by Бри Деспейн
“What you said just a minute ago about Jude not being capable of ransacking Day’s Market by himself … Well, Jude may or may not have been involved in what happened, but whoever did do this couldn’t have been acting alone.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Bombshell
LATER THAT SAME DAY
It hadn’t taken long after Christmas vacation and school starting up again for people in our neighborhood to notice that Jude was gone and that
Mom wasn’t exactly acting like her usual Martha-Stewart-meets-Florence-Nightingale self. By the end of the first week of school in January, the whole parish knew that something was off with the Divines, and Dad decided that he should make some sort of statement to his parishioners. He’d wanted to tell the truth. At least the version of it that didn’t involve werewolves—my own mother didn’t even know that much, and considering her fragile mental state, it was probably for the best.
“All I want to say is that Jude was troubled and ran away,” Dad had explained to us. “And we’d appreciate everyone’s patience while our family adjusts.”
But Mom wouldn’t allow it. She hated the idea of people judging her parenting, thinking anything ill of our family.
“So what do you want us to do?” Dad had asked her.
“We lie,” she said.
“To the entire town?” I asked.
“Yes.” She rocked back and forth in her chair and stared at the TV set. “He’ll be home soon. We’ll find him. Nobody will know anything was ever wrong.”
So that second Sunday in January, Dad fed the “official” story to Rose Crest—lied to everyone right over the pulpit. According to what my mother wanted him to say, Jude had gone to live with Grandma and Grandpa Kramer in Florida, because they needed help around the house after
Grandpa’s back surgery—and Dad would occasionally be flying down to help, too.
But people aren’t stupid. They were bound to notice that Jude had been gone for almost ten months without coming home to visit once. And that his disappearance coincided with a mysterious “dog attack” inside the parish that had put Daniel in the ICU for a week. They were bound to notice that Mom could barely make it through one of Dad’s sermons, with that fake grin plastered on her face and her eyes completely glassed over. They were going to notice that Dad was “flying down to Florida” to help his in-laws more often than he was home some weeks.
Which meant people were also going to talk.
I knew it wasn’t possible to come completely clean about everything that had happened in the last year, but on top of knowing the secrets of the underworld and lying to everyone about my brother’s disappearance, I also had to hide the fact that I could hear what people said about my family and me behind our backs. Another less exciting perk of having superhuman hearing that decides to kick in at the most inconvenient times.
Most people are genuinely nice, you know. But some people were nice only to my face, and I could hear them whisper about my family when they thought I was well out of earshot. They liked to speculate about how Jude must have been on drugs, or how he possibly ran away to join a cult. Or maybe he was at one of those schools out west where they make messed-up kids hike through the desert without enough water.
“I always knew that kid was too perfect to be for real. I bet they were all getting high in the parish that night,” I heard Brett Johnson—one of Jude’s friends—whisper once when I was a good block away from him and his girlfriend.
I knew people called my mom crazy when they thought I couldn’t possibly hear them.
Only slightly less annoying was the stuff people at school would say about me. I’d always been used to people watching me, judging me, because
I was the pastor’s daughter. But now I was pretty much the school pariah when my back was turned—which is apparently what happens to you when the captain of the school hockey team gets arrested and then kicked out of school for assaulting you. I mean, seriously, I had no idea HTA was so fanatic about hockey until I got blamed for us losing our chance to win State last year. Never mind the fact that Pete Bradshaw was the one who attacked me.
And I couldn’t even react, because normal people aren’t supposed to hear what others say about them when they’re two rooms away. So I have to admit that when my superhearing decided to act up at school today, I felt only slightly guilty that the masses had a whole new topic of juicy gossip to chew on.
News spread quickly about what happened at Day’s Market, and the speculations about the culprit only heightened when my second-period gym class was cancelled because it was discovered there had been an attempted break-in at the school through one of the gymnasium windows.
And by third period, rumors flew like spit wads across the halls when it was announced that all religion classes were cancelled, too, because Mr.
Shumway, the religion teacher, hadn’t shown up for school.
Some people claimed that Mr. Shumway was missing, but as I walked by the main hall I overheard one of the secretaries inside the principal’s office say that Mr. Shumway had up and quit first thing this morning. But that didn’t make any sense at all since Mr. Shumway had been teasing our class with some big surprise for the last two weeks, and he was supposedly going to tell us the details today. I was almost ready to believe the guy about fifty yards down the hall from my locker who said he heard that Mr. Shumway had “seen something” connected with the break-in. And it had freaked him out so bad he refused to come back to the school.
There was so much chatter, in fact, that by the time I got to fourth period all I could do was lay my head on the art table and clamp my hands over my ears.
“That bad?” Daniel asked as he slipped into the seat next to mine.
“Blech. This whole not being able to turn on and off my superhearing whenever I want is getting to be way too nauseating. Oh, and remind me not to walk past the boys’ locker room when my hearing is acting up. For a bunch of Christian guys, they sure have dirty mouths.”
Daniel laughed. The vibration made me want to pound my forehead against the table.
