Spells w-2

by Aprilynne Pike

  “Go to sleep,” David said soothingly, his hands warm on her shoulders. “I’ll be right here,” he promised.

  Laurel snuggled into his chest and let herself relax. In spite of the pain and her lingering fear, sleep came quickly. But with it came dreams of trolls with knives, and humans with guns, and Jeremiah Barnes.

  Laurel woke with the sun and tried not to disturb David, but he was a very light sleeper. He opened his eyes, looked at her, and closed them again. A few seconds later they popped open again.

  “I’m not dreaming,” he said, his voice gravelly.

  “You wish,” Laurel said, trying to straighten her shirt. “I can’t even imagine what I must look like.” Her blossom still ached, but at least the pain wasn’t stabbing anymore. She gave up trying to pull her shirt down; it just made her blossom hurt.

  David grinned at her bare midriff and his hands skimmed the sides of her waist, then traveled farther up her back, where he gingerly stroked the undamaged petals on the right side of her blossom. Laurel wondered if he realized just how much she could feel them; as if they were an extension of her skin. Sometimes he touched them idly, almost unconsciously. Other times she would feel his hand linger where the petals were wrapped tightly under her clothes. It felt a little strange to have him touch her like that. Intimate. More than holding hands. More than kissing, even.

  “It’s going to be gone soon, isn’t it?” he said, more than a tinge of regret in his voice as he studied the large flower.

  She nodded, craning her neck to look back at the blue blossom. “It should be gone in another week or two,” she said. There was a distinct lack of regret in her voice. “Maybe less, after last night.”

  “Is it really such a bother?”

  “Sometimes.”

  David’s hands stroked one of the longer petals on the blossom from base to tip, then brought it briefly to his nose and inhaled. “It’s just so…I don’t know…sexy.”

  “Really? But it’s so…plantish.”

  “Plantish?” David said with a laugh. “Is that a technical term?”

  Laurel rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t. You have this thing on your back that is prettier than any flower I’ve ever seen. It smells amazing and is so smooth and cool to the touch. And,” he added, “it’s magical. What could possibly not be sexy about that?”

  She grinned. “Maybe, if you put it that way.”

  “Thank you,” David said, licking his finger and drawing himself a point on an imaginary chalkboard.

  “But only because it’s not yours,” she countered.

  “It’s kind of mine,” he said suggestively, pulling her tight against him.

  “Only because I share,” Laurel said.

  He kissed her softly and stared down at her face just long enough to make Laurel squirm a little. “Did your mom call?” she asked, changing the subject to shift his focus away from her.

  David shook his head. “Not yet, but I’d better go. In fact,” he said, glancing at the display on his phone, “I don’t have any messages, so my mom must not have missed me yet. If I hurry, she might not even realize I didn’t make it home last night.” He stretched. “And I’m really not much of a fan of your early mornings. I could use a couple more hours of sleep before work.”

  “How late are you supposed to work?”

  “Just from noon to five. Don’t worry.” David was part of the stock crew at the drugstore where his mom was the pharmacist. Being the top dog’s kid definitely had its advantages. He had a very flexible schedule and only worked about two Saturdays a month, with an occasional Sunday thrown in. Of course, Laurel had similar advantages and only had to work at her parents’ stores when she needed a twenty. Or more.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way to keep your mom from going out at night?” Laurel asked.

  David rolled his eyes in her direction. His mom was rather famous for being the life of the party.

  “I was just asking.”

  “Do you still have Klea’s card?” David asked.

  Laurel found something interesting to look at on the floor. “Yeah.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Laurel hesitated, then pulled it out of her pocket. She’d memorized it already. Klea Wilson, it proclaimed in bold, black letters. Then a number underneath. No job description, no address, no picture or logo. Just her name and number.

  David had his cell phone out and was adding the number to his contacts. “Just to be safe,” he said. “In case you lose this or something.”

