by K.N. Lee
"Amor?" he murmured to himself.
"Hey," a voice interrupted his thought. "Dustin Rainey. I can show you to your next class, if you're okay with that." The young man who held out his hand to him was of a similar look to himself. Similar enough for Lester to feel immediately at ease. They shared a handshake and moved on to the next class together.
Melina wasn't in the classroom when they sat down. Lester looked around for her. The thread went through the wall to somewhere else, he could still see it distinctly. But where had she gone?
"That girl, Melina, right? What's her deal?"
Dustin looked at him suspiciously before waving him closer so they could whisper across the space between seats.
"She can kill things with her touch. She's not a bad person or anything, but she's got a reputation."
Caroline Anderson sauntered in and found her seat a few chairs away from Dustin.
"So, Lester," she leaned into their conversation. "How long have you been in Sun City?"
"My family just got here," he answered pulling away from Dustin. The other young man sat back in his seat as well, leaving Lester to deal with Caroline on his own.
"Well, if you need a guide, I'd be more than happy to help."
"Thank you for the offer, but Dustin has graciously offered to show me around."
"Has he?" Caroline arched an eyebrow. "Pity. Though I guess it's a boy thing." She turned back to her desk and Lester let out a sigh of relief rather like a gazelle would after having escaped the clutches of the hungry lion. That girl's energy was enough to make him nervous and he couldn't quite say why.
Class began with Lester having to introduce himself since he was there at the formal beginning of class and still Melina didn't appear. Throughout the period, he cast cautious glances at the door. Was she not in this class? Hadn't he heard her name called with the role and the teacher ask if anyone had seen her? He rested his chin on his hand and wondered, again, where the thread was reaching to. Where had she gone so quickly?
Melina ran out of Mrs. Rawn's class and headed for the bathroom, bursting into the space as though she might run through the wall if one were presented to make it necessary. Her heart was beating fast enough to pop from her chest, as if caught in the grip of a mutant alien. She stopped at the sink and stared into the mirror.
Nothing about her was different. Her face was flushed as if she had been running because she really had, as quickly as her legs would allow. Her hair was as much a mess as it had been since she'd gotten out of bed, hurriedly, to make it to school. The same with her clothes. She didn't look put together. Yet nothing was any different than it had been before he walked in. None of it.
Melina gripped the porcelain of the sink with both hands and rested her forehead against the mirror.
Something was different. She could feel it. Closing her eyes, she felt for it.
Sometimes the eyes lie.
When she opened them again, she saw it--a thin red string at the level of her chest. It sparkled faintly like a live electrical circuit might, little red lightning bolts running down its length.
"What the hell?"
She tried to touch it. There was nothing to touch, at least not with her hands.
It was the middle of the school day and her heart was racing in panic and some kind of red string, probably attached to her heart, was poking out of her chest. Melina took a moment to consider what she was going to do next. Who could she ask? The most obvious person wasn't a person: Gergot. He seemed to know a great deal. If that failed maybe the Camp Grimoire would know. Except for one thing—neither of those were here. She would have to get through the entire day, pretending things were okay.
Her heart was slowing down, enough for her to feel almost normal.
Looking down at the thread again, she shook her head.
There was no way she was going to be able to ignore that all day long. She was going to have to go home, which meant going to the office and asking Murphey if she could. At least this time she was asking if she could leave the building.
Murphey was in his office when she went in, on the telephone with a parent discussing a college application on his desk, he waved her to a seat and continued to talk.
"I'll have that recommendation letter completed by tomorrow so that the application can go out by the end of the week. Don't you worry. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a student I need to attend to."
Once he had the phone securely back in its cradle, he looked at her with suspicious eyes.
"What is it this time, Lina?"
"I need to go home to research something and I need an excuse to get out of the building."
"You were already late today, and now you want to leave early? How are you going to manage to get an education?"
"I have no idea, but if I don't live to get an education, it won't really matter will it?"
"What do you mean if you won't live?"
"There's a thread coming out of my chest that I can see and feel but doesn't seem to actually be there and I really need to find out what it is and if it’s related to this ring or something else I need to worry about, Murphey, please..."
She paused for a breath and looked him in the face.
Murphey's face was pale the color of milk.
"Please, Murphey."
"I'll let you out, but how are you getting home?"
"I can get myself home." She'd never told him about the Pale Horse, Death's car, or how it came to her summons whenever she wanted, but now wasn't really the time to get into a discussion about the fact that she didn't actually have a driver's license. Technically she wasn't driving, the car was fully capable of driving itself.
"Then go. I'll tell the teachers I had to call someone because you got sick."
"Thanks. I promise, I will make it all up. I really will."
"You had better. I don't want you in this school a year longer than you have to be because of all these shenanigans."
"Ah huh." Melina was already on her way out of the office and headed for the front door.
Instead of summoning the car in the parking lot, she went out to the road in front of the school and stood on the sidewalk for a minute, concentrating on how much she needed him there right that instant.
