I spotted the tube lying on my bedspread, and picked it up as I past. Biting at the sides of my lips to keep from laughing at my forgetful friend, I slid it onto the dresser beside her.
“Thanks!” Sam called out after me, her voice half embarrassed, half wondering how the heck I knew what she was doing.
Chapter Three
Waking Up
Despite staying out way too late at The Underground, we were early to Spanish the next morning.
“Hey, save a seat for Mattie. She said she’d be a little late. I need to go get calculus notes from Elliot.” Sam nodded her head toward a be-speckled guy in the front row. When she set her bag in the seat beside me, I couldn't help but notice the top of a new Scoop! magazine sticking out of the top.
“May I?” I pointed to the magazine as she turned to leave.
“Take it. I never read them,” Sam dismissed her father’s magazine as if it was beneath her journalistic integrity. It was the only time Sam’s snobby side came out.
I had just made it past the “Closet Thieves” section where it compared stars side by side in the same outfit when Sam slinked back into her seat with an ashen face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked suddenly concerned for her health.
“Um...Faye, Meghan’s been talking about you,” Sam chanced a look over her shoulder to be sure no one could hear our conversation.
“That’s nothing new, Sam,” I laughed at her concern. “She’s been doing it since the first day I got here.”
“No, not that…” Sam fiddled with her notebook, tucking the notes she had just gotten from Elliot into a pocket, as she thought. “She’s telling everyone you’re some sort of witch.” Sam looked at me, waiting to see my reaction. All she got was a snorted laugh of disbelief.
“And why would she say that?” I asked, feeling the blood drain from my face.
“Something about your riding lesson yesterday?” Sam looked confused, and turned to face me.
I knew exactly what she was talking about. When I had fallen yesterday, Diablo’s hooves ended up right beside my face. As he began to struggle to free himself from the jump standard, he nearly kicked me in the nose. At the time, my only thought was to keep him from hurting us both. So, I had grabbed hold of his leg with one hand, soothing him just as I had Hannah months ago, and he stopped flailing long enough for us to get the jump off of him. The second I released his foot, his took off bucking around the arena.
No one had mentioned it then, so I assumed no one had noticed. Apparently Meghan had, and now she was telling everyone I had some sort of magical animal whispering powers.
“Of course she would,” I sighed, and tossed the magazine onto Sam’s desk.
“What happened?”
“I just kept the horse from freaking out when we fell. Meghan obviously doesn’t know how to calm things down. She only knows how to stir things up,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the back of her red head seated on the front row like a princess.
“So, it’s not a big deal?”
“I don’t think so,”
“Other people do that?”
“I’ve seen some who can. It depends on the person and the horse.” That was stretching it, but not a total lie. Dayne had the same effect on animals I did.
“Oh, good, I’m not late,” Mattie said, sliding into the seat beside me, still in her running clothes.
“Hey, you didn’t wake me up,” I said moving my bag so she had room.
“You were totally knocked out. I don’t think a fire alarm would’ve woken you this morning,” Mattie laughed as she sniffed her under arm. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to shower.”
“Where is the professor anyway?” Sam asked rhetorically, looking at her watch and back to the clock on the wall. Class officially started ten minutes ago.
“Hey guys! Listen up!” Bespeckled Elliot made his way to the front of the lecture hall, whistling between his fingers to get everyone’s attention. “I say we use the fifteen minute rule. According to my watch, if the teacher doesn’t show up in five minutes we can leave and not get counted absent. You with me?” He asked, grinning confidently at the crowd. No way would anyone disagree with leaving an 8am class.
“So,” he clapped his hands together and rubbed them excitedly. “What should we do to pass the time?” He looked eagerly at his audience, waiting for someone to come up with an idea. Unfortunately, everyone’s brains were turning slowly so early in the morning.
I had turned back to Sam’s magazine, trying to forget what she had just told me about Meghan, when I heard her voice.
