by Paul Duffau
Kenzie’s mouth pulled down at one corner, and her shoulders lifted.
Innexustrum, she thought, and sent the spell into the world.
The bonds fell free, parted like string meeting the sharpest of skinning knives.
Three sets of startled eyes weighed on her, each carrying its own meaning. Sasha stood, hands frozen in the midst of conjuring, shock radiating out. Aric’s face faded to a sickly gray, and his mouth hung open. He closed it with a gulp. Her father had his head tilted at an angle, peering at her as though reassessing what he knew.
Kenzie gathered herself and said, “I’m going to my room.” She swung around to ascend the stairs, and paused, looking over her shoulder at her mother. “And I’m locking the door.”
Silence met her announcement and her exit.
Kenzie checked her watch at the top of the stairs and ran as softly as she could to her room. She slipped in and closed the door with enough violence to ensure that it would be heard and felt below.
Safe.
Kenzie leaned her back against the flat panel of the door. The last red glow of the sunset painted the wall to her left.
“Thank you, Harold,” she said into the dim space.
She looked at her watch again. She was going to be late. No choice, she had to change. Kenzie prayed that Mitch would wait.
Chapter 28
A ladybug crept over the blossom of the rhododendron that concealed him, and insect noises rose in the dusk. Crouched behind the vegetation, Mitch’s knees ached, almost as much as his chest. What if she didn’t show? The last rays of the sun touched a cloud, making it bleed as the night closed in. To the right of the house, a halcyon moon grew over the trees, full to bursting.
She’s late, he thought. That’s all. He checked his watch again. Five after. How long should he wait?
A man stalked out from the front of the house. Not Kenzie’s dad or Jackson. Mitch evaluated the slacks, button-up shirt, attitude, and placed the guy into the “dork” category. Whoever he was, he left, and Mitch turned his attention back to the house.
A light blossomed in the right-hand window. Then it died, came back on for another two seconds, and disappeared.
His inner voice cautioned him that it wasn’t a sign, but Mitch’s heart leapt.
He caught sight of movement on the other side of the glazing, but couldn’t make anything out in the gloom. The window slid open and then he watched the screen shake and pop loose. It vanished into the dark room.
A slender jean-clad leg appeared and hooked over the windowsill. A slender bronze arm reached out the window, and he saw her fingers clasp the top of the window trim. The slender profile of Kenzie emerged, one limb at a time. Her ponytail touched the top of the transom as she ducked to get her head out and then had to hop to get enough clearance from the windowsill to draw the second leg out. She stood upright.
Mitch rose to his full height, mesmerized. He had asked her to sneak out with him; he hadn’t meant it literally.
Kenzie closed the window behind her and made some kind of gesture with her hand. She tugged at the bottom of her ivory gypsy blouse to straighten it as though she had stepped out the front door. With her hands spread for balance, she ascended the slope of the roof to the peak. As lightly as a sparrow, she walked along the ridge until she reached the end of the shingles, her shirt pressed against her by a slight breeze. Kenzie descended the opposite slope, the one closest to him. She kept her knees bent and her weight back.
The wall, he guessed, as he figured out her plan. It was a couple of feet from the edge of the roof to the top of the wall.
Kenzie reached the lower eave and stopped.
The angles were funky, coming from a pitched surface to the flat top of the wall. He might be able to step over the gap, but it looked too wide for Kenzie. Mitch took one step from hiding, to go help, but Kenzie lifted her knee and jumped sideways. With a ninety-degree pivot in midair, she landed on her left foot, arms opened wide, with only a hint of a wobble. She folded down, tucked her trailing leg under her, and then she was standing on the wall. She walked the length of the wall and disappeared behind one of the trees at the edge of the property.
Kenzie swayed to avoid the branch that hung over the eight inches of brick at the top of the perimeter wall. The tips of the needles pricked the palms of her hand when she clutched at the bristly limb and used it for balance. She released it too soon, and it snagged on the loose bottom hem of her blouse. For a scant moment, she thought that it would sweep her from the wall before the natural tension pulled it past her and the branch returned, vibrating, to its original position. The quiver that had started when she opened the window and divined the ward set there grew to a full case of the shakes.
