Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot)

by Amsden, Christine

  It was my father. Or the man who had been my father, up until a few weeks ago.

  He had been stocking up on a few common herbs when he’d seen me walk past. He caught up with me as I tried to work out the difference between the high-cost name brand tests that promised “results as early as three days before your missed period,” and cheaper off-brand tests that pretty much made the same claims, but without the flashy packaging.

  “Cassandra.”

  Yelping, I spun and dropped both boxes. For a minute, I forgot that I hated him, forgot that I wasn’t speaking to him, and forgot that I didn’t owe him any explanations. My words came out, tripping over one another in their desperation to be heard and understood. “It’s not for me, it’s for Kaitlin. She’s – well, she asked me to help her and I...” I realized what I was saying, and stopped trying to justify myself.

  My father looked from me to the boxes on the floor, then up again. His face slowly drained of color.

  I reached down to grab the boxes and shove them in my basket.

  “It’s not too late,” he said. “Did your brother tell you we wanted you to move back in with us? I thought it might come easier from him.”

  “Yeah, he told me.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen like this, with the whole town learning about it within weeks and the Blackwoods...” He trailed off, his eyes glued to my abdomen, as if looking for telltale signs.

  “I’m not pregnant,” I said, not sure why I bothered to try to put him at ease.

  “Your mother is sick.”

  “So?”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. I was just trying to protect my family.”

  “You told me that. You wanted to protect your family so badly, you practically threw me at Evan.”

  “I didn’t. I’ve told you to stay away from him for years.”

  “Why? You never told me why.”

  “Because I can’t. There’s...there’s a debt involved.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Trust me, it’s not at all convenient.”

  “No,” I said, “it’s not. And neither is the debt I owe Evan, but you know what? I’m honoring it. Whether or not you consider me your daughter, it doesn’t change a thing.”

  “Why did you go to him for help?” Dad asked. “Why not my brother? I told you he’d help.”

  “Ha!” I shook my head, thinking about what Evan had told me about Uncle John. “Your brother was trying to sell me into marriage to the highest bidder. Apparently, he thought it would be the best way to protect me.”

  I waited for Dad’s outrage, but he didn’t even look surprised.

  “You knew?” I asked.

  “He and I discussed it,” Dad said. “And I’m sure he wasn’t after money.”

  “Wow.” It was all I could think to say, but it managed to sum up everything I felt anyway.

  “So look, here’s what we’ll do,” Dad said. “You come back to live with us. I’ll call Linda Eagle. She’s been stopping by almost daily to check on your mother anyway. I’m sure she can mix something up to take care of things.”

  I didn’t understand his meaning right away. Linda Eagle was a witch midwife, and I wasn’t pregnant, though of course, my father had convinced himself that I was – and with Evan Blackwood’s baby. Suddenly, it all clicked in my mind, and I clutched at my empty womb, feeling a strange sort of protection for a child who wasn’t there.

  “You want me to get an abortion?” I don’t think I had ever hated anyone more than I hated my father in that moment.

  “You’ll never be free of him if you have his baby.”

  “I don’t want to be free of him.” I didn’t mean it, I told myself firmly, I just needed to say something to hurt my father. God help me, but I wanted him to feel the way I had been feeling for weeks. “I do, however, want to be free of you. Good-bye, Edward.”

  With that, I flung my basket of random groceries and pregnancy tests at him and fled from the Wal-Mart before I ended up crying in public. After I secured myself inside Kaitlin’s truck and calmed down, I went to another store to get the test.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Kaitlin and I sat on bean bags, waiting for the microwave timer to count down the minutes. Kaitlin still wore her bathrobe and she trembled visibly. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I remained silent and worked out what I’d say to her if the test came up positive. And I was pretty sure it would.

  The microwave timer chimed, but Kaitlin didn’t move. I had known she wouldn’t, so without even asking, I went to the bathroom to check for a plus or a minus sign. The plus sign on the test was so dark, I could see it at a glance from the doorway.

  Sucking in my breath, I tried to remember my prepared speech, but the words had slipped away.

  “It’s positive, isn’t it?” Kaitlin said. “If it were negative, you’d have said so already.”

  “I’m sorry.” Leaving the test where it lay, I went to sit next to Kaitlin. She buried her face in my shoulder and cried for a long time. Neither of us said a word. What was there to say, anyway? Anything I could say would come across as preachy, pushy, nosy, or judgmental, even if I didn’t mean it that way. Kaitlin wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what this meant.

  “It’s not fair,” Kaitlin said, her face still buried in my shoulder. “And you don’t have to tell me the pill is only ninety-nine percent effective. I know that. I just... hate it.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat there for a long time, not saying anything. I remembered the night when I’d brought Jason to the apartment, battered and bruised from his fight with a vampire. He and Kaitlin had slipped into her room that evening, but it had only been one night. She’d been with Curtis earlier the same week.

  Finally, I had to ask. “Kaitlin, is Curtis the father?”