“Faye, did you put some sort of sleeping spell on Ms. Garcia?” Meghan mocked me as she turned to face us. The girls on either side of her burst into laughter and high-fived each other.
My face flamed red, but I kept it buried in the magazine.
“Why don’t you shut up Meghan? Spreading rumors like that only makes you look stupid!” Sam barked from the seat beside me with the ferocity of a pitbull.
Dread washed from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, and I groaned inwardly, knowing this wasn’t going to end well. From behind the magazine, I peeked at the clock hanging on the wall between two huge windows.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, Sam? Or do you have a hard time staying out of everyone else’s lives like your father?” Meghan had turned around in her seat to face us, and every eye in the room volleyed back and forth between the two, more than happy to watch a cat fight to fill the remaining minutes.
“Oh please, Meghan. Don’t act like you don’t devour every word he prints.” Sam stood from her chair, peering down the slope of stadium seats to where Meghan and her minions sat. From the corner of my eye, I watched her hand ball to a fist at her side.
“Yeah, just to read the latest gossip about Faye. That is the only reason you’re friends with her, right? To get the dirt for Daddy?” Meghan laughed in Sam’s face as she spoke.
“No, I’m friends with her because she isn’t a stuck up snob like you.” Sam lurched forward, only to be stopped by Mattie’ strong arms.
“Oh, poor baby, is that the real reason why you left Whitney after ninth grade? Couldn’t hang with the big girls?” Meghan’s voice was mockingly whiny and pitiful, enough to make me want to fly at her and rip every strand of hair from her head. But I couldn’t. If I opened my mouth and got into the middle of this there was no telling what might come out. I couldn’t say anything. I just had to sit there like a pathetic bump on a log and listen to it all or risk exposing myself for what I really was.
When a voice frozen with icy contempt interrupted their verbal sparing, I startled behind my magazine.
“No Meghan, she probably got tired of looking at the nasty somebody farted look that’s taken up permanent residence on your face.” Behind my magazine I snorted in shock, and looked up into Mattie’s unflinching gaze. Meghan momentarily recoiled and washed the evil, omnipresent smirk from her face.
“Stay out of this, Mattie. I didn’t ask you.” Meghan shook her head and narrowed her eyes.
“Like I care what you ask.” Mattie stepped in front of Sam and me, making her way down the aisle toward Meghan’s group. “Sam’s my friend, and so is Faye. If you’ve got a problem with them, I’ve got a problem with you.” Mattie stopped halfway, the powerful muscles of her body going rigid as she stared at the evil redheaded witch.
“Well then, I guess we have a big problem.” Meghan stood at her seat, but the confidence in her face was quickly washing away, replaced by unfiltered fear. Mattie wasn’t like the pampered princesses Meghan had gone to school with. She wouldn’t be backed down by nasty words and a few ugly stares.
“Trust me Meghan, you don’t want to go there with me. I’m nothing like the girls you went to school with. You can’t bully me into submission. I fight back. And in case you haven’t heard...I don’t lose.”
“Oh, really?” Meghan cocked her head to the side. The atmosphere in the room had gone electric, everyone hanging on th
eir dangerous volley of words. Beside me, Sam still stood rigidly straight. Fearing the violence that was about to erupt, and knowing I had to stick up for my friends who were defending me, I rose to stand beside Sam, both of us at Mattie’s back.
I wanted more than anything to be back in my dorm room, still sleeping under the covers. How had this escalated so quickly? My nerves were almost shot, terrified of what I might unleash if this altercation got physical. My body was growing way to strong, and I didn’t have the first clue how to contain it.
Mattie looked coldly into Meghan’s eyes and simply shrugged.
The room seemed suspended in time, awaiting the move that would send everything careening over the edge. Suspense kicked at my stomach like a bass drum, and the room began to spin as I fought to keep my anger under control.
Only, I was quickly losing that fight.
