by B. T. Alive
“The orchard?” Cade said. “Una never would have sold in a million years.”
We looked at each other.
“Come on,” Cade said, with a step toward the door. “Maybe we can confiscate those pancakes.”
“Wait!” I said. “He’s going to be skittish. Last time I tried to talk to him, your dad chased him away.”
“My dad did what?”
“It was nighttime—”
“Oh. Right,” Cade sighed. “So what’s your plan?”
“We need the right tool for the job,” I said.
Cade frowned. “That seems needlessly cryptic.”
“Trust me,” I said. “You stay here and keep Sky in sight. I’ll be five minutes.”
“Okay,” he said, doubtful, and he turned to watch his charge. “You’d better make it three,” he added, with a twinge of envy. “Those pancakes aren’t long for this world.”
I hustled back to the front desk to see if Tina had gotten back yet. She hadn’t, but this time I noticed that she’d left a note that she was out on break. That suited me fine; forgiveness was better than permission.
I raced up the stairway to the top floor of the Inn, and I made my way to the easternmost hallway, where every door had its own imposing lintel, writhing with wooden leaves like a Corinthian column. At the hallway’s end, the lush carpet stopped, and I turned into a bright alley of bare wood painted white. The small, high windows filled the room with sun, and the space felt sacred and quiet, like a Shaker meeting room.
This was a room of doors. The doors were tall and thin, each as narrow as a linen closet but crowned with a little painting of flowers, set in the white like a jewel.
Even after two months, I still hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to try any of these doors besides Tina’s. Maybe the girl in me was afraid she’d be disappointed. Or the grownup was afraid that she wouldn’t.
Anyway, Tina’s door was interesting enough. I stepped to the corner door with the cluster of red begonias, and I opened it wide to the ladder.
Yes, a ladder. Inside a tiny room that went straight up like a silo, a ladder reached up for at least two stories, ending in a round hole of light.
“Tina?” I called. “You there?”
“Summer!” she cried, and way at the top, her head popped into view. “Perfect timing! Come on up!”
Crud. This had just gotten slightly more complicated.
I climbed up to her room, pleased to note that after two months of practice, I made much better time than when I’d first arrived. Climbing around the Inn and traipsing around Wonder Springs seemed to be earning me those recommended ten thousand steps a day, if not more. A few more months of this, and who knew? I might be borrowing not just Tina’s skirts, but her cute little pants as well.
The view from Tina’s tower always caught my breath, and now, in the early morning light, Wonder Springs simply sparkled. Wide windows opened on every side of the round room, and you could see the whole landscape gleaming in the morning sun… the bridge and the river and the blue-green mountains, rippling to the clear horizon like the sea.
“Did you eat yet?” Tina said, setting down a pot of tea on the built-in breakfast table that curved along the eastern wall. The whole room was an incarnate selfie of built-in furniture and nooks and hideaways… plus modern conveniences, artfully concealed.
Tina rushed to greet me. “Are you hungry? How are you? I’m so sorry you had to be there and find Una like that!”
“Thanks, I’m okay,” I said, stepping back and holding up my hands in a polite but defensive hug blocker.
“You sure?” Tina said. She took my hint about the hug, but she still gave both my sleeved shoulders warm pats of solidarity. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I’m starving!” squawked her telepathic parrot. “Want pancakes!”
I believe I mentioned our telepathic parrot. Keegan. Whom I hate. Mainly because, of all the minds he could be reading, he opts for mine about ninety percent of the time. And he is quite vocal. Gleefully so.
And although I just said above that he squawked, his voice actually sounds disturbingly human, like a soft-spoken man with a high voice that never went deep in high school.
In the arsenal of the crime-fighting psychic, a telepathic parrot is like a grenade. Except that you’re usually forced to hold the grenade. While it poops on your shoulder.
“Hate Keegan!” said Keegan.
“Summer!” said Tina. Tina loves Keegan. It’s like he’s some fragile little puppy, instead of this freaking big bird with claws like needlenose pliers.