  “I won’t lose it.” Although I might throw it away on purpose. Something about Klea made her uneasy, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe it was just those stupid sunglasses.

  “By the way,” Laurel said tentatively. “I think I should go out to the land today. Tomorrow, at the latest.”

  David stiffened. “How come?”

  “They need to know what happened,” Laurel said, not meeting his eyes.

  “You mean Tamani needs to know what happened?”

  “And Shar,” Laurel said defensively.

  David pushed his hands into his pockets and was silent. “Can I come?” he finally said.

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t.”

  His head popped up. “Why not?”

  Laurel sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “Tamani always gets weird when you’re around, and quite frankly, I think you get weird too. I need to sit down and have a serious talk with them about this Klea woman and I don’t need the two of you trying to get at each other’s throats while I’m doing it. Besides,” she added, “you have to work.”

  “I could get out of it,” he said stiffly.

  Laurel looked up at him now. “You don’t need to. I can do this alone. And it’s not like you have anything to worry about. I’m with you. I love you. I don’t know what else I can say to convince you.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry.” He sighed and wrapped his arms around her, then pulled back and looked at her. “I’ll be honest with you — I don’t like it when you go out to see him. Especially alone; I’d rather be with you.” He hesitated. “But I trust you. I promise.” He shrugged. “I’m just the stereotypical jealous boyfriend, I guess.”

  “Well, I’m flattered,” Laurel said, pushing up on her toes for a kiss. “But I’m just going to talk.” She wrinkled her nose. “And clean. I should at least air out the house; no one’s been inside it for months.”

  “Are you going to drive?”

  “Well, I was going to fly,” she said playfully, pointing to her back, “but apparently it doesn’t actually work that way.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Okay,” Laurel said, not sure where he was going with this. “Yes, I’m going to drive.”

  David’s face was tight. “What if they follow you?”

  Laurel shook her head. “I can’t imagine they would. I mean, it’s daylight, for one thing. And its almost all highway. And really, if they followed me all the way to the land, they’d have a rude surprise waiting for them.”

  “That’s true,” David said, his brow furrowed.

  “I’ll be careful,” Laurel promised. “I’m protected here, and I won’t stop until I get there.”

  David pulled her close. “I’m sorry I worry so much,” he said. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.” He paused. “I don’t suppose you’d consider taking the…um…thing Klea gave us?”

  “No,” Laurel said sharply. “That’s enough. Out!” she said, shooing him toward the front door. “Out!”

  “Okay, okay,” David said, laughing. “I’m leaving.”

  Laurel grinned and pulled him close for a kiss. “Bye,” she whispered. He slipped out the door and she locked it behind him.

  “I didn’t think I actually had to tell you, no sleepovers with David. I thought that rule was pretty obvious.”

  Laurel jumped, then turned to look up at her mother leaning over the banister. “Sorry. We fell aslee
p watching the movie. Nothing happened.”

  Her mom laughed. “Your hair got that way just from sleeping?”

  Laurel’s fatigue and stress rolled together with the mental picture of how she must look, and suddenly everything seemed funny. She laughed, then snorted, and laughed harder. She tried in vain to stifle her giggles.

  Her mom came the rest of the way down the stairs, her expression halfway between exasperation and amusement.

  “I must look so bad,” Laurel said, running her fingers through her hair. It was still a little crunchy from the hair spray she’d decided to use last night.

  “Let’s just say it’s not your finest moment.”

  Laurel sighed and opened the fridge for a soda. “We really did just fall asleep.”

  “I know,” her mom said with a smile. She busied herself crushing chewable vitamin tablets with a mini mortar and pestle. “I came down to check on you at two.” She sprinkled the vitamin powder on the soil around the African violets — a trick she’d learned years ago from a man who grew marijuana indoors, ironically. Laurel watched her mom and realized that neither of them had said anything awkward or mean. At least not yet. For a few minutes everything seemed normal. Laurel didn’t know whether to enjoy it while it lasted or lament the fact that it happened so rarely.

  “Sorry,” Laurel said again. “I’ll make sure to kick him out next time.”

  “Please do,” her mom said teasingly.

  They both turned when they heard her dad whistling as he came down the stairs. He greeted them both and dropped a kiss on his wife’s cheek in exchange for a cup of coffee.

  “Are you guys both working today?” Laurel asked.

  “Is it Saturday?” her mom said wryly.

  “No rest for the wicked,” her dad said with a grin. He looked at her mom. “And we are very, very wicked.” They laughed and for a moment Laurel felt like they had gone back in time to before she blossomed last year. Before anything was weird; back when they were normal.

  Her smile melted away when she realized her dad was studying her with a strange look. “What?” she said as her dad walked over.

  “What happened to your blossom?” her dad asked, concerned. “You’re missing petals!”

  The last thing Laurel wanted this morning was a family discussion about her blossom. “They just fall out sometimes,” she said. “Tying them down every day isn’t super good for them. I was wondering—”

  “Do you need to stay home from school when you bloom so this doesn’t happen?” her dad asked, interrupting her.

  Laurel saw her mom’s eyes widen.

  “No, of course not,” Laurel protested. “I’ve totally got this under control. It’s fine.”

  “I guess you would know,” he said reluctantly. He went back to sipping his coffee, but he studied her over the rim of his mug.

  “Since you guys will be at work,” Laurel said, pulling the conversation back on track, “do you mind if I go out to the land?”

  Her mom gave her a sidelong look. “How come?” she asked.

  “I need to do some cleaning,” Laurel said, trying to hold a neutral face. “When I came back from…when I was there in August the place looked pretty bad. I really should go fix it up so some hobo doesn’t decide to live there,” she said, laughing awkwardly.

  “I thought they kept stuff like that from happening,” her mom said.

  “Well, yeah, probably, but I’m not going to ask a bunch of sentries to be my maids.”

  “I think that’s understandable,” her dad said, jumping in. “And the place probably could use a good cleaning.” He looked at her mom. “Does that sound okay with you?”

  Her mom mustered up a tight smile. “Sure. Of course.”

  “Thanks,” Laurel murmured, looking away. Part of her wished she hadn’t asked.

  EIGHTEEN

  LAUREL SAT IN HER CAR FOR SEVERAL MINUTES, just staring at the cabin. Her cabin, or very nearly. She’d been here often enough in the last year — on her way to and from Avalon, as well as the times she’d come to see Tamani last fall. But she hadn’t been inside since moving to Crescent City almost a year and a half ago. Where the lawn wasn’t blanketed in two seasons’ worth of leaves, it grew long and shaggy and the bushes had grown high enough to cover half of the front windows. Laurel sighed. She hadn’t thought about the yard when she packed her cleaning supplies. The most obvious solution was to bring David next time, along with a lawn mower and hedge trimmers, but that would be painfully awkward at best.

  Another day; she certainly had enough to do for now. She popped the trunk, picked up a bucket full of sponges, rags, and other cleaning supplies she’d packed that morning, and lugged it toward the front door.

  The door squeaked on its hinges as she walked into the cabin. It was weird to walk into a totally vacant house; houses were meant to be filled with stuff and people and music and smells. The wide front room that took up most of the bottom floor seemed gaping now. A room full of empty.

  Laurel set the bucket down on the kitchen cabinet and walked around to the sink, turning the water on. After a short gurgle a stream of copper-stained water poured out of the spigot. Laurel let it run for a moment and soon the water slipping down the drain was clear. She smiled, strangely comforted as the sound of running water filled the room and echoed off the bare walls.

  She circled the downstairs, unlocking and opening all the windows, letting the crisp autumn breeze flow through the house, cleansing it of the stale, stuffy air that had been trapped inside for months. The window to the right of the front door wouldn’t open, and Laurel struggled with it for a few seconds.