Every second that ticked off that clock reverberated like a cymbal clanging in my head. Trying to distract myself, I focused on the clock, watching the seconds tick away until we would be free to leave. Without an audience, and pride to defend, surely Meghan and Mattie would drop it. When the tiny red hand finally made its way around to the twelve for the last time, a relief took over my body so profound I feared I might hit the floor.
But I didn’t, instead every muscle in my body tensed like I was suddenly charged with a live wire. I focused even harder on the clock, so hard, too hard, unable to pull my attention away. My mind began to ache and the next second, the glass face of the clock shattered into a million pieces, raining to the floor like crystal confetti.
Sitting on the front row, Meghan and her friends were the closest ones to its spray. They screamed and jumped from their seats, raising their arms for protection.
Staring openmouthed at what I had just done, I barely caught the bile that charged up my throat. Fleeing the classroom, I ran in a blind daze, unable to remember where the bathroom was. My head ached, the blood rushing so violently around my brain I saw nothing but cloudy shapes. Holding on to the old stone wall, I staggered down the hallway, not knowing where I was going, but knowing I had to get away.
My hand brushed a door knob, and when I turned it, it gave way. I ended up in an empty class room, still darkened in the early morning light. A metal trash can stood beside the teachers desk in front and I ran to it, barely making it before I heaved up the pop tart I had eaten for breakfast.
“Faye? Are you okay?” Sam asked rushing in behind me.
“I’m fine,” I choked on the words, wiping my mouth as I plopped to the floor and leaned my back against the desk.
Sam gasped, and her eyes flew wide.
“Are you knocked up?” Her eyes went wild with shock as she watched me wipe the vomit from my mouth.
“Definitely not knocked up,” I shook my head.
“Nope, I can vouch for that. Our periods synced the first month we lived together,” Mattie said, slipping through the door and closing it behind her.
“Confrontation makes me….nervous,” I waved their concern away and took the bottle of water Mattie offered me.
“Ugh, not me! What I wouldn’t do to that red haired monster!” Sam growled under her breath, and ground her fist into her palm.
“Um, did you guys see the clock explode?” Mattie was grinning from ear to ear, totally unfazed by her near fight. “It barely missed Meghan. Serves her right.”
“I did, what happened?” Sam turned to Mattie, but I kept my eyes on the Kleenex I had taken from the desk, knowing exactly what had happened, and praying they wouldn’t ask me. I couldn’t lie to them, and I feared my brain was too foggy to come up with a way around the truth.
“Probably just as old as everything else in this place. But man, to see the look on her face!” Mattie hugged her waist and rocked back and forth in laughter. “Priceless!” She was rolling with laughter, not even trying to control her giggle fit.
“Well, I guess we have a big problem!” Sam puffed herself up and did her best impression of Meghan, smelly-fart face and all. They both collapsed into another fit of giggles and I tried to laugh along, but I couldn’t.
Something was wrong with me. Something I had never experience before. My magic was waking up, and without Dayne around to show me how to use it, I didn’t have a clue what was about to happen to me.
Chapter Four
Running Down A Dream
Weeks had passed since the episode with Meghan and the clock. I still saw her every day at the barn, but since that day in Spanish class we were cutting wide paths around each other. She still spread her stories about me—I couldn’t call them lies, because she was right, there was something magical about me. And everyday it seemed as though that magic burned brighter.
Some people believed her stories, but most thought they were ridiculous and assumed it was more of Meghan’s predictable tricks. A few of the girls on the team warmed to me, having suffered enough of Meghan’s hateful ways themselves. They weren’t friends like Sam and Mattie, but it was nice to be greeted with a smile when I entered the barn.
One Friday, near the end of October, my future again came into focus. That afternoon, I had finished at the barn early and hurried back to my dorm room, hoping to catch a nap before Mattie finished class. We had stayed up late studying, and I was utterly wiped out.
