by Gwen Hayes
I wandered back into the grass and lay down in the warm sunshine. Several clouds returned, playing with each other and making shapes to amuse me. My eyes grew heavy and I drifted into a relaxing sleep.
When I woke up in my bedroom, the red nightgown was scratched and torn, though I had no recollection of how.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next day passed in a blur. I looked for Mara around every corner—which was probably the reaction she was hoping for. I noticed that several boys from the soccer team were back in school, but they looked pretty tired.
Brittany was apparently at a doctor’s appointment, I overheard in the washroom. Most people thought she had the flu, but the more vicious rumor, the one circulating here in the ladies’ room, was that she was likely pregnant.
I waited until the girls had left before exiting my stall. Pregnant? I thought of Haden’s guilty expression the other day and wondered just how close they had gotten while I was gone.
My hands shook under the water as I washed them. She’d been after him since he first enrolled at Serendipity High. And before we’d begun dating officially, I’d been pretty sure he and Brittany had some kind of a thing together. I couldn’t know what had happened while I was in Under—but I did know that Haden hadn’t remembered me. I wasn’t even sure I could call that cheating.
But pregnant? I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with the new threat to my relationship on top of everything else, so I had to try to put it out of my mind. If Haden thought Brittany was pregnant with his child, he would tell me. I had to believe that. The most important thing right now was figuring out what Mara’s plan was and finding a way to stop her.
Haden was waiting for me in the otherwise empty hallway, leaning against a bank of lockers.
“Are you doing all right?” he asked.
I forced a smile and was about to say I was fine, but that wasn’t true. “I’m jumpy. I’m distracted. I’m worried about my father and what Mara is going to do. I don’t want my friends involved, but I don’t want them blindsided either.” And then I had an idea. “I think I should leave . . . we should leave. We could go somewhere. You could set up new identities for us like you did when you came here. We could build a new life.”
He shook his head. “Mara’s already taken too much from you, Theia. Don’t let her have your identity too.”
It occurred to me then that asking Haden to leave with me might be selfish. For the first time in his life, he had friends. He wasn’t the only human in a world of monsters anymore. All his life, he’d longed for human companionship. I wanted that for him—I wanted his happiness more than my own.
“Have you talked your father out of this weekend’s double date?” he asked.
“I wish.” I had suggested bowling, assuming that neither Mara nor my father would agree to it. I was wrong. My father, taking his cue from Mara, had agreed wholeheartedly to the disastrous plan, going so far as to instruct his personal shopper to buy him bowling shoes, a suitable outfit, and his own ball and bag. He was accessorizing—even if Mara weren’t a soul eater, this date would have certainly qualified as a hellish undertaking.
“Relax, Theia.” Haden cupped my cheeks in his palms and kissed me. White stars blanketed my vision. He smelled wonderful, a combination of spices and vanilla that reminded me of a chai latte.
He continued to kiss me until I was breathless. As he pulled away, my heart tripped as if it weren’t sure how to beat on its own anymore.
His Cheshire cat grin was firmly in place, but his eyes told me he was as gone as I was. He blinked a few times and said, “Oh, I’m supposed to tell you that we have a meeting at dawn at the bowling alley. Amelia wants to try to ward the building to nullify anything that Mara tries to do.”
“Do you think it will work?”
He shrugged. “Likely not, but it makes everyone feel less powerless.”
“It feels more like we’re putting on a bulletproof vest to face cannon.” I checked the time on my phone. “I’m supposed to be taking a quiz that I’m not prepared for right now. I have to go.”
He kissed me one more time and I felt the weight of it all like stones lining my pockets before a dive into a lake.
* * *
* * *
He’d always known it was a mistake. It didn’t stop him from racing to make it, but he’d always known their love story was a tragedy, not a happily-ever-after.
He didn’t go to class; instead he peered at her for a few minutes through the window of her classroom door. He watched her smile at a boy he didn’t know, reducing the poor kid to a puddle in his seat. He watched her puzzle over her test until she finally leaned over and copied the answers from someone else.
Haden closed his eyes. Theia was tiptoeing around the edges of her own boundaries. Before he’d come into her life, she’d navigated the gray areas of life much better. She knew what was right and what was wrong, what was black and white. And now—now he watched her struggle to find parts of herself not touched by the demon blood and not finding many. All because of him.
She would hate him when she found out what he’d been doing behind her back. He told himself it was better this way. He was doing it for her. But knowing he had to hurt her, that he was hurting her every day, left scars on his heart.
He’d known better, but he’d hoped he would be stronger, because it was his weaknesses and his yearnings that threatened to destroy the thing he wanted most to protect.
* * *
Friday morning we gathered behind the bowling alley to do what we could to prepare it for that night’s expected ambush from a demon, a half-demon, and a demon-poisoned girl.
Still mostly dark, the sky was just starting to pinken and the edge between night and day seemed cold and hard. A bitter breeze swirled and eddied like whispers of fated danger. To say that we were all grumpy would have been an understatement. The only morning people in the bunch were Ame and Varnie, but Varnie was mopey about the epic waves on the coast that he was going to miss, and Amelia was upset with him about a witch ball . . . or something; the details were murky on that one. Gabe was barely awake, his eyes heavily hooded, and Donny hated every day until at least nine a.m.
