“All right,” she said. I can handle this. Can’t I? “So we have to figure out how exactly this sorcery worked. Then we have to find a way to reverse it. Maybe we can find friends in this universe who—”
“Jennifer, hold up. I don’t think that’s what your dad would want.”
She clenched her teeth. “How the hell would you know what my dad would want?”
“Because I talked with him.”
“How? When?”
“He saw us leave your house last night,” Skip explained. “He followed us to make sure you didn’t do anything rash. You seemed upset from that argument with your mother, he said. He kept his distance while we had ice cream and walked to the park. After I had you fall asleep, he came up and asked me what I thought I was doing.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t kick your ass.”
“No, you’re lucky. Once I explained to him what was going on, he agreed I was the only one who could save you.”
“Why not him, too?”
“The necklace only helps the wearer, and the one who casts the protective sorcery. Your dad and I agreed you were the right one to save.”
“You two agreed? You two made this decision for me?”
“He’s your dad, Jennifer. What else was he supposed to do?”
“So you told him off, and he just agreed the universe was screwed, and he left?”
“Of course not. He wanted to strangle me. But we didn’t have much time, so he wrote this for you instead.” He handed her a folded piece of paper.
She slowly unfolded it. It was a utility bill to the Scales residence at 9691 Pine Street East. ($320.32, she noticed.) On the back, there was a scribbled note. The handwriting was definitely her father’s—the same hurried script he used for lists of chores she had to do, or to let her and her mother know he’d be in Crescent Valley for a few days.
Jennifer,
What can I write? There’s not enough time.
Skip has told me what will happen. When you read this, you will likely be alone. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry the world separated us before any of us were ready. And our fight—I’m sorry for that, too.
But while this may be the end for your mother and me, it cannot be the end for you. Make the best life you can, where you are. Do not try to change anything back. It will get you killed.
Grow old. Marry, if you fall in love. Live a rich life. Tell your children and grandchildren about us, if the moment is ever right. It is all a parent can ask.
Of course, your mother and I love you. Never forget that.
Stay as strong as stone. Stay as beautiful as fire. Stay alive.
—Dad
She read it twice, and then once more. Her eyes took in the words, but her brain refused to recognize them.
Where was the part that told her they would be okay?
Where was the part that told her there was a plan?
Where was the part that told her how to get back?
She crumpled the note in her hands and clenched her teeth. Grow old? Marry? Grandchildren? Here? I’m not staying here! This isn’t home!
“I’m not staying here!” she repeated aloud to Skip. “I’m not staying here! You can’t keep me here! This is insane! I want to go back, right now! Send me back!”
“Jennifer.” He frowned as he softly brushed her cheek. “You’re not listening. There is no ‘back.’ This universe isn’t parallel. It’s a replacement, a patch.”
She slapped his hand away. “Then we’re unpatching it! We’ll find—”
“Find what? Who?” He shrugged in exasperation. “Who can change it back? Where the hell would we start?”
“Mr. Slider knows,” she accused him desperately. “You said yourself he knew this was going to happen. We go to him and we make him tell us—”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “He won’t remember! He’s not the same Mr. Slider I left behind! He wasn’t in the bubble I cast with the necklace—just you and me. I replaced whatever Skip was already here—not that anyone will know that. As for you, Jennifer, Mr. Slider will have no idea who you are! If you go up to him or my aunt and order them to tell you who changed the world, they’ll think you’ve escaped from a mental institution. And with no family to speak of, that’s where you might end up!”
She sank to the ground, dragging him with her. “Skip, you have to help me. I can’t stay here like this. My parents are waiting for me. They’re worried. We were arguing, and—”
“Jennifer. Your parents are gone.”
“Don’t say that!” From her huddled position on the ground, she pushed him away. “Don’t say they’re gone! They’re not gone!”
“Read the note…”
She ripped up the utility bill and threw the pieces at him. “This note is a lie! You forged it! My mom and dad are waiting for me and you’re taking me to them right now!”
Instead of arguing anymore, he bent to pick up the pieces of paper.
“What are you doing?” she sniffled.
“You’re going to want these,” he told her tonelessly. “It’s more than either of my parents ever left me.”
A moment of curiosity got the better of her. “Are your parents alive here?”
“I haven’t looked.” He finished gathering the letter fragments and handed the small bundle to her. “If you come to my aunt’s home with me, there’s time to get you cleaned up. You can wear what you’ve got, or borrow something of mine, whatever you like. This afternoon, we can go clothes shopping—”
“Shopping!” She grabbed the bits of paper back but did not rescatter them. Instead, she shoved them in a jacket pocket. “I can’t go shopping! Skip, aren’t you going to help me?”
He heaved a long sigh and rubbed his forehead. “Jennifer, what I’d do to help you…Can you at least accept we’ll need more than an hour here to get the job done? I mean, it’s going to take time. And you need a place to stay, and you can’t wear the same outfit every day. Right?”
She bit her lip as her face reddened. Of course he wanted to help her. He already had, by saving her from the same obliteration that had taken everything else she knew. And what he said now made sense. Why was she yelling at him?
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just can’t…this is too…”
“I know.” He slid next to her on the ground and held her. “This is a lot to take in. I can barely believe it myself. We’ll work through it together, okay? Come with me.”