“I didn’t… that’s not exactly what I thought,” I said. “Keegan is great, he is super talented, and that’s why I’m here to borrow him.”
“You are? Fantastic!” Tina cried.
“Really?” I said. I had expected a lot more pushback. Actually, I’d expected to sneak him out of an empty room.
“Of course. It’s a brilliant idea,” she said. “This Una thing is so tragic… if only you could feel what people are going through right now, Summer… there’s so much suspicion and fear. We’ve got to get on top of this and clear it all up. Now. Today.”
“We?” I said.
“I’m totally in,” she said. “Grandma’s just gotten some new hires, so they’ll cover for me. Who do we talk to first?”
I thought, Oh.
Tina frowned, and she made that little empathic wince that always twists me when it’s my fault.
“You don’t want me along?” she said. “Why? I thought last time—”
“Cade,” squawked Keegan.
“Keegan, I swear—” I said.
“Summer, you’re not serious?” she said. “Cade and I were kids together, like, practically siblings. We’ve been over this—”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I’m not worried about you and Cade.” Which was true. Most of the time.
“Then you’re not actually worried it was… him?” she said. “Summer, oh my gosh.”
She looked like she might be physically ill.
“Tina, whoa, no one’s saying that,” I said.
“Will,” Keegan squawked. “Orchard.”
“You know what?” I said. “This was a bad idea.”
“Una’s will?” Tina said. She had sat down at her breakfast table and calmed down, but she still looked queasy. “Did Cade inherit something?”
“We don’t know yet,” I said. “But it’s possible he inherited the whole freaking orchard.”
“What?” Tina said. “Oh. Oh wow.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And then there was that silly rhyme from Mr. Wilson… oh, Summer, you must be worried sick.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, though I did wish she hadn’t had to bring up that prophecy.
“You know I talked to Grandma about that ‘prophecy’ and she said just what I thought,” Tina said. “It was totally vague and useless and it could only make you fret—”
“I’m fine,” I said. “But it won’t hurt to double check what Cade is really thinking.” I nodded at the parrot in his cage.
“You mean with Keegan?” Tina said. “Oh, he won’t help with that.”
“What?” I said. “Why?
“Stupid parrot,” said Keegan.
“Because Keegan can’t read Cade,” she said. “He never has. We’re not sure if it’s a Tuner thing or what. It might just be Cade.”
“Tuner?” I said. My family still hadn’t really told me much about how these secret powers actually worked. They insisted that our powers weren’t technically magic, but instead relied on strange forces I hadn’t heard of called morphic fields. With my power, they called me a “Disruptor”, which I knew had something to do with how I’d “disrupt” people’s recent memories with my Touch. But the word “Tuner” was new.
Tina hesitated. “Did my mom explain about tuning yet? I don’t want to—”
“Never mind,” I said. I didn’t want to push Tin
a; she’d get in big trouble if she told me too much.
Whenever I prodded Aunt Helen for more “sensitive” information, she’d insist that it wasn’t safe for me to know more yet, not until I’d learned to shield my mind from a malicious telepath. Considering that I currently couldn’t even keep out the parrot, that was probably going to take awhile.
“Cade’s waiting downstairs, anyway,” I continued, going to the cage to retrieve Keegan. “He’s watching the guy I need Keegan for, and this guy could bolt any minute.”
“Right, you’d better go,” Tina said, and she almost hid the hurt that I didn’t want her along.
I felt bad, but the truth was that after that run-in with Jamie, I really wasn’t in the mood to see Cade chumming it up with my gorgeous cousin. I wasn’t worried… but right now, it would be one extra difficult emotion too many.
“I’ll tell you how it goes,” I said. “Sorry if I’m putting out too much stress.” (The things we say to our empath friends…) “I’m sure it’ll help my mood to prove that Cade’s not a murderer.”
She smiled. “Mine too. But really, don’t expect help from Keegan. To him, Cade’s a locked vault.”
