“So, Sporty, since you won’t take a hint and beat it, entertain me. What sports do you play?”
“Volleyball, softball, basketball.”
“Aren’t you kinda short for basketball?”
“Guard,” she said.
Riveting conversation, and not nearly as entertaining as having Owen’s tongue in my ear. Owen must have thought so too because he changed the subject quickly.
“Emily, my Miss Magic. Pretty impressive what you did back there with supreme jerk of the evening, Tad. I want to apologize for those knuckle draggers.”
“It’s okay, really.”
“No, it’s not. You’re smart, not one of those sycophant bimbos usually hanging around with us. They’re not used to girls who have more to offer than just someone pretty to look at and make out with.”
I’m not sure if he was trying to compliment me or not. Was he saying I was cute and smart? Or was he excepting me out of the category of girls pretty enough to look at and make out with?
“What about you, Owen? Are you interested in more than just someone to make out with?” Fanny asked.
“I’m here with you two instead of in there. What do you think?”
Fanny’s face softened then, and she seemed to relax a little.
“So answer me this, Miss Magic. Aren’t you bored with just spinning drunk assholes in the air?”
Of course I was. My boredom had gotten so pathetic, I’d stooped to dropping salads on Greta.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“How’d you like to give those brain muscles of yours a bit of a workout?”
“Whad’ya have in mind?”
“I heard you opened a portal and went to another dimension. That is so messed up! Like, I want to believe you, but I just can’t get my brain wrapped around that. What was it like, for real?”
I laughed. “I know, it still trips me out, too. I was worried it would hurt or rip me apart or something, but the journey was as easy as walking through a door. A big hole opened up in the ground, and there was this silvery mist billowing out, and I just walked into another dimension.”
“Just walked in?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s true,” Fanny said. “I was there and saw it.”
“What was it like – you know – in the other dimension?”
“At first, it was really scary. The Netherworld – that’s what it’s called – is a strange world full of grey mist and silvery fog. There’s no horizon, so you can’t tell up from down. If you didn’t have a guide to help you, a person could wander in circles and probably end up going mad.”
Owen smiled and squeezed his arm around my shoulder a little tighter.
“But you didn’t go mad.”
“No, Hindergog was my guide, and of course Madame Wong, my master. They taught me how to conjure whatever I wanted there. It’s like you think it, and it comes true.”
“Do you think it would only work for you?”
“You mean open a portal to the Netherworld?”
“No, I mean go to the other dimension. Do you think you could take people with you? And if you did, do you think other people besides you could conjure what they want there?”
No one had ever asked me these questions before. No one had ever shown this kind of interest in my Netherworld adventure. His curiosity about me made me desire him even more.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I never tried to take anyone with me. But I think anyone could conjure there, if they could concentrate even a little. It’s a field of pure potential. Like, everything already exists there. All you have to do is think about it and, voilà, it appears.”
“So even a dumb jock like me could perform magic tricks there?”
I smiled at him. “You’re not a dumb jock.”
Owen’s arm tightened around me, squeezing me into him. His lips grazed the side of my neck, sending a pulse of warmth straight down my body where it rested in my lap. It felt like break-dancers had started dancing in my lower belly. It was painful and pleasurable at the same time. I didn’t want it to stop.
“Think you could do it again?” he asked into my ear.
“Open a portal?”
“Yeah.”
“I … I don’t know. It’s been two years since I did that, and the first time I opened a portal, I was in Ireland, at the Sacred Well, with all sorts of residual magic there helping me out.”
“But I thought you did it again without being at the well?”
Owen moved his body a bit farther away from me then, regarding me with his smoldering eyes. He had not only read my story, but it was like he’d memorized it. He must really be interested in me.
“Well, yeah, that’s true. But I haven’t tried in a long time, and it’s …”
“It’s not something she should be doing to impress your clump nugget friends,” Fanny said. “Why are you so interested in portals anyway?”
Fanny crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Owen. It was a look she usually reserved for people like Greta. I wasn’t sure why she was giving that look to Owen.
“’Cause it would be a trip, that’s why. Ever since I read about you going to another dimension, I was like, ‘I gotta see this for myself.’ It would freak those assholes in there out.”
“It is a cool place,” I said.
My mind began to wander to thoughts of being with Owen in the Netherworld, a place where I could create anything I wanted. A place where Owen and I could get away from high school, and the ‘us’ and the ‘them’. I imagined myself back in the deep, dark forest, but this time a sunny meadow opened up amongst the trees, and Owen and I were entwined, our lips locked in a smooth, soft kiss.
Once again, Fanny interrupted my sweet reverie.
“Yeah, but Em, the portal is for official Priestess business. Even if you can make it open, I don’t think the Goddess intended for you to open it up and take a bunch of teenagers in for a party.”
‘Official Priestess business’. What exactly was my ‘Official Priestess business’? Once I found my way out of the Netherworld and to the Large Hadron Collider, I hadn’t heard a word from Hindergog, Madame Wong, or the Goddess. I hadn’t received so much as a cosmic voicemail from Hindergog. They’d left me alone to fend for myself. Who was Fanny to say what my business was?
