Scary Cool (The Spellspinners)

by Diane Farr

  “No thanks,” I said. But politely. “How many times are we going to have this conversation, Lance? I get to choose my life. Not you. Not Amber.” I couldn’t keep the attitude out of my voice when I said her name. “I’m finishing high school. Then we’ll talk.”

  “You’re fighting it. But it’s your destiny. It’s your nature. So stop fighting it.”

  “And do what? Exactly.”

  A crooked smile softened the corners of his mouth and he stopped pacing. My heartbeat sped up. “Come with me.” He reached out his hand, inviting me to take it.

  I had to fight to keep my hands jammed in my jacket pockets. The boy is gorgeous. Have I mentioned that the boy is gorgeous? And he’s more than that, I realized, staring at his hand, so long and strong and pale, the masculine mirror-image of my own. He is the yang to my yin. My counterpart.

  My destiny.

  I felt a longing that nearly brought tears to my eyes.

  But I didn’t trust it. I gritted my teeth and looked away, forcing myself to breathe evenly. “Whatever mind games you are playing, you can stop right now.”

  “No games.” His voice was soft. “I won’t hurt you again, Zara. My word on it. I’m here to protect you.” If I can.

  “From what?”

  He reached for the word, found it, and weighed it carefully before he said it aloud. He didn’t give it voice until he was sure the word he’d chosen was the right one. This made it all the more chilling when he said, “Destruction.”

  Chapter 4

  Meg has her own take on things. When I confided the night’s experiences to her in the clear light of morning, she waggled her fingers and popped her eyes and said, “Ooooh, scary!”

  There’s nothing like a healthy dose of Meg’s mockery to make me feel better.

  “You don’t think I should take it seriously? I think he was serious. And, you know, he did say ‘destruction.’ Don’t you think—“

  “Come on,” she said. “We’re gonna be late.”

  I reflected, as I hopped on my Schwinn and sailed down Meg’s driveway, that I hadn’t had time to tell her everything. I hadn’t mentioned Amber, for example. So it’s possible she was making light of it without having enough information. But it still cheered me up, because on the whole, Meggie’s snap judgments turn out to be right.

  Except, of course, when she falls in love.

  And today happened to be the day when Meg fell in love. Or maybe I should say, one of the days when Meg fell in love.

  I don’t want to sound cynical or anything, but Meg falls in love on a fairly regular basis. And she tends to fall for boys who never look twice at her. She’s making progress, though. The Justin Bieber thing was just ridiculous, and falling for Lance Donovan wasn’t much better—although at least he was in her world, which was an improvement—but until she crushes on a boy who finds her interesting, she’s going to spend way too many Saturday nights drinking marshmallow cocoa and writing sad poems.

  Anyway, we were passing the alfalfa field about a half mile from Cherry Glen High when the chain came off Megan’s bike. She almost crashed, which was alarming, but we managed to stop at the side of the road like good little troopers to survey the damage.

  “Rats,” said Megan glumly.

  “Can’t you fix it?”

  “Yeah, I can fix it. But it’s jammed, so I’m about to get my hands dirty. Do you have a Wet Wipe or anything?”

  “No, but …” I leaned closer so I could whisper. “I’d better not fix the chain for you because somebody driving by might see it happen. So you should do it yourself. But who’s going to notice if the grease on your hands disappears?”

  “You can do that?”

  “Sure.”

  “What if you miss?”

  “What do you mean, ‘miss’? How could I miss? You’re standing right here.”

  “Yeah, but what if you take off a couple layers of my skin? That could be totally painful.”

  “It’s not like that.” I struggled to explain. “It’s not the same as physically scraping at the grease. It’s more like—I don’t know—“

  Just then, a beat-up convertible jeep-like thingamajig pulled over in front of us. It was totally open to the air, so we immediately shut up. Besides, we were surprised.

  The boy behind the wheel turned off the engine and vaulted out—the driver’s side door was bashed in and tied to the frame with steel wire. “Hi,” he said. “You need help?”