“Why?” I said.
“So much self-control,” Tina said. “To do what Cade does, and not slip up and kill people, his mind and his feelings need to be like steel. If he doesn’t want you to know what’s in there…” She shrugged.
“Vault,” Keegan said. “Great.”
Chapter 15
I don’t know how Tina climbs down the ladder with that parrot. Not easy.
But we both survived, especially Keegan, and I hurried downstairs through the Inn’s hallowed halls, gripping the parrot’s cold hard claws. He had a special leash thing that connected his leg to a leather bracelet on my wrist, but he didn’t seem inclined to fly off. He was having too much fun reading my mind.
“So hungry,” he squawked, as I hustled up to Cade at the dining room entrance. “Smells so good.”
“You brought Keegan?” Cade said, in disbelief. “That’s your big plan?”
“Keegan’s the best!” I said.
“Not,” said Keegan.
“We just discreetly take a seat near our mystery developer,” I said, “and see what Keegan has to say.”
“I don’t think that bird is really telepathic,” Cade said. “It never reads my mind.”
“What mind?” said Keegan.
Cade frowned.
“That was not me!” I said.
“Then who was it?”
“I thought you said he wasn’t telepathic,” I said, with a smile. “The bird’s got to think something on its own once in awhile.”
Cade eyed Keegan with a stern glare, but he got back only the bird’s usual insouciant grin. Partly because Keegan had a beak, not facial muscles.
“Come on,” I said. “Sky tore through those pancakes, let’s get in there before he finishes that… what is that? A Danish? This guy has the metabolism of a squirrel.”
“So unfair,” Keegan said.
“You think he’ll notice us?” Cade said.
“Well, last time I yelled at him and unleashed a hellhound, and now I’m carrying a parrot. So I might catch his eye,” I said. “Why don’t you go first?”
Cade nodded and straightened up, broadening his already wide shoulder span to approximately eight feet. Then he lumbered slowly into the dining room, keeping his whole body facing David Sky as he worked his way to a side table.
“You’re doing great, Paul Bunyan,” I muttered, as I skittered along close behind him, hidden from view. This close, I moved in a private glorious cloud of the scents of Cade, earth and forest and his own peculiar musk.
All too soon, he broke away, and he slipped into a seat at a table behind Sky. I sat beside him, my eyes locked on the sport-coated back of our coffee-sipping quarry.
“Now what?” Cade whispered.
“Now we wait,” I whispered back.
“MURDERER!” squawked Keegan.
David Sky jolted, drenching his Danish in coffee. He craned around, and we locked eyes. He blanched. Then he reached into his sport coat.
“Watch out, watch out!” I whispered. “I think he’s got a—”
But he whipped out… a wad of cash, and he slammed it on the table. Then he bolted for the exit.
“Wow!” Cade said. “Did Keegan really read his—”
“No, that was me thinking that!” I hissed. “Stupid parrot! Come on!” And I clattered up after him.
We chased David Sky through the lobby, out into the fountain plaza, and down into Main Street. The guy was fiendishly spry. He dodged mercilessly around clusters of summer tourists, weaving behind sauntering couples and leveraging tiny gaps between groups that vanished after he passed. I lost him in the morning crowd, then spotted his gray head a block ahead, flashing away around a corner.
“There!” I cried. “That alley!”
Cade and I booked it, and Keegan’s claws dug hard into my hand as I ran. We panted down the alley between high brick walls, then whipped around the corner. Right on the turn, Keegan squawked and flapped, and his wing brushed my face and I startled and stumbled sideways… and then there was a sickening CRACK.
“Summer!” Cade said. “You all right?”
Actually, my arm was tight with pain, because I’d mashed into something. But the crack hadn’t been my bone, just the side mirror on some ancient truck. I’d wrenched it completely free, and the whole mirror part now lay twisted on the pavement, like some amputated hand.
“I’m fine!” I grunted. “Where is he?”
