by Dale, Lindy
“He looked interesting. That’s all. I’d like to meet him. Take some more shots, you know, if he’d let me. He’d be a cool model.”
“You sure that’s all? ‘Cause if it’s a friend you’re after Lace, I don’t know that he’s the type of boy you should develop a relationship with. He’s a transient. Besides, you’re here to work, not go cavorting around town with the locals.”
“Geez. It’s not like I’m going to marry him or anything. I just wanted to say hi and ask him if I could take a few pics.” Lacey’s face coloured.
Finally, the shots she was looking for came up on screen. She moved the cursor over the thumbnails and clicked to enlarge. “Here it is. Look. It gave me an idea for my final exhibition. I’m going to do a study of angels.”
She gazed at the screen. Saint Michael’s torso and head could be seen clearly but the boy was nowhere in the frame. “I don’t understand. I took a shot of him from there. It looked so cool.”
She scrolled through the next few pictures. They showed the statue but the boy was absent in them.
“He was there. Really. He was.” Lacey’s eyes flicked to Aunt Beth, then back to the screen.
Aunt Beth got up. Now wasn’t the time to be delving into the mysteries of photography. She had work to do. “Maybe there’s something wrong with your camera?”
She went back into the shop.
Lacey looked at the screen again. There was nothing wrong with her camera. That boy had, well, disappeared. Closing the lid, she stood and stretched. She couldn’t think about it now. She would go and help Aunt Beth instead. There was a whole new box of stock to be sorted and a heap of coffee cups to be washed.
*****
At five o’clock, the last customer gone, Aunt Beth rose from her place behind the counter and went to the door, flipping the closed sign over and pulling the bolt. Tired, she rubbed her fingers over her temples for a minute or two. Then she bent to the coffee table, picking up three used cups.
“Is it always this busy in here?” Lacey asked, as she helped to tidy the last few things away. “I never knew so many people lived in town.”
“Since I put the wifi and coffee in, lots of kids have started to hang out here. It’s good for business and it keeps them out of trouble but they make so much mess.” The kids loved to flick through her ‘loan’ books while they drank. They knew where she kept them and she was happy to see them used, if only they’d learn how to put them away.
“Do they ever buy anything?” It seemed pointless to have a bookshop if nothing got sold. Aunt Beth may as well have a coffee shop.
“Vampire books. They devour them as fast as I can stock them but given the current trend I suppose that’s par for the course. One group is so into it, they’ve started a book club. They meet here monthly on Thursdays and they only read vampire books. It takes all my energy to hunt down new ones for them, they read so fast.”
“I’d have thought that whole craze would be over by now.”
Aunt Beth smiled. “It’s not. And its spread to other areas of the supernatural and occult too. Stock I’ve had for years on Wicca and the like has been flying off the shelves these past few months.”
“That reminds me. Do you still do that stuff? You know, tarot and that?”
A cautious frown spread over Aunt Beth’s face. “Yes. Why?”
“I found this on the road.” Lacey pulled the crumpled card from her pocket and gave it to her aunt. “I thought you might be able to tell me about the picture. It’s so pretty.”
Beth turned the card in her hand. “It was on the road?”
“Yeah. I was going to chuck it out but there’s so much detail in it. I thought I might be able to pilfer a bit and rework it as borders for my own pieces.”
“Hmm.” Aunt Beth studied the card closer. “This is the High Priestess card.”
“What does it mean?”
“Can you remember which way it was facing when you picked it up? Right side or inverted, I mean, upside down?”
“Upside down. Is that important?”
“It is. If a card’s inverted it has a whole different meaning. I know you don’t believe ‘that crap’ as you put it, but would you like me to do a reading for you? I have my cards in the drawer under the counter.”
Lacey sat down in one of the armchairs. “Sure. Why not?” What harm could it do?