“Dammit, Fanny, you are not my mother. I can make my own decisions, so back the hell off.”
Fanny’s face looked like a hurt little child. I felt guilty about giving her such a harsh smack down, but I was tired of her trying to control me.
“Your friend’s just trying to have your back, Magic. That’s cool. Loyal friends are what it’s all about. Hey, Sporty, tell ya what. When Miss Magic opens the portal, why don’t you come with?”
Fanny’s brows were knitted across her forehead, and her lips were pursed together. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was about to cry. But she didn’t, and she nodded yes.
“I guess if you’re going to go all stupid on me, I better be there to pull your butt from the fire,” she said. “But you gotta bring Jake, too.”
“Jake? Who, that little dude that sits with you at lunch?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” I said sheepishly.
“Nah, we don’t need him cramming the jam,” Owen said.
“Oh, it’s a big place,” I said. “Plenty of room for Jake. You can imagine a wall between you, and then you’ll never even notice he’s there.”
“Man, you’re all right, Magic,” Owen said as he pulled me closer.
“So when are you planning to go on this little trip?” Fanny asked.
“I was thinkin’ that Halloween is on a Saturday this year and only a week away. What better way to spend Halloween night than traipsing through a graveyard and going to another dimension? I can’t wait to see Tad’s face when he sees us disappear.”
A small shudder ran through me at the thought of the graveyard. I didn’t know why. Hell, Fanny, Jake and I had tromped all over buried people in
Ireland, searching for the torc. But the idea of opening a portal at the cemetery made the hairs on my arms stand up. Or was it just the closeness to Owen that made my skin feel like goose flesh?
“The graveyard? Why there?”
“’Cause it’s creepy.”
“Well, Halloween night is an excellent time to open the portal. The veil is thinnest then.”
“Veil?”
“Yeah, between the worlds. It’s like this super thin film of fabric separating our dimension from other ones. At this time of the year, that’s when it’s easiest to pierce through the fabric and go to the other worlds.”
“Other ‘worlds’? You mean there’s more than one other dimension you can go to?”
“Yeah, that’s what the Goddess told me, anyway. I’ve been to only one, though, the Netherworld, so I don’t know what the others are like.”
I hadn’t spent any time considering the other dimensions. It was hard enough, even then, for me to wrap my brain around the one I’d been to. It had started to feel like a dream. The torc wound tight around my arm reminded me, though, that it was real.
“So we’re set, then?”
“Yeah, but don’t invite the whole school, okay. Just us three and Jake. I don’t want to babysit your football buddies in there.”
Owen’s face looked disappointed, but I wasn’t going to back down on it.
“Okay, I guess it will mind trip them enough just to see me disappear into the portal.” Owen squeezed me to him.
Just then I felt a cold breeze, and a chill went down my spine. At first, I thought it was Owen’s tongue in my ear again, but he wasn’t kissing my ear. It was like there was a cold wind, but the air in Austin’s backyard was dead still.
“Did you see that?” Fanny asked.
“See what?” I replied.
“I could swear I just saw …”
“What?” Owen asked.
“Nothing. Just a trick of the moonlight, I guess,” Fanny said as she looked around, trying to catch a second glimpse of whatever it was her overactive imagination had seen.
I was glad Halloween was still a week away so that I had time to practice meditating, getting still and focusing. I’d been sloppy in my practice. I wasn’t sure that I could even open the portal, let alone keep it open long enough for more than one person to get through.
In one short week, we’d all find out if I still had it in me.
3
For the whole week, I had to deal with Fanny telling me how much she thought my decision sucked, and me telling her to drop it or not come. She’d shut up for a day or two, then couldn’t help herself and let me have it.
“I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel right.”
“It’ll be fine, Fan. It’s just a bit of fun. You know – fun? What’s the use of having these stupid powers if I can’t at least have some fun with them?”
“Maybe the point of having the powers is to help people. You know, help people?”
I ignored her and stuck my head in my locker, pretending to look for something.
“Whatever,” she said. “You’ll do what you want anyway – as usual. But I’m telling you, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
The truth? My stomach had been in knots. But I couldn’t tell if it was an omen about opening a portal in the cemetery, or if it was performance anxiety. What if I can’t get the portal to open? With Owen and all his friends there, it would be so humiliating. I didn’t know what was causing my gut to hurt, so I kept the feeling to myself.
When Fanny and I told our plans to Jake, he was silent on the subject. He voiced neither approval nor joined Fanny’s bandwagon of berating me for the decision. I let him know that I wanted him to come with us, but he didn’t respond to that either. Since the day Owen asked me to the party, Jake hadn’t come over to my house after school to study and he’d pretty much ignored me. My house seemed empty without him in it.
* * *
Halloween night. I was in my room doing a last minute check of hair and clothes when the doorbell rang. I bounded down the steps two-by-two. Ten o’clock. Owen was right on time. Dad was already on his way to answer the door when my feet hit the landing.
“Late trick or treaters,” Dad said.
“It’s my date, Dad. Owen Breen.”