  To my dismay, she began to cry harder. “I don’t know! Why did this have to happen now? There’s never been another time in my life when I wouldn’t have been sure. I was so mad at Curtis that night.... you probably think that’s awful, especially since you told me he’d cheated on me again. Why don’t I ever listen to you?”

  “Who says I’m any better at life than you are?” I asked, thinking of my own mess with Evan.

  “What do I do?” Kaitlin asked.

  That was a loaded question. “What do you want to do?”

  “Run away.”

  “I think the baby will go with you,” I pointed out.

  She punched me playfully. “Should I just tell Curtis it’s his? I know I broke up with him right after that thing with Jason, but Curtis doesn’t know about that and maybe he’d take me back if...”

  “Kaitlin,” I cut in. The last thing in the world she needed was to get back into that relationship, no matter who the father turned out to be. “Is that what you want your life to be like? Think about it. Would he be a good father?” Assuming, of course, that he would be willing to be a father at all.

  “No,” Kaitlin said.

  “Maybe we should find out who the father is before you decide anything else,” I said.

  She laughed. “Oh yeah, that would be convenient. They can’t do DNA tests until after the baby is born.”

  That was news to me. I thought there might be a magical alternative that would work faster, but I didn’t want to share that information with her unless I knew it was true. She could make things easier by channeling some kind of talent, but even if Jason were the father, there was a good chance the baby would be just as normal as Kaitlin.

  “Do you want to keep the baby?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Kaitlin answered so quickly that it momentarily took me aback. Then I thought about my reaction when my father had suggested an abortion, and I thought I understood, at least a little bit.

  “Well then, congratulations.”

  16

  I’M NOT SURE WHEN I FIRST met Madison. I think she was just always there, but hidden in the shadows. No one really knew her. No one really disliked her, either; the
y just didn’t notice her much. I heard a few people tout the theory that she thought she was too good for other people, but I couldn’t figure out why they would think that. She kept to herself, aced her schoolwork, and went home at the end of the day with barely a whisper.

  I clearly remember the day Madison and I became friends, though. It was our junior year, and we were the only two girls in pre-calculus class. Why was I in pre-calculus when I wasn’t even thinking of going on to a four-year college? There wasn’t a great reason. It’s just that I’d always taken the most advanced math class and after Algebra II, it was either pre-calculus or stop taking math. Angie, who had followed me through most of the advanced math classes, had taken the latter option. So it was just Madison and me amidst a sea of testosterone.

  That wasn’t when we became friends. That was just when I started to pay a little attention to her. We worked together on our homework assignments, but she didn’t say anything that didn’t relate to pre-calculus. She struck me as being deeply sad and lonely.

  One day at lunch time, two of the girls at my table began to talk in loud, carrying voices about how annoying they found Madison Carter.

  “She thinks she’s better than everyone else,” Tracy said. “Mrs. Davis made us work together on an English project last week and she just did it all for me.”

  Glancing around, I spotted Madison sitting by herself two tables away, staring at her lunch.

  “Well, Tracy,” I said, letting my voice carry as well, “maybe if you would actually work instead of constantly touching up your makeup, she wouldn’t have had to.”

  Tracy scowled at me, but I didn’t care. We weren’t exactly great friends, and I never could tolerate people who picked on those weaker than they were. Let them dish it out to me. I could take it.

  Somewhat to my surprise, they didn’t get the chance to dish anything out because Kaitlin and Angie both jumped in on my side.

  “Yeah,” Angie said, “I had to do that history project for you last year.”

  “She could have told Mrs. Davis,” Kaitlin added.

  The next day, Madison wasn’t in our first period pre-calculus class. Something didn’t feel right to me, so when I spotted her at her usual lonely lunch table, I steered over there to join her.

  Madison blinked when she saw me sit down across from her. “Hi, Cassie,” she said uncertainly.

  “Hi, Madison,” I replied. “I hope you don’t mind if I join you. I missed you in pre-calc this morning.”

  “I overslept,” Madison said. She didn’t meet my gaze.

  “That happens to everyone sometimes,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. I could feel the eyes of Tracy and her friends on me, but I didn’t care.

  “Thanks for asking,” Madison said. “Don’t you want to go back to your friends now?”

  “No,” I said. “I want to have lunch with you. In all these years, I don’t think I know the first thing about you.”

  Madison gave me an exasperated look. “And today you just decided to come over here and get to know me? Why today, of all days?”

  I hesitated, not sure exactly how to answer. Aside from a vague feeling, I had no idea what made that day so special.

  “Some people say you’re psychic,” Madison said. “Is that true?”

  Once again, I hesitated. Then I happened to glance at the sleeve of her baggy sweatshirt, which had ridden up just enough for me to see a fresh slash mark across her wrist.

  “I’m not psychic,” I told her, opting for blunt truth when I typically would have gone with a mysterious smile. That usually put people off-balance, which I liked, but not with Madison. “Do you want to know the truth?”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t tell this to many people,” I went on.

  She raised her eyebrows in evident interest.

  “I don’t have an ounce of magical talent,” I whispered. “Not a drop.”

  “But your family–”

  “Thinks I’m a pretty serious disappointment,” I told her.

  “Oh.”

  “I came over here because I want to be your friend. So now you should tell me something about yourself that you’ve never told anyone.”

  Madison bit her lip. From the look of her lips, she did that a lot. I was already planning a few ways to help her out. I’d make a project of her, I decided. A new haircut, contacts instead of glasses, some makeup, some clothes that didn’t hide her body...

  “I want to sing,” Madison said finally.

  That didn’t sound like much of a secret, but I waited for her to tell me more.

  “I used to, when I was really young, but my dad told me it was a waste of my life and wouldn’t let me take music lessons. He won’t let me sing at all. Not even as a hobby.” Madison looked like she wanted to say more, but she stopped. I didn’t push her, either. I think I’d gotten the faintest hint of the real her, but the rest would take time.

  “Ever been to Springfield?” I asked.

  Madison shook her head. “I’ve never been outside of Eagle Rock.”

  “Meet me by the flagpole after school,” I said. “We’ll take a road trip. You can sing in the car. I won’t tell.”

  I thought she would argue. Luckily, the bell rang at that moment so she didn’t have a chance.

  * * *

  Kaitlin spent the rest of the morning in an advanced state of shock, and I had no idea how to comfort her. I tried to tell her everything would be all right, but couldn’t get the lie past my lips, not when it was such an obvious whopper. Things were going to be difficult. The only thing I could tell her, truthfully, was that I’d be there for her.

  That afternoon, I convinced her to go to Madison’s concert in the park. It was a beautiful, if hot, July afternoon and we decided to pack a picnic lunch to eat before the concert. Unfortunately, most of the town seemed to have had the same idea, but we managed to find a sunny spot on the edge of the crowd to lay down our blanket and eat the sandwiches.

  Kaitlin was pretty quiet, but I left her to her own troubles. Sooner or later she’d have a lifetime’s worth of decisions to make, but not right here, and not right now. I let myself feel the same way, pushing thoughts of Evan to the back of my mind. Or maybe more to the side. I hadn’t exactly gotten up the courage to ask him about the wards he’d cast over me, although having seen firsthand what dangers lay in wait, I couldn’t entirely fault him.

  I caught sight of Scott out of the corner of my eye. He blended in with the crowd, and didn’t acknowledge me in any way. I knew he was there, at Evan’s request, to protect me, but his presence made me feel uneasy.

  Just as we finished lunch, Nicolas showed up, with three-year-old Christina in tow. I beamed in delight at the sister I hadn’t seen in weeks, but when I hugged her, she seemed stiff and distant.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  “Mommy’s sick,” she said. “Why you not home?”

  I looked up at Nicolas, who appeared more tired than he had even the day before. “She’s getting worse.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “I have the weekend off and honestly, I needed to get out of the house. I thought Christina did, too. I would have brought Adam, but he won’t come out of his room. And in any case, if one more person tries to get away from him, I think he’ll break.”

  Putting on a brave face, I turned back to Christina. “Come on. The concert’s going to start any minute. You can sit on my lap.”

  The concert began promptly at one with the children, ranging in age from six to ten, singing the national anthem. They went through a few more selections, with the audience clapping politely after each one. Madison stood with her back to us, directing the students and occasionally helping the younger ones remember the words.

  Finally, after the last song was over, Madison turned to the audience. “My kids have requested that I sing a solo for you. So to conclude, I’m going to sing, ‘America the Beautiful.’”

  Then Madison began to sing. In the space of a few
seconds, I was transported. No longer was I sitting on a lawn chair in the middle of a park with the hot July sun beating on my head. Instead, I saw the amber waves of grain and the purple mountain’s majesty. They were so beautiful that I wanted to cry.

  I’d only heard Madison sing a handful of times, but her voice could do that. She brushed off compliments, but she was the most amazing singer I’d ever heard. She made you feel the music, not just hear it.

  When it was over, the audience came out of a sort of trance and sprang to their feet, applauding heartily. In the midst of all that, Nicolas whispered fiercely in my ear, “Why didn’t you ever tell me she was a songbird?”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you ever pay attention to any of our magic lessons?” Nicolas asked.

  I shot him a slightly hurt look, which made him look away. Finally, when the applause died down and all the children were running to greet their families, Nicolas excused himself to go talk to Madison, while Christina climbed back into my lap.

  “Uh oh,” I said to Kaitlin. “I don’t think she’s that enthusiastic about him.”

  “He’s enthusiastic about her.” A small smile played at the corner of Kaitlin’s mouth. “What’s a songbird?”

  “I’m not sure.” I thought about the context for a minute, though, and what I knew of Madison’s singing ability. It truly was a remarkable gift, but from Nicolas’s reaction, it was far more out of the ordinary than I had suspected.

  If it had some magical origin, it might explain how Madison had excelled in her music studies when she had not sung or learned to play an instrument before going to college. If it was a gift, it might also explain why Madison had sunk into a deep depression when I first knew her. Gifts are tied to the soul. Forbidding someone to use a gift sickens the soul as surely as forbidding someone to breathe sickens the body.