Returning with her deck, wrapped in a silken scarf, Aunt Beth went through the motions of shuffling and cutting until finally the cards were laid out on the coffee table between them. She’d asked Lacey to focus on something she’d like to know about to help with the reading. Lacey, skeptical of course, had wanted to find out what was going to happen in the near future. Would she make friends? Would she pass her exams?
The first cards Aunt Beth turned over were as she expected. There’d been sadness and now a new beginning. Things were changing and there were new people in her life, new friends too. Lacey could have done the reading herself, it was such a crock. Then Aunt Beth turned another card. The Lovers. Inverted. She was quiet for a moment, thinking.
“Am I going to fall in love or something?” Lacey all but giggled at the naked lovers entwined across the card.
Aunt Beth looked up. “The lovers don’t necessarily indicate love but they do speak of relationships. And in this instance, they’re telling us that you’re going to have to choose. A difficult choice.”
“What? Choose between two boyfriends? Cool.”
“I’m not seeing two boyfriends. As I said, this card is not always about love.”
“So, what are you seeing?”
“A difficult choice where no one can win. It will involve the heart.”
Lacey pressed her lips together. Aunt Beth was being all spacey and weird. This was so funny. She couldn’t laugh, though. It would hurt her feelings. A hard choice that involved the heart. Geez. What next? A sparkly vampire boyfriend?
Aunt Beth’s fingers flipped the next card in the array. The Tower.
“There’s danger all around, Lacey. You must take care. This card indicates a fight, a struggle or even…”
“What?”
“Sudden death. Suppressing your feelings or emotions can lead to disaster but if you’re flexible and ready to believe, the danger can be averted.”
Oh please. Now she was joking, wasn’t she? Trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding that had crept into the room, Lacey watched as her aunt turned the final card.
It couldn’t be. Not the High Priestess again. And she was inverted.
On the ceiling above them, the lights flickered as if acknowledging what lay on the table. A whisper of breeze sang down the chimney, reigniting the remnants of the fire in the grate and sending a chill skittering down Lacey’s spine. Hairs stood to attention on the back of her neck. There were heaps of cards in that deck. How the hell could it be possible for the same one to appear twice in a week? It was unbelievable. It had to be a trick.
“How did you do that?”
Aunt Beth’s face had drained of colour. “What?”
“The card. How did you make it come out of the deck?” It was freaky, that was for sure but she wasn’t about to be fooled.
“I didn’t. You picked the cards. Remember?”
Aunt Beth was right. Maybe it wasn’t a trick.
“What does it mean?”
Aunt Beth studied the card. Her fingers trembled as she skimmed the surface. Her voice, low and serious infused every corner of the room and Lacey realised that this was not a joke. Aunt Beth was entirely serious.
“There is a secret, long buried. You will need to expose the secret in order to be happy.”
But Lacey didn’t have any secrets any more. Dad knew all about the things she’d done. He’d bailed her out of the local Police Station when she’d been caught driving drunk and without a license. He’d found the stash of coke she’d taken to snorting to dull the pain after Mum’s death. He’d picked her up unconscious from parties. Aunt Beth knew it all, too. Lacey h
ad nothing to hide.
“The secret will cause you pain, more pain than you’ve ever felt,” Aunt Beth continued.
“But I don’t have any secrets. You and Dad know them all. And I’m certainly not going to go around town sharing them with everyone. What good would that do?”
Aunt Beth chewed on the side of her lip, thoughtful. “The secret is not your own.” “What the hell does that mean?”
Aunt Beth looked back at the card and then to Lacey, her face had closed. She knew something else but she wasn’t telling.
“Aunt Beth?”
“Nothing. It’s not important. They’re only cards.” Quickly, Aunt Beth scooped up the cards and wrapped them out of sight. “I wouldn’t give much credence to what they say.”
“You do.”
Aunt Beth stood and walked to the counter, sliding the deck of cards back into the bottom drawer. Lacey was sure she was being given the brush off. “Yes, but that’s me. You’ve got far better things to worry about, like passing your exams. Now let’s get home. Jezebel will be bellowing the house down for her dinner if we don’t make a move.”
