Great. To control whatever this was, we’d forever wear the scrunched nose of a person on the verge of shitting their pants.
Chapter Five
In our shared Toyota with my eyes squinted tight, I gulped down my potion, surprised with its strawberry taste. One eye cocked open, I waited and listened with more than my ears. Ranissa’s emotions and words were nothing but a slight hum of a favorite tune rattling around in my brain.
Well slap my ass, the crazy lady’s shit actually worked. I didn’t develop boils, a warty nose, or SBD flatulence. A powerful strength pulsed through my veins and warmed my stomach. No, not the bubbling roil of a silent but deadly building, this was a welcomed tightening. Our bond was still present, but the annoying crusty edges slid to the background.
On the way home, I addressed the giant floppy-eared elephant we’d been ignoring for days. “We need to discuss Caleb,” I announced, almost choking on his name.
Her eyes shifted between the road and me. Other than curiosity, her body didn’t react. I expected white knuckles and angered breaths, instead, I detected perplexity. “Who?” she responded.
“Caleb Allen. The douche pickle who nearly destroyed our relationship? The boy who appeared perfect and smelled like cookies until we yanked off his Scooby-Doo evil guy mask?”
She veered into In and Out Burger, slowing the car to a stop before shifting to park. “Is this some guy you benched?” she asked, twisting to face me and if it weren’t for her kissed eyebrows, I might’ve asked if she were high from all that pot smoke.
I expanded the tension band in my head, reaching out to search her feelings. Dumbfounded and unknowing ricochet. She didn’t remember who he was, which explained why we haven’t talked about him. Unwilling to break the dam of his treachery, I hummed agreement, shaking my head, “He’s no one important. Let’s get some food and head home.” Her lips tipped in an agreeing smile and all was forgotten on her end. For me, I slipped this nugget into my mental file labeled: Kill Caleb Allen When I Find Him Again.
Dads joy overflowed when we returned, somehow knowing the storm clouds between us gave way to sun. He stopped walking on eggshells, carrying chocolate in his pockets he’d throw at us when we raged, and hummed the same familiar tune again.
Over the following days the veil of normal shifted. After a little Googling, I discovered the halos I saw are auras and offered insight to what people like to hide. Ranissa’s chat sessions with the imaginary became stilted. At school or whenever she left the house, her eyes stayed trained on the ground. Thanks to Madam Sybil’s potions, I couldn’t tap into her without her unlocking the door.
Tired of watching her stiffen when she dared to look around, I demanded she spill. Turns out she’d been seeing spirits play at the edges of her vision. She’s talked to a few and helped them move on, but lately they’d become not so Casper the Friendly Ghost. Often the dead she saw were gruesome reflections of the way they died, and they were angry. Not cut out to be the kid from the Sixth Sense, she decided if she didn’t make eye contact with them they’d leave her be, saving her tender heart and diverting her living nightmare.
I stayed blissfully ignorant to the sights and horror, but when she opened our bond, I felt how it ate at her soul. When the sadness grew to a shadow threatening to swallow her, I channeled my strength through our connection, wrapping her in the invisible cage of my love and protection.
Ignore and avoid was the name of the game, until a wind chiming gust of air refused to accept our avoidance while we studied our college choices.
***
Our heads come together and we read about the fabulous opportunities available at Silver Lake College.
Ranissa sits blinking at me. Is this one you picked up?
Nope. I respond, shaking my head.
She speed-reads the words. One trait we don’t share. When finished, she flops against the chair back. “It has everything we want and then some,” she speaks, breaking the stone silence. I jolt from the actual sound of her voice and rip the paper from her hands.
The pictures are gorgeous and the campus charm shines from the glossy page. Smaller, personalized class sizes. Generous dorm rooms and small-town closeness.
A thick brown envelope drops from the ceiling, smacking on the table. We both scoot away from it, but the gleeful wind puffs it my way. The second my hands touch the smooth paper, the world restarts. Dad’s song once again fills the air and the roar of life deafens.
