by Stacey Jay
"Okay, I'm sorry. My attitude is ready to be adjusted, I swear."
He just stared at me for several seconds.
"I'm Megan Berry," I said finally, when the tense silence had lasted too long. I might as well introduce myself properly, even though this dude obviously already knew who I was.
I held out my hand and he took it after a moment. A tiny buzz of Settler power jumped between us as his much larger hand engulfed mine, along with a zing of something much more human.
Wow, this guy had some intense personal energy. If I weren't totally into Josh and this guy weren't a Settler cop, I had a feeling I would be able to get a pretty intense crush going on Ethan in a very short time.
"Yeah, I know, but I was hoping you'd let me call you Schmeg."
"Schme-" The nickname made the niggle in my mind turn into a tidal wave that broke through some wall deep inside my head. I was suddenly overwhelmed with memories-Ethan and me playing in my backyard, eating tofu bake over at his house, watching scary movies in his rec room, me sneaking along to the graveyard the night of his second-stage ceremony because I didn't want to be left behind. He was three and a half years older and getting ready to-
"Seal your first grave," I mumbled, my lips numb. Ohmygod, that was why I'd been out alone on the night of my attack. And Ethan was the boy at the graveyard, the one who'd saved my life. I remembered his face now, the way he'd looked when he was thirteen.
Other details spilled into my brain, filling in an abundance of the holes in my personal history and Settler education. Now I knew why I was in trouble with Protocol. I was supposed to have marked William before I let him go. I should have touched his forehead, which would cause that halo thing and let any fellow Settlers who saw him know someone was following him back to his grave. Then I was supposed to go to his resting place and seal his grave after he returned to it, to make certain no one could resurrect him through black magic.
To make sure no one could turn him into a Reanimated Corpse, like the ones that had attacked me five years ago.
"You remember," Ethan said softly, and I could tell he was talking about so much more than me recalling what my new duties should have been.
"I'm sorry, Ethan." Oh God, this was really Ethan. My Ethan. Well, not my Ethan now, but back then… well, not even really back then, but… wow, this was so weird. "I mean, I… You know, after that night…" I sucked in a frustrated breath.
I was so confused, shaken by how much of my old life I had locked away in my head. How could I have forgotten him? Especially considering that my memories of Monica had come back within a few months? I mean, true, he went to a private Catholic school in Little Rock, where his dad taught, so it wasn't like I saw him every day or anything, but I should have remembered him eventually. What kind of sick cranium did I have that I would choose to remember my history with the witchiest girl I'd ever met-Settler or otherwise-but not my old best friend?
"Partial amnesia." He shrugged. "I know. Don't worry about it. I saw you at the bowling alley a year after the attack. I asked you what time it was even though SA told me to leave you alone until your memory came back. I was sure you'd recognize me if you saw me, but… you had no clue." He stood, then stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"That must have been weird," I said, standing up too. Of course, it was even weirder that I still remembered that day. I'd wondered why a totally cute older boy was talking to a lowly eleven-year-old.
I suddenly felt like two different people trapped in the same body and wasn't sure if my skin was big enough to fit both of us inside.
"Sorry about the Jennifer thing. It's just… a lot of people at Settlers' Affairs have had issues with the way she's handled this. They think she should have tried to help you recover your power sooner." He crossed his arms. "And then to have you botch your first job because she didn't have her act together-"
"Listen, Ethan, I took William's information and sent him on his way by myself. Then his arm fell off and I knew Mom would be pissed so I snuck out without saying anything. Don't blame her. I'm sure she would have shown me how to do the job if I'd stuck around."
"It was your first job out of retirement. Don't you think you should have asked for help before running out with a dead kid's arm?" he asked, sounding like a full-fledged grown-up, not the prank-pulling troublemaker I used to know. Was this really the same guy who had hidden a remote-control fart machine in my backpack?
"Give me a break. I was doing the best I could."
"No, you weren't. I know how smart you are, and this isn't even close to your best. I mean, bicycling through town with an arm in a garbage bag is pretty dumb, Schmeg."