  “Not really,” I said—at the same time Megan said, “Yes. Yes, we do.”

  He strolled back to us, eyeing Meg’s cruiser. He looked like the kind of boy who knows how to fix stuff. I’m not sure why this is, but with some people you can tell just by looking at them that they’re exactly the person you want to have around when the chain comes off your bike.

  He wasn’t very tall, but he looked bright. Maybe it was the glasses. They gave him sort of a Harry Potterish appeal. Anyway, he told me to hold the handlebars and Meg to hold the back wheel, and he squatted down and gave it a look. Then he stood up and shook his head. “I can put it back on for you, but it’s gonna give you more trouble. You’ve got an issue with the sprocket spacing—see?” He pointed. “You might need a new chain.”

  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was pointing to. I bet Meg couldn’t, either, but we both looked anyway.

  Meg bit her lip. “So what should I do? Can I ride it as far as St. Francis?”

  “You could try, but I dunno. I think you should let me give you a lift. We can put your bike in the back of my jeep.” He looked apologetically at me. “It’s just a two-seater, though.”

  I shrugged. “No problem. My bike’s fine, and I’m only going as far as CGH.”

  “My name’s Alvin, by the way.”

  I almost said, no way, but caught myself in time. I mean, honestly. Who names their son after a cartoon chipmunk?

  “I’m Megan, and this is Zara,” said Meg, and she started thanking him, and marveling at the fact that he stopped, and basically gushing like she just won the lottery while Alvin lifted her bike like it weighed nothing at all and popped it in the back of his strange-looking vehicle. While his back was turned, she made a crazy face at me and mouthed, ‘Can you believe this!’

  I had to grin. It isn’t every day that Meg gets driven to school by a real, live boy. And in an open-air two-seater, yet, so everybody could witness this miracle and be suitably impressed.

  So Alvin and Megan roared away in his banged-up jeep and I glided off on my Schwinn, pedaling alone through the pearly light of morning past the last couple of fields on this side of Cherry Glen High.

  When I arrived, buses were stacked like a long line of Twinkies in front of the admin building, disgorging my fellow classmates. Buses are how most people get to school because CGH is what they call a “rural hub” school. It’s pretty upscale, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere—a weird combination, I guess, but it’s because the population here is all spread out, over a huge area of vineyards, wineries, family farms and “ranchettes.”

  Ranchettes are a fairly recent invention. They’re not ranches by any stretch of the imagination. Ranchettes belong to rich city people who left their rich city lives and moved to the proverbial “nice little place in the country.” These people are totally not farmers. They just want to live in the country so they can see trees and breathe fresh air. You can’t blame them, I suppose, but they are so far out of their element it’s laughable. Their snooty kids form the upper echelon at Cherry Glen High—the kids who call me “Spook” behind my back and think I don’t know it.

  I parked my cruiser and watched them for a minute. Athletes and cheerleaders, student government politicos-in-training, all the kids you just knew were going to be bankers or realtors or corporate drones someday. I think it’s a big mistake to enjoy high school too much. These kids were going to remember CGH as the highlight of their existence, before their rich parents lowered the boom on them and reality set in. And come on, how sa
d is that? Who wants to peak at sixteen?

  “Yeah,” said Lance, at my elbow. “That would bite.”

  I managed not to jump. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” I told him. “And eavesdropping is rude.”

  “Then don’t think so loud.”

  He was wearing the leather jacket from last night. It looked just as good in daylight. And so did he.

  “I still can’t believe you’re here,” I remarked, locking my bike into the rack. “And I’m still not clear on the concept. Tell me again. Why are you going to school?”

  “I’m your bodyguard, babe.” His lime-green gaze flicked down my body and he almost smiled.

  I frowned. The first bell rang. I hoisted my bag and headed for my locker. Lance fell easily into step beside me. “That’s right,” he said, so softly that only I could hear him. “You know I’m not kidding.”

  Yeah. Because my first thought had been to say You’re kidding, but—again yeah—he wasn’t, and thanks to the mind-meld we’ve got going on, I knew he wasn’t. So I hadn’t said anything.

