Frowning, Aunt Martha set her cards down and picked up the pack of Virginia Slims by her elbow. “Oh. That’s right. Saylor’s boy.”
I stiffened a little, hoping they wouldn’t notice. Just like with Bee’s disappearance, there was a spell keeping the people of Pine Grove from knowing what had really happened to Saylor Stark. Bee’s spell had clearly held—maybe too well—but Ryan should probably shore up the one that made everyone think Saylor was just on an extended vacation.
Making a mental note to talk to him about it later, I set the pitcher back on the counter and took a seat at the table. I still wasn’t allowed to play gin rummy with The Aunts—only once I was officially an adult, i.e., married, would I get invited to that table—but I liked to watch.
“And how are things with David?” Aunt Jewel asked. Her voice was light, but I saw how closely she was watching me. I loved Aunts May and Martha, but I was closest to Aunt Jewel. And while it wasn’t like I’d told her anything that was going on with me, I always had the feeling she somehow knew there was more to me and David than met the eye.
But I smiled back and gave a little shrug. “They’re good.” I thought it would be easiest to leave it at that.
Aunt Jewel nodded, taking a sip of her tea. “Well, that’s good to hear. I wondered, since you’ve looked a little out of sorts lately.”
Aunt May and Aunt Martha made humming noises of agreement, and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. “Just busy,” I said. “Spring semester of your junior year is an important time. College applications, all of that.”
That got all three of The Aunts’ attention. “Ooh, what colleges are you looking at, honey?” Aunt May asked.
Relieved that we were on slightly safer ground, I launched into an account of the top schools on my list. They were mostly all here in the South, and I thought I’d chosen a pretty good mix of big state universities and smaller private colleges. Of course, they were all schools I’d picked out last year, and I felt a little twinge of guilt that I hadn’t done more on the college front lately.
Of course, I’d been kind of busy.
Aunts May and Martha smiled pleasantly, but Aunt Jewel asked, “And David?”
When I didn’t answer right away, she took one of Aunt Martha’s cigarettes, lighting it with a hot pink Bic. “Are y’all looking at the same places? I know you haven’t been together long, but it still seems like something you should talk about.”
The College Issue was one of those things David and I had trouble talking about. Obviously, going to the same college was a nonnegotiable, and had nothing to do with us being a couple. I couldn’t even go that far out of town alone without feeling an aching weight in my chest. But I was convinced we could find a place we both agreed on.
Unfortunately, David never wanted to talk about it, always shrugging and saying, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Problem was, that bridge was rapidly approaching.
To Aunt Jewel, I said, “We’re talking about it.” And I certainly didn’t add that my dream college was a women’s school that was completely out of the question, and that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but resent that the teensiest bit. Or that Ryan probably needed to be factored into the equation now.
Closing my eyes for a second, I took a deep breath. One thing at a time. First we’d deal with the Peirasmos, and then I could worry about how to negotiate The College Issue.
Thankfully, Aunt Martha changed the subject, asking if any of my friends were going to be in the upcoming Miss Pine Grove Pageant.
I laughed, leaning back in my seat. “Not that I know of. Most girls at the Grove aren’t into that kind of thing.” The pageant, which happened every May Day, was held in the town’s big rec center, and despite the name, it was open to any girl in the surrounding few counties. As a result, Miss Pine Grove was usually from Appleton or Eversley rather than Pine Grove itself.
The Aunts thought the pageant was tacky and nearly had a collective stroke when my sister, Leigh-Anne, had decided to be in it several years ago.
They’d been even more horrified when she’d won.
So when I said that no one I knew had anything to do with it, I could practically feel them all sag with relief.
“Good girl,” Aunt Martha said, just as Aunt May muttered, “Trashy,” under her breath.
Aunt Jewel only took a drag on her cigarette and commented, “Oh, like you both don’t have Toddlers & Tiaras saved on the TV box thingie.”
“That is different,” Aunt Martha said with a lift of her chin, and Aunt May agreed with a fervid “Very different.”