"Don't call me that. I know what that means now, okay? And I really don't enjoy having a nickname derived from a slang word for dirty boy parts," I said, blushing because I'd said something dorky like "dirty boy parts" in front of the totally hot guy Ethan had become. God, this was so weird, to compare what he used to be to me to what he was now.
Which was… nothing. He was nothing but a zombie Settler cop, not my friend. The sooner I got that through my thick head the better.
"Fine," he said, eyes growing colder again, like he remembered that we were strangers now too. "Just make sure you get your training up to par before your next Unsettled."
"If I have a next one," I said, hurrying on before he could argue with me. "I will. I'll talk to Mom as soon as I get home."
"Good, because I have bigger things to worry about than cleaning up your messes. Reverto term" As he spoke the last two words he twisted his hand toward the grave behind me. I turned just in time to see William's arm sinking into the earth.
Reverto term, return to earth. Crap, why couldn't I remember that before?
"I already sealed the grave before you got here-I was just waiting on the arm." Ethan pulled a set of keys from his back pocket and disarmed the security system on a very smooth BMW Mini Cooper parked a little farther down the street from where I'd thrown my bike. I guessed the Protocol job must pay rather nicely since Ethan and his family had been a little strapped for cash back in the day.
"I've got to go. I can give you a ride as far as the high school football field if you want," he said, triggering my curiosity again.
Why was he going to my school's football field? He was three and a half years older and he'd never even gone to CHS, so there was no way he'd be visiting for nostalgic reasons. Was there some sort of supernatural Settler weirdness going down at Carol High?
The thought made my heart race. Returning Settler powers ruining my first date with Josh was bad enough, but what if some kind of zombie crap was going down at my school? There were only two weeks until homecoming, and the football field was a highly necessary part of the festivities.
My mind was suddenly awash with high anxiety. What if I never got to see Josh play his senior homecoming game? What if the homecoming court never got to parade down the freshly mown grass? What if, heaven forbid, they canceled the dance because the football field was all messed up from grass-eating zombies or something and with no game the powers that be figured there shouldn't be a dance and I would never get to slow dance with Josh wearing my new nearly-too-sexy-for-Mom-to-let-me-buy-it dress?
Gah! One heart shouldn't have to bear this much stress in one night! "Ethan, wait," I said, running after him. He didn't turn back, but he did slow down enough for me to catch up. "What's going on at the football field? Is it Settler stuff?"
"It's none-of-your-business stuff," he said, speeding up a bit. "Nice shirt, by the way. Does your mom know her fourteen-year-old is looking for a sugar daddy?"
"I'm fifteen, nearly sixteen," I said, refusing to cross my arms. "And it's a joke, obviously. Like a play on the Sugar Daddy candy so obviously shown below the words?" He laughed, a smug little sound I knew meant I was being laughed at, not with. "Anyway, that's not the point. If my powers are returning, then it is my business if something's going on at CHS. It's my school. I have the right to-"
"The only thing
you have the right to do is head home and get to work making up for lost time." We were at his car by then, and he had the nerve to turn around and pat me on the head before he opened his door. Patting! On the head! Like I was a freaking dog or something.
I guess my opinion of the pat must have shown on my face because the jerk laughed, the smile on his face by far the most gorgeous smile I'd ever seen on anyone. "See you later, Schmeg," he said before sliding into his car.
"Don't call me Schmeg!" I yelled after him as he drove away, my heart beating as fast as it had been when I'd arrived at Mount Hope but for reasons much more mystifying than having a dead person's arm in a garbage bag.
CHAPTER 3
My entire day Sunday was spent cramming on first- and second-stage Settler material and helping Mom glue together the crushed bits and pieces of her Lladrу collection. Not only was there no time to sneak away to the football field to investigate, I didn't even get a chance to call Jess until so late Sunday night that her wicked stepmother wouldn't let her come to the phone.
