Greta’s still here but Muriel is gone. By the time we got back she had packed up her stuff and left. I guess it was okay to be the bully, but when push came to shove, she wasn’t willing to hang around if it meant she’d have someone shoving back.
As I walked across the porch today, I didn’t care that the boards squeaked. There wasn’t any dread or fear at all as I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it.
I walked down the familiar hallway and toward the smell of pancakes, coffee and bacon. I could hear their voices bantering.
“More chocolate chip pancakes?” my dad asked as he flipped another batch.
“I’ll take more,” said Fanny.
“Figures piggy. You’re going to be fat as a house,” teased Jake.
“Shut it nub before I take you down.”
“Come on guys, give it a rest will you? Can’t we enjoy a pleasant Sunday morning together without your bickering?” asked Dad.
“We are enjoying,” said Jake.
“Yeah, this is us enjoying,” added Fanny. She shoved about three normal forkfuls into her mouth at once.
Dad smiled wide as he worked the pancakes on the griddle. His smile widened as he looked up and saw me standing in the doorway.
“Oh hey, Emily’s back with the juice. Thanks, Em,” he said with a wink.
“No prob Dad.” I handed him the juice. I threw a copy of the Weekly World News down on the counter of the breakfast bar in front of Jake and Fanny.
“What’s this?” asked Jake.
“I thought you’d all get a kick out of the cover story. Check out the photo on the front. Look like anyone we know?”
Jake and Fanny both stared at the front page, and I soon saw their eyes about to bug out of their heads as they recognized the woman on the cover.
“Holy chiz!” said Fanny.
“I can’t believe it,” said Jake.
“What?” My dad reached for the paper.
His turn for eyes buggin’. There on the front cover of the Weekly World News was a wild-eyed photo of our beloved Aunt Muriel. The headline above the picture read, ‘Woman Attacked by Niece Possessed by an Alien’.
My dad threw the paper across the counter, laughed and went back to flipping pancakes. “Oops, these are a bit burnt.”
“That’s okay, I’ll eat them anyway,” said Fanny as she held out her plate for more.
“Dad, that’s all you’re going to say? ‘Oops, these are a bit burnt.’”
“What should I say? My sister is crazy. I just wish I had been here – really here – to see it sooner. I’m so sorry,” he said as he hugged me.
“I know, Dad. You don’t need to keep apologizing.” I hugged him back. “Okay, who needs more coffee?” I hovered the coffee pot over to where Jake and Fanny sat.
“Come on, use your hands,” said Jake. “You know it freaks me out when you hover things.”
“It only freaks you out because you can’t do it,” I quipped. I ordered the pot to give Jake more coffee.
“I’ll take some more.” Fanny held out her cup for more.
“Oh no, no more for you.” I set the pot back down. None of us wanted to see Fanny on mega-caffeine.
A new typical Sunday with family. Click your heels three times.
Tomorrow is Monday, and I’ll leave this house again. I’ll walk out the door and try to find a way to be me and yet fit in; be Emily but a part of everything else too. And at the end of the day I’ll come home.
Emily’s Trial
Natalie Wright
1
The Apocalypse didn’t start with four horsemen, harbingers of the horror to come. It didn’t start with a plague, or pestilence, or even zombies rising from the dead.
It came slowly and without warning. It crept up on people in the shadows, no more than a vague darkness that spread like an unseen cancer.
And it wasn’t set into action by a divine hand. A teenage girl was the catalyst for the End Times.
I should know. I’m the one that started it.
I didn’t plan to. I didn’t want to start the End Times, and I’m not evil.
Madame Wong taught me to tell the truth, and so here it is. I’m the one responsible for the Apocalypse. And this is the story of how I unwittingly unlocked the door to the darkness; of how a Priestess of the Order of Brighid, entrusted with powerful magic that was supposed to be used for the benefit of all humankind, unleashed a force that would destroy it instead.
And it all began with desire.
I sat at our usual lunch table with Jake, Fanny and my ever-present lunchtime entourage of sycophants. I had become Emily, the lunchtime Circus Freak.
The torc was still wrapped around my arm, still welded to my soul by the faerie magic that had created it. The torc still feeding my powers.
But was I out saving old ladies from muggers? Did I use my powers to fight evil, like some teenage superhero? No. I used the torc’s power to levitate objects in the lunchroom and eavesdrop into the minds of others.
I had become notorious. But notoriety is not the same as popularity – or acceptance.
When we got back from Europe, I stopped hiding my abilities, and I told my story to anyone who’d listen. Sure, people were amazed – in awe even. But the more I told the truth of who I was – really was – the farther away I got from acceptance by ‘them’.
Owen Breen was one of ‘them’. On the other side of the lunchroom at the table where he held court. He was in a whole different hemisphere from ‘us’. Owen’s hemisphere consisted of the popular seniors and a few of ‘them’ from the junior class. My hemisphere was filled with ‘us’, the freaks, the geeks and others on the fringe.
It had all started with desire, and Owen Breen was the well of desire from which I wanted to drink.
I’d sneak looks at him every chance I got. I felt pulled in by his dark, chocolate eyes. I wanted to dive into those eyes.