Our room was mercifully cool that afternoon. I slipped out of my riding clothes and between the cotton sheets, snuggling into the feather mattress that reminded me of my bedroom in Clonlea. It didn’t take long at all for me to fall into an unconscious sleep.
I was sitting beside a little girl, her eyes black as night, but warm and welcoming as they stared up at me. Her round cheeks pulled into a plump smile, revealing a missing tooth, its replacement already popping through her gum in a crooked white line. She held my hand, hot and clammy, in hers. I felt the strangest connection to the little girl, like she held the end of a string that was tethered to my heart. I didn’t want to let her go.
When the dream went black and white I knew it was my future, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where the little girl with black eyes had come from, or where we were.
“Faye.” My name echoed in an accent that was completely foreign to my ears. Confusion ruffled my eyebrows and I turned my head to hear her better.
“Faye,” she uttered again in a disconnected voice. Her lips never moved, but the words were definitely hers. When I didn’t answer, her smile stretched back to her ears where two thick black braids framed her round cherub’s face.
“Don’t be afraid for me, Faye,” her words were broken Spanish, barely understandable to my ears, but I knew immediately she was headed for some great danger, and I was the only one who could save her.
“No,” I screamed fearfully, shaking my head and pulling her hand to my chest.
“Let me go, Faye,” she spoke again in her disconnected, broke Spanish, and released my hand. Tears sprang to my eyes and I grasped for any part of her I could hold onto, refusing to let her go. I knew if I let her go, I could no longer protect her from whatever danger she was facing.
“Faye!” My name was different this time, the little girl’s lips moved, but her voice was no longer strange to me. As I looked down at our clasped, black and white hands, the vision began to fade.
“Faye!” Again the second voice came, more urgent and insistent this time. In the back of my mind, I knew the little girl was a dream, but part of me knew I had to stay with her. She needed me to protect her from some great danger.
A violent shaking took over my body, and when I opened my eyes again, I was staring up at Mattie, her hands on my shoulders, jolting me from my dream.
“Faye, you have got to quit doing that!” She half screamed with a glare that was as terrified as it was concerned, bringing her hand up to her heart and sighing with relief.
“Doing what?” I asked, yawning in confusion.
“These dreams you keep having. You yell out in your sleep and I can’t wake you. It’s terrifying. Lik
e you’ve been possessed or something,” Mattie sat down beside me on the bed and began to take off her sneakers.
“I’ve been dreaming a lot?”
“Every night for the last few weeks,” she stood and walked over to the door, removing her shoes beside my boots.
“What do I say in my sleep?” I asked, fearing I may have shared my secrets.
“You mumbled weird things, like another language. And I can’t wake you once it starts. Half the time I sleep with a pillow over my head.” She grabbed a bottle of water from our mini fridge and offered one to me. I nodded my head and held my hands out for her to toss it to me. Grabbing one for herself, she came back to sit on my bed.
“Sorry if I’ve kept you up,” I offered, taking a small sip of water.
“Maybe you should get more exercise. You would sleep better,” she raised her eyebrows in a hopeful way, and gave me a smile.
“Start running with you in the mornings?” I wrinkled my nose as if the thought of getting up any earlier was physically painful.
“Well, since that all your running is on horseback, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to keep up with me,” she leaned into me as she joked, which was kind of odd. Mattie was always so focused, she hardly ever cracked jokes.
“Please, I could out run you with my eyes closed!” I snorted as if she had insulted me, and shot a sassy look over my shoulder at her.
“Want to make a bet?” Her eyes gleamed with the promise of a challenge.
“I’ll take you on anytime, Mattie. You just say when and where.” My competitive streak was coming out, and even though I knew Mattie would leave me in the dust, I was enjoying joking around with her. Besides, what was a little foot race between friends?
“Great. Tonight. We’re running the redwoods with Thomas’ friends.” Mattie tossed a victorious smile over her shoulder as she stood up and tossed her black bob in a sassy way, imitating the look I had given her earlier.
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