cheer shorts and tank tops and were hanging out in Brooke's living room. The place was unreal. Sure, Shadowford was big, but this place was fancy. Plush carpeting. A huge stone fireplace. High ceilings. I was scared to touch anything.

  “Has he asked you out yet?” Allison asked.

  I searched her face to make sure there was no sign of jealousy about me dating her ex. She didn't ever talk about him, and now it seemed like she was encouraging me to date him. It was odd, but at the same time I was glad I had the go-ahead to date him if he asked.

  “No. He just mentioned that he hoped I'd be at the party next weekend.”

  “That's pretty much the same thing as a date, then,” Lark said.

  “I bet he's going to kiss you,” Brooke chimed in.

  “He practically kissed her tonight. Did you see him kiss her head? It was so sweet,” Lark said.

  “Stop,” I said, hiding my head under a
large velvet pillow. “You guys are embarrassing me.”

  “Harper's got a boyfriend,” Allison sang.

  “Oh Lord, what are you? Ten?” Brooke threw a pillow at Allison and she kicked back. Soon everyone was giggling and play-fighting, tossing pillows around the room and being silly.

  I hid behind the couch, but Lark came around and started tickling me. We rolled on the floor and her shirt came up slightly, revealing a strange tattoo in the small of her back.

  “What's that?” I asked, out of breath.

  “What?” she asked, quickly pulling down her shirt.

  “That tattoo?”

  The room grew oddly quiet. Lark and Brooke exchanged glances. “I don't have a tattoo,” she said, laughing. But her laugh came out nervous. She was hiding something.

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “I saw it. Here, lift up your shirt.”

  “Stop,” she said, moving away.

  Her tone stung.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. I hadn't meant to make anyone upset, but I had definitely seen something tattooed on her back. An animal of some sort, I thought. But there was a strangeness to it. The colors had been too bright. Maybe it was just one of those fake tattoos, and I had embarrassed her or something.

  “Let's get to work,” Brooke said.

  Everyone gathered together in the middle of the room to teach me the cheers and after just a few minutes, the awkwardness of the tattoo incident was gone. But in the back of my mind, the oddness of it lingered. Between the girl who had fallen from the pyramid and now the weirdness of the tattoo, I felt like someone was keeping secrets from me.

  At the same time, what did it matter? Was I willing to let a few secrets or awkward misunderstandings get in the way of my new happiness? No way. I threw myself into learning the cheers and the one dance the girls said would be used for the auditions next Thursday after school.

  It took some serious work. I wasn't the most coordinated person in the world. But after a few times through, I was really getting the hang of it.

  “Not bad,” Brooke said. She gave me some pointers, then stood back to watch me run through the cheers one more time. “If you keep working hard this week, I don't see any reason you wouldn't make the squad.”

  “Really?” Thinking about the auditions made me nervous. I didn't even want to see who all showed up Monday.

  “You've got this,” Lark said, squeezing my arm.

  I smiled, feeling better now that she seemed to have forgiven me for the whole tattoo thing. “I'm going to run to the bathroom,” I said. Brooke told me where I could find one and I rushed out of the room.

  When I came back, though, I heard them talking about me. I pressed against the wall, staying out of sight.

  “Why can't we tell her, though?” That was Allison. “If she's the Prima, why can't we just tell her everything and get it over with?”

  “It's not that simple,” Lark said.

  “You need to be more careful about who sees that tattoo,” Brooke said.

  So I was right about her having one, but why did it matter? It wasn't like I was going to judge anyone for having a dumb tattoo.

  “I know. I didn't mean to show it, but we were playing around and my shirt came up. It happens.”

  I scooted closer to the edge of the wall, hoping to hear better, but my toe made a popping sound. I cringed as the living room went silent.

  “Harper?”

  I tiptoed back down the hall a bit, then walked normally, as if I was just coming back. “Yep,” I said. “What's next on the agenda?”

  “Sleep,” Brooke said with a yawn. “It's already almost three-thirty.”

  Later, after everyone had climbed into sleeping bags on the living room floor, my mind refused to rest. Everything had been so strange since my illness, and things just weren't adding up. Allison had said I was the Prima. What did that mean exactly?

  Fragments of a strange dream I'd had when I was passed out with fever came to me suddenly. A silver knife. A woman with blood red eyes.

  “The Prima has finally come home,” the voice had said in my dream.

  I felt along the diagonal scar on my palm. Ella Mae had told me I cut my hand on a piece of glass when I passed out in the bathroom that night after I got back from the police station. She said I'd been holding a cup of tea and when I fell, it broke. One of the jagged pieces sliced open my hand. I'd believed her. But now...

  I wasn't so sure.

  Promise Me

  The day after the slumber party, I stood by my bedroom window for a long time. Waiting.