“Sorry,” Daniel whispered. He cleared his throat. “So do you think Jude may have had something to do with the attempted break-in at the gym?”
he asked as quietly as possible. “Coach Brown says he thinks whoever did it must have been after the computers in the lab next door. But my guess is that Jude went there after Day’s.”
I lifted my head just as April Thomas flitted past our table and headed for her spot in the back of the room. Her eyes flicked in my direction for a quarter of a second, but then she went straight to the table she shared with Kimberly Woodruff without making any other acknowledgment that I was even alive. I remembered not too long ago when she and I shared a table together—last year, when we were the only juniors allowed in Mr. Barlow’s
AP art class. Back before Daniel returned to town and April started dating my brother and everything got weird between us.
“What do you think?” Daniel asked.
I didn’t want to believe it, but it would make sense that Jude would go to the school after Day’s, considering that’s where he went the same night he planted Jessica Day’s body behind the market. He’d gone to the gym looking for Daniel at the Christmas dance.
I was about to comment on Daniel’s theory when someone behind me said, “Hey, guys!” so loud I jumped in my seat.
Daniel and I turned in our chairs to see Katie Summers, the new transfer student from Brighton, standing there with a handful of charcoal pencils tied with a bright orange ribbon, which looked surprisingly like a bra strap. It matched perfectly with the funky handmade headband in her blond A-
line bobbed hair. “Wow, Grace, your hair looks great today. You should wear it up all the time. It’s totally quirky.”
Coming from most people, that might sound like a backhanded compliment—especially since I’d worn my hair up in a messy ponytail because I hadn’t bothered to do anything else with it this morning—but from someone like Katie, who brough
t her tofu sandwiches and organic wheatgrass juice in a varying collection of vintage lunch boxes, quirky seemed like a good thing.
“Um, thanks,” I said. Considering my own best friend didn’t even talk to me anymore, I always found it surprising when anyone at school other than my teachers or Daniel actually made an effort to engage me in conversation. “You look awesome, as always.”
Which she did.
Katie was one of those naturally beautiful people who could wear a dress made out of a dyed blue potato sack to a school picnic—which she had back in September—and still look drop-dead gorgeous.
“You’re too sweet.” Katie turned her cobalt blue eyes on Daniel. “Hey,” she said. “Thanks for letting me borrow your charcoal pencil last week. I so wouldn’t have finished my project on time without you.” She held out the bundle of pencils with her many-ringed fingers and offered it to Daniel. “This is for you.”
“Really? Thanks, Katie.” Daniel’s cheeks tinged with pink, and he seemed extra careful not to touch the bra-strap-resembling ribbon. “You barely used my pencil, though. You didn’t need to get me these.”
“Anything for my hero,” she said, and smiled at him.
I liked Katie, I really did. She didn’t treat me in a hands-off manner like most everyone else at HTA lately. And I’d never once heard her say anything bad about me behind my back. But what I didn’t like about Katie was the way she smiled at Daniel. Not to mention the way she always asked his opinion about her latest projects—which were always as stunning as she was. Her parents had moved to Rose Crest during the summer just so she could be in Holy Trinity Academy’s advanced art program.
Daniel’s cheeks got pinker.
I kicked him in the shin. A little too hard.
“Ow. So not necessary,” he said, but gave me a sarcastically devious smile.
“Talk to you guys later,” Katie said. “I think today’s the big day, don’t you?”
Ugh. I laid my head back down on the table and listened to her shoes glide across the linoleum floor toward a table on the other side of the room.
The big day was the last thing I even had the energy to think about right now.
AFTER LUNCH
But the bombshell dropped right after fifth period started.
AP art was a two-period class with a lunch break in the middle. And when Daniel and I came back from grabbing a bite to eat, Mr. Barlow asked us to come into his office. Everyone had been speculating about when the big announcement was going to happen because Mr. Barlow had been acting weird for the last couple of weeks. He’d loom over our tables while we worked, watching our every brushstroke, making it impossible for me to paint a straight line—and causing me to lose what little hope I had that the big day was going to hold anything but disappointment for me.
Which was why I was more than shocked when I realized Barlow wasn’t just inviting Daniel into his office at the moment.
April was already in there. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked away when I entered. Katie Summers sat next to Barlow’s desk, looking a bit green but still excited. She smiled and waved at Daniel when he followed me into the office.
Mr. Barlow shut his office door behind him. He took a stack of large white envelopes from his desk and passed out one to each of us. April turned hers over and practically yelped. I flipped mine over and felt my heart speed up. I slid my hand across the sapphire-blue embossed logo of the
Amelia Trenton Art Institute.
This really was the big day.
And I was included?
“As you know,” Mr. Barlow said after he’d taken his seat behind his desk, “Trenton is a very competitive school. HTA has one of the few art programs in the Midwest from which Trenton will even consider students. To keep up the reputation of our program, I hand select the students from my AP class each year who I feel are best suited to apply for the program. There are only four applications to go around this year, and each of you is holding one.”
Daniel took in a deep breath beside me, as if savoring the moment.
I just plain couldn’t breathe.