Actually, Jess's step isn't that wicked, but she gets pissy if I call after nine because she's afraid it might wake up James, Jess's terror of a three-year-old half brother.
Without the chance to calm my fevered brain with some quality phone time, I had a heck of a time getting to sleep. All night long, my mind raced, struggling to find a way to reverse my newly revamped powers. The only possibility I managed to come up with involved jumping headfirst off the balcony of the school lunchroom and praying for another bout of partial amnesia and power short-circuiting. Since jumping could also result in a broken neck, paralysis, or death-all of which would ruin my chances of going to homecoming with Josh-I didn't consider it much of a possibility.
I had nada and was starting to feel my inescapable future pressing in all around me.
The only thing I felt at all in control of was ensuring that I reconnected with Josh and made certain he continued to see me as a homecoming-date-worthy chick. Therefore, I was up at five Monday morning, straightening my hair and applying light makeup and just a hint of brown eyeliner around my dark eyes. I donned the sundress Josh hadn't seen Saturday night-with the shawl, this time-and was off to school by six forty-five.
By five to seven, I had locked my bike at the racks and was booking it to the football field, determined to find out what Settler weirdness was brewing. I walked the length of the dew-damp grass, explored the area beneath both the visitors' and home team bleachers, and even went so far as to peek into the boys' locker room but came up with nothing. Everything seemed business as usual.
"The track!" I whispered aloud, thunking myself on the forehead with my palm.
I hadn't checked the track that ran around the field, which was completely stupid on my part. Circles hold great power for Settlers. We walk circles around graves to seal them, and several of the most advanced, third-stage magic commands involved tracing interlocking circles in the air while chanting.
A quick glance at my cell revealed I had plenty of time to investigate, so I hurried out of the field house and back into the cool morning air. I was three-fourths of the way around the hard-packed dirt track when I felt the vibrations of some seriously bad mojo rippling up through the earth. The stinging energy crept along the bare skin of my legs like an electric shock, making me yip and jump in the air. Lucky for me, I landed on the side of my sandal and was down on the ground seconds later, coated in thick, black mud.
"Ergh!" Why was I such a freaking klutz? I'd been in ballet practically since birth!
For the second time in three days I was coated in grave dirt or, in this case, grave mud -mud that had the distinct feel of black magic lingering in its gloppy depths. It was obvious SA had already been here to clean up most of the mess, but the faint flicker of dark power remaining in the mud was still clear enough for me to read. Apparently my ability to pick up dark vibes had returned along with my Settler mojo.
Whatever was going down, it wasn't Settler stuff. It was black-arts stuff, the kind of thing that led to nothing but seriously bad news for average humans and Settlers alike. And it was happening right here, inches away from the football field where dozens of innocent teens practiced every day-or mostly innocent teens: I'd heard a few stories about some of Josh's teammates that were fairly scandalous.
I was going to have to talk to Mom about this and force her to find out the 411. If my friends were in danger, I deserved to know about it, no matter what Ethan or the old Elder farts at SA thought.
But first, I had to get cleaned up. I wasn't sure if grave dirt smelled as awful to average people as it did to Settlers, but it didn't matter. I couldn't stand the stink of myself all day. There wasn't time to go home, so I was going to be forced to wear the gym clothes in my backpack for the entire day. Not the best way to remind Josh how hot I was but better than smelling like dead people.
I hurried back to the field house and snuck down the darkened hall leading to the girls' locker room. It was eerily quiet and strangely cold, considering it was already nearly seventy degrees outside. I felt goose bumps break out all over my bare arms and a sinking feeling in my stomach. Hopefully that wasn't a sign maintenance had remembered to lock this door.
"Yes!" I sighed with relief as the rusty door swung inward with a little shove. It was dark inside, but enough light filtered through the tiny windows at the top of the concrete wall that I could find my way to the showers. I flipped one on. Score: We had water. I wouldn't have a towel, but there was still soap, so at least I'd no longer smell of decaying flesh.