The next couple of hours were a blur. His house was still a two-story Cape Cod with brown shingles and a bright red door and yellow trim, so she guessed not all werachnids lived in grotesque uber-houses with spooky spires. Neither Tavia Saltin nor Edmund Slider were there at the moment. Skip said they were both teachers at the high school now, and the workday there had begun.
The house was decorated much as it had been when Jennifer saw it last, which was a cold comfort to her. Lots of shots of Tavia and Edmund together: formal portraits, vacation photos from camel rides and hiking trips—
She paused over one of them. Hiking trips. There was Edmund Slider, formerly bound to a wheelchair, now standing tall astride a forested mountain path, nothing but nature in the background, lifting his girlfriend in his arms and smiling at an unseen cameraman.
So he can walk now.
There were pictures of Skip’s parents on a wall here and there—but, of course, that had been true before. Otto Saltin had been Tavia’s brother, after all, and Dianna Wilson her sister-in-law. (There were six other Saltin siblings, Jennifer counted from one of the more formal photographs. One such studio photo had all the Saltins in spider form, splayed out on webs, against a traditional blue-gray background.)
Despite the occasional shot of Otto and Dianna, it was clear Skip’s parents didn’t live here—just Tavia and Edmund. Were they married? She didn’t see a wedding photo anywhere.
Moving into the dining room, Jennifer thought of a meal she had eaten in this house, on a date with Skip not long ago, where she had wondered
at speckles in the mashed potatoes. She also thought of last night’s dream, and the dragons trapped like flies in the thickening web.
Skip invited her upstairs. His wardrobe was about the same in this universe as it had been before—lots of dark, stark colors. Jennifer decided against new pants, opting for her own skirt so she could keep her daggers handy, but she did change her top to a black, buttoned-down, collared shirt. It felt a bit better to put something clean on, and it did smell like him, which was a small comfort. Skip found some agreeable makeup from his aunt’s room, so she washed her face and applied some simple base, lipstick, and waterproof mascara: Today felt like a day she was likely to spend crying an awful lot.
They walked to the school, which wasn’t too great a distance, and it gave Jennifer a chance to see more of the town. Her first impression of the town was right, as was the population sign—there were more houses than before, packed a bit more tightly, and a few larger condominiums that were doubtless teeming with spider families and old scorpion couples. But there were perfectly normal-looking people coming out to get the mail and check their lawn sprinklers.
How can some be spiders and some not under this moon, she wondered idly, thinking of the hunted cows. Only Skip can change back and forth when he likes.
Whoever did this can spin the clock back and change history, she answered herself. Changing shape at will is probably child’s play to them!
“Have you been to the hospital?” she asked Skip.
“I haven’t had the chance,” he replied. Then he answered her real question: “Jennifer, I really think your parents are both gone.”
She held a hand out. “Skip, drop it.”
“I’m not trying to upset you—”
“Then don’t.”
They walked for a while in silence. Jennifer tried hard not to think of her parents, which of course meant she spent the entire time thinking about her parents. The only thing keeping her feet moving forward was the thought that she would find her mother, and then her father. Then I’ll take Dad’s note and cram it down his throat for scaring me. Then the three of us will blow this universe apart.
“Wow,” Skip murmured.
They were cresting the hill less than a mile from the high school. The massive, maroon and white brick building appeared no different from the outside. Sure, the sign by the parking lot said PINEGROVE HIGH—GO SCORPIONS! instead of WINOKA HIGH—GO FALCONS!, but Jennifer was learning not to sweat the small stuff.
However, the hulking structure beyond it—what looked like an enormous, metallic golf ball four stories high bound to the earth with a web of massive steel beams—that was new.
“What is that?” she asked.
He whistled. “Huh.”
“Whatever it is, it’s sitting right in the middle of the soccer practice field.” This offended Jennifer on a newer, deeper level. She gave it a hard look, and she suddenly felt as if it was giving her a hard look back. A cold light shone on her insides, where her lungs were breathless and her heart was slowing. Something in there can see me. Right through me.
“Let’s get you registered.” He steered her toward the more normal-looking school building.
In the principal’s office, Jennifer had her first pleasant surprise since waking up.
“Mr. Sheep!”
The school principal wrinkled his plain nose, and his plain eyes widened a bit in surprise. “My name is Mr. Mouton,” he allowed, letting the French word for sheep roll off his tongue a bit. “Do I know you, Ms….?”
“Scales,” Skip finished for him. “She’s a friend of my family’s. She’ll be staying with us for a while, and of course we’ll need to get her registered here at Winok—er, here at Pinegrove High.”
“Oh.” Mr. Mouton shrugged. “Well, that shouldn’t be difficult. Welcome to Pinegrove High, Ms. Scales. Do you have a written and signed communication from your parents? We would need that to—”
“Her parents are dead,” Skip interrupted. Jennifer felt her chest tighten, but took a deep breath. Whether Skip believed that or not, it was a convenient excuse to get through this meeting.
“Oh! I see.” Now Mr. Mouton’s simple features were tinged with embarrassment. “My condolences, Ms. Scales. At some point we’ll require some formal documentation, but given the fact that Skip’s mother and Edmund Slider both work here and can no doubt speