As I thought about it, there were more things that I had to add to Kai’s list, farther down the page. His impulsiveness and his immaturity—things his mom had tried to warn me about in a young kitsune, now obvious. His trouble respecting my boundaries, which was very unsettling.
I found myself wondering what the common traits of pookhas. were I knew that physically, they looked like horses, with long, black manes, pointed ears, and golden eyes. Unlike Kai, who could look like a human, a fox, or any combination in between when he wanted to, a pookha would always stand out in a crowd, and I’d heard Zil complain about it before. Nor were they considered pretty like faeriekin, but I found something in her wild looks that kept catching my eye.
In legends, pookhas were supposed to trick people, like kitsune. Depending on the version of the tale, they could be helpful or harmful. Most often they appeared as horses and lured people to ride on them, then carried them far away. But how did that translate to everyday life? The only other ones I’d met were Zil’s brothers, and I only had vague impressions of them. I doubted that I’d be able to go to Zil’s mother and get advice on pookha-human relationships, like the awkward conversation I’d had with Yumi.
The list wasn’t helping. I scribbled over the page, then crumpled it up and threw it into the trash bin by my desk.
The only way to figure out how I really felt was to confront it head on.
24
Suspect Akasha
Rosmerta
I continued to watch Elizabeth with suspicion, but she still couldn’t arrange another meeting with Rosa. Was it already too late? Maybe she’d already ruined the relationship, and we’d have to start over from square one.
I asked Akasha what she thought, and she shrugged. “Rosa goes through mood swings,” she muttered. “She could hate Zil one day and be her best friend the next. But I don’t think they’re done yet. We’re getting too close.”
I returned to studying the trial book for more information on the ritual and bided my time. I watched Akasha, too, still trying to understand the change in her behavior.
For all of her excitement, Akasha had barely touched her books after she got them back. She didn’t write anything in her diary. Instead, she spent every spare moment that she could on the computer, checking her school lessons as they were posted and completing her homework.
“There is such a thing as too much studying,” I said over her shoulder one afternoon, with a little laugh to show that I meant it as a lighthearted comment, but I watched her reaction closely.
She flinched and closed the browser window quickly. “I have a lot to catch up on. You should be happy I care so much about school, Mom.”
I sighed. “How much can web classes even be like real school? There’s no teacher to talk to when you need help, just a computer to tell you when you’re right or wrong.”
“There is a teacher,” she said in that sarcastic teenager tone. “I email her my assignments and she writes back when I have questions. There’s also a message board so I can talk to the other students, so I even get the socialization part, too. Except it’s better than real school, because no one’s talking when I’m trying to follow the lectures and do the work. Zero distractions.”
I peered closer at the computer screen. “Interesting. I didn’t know it was so interactive.”
Akasha opened up another browser window and pointed to a list of assignments. “Yeah, well, I still have all of this work to do, so can you just leave me alone right now?”
I left her alone then, but I began to wonder just how much she was talking to other people online. Akasha had never been a social child with lots of friends, although she often won praise from her teachers for being such a good student.
The next morning, I was up before Akasha—unlike real school, she didn’t have to keep to a schedule, so she often slept late unless I dragged her out of bed—and I went to the desktop computer that she was borrowing from Mary. I’d insisted on knowing all of my daughters’ passwords, so it was easy for me to log on to the online school and see what she was up to.
I was pleased to see that she was keeping up with her assigned homework and getting good test scores. So her difficulty at the start of seventh grade had been because of lack of motivation, and not because the work was getting too hard for her. I was glad that she could manage to keep going on her own, since she didn’t have her father to ask for homework help, and I didn’t do well as a tutor on most subjects.
I clicked through a few more pages of the web school to see what kinds of things she was studying right now, and found the curriculum adequate. But then I clicked through to the message board to see what kind of things she was posting about.
Moderators monitored the message boards, a line of text informed me at the top. The discussions were led by teachers and kept on topic. But then I saw a number at the top of the screen: “Private Messages: 7 unread.”
When I opened the inbox of private messages, I found hundreds of conversations going back and forth, mostly between Akasha and the username lonelygirl13, with subjects like, “my mom is a control freak,” and “ugh I hate my life.”
So this was what she’d been hiding. Instead of writing in her diary, Akasha was pouring out her feelings to a stranger on the Internet.
I poured over the messages, one page after another, and my suspicions were confirmed. Akasha and lonelygirl13 seemed to have a lot in common: too shy to have friends in the real world, unhappy with their parents and home life, they rambled on about their feelings that “no one else understands.”
With growing apprehension, I picked out personal details in Akasha’s letters, as she slowly revealed that she wasn’t allowed out of the house, her mother was in trouble and she couldn’t see the rest of her family, she was afraid of the cops coming to find her, and the town she lived in was so small she would be recognized if she even went near a window. Looking closer, I saw details that could even identify the town, my identity, and the magical involvement. Lonelygirl13 always expressed sympathy about each new revelation and poured out details of her own.
“If you ever get out of there, we should meet up,” lonelygirl13 wrote back. “But I don’t think I’d get out of here in, like, a million years. I’ve been grounded for life and it’s totally unfair. It sucks because we live so close but we’d never make it.”
The other girl lived nearby? I searched back through past messages to see what she meant. I saw references to local mountains and other things in the area, but no exact details. Still, it was too great of a coincidence. I was afraid that someone was using the computer to try to track me down through Akasha. That sounded like just the sort of trick that the Seelie Court, or Rosa’s friends, would stoop to.
Because this so-called “lonely girl” seemed to know way too much about the Seelie Court. She’d sent Akasha the link to the website that told her about the connection between Charles Byrnes and Count Duncan.
One thing I knew for sure: I had to put a stop to this, now. I went to the “settings” tab on the website and deleted Akasha’s school account.
“Are you sure?” asked the website. “This action cannot be reversed.”
I clicked to confirm and watched the account disappear. I’d ask Mary to change the password on the desktop so Akasha couldn’t use it anymore, and then I’d tell my daughter what her actions had cost her.
“You’re banned from the Internet,” I said when Akasha entered the kitchen shortly before noon.
She looked up at me in horror. “No, what? How am I supposed to do my school work without the ‘net?”
I folded my arms and stared down at her. “You shared personal information online. I told you never to do that. Your web school account is deleted, and you’re not allowed on the Internet anymore.”
“Mom!” Akasha went pale. “I didn’t do anything online! I was just working on my school stuff—and I helped you with your investigation! Remember when I helped you crack the code in your book?”
I shook my he
ad. “That doesn’t matter. You broke the most important rule of using the Internet, and you could have risked us both. I know about your conversations with that ‘lonely girl’ person.”
Akasha took a step back and gripped her hands into fists. “Those were supposed to be private. And they’re not on the Internet for everyone to see, they’re just between me and my friend. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.”
“You don’t even know who she really is!” I threw my hands up in the air. “She could be an agent of the Seelie Court, trying to get close to you in order to find out where I’m hiding. She could be a middle-aged man living in his mom’s basement who’s looking for teenage girls to kidnap. People can say anything on the Internet and you don’t know what’s true.”
“I know she’s not lying!” Akasha stomped to the doorway, then turned and shot a parting volley: “You ruined everything! I hate you!”
I heard the thump of her feet going back up the stairs, and then her bedroom door slammed shut. I sighed and rubbed my temples. Dealing with teen girls was impossible. I only hoped that I’d managed to stop her before she compromised everything.
25
The Final Test
Rosamunde
On Saturday morning, when Zil called me to see if I was free, I jumped at the chance. “Yeah, I was just thinking about you,” I said, no longer trying to hide my enthusiasm. “Why don’t I pick you up this time? Have broom, will travel.”
She laughed. “Sure, we can do breakfast. Do you know where I live?”
“No, but give me your address, and I’ll be able to find you.”
Half an hour later, I landed in the yard of an old Victorian house. It looked as old as anything else in town, but compared to the other plain historical buildings, it was practically a mansion: two symmetrical stories with big windows, a carved front door with columns framing the entrance, huge porches on either side, a pair of chimneys—one of which was spouting smoke in the chilly February morning.
Zil came hurrying out the front door the moment that my feet touched the ground, buttoning a heavy coat over her customary black hoodie. “I didn’t think you’d get here so fast!” she said, leaping off the front porch stairs.
I shrugged. “It’s faster to fly.” I pointed behind her at the Victorian. “Your house is amazing! How old is it?”
“A hundred and something,” she said vaguely. She glanced back over her shoulder at one of the upper windows, and when I followed her gaze, I saw one of the curtains just falling back into place. “It’s a historical landmark, which basically means that it’s old and creaky, but we can’t make any major changes to anything without getting special permission from the historical society.”
“Wow.” I scanned the windows again, but I didn’t see anyone inside. “Does your family know that you’re going out? Should I go in and promise that I’ll fly safe?”
“Nah, they don’t care.” She flashed me a quick smile. “Ready to go?”
I was really curious about her house, but if she wasn’t going to invite me in, I didn’t want to be rude and keep pushing. I let her on the broom behind me and we took off.
“Heavenly Cafe?” I suggested when we were in the air.
“Mm, definitely,” she murmured in my ear.
Soon we were at a little table in the corner of the country diner, a local favorite that was only open for breakfast and lunch. Smells of cooking bacon wafted from the kitchen, making me feel even hungrier. After the server took our order, we sat staring at our respective mugs instead of looking at each other.
“Sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” I said finally.
She looked up with a smile. “It’s okay, I know you’ve got a lot going on right now.”
I sighed. “That’s an understatement.”
“Why don’t we get the business out of the way first, and then we can just relax and have fun?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Sounds good to me. What do I need to do this time?”