On that note, I decided to head out. I still wanted to run by David’s before I went home, so we could go through some of Saylor’s books together. I’d thought about asking Bee what books she’d seen, but after today’s incident, I thought it might be best to let that drop for a while.
But just as I went to go, my phone rang. Glancing at The Aunts, I shook my purse at them. “May I answer?”
“Go ahead, honey,” Aunt May said with a wave, and I smiled, reaching into my bag. It was Ryan, which was kind of a surprise. He almost always texted if he needed to get in touch.
I had barely said hello when he broke in, his voice tight and breathless. “Harper, you need to get over here. Now.”
Chapter 10
I MADE IT OVER to Ryan’s house in record time—one of the perks of being a Paladin is the ability to drive like a stunt person—and Ryan was already waiting outside the front door for me as I pulled up.
“What took you so long?” he asked, and I noticed that he was the palest I’d ever seen him, almost gray.
Slamming the car door behind me, I hurried up his front steps, nearly tripping over a rocking chair on the porch. “I came as fast as I could,” I said, moving past him into the house. “What is it? Is it Alexander? Is it one of the trials?”
That’s what I’d thought when Ryan first called, and it had been the scenario I’d spun out in my head on the short drive over. But Ryan seemed okay, if shaken up, and now he shook his head at me, waving a hand toward the front door.
“Upstairs,” Ryan said, scrubbing a hand over his hair. “It’s MB.” Misery was etched in every line of his body, and my heart took a sudden plunge as I started up the staircase.
There was a part of me expecting to see Mary Beth lying on his floor with a scimitar through her stomach or something, so I was actually relieved to see her sitting on the edge of Ryan’s bed, seemingly completely okay, if a little . . . spacey.
“Hi, Mary Beth,” I said, already trying to formulate a reason for being at Ryan’s house. He’d called me to work on a school project?
But she didn’t reply. In fact, she didn’t even seem to hear me.
I shot a glance at Ryan over my shoulder. He was leaning against the doorjamb, nearly crying, his hazel eyes red.
Kneeling down at the edge of Ryan’s bed, I snapped my fingers in front of Mary Beth’s face. Her eyes slowly blinked once, then twice, but other than that, there was no sign that she’d heard me. Groaning, I turned back to Ryan. “What the heck did you do?”
The last time I’d seen Ryan this miserable was when he’d missed a free throw at a game against our rivals, the Webb Spiders. Now, like then, he was fidgeting, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. “I don’t know. She was still pissed about me ditching her at lunch, so I wanted to . . . fix it.”
“Ryan,” I groaned, and he held up both hands.
“I know, I know. Anyway, I used some of that lip balm stuff on her. That stuff Saylor had.”
Now that he mentioned it, there was a distinct rose scent wafting up from Mary Beth. “You kissed her with it on?” I was pretty sure my eyebrows were in my hairline, and when Ryan looked down at me, he scowled.
“Well, yeah. She’s my girlfriend. And that seemed the easiest way to . . . apply it.”
Still crouching in front of her, I studied her face. “Maybe she wasn’t meant to ingest it,” I mused. “How much did yo
u put on?”
Ryan knelt down next to me, and while he wasn’t quite wringing his hands, he was close. “Not a lot,” he said, a dull flush creeping up his neck. “I mean, I’m a dude, it would look weird if I slathered my whole mouth in a bunch of rose lip gloss, you know?”
There was nothing funny about this situation, but I couldn’t stop a brief smile. Seeing it, Ryan smiled, too, giving a nervous laugh. “I need to go through Saylor’s things, see if there’s anything else that works for mind control, since I can’t keep carrying lip balm everywhere.”
“Maybe there’s something you could work into an aftershave?” I suggested. “Or that gross boy body spray they’re always advertising?”
He sniffed, shoulders rising and falling. “I don’t wear that crap,” he reminded me, and I nodded.
“I know. Trust me, you wouldn’t have lasted long as my boyfriend if you had.”
That made Ryan smile again, and he looked over at me with squinted eyes. “What is it you call David? That word he hates?”