  Around two in the afternoon, I saw him. Jackson came around the side of the barn and slipped inside. I needed to talk to him. I forced myself to walk normally all the way through the hall, down the stairs, and out the back door. I glanced around the yard to make sure no one was watching, then hurried in after him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. He was sitting on a crate near the back of the barn, smoking a cigarette, and I felt the strongest wave of déjà vu.

  “Looking for you,” I said.

  “Ah.” He slid off the top of the crate and came toward me. “This is a first, but I'll go with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I've been here before,” he said.

  I studied him. I didn't think he was talking about déjà vu, but it was strange that I had just had that feeling of having been here before, too.

  “If you've been here before, then how is this a first?”

  “It's hard to explain,” he said. “Besides, you'd probably just forget even if I told you.”

  My stomach tightened. “What do you know about me forgetting things?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Nothing, Harper. It doesn't matter.”

  “It matters to me,” I said. “Ever since I got sick, I've been having these weird moments where I feel like I'm almost remembering something that happened to me. Then, I lose it. Like I'm not sure what's real and what was a dream.”

  That same sad look crossed his face again. “I can't help you,” he said. “It's too late.”

  “Too late? What are you talking about?”

  “I'm talking about this.” He picked up my scarred hand and opened it, palm up.

  “Your mother told me I fell and cut my hand on a teacup.”

  He snorted. “Don't believe everything you hear.”

  “I keep remembering this crazy dream. There were these people chanting all around me and a woman with red eyes cut me with a silver knife. She called me the Prima.”

  Jackson's eyes grew wide and he tilted his head to the side. “The Prima?”

  I nodded.

  “Are you sure that's what she said?”

  “I'm not sure of anything,” I said. “So many things are fuzzy. Like you. That day in the courtyard when I came back to school. You acted like we knew each other, but I couldn't remember ever talking to you before. What does it mean, anyway?”

  “I can't talk to you about this,” he said, throwing his cigarette to the ground and stomping on it. He started to walk toward the door, but I stepped into his path.

  “Why not?”

  “There are rules, Harper. I know you don't understand what's going on here, but I'm bound by an oath older than time.”

  Déjà vu again. I'd heard those words before, I was certain.

  “There are rules I have to follow.”

  “Whose rules?”

  He shook his head. “I can't tell you.”

  “But something is strange about this place. I can feel it.” I paced in front of the door. “Were you at the game last night? One of the cheerleaders broke her neck when she fell off the top of the pyramid. I heard it. But she got up and she was fine. Like nothing ever happened. But I know what I saw. I feel like I'm going crazy."

  Jackson ran a hand through his hair. “I wish I could help you. I tried,” he said. “But you've got a new life now, am I right?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Sometimes I feel happier than I've eve
r felt before, but then other times, it feels like everyone is lying to me.”

  “I've gotta go.” He moved around me and pushed open the door, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him back.

  “Please,” I said. “What is a Prima?”

  He looked deep into my eyes and I knew that we were connected somehow. I couldn't explain it. Slowly, he leaned down and took my head in his hands. He was going to kiss me, and in that moment, I wanted him to. I leaned forward and our lips met.

  A flash of memory jolted through me. I was in his room and we were kissing. Everything we'd talked about and been through came back to me in a heady rush. The drawings. The room full of flames. I pulled away, gasping. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Why couldn't I remember?”

  “Listen to me,” he said. “You're going to forget again. Soon. It's part of the spell. But you can fight it, Harper. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were different from the other girls.”

  His words were almost the same as what Drake had said to me. I opened my mouth to ask him what made me so different from everyone else, but he placed a finger over my lips.

  “We don't have much time,” he said. “Do you remember the drawing? The one of you standing in a room of flames?”

  I remembered.

  “I think it's going to happen soon. I drew it again last night, but this time the picture was different,” he said. He ran his hand along my collarbone and fingered the sapphire pendant around my neck. “This time you were wearing your necklace. Promise me you won't take it off, okay? Promise you'll wear it every single day, no matter what.”

  I nodded.

  Jackson leaned down and brushed my lips lightly with his, then slid out of the barn. No matter how hard I tried to hold onto them, moments later my memories of him began to fade.

  This Week Is Going To Be Tough

  Monday afternoon, I joined eight other sophomore girls in the gym for cheerleading tryouts. Never in my life had I even considered being friends with a cheerleader, much less actually trying to become one. Until Peachville. Everything was different here. Ever since I lost my adoptive family and was put into the foster care system, I'd been looking for a place where I could fit in. All I ever wanted was to belong somewhere. To have a family who truly cared about me and wanted me in their lives. From the way Brooke and the others interacted, they seemed like a family. And if I could become a part of that, it might be the closest I'd ever come to my dream. At least while I was still in high school.