Chapter 39
I sat through my morning classes, feigning interest and taking notes, but my mind was elsewhere. I bombed my Spanish quiz and could not focus on the final act of Romeo and Juliet. The bell sounded for lunch and I leaped from my seat, anxious to find Noel, to see if I was brave enough to ask him the questions I’d asked myself for the last few hours.
I ignored the lunch line and sat down at my table, scanning the throngs of students for some sign of him.
“Eat something,” he said, coming up behind me. He placed a tray in front of me loaded with food: a chef salad and baguette and a huge chocolate brownie.
“This is your lunch,” I protested. “And I’m not hungry.”
He picked up the fork and handed it to me. “I don’t need to eat. You do.”
I pushed the lettuce around on my plate, unsure of where to begin.
Noel sighed. “Just ask,” he said.
“Ask what?” I said, irritated once again that he could get inside of my head
“I know you have questions about what Leo said. About me. Midsummer.”
“Well…” I hedged. I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear his answers.
“Have you figured out why we want the stone?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No, I guess you haven’t had time, have you?” He lowered his voice. “Think about what you already know, Valerie. Why do you think we would want it? Leo and me?”
I was about to respond, to say I didn’t have the foggiest idea, when I saw Leo approaching the table, a tall girl walking alongside of him.
Noel straightened. He acknowledged the girl with a slight nod of his head. She ignored me, her emerald eyes trained on Noel as she motioned for him to stand.
“You’ve been summoned, brother,” Leo said, a smirk on his face. “Let’s go.”
Noel stood.
“Where are you going?” I asked desperately. Who was this girl? Was she a goddess? The goddess? More importantly, would Noel come back?
“I’ll be back,” he promised, answering my unspoken question. “We’ll talk more then.” They left.
I stared at the lunch Noel had brought me as questions ricocheted through my mind. I felt that sinking sensation once again, the feeling that I was drowning in a sea of questions and fears. I needed someone. I fished my cell phone out of my backpack and stared at the keypad. A text wouldn’t suffice. I hit the call button instead.
“Valerie.” Geoff’s voice was flat, unemotional.
“I need you.”
“Why?”
“I can’t explain now. Here.” I lowered my voice. “Will you—can you come to school? Come and get me?”
“Why?” he repeated. “What’s happened, Valerie? Are you OK?”
“I’m fine…for now,” I told him. “But I know who he is. Who they both are. And I need help.”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll be there.” He hung up.
I sat at the table and watched the clock on the wall. Ten minutes passed before I finally picked up my tray and dumped my untouched lunch into the trash. I moved toward the cafeteria doors, hoping I could make it to the roundabout and into Geoff’s waiting care without calling attention to myself. I had never left school in the middle of the day and wondered if someone would attempt to stop me.
“Where are you going, Valerie?” Ashley’s voice called from across the cafeteria. “Looking for your boyfriend? Or should I say boyfriends?” She snickered.
I ignored her.
“They left with a girl. A new girl.” Her voice echoed through the cafeteria. “I think little old you has been replaced.” She laughed and a few of the other Perfects joined in. I kept walking.
The rain had lessened to a drizzle. I reached the administration building and, after a quick scan of the hall, I walked through the heavy double doors out to the front of the building. Geoff was waiting. He reached across the car and opened the passenger door for me.
“Get in,” he said.
I slammed the door behind me, placing my backpack and sodden umbrella on my lap. The wetness seeped into my jeans and soaked my skin but I didn’t care.
“Where to?” he asked. “Home?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t know where Mom is. I can’t go home. Your house?”
“Nope, that’s out. My mom is home—and she’ll wonder what you’re doing there on a school day.” He thought for a minute. “We’ll go to Fanchon’s.”
“Is she home?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I was just there.”
We drove in silence. The rain started again, a steady shower that intensified to a heavy downpour as we pulled up in front of the tiny house. Geoff yanked the hood up on his sweatshirt and darted out of the car before coming around to open my door. “Go!” he said. We raced to the front steps.
Hope threw the door open as if she’d been watching from the window. Waiting for us. “Come in, come in—get out of the rain.” She ushered us inside.
Geoff pulled off his sweatshirt as I tried to somehow rub the wetness off my own saturated shirt.
“Are you off school today?” Hope asked.
I debated whether or not to tell her the truth. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to share my secrets with her the way I was willing to with Geoff.
She noticed my hesitation. “Why don’t I go and get something for you to change into?” She started down the hallway and bumped into Fanchon. “Come with me for a minute,” she said to her.
“I wanted to say hi to Valerie…”
But Hope pulled her away, their whispered voices fading as they disappeared from view.
“Tell me,” Geoff said, his voice low. He led me to the couch and sat down next to me.
As quickly as I could, I told him. Who Leo and Noel were, the incident at school. I left out Noel’s late night visit. That was for me alone, a memory I wanted to keep to myself.
“Wow.” Geoff’s eyes were wide. “Are you sure? I mean, you really believe it?”
I nodded. “How can I not? Especially after today, the way he charged the pendant. Leo couldn’t do anything to me. Nothing.”
He let out a low whistle. “So Leo is under control but soon Noel might not be. Right? Isn’t that what Leo was hinting at?”
“Yes,” I said. “Noel’s pretty much told me that, too. I need to find out why they want the stone. And once I know, I have to decide what to do with it.”
“I say you get rid of it,” Geoff declared. “Now. Go home, get it and get rid of it. Throw it into the river, smash it to pieces, whatever. Then they’ll leave you alone. Right?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “But then they’ll leave.”
He glared at me. “But isn’t that what you want? For God’s sake, Val, they are stalking you. Don’t you want them to leave you alone?”
“Yes. Kind of. I don’t know.”
He exploded. “What? Are you insane?!”
“It’s complicated,” I said. But I knew it was only complicated to me. Because I didn’t want Noel to leave.
“You’re totally under his spell,” he said in an accusing voice. “You don’t want him to go, do you? Valerie, are you blind?”
“No. That’s part of the problem…” I stared at the couch, unwilling to meet his eyes.
“See? You’re admitting it. He’s just a pretty package, Val—they both are. All wrapped up, beautiful to look at. But inside, it’s empty. They are empty.”
“No he’s not!” I protested. How could I describe how Noel made me feel? I forged ahead recklessly, trying to convince Geoff as well as myself. “He makes me feel special. Important. As if I’m the only person in the world he cares about.”
“You are,” he pointed out. “Because you have what he wants. Once he has the stone do you really think he’s gonna stick around? Or care about you? Why would you even want him to? Be real! This is all a game and he’s using you like a pawn.”
But I already knew the answers to the question Geoff was asking. Noel did care about me
and he wasn’t using me. At least not yet. And if I ditched the stone, he would leave. And I didn’t want him to.
“I don’t see how knowing why they want the stone makes a difference,” Geoff said. “Do you think you can change their minds or something? Why is that even part of the equation?”
“Because I want to understand,” I said desperately. “I need to know why he wants it so badly and why that might change how he’ll act toward me.”
Geoff sighed and shook his head. “You are absurd. Or crazy. Probably both.” He put his head in his hands and dragged his fingers down the length of his face. “OK. How do we find out why they want it? What do you have to go on?”
“Not much,” I acknowledged. “There was something Noel said the other day…” My thoughts strayed back to the previous night.
“What?”
I struggled to remember. “The Young Dryas?”
He raised his eyebrows. “The Younger Dryas? That was the last ice age. Well, it wasn’t really an ice age. The last big climate change.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
He shrugged. “Sure. I did a project on climate change a couple years back. A lot of people think what we’re experiencing now is not a one-time global warming but a cyclical warming period that will be followed by a mini ice age. The Younger Dryas occurred a few thousand years after the last known ice age, after the earth warmed and the ice melted. Some people point to the Younger Dryas era as an indicator of what might be coming. Others theorize that it’s the greatest proof we have that what we are experiencing now is not attributed to greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions. You can spin it either way, depending upon how you interpret the data.”
He’d lost me with his detailed explanation.
“Why would he bring that up? Of all things?” I wondered out loud. “How on earth does that tie into any of this?”
We were both silent.
“I think the message is pretty clear,” Hope said softly.
Chapter 40
She and Fanchon stood in the hallway together. “I’m sorry, Valerie. I wanted to give you privacy but…well, we overheard some of what you said.”
“About Noel and Leo?” I asked.
She nodded. “Here.” She held out an armful of dry clothes. “Go change and then we’ll talk.”
I took the clothes from her. I found the bathroom and stripped out of my wet stuff, quickly pulling on the white t-shirt and soft black pants she’d loaned me. I returned to find all three of them seated in the living room, waiting for me.
I sat down on the couch between Geoff and Fanchon. “So what does it mean?” I blurted out.
Hope wrapped a long strand of hair around her finger and twirled it. “Well, if I had to wager a guess, I’d say it has to do with the seasons and the wheel of the year,” she said. She studied me intently. “He is the Holly King, right? The god of winter?”
I nodded.
“And this stone you found…I haven’t seen it but you said it has a Celtic cross inside?”
Again, I nodded.
“Do you have it with you?” she asked.
“No, I left it at home,” I said. “It’s easier that way.” I told her about Leo.
Geoff spoke up. “I have a drawing, though. If you want to see it.” He pulled his wallet out of his jeans pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper. Wordlessly, he handed it to Hope.
She studied it for a few minutes.
“So?” I couldn’t hide my impatience. “What do you think?”
She sighed. “OK, here’s my take on things. I think the stone represents the wheel of the year. The perpetual changing of the seasons. Everything is balanced, the seasons turn as they are supposed to. The circle around the Celtic cross is a reminder of this, of the wheel that the Celtic religion celebrated. Noel and Leo are manifestations of the gods these people worshiped, the gods that, figuratively at least, battled during Midsummer and Midwinter to regain control. I think the stone that you have, the stone with the cross inside of it, is the actual wheel, Valerie.”
“I don’t get it.”
Geoff looked puzzled, too.
“The stone is the wheel,” Fanchon repeated. She put her hand to her forehead. “Of course. That’s why they want it.”
“Still lost…”
Fanchon turned to me excitedly. “Don’t you see? If one of them has possession of the stone, they could become more powerful.”
I interrupted her. “How can a stone be a wheel…the wheel? It’s just a rock I found hidden in the woods!” My head was spinning.
“Hidden?” Hope asked, her eyebrows raised.
I thought back to its location, deep within that hole by the old oak tree, surrounded by a circle of stones and an even larger circle of trees. I remembered how it illuminated the forest, softly at first, then stronger as it beckoned to me, nearly forcing me to seek it out. “It was in a hole…”
She nodded. “Nestled safe and secure within the Goddess herself. Mother Earth. And then you found it—how, isn’t important—and now it isn’t so safe anymore.”
I said nothing.
Fanchon continued, her eyes bright. “So if either one of them possess the wheel, they could control the seasons. If Leo had it, he would reign as the Oak King all year long. He wouldn’t die his symbolic death, he wouldn’t have to retreat, to relinquish his power…and it would be summer forever. Well, summer and fall, anyway, since those are the seasons he rules over. Same thing with Noel, but it would perpetually be winter and spring.”
“Like the Younger Dryas,” Geoff said slowly. “That period of time lasted one-thousand years. The earth cooled as much as eighteen degrees from current average temperatures. No one knows how many species of plants and animals died during the last Ice Age and the subsequent Younger Dryas period.” His face was filled with doubt. “Are you trying to say that this climate change had to do with the whims of a Celtic god?”
“Well, it’s as good as any other theory out there,” Fanchon retorted. “Is a large asteroid falling to the earth and wiping out the dinosaurs any more believable?”
“Um…yes.” He looked at her as if she’d just fallen from the sky.
“Look,” Hope interrupted. “Let’s just focus on the things we do know.” She settled back in her chair and thought for a moment. “One: Valerie has a stone with a Celtic cross inside of it. Not etched, not painted, but inside the stone. Two: as soon as she found it, two mysterious strangers, strangers with some fairly unusual powers, started following her. Three: she has been led to believe—and been given some pretty strong circumstantial evidence—that these two boys are Celtic gods. More specifically, the gods of winter and summer. Four: she has been told by one of these gods—or boys—that they are each on a quest for the stone.” She looked at me. “Is that about right?”
It was a stripped down summary, but it was right.
“So the big question still remains: why do they want the stone.” Hope looked at me and Geoff. “Do you two have any other theories?”
I glanced at Geoff. “I’ve got nothing.”
He sighed deeply. “Me, neither.”
Hope smiled. “OK, so let’s just assume I’m right. They want the stone because it is the wheel of the year. If one of them has it, he controls the seasons and doesn’t die. What god wouldn’t want to control that? Right?” She looked at me. “Valerie, you need to decide. Is this something you want to give to one of them?”
All three faces turned to stare at me.
I balked. “What? I don’t know…” I stammered.
“How is this even a choice?” Geoff said angrily. “Do you understand the ramifications of this if all of this is actually true? You’re talking about major temperature changes, monumental climate change! Entire species will disappear…and humans might be one of them! What do you mean you don’t know?”
Fanchon put her hand on Geoff’s arm. “Stop. Give her a minute.”
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. “I have the fate of the entire hum
an population in my hands? As if what I’m already dealing with isn’t enough?”
“I understand why you’re torn,” Hope said quietly. “You love him. Noel.”
I started to protest but she held up her hand to silence me. “It’s not a question you have to answer. And you don’t have to defend your emotions. But what you do have to decide is what you’re going to do with the stone. Decide with total and complete conviction. No looking back. No regrets.”
“Let’s go,” Geoff said, standing up. “We’ll go now. We’ll get the damn thing and destroy it.”
“Geoff.” Hope’s tone was reproachful. “Leave the poor girl be. She doesn’t have to decide now. Leo can’t touch her, not with Noel’s protection.”
“Yeah, but what about him?” Geoff spat out the word. “As if he’s going to leave her alone.”
“She has until Midsummer’s Eve,” Fanchon said. “June 22nd. That’s when the symbolic battle takes place, when Noel comes into his full power. It’s more than a month away.”
“I cannot believe this!” Geoff stormed out of the house.
I stood to follow him but Hope got up quickly and sat down beside me. Before I could stop her, she gathered me in her arms.
“You don’t have to decide anything now,” she said softly. “You have time.”
I felt the tears threatening.
She held me close. “But you do know…you do realize that, whatever you decide, he will leave. Maybe he’ll offer you something for the stone. Or maybe he won’t leave right away. But he will. He’s not of this world, hon.”
I knew this. And I knew what my decision had to be. But I couldn’t do it yet because I wasn’t prepared to say goodbye. I didn’t know if I would ever be ready for that.
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