Chapter Four
The idea of starting a new school at the age of seventeen wasn’t something Lacey relished but here she was, on the first day of term, standing at the steps of Angel’s Bend High. If she thought about it in real terms, it was only another nine months of her life, then it would be over. She supposed she could handle that. Hell, it couldn’t be any worse than what she’d had to deal with in the past year.
Taking a deep breath, she headed towards the tall glass front doors that announced the reception. All she had to do was sign in, fill in a few more forms, get her timetable and find out where the hell she was meant to be. Not to mention find some people who didn’t look at her like she had two heads. Easy. She could do it with her eyes shut. Not.
“Hey, you must be Lacey.” A slight, auburn haired girl tapped her on the shoulder, making Lacey start. Her long ponytail swung around her face like a sheath as she moved and she brushed it aside with a swish of her hand. She gave Lacey a tentative smile.
“Um. Yeah. And you are?” She hadn’t meant that to sound abrupt but sometimes words seemed to fly out of her mouth of their own accord.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m Abbie. Abbie Mason. My Mum is a friend of your Aunt Beth. She told me you were starting today and I should look out for you ‘cause you didn’t know anyone. I figured it must be you when I saw you at the gate. You looked new.”
Lacey returned the smile. “You mean I looked like the idiot who tried to walk ‘in’ through the ‘exit’ gate?” Ploughing hip first into the gate and almost flying headlong over it as a result hadn’t been a good way to start the morning but how was she meant to know which way it swung if the stupid gate had no signs?
“Ah, no. ‘Cause you looked a bit lost. Plus, I’ve never seen you before. Angel’s Bend’s a small place.”
That figured.
“Right. So, where’s Reception? I have to check in.”
“Come on, it’s this way,” Abbie said, leading her though the crush of students. She pointed to another glass door. “Through there.”
“Cool. And thanks, Abbie. Again.”
Abbie turned to go. “Pleasure. Hey, I have to get to Chemistry now but if you’re looking for someone to eat lunch with I usually sit on the steps that lead down to the oval. There’s a big tree there.”
“That’d be nice. I’ll see you then.”
“Good luck.”
Lacey took a breath and headed into Reception. “Thanks. Let’s hope I don’t need it.”
*****
Despite the fact that Lacey was in a new environment and everything should have been exciting and shiny, the morning dragged. She was late for every one of her classes, causing disapproving looks from some of her new teachers and the kids didn’t seem much better either. They stared at her as if she were an alien. After arriving late for fourth period, and discovering that the map she’d been so blithely following that morning had been printed upside down and she hadn’t had the sense to see it, she was in no mood for any more crap.
With another apology to the teacher and a huff, she took her place at the front of the English class, sitting down next to a boy who seemed more intent on making music with his pen on the lip of the desk than making introductions. His face was hidden by a swathe of dark, straight, product styled hair and though his eyes stayed resolutely focussed on the whiteboard at the front of the room she could tell he was watching her from the corner of his eye.
As the teacher walked down the aisle between the desks, handing out copies of the text, the boy ceased his rhythmical tapping. His eyes still trained to the distance, he leant towards her, sending a rush of air in her direction. He smelled of incense, heady and sweet, like cinnamon. It reminded her of her mother.
“So you’re Lacey.”
“What of it?”
He may have been cute-ish but she had no time for cute. She had exams to blitz, university entrance to concentrate on.
The boy turned. Lacey noted the friendliness of his dark eyes.
“Nothing. Just sayin’. I’m Zac, by the way. Zac Egan.” He opened the book they were to share and flipped to the correct page. Head down, he began to read.
As his finger paused to turn the page, Lacey put her hand over the book. Her voice was low. “How did you know my name? I’ve only been here two hours.
Zac’s head was still bent to the book. “Everyone knows your name, Lacey. We knew you were coming. We’ve been waiting.”
What the? Had there been an ad in the Angel’s Bend Times or something? And who was ‘they’?