Half a block away, the familiar rumble started up and then wheels screeched toward her. It pulled up beside her and the door opened for Melina to settle herself inside. Once she was in, seatbelt on, it pulled away from the curb. As it turned the corner, the car faded from view, first turning see through then misty then gone. Any onlooker would think they had simply imagined a car the color of daisy pollen turning the corner and disappearing.
The Camp house was quiet when she pulled up in the front yard and stepped out of the car which faded away in the light to an outline then nothing. Melina clumped up the stairs and dropped her bag in the foyer before calling out,
"GERGOT!"
The gargoyle didn't respond. Melina reached for him. He wasn't in the house. Walking through and out the back door off the kitchen, she called him again. Still no answer. He was somewhere on the property though, she could feel it. The only problem, there was a lot of property to search.
The thread at her chest was still pulsing slowly.
Melina shook her head and went back into the house. Phoebe was standing in the kitchen.
"You're home early."
"I needed to come check on something."
"Something involving the gargoyle."
"He seemed the most likely person who would know. It's not like I can ask you."
Melina pulled out a copy of the key she had taken from the statue of Phoebe's mother, the dead woman she had once called Mother, and used it to unlock the cellar.
"You could at least try asking me, you know?"
With a growl through gritted teeth, she asked, "What do you know about bright red blinking threads that come out of people's chests?"
"A link thread?"
The woman hadn't even hesitated over her response.
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"A what?"
"Link thread, part of a web of connection. It shows you how people are attached to one another."
"I don't know if that's what this is."
"Is it causing you any pain?"
"No." Melina refrained from mentioning the amount of fear it was causing in her though. "It just pulses. So far."
"Then it’s probably just a link thread. Some strong bond has been created very recently which is probably why you can see it right now. In a few days, it'll disappear."
"You're sure?"
"Absolutely. Though," Phoebe added, "You can always go check the book to be certain. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything else that behaves like a link thread though and that's what it sounds like you have. Nothing to worry about." Wiping her hands on a dish towel, as she had been in the process of washing her hands from a painting project when Melina came in, she went back to the studio set up in what had once been her Mother's study. The books were still there, but now they had been joined by myriad art supplies as Phoebe tried to regain a sense of the person she was before her imprisonment.
On her way down the stairs, Melina considered the idea. A link thread: a connection to another person, who had appeared today maybe, someone new. Lester came to mind immediately. He was the unknown. Quite possibly the reason she was feeling strange. There was something about him, that halo and everything.
The bottom of the stairs came all too quickly.
The Grimoire was not on its pedestal. The candle holders were there, but the book itself was gone. Melina sprinted back up the stairs.
"PHOEBE!"
The blind woman stuck her head out of the study.
"The Grimoire is gone."
"What?" Stricken surprise drained the color from Phoebe's face. "Are you sure?" The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "Where could it have gone?"
"I don't know. It was there a couple of days ago."
The cellar door had been locked. Or at least so it had seemed.
"Where are Pauline and Patricia?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't know. Pauline took me to school."
"And I remember her coming back."
The two women, nearly identical, stood in the hallway before their Mother's room and each tried to think of when they had last seen Pauline and Patricia. So far, Phoebe’s twin sistershad done everything they could not to be eclipsed by their sister's abilities, including forcing her into a bargain which allowed them to take those powers from her.
4
The Sisters and Cassandra
Pauline stood in the tiny graveyard with Patricia sitting on a tomb nearby. They had been waiting for fifteen minutes. The sky had gone a charcoal gray promising rain in the near future. Pauline shuffled her feet, the grimoire held in her arms like a child.
"Is she coming?" Patricia asked.
Pauline smiled, her teeth showing.
"That tells me nothing. Is she coming or not?" Patricia was restless, getting up from where she was sitting. Her red skirts were violent against the gray and green of the cemetery. "She has much to answer for."
"Who has what to answer for?" Cassandra sauntered into the cemetery with the smell of burning ozone wafting around her. She stood tall and crossed her arms over her chest. Her flame colored hair moved in the slight breeze. "I did exactly as I planned and that brat brought everything to ruin."
"You had us turned to stone." Patricia thundered forward to stand nearly nose to nose with the fire elemental.
"If things had gone as planned, you would have been returned to your family unharmed." Cassandra gave no ground. In fact, she leaned in, pressing her slight height advantage. The pudgy witch took a step back, ruffling her skirts as she moved. Pauline shook her head.
"Stand away, Patricia. She followed the terms of our agreement. We helped you get to Patrick. Patrick enacted the curse and then PhoebePhoebe came back. You should have killed PhoebePhoebe."
"I didn't know she was a problem until it was too late. That child..."
"Melina. The foundling." Pauline and Patricia both sniffed at the mention of the girl. "She now thinks she's our sister's daughter, but we don't believe that."