  Bodyguard. Great.

  “I would think,” I said carefully, “that school is the safest place I could possibly be.”

  “You’d be right,” he said, not fazed at all. “I’m just practicing.”

  “You’re blowing my cover,” I muttered. He was, too. My strategy has always been to keep my head down and my mouth shut at school, drawing as little attention as possible. Having Lance Donovan beside me was like walking through the halls with a movie star on my heels. The boy is so tall, and so gorgeous, and so scary cool, I could sense heads turning and eyebrows lifting as we made our way through the halls.

  “The sticks can’t hurt you,” said Lance, with his typical dismissal of ungifted people. “You don’t have to care what they think.”

  I popped my locker open and grabbed my books. “Then what do I have to care about?” I slammed it shut and faced him. “You?”

  He was standing so close to me, I had to tilt my chin up to meet his eyes. I’d momentarily forgotten how tall he was.

  I’d forgotten something else, too. The instant his kryptonite eyes locked on mine, time stood still. The noisy hall receded. Faded. Fell away. Lance and I were alone, drifting together on a whispering sea of half-formed thoughts. His and mine.

  His eyes seemed to fill my field of vision, as if I were falling into them. I felt languid and light-headed…and too fascinated to be afraid.

  They say that drowning is a very pleasant sensation, once you stop fighting. And from what I know of wholesoul, I’d bet that’s true.

  The second bell rang. With difficulty, I dragged myself back to reality and looked away, blinking to clear my vision. “Holy smokes,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding almost as dazed as I felt. But I guess that answers your question.

  I forgot what my question was.

  He spoke aloud. “You asked whether you had to care about me.”

  My arms tightened around my books as I tensed. I was being sarcastic.

  “Yeah,” he said again. You usually are, babe.

  I glanced sideways at him, uncertain where he was heading with this. I was still unable to speak, but Lance—always so much more in control than I am—had recovered his cool. He was looking down at me, half-serious, half-teasing.

  “The answer is yes. Yes, Zara. You have to care about me.”

  We were both late to homeroom.

  …

  Lance is a distraction. By the time I even thought about checking my phone, it was almost lunchtime. I felt totally guilty as I thumbed through the stack of increasingly urgent texts from Meg.

  They were all about Alvin.

  I shooed Lance over toward the snack bar and called her.

  She didn’t bother with ‘hello.’ “Omigod,” she shrieked in my ear. “I can’t believe you didn’t answer me!”

  “I’ve got Donovan breathing down my neck,” I reminded her.

  “He goes to Cherry Glen High!”

  For half a second I thought she meant Lance. Then I realized she meant Alvin.

  “He does? How come I never saw him before?”

  “He’s new. Can you imagine? Moving, and having to change schools your junior year? That must really blow. We have to be nice to him, Zara.”

  I rolled my eyes. Which was okay, because she couldn’t see me. “I’m always nice.”

  “I think I should invite him to Homecoming.”

  “St. Francis has Homecoming? You don’t have a football team. What do you play? Chess?”

  “No, silly! I meant your Homecoming.”

  I leaned against a handy wall and closed my eyes. “Okay. Let me get this straight. You want to invite Alvin to Cherry Glen’s Homecoming. Even though it’s his school, not yours.”

  “Well, yeah.” But Meg’s voice sounded less certain than it usually did. “Is that lame?”

  “I don’t know, actually.” I don’t know squat about this sort of thing. “Maybe you’ll start a trend.”

  “But it can be done, right?” She sounded anxious now. “I mean, girls ask guys out all the time. And he doesn’t know anybody to invite, so it’s not like he’d be going with somebody else. And it’s his Homecoming, so he really should go. It’d be a shame to miss it.”

  “I’ve missed it. I’ve missed it every year.”

  “But he’s a guy. Homecoming is a guy thing. Sort of. Isn’t it?”