Curious, I pull the papers free, attempting to digest the words of acceptance and scholarship for us both on the page, because neither of us applied to this school, yet here is the admission and arrival schedule.
“What’cha got there, Nickel?” Dad asks, reading over my shoulder.
“Great choice,” he cheers, his lips angling with an eye-crinkling smile. “Your mom and I went to Silver Lake. I didn’t think you girls were interested in a tiny fair-weather campus.”
Ranissa’s eyebrows climb and she tries to hide her shocked mouth drop. How did we not know this is where they went to school? she projects.
“You and Momma went here?” I ask warily, because any talk of our mom hurts him. We reserve one day each season to break out the photo albums and videos. He regales us with their life before we were born. The stories shared so many times I know them by heart. We shed our tears and live through his memories. When the day’s over, we lock it all back up, keeping all talk of Mom between me and my sister until the day rolls around again. Never did he mention this college the ‘Windy’ insists we check out.
A sad shadow falls over his eyes, lowering his smile. This is the look we try to avoid because we know it will send him into a funk for days. “Of course, of course,” he comments, quickly stepping to the living room, returning with a worn-spined photo book. He flips open to our favorite picture of him and Mom, the one with the peach dress and points to the buildings in the background.
A majestic, old, pillared structure covered in ivy blurs in the distance. He grabs the pamphlet directing our eyes, “The Trine Library is where we met and said our vows,” he says.
Did you notice it before? Ranissa shouts in my head. I think to all the times I gazed at this memory. Rubbing my finger along the similar lines of Mom’s face and imagining how happy and in love she was that day, but I can’t recall ever noticing anything beyond the captured essence of their smiles.
“Girls, girls,” he says through a chuckle, which shocks us both because the former sadness vanishes. One hand on my sister and one on me, “Always look beyond what’s right under your nose.” His tone is soft but imploring. He slams the book shut, cradling it to his chest. “She’d want you there.” He nods to the papers I pulled from the envelope.
He sings muffled words to the tune he hums as he returns the album to its resting place.
Chapter Six
So that’s how we ended up here with Dad’s truck, ready to move in. He’s delivering our car next weekend. The school provides mattresses, but sleeping on the same surface of countless others skeeves me out. I shiver thinking of all the body fluid damage a black light would reveal.
Standing at the lowered tailgate, I ponder the impossible. No way are we strong enough to lug these bad boys up three flights of stairs.
“Hey, want some help?” A tall, wide-shouldered man-boy appears from around the hood of the truck. Floppy brown hair, dreamy whiskey eyes, and a soft rounded face, he stands a few inches over my six foot. He screams boy next door, but the sharp edges of his long lean body warn to beware.
Bounding up next to him is a short girl with an inky head of pixie cut hair glimmering with blue tones in disarray around her head. When she stops next to him, she eyes us with orbs so black you can’t distinguish her pupils. She’s stout and curvaceous with large breasts and thick thighs. Her face is severe angles with a thin nose, high cheekbones, and perfect eyebrows over mile-long lashes. She’s stunning in a Goth way.
“Who are you?” she asks, glancing between Ranissa and me.
“Relax, Ger,” handsome boy shoots her a warning glare. “I’m Lex,” he extends his hand, “and this surly little nugget is Geri.”
Ranissa warns me to be nice through our mind meld. I force my lips to smile, ignoring her internal snark about how I look like I ate a bug, as I reach out a hand in greeting. Geri snarls at it, crinkling her pierced nose.
I withdraw my hand, cocking a hip before crossing my arms over my chest. I return her bitch-faced glare.
A loud clap from Lex breaks our standoff. “Sooooo,” Lex drawls dragging my stare from his surly friend. Hand tugging at his neck he nods to the truck. “How about we help you with these?” He jumps on the bed. Disgruntled and cursing under her breath, Geri follows.
She hoists one by herself, anchoring it on her shoulder. “They’re really heavy…” I warn, climbing up to join them. Seeing it dangle effortlessly over her back, I gasp. “Holy crap, you’re strong.” They eye each other in silent conversation. Her eyes widen and she lowers her load.