Kenzie crouched down and let her butt settle onto her heels.
This is silly, she thought. Heck, the wall is twice as wide as the balance beam in the studio. Except the beam was on the ground, and the wall dropped away about ten feet here. She looked ahead to the point where the hillside ran into the masonry work. The clearance there looked to be about four feet.
Doable.
The scent of the pine stayed with her. She rubbed her thumb across her palm and fingertips, touched the sap. She grimaced, but repressed the urge to shrug.
What if he’s not there?
Kenzie quieted her nerves, mostly by ignoring them and her doubts, and stood tall.
Only one way to find out, she thought, and resumed her traverse.
She had clicked the light switch a couple of times to let him know that she was on her way. That was before she had found the ward across her window. Just like her father to be paranoid. It had taken a few seconds to analyze the ward. It wasn’t a binding spell, but a tripwire to notify him that someone had breached the window.
She’d sought out the essence of the magic—stupid Aric, calling it anything else!—and found this to be slipperier than the binding spell her mother used. Does the person casting a spell change the nature of the energy? she had thought, and filed the idea away to discuss with Harold.
Kenzie glanced downward.
Close enough.
She faced the hillside, looked again, and changed position, worried that she’d fall backward into the wall because of the slope. The shakes threatened to take over again, so she jumped before she chickened out. Kenzie kept her uphill leg bent, hoping to get both feet down at the same time. She had enough time to realize the wall here was taller than she thought, and then she fell through the low greenery and landed.
Mitch fidgeted with his feet until Kenzie reappeared, side-hilling instead of forcing her way through the overgrown brush. Bushes blocked her from view as she traversed the hill. Mitch moved on an intersecting course with her, his long legs moving faster as he strode down the shoulder of the road as it wound down toward Lake Washington.
Mitch found the terminus of the trail, a faint trampling in the ground with the damp soil showing partial footprints laid over each other in a mosaic of personal journeys. A gentle swish of a branch alerted him to Kenzie’s presence before she stepped into the open.
Kenzie had a leaf stuck in her hair. She brushed her hand back to put her hair over her shoulder and looked up at him with luminous eyes filled with stifled anger.
“Hi,” Mitch said to cover his confusion. Was she mad at him? For what? If she was, why’d she meet him?
The light of her anger faded, and the corner of her mouth twitched. Mitch’s mounting confusion gave way to sudden panic, sure that he had confirmed he was an idiot.
“What?” he asked. Crap, he sounded frickin’ eager.
’Cuz you are . . .
“Nothing,” Kenzie said.
It wasn’t nothing, it was definitely something, but Kenzie’s voice had been light, so it wasn’t something tragic.
He was making himself crazy. Short drive.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Kenzie.
“Uh . . .”
That was intelligent sounding.
He start
ed over.
“Uh . . . I don’t really have one,” he admitted.
The ultimate in smooth, yessir.
“We could drive someplace and get something to eat.” He poured the words out too quickly, almost tripping over them, but he needed her to want to stay, not decide this was the worst idea in her life.
Kenzie smiled, and Mitch found himself fascinated by the curve of her lips. His gaze slipped down, and his innards tingled as he saw the necklace. His gaze lingered on the chain, followed the hanging stone down. . . .
His face got hot in the silence between them.
“Can we walk instead?” Kenzie asked.
Relief coursed through his body. “Anything you want,” he said.
Kenzie smiled again, wider this time, and Mitch could see the gleam of white teeth in the moonlight.
“Come on,” she said. She glided away into the falling darkness as she made her way down the street.
Mitch chased after her and worried that they’d come too close to her house, but Kenzie ducked onto another backyard path that led diagonally away. He ducked under the same branch she did, dipping low, and stood still long enough to see where she went.