Ame began giving us directions as to how we were to use the smudging sticks of white sage. I tried to follow along, but my mind was working overtime on everything but the sage. The fact that I was to face Mara filled me with fear.
I’d visited the flower garden in Under again last night. I wondered if I should tell Haden about it, but I was afraid he would say it was too dangerous for me to go to Under without him. The garden replaced so much of my anxiety with peace. And I needed that peace to face whatever was coming next.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Haden said, interrupting my soul-searching.
I pulled his arms around me and snuggled my back against his chest. It was hard to think anything bad could happen when Haden held me.
He whispered sweet words into my ear and I was lost until Ame interrupted. “You two might want to pay attention. Some of the stuff we’re using this morning could have an adverse effect on both of you if you do it wrong. Especially since we’re trying to protect this place from demons like, you know . . . the two of you.”
She was wearing her vintage Doc Martens. If I’d realized that earlier, I would have paid better attention. When Amelia pulled those on, she meant business. Most of the time she was fairly goth lite. She liked subcultures well enough, but she liked to mix them with her own brand of optimism. All her skulls had pink bows, and all her spiderwebs glittered. Unrelieved black was not her style, and she saved the Docs for when she was particularly determined. I pulled out of Haden’s arms and stood at attention.
Gabe, on the other hand, was air-drumming with two white-sage smudge sticks, which annoyed Donny, so she snatched them from his hands and tried to give them to Haden. Haden stared at them dubiously, looking for confirmation from Varnie that they were safe for demon use.
Ame rolled her eyes. “You really haven�
��t been listening, have you? The sage is fine. You and Theia will be in charge of smudging. It’s the petroleum jelly you need to stay away from.”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “I can’t touch Vaseline?”
Varnie shook his head and made a face. “Nobody should, really. But especially not demons. It’s like holy water.”
Was he serious? I looked at Haden.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it too,” he said. “Though frankly, the sight of it has always made me nauseated. I don’t even know what it’s used for.”
Donny pulled out her hair band to redo her ponytail. Her cola brown hair always made me so jealous of the way it was shiny and not uncontrollable. “Is there a reason we had to meet here in the middle of the night to discuss personal lubricant? I mean, this could have waited until noon.”
“It’s morning, not the middle of the night. And we’re trying to be covert, which is harder at noon than it is at five a.m. It’s not the Vaseline that’s harmful, people; it’s the herbs we’re going to put in the Vaseline. Quit teasing them, Varnie.” Ame pulled a huge jar of it from her tote bag and gave it to Donny.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Donny asked.
Gabe leered at her. “I have a few ideas.”
Donny glared at him, but didn’t retort. It was then I realized she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Donny, in all the years I had known her, did not go anyplace a boy might be without putting her “face” on. Consequently, because Donny could find a boy just about anywhere, she was always perfectly made up.
It was early, really early, but the Donny I knew would never have let Gabe see her so undone. I wanted to hug Gabe. He’d done something no other boy had accomplished. He’d gotten past the Maybelline Great Lash.
Amelia, however, wasn’t as amused. She rolled her eyes at Gabe and pulled out a baggie of dried herbs and a mortar and pestle, handing them to him reluctantly. “You two mix the Vaseline with the herbs, and then smear some in the four corners of each window. Just a dollop. We don’t want anyone to notice it’s there.” Then she sent me a look that reminded me of my father. “And anyone with demon blood should remember not to touch the windows.”
I nodded. “Okay, we won’t touch the windows. Haden and I will do the . . . um . . . what was the word?”
“Smudging,” Varnie answered. I noticed that despite the chill, he was wearing sandals and long shorts.
“What are the two of you going to be doing?” Haden asked.
“I’m not peeing in Miss Amelia’s mason jar. That is a promise.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and got quiet.
Well, except for Donny, who snorted.
I looked at Amelia, who was pinkening like the sunrise. “Why do you want Varnie to . . . do that in your jar?”
Amelia pulled a jar full of sharp things from her bag. In it appeared to be bits of razor wire, rusty nails, thorny sticks, and shards of glass. They rattled against the sides of the jar in a disturbing anthem of cacophony. The sound made me wince, as if someone had grabbed my hand and raked my fingernails down a chalkboard.
She flashed her eyes at my disturbed reaction, and then sent Varnie an I told you so look. “This is a variation of a witch ball. It’s a protection against Mara’s magic. I’ve put all sorts of things in here, but it needs more organic matter.”
Donny peered closer and then pulled back abruptly. “There are bones in there. That is so skeezy-looking.”
“Well, it needs more.” Amelia rattled the jar at Varnie, who shook his head in defiance. “It would be easier for him to pee in it than for me, but no, he’s too prissy.”
“Prissy but not pissy,” Donny joked.
“I’m not prissy,” he argued. “Besides, you have plenty of organic matter in there.” He took it from her hand, the sound of the objects grinding against each other making me ill. “There’s hair and bone. Is that blood?”
As she snatched it back, the clatter weakened my knees. “Please stop making it rattle. I think I’m going to throw up.”