What would happen if our hemispheres meet? What would it be like to kiss his full lips?
“Emily!”
Someone was yelling my name.
“Em. Earth to Em!”
It was Fanny.
“Huh?”
“You’re hoarding the salt. Pass it over.” She said it extremely slowly, as if she was talking to a small child.
“Oh. Sure.” The clear shaker lifted in the air and floated across the table to Fanny.
“You could use your hands, you know,” Jake said.
“I can, it’s just more fun to do it with my mind.”
He rolled his eyes at me.
“Where were you?” Fanny asked.
If you only knew!
“You weren’t eavesdropping in someone’s head again, were you? ’Cause you agreed that was rude and you’d stop,” Jake said.
“No, I wasn’t reading any minds.” But that’s an excellent idea. What’s in Owen’s mind?
One of the freshmen at our table, a kid called Skip, whined at me. “Emily, we’re so bored. Show us something. Something big.”
Bored. He was bored. He didn’t know anything about boredom. None of them did.
Two years ago, I flew on a plane with Fanny and Jake – no parents – to Ireland, went to another dimension, fought supernatural ninjas, met alien entities, and – oh yeah – saved the world from a runaway black hole! And here I was, playing at being the lunchtime circus show, plodding through the days, waiting for something to happen. Anything.
What did they know about boredom?
“Come on, Emily. Show us something.”
Fine. They want a show. I’ll give them a show.
I looked around the room for something to use as a demonstration. Something to please the gawkers.
And there she was. Perfect.
Greta walked from Owen’s table, with two of her friends beside her. She carried her half-eaten salad on a tray, the leftover greens drenched with dressing.
It’d been a while since I attempted a levitation from so far away. I wondered if I could do it.
/> I heard Madame Wong’s voice in my head. “Time, distance – no matter. All things are one with Akasha.” I took a deep breath.
Greta’s salad bowl lifted off her tray. She didn’t seem to notice it at first. But whispers started, then kids were pointing to her, and some were laughing.
I saw Greta look around. Her face changed to a grimace when she realized the whispers, laughs and pointing were aimed at her. She stopped in her tracks, looked around and then noticed her salad bowl was missing. She followed the finger pointing and glanced up.
The salad bowl was perched about six inches above her head, waiting for my command to dump the oily contents all over her. If I chose to give the direction.
Greta’s face flushed. She glared at me with utter venom in her eyes.
“Don’t you dare, Freak Girl!” she screamed.
“What are you doin’, Em?” Jake asked.
There was a buzz of noise rising in the cafeteria.
“Having some fun.”
“I don’t think you should do this,” he said.
“Why? Because it’s not befitting a Priestess of Brighid? Because it’s bad manners?”
“Well, yeah, for a start. And maybe because you don’t need to go starting a war with Greta.”
I dismissed Jake with a roll of my eyes. The salad bowl still teetered over Greta as she stormed toward me.
“I’m tired of you telling me how to be a Priestess, Jake. I didn’t see you in the Netherworld, getting rapped with Madame Wong’s staff or sliced by her sword. You’re not the one who saved our collective bacon. Just leave me alone.”
Jake got up from the bench and picked up his tray. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone. Do what you want. You always do anyway.” He huffed off.
Man, he’s snippy at me lately! What’s up his butt?
“Come on, Em. You’ve had your fun. Jake’s right about Greta. You don’t need to start anything with her,” Fanny whispered to me.
“Why? She’s taken plenty of shots at me over the years. Why shouldn’t I get a little payback?”
I could feel Fanny staring at me, waiting for me to turn to her. When I did, her eyes were set and hard, locking with mine.
“Because you’re better than her.”
Blast it, I hate it when Fanny’s right. And she was right. I didn’t need to stoop to Greta’s level. I’d show her that I could be the bigger person.
Greta was almost to our table, the salad still obeying my order to hover over her head. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Owen walking my way too, down the aisle between two sets of tables.
My eyes were magnets drawn to his eyes. His lips were pulled into a half-smirk, half-smile, revealing a small dimple in his right cheek, but not his left. That little asymmetry made it all the more adorable. I wanted to kiss that dimple. And his lips. The soft pout of his lower lip made me want to …
A loud scream pulled me out of my daydream, then laughing and applause erupted. Dang it. I’d lost my concentration on the salad bowl, and it fell, landing first on Greta’s head. It spilled greasy dressing all over her head before dropping to the floor.
I’m not sure what made her more angry. The oily dressing covering her head and shoulders, a bit of it dripping down her forehead, or the applause erupting from the crowd and cheers for me.
Popularity is such a crazy thing. Most of us want to be the popular kid – be a Greta or an Owen. But when a popular is taken down a peg, we cheer. Go figure.
Owen stopped and took in the scene, then continued walking the five feet or so he had left to get to my table, then he stopped.
He stood across from me and stared. His face was framed by his dark, wavy hair. It looked soft and was just long enough to run your fingers through. Owen looked me straight in the eyes with his smoldering, dark ones. He held my gaze, our eyes locked.
My heart began to beat faster, my stomach roiling. Was he going to scold me for humiliating one of his posse? Or was he going to … what?
