Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1)

by Leeann M. Shane

  I frowned, instantly deflated. “What do you mean, not me too?”

  She sighed, clutching her copy of Dracula to her chest. “Sam said she saw him, too. She didn’t even come to school today because she’s absolutely positive that a freaking ghost boy broke up with her last night and her life is over.”

  My frown deepened. “He broke up with her last night?”

  Was that what he’d been doing last night near Misty’s house? Breaking up with her sister? Before he attacked me on a lonely road.

  She gaped at me. “Would you listen to yourself? He’s not a ghost. He isn’t outside right now. He isn’t real, okay, Emmie? It’s just your imagination. I told you about him and now you’re merging a story with reality. You didn’t see him.”

  I leaned in close. “Misty, I saw him.”

  She watched me closely. “Where?”

  “He chased me home. He followed me. He knows where I live.”

  She gave me a sideways glance. “Are you okay? You sound paranoid.”

  I grumbled in frustration and lowered my voice further. “If it wasn’t him, then it was someone who looked just like him. Someone attacked me walking home from your place last night and they followed me home.” I told her about last night, and even about how my backpack showed up that morning.

  Her eyes widened. “Holy crap, that’s scary.”

  I rocked back on my heels. “Yeah, you could use that adjective.”

  “Did you tell your grandmother?”

  “No. She was sleeping.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Just you.”

  She glared at me. “That’s dangerous. You should tell the police. Let’s go tell the principal right now, and they can handle it.”

  I stopped her, placing my hand on her shoulder when she moved to walk away. For some reason, involving the police didn’t comfort me the way she thought it would. If I brought attention on Granny Londa and it wasn’t good, I had a feeling I’d be out on my butt. I couldn’t risk that. “I’ll do it after school.”

  She nodded. “Okay, good. Mom’s dropping you off too. Don’t argue with me on this, Emmie. Don’t.”

  For a bookworm, she was surprisingly forceful. “All right, all right.”

  Appeased, she sighed. “Are you okay? That sounds traumatic.”

  It was the first time I’d been asked that question. In a long time. The answer was difficult. I was physically okay. Mentally, I wasn’t sure what had happened, and that was the part that bothered me. I could speculate all I wanted, but at the end of the day, I didn’t know what happened. And thus, I couldn’t feel anything other than fear and confusion.

  “I think so?” I said.

  Overhead, the late bell rang.

  “Shoot, we’re late. We can talk in gym and lunch.”

  “We need two hours to talk about this?”

  She nodded seriously. “At least.”

  I scratched the back of my neck, wondering if Misty were scarier than the boy who followed me home.

  Turned out, she was.

  Giving her play-by-play details of my night made it both scarier and even more confusing.

  “He brought your backpack home?” she asked again for the millionth time on our way to the office to get our locker assignments.

  Lunch was almost over, and hopefully so was this conversation. I nodded mechanically.

  “Maybe he felt bad for scaring you.”

  “If that was the case, he could have simply stopped chasing me.”

  She sighed. “True. What color were his eyes?”

  “I couldn’t see them.”

  Thankfully, we arrived at the office then, and the secretary handed us our locker information. The lockers were all located on the first floor.

  “Mine is in hall ten,” she said, sticking out her bottom lip after reading that mine was in hall two. “See-you later?” she said. It sounded like a question.

  I looked away. “Later.” It sounded like a noncommittal answer. But I was out of there before she could tell.

  I slipped to the right and took the first turn, backtracking my way to hall two. I hadn’t lied to her. Mostly. I didn’t plan on going to the office after school and I didn’t plan on having plans later, but this problem felt like it was mine. Which was how things had typically gone lately.

  I managed to partly concentrate in physics and history, but the closer I got to the end of class the antsier I became. It was hard enough in Italian as it was, even harder when Signora Bianchi insisted on speaking the entire class in Italian. I wasn’t sure if we had homework on pronouns, or a twenty-five-page essay on sausages.

  To whom it may concern, they’re great with ketchup…

  As soon as the bell rang, I was out of there. I didn’t know what I was going to do or what exactly would happen; I needed to do something.

  There was another exit on the first floor by the east side bathroom. I used it, finding it closer to the forest than the front of the school. I jogged across the lawn and easily lifted my leg over the waist high metal fence, taking two more steps once I was beyond the fence line until I was within the consuming walls of the forest.

  In seconds, I was alone.

  There were the distant sounds of the high school. Horns honking, doors closing, the convergence of a hundred different voices talking all at once, but they sounded so far away, subdued by the thick forest; I was barely a part of them at all. And maybe in many ways, I wasn’t.

  A part of anything.

  Maybe that’s why I found myself chasing shadows alone.

  I kept close to the edge of the forest but still within its fortress. The twelve-minute walk home to school easily became thirty. And the entire time, I felt nothing.

  Not a feeling.

  Not a sense.

  I was as alone as I’d ever been.

  I wasn’t sure why that disappointed me. I should be glad some creep wasn’t following me in the trees. The fact that I wasn’t made my head hurt.

  Granny Londa’s car wasn’t in the driveway when I got home. I hoped she’d gone to the grocery store, but when I went inside and found the note on the fridge, I deflated further.