He stepped forward.
“Son of a—” he swore as his face tore through a spider web.
Kenzie shushed at him. Mitch clamped his lips shut.
He flailed at the air around his head to knock down the rest of the web. Strands clung to his skin and, for a split second, he thought he could feel the legs of the spider tickling his cheek. He rubbed his face to get the silk off.
“We’re in somebody’s backyard,” said Kenzie.
“Freaking spider web,” came the aggrieved response from Mitch.
Shadows from the trees hid her face, but by the angles of her silhouette, he could tell she was facing him. The shape shifted and moved away without saying another word. Mitch hurried to follow, crouching down as he went.
The path dropped them out on Lake Washington Boulevard, Kenzie’s house behind them and obscured by the trees lining the broad street. The briny smell of the water twitched at his nose, shifting away on the breeze. A green light slid across the surface of the lake, and the heavy rumble of a diesel engine drifted onto shore. Mitch judged the boat’s size from the height of the illuminated wheelhouse and raised an eyebrow, figuring it to be about a fifty-foot cruiser. Farther away, a red dot moved in the opposite direction while specks of steady yellows sat on Mercer Island, set in the middle of the lake.
Kenzie broke into a slow jog.
Mitch ran to catch up and settled in next to her.
She crossed the street and opened her arms wide.
“This feels amazing,” she said, turning onto the dark ribbon of asphalt that wound along the shore.
“What does?”
“Running.”
Mitch panted as he adjusted to her pace. Thankfully, she wasn’t running fast, or he’d be sucking major wind.
Kenzie started to talk. The bitterness on display earlier faded.
It’s not me, he thought with relief.
“Martial arts and that stuff was all my father’s idea. One day, Jules took us out to a park for an outdoor workout, and we did laps to get warmed up. Running on the grass barefoot put me in a happy place. We did it again a couple more times, and I told my parents I wanted to start running for real.”
She rolled her shoulders as she shrugged in stride. One shoulder fell bare as her blouse shifted.
Mitch admired the delicate architecture of her shoulder, the muscles moving smoothly under tanned skin.
She pulled up the wayward fabric.
“I got some shoes and stuff, and went out.”
Say something, he thought, but nothing came to mind.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“Trying to keep up,” Mitch fibbed.
Kenzie slowed a touch. She reached up with a practiced motion and tightened her ponytail. Her blouse tightened across the front as she did. She slipped to a walk.
Mitch, caught by surprise, overran her by two steps.
“So where now,” he asked, surrendering control of the adventure to her.
Kenzie pointed to a dark mass a half mile away. “There.”
According to the sign, “there” turned out to be Seward Park, and it was open until ten. Mitch checked his watch automatically and recorded the time.
They wove their way around the sculpted grounds at the entrance and rounded the trees in the middle of the deserted parking lot. The Audubon Center sat dark in front of them, nested down for the night. The tall conifers behind it provided a curtain against the white beams of the rising moon. The stucco-and-brick façade reminded Mitch of Kenzie’s house.
“Aren’t your folks going to miss you?”
“I don’t care.”
Hearing the anger, Mitch kicked himself. Dumbass.
Kenzie strode ahead, and he played catch-up again. She turned toward the water and halted so quickly that Mitch had to sidestep to avoid plowing into her.
“Holy heck,” breathed Kenzie.
Mitch diverted his attention from the girl.
Before them, the full moon climbed the snow-covered flanks of Mount Rainier. Mitch stood awed, even as the numbers crunched in the back of his head, calculating the height of Rainier (fourteen thousand feet plus a bit) and distance (better than fifty miles away.) Confronted by the majesty of Rainier, the statistics washed out, and a naked portion of him reacted with awe. From Seattle, especially his side of the ridges, Mount Rainier sightings were rare. Tonight, some trick of the air brought the silvery snowcapped peak closer and made the moon seem huge. Mitch imagined he could see each pockmark on the surface of the moon, each crevasse on the glaciated side of the dormant volcano.