We were standing near one of the parking lots that was discreetly tucked behind the Wonder Springs Main Street. The rows of cars sat tranquil and serene, as if no one had come through here in months.
Then an engine roared, a surge of power that throbbed in my chest even a block away. A car flashed off in a smear of red, and the growl of the engine keened off into the distance.
“Whoa,” Cade said. “Nice engine.”
“Seriously?” I said.
He shrugged. “At least you didn’t total his mirror. That would really cost you.”
I groaned, and then I turned back toward the truck I’d winged. “Oh no,” I said, as I saw whose truck I’d damaged. “You are kidding me!”
It was the rusted-out tool truck of Wilbur Wilson. The ancient maintenance guy / part-time oracle who’d warned me that there’d be murder.
Wait, had he said only one murder? Or should I be expecting more to come?
“What? What is it?” Cade said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just—why does he have to park here? He’s right at the corner, the curb is totally yellow, and there’s a fire hydrant right there. It’s so close to the street here that the ladder on top could smack you in the face!”
“No, I saw it,” Cade said, helpfully.
In a major personal victory, I managed not to reply. Instead, I stooped down and picked up the broken mirror. “I don’t suppose you can heal this?” I asked Cade, only half joking.
“Not unless it comes to life.” He frowned. “What are you going to do?”
“Run,” Keegan squawked. “No witnesses.”
“Hey!” I said, as my cheeks flushed. “Keegan! That would be totally dishonest. Mr. Wilson is a nice, old, vague, creepy, unhelpful—”
“It’s just a mirror, and that truck’s really old,” Cade said. “Shouldn’t cost that much to fix.”
“Two hundred bucks,” Keegan squawked. “Easy.”
“Shut up,” I hissed.
“Are you okay?” Cade said, concerned. “Do you have money?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Cash check,” Keegan said. “Elaine.”
“Listen, I’ll take care of this,” Cade said.
“What? No,” I said. “Don’t—”
“Really,” Cade said. “This is all about Una, right? And I mean… we don’t know for sure yet… but I’ll probably have some extra money her
e. From that department.”
“That’s really kind of you,” I said. “But—”
“Do it,” Keegan said. “Una’s money.”
Cade laughed. He scratched Keegan’s head behind where he would have had ears. (Do birds have ears?) I have no idea how a normal parrot would have taken that, but Keegan seemed to like it. Who doesn’t like Cade?
“Cool, that’s settled,” Cade said. “Maybe this parrot isn’t so bad.”
“PIECES OF EIGHT!” Keegan screamed.
He jerked his head away from Cade’s hand and beat the air with frantic wings. “PIECES OF EIGHT!” he screeched. “PIECES OF EIGHT!”
“Summer, calm down!” Cade snapped. He’d been so startled that he’d jolted back his hand as if he’d been stung.
“That’s not me,” I said.
“Well, it’s not me—”
“Then it’s got to be somebody,” I said. “He’s freaking out!”
I twisted to look around the parking lot, straining to catch a glimpse of some lurker.
But I didn’t have to look hard.
Standing beside a white sedan, with the driver’s door open and perched halfway in, stood Natisha. She was wearing a bright yoga outfit and gleaming with a sheen of sweat.
And looking, in my humble opinion, guilty as hell.
Chapter 16
“Natisha! Good morning!” I called across the small lot. “Um… so…?”
“We are not doing this out here,” she said, quiet and absolute.
She stepped out and carefully shut her car door, then led the way through the lot to the back door of her tea shop (and yoga studio).
The back hallway was crammed with boxes of supplies. We passed a tiny bathroom, and then, still in the hallway, an odd kitchen sink, with a counter and cabinets, as if someone had wanted a kitchenette in their hallway. It was pretty weird. A long window in the hallway wall showed the wood-floored studio, where women three times my age were holding killer poses with ease.
And then I realized: the “kitchenette” must have been a full kitchen once. But Natisha had needed the space for the studio.
She really might be desperate for more room.