“Boyfie,” I answered, and Ryan laughed.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t have lasted long as my girlfriend if you’d said that.” He was still smiling, just the littlest bit, but then he looked back at Mary Beth and all the humor left his face. “She’ll be okay, right?”
I leaned in closer to Mary Beth. Her eyes met mine, and I could tell she was trying to focus. “Mary Beth?”
Another blink, but nothing else. Next to me, Ryan stood up, chafing his palms against his thighs. “Oh God,” he groaned. “I’ve lobotomized her. I’ve lobotomized my girlfriend with a—an effing potion.”
He didn’t say “effing,” but I didn’t bother admonishing him. We were in F-word territory for sure.
Crossing the room in two long strides, Ryan moved to his desk and snatched up the little pot of lip balm. “Screw this stuff,” he said, and before I could stop him, he’d opened the window and thrown it out as hard as he could.
Now I shot to my feet. “Ryan!” I said sharply. “So you screwed up using it once. That doesn’t mean you won’t use it again. And what if someone else finds it?” Moving to the window, I ducked my head out, even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see it.
“I suck at this,” Ryan moaned, dropping his head into his hands as he sat down heavily on the bed. “I screwed up the spell with Bee, and now I’ve screwed up with MB, too.”
I don’t think I’d ever heard Ryan admit to being bad at something in his entire life. I wasn’t sure he actually had been bad at anything in his entire life, now that I thought about it. Things had always come pretty easily to Ryan. It was one of the few things we’d had in common, and now, as I remembered how awful and confused I’d felt when I’d first learned I was a Paladin, I couldn’t help but sympathize.
“Hey.” My hand hovered over his shoulder as he slumped forward, elbows on his knees. Was I allowed to hug him? Even in a totally platonic, comforting way? I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, so I did what seemed safest and patted his back a few times before clasping my hands in my lap. “You don’t suck. You just don’t know all the ropes yet.”
Ryan dropped his hands from his face, swiveling his head to look at me. “Is this something where you can know the ropes, Harper? Because I’m pretty sure magic and potions and—and Oracles are always gonna be pretty effing confusing to me.”
Considering the fact that I still had no idea when the Peirasmos was starting, that wasn’t exactly something I could answer. Instead, I gave him another pat and said, “We’ll all figure it out together.”
Ryan seemed to sigh with his whole body, his hair ruffling with the long breath he blew out. “You say that all the time. ‘We’ll work it out.’ ‘Everything will be okay.’”
Stung, I dropped my hand from his back again. “We will. And it will be.”
Ryan straightened, watching me over steepled fingers. “You’ve never been able to admit that you were in over your head.”
I opened my mouth, but Ryan raised one hand. “No, I know you’re going to say it isn’t true, but it is, Harper. You know it. Only this time, it’s not school dances and leadership committees and student government issues you’re trying to balance. It’s huge, life-or-death stuff, and you’re still pretending it’s another project. People are going to get hurt.”
His gaze drifted to Mary Beth, slumped next to him. “People have already gotten hurt.”
I moved over to Ryan’s bookcase. It held a few sports biographies, but the shelves were mostly stacked with video games and a couple of picture frames. Once they’d held pictures of me and Ryan, but now he and Mary Beth smiled out at me from behind the glass. But in one picture frame, behind a photo of the two of them with their arms around each other on Mary Beth’s parents’ porch, I could make out a bright turquoise corner. That had been the backdrop for last year’s Spring Fling. The theme had been Under the Sea. Ryan and I had gone together. Apparently, Ryan had shoved a picture of them on top of one of the two of us.
I fiddled with the frame now, half tempted to open it and see if I was right. “You think I don’t know that?” I said at last, not looking at him. “Saylor Stark died the night of Cotillion. Bee was kidnapped. And now the Ephors suddenly want to be besties, and I’m apparently going to face some kind of trials, but I have no idea what they could be. And if I don’t do them, we spend the rest of our lives trying not to get killed.”
My voice broke on the last word, and from behind me, I heard Ryan sigh.
