Rush

by Minard, Tori

  “I don’t know. It just makes me sad.”

  “I know. Me too.” My mom sighed. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make, believe me. She’s my sister and I loved her, too.”

  I found it disturbing that my mom used the past tense. Did she think Jo was dead?

  “Why do you ask, anyway?” she said. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No, I’ve just been thinking of her lately.” Because I’d been seeing spirits, like she did. If there was one thing that still scared the hell out of me, it was ending up like Aunt Jo.

  “It must be the holidays,” my mom said. “We tend to think of the people we’ve lost at this time of year. I wish she could still share Christmas with us.”

  “Me too. I miss her.”

  ***

  Sunday of finals week, Max took me out to Brad and Marie’s farm to meet his circle. He drove an old beater of a subcompact, and it wasn’t especially comfortable to drive. It was a far cry from Trent’s luxury sedan, that’s for sure, but I didn’t mind at all because I was with Max.

  The farmhouse was painted classic white and looked like it dated from sometime in the early twentieth century. It had a cute, storybook quality that I instantly liked, with a steeply pitched roof and gables on the second floor. A huge tree that looked like it was at least as old as the house loomed over the structure. Max parked in a wide, graveled drive near the house and led me to the front door.

  We didn’t have to wait. The door opened and a slightly plump middle-aged woman with thick brown hair streaked in gray came out smiling. She had a pretty face with large, intelligent hazel eyes behind wire-framed glasses.

  “Marie, this is Caroline,” Max said. “Caroline, this is my foster mom, Marie Bradford.”

  Marie smiled at me, but her eyes were keenly appraising. It made me wonder what Max had told her about me, because I was definitely being looked up and down and evaluated to see if I was good enough for her boy. I started to bristle and then it occurred to me that here was a person who actually cared about him. Deeply, judging by the expression on her face.

  I stuck out my hand. “Hi, Marie. I’m so glad to meet you.”

  “Max has told us all about you,” she said, taking my hand.

  “I’m glad he has people on his side.”

  “Caro—” Max said.

  Marie grinned at me. “I think I like her.”

  I glanced up at Max. He was blushing. I put my arm around his waist, wishing I could reassure him without embarrassing him further. He just slung his arm around my shoulders and brought me into the house.

  The small kitchen, which looked even more vintage than Max’s, had an old-fashioned diner-style table crowded with five people who were all looking at me. A middle-aged guy with nondescript brown hair who I guessed was Brad, a pretty young woman with black hair in a long braid, an older woman with a short gray bob, a young man whose brown hair hung past his shoulders. He sported piercings in his nose and eyebrows. Like Marie, they seemed to be summing me up.

  Max introduced each one in turn. The middle-aged guy was Brad, the black-haired girl Selene, the gray-haired woman Nancy and the pierced guy was named Wolf. I couldn’t help wondering if that was his real name or some kind of alias.

  “Pull up a seat,” Brad said, smiling at me.

  Marie handed each of us a folding chair, which we wedged into a narrow space made by the others scooting over. Now everyone’s elbows touched.

  “There really isn’t enough room here,” Marie said. “Let’s go to the living room.”

  Everyone got up and trooped through a curved archway into the house’s small living room. There weren’t enough seats for all of us, and Wolf and Selene plopped themselves down on the floor. Max and I sat on the couch, where I curled up against his side. When I glanced around the room, I noticed Selene watching me with a resentful narrowing of her eyes. What was her problem?

  “I don’t know how much Max has told you about us,” Marie said. “We’re his working circle. We do magical work together.”

  “So...you’re kind of like a coven?” I said, hoping I wasn’t insulting anyone.

  She smiled. “It’s basically the same thing, but only some of us consider ourselves witches, so we use the term circle.”

  “Ah.” So which of them were witches? And what did the others consider themselves? “I’ve never, um, met anyone who did magic before Max.”

  “We promise not to sacrifice any goats while you’re here,” Wolf said solemnly.