His hand hovered over the door handle, but he didn’t open the door. “Date? It’s already 10:00. Where are you going this late?”
“It’s Halloween. We’re going to a party.”
His eyes took me in. “And it’s not a costume party?”
“No, just a regular party.”
His hand still hovered. The door remained closed.
In my whole life, the worst trouble I’d ever caused my dad was running away to Ireland and going to another dimension. Okay, that sounds really bad. But honestly, since we came back from Europe two years ago, Dad and I had a pretty normal life. We fixed dinner together, went to movies sometimes, and I mainly hung out with Jake and Fanny. In the past two years, I hadn’t given him a single thing to fret about.
“Dad, don’t worry. It’s just a party.”
He still didn’t open the door. What was Owen going to think? Would he just leave?
“Fanny and Jake will be there.”
The magic words. His face softened. What did he think? That I needed them to protect me? I’m the one who wore the torc. Why did everyone seem to think that I was the one who needed protection?
“I’ll be back in a few hours. I’m sixteen now, Dad, not twelve.”
He gave me a weak smile, then opened the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Mr. Breen, is it?”
When Dad opened the door, Owen was looking at his watch. He looked pretty annoyed at being kept waiting on the porch in the chilly air.
“No problem, sir.” Owen put his hand out to shake with Dad. Dad took his hand, shook, then stepped to the side to allow Owen in. But Owen didn’t move off of the porch.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Yep, let’s go.” I bolted out of the door.
“Have her back by 1:00,” Dad shouted to us as we quickly walked down the sidewalk, my hand in Owen’s.
“Yes, sir,” he shouted back.
I stepped out to the curb and saw a black BMW parked on the street in front of my house.
“Is this your car?”
“No, it’s my mom’s. She let me drive it tonight.” Owen followed me to my side of the car and opened the door for me.
“I can’t believe your mom would let her teenage son drive such a nice car.”
“I can be very persuasive.” Owen leaned up against me when he said it as he opened the door for me. His lips were just inches from my ear.
Very persuasive.
I had no doubt that was true. When Owen stared into my green eyes with his deep brown ones, I felt like he was hypnotizing me. Owen Breen can probably persuade me to do just about anything he wants. That thought should have worried me, but instead it thrilled me.
When we got to the cemetery, we walked up a small hill to an old part with a large mausoleum and scattered gravestones. The last time I’d been in a graveyard, it was in Ireland, where I’d found the torc.
The torc. It was still wound around my upper, right arm. It had become like a part of my body. I hardly noticed it was there anymore. I wore long sleeves most of the time to cover it. Not because I was ashamed of it, but because I got sick of people asking me about it. People were always asking if it was true that it couldn’t be removed. They’d try to pull on it or pry it apart. Of course, they couldn’t get it off. Powerful, ancient, faerie magic had fused it to me on a soul level. It was on my arm until the day I died.
But that night, I bore it proudly, showing it off for all to see. I wore a short-sleeved shirt, despite the chill in the air, and put my faux-fur vest on for warmth. I wanted everyone to see the mark of the Goddess on my arm.
I was glad to have the torc, too. My abilities got a giant boost from it, and without the torc, there was no way I could
open a portal.
When we got to the top of the hill, I saw a crowd of about twenty or so people there, some with beer bottles in their hands. I hadn’t expected a beer party.
“I thought we agreed just us four were going in,” I said to Owen.
“They’re not here to go in, just to watch,” he said. He was practically pulling me up the hill.
That aching feeling in my gut kicked in, hard. I hadn’t anticipated a beer party atmosphere. Owen pulled me through the throng of people to the entrance to a mausoleum. I didn’t see Fanny and Jake in the faces of the crowd. That made me even less confident.
As I scanned the faces of the throng, still searching for Fanny and Jake, I saw Greta’s sneering face in the front row. She wore her usual smirk.
Owen squeezed my hand and asked, “Ready?”
“No, actually, I’m not,” I said. “Fanny and Jake aren’t here.”
Owen’s eyes turned hard with impatience.
“Ah, forget them. It’ll be more fun just the two of us anyway.”
I hesitated. I knew I didn’t need Jake and Fanny to babysit me in the Netherworld. After all, they hadn’t gone in with me last time. But I wasn’t sure I could open the portal at all and was pretty certain I couldn’t muster the confidence to do it in this crowd without Fanny and Jake there. It was like having them near me, knowing they always had my back – it strengthened me.
“Come on, Magic,” Owen whispered in my ear. “The people are waiting for a show.”
Owen pressuring me was making me lose my appetite for him. I wasn’t his to command. My mind raced with thoughts of where Fanny and Jake were and why they had abandoned me. Then I thought, no wonder, as I remembered how much of an ass I’d been to them both for the last week. I decided that when I saw them again, I needed to apologize.
All of a sudden, I felt a cold wind sweep over my body, and a chill ran up my spine. Goosebumps covered my arms, and the hair on my neck stood on end. I swore I saw something fly around our heads – something black – like a black moth. But as soon as I tried to focus on it, there was nothing.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 30