“I’m sorry, Harper,” he said softly. And then he gave a little huff of laughter. “It’s weird, my impulse is to hug you, but I don’t know if that’s something we can do anymore.”
Turning around, I smiled and put the picture back on the shelf. “I know what you mean. But we should probably do without hugging.”
Ryan was still wringing his hands in front of him, glancing over at Mary Beth. “It’s gotta wear off eventually.”
“I’m sure it will,” I said, even though I wasn’t exactly. Saylor had used that stuff a lot, but I’d never asked questions about how it worked. After she’d died, we’d handed all her various potions and elixirs over to Ryan without thinking. He’d inherited Saylor’s skills, but that didn’t necessarily mean he knew exactly how to use every little tool she’d had. Not for the first time, I wished that she were here.
Mary Beth’s eyes started to flutter a little more, and Ryan was off the bed like a shot, kneeling in front of her. “MB?”
“My head,” she slurred, her fingers going to her temple. Her dark red hair swung above her shoulders, and the freckles across the bridge of her nose stood out against her pale skin.
“You’re okay,” he said, cupping the back of her neck in one big hand. “You’re fine.” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to use magic to convince her of that, or if he was just saying it in the normal, comforting boyfriend sense. In any case, Mary Beth didn’t look fine. She was still blinking, her face flushed, her gaze muddled.
But it occurred to me that I might want to skedaddle before she came back fully and realized I was standing in her boyfriend’s bedroom.
I didn’t think that would go over particularly well, so I gave Ryan a little wave and mouthed, “Gonna go.” He gave a distracted nod as I walked away.
Once I was outside, I took a minute to dig in the bushes around his house, trying to find the little pot of lip balm (and hoping no one saw me prowling around in Ryan Bradshaw’s front garden). I finally felt it behind a camellia bush, and, pulling it out, rose to my feet. Ryan would definitely want the balm again, although maybe he’d be a little more careful with how much he used next time.
Chapter 11
“SO, THE MALL?” I asked, starting my car. Bee sat in the passenger seat, her sunglasses on, elbow resting on the open window.
“Yup,” she replied. “I need some normalcy.”
Bee’s second day back at school had been better than her first—fewer of the teachers seemed to think she was new, and Abi and Amanda had total
ly recognized her, which seemed to cheer her up. Brandon was still keeping his distance, though, and when I’d mentioned his name at lunch, Bee had cut me off with a shake of her head. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
After school, I’d planned on going home and doing a little more work on college stuff. That talk with The Aunts had reminded me that I’d been meaning to add at least two more schools to my application list. But then Bee had caught up with me and asked if we could have a “girls’ afternoon,” so here we were, heading toward the Pine Grove Galleria.
“Are you weirded out by Ryan and Mary Beth?” Bee suddenly asked, and I glanced over at her.
“Why would I be?” I asked, and she cut me a look.
“Okay,” I acknowledged, turning right so that we could take a shortcut through downtown, “it’s a little weird, sure, but . . . not necessarily the bad kind of weird.”
“Mary Beth hardly speaks to you.” Bee twirled one long blond curl around her finger, still watching me, and I rolled my eyes.
“She barely spoke to me before except to be rude, so her dating Ryan isn’t making much of a difference. And why does this bug you so much anyway?”
Bee shrugged, pulling up one leg so that she could wrap an arm around her knee. “Doesn’t bug me. I’m just . . . curious. And an invested party, what with being your best friend and all.”
That made me glance over at her. “Ryan, David, and I are all superheroes—as are you, I might add—and it’s our romantic entanglements you wanna talk about?”
She laughed a little, more a huff of breath than a real chuckle. “I’m starting small.”
“Are you sure things are—”
“They’re fine, Harper,” she said, and then shrugged, pulling her knee in tighter. “As fine as they’re going to be, I guess.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so instead of saying anything, I turned up the radio.
We were rounding the main square when Bee suddenly sat up in her seat, pointing to the statue of Adolphus Bridgeforth, one of Pine Grove’s founders, that looked out over downtown. “Oh, man, someone vandalized poor Mr. Bridgeforth!”
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