Before I question it, Lex spots someone over my shoulder. “Parker,” he yells, “get your ass over here and help.”
Another boy jogs toward us, stopping beside Ranissa. “Holy hot chicks,” he awes, his comment turns my sister’s cheeks pink. “I’m Parker,” he grabs her hand, brushing a kiss along her knuckles. Now her entire face is red.
“Stop flirting and help Geri lug this thing upstairs,” Lex chides.
“Since when does Mighty Mouse need any help?”
“Dickhole,” she mutters, flipping him off.
Hands on his hips, he mocks a Superman stance. In a low baritone he sings, “Here I come to save the day…” His eyes gleeful with Geri’s reaction to his teasing, he glances between Ranissa and me. “Daaaaamn. Is this them?”
“Who them? What?” my sister asks, popping her head out from the truck where she’s unloading boxes from the back seat.
“Nothing,” Geri clips. “Let’s go.” Mattress hoisted over her head, she shoves past Lex and Parker, bouncing off the tailgate, she lands on the balls of her feet. With a snide look at the guys, she carries it with ease toward the dorm entrance.
My eyes grow wide. “She’s stronger than she looks,” Lex comments. Parker grabs the other bed, following Geri.
Lex takes the rest of the boxes, leaving Ranissa and I standing with nothing but dropped jaws.
That’s not normal, right? she whispers in my head. None of it. Do you see any weird when you look at them?
Bright, safe auras ringed with yellow. They’re open to friendship. How about you?
Same but…
Something is off with them, we chant in unison.
“You two gonna stand there all day or come show us which room is yours?” Geri yells.
***
Our room is the average college dorm. Two of everything. Beds raised to accommodate dressers underneath, matching small desks, and a walk-in shareable closet next to an en suite bathroom. Parker and Lex drag the old mattresses to the hall while Geri flops the fresh ones in place.
She reads my questioning cocked brow. “Brothers. Lots of roughhousing big brothers. Kickboxing, self-defense, they made sure I’m not a weakling,” she offers in answer to my unasked inquiry about her strength. “It’s gotta be nice to room with your sister.”
“All part of the ploy to get us here.” I nod, shifting my focus to Parker. He’s a bear of a man, more teddy than grizzly. Tall like Lex, but furry. A full coal beard covers his face, matching the array of wild curls on his head. He’s wide as a semi-truck and as ripped as a linebacker with all the squishiness of a Build-A-Bear. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, strong thick thighs, and eyes so blue they look purple, he’s adorably sexy.
“So what does everyone want to be when they grow up?” Ranissa jokes attempting get-to-know-you small talk. I laugh but the others’ faces pale. “It’s not a trick question. Simply curious about your majors. How about what do you guys do around here for fun?”
“Run the streets and howl at the moon,” Parker answers, Lex slugs him in the shoulder. “And I’m thinking I’d like to try a bear first. See how it fits.” This time Lex slaps him in the back of the head at the same time Geri tells him to shut it.
“So who’s hungry?” Lex edges in front of Parker, trying to block Geri dragging him from our room. Ranissa and I stand with our hips cocked, arms crossed, and eyes narrowed, asking him with our glares what the hell is going on.
He leans closer, rocking side to side in front of our faces. “Holy shit, you two are seriously identical. Like I can’t see even the smallest difference, not even in the freckles on your nose. It’s uncanny.”
“Well, we are identical twins,” I say sarcastically.
“Right. Let’s go eat.” He grabs our hands, pulling us forward, but I swear I hear him mutter, It’s so much more than that.
Chapter Seven
From our first introduction, I felt an undeniable kinship to Lex and Parker. After she lost the attitude, even Geri grew on me. Turns out she and her roommate, Kerrigan, live across the hall from us. Thanks to the coed dorm, Parker and Lex reside on the floor above ours. It’s a lot of head-shaking convenience.