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your aunt - Beth - she’s been telling the world that her beautiful niece was on the way for weeks. I know so much about you, I could write a book.” He lifted his head and looked at her. The smirk broadened into a full-blown smile that was mesmerising. It travelled up his face, exposing a dimple in his left cheek and lighting up his eyes.
Lacey reddened. Aunt Beth. She should have known. “What else did she say?”
“Nothing. Just that you’re gifted at art and stuff. Hey, listen… a group of us are having lunch down on the hill by the oval if you want to come.”
Lacey bit her lip. She was meant to be having lunch with that girl, Abbie. “Well, um…”
“It’s okay. Abbie will be there, too. She’s always around somewhere. You won’t have to ditch her or anything.”
Lacey froze. Was he reading her thoughts or something?
Zac chuckled. “I overheard her talking to you on my way past Reception this morning. She’s a cool chick. Bit quiet, but cool.”
He’d heard them talking. He wasn’t some weird telepathic or something. Thank freaking God for that. Not that she believed in any of that rubbish. Everyone knew that the paranormal was only something you watched on T.V.
“Okay. Lunch. Cool.”
Now, all she had to do was figure out how to find the oval in an hour’s time. She’d tossed that useless map in the bin.
Chapter Five
Angel’s Bend High wasn’t exactly a huge school. There were only two hundred kids in the whole place. Yet, to Lacey, who had come from a regional school with only fifty students tops and a lot of lessons done via School of the Air, it felt like there were a million. It was a strange new world. As she walked through the quadrangle towards the spot where she imagined the oval to be, she could hear the whispers; see the blatant stares. One or two kids smiled or introduced themselves as she walked by but none of them offered her a spot in their group. They were too busy sussing out the new girl to want to be friends. To them, she was an outsider, even if her Aunt Beth had lived in the town for as long as anyone could remember.
Halting at the gate to the oval, Lacey looked around. It was lucky she’d had invitations from Abbie and Zac. Even if she didn’t strike up a friendship with them, at least she had someone to talk to until she found some people she liked. She wouldn�
�t look like a complete loser.
“Hey, Lacey. Over here.” Under the tree on the bottom side of the oval near the stairs, a hand shot into the air and a male voice beckoned her to join them. Lacey walked towards it.
“Hey.”
Stopping at the edge of the group, she waited for an invite to sit. She was new. It didn’t pay to be pushy.
Abbie did the introductions, reeling off a pile of names that Lacey was sure she’d forget as soon as lunch was over. The other kids waved or nodded but behind their forced friendliness Lacey could feel their wary stance. She knew the deal and she didn’t blame them. They’d known each other since birth. It was hard to extend your friendship circle to include new people when it was cosy as it was.
“Everyone, this is Lacey,” Abbie added, at last, with a smile.
Lacey gave a lame wave. “Hey.”
“Sit here.” Abbie pushed one boy, Ty, along and scrooched over, patting the now vacant spot on the grass next to her. Lacey sat.
“Did you bring any lunch? I’ve got heaps if you want some. We bring our own lunch round here. The canteen’s not good for much except cold drinks and ice creams.” Abbie held out a sheet of greaseproof paper. Two fresh salad sandwiches sat on it. They looked appetizing and Lacey’s stomach let out a rumble of approval.
“Thanks, but I have some. Aunt Beth made it for me. You know, first day of school and all that. She was trying to do the right thing.”
Reaching into her bag, Lacey pulled out her sandwiches and unwrapped the paper. She pulled the lid off one sandwich and began to pick at the salad and meat inside. She’d have to ask Aunt Beth if it was okay for her to make a grain loaf when she baked next. White, no fibre bread hadn’t been her scene since she was twelve.
Zac looked up from his position on the other side of the gang. He was stretched out casually, ankles crossed, hands braced on the grass behind him. A black haired girl lay with her head on his thigh in friendly familiarity and another snuggled into his shoulder. Every now and then he lifted his hand to stroke softly at the curls that fanned across his lap.