  Was he serious? Everyone laughed except me. I looked up at Max with wide eyes.

  “He’s just kidding,” he said. “We’d never harm any animals. Or humans.”

  “Whew,” I said, jokingly wiping imaginary sweat from my brow. “I was scared for a second there.”

  They laughed again.

  “I brought my drums and stuff,” Wolf said. “If anyone’s in the mood for some drumming.”

  I looked at Max again.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Caroline’s never done that.”

  “Is it a ritual or something?” My palms began to sweat.

  “No, not really,” Max told me. “Tonight it’ll be just drumming, maybe some chanting. Singing. It’s really informal.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “Are you game?” Wolf looked at me with a challenge in his eyes.

  He was pushing me to see how far I’d go. I could see it on his face. What would happen if I turned him down? I wasn’t afraid they’d do anything mean to me, but it crossed my mind that they might think less of me. It could damage my relationship with Max.

  “Sure,” I said. I hoped I wasn’t getting into something sticky.

  Max squeezed my shoulders and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered, softly so only I could hear.

  Selene looked like she wanted to roll her eyes and was only barely restraining herself. She was jealous of me.

  “First,” Marie said, “let’s say our names and tell Caroline a little bit about ourselves.”

  I felt like I was at a church fellowship group I’d attended for a few months as a teen. Or maybe a support group. There wasn’t much I knew about support groups, since I’d only seen them in movies, but this introduction routine felt like the kind of thing that would happen there.

  Marie went first. “I’m Marie and I spent a lot of my childhood on this farm. It belonged to my mom’s parents, and they basically raised me because my mom was addicted to crack cocaine. They were great parents and they left the farm to me, so here I am.”

  Wow. Her grandparents raised a cocaine addict...but then they raised her, too. How did that happen?

  Brad smiled. “I’m Brad, and I just follow Marie around wherever she goes.”

  Marie slapped playfully at his arm. “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it?” He winked at me. “Marie and I had been talking about moving to the country for years before she inherited the farm. I’m a rad tech—an x-ray technician—at the hospital in town.”

  Selene was next. She repeatedly wrapped and unwrapped the end of her braid around her wrist while slanting sneaky glances at Max. “I’m Selene. I’m an x-ray tech also. That’s how I met Brad and Marie. I grew up on the east coast, but I went to school in Portland so that’s where I am now.”

  “I’m Wolf and I run a chop shop in the slums of Portland.” The pierced guy looked at me blandly, waiting for my reaction.

  Max snorted. “You’re so full of shit, dude.”

  Wolf shrugged. “Also, I raise sacrificial goats on the side.”

  I fought against the smile that threatened to break out. “What do you really do?”

  He made a dismissive movement of his head. “I’m still in school.”

  “What’s your major?”

  Max gave me a sneaky sidelong glance. Was he jealous too? Ridiculous. Wolf did nothing for me, although he was pretty hot in a pierced, long-hair and weirdness kind of way.

  “Botany,” Wolf said.

  “Nice. I’m
doing French.”

  He nodded in acknowledgment. I turned my attention to the oldest person in the group, Nancy.

  “I’m a yoga instructor,” she said. “And a retired teacher.”

  “My mom is a teacher,” I said. “High school English.”

  “Is that what you plan to do with your French?”

  Hell, no. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “Well, you still have time. And you can always change your mind,” Nancy said. “No sense in rushing into things.”

  That was the polar opposite of what everyone else always told me...except for Mrs. Kincaid, who seemed to think I should become wife to Trent and mom to his kids. Or, she had thought that, before I’d broken up with him. I wondered what she thought now, not that I cared.

  “Go get your drums, Wolf,” Brad said. “We’ll have some fun and then eat.”

  Wolf jumped up and made for the door. He seemed friendly enough, even if he was testing me. Selene, though...the way she kept looking at me and Max made me tense and wary. She kept glancing at him, making me wonder if they’d ever been together. She was quite beautiful with her long, black hair and dark eyes, her slender figure, the funky clothing that reminded me vaguely of something Medieval. Leggings, tunic, ankle-high flat boots, a scarf draped in an artistic cowl around her neck and shoulders. Pentacle earrings dangled from her ears. Maybe she was one of the witches.

  I snuggled more deeply against Max’s side. Selene’s gaze faltered and slipped away to study something else. Wolf came back in carrying several Native American-style drums and a sack slung on his back. He set down his burdens, opening the sack and withdrawing a couple of tambourines.

  “I’ve got a doumbek, if anyone wants it,” he said.

  “What’s a doumbek?” I said.

  “A Middle-Eastern drum shaped like an hourglass.” He reached into the sack again and pulled out another drum. The body looked like it was made of metal, with intricate designs chased into the surface.

  “I’ll play it if no-one else wants to,” Wolf said.

  “No-one else can do it as impressively as you,” Max remarked.

  “Very true.” Wolf grinned at me. “What do you want to play?”

  “Uh...I have no idea. I’ve never done this before.”

  He tossed me a tambourine. “These are pretty easy.”

  I’d never been that close to one before. It was like a small, shallow drum. It had a skin head and little cymbal-like things set in the rim. I shook it experimentally and it gave a satisfying rattle.

  “Cool,” I said.

  Max took one of the drums. Everyone else grabbed an instrument and Wolf sat down cross-legged on the floor. He set his doumbek on his lap so the head faced forward and the bottom of the drum faced outward behind him. Weird. I’d never seen a drum played that way before, but then what did I know about percussion? Nothing, really.

  He immediately launched into a complex rhythm, which the others picked up after a few bars. My hands were still sweating. I tapped carefully on the head of the tambourine, trying to follow along without making too much noise in case I screwed up. I didn’t want to ruin it for the others.

  The truth was that I didn’t really understand the point of all this. I mean, they weren’t in a band, were they? Not that there’s anything wrong with friends getting together and playing music, but there was no melody. Just the beat, which went on and on and on, seemingly forever.

  Sometimes it slowed down for awhile and sometimes it sped up. People offered variations that acted as percussive grace notes, for lack of a better term, but the rhythm itself just kept on. And on. And on.

  I found myself relaxing into it, my tapping on the tambourine growing more confident. I even swayed a little to the beat. Max glanced at me and smiled. Apparently, I was doing all right. I smiled back.

  After a while, it began to seem like the rhythm was all there was in the world. Very strange, I know, but it was like a kind of trance came over me and I just flowed with the sound. I can’t explain it any other way. I could feel waves of energy moving around the room. Sound energy, sure, but there was something else, too, that I didn’t know how to name.

  Maybe that energy was the point?

  Eventually, the drumming slowed, growing quieter, and finally stopped.

  Wolf grinned at me. “You did well.”

  “I hardly did anything.”

  “Not true,” Max said. “You participated. That’s more than a lot of people would have done.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Selene said. “We’ve had girls go running out of here screaming their heads off.”

  I studied her, wondering if she was kidding. She didn’t seem to be, but there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice so I wasn’t sure.

  “Some people are afraid to try,” Marie said. “And you tried. That speaks well of you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything.

  Brad set his drum down on the floor. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

  I leaned into Max. “What just happened?” I whispered.

  “What do you mean?” he whispered back.

  “What was the drumming about?”

  “I’ll explain later. For now, just think of it as a way to relax.”

  “Hmm. Okay.” It had been relaxing, so I guess it worked.

  Dinner was spaghetti with meatballs. The food was good and the company was...okay. They were friendlier now that I’d participated in the drumming, but I felt awkward and out of place. They talked about things I couldn’t relate to and sometimes didn’t even understand. I’d have to ask Max for a translation later. Would I ever fit in with his friends?

  ***

  Trent’s fraternity house looked oddly sad in the rain. The garden surrounding it was in bad shape, something I hadn’t really noticed before. The shrubs were all massively overgrown and the lawn was full of weeds. The siding on the house needed painting. None of it had anything to do with me, though, so why was I standing on the sidewalk studying it like I was responsible for fixing it up?

  Boy, I really did not want to carry through on the reason I’d come here. I hadn’t been back since the night of that awful party, and it was pretty much the last place on earth I wanted to be. Plus, I was by myself.

  I couldn’t tell Max I was coming here. He’d pitch a fit. Okay, probably not; he was reasonable to a fault. But it would hurt his feelings, even if he knew why I’d come.

  I marched up the concrete walk to the front door, stomach churning, and rang the bell. There was no portico or other shelter from the rain, so while I waited, water dripped continually on my head. Inside, male voices shouted with laughter. They were apparently not studying at the moment.

  Greg Talbot opened the door. He blinked at me and then broke out in a huge grin. “Caroline.”

  “Hi, Greg. I need to see Trent.”

  Greg glanced over his shoulder with a nervous jerk of his head. “Ah. Um, he’s sort of busy at the moment.”

  “Well, I have something of his to return. Can he take a minute to talk to me?”

  “Um...I can find out for you.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  Greg turned away from the door.

  “Greg? I’d like to come inside. It’s raining out here.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He turned red as he opened the door enough for me to enter. “Sorry about that.”

  I could have asked him what was wrong, but I wasn’t real eager to find out, considering he’d groped me the last time I’d seen him. Instead, I came into the foyer and stood near the door with my hands clasped, dripping. This was as far as I wanted to go. They had a visitor’s room, and I wasn’t setting foot in it.

  Greg stuck his head into the living room. “Chambers!” he bellowed. “You’re wanted downstairs.”

  “Busy,” yelled a deep, familiar voice from upstairs.

  “You have a visitor. Get your ass down here.” Greg turned to me with an apologetic shrug. “He’s b
een real busy lately.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.” With Tiffani, no doubt.

  The thundering sound of a six-foot male tearing down the stairs preceded Trent skidding around the corner in stocking feet. He wore no shirt. He slid across the smooth wooden floor of the hall and came to a halt with a surprised stare at me.

  “Caroline.”

  “I have something to give you,” I said, and held out the paper bag I carried. Inside were the garnet and pearl earrings he’d given me.

  He accepted the bag with a puzzled frown. “I don’t remember leaving anything at your place.”

  “Yeah. There’s only this one thing.”

  He opened the bag and peered inside. Then he looked at me with a scowl. “You don’t have to give these back to me. They’re for you.”

  “I can’t keep them. They’re too expensive.”

  “Well, I don’t want them.” He tried to give them back to me.

  I refused to take the bag. “I’m with someone else now. I can’t wear your earrings. Just—I don’t care what you do with them. Give them to your mom. Whatever. But I’m not keeping them.”

  I turned to walk out the door.

  “What’s taking so long, babe?” said a sugary female voice. Tiffani. “Oh. It’s her.” The voice had a distinctly acid note to it now.

  I suppressed a smile as I walked out the door. I’d divested myself of the earrings, my last physical tie to him, and it made me feel much lighter. Knowing they were together, possibly doing something sexual right before I’d arrived, hadn’t bothered me at all. As far as I was concerned, Trent and Tiffani deserved each other.

  Chapter 20

  Caroline

  Finals Week was over. Fall term was over, and we were all off to our various families for the break. That meant I was in Portland and Max was still in Avery’s Crossing. I hated it. I’d never missed a guy this way before, with a gut-wrenching sense of loss. Even three months away from Trent hadn’t bothered me as much.

  Today I was putting ornaments on the tree, not with any enthusiasm, but it had to be done and it was my traditional job. I’m not sure how I came to be the family tree-trimmer, just that by the age of twelve or so it was established as my special chore. The best thing about it was I could control the lights. There were no strings of single colors on my tree, except for white. Everything else was multi-color, because that’s the way I like it.