A sigh escaped from Kenzie. She lifted her right hand like she wanted to touch them.
“Everything should be this beautiful,” she murmured.
“The second prettiest thing I’ve seen tonight.” The words, spoken without thinking, tumbled forth. Mitch froze up at his honesty, stupidity, air trapped in his lungs.
Oh, crap. . . .
A fleeting flash of a smile graced Kenzie’s face at the timbre of Mitch’s words before their full import reached her brain. All the air left her lungs. Tongue-tied, she tried to form a response. All she could do was swallow.
Guys at school ran their mouths and said all kinds of stuff, either to pump themselves up or to wrangle their way into a girl’s pants. She could hear it in the voices of the players, with their “hey, girl” and roaming hands. At All Friends, they were all players, trained from toddlers to be the next generation of alpha males, full of themselves. Well, not all of them, but the rest of the boys hid, sneaking wistful glances when they thought nobody was looking.
And now Mitch said she was pretty, and meant it. It put her brain into a tizzy. A pleasant and scary tingle didn’t help her think, either.
The moon and Mitch waited for her answer as the words slipped across the water. The disoriented feeling fell away, replaced by clarity.
I like being called pretty, she thought.
The tingle responded and added a flutter.
Face hot, Mitch waited for the explosion.
Kenzie stepped back and turned to face him. Her eyes glowed with the luminosity of the moon, and the gem at her throat sparkled in the captured rays of moonlight. Color touched on her cheekbones.
“Thank you,” she said, and she sounded flustered.
Mitch let the air rattle out. His brain hunted for an escape route that would move them onto safer ground . . .
She’s not mad, dude.
. . . when out of the corner of his eye, he registered motion closer to the water. Something floated in midair, and the skin at the back of his neck prickled.
Indistinct shapes sat darkly between them and the horizon. It took a second for the lines and curves to resolve themselves into familiar configurations of playground equipment. Nearby, picnic tables lined the sawdust-filled pl
ay zone. The floater turned into a swing.
“Wanna sit?” asked Mitch. That seemed a safe enough offer.
Kenzie nodded.
They walked side by side. Mitch kept sneaking glances at Kenzie, hoping to see another smile. They reached the bench, and Kenzie sat down facing out to the water at the reflection of Rainier. She stretched out her legs, pointing them toward the light spilled across the surface of the lake. A tall, angular bird, maybe a heron, stood on a silent vigil on a piling.
Mitch endured a second of indecision. Sit on the other side of the table? Sit next to her? Sit facing her?
Mitch deposited himself on the bench, too, but left a clear two feet between them. From the trees, he heard a rustle of branches as a bird or squirrel moved, and the water continued a gentle lapping at the sand of the beach. Around them were the lights of moving cars and houses, even a plane headed for Sea-Tac, but the sounds of the bustle were muted.
He leaned an elbow on the concrete surface of the table. Kenzie continued to gaze out onto the water, and Mitch gathered a feeling of sadness below the anger she’d displayed earlier. He put his chin in his cupped hand and unabashedly ogled, soaking in each detail of her face. She lacked the glow of their first meeting, but it was still the face that he dreamed about at night.
Her eyes flicked in his direction. He could see the muscles at the edge of her jaw clench tight. A minuscule shake of her head warned him that she was getting her courage together, so he sat upright and spoke first.
“So what do we do now?”
“If you had any sense, you’d run away.”
He hurried to reassure her. “Yeah, except I seem to run to, not run away. I told you I wanted to help. That everything got weirder than snot doesn’t change that. And besides, you’ve told me this much, you might as well tell me everything. Like, who tried to kidnap you? That part doesn’t make any sense with all the magic stuff. I mean, if you can wave your hands around and make crap happen, why resort to a felony?”
The muscles clenched even tighter as Mitch spoke, and the anger resurfaced on her face.
Dude, you’re a dumbass. Do not piss off the girl. It’s not a hard rule, amigo.