I dumped my backpack, whipped off my dress and underwear, and laid them on one of the wooden benches near the shower. Then, after twisting my hair into a knot on my head that I figured would hold long enough for a quick rinse, I stepped into the water.
"Sheeeeeesh!" I sucked in the word on a gasp. Holy crap! The water was cold-penguins-in-Antarctica-during-a-blizzard cold.
My fingers were numb and my goose bumps frozen into goose bump cubes by the time I'd soaped up. As I hurriedly rinsed off, my teeth chattered loudly enough to echo through the deserted room.
I was making so much noise, I didn't hear the door opening behind me.
"Gunh?" The groan was barely out of the zombie's mouth before I was spinning around, screaming bloody murder.
The zombie stared at me while I kept screaming, clenching my arms across my chest as I scrambled across the wet tile toward my clothes. The only thing that kept me from snatching my dirty dress and running naked from the locker room was that the zombie just stood there, rigid and unmoving. Finally, I pulled it together and stood shivering in the buzzing silence, staring at my second zombie in three days.
"Welcome to your after-death session. I'm Megan," I said, my teeth chattering. "May I have your name, last name first?"
"Franklin, Terrence," he said, a lecherous look on his face as the human part of him came online.
His teeth were oddly white and clean looking against his dark, earth-covered skin, but he was just an average Unsettled, nothing more. He was a little older looking than William-maybe seventeen or eighteen-but not too old for a second-stager to deal with. And apparently not too old to be intensely interested in seeing me naked. Eww!
As I hurriedly pulled my gym clothes from my backpack and put them on-the fabric sticking to my cold, wet skin-I was inwardly freaking out. Why did the first guy to see me in the buff have to be dead! It was so unfair and potentially emotionally scarring.
"Dang, girl, no need to cover up so fast," Terrence said, making me move even faster.
"No need to be a perv," I snapped back at him, but the dead guy only laughed. What a skeeze. I didn't feel nearly as bad about this dude being one of the dearly departed.
Once dressed, I fished a notebook and pen from my backpack and tried to keep from trembling as I wrote down his name, address, and cemetery plot and number. But even as my skin warmed up I couldn't stop shaking. This had never happened to me before! Never! Unsettled didn't come to me dur
ing the day.
I'd learned to shield to keep that from happening when I was like six years old. Every Settler knows how to keep zombies away until nightfall, when our powers are strongest and we can't help emitting the subtle, paranormal signals that tell our deceased clients where to find us. Shielding is the first thing you learn how to do when your power starts to manifest, as simple as learning to sing the ABCs.
"Um, so what don't you like about your death?" I asked Terrence.
"Not a dang thing," he said, smiling so wide his teeth took up half of his face.
"Then why are you out of your grave?"
"Danielle and I were finally going to do it, but I died the day before." He looked sad for a moment, which almost made my heart soften toward the guy until he spoke again. "So I never got to see a chick naked. Pissed me off, man. I knew I should have done it with Ladonna even though Ray said she had some nasty body odor prob-"
"So you crawled out of your grave because you wanted to see a girl naked?" My tone was not pleasant, but I couldn't help myself. This guy was topping my list of skankiest zombies ever.
"Yeah, baby. And now I have." He licked his dirt-covered lips in a way that would have been gross even if he were alive. "Now I have."
"Okay, that is totally freaking gross and-"
"And not something you would have had to deal with if you were shielding properly." I gasped as I turned toward the door, knowing I should be relieved to see another Settler. But considering it was Monica standing there, in all her cruel and beautiful senior glory, it was hard to summon up the slightest bit of relief, let alone gratitude. "Really, Megan, summoning an Unsettled during the day. That's like… toddler stuff, you know that, right?"
"Listen, Monica, I just-"
"Just came back into your power. Yeah, I heard." And she was entirely unimpressed, as usual. But when wasn't Monica totally unimpressed with anyone other than herself? "Have you Marked him yet?"
"Not yet, but I-"
"Seriously, Megan, you really need to get it together."