Then he said, “Take a bow, Miss Magic. That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” as he cocked his head toward Greta.
At first, my legs were frozen. I sat numbly, unable to speak. Then I found the ability to do what he said. I got up and bowed first to my left, then my right, the applause growing louder.
When I raised my head, Owen was gone, already pushing his way through the doors out of the lunchroom. But Greta was there, standing right across from me. Her neck, face, and ears were a red flame of anger. Her icy blue eyes, framed by strands of greasy hair, shot daggers at me.
“You’ll regret this, Freak Girl.”
“Whatever,” I said and laughed.
Greta didn’t laugh. She stood there, stinking of garlicky Italian dressing, her hands still gripping her tray.
“You may think you’re all that because you’ve got some stupid powers. But you’re still a freak, and that’s all you’ll ever be.” Then she stormed off, her two lap-dog friends on her heels.
Out loud, I laughed.
Inside, I wondered if what she said was true. Greta knew how to push all my buttons, how to bring out every insecurity I had. Could I ever be more than a side show? And could a guy like Owen ever be interested in a freak like me?
Greta stormed off. The show was over, and the bell would soon ring. The buzz of talking and laughter began to die down as people packed up their stuff and left.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” Fanny said.
“I know. I didn’t plan to. My concentration was … broken.”
“By what? You’ve never dropped anything before. You’ve levitated me for close to an hour. Don’t tell me Greta rattled you enough to drop that bowl.”
“It wasn’t her. She doesn’t rattle me.”
Yes, she does.
“Then what?”
I whispered low, so only Fanny would hear. “Owen Breen,” I confided.
“What? Breen? You’ve gotta be kidding,” she shrieked.
“Shh.” I put my finger to my lips. “This is between just you and me, okay? Don’t tell Jake.”
“Oh, I won’t tell Jake. It would crush him.”
“Whad’ya mean?”
“Man, for supposedly being an enlightened person, you sure are dense sometimes.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind.”
The bell rang. Time for chemistry class. Greta was in that class. I hoped she didn’t show that day, covered in grease and stinking of Italian dressing. It made my gut feel sick to think about it.
Fanny didn’t say anything to me as we headed to our lockers to get stuff for the afternoon. What had she meant about Jake being crushed if he found out I had a thing for Owen? And was Owen really out of my league? Even though we lived in two different hemispheres, couldn’t we meet somewhere around the equator?
As I walked to class, I decided to put Owen out of my mind. He’d laughed at my silly parlor trick, but he’d never look my way again.
* * *
Sometimes you’re as wrong as a left turn on red.
Fanny and I walked together after last period to our lockers. I almost dropped my books when I saw him standing at my locker.
Owen, all 6'3" of him, leaned up against the lockers. He wore a black leather jacket over his T-shirt and tight blue jeans. He didn’t carry books or a backpack, and he was standing there checking text messages. He looked like a college guy picking up his little sister or something. He was so not one of ‘us’.
“What the fudge?” Fanny asked. “What’s Breen doing at our lockers?”
“I have no idea.”
We picked up our pace and quickly approached Owen.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Miss Magic,” he replied. He wore that smirky smile that revealed his kissable cheek dimple.
“What are you doing here?” Fanny asked.
Subtle, Fan.
My nostrils picked up the scent of him, a masculine spicy smell mixed with citrus. I wanted
to find a way to bottle up that scent so I could have more of it later.
“Your lockers off limits to guys or something? You have a no-dude rule?”
He laughed a deep, masculine, manly laugh that made his dark eyes twinkle.
I laughed too, but mine came out too high and giggly. I sounded like such a dork.
“No, we don’t have a no-dude rule. It’s just that it’s not like you to hang out in the juniors section of the hallway.”
“That’s true. But I’m here to talk to Miss Magic.”
‘Miss Magic’. No one had ever given me a pet name before. If Jake had started calling me that, I probably would’ve socked him. But ‘Miss Magic’ sounded like a sweet melody coming from Owen’s lips.
“You’re pretty special, Miss Magic. Did you know that?”
I shook my head. I’d lost all ability to speak.
“You sure got my attention.”
He leaned toward me then, so close that I could feel the heat coming off of him. He moved in closer still, his lips mere inches from my ear.
“What kind of magic can you show a guy?” he whispered.
I could feel his warm breath on my ear. I felt my lower belly tighten, and I thought my knees might buckle and send me toppling over. Then the warm breath was gone, but the masculine smell of him still lingered around me.
“Hey, Austin is having a party this Friday, after the game. Would you like to come with me?”
Is he asking me out? He is asking me out, isn’t he? Speak, fool, speak!
“Yeah … yes. Austin’s party … cool.”
I sounded like a yammering imbecile. Don’t blow it!
“Great. I’ll meet you after the game. And you can bring Sporty Spice here with you if you want.”
“Okay. I’ll see you Friday.” My voice was entirely too high-pitched to sound normal.
Then he walked away with his carefree swagger.
I didn’t feel carefree. I felt like I would collapse in a pool of my own sweat.
After Owen was out of earshot, Fanny said, “Holy crap! I think someone likes you.”
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 28