  “Let me get that for you,” a quiet voice said from just behind her.

  Even though she’d been expecting him, Laurel jumped. She moved aside and let Tamani spray something from a small bottle on each side of the window before lifting the sash easily. He turned to her with a grin. “There you go.”

  “Thanks,” she said, smiling back.

  He said nothing, just shifted a little to lean up against the wall.

  “I’m here to do some housecleaning,” Laurel said, gesturing to the bucket of supplies.

  “I see that.” He looked around the empty room. “It’s been a while since anyone was in here. Ages since I was.”

  They stood for long seconds in a cloud of silence that felt awkward to Laurel but didn’t seem to bother Tamani in the least.

  Finally, Laurel stepped forward to hug him. His arms twined around her back, instantly finding the lump of her bound blossom and he jerked back as if shocked. “Sorry,” he said hastily, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” Laurel said, her hands hurrying to the knot at her waist. “I was going to undo it as soon as the windows were open.” Her petals sprang up as soon as they were released and Laurel didn’t bother to suppress her sigh of relief. “This is one of the best parts about being here,” she said lightly.

  Tamani started to smile, but his eyes fixed on the blue and white petals. “What the hell happened?” he asked, stepping behind her.

  “Um…that’s the other reason I’m here,” Laurel admitted. “The cleaning was what I told my parents to get them to let me come.”

  But Tamani was hardly listening. He was staring, aghast, at her back, his hands clenched into fists. “How?” he whispered.

  “Trolls,” Laurel said quietly.

  His head jerked up. “Trolls? Where? At your house?”

  Laurel shook her head. “I was dumb,” she said, trying to downplay just how bad the situation had been. “I went to this party last night. They found us and ran our car off the road. I’m fine, though.”

  “Where were your sentries?” Tamani demanded. “They aren’t just there to guard your house, you know.”

  “I think they might have been…occupied with other things,” Laurel said. “When we got home, Mom said something about dogs fighting in the back.”

  “You could have been killed!” Tamani exc
laimed. He glanced at her back again. “It looks like you almost were.”

  “A…woman found us, just in time. She chased off the trolls.”

  “A woman? Who?”

  Laurel handed Klea’s card to Tamani.

  “Klea Wilson. Who is she?”

  Laurel relayed the story of the previous night, with several interruptions from Tamani asking for clarification here, more details there. By the time she was done, she felt like she’d relived the entire ordeal. “And then she made us take the guns and we left,” she finished. “It was so weird. I have no clue who she is.”

  “Who—” Tamani paused and paced a few steps. “There’s no way—” More pacing. Finally he stood still, his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve got to talk to Shar about this. This is…problematic.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Laurel asked.

  “Stop going out at night?” Tamani suggested.

  Laurel rolled her eyes. “Besides that. Should I trust her? If I’m in trouble and the sentries aren’t around—”

  “They should always be around,” Tamani said darkly.

  “But if they’re not, if I see this woman again…do I trust her?”

  “She’s a human, right?”

  Laurel nodded.

  “Then no, we don’t trust her.”

  Laurel gaped at him. “Because she’s human? What’s that supposed to say about David? Or my parents?”

  “So you want to trust her?”

  “No. I don’t. Maybe. I don’t know. Tell me not to trust her because she hunts nonhumans or because she gave us guns. But you can’t just decide that she’s not trustworthy because she’s a human. That’s not fair.”

  Tamani held his hands out in frustration. “It’s all I’ve got, Laurel. I have nothing else to judge her on.”

  “She did save my life.”

  “Fine, I’ll take away one strike.” He walked over and leaned against the wall beside her.

  Laurel sighed. “Why is this happening now?” she asked, frustration creeping into her voice. “I mean, it’s been almost a year since Barnes, and nothing. And then in one night, bam! Trolls, Klea, more trolls at my house. All at once. Why?” Laurel asked, turning her head to look at Tamani.