  Gone to Mount Valley.

  The slots are calling me.

  Be back when I’m back.

  Don’t burn the house down.

  Feed Martian.

  -Londa

  I reread the note, wondering why it only added to my depressing mood.

  I went upstairs to her room, finding her bedroom door open. I opened her drawers, finding enough clothes gone to suggest she’d be at the casino in Mount Valley at least a few days. I went back downstairs.

  On cue, her cat traipsed into the kitchen and hopped onto the counter, his tail swinging from side to side as we locked eyes.

  I crumpled the note and lobbed it into the trash can. I stood in the kitchen and tried to pull in even breaths. I didn’t feel good. Not inside. Maybe last night had done more damage than I thought. I wanted to take my mind off things, so I made a snack of toast and peanut butter and went to my room to do my homework. I crammed my brain full of numbers and words so it couldn’t tell my heart to feel.

  And it worked, until my homework was done, and I got the eeriest feeling that I was no longer alone.

  I was sprawled out on my bedroom floor on my stomach, pencil in my mouth, physics textbook open to page twelve. My door was open a crack and I peered into the darkness of the hall, hoping it was the cat.

  Silence thickened in my room. It pressed down on the world. It was all I could hear. I removed my pencil from between my teeth and sat up, my heart in my throat.

  “Martian?” I called. “Is that you, boy?”

  He didn’t answer, like always.

  Rising to my feet, I tiptoed to my door, peering cautiously into the hall. The cat was where he always was, napping. His soft snores barely penetrated the silence. I swallowed hard and let my door swing open, stepping out into the hallway.

  If someone was in the house,
Martian would know it. And he’d turn into a lion and attack them without remorse.

  Sensing me staring, one of his eyes opened. He yawned and rolled onto his back before flopping back over and immediately falling asleep.

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “Some feline you are. Your big cat ancestors would be ashamed.”

  He smacked his lips.

  Giving up, I went downstairs. I did so slowly, taking the stairs one at a time, careful not to make any of them creak too loudly. I checked the front area carefully, peeking between the curtains with the lights off so as not to draw attention to myself. I didn’t see anything, but I felt it.

  My heartrate picked up speed.

  I tried the back of the house, peering through the window in the kitchen. I couldn’t be sure—of anything—but I was almost certain I saw a shadow moving amongst all the others. Back and forth it lumbered, casting a long body shaped darkness where the moon touched the ground.

  When the shadow stopped abruptly, I ducked down.

  The house was dark, the backyard too. There was no way they could see me, the same way there was no way I could see them. But I got the uncomfortable feeling that I was the only one in the dark.

  I brought my legs to my chest, pressing my chin to my knee and peering into the darkness of the kitchen. When the feeling of not being alone persisted, I crawled through the kitchen on my hands and knees until I was in the hall. I stood up unsteadily and gathered my bearings.

  I couldn’t sit in my house and wait for the creep to attack me again.

  I found a screwdriver in a drawer of miscellaneous objects in the kitchen and I fisted it, holding it out in front of me like a sword forged with the blood of my enemies. Instead of the slot-head screwdriver it actually was.

  Clearing my throat, I neared the backdoor.

  The backdoor was rarely used. There were boxes stacked behind it, and a layer of dust so thick I could trace happy faces in the grime if I were so inclined. I kicked the boxes aside and turned the ancient knob, quickly pulling the door ajar and flipping the light switch on in the same swift movement.

  I held my breath and cast my gaze around the property. The weight of his stare settled on me. Breathing was difficult. Thinking, too. I couldn’t explain why I felt so terrified that I could taste the fear on my tongue. I couldn’t put my finger on the impulse to run. My intuition screeched alarm bells in my head. And though it went against my nature to ignore it, I tried.

  My hand shook around the screwdriver, the metal rod thin and unfrightening in the face of my fears.

  “Who’s out there?” I demanded, thankful when my voice didn’t wobble.

  In response, the fear and silence intensified.

  “Show yourself, you coward.”

  Nothing happened, but I felt the extreme pressure of their stare. Antagonistic and curious. They were watching me.

  Ruffled by their silence, I didn’t know what to do. I decided to try a different approach. I lowered my screwdriver. “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

  Nothing.

  “Not a fan of The Wizard of Oz I take it.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to see in the dark. “For the record and transparent purposes, I’m going to go out on the limb and say I’m pretty sure you’re a bad witch. Disagree if you’d like.”

  They didn’t disagree. I gave them what felt like a full five minutes to contradict what I’d said, but they remained in the trees, watching and listening.

  “Bad witch,” I mumbled under my breath, my words finally wobbling. I recalled certain details of the night before. The quickness with which he’d moved. The way he’d sniffed for my scent. The predatorial way he’d chased me. “Or maybe not a witch at all.”

  Slowly and purposefully, the shadow I’d seen earlier resurfaced. On the edge of the forest, within the darkness, a shape took form.

  I gulped. Not a witch. My brain short-circuited. I knew there were red flags there, points of severe interest, and yet all I could focus on was the fact that he was waiting for me to respond.