  The bell rang. Thank goodness. “Listen, I have to go. We’ll talk later. It’s probably a good idea, okay?”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.” I rang off, hitched my books higher on my hip, and headed for the hamburger line, trying to avoid Lance’s eye. He stuck right with me, of course. I could feel his interested gaze.

  “What’s Homecoming?” he wanted to know.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “It’s some football thing.” And a dance.

  “A dance?”

  I should have known he’d pick that up.

  “Yeah. They call it ‘homecoming’ because supposedly all the alumni come home for it. Not that I’ve ever seen anyone do that. I mean, think about it. Only losers and pervs want to hang around high school once they’ve graduated.” I leaned into the little window and shouted my order. It’s kind of noisy at school during lunch.

  “Make it two,” Lance told the girl taking orders. And to my surprise, he took out a wallet and paid for us.

  “What is this, a date? You don’t need to buy my lunch.”

  “Shut up, Norland.” He lifted the tray with one hand and touched my elbow to steer me toward an empty table in the quad. The chatter surrounding us covered the fizzing sound and the bright sunshine hid the faint purple sparks, but he jumped like a bee had stung him. And swore.

  I wagged a playful finger at him. “No touchy.”

  His mouth set in a grim line. “This isn’t funny. I might need to touch you someday.”

  “I can’t imagine why.” I tossed my hair back and slid onto a plastic chair. I was feeling pretty sly. Lance slammed the tray onto the table in front of me and I snagged a French fry. “Besides, if you really needed to touch me, a few sparks wouldn’t stop you.”

  “You got that right.”

  Curious glances were stabbing into me like arrows. The quad is where the popular kids sit. I never eat my lunch in the quad—let alone with a boy. I saw Cheryl Sivic, one of my chief tormentors during grade school, out of the corner of my eye. She was staring straight at me. From long habit, I dipped my head and let my hair slide past my cheeks like a curtain, hiding my face. “Anyway,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant while simultaneously hiding—a difficult trick to pull off, by the way—“Meg is planning to invite a boy to Homecoming. So that’s new.”

  Lance didn’t answer right away. He was watching me with a thoughtful expression, absently chewing on a fry. Then he said, “Are we going to Homecoming?”

  Alarm shot through me. I leaned fo
rward. “Listen, Donovan, I have to fly below the radar here. I don’t go to football games, and I for sure don’t go to dances.”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought you, of all people, would understand. They don’t boil witches in oil anymore, but that’s mostly because nobody believes in witches. Do you really want to reopen that debate? I don’t. So I keep my head down. I thought you’d approve.”

  “How does dancing reopen that debate? You’re not fooling me, cupcake.” His eyes gleamed. “You don’t go to dances because nobody asks you.”

  He was right, of course. But so was I. “I’m halfway through high school. I’ve got the finish line in my sights. So far, I’ve only made it onto the evening news once—and nobody figured out it was me, so that doesn’t count.”

  “I figured out it was you. That’s what brought me here in the first place, remember?”

  “Don’t change the subject.” I pointed a French fry at him. “My point is, nobody in Cherry Glen knows I’m a spellspinner. And if I keep my distance—like I always have—there’ll be nothing for them to find out.”

  Cheryl Sivic walked past our table. Slowly. The smile she gave me could have curdled milk. “Hi, Zara,” she said. She made my name sound like an inside joke. Which, to her and me, it was. Since she hadn’t called me anything but “Freak” for years—and that was to my face. I know she calls me worse things behind my back. “Who’s your friend?”

  She was giving Lance the full treatment. Sultry look, head toss, posing so her boobs stuck out. I hated her so much I couldn’t move or speak. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Lance had picked up my emotions—of course—and was looking at Cheryl’s blond gorgeousness the way most boys look at … well … me. His green eyes were glacial with disinterest, like she didn’t even exist.

  Cheryl is not used to being looked at that way. Her nasty smile slipped a bit.

  “Lance,” I mumbled, “this is Cheryl.”

  He jerked his chin at her. “Hi.” And returned his attention to me, turning his shoulder to Cheryl and leaning toward me across the table to continue our conversation. Making it obvious that Cheryl had interrupted.