“Why are you whispering? And some dude crashed into a van across the street.”
“Because, Ronan’s asleep. So’s my Mom.”
“Hang on. Gonna go check on them.”
I drop straight down onto my feet, then dash over the lawn, past the old boat on the trailer, and over to a blue Cadillac. The airbag’s gone off, but the middle-aged balding guy behind the wheel doesn’t appear hurt. As soon as he sees me coming, he stares at me like I’ve got three heads.
Okay, that’s unusual, and worth a peek into his thoughts. Oh, crap. He glanced over and saw me floating outside Hunter’s window. And, staring at me, veered out of the lane and hit the parked van. I’ve never considered myself pretty enough to cause traffic accidents, but I suppose flying works better than a bikini.
Crap.
“Are you okay?” I ask, after pulling his door open—and doing a little memory surgery. He swerved to avoid a dog. Didn’t see the van in the dark.
“Son of bitch,” mutters the guy. “Yeah, I think I’m okay.”
“Sounded like a pretty loud hit, are you sure?”
The man gets out of the Caddy and wanders over to look at the front end. It’s not too bad. He couldn’t have been going much faster than thirty or so on this road. Still, the fairly new Cadillac’s plastic front end is going to need work. The van, however, is on the older side and laughed it off.
Lights flick on, illuminating the porch of the house that the van likely belongs to. A man in his earlier forties emerges, hastily pulling a sweatshirt on over a tank top. He runs over, eyeing the damage while a woman hovers in the doorway on the phone. The instant I look at her, my ears hone in on her talking to the police to report the crash.
Okay, this is handled. I should extricate myself from this before the cops show up.
“What the hell, man?” asks the homeowner. “You drunk or something?”
Caddy Man gestures at the road. “Damn dog ran out in front of me. Swerved. Didn’t see the van.”
Sweatshirt Guy looks at me.
“Just visiting my boyfriend across the street. Heard the crash. Ran over to see if the guy was okay.”
Homeowner nods at me, then looks at the damage. Seeing his van largely unscathed except for a dent or two in the bumper, he calms down. “Wife’s already on the phone with the cops. May as well do the paperwork.”
“Dammit. I’ve only had this thing for three months.” Caddy Man sighs.
“It ain’t that bad. Insurance’ll cover it. Mostly plastic bits these days.” The homeowner pokes at a crumpled bit of the car’s front end. “Nasty part will be replacing the airbag.”
I back up unnoticed, and make my way to Hunter’s. He’s on the porch waiting for me.
“Well, so much for being smooth.”
He raises an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”
I stuff my hands in my hoodie’s front pocket and walk in. “Dude saw me floating there. Oops.”
“Is he hurt?”
“No. Just his car.”
“Hey, you didn’t make him stare at you.”
An almost smile manages to form on my face. “So… am I interrupting anything?”
“Just reading. Gotta slog through a hundred pages of Paradise Lost. You?”
I laugh. “You’ve got English Lit today, too?”
“Yeah, and history… and an Intro to Psych class.”
“Holy crap. That’s a lot.”
He shrugs. “Nothing I can’t handle. You get a lot of work?”
“Nah. Kendall wants us to read a bunch of Poe and write up a few paragraphs about our thoughts on how his style and stuff changed from the early works to the later ones. I, umm, only had the one class today.”
We head up to his room, discussing our varying schedules. I can tell he’s got a pile of work to get done before he goes to sleep, not having a lot of time after returning from his job waiting tables. As much as I want to spend some time with him, I don’t want to screw with his life. If he fails a class, it’s a lot worse than me, and not only due to the immortality thing. He’s barely managing to afford it.
Hunter protests me saying I should get going so he can finish what he needs to, but I insist, hug him, and head out. A cop is still there talking to the two guys across the street, so I slip around to the back yard for takeoff.
Tonight’s going to be boring and lonely.
Well, there’s always Poe. Might as well get that done with.
I awake to a wonderfully gloomy day Tuesday.
Ugh. I suppose since I just referred to a rainy, overcast day as ‘wonderful,’ this whole being dead thing is turning me into an older version of Wednesday Addams. At least to a point. I mean, it’s not like I’m having homicidal thoughts toward my little brother. Rainy days always did soothe me anyway, so it’s not like I’m totally missing out on beautiful weather. Ashley and I never were much for hitting the beach, though we did spend a reasonable amount of time doing ‘outdoorsy’ stuff… usually hiking in the woods. This one time when we were twelve, we got lost and both panicked thinking we’d never get home and die of starvation. In truth, we’d spent hours going in circles only like a hundred yards from the edge of the woods.
One thing about staying up until sunrise every night: being awake when everyone else is asleep makes it easy to avoid procrastination on homework. So, before crashing, I read a bunch of stuff and scribbled out a couple of paragraphs on how I think his style evolved from Tamerlane to Annabel Lee. I’m not exactly a massive book geek—nowhere near Mom or Sophia—but hopefully, I’ve come up with an essay that doesn’t sound too much like guessing in the dark.
A brief round of text messages tells me Ashley and Michelle are both in class—they don’t reply—and Hunter’s walking between classes. We chat about randomness for a little while until the start of his next period.
By that time, the littles are home, so I head upstairs. Prior to my rather, umm, pointed breakup with Scott, a rainy day like this with everyone trapped inside would usually devolve into a shouting match by five or six. Hopefully, I’ll have a little time to spend with them before someone’s too pissed off to speak.
The area by the front door, Mom’s demilitarized zone for shoes, is soaked. Puddles of muddy water are all over the small patch of linoleum, but by some miracle, nothing hit the rug. Judging by the wet pink socks also draped over the shoe shelf, it’s either raining really bad out there or someone had an unfortunate encounter with a puddle.
Sierra comes down the stairs in black and red pajamas and fuzzy socks. Since she’s usually too lazy to completely change clothes right after school, I’m going to assume everyone got drenched. If the look on her face is any indication, her fuse has been trimmed short. My guess is either she wanted to hang out with Nicole today and can’t because of the rain, or she’s the one who fell into a giant puddle.
“Hey.” She plods past me, heading for the PlayStation in the living room, but stops short and spins around. “You got school tonight?”
“Yep.” I hook my thumbs in the waistband of my sweat pants.
“What time?”
“Class stats at seven. Probably gonna leave here at six.”
She makes a series of faces like she’s doing math or is about to break wind. The aggression leaves her posture and she peers up at me with an almost sheepish expression. “You wanna maybe play a board game or something?”
I put a hand on her forehead. She must be feverish if she’s actively choosing to do something not involving a video game.
Sierra raspberries me.
“Yeah, sure. Which one?”
She heads back to the stairs. “You pick one. Be right back.” With that, she runs up to the second floor.
Hmm. That’s odd. Only three things usually get between Sierra and video games: school, being grounded, and sleep—though the third one isn’t an absolute. Mom’s caught her a few times sneaking back downstairs when she should be in bed. Her being the one to suggest doing ‘not video games’ almost worries me.<
br />
I head over to the dining room and grab this ‘adventure horror’ type board game, Stillwater Hollow, where the players all pick different characters to explore a creepy town where weird stuff happens. It’s kinda story driven, with an iPad app controlling the ‘forces of evil,’ so all the players wind up being cooperative. Dad said it’s kinda like C’thulu mythos, only a bit tamer for a younger audience.
Sophia runs downstairs. She’s barefoot in a plain pink dress, her hair soaked. “Hey, Sare. Can we have cocoa?” At the sight of the game box on the table, she pauses. “Ooh. This one’s scary.”
“Seems like a good day for it.” I smile. “Not in the mood for scary?”
She shrugs and hops in a chair. “It’s okay.”
Sam, still wearing his wet T-shirt and jeans, rumbles down the stairs louder than Dad. I still can’t understand how a nine-year-old boy makes so much damn noise. He’s a twig like the rest of us, yet he sounds like Ashley’s steamer trunk being dropped down the steps.
“You gotta change,” says Sierra from behind him. “You’ll get sick if you keep wearing wet stuff.”
“Is it really raining that hard?” I ask, peering back over my shoulder on my way into the kitchen.
“No. Some butthead splashed us with his car,” mutters Sierra.
“That was awesome.” Sam jumps, thrusting his hands up.
“It was not ‘awesome.” Sophia shakes her head. “It knocked me and Sierra over. And some of my school stuff got wet.”
I pause in the kitchen doorway. “Wait, what?”
Sierra scowls. “We were walking down the street from the bus stop, and this shithead in a hot rod swerved close to the side of the road. His car hit a puddle and threw up a wave that knocked me on my ass.”
“Hey, easy on the language. Dad’s home,” I whisper.
“And his ears aren’t gone yet,” calls Dad from his office.
Sierra’s cheeks pale with an ‘oh crap’ face.
“It was pretty funny.” Sam peels his shirt off and runs upstairs. “Be right back.”
“Not funny. We got soaked!” Sophia gags. “And I got muddy water in my mouth.”
“Who was it?” I ask.
Sierra shrugs. “No idea. But if I see that car again, I’m gonna let the air out of the tires.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What’s it look like?”
“Some idiot your age. Car’s white. Kinda old. Big tires, and one of those silver things on the hood. Why? You gonna go bite him?” Sierra grins.
Sophia covers her mouth to hold in laughter.
“Maybe.” I wink, and head into the kitchen to fill the kettle.
A little while later, the four of us all have hot cocoa and we’re trying to figure out what sort of monster is leaving puddles of slime around the ‘sleepy little town’ of Stillwater Hollow. Dad runs over to join us. The game isn’t too scary until real life thunder goes overhead.
“Maybe you should stay home tonight?” Sophia smiles at me.
“Will lightning kill you?” asks Sam in a tone as casual as if he wanted to know my favorite color.
“No, it’ll piss her off.” Sierra rolls two dice for her move.
I cringe. “Umm. Not exactly sure, but I’m not in any hurry to find out.”
“So, despite it being dark, I take it you’ll not be flying in tonight?” Dad hands Sierra a map tile when she goes through an unexplored door.
“Nope. Not unless I stuff my clothes in a watertight bag and fly in a bathing suit.”
Dad nods. “It’s supposed to stop around six.”
Sierra pokes the iPad screen, and a squid-faced monster pops up with a sudden, loud crash of dramatic music—too well timed with a peal of actual thunder.
Predictably, Sophia screams. Despite expecting it, I still jump. Dad nearly chokes on his cocoa.
Sierra goes wide-eyed and freezes stock still, staring at Sophia. Sam laughs.
My siblings have three distinct reactions to fear. Sierra freezes like a deer in the headlights, then—if whatever it was really scared her—she gets pissed off at it. Sophia screams. If something genuinely got her bad, she’ll burst into tears when the screaming stops. Sam gets the giggles for quick jumps, but if he’s genuinely frightened, he’ll stop talking for a while and usually want to be alone. His laughter sounds genuine, so neither the monster on the screen nor the thunder bothered him at all.
“It’s not that scary,” mutters Sierra.
Sophia looks around. “I know. The thunder’s just loud.”
The game ends about twenty after four. Sophia spends a little less than half of it sitting in a ball on the chair half hiding her face behind her knees. We barely manage to beat the tentacle-faced monster. Sam and Sierra’s characters are the only two to survive.
With the little town once again safe, we put the game away. Dad heads back to his office to keep working. I wind up on the sofa with Sierra on one side playing Call of Duty, Sophia on my other side reading on her Kindle, and Sam sitting on the floor in front of me waiting his turn at the controller. They are remarkably organized and civil. Once the first match ends, Sierra hands the controller to Sam without protest.
Now I’m starting to feel guilty. Like, my death totally changed my siblings. Being housebound on a crappy day would normally have resulted in a lot of screaming and two out of three grounded by now. Sierra often wound up on punishment first, Sam second—for making a wiseass comment. Sophia rarely gets in trouble. The few times she has been punished, Sierra hit her with nasty verbal barbs that hurt so much she snapped back in kind. Most of the time, she’ll just start crying and run to her room.
So yeah. Shit’s changed. I’m not in California having a nervous breakdown from homesickness and my siblings are like close or something. I’m still not completely convinced there won’t be arguments, but that look Sierra gave me right before she suggested we play a board game said quite a bit. I practically saw her think ‘I could snap and start a fight, but Sarah almost died…’ then she probably thought about losing Sophia or Sam, too. And, yeah. She’s not a cryer. When Sierra’s sad, she gets clingy… and clingy for her is playing board games instead of video games, or sitting next to me on the couch instead of sitting on the floor. Sophia, she takes clingy quite literally. Seriously, I think Mom cheated on Dad with a block of Velcro the way that girl sticks to me sometimes.
Speaking of Mom, she walks in the door about ten after five and stands there staring down at the dirty floor. All four of us brace for it, but our mother doesn’t bark at anyone. She wordlessly steps out of her sneakers—the heels live at the office—and steps onto the carpet. The woman looks so exhausted that for a second, I half expect her to simply fall forward and land on her face.
“Umm… sorry.” It’s dark enough out that I’m online already… so I fly straight up off the couch and land in front of her. “I’ll get the floor. Some idiot splashed the littles on their way back from the bus stop.”
Mom nods.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” I walk up to her. “You don’t look right.”
“It’s nothing… I hope.” Mom bites her lip. “Rough day at work is all. Stress.”
“’Kay.” I zip to the kitchen to grab a sponge and a bucket.
“You’ve got school soon, hon.” Dad walks in behind me. “I can get the floor.”
I stand and lean close, whispering, “You should cook tonight. Mom’s done. Besides. I’ll be finished with the floor before you could even walk out there.”
As fast as I can move, I run across a living room that appears frozen in time and mop up the dried dirty puddles. I’m back in the kitchen dumping the filthy water out before Dad even has all the stuff out of the fridge for dinner.
“Gah!” yells Dad, startled by my sudden appearance beside him. “Wow, that was fast.”
“I could’ve gone a little faster, but I didn’t want to spill the bucket. Okay. Time to get ready for school.”
After a hug, I head downstairs to change. No real need to shower a
gain since, while I still sweat, it’s mostly for appearance. My metabolic processes aren’t exactly normal. Takes me a couple days before even my nose can pick up any stink. Vampires like Glim, shadows, with zero attempt to appear alive, never bathe, or at least have no natural body odor.
I do the T-shirt and jeans thing again, then head upstairs to make the rounds of ‘bye for now’ hugs. Mom’s not in sight, so I head up to the parents’ room… and catch her crying.
Shit.
“Mom?” I ask, barely over a whisper.
She jumps and looks at me like I’d walked in on her doing something way more embarrassing than having a simple emotional breakdown. I ease the door closed behind me.
“Something you wanna talk about?”
Mom chuckles. “Welcome to opposite world. Shouldn’t I be the one finding my teenage daughter upset over something and trying to get her to open up about it?”
“Well, there’s my ex-boyfriend… I was dying to dump him for a while.”
She blinks.
“Too soon?” I ask.
She blinks again.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Sorry.” I wander over and sit next to her. “So, what’s wrong?”
“Honestly?” She chuckles. “It’s my overactive worry engine running away with itself. Could be nothing at all.”
“I’ve seen you cry three times in my entire life.”
A humorless laugh comes out of her. “I’m just good at hiding it. Aren’t you late for school?”
“No. I’m leaving plenty early. If it’s important and you want to talk, I could skip the car and it’d only take me five minutes to get there. That would give me over an hour before I had to leave.”
Mom takes and squeezes my hand. “It’s not that bad. I’ve just gotten myself worked up over the outside chance I might be laid off.”
“What?” I gawk. “Laid off? Are you serious? You’re like the best lawyer on their team. How could they lay you off. What about that obnoxious guy with the super fake hair?”
She glances sideways at me. “That doesn’t exactly narrow it down.”
“The guy who hit on me at the last Christmas party because he had too much champagne and didn’t realize I was seventeen?”
The Phantom Oracle (Vampire Innocent Book 5) Page 4