Instead of the Ame I was used to, the one who would have run to my aid and mothered me until I felt better, this new Amelia ignored my plea and argued with Varnie, her jerky movements sending little earthquakes of nausea through my body. “See? It wasn’t stupid. It’s already working on Theia. If you would just do your business in this jar, we could bury it in the bushes by the door. But no, you have to make everything difficult.”
Varnie, noticing my distress, grasped Amelia’s wrists so she’d stop shaking the jar. “I never said it was stupid. I just have a shy bladder.”
“Oh, for God sakes, I’ll pee in the jar,” said Donny.
Ame shook her head, but thankfully not the witch ball. “It will be stronger if Varnie does it. Or me. I don’t have a shy bladder, but I don’t have a pen—”
Varnie let go of her wrists and covered her mouth before she finished her sentence. “Okay, I’ll do it. God. Just stop talking about my . . . junk.”
Donny’s eyes took on the look that always meant trouble was about to happen. “Why can’t we just kill Mara somehow?”
“Donny! I can’t believe you just said that. She’s Haden’s mother. We can’t just kill her.” I was incensed that she would even suggest it.
“I don’t see why not,” Haden said. He ignored my gasp. “She wouldn’t think twice about killing any of you. She doesn’t love me, Theia. Not like a mother loves a son. She’s not capable.”
He said the words, but his face looked pained. I grasped his hand.
“It doesn’t matter. You love her.”
He wanted to deny it, but couldn’t.
Varnie patted Haden’s shoulder in a brisk, manly show of affection. “Killing Mara is a bad idea anyway. The human race actually needs her.”
Even Haden looked confused at that. “Why?”
“Look, I don’t know if we have time for a philosophical discussion here—” Varnie began.
“We don’t,” Donny interjected quickly.
Varnie fixed her with a pointed look. “But nightmares are important. They help us function—they pass down primal instincts through a sort of collective unconscious.”
“Right,” said Gabe, clearly not understanding. And probably not caring that he didn’t understand. That was one of the best things about him—he would support Donny in whatever she needed without questioning or needing to understand.
“There are some things we need to be afraid of. Things that threaten our safety—like poisonous spiders, fire, drowning, predators . . .”
Amelia spoke up. “Clowns.”
Varnie ignored her. “Nightmares are a necessary part of the continuation of our species. Our subconscious taps into that collective. We need those instinctive fears. Under is supposed to be the conduit, but Mara just gathered too much power. She’s warped, but she provides a function pivotal to our psyches.”
Ame chewed on the end of her braid. “Can’t we just keep a Big Book of Scary Things to pass down to each generation instead?” She looked at her watches—she was wearing three that morning. “We need to get out of here soon.”
Donny gave Varnie a sympathetic smile and the rest of her coffee to drink to encourage his bladder, and he went around the corner to fill the jar. Haden and I couldn’t start smudging the perimeter until he finished, so I rested on the bumper of Donny’s car. It really began to sink in that I was different from my friends. I couldn’t touch certain herbs, and the witch jar made me seriously queasy. It was unnerving to be confronted with proof that I was not exactly human any longer. I was . . . Other.
Haden joined me. “You okay?”
“Did that jar make you sick?” I asked.
“A little. I guess I’m used to the feeling more than you are, though. There are lots of things in this realm that make me sick.”
“Really? Like what?”
Haden traced a loopy pattern on the leg of my jeans while he thought of his answer. “Horseshoes, especially above doors, pure silver, some he
rbs . . .”
“So, we’re evil then? That’s what this means. The same things that ward off evil things like Mara make us sick too.”
“I have spent most of my life believing that, Theia. That I was marked, corrupted by my birth. And then I met this girl.” He paused, his fingers finding mine in a tight squeeze. “And she made all my dark corners light. And I realized that the measure of who I am doesn’t have to be the way I physically react to St. John’s wort. I’m going to make something of myself because you showed me I’m capable of it.”
I rested my head on his shoulder and tried to make sense of my new lot in life. “Maybe it’s more like an allergy. Donny is allergic to strawberries; I’m allergic to pure silver.”
“Exactly,” he said, kissing the top of my head.
“Do you really think you could kill Mara? I know Varnie said that we needed her . . . services or whatever, but if we didn’t?”
Haden chewed on that thought for a long time, staring into the distance far away from me even while he was so close. “She’s not the only mare demon. Humans need Under, but I don’t think they need Mara—she’s carrying the torch, but it’s the torch, not the runner, that is necessary.”
“She’s still your mom.”
“She wouldn’t give a second thought to killing me.”
I squeezed his hand. “I think we both know that’s not true. I don’t blame you for not trusting her, but if she wanted you dead, you’d be dead, Haden. She must feel something for you, even if it’s not what we equate with love.”
He drew me in close. “If I have to end her life, I will. If I have to take her place . . .”
“No! Don’t say that. You can’t go back there. Being human is too important to you.”
He pressed his lips to my temple. “You heard Varnie.”
“Let’s just get through this double date, okay?” I vowed that I would do everything in my power to keep Haden from taking Mara’s place.
And we said nothing else while we waited for Varnie’s coy bladder to finish its job.