“The application is due in a month. You will need to take photographs of your best pieces to make a portfolio of your work, get two letters of recommendation—I will provide one of them for each of you—and write two personal essays. You must mail the package by the date on the application, or you will not be considered. This is your one chance for Trenton, people—don’t blow it.”
April shook like a happy puppy. Katie hugged the application to her chest. Daniel wrapped his arm around me and gave my shoulders a squeeze.
“We did it, Grace,” he whispered, and kissed the side of my head.
“Don’t start celebrating yet.” Barlow clasped his hands on top of his desk. He usually did that when he was about to deliver the catch. “Trenton usually accepts only one HTA student a year—occasionally two.” His eyes flicked between Daniel and me. Then he looked at April and Katie. “I chose you four because you have a real shot. Do your absolute best with the applications, and maybe we’ll set a new record this year.” He stroked his handlebar mustache. “Now get out of my office and get back to work.”
“Good luck, ladies!” Katie said after we left the office. “Daniel”—she put her hand on his arm—“I want to make sure my painting is just right for my portfolio. Do you mind looking over it for me? Everyone knows you’re the best.”
“Um. Yeah. Sure.” He gave my shoulders another squeeze and then followed her to her table.
I drifted over to my chair and sat there for a moment, staring at the Trenton packet in front of me. I’d convinced myself that there was no way Mr.
Barlow was going to give me an application; besides my recent unsteady hand, my grades had taken a real dip last winter—what with finding out my true love was a werewolf, and my brother’s wreaking havoc all over town.
Daniel talked about Trenton on a daily basis. What it would be like for the two of us to go there together. He wanted to be an industrial designer—
to make functional art that people could hold in their hands and that would change the way they lived their lives—and it was one of the reasons he came back to Rose Crest. Besides looking for a cure for his werewolf curse, that is. It was his dream for us to go off to college together. Leave behind curfews and the sideways glances of everyone in town. Escape the memories of his terrible father, which haunted him each time he had to walk past his old home in order to get to mine.
Katie erupted into laughter on the other side of the room. I glanced over and saw Daniel grinning in that wry way of his as he pointed at something in her painting. Obviously, he’d just made some sort of joke—but my superhearing had faded away sometime during lunch, so I didn’t know what he’d said.
But Katie was right about him: Daniel was the best. We all knew he was the shoo-in for Trenton. It didn’t matter that he should have graduated last year. He’d all but been promised a spot in Trenton by one of the admissions counselors if he graduated from HTA. The real competition was between April, Katie, and me to see who got a possible second spot at the art institute.
My odds seemed slim. I mean, April was killer with pastels, and Katie was better at acrylics than anyone else in the class. But then again, even though charcoal had always been my specialty, with Daniel’s tutelage I was really getting the hang of oils. I’d gotten two A-pluses from Barlow this semester, and he saved those only for projects he thought were truly special. And Barlow had said it himself: he wouldn’t have given me this application if he didn’t think I stood a chance.
As the shock wore off, I felt tears well in the corners of my eyes. I brushed them away. This was a happy moment, but I’d never been a fan of crying.
Daniel left Katie’s table. He smiled at me as he carried his application back to our table. Even without superpowers, I could hear Lana Hansen and Mitch Greyson whispering from the table behind us. Apparently, Mitch had an issue with a couple of Barlow’s choices for the applications.
I shrugged and picked up my Trenton envelope and tucked it into my backpack for safekeeping.
CHAPTER FIVE
Helpless
FRIDAY EVENING
Our last-period class was cancelled because of the whole not-having-a-religion-teacher thing, and since I’d already spent an hour in study hall instead of gym class earlier in the day, I headed over to the market with Daniel to help out with the cleanup.
I was surprised by how little it seemed had been accomplished while we were gone, but then as we dug into it, I realized just how devastating the destruction was. Almost every window had been broken; there were gaping holes in the walls; and every single shelf and display had been emptied and most everything smashed. It seemed like it would take a week to sort through it all to find what was salvageable.
Daniel talked excitedly about our Trenton applications at first—showing his to Mr. Day and Chris, and telling me which of my paintings I should submit for my portfolio—but as the hours dragged on, he grew quiet and sullen like everyone else and just concentrated on clearing one foot of space at a time. The sun had long set and the Dumpster was overflowing when Mr. Day told us to go home for the night. I would have kept cleaning, but I was thankful for the reprieve—my back ached, and I could barely put one foot in front of the other.
Daniel and I picked up the last of the trash and went out the back door into the parking lot.
“I don’t think we can fit one more thing in this Dumpster,” Daniel said. “Let’s try the one at McCool’s.”
Day’s parking lot butted up against the lot of the new pub. I hefted my box of trash in my arms and followed him over to their Dumpster, trying all the way to will my superstrength to kick in, since the box of broken glass I carried felt more like it was full of bricks.
“You think the store will survive?” I put the box down on the asphalt when we got to the Dumpster, and stretched out my arms.
A group of guys horsed around by the back exit of the pub only a few yards away. Their loud bursts of laughter seemed so unnatural compared to how I felt at the moment.