  “Probably not The Cowardly Lion either,” I surmised.

  The shadow took a step forward. He wanted me to know he wasn’t one of the good guys. My stomach hurt. I wrapped my free arm around my midsection and kept my feet planted where they stood. “Are you going to hurt me?”

  The shadow shrugged.

  Shrugged!

  I glared. “You don’t know if you’re going to hurt me? Well, do you want to hurt me?”

  The top of the shadow moved from the right to the left. It looked like he had shaken his head. I digested that. What sort of freak would hurt someone even though they didn’t want to?

  “You don’t want to hurt me. Okay. I guess that’s good. If you don’t want to hurt me, what are you doing?”

  A long minute passed before I got a response.

  The shadow sighed deep, hard, and long. “I don’t know,” they answered.

  My heart shot into my throat at the sound of his voice. I hadn’t expected to hear it, let alone for it to sound that way. To sound so strong and pleasant. It was a deep voice but not rough, more like smoothed stone. It didn’t match the monster I saw in my head. It didn’t elicit fear, and yet I was still afraid. My instincts were warring with my emotions. It was so odd for them not to be on the same page.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  His response was swift and hard-edged. “My age doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t change anything.”

  It was such a weird response. “It matters to me. And since you attacked me and terrified me, I think you owe me some answers.”

  A bitter, caustic laugh sounded from him. “If I wanted to attack you, I would have.”

  I frowned. “So, you don’t want to attack me?”

  He slipped back into silence.

  He was saying two different things. He wanted me to be afraid, but he’d said on more than one occasion that he didn’t want to hurt me. “Okay, shadow boy, you’re terrifying and scary and I’m thoroughly traumatized. Better?”

  Nothing. But the shadow didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what him staying meant, but if he’d wanted to leave, he would have.

  I sank down to sit on the steps that led down to the yard. I set my screwdriver within reach.

  He didn’t miss it. “You’d do more damage with a chopstick.”

  There was a faint shuffle near the shadow. Long legs emerged from the darkness and the moon caught one half of his jaw. He’d also taken a seat. He leaned against the tree and though I could barely see him, I could see some of him.

  “Why a chopstick?” When he didn’t answer, I changed courses. “Thank you for returning my backpack.”

  “You’re new in town,” he said. He made it sound more like a statement than a question. “Where are you from?”

  If he knew that I was new in town, that meant one of two things. He was from here, and he was from here long enough to know a new face. “Florida.”

  “You’re a long way from home,” he noted.

  “Are you?”

  He was quiet for so long, I was about to give up waiting for a response until he gave me one.

  “No, and… yes.”

  I brought my knees to my chest. “You’re cryptic.”

  “I have to be.”

  “Why?”

  “What’s your name?” he wondered, completely ignoring my question, and proving me right.

  “What’s yours?”

  “I don’t have one anymore. But you do. What is it?”

  The fact that he didn’t want to tell me his name was telling. “I already know your name,” I told him softly.

  He watched me.

  I watched him.

  All I could see were his legs and the bottom of his jaw. It tensed, the hard bones smashed together.

  He obviously didn’t want to discuss himself, and even though it went against all my rules, I gave him what he wanted. A diversion. “My name is Emmie.”

  “Emmie,” he said, his too smooth voice wrapping a
round my name. “Emmie from Florida. When did you get to Port Inlet?”

  “It’ll be a month on Friday.”

  “How long are you staying?”

  I looked down at my feet, pressing my sock-clad toes together. “Until I’m eighteen. Eleven more months and counting.”

  “Then what?”

  His question was harmless. But I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the feeling of my future yawning open like a hungry mouth full of sharp teeth ready to swallow me whole. I wished I could say that coming to Port Inlet had made my future so bleak, that losing my family had as well, but it had been like that my whole life. When I thought of later, there was just nothing… It made me sick and scared and I found it hard to breathe. “I don’t know.”

  “We have that in common then. I don’t know what happens tomorrow, let alone a year from now.”

  “Does it scare you?”

  He paused for a beat. “It haunts me.”

  I tried hard to see his face in the dark. I wanted to match his emotional admission to his features. I wanted to see if how we felt was the same. A surge of wind whipped through the trees. I shivered.

  “You should go get a sweater,” he suggested.

  I rubbed the chill bumps on my arms. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “No,” he said simply.

  I stood up, pausing before looking back over at him. “Want to come inside?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” The way he said it was so… tortured and weighted. My question meant more to him than it had to me.

  “Bad witch, remember?”

  Right. I swallowed hard, ducking inside and up the stairs to grab a sweater. When I came back down, I wasn’t surprised to find that he wasn’t there. I didn’t feel his heavy gaze. I didn’t sense him. I walked out back to where he’d been. The tree he’d sat against was positioned in a way to see me perfectly, but I hadn’t been able to see him. There were no signs that he’d even been there. No scents or discarded items. Even the ground for which he’d sat atop was cold to the touch, like no one had been there at all.

  Unsettled and strangely disappointed by his departure, I went back upstairs and got ready for bed.

  When I lay down, I felt alone. Which should comfort me.