“It’s your last test, but I’m not sure that you’re going to like it.” She fidgeted with a sugar packet. “You seemed pretty uncomfortable when I asked you to copy Glen’s notes. So I have to ask you again, are you sure that you’re okay acting against the faeriekin?”
I sat up straighter in my chair, feeling the wooden slats of the seat pressed against my back. “Um, I’m not willing to do things that are going to get anyone hurt. I should have made that clear from the beginning.”
She shook her head. “Nothing like that, I promise. I just need you to take something from Ashleigh, and you can pick what it is. It doesn’t have to be anything valuable, just something that’s been close to her.”
I knew what that meant, magically. “You want something that has her imprint on it.”
Zil nodded, biting her lip.
There were a lot of things that a witch could do with someone’s personal object. Mom had used my hair to put a tracking charm on me, and then I’d found some of my hair and pieces of my old clothing on the poppet that she’d used to bind my magic. Through the personal item, the magic formed a connection with the person it had come from and acted on them directly.
“What kind of spell are you putting on Ashleigh?” I asked in a low voice.
She squirmed in her seat. “I probably shouldn’t tell you all of the details yet.”
“But you promise me that it won’t hurt her, and after this I get my sister back?” I was already weighing the options in my mind. If I could figure out what the spell was, I might be able to break it or at least block it from Ashleigh—I’d had a lot of experience recently in counteracting my mom’s spells.
But Zil shook her head. “This is the last test to see if you’re up for the plan. You do this, and then I tell you what our final plan is and what you have to do to get your sister back.”
I folded my arms. “Tell me what the spell is or I’m not going to do this. I’ve been trustworthy so far, and it’s time that you gave me something back.”
“A—a tracking spell.” Zil dropped her eyes as she said it. “It’s passive. Rosmerta just wants to be able to follow Ashleigh’s movements.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “So you’ve been talking to my mom. Have you seen my sister?”
She nodded, still looking down. “I wanted to tell you sooner, Rosa. Akasha’s okay. She’s unhappy about missing school, which I don’t get because I would love the break. But she’s doing independent study.”
Wow. After so long, to finally hear so much about how she was doing, I didn’t know how to react. I laughed a little at the idea of Akasha demanding schoolwork—that sounded just like her. But the rest of me felt stunned. She was so close by. Could this crazy scheme finally pay off?
I looked up at Zil and blinked, and then I realized that there were tears in my eyes. “Can you tell her that I miss her? And I—I’m sorry, for dragging her into this mess in the first place. I didn’t mean to uproot my whole family like this.”
She nodded and reached across the table, and I took her hand with a squeeze.
Just then, the server interrupted us with heaping plates of food. “You girls are hungry this morning,” he said with a wink. “Can I get you anything else, darling?”
I shook my head and poked at my eggs. My appetite had suddenly disappeared.
We managed to eat most of the food we’d ordered, making small talk as we ate. When we finally stepped outside again, I felt too full to fly. “Shall we just walk for a while?” I suggested instead.
“Sure, anywhere you wanna go,” Zil said with a smile. “Like I said, we got business out of the way, now we should do something fun. We haven’t gotten to really hang out in a while.”
We walked along the side of the highway. Heavenly Cafe stood away from most of the other businesses, so we had about a quarter mile to go before we reached the main street of town.
I carried my broom on my left side, where it wouldn’t get in the way, and Zil walked next to me on the right, close enough that our shoulders brushe
d together. My heart raced at her nearness. After a few steps, I slipped my hand into hers.
Before we reached downtown, a little hiking trail branched off from the highway, leading into the snowy forest. Without a word, we both turned onto it.
The walking path was broad and well-used, but not cleared like the main road, so there was almost a foot of snow on the ground here. Our footsteps slowed as our boots crunched through the drifts, and before long, my legs began to ache with the effort. But I had no intention of turning back, and as long as I kept going, Zil said nothing and kept on with me.
The silence was driving me crazy, but I didn’t want to break it. I was afraid that anything I said would come between us and ruin the moment.
At last, I stopped and turned toward her. My eyes went to her lips, which were trembling, and then up to her eyes, which were locked on me, waiting to see what I would do. I tipped my face up to hers—Zil had a few inches on me—and kissed her.
She hesitated only for a moment, and then she kissed me back roughly, her mouth pushing hard against mine. Her arms were around me, one hand at the small of my back, the other around my shoulders to pull me closer. I dropped my broom and returned her embrace, not caring that the phone in my pocket was digging into my side, shoving her back until I had her pinned against the trunk of a tree.
She growled when I pinned her, nipping my lower lip in frustration, and spun me around so I was the one against the tree. I writhed against her and started to pull down the zipper of her hoodie.
Zil pulled back and clutched her sweatshirt closed, but her eyes still looked at me hungrily. “It’s cold out here.”
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 44