"Grimm did his part as well. Quite well."
"And what has happened to him?" Pauline asked. She flipped her hair back away from her face and fixed Cassandra with a glare.
"I've dealt with him." The smile on Cassandra's face was predatory. "He should no longer be a problem."
"Good." Pauline set the book open in the air and the pages fluttered back and forth. "Now what service can we do for you to help you on your way? Our bargain still stands. We will help you to reach the Immortals if you will insure our way to the throne of the family."
"I need that brat dealt with," Cassandra insisted. "She's going to be a problem if she keeps his ring. I can't get any closer to my goal if I can't take that ring."
"We'll see what we can do about the ring."
Pauline flipped the pages of the grimoire by hand.
"You have the Kumon." Patricia had regained her vigor. "Shouldn't you be more than able to deal with one little girl?"
"One little girl with the power of an immortal behind her. If she were so easy to deal with, you would have gotten rid of her already."
The three women stood in a triangle, one space longer than the other between Cassandra and the other two.
"Deal with the girl, or I will. And if I have to then the two of you are no longer part of the bargain."
"You can't just rewrite our deal that way," Pauline protested. Patricia was nodding her head empathetically, her long blond hair jumping around her face. "We have a deal. We help you get to the immortals. You help us rule the Camp family. That was the deal. And that remains the deal."
"I have no reason to honor that deal anymore. You will only get in my way." Canenda was boiling up out of Cassandra's shadow, his smoky body dimming the sunlight.
Pauline muttered a word and the air thickened around them, quenching the fire and smoke of Cassandra and Canenda.
"We have a deal. Honor it. Or we will find someone else who will keep their word."
"You need me," Cassandra said.
"And you need us, so don't presume." Pauline released the air, letting it turn once more to a slight breeze. "We will see about handling the girl and her ring. Go about your business." Pauline moved to Patricia's side and draped an arm over her shoulder. "We'll be in touch."
5
Lester’s New Life
The final bell of the school day was always a blessing. Lester took it for what it was, a sign that freedom commenced the moment he walked away from the school building. Not that there wouldn't be homework, he had gobs of that since he had been in completely different places in his studies at other schools, but because no one was breathing down his neck to tell him where to be in the next five minutes. He stepped out into the sunshine and took a deep breath.
It tasted sweet. It almost tasted of victory; except Melina had never come back. Asking around had seemed a poor choice, so he'd kept his curiosity as to her whereabouts to himself, but he couldn't help wondering if maybe the reason she had disappeared so suddenly was because of him. What if she had noticed something strange about him too? Odd he hadn't thought of that. He descended the stairs and meandered along the line of cars parked, waiting, in a slapdash fashion for the throng of students to make their way to whichever -vehicle was there to pick them up. His mother was parked near the back, a book against the steering wheel, looking for all the world as if she didn't care how long it might actually take him to find the car. She would be perfectly content waiting, her mind fully occupied by the characters of an entirely different world under her fingertips.
Lester rapped lightly on the window. Without looking up, his mother's right hand quested for the unlock button. It clicked. He let himself in.
"Hi, Mom." He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. The touch broke the spell. She found her red ribbon bookmark and settled her page before shutting t
he book.
"Hello,dear."
"Who is it this time?"
"Sir Thomas Paris, I just got to the part where he's trying to talk his way out of his execution."
She put the car in gear and waited for another driver, who was in much more of a hurry, to slip through the throng before she pulled into the lane to leave. Leaving took several minutes, as was customary when dealing with a thousand cars all trying to go the same direction with what appeared to be minimal actual understanding of how traffic was supposed to move. Someone was sitting in the movement lane with their flashers on, waiting for a child coming up the sidewalk, head bent and shoulders heavy with the load of the day. Charlotte settled behind them, put her own car in park again, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What adventures has my son had today?"
"No adventures, Mom, just a typical quiet day at school. No trouble."
"You mean to tell me, Lester Conner Jameson,that nothing at all out of the ordinary happened on your first day?"
A distinct note of shock traveled with those words. As if he had somehow managed an unfathomable feat of magic right before her eyes. Something like making the entire school building disappear in a puff of smoke.
Lester chuckled.
"Okay, so maybe something strange did happen," he admitted. "There's this girl, Melina--"
Another shocked noise from his mother.
"A girl? On your first day?"
Then a slow grin appeared on her face as she put the car in drive once again, the blockage finally clearing.
"Do tell."
"Well, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted," he joked. "Her name is Melina, I think the last name is Camp, but I'm not really sure anymore. Anyway, she was in the first class I went to. Mom, I don't know what to think about her."
"What's she like?"
"I don't know really. I mean, we talked, for a second, and then class was going on and I tried to talk to her after, but things went kinda strange. There are rumors she's a witch or something and they have rules about that in this district and all that. She didn't seem like a witch but she rushed away after some other girl, I think her name is Caroline, said something to me about not associating myself with her."