After our first week of classes, the weirdness of Silver Lake College poked up its head. On a small campus, the chances of not attending at least one class with our friends is slim Whenever we ask our tribe of pals anything about their studies, they dodge with a subject change.
Since we’re all newbie freshman, I expected we’d learn the campus together, but the day we met they gave us a tour, as though they’d been here for years. Maybe it’s our blondeness and the air-headed stigma stuck to it, but I noticed the areas they avoided.
The oddity continued when Dad delivered our car. He too strolled around, tripping down memory lane, while steering clear of the darker edges of the college.
To a blind eye, campus and students are ordinary. Our professors and classes mundane and, dare I say, normal. But there is an unsettled energy. Plus Ranissa hasn’t had one ghostly encounter and the auras surrounding the student body resemble a pile of unicorn shit. While my experience reading the vibrant halos is limited, I’ve learned people, as a whole, are not baby otters and kittens all the time. Darkness is universal and unbiased and can’t be erased from our being. So like the thick fog around Silver Lake College, it’s an anomaly.
“You don’t think it’s strange how none of them talk about their classes?” My sister sits at her desk, face glued to her laptop screen, ignoring my voice. “I mean Parker said he wanted to be a bear. Maybe he’s in some kind of transmogrification course.”
“Jesus, Nikki,” she sighs, twisting in her chair to face me. “This isn’t Hogwarts. He was joking.”
“Was he? I mean, it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. Look at what we can do and remember what Madam Sybil said.”
“Sybil the Psychic was a kook.”
“True, but she gave us those nifty potions and you can’t deny there was some hocus-pocus happening in her shop.”
“What do you suggest? You want to follow our friends to their classes? ‘Cause hiding and spying around corners isn’t the best way to foster a new friendship.”
“But their freakishly strong and sharing a secret. It’s driving me nuts.”
“We’ve got our own secrets, Nikki. Why can’t you just like them the way they are? It’s only been a week. Skeletons don’t stay silent forever.”
“I hate when you piss all over my impulsiveness with logic.”
Her giggle fills the room as she returns to her homework.
***
Remember the party? The scary forest? My stellar date choosing and ruined pedicure? Wondering why none of my friends went with me?
Little white lies and terrible decisions.
Ranissa and
the gang believe I’m studying in the library. Alone. Lying to my overly intuitive twin was easier than I expected. How could she not question me wanting to study in high heels and a miniskirt? Ranissa, with the mighty syllabi dictating her goals is consuming. I barely get her out of the room long enough to eat. Class and studying, that’s it. Her dedication is admirable, but boring.
I met Ezekiel Dean in my Psych 101 class. Twice a week for a month he sat next to me, spewing awful pickup lines. It became our thing. He’s witty and cute, with sandy buzzed hair and expressive hazel eyes. After the Caleb debacle, I stuck to my guns, but he wore me down. I mean how can you not like a guy who plops down next to you and says, “I’m lost. Can you give me the directions to your heart?”
On Tuesday and Thursday before the prof starts his lecture, Zeek wows me with an impressive level of cheesiness. When he invited me to his frat house for a party, I couldn’t find the want to say no. Turns out he truly was those awful pickup lines and textbook frat douche.
Now here I am, barefooting it through the forest at midnight. I exit a dense cluster of trees, speeding my steps because I know the dorms are close. An arm rings my waist, sweeping me off my feet, and setting me several steps backward.
“Hey,” I shout, turning to face my attacker, “What the hell?” An ominous figure looms in front of me. Self-defense dictates using what you got. I’ve got heels dangling from my hands. With a flick of my wrist I clutch them, wielding the spiked points like daggers.
He retreats, hands raised in mea culpa. “Would you rather I allowed you to fall in the lake?”
His smoky, heady voice slicks over me raising every hair on my body. My eyes fall closed as I shiver from the decadence of his cadence.
Wait, what?
I cock open one lid to find him in shadow, leaning against a tree. Danger statics the thick humid air making my scalp itch. Around me Windy jingles a happy song through the trees easing some of my panic.
A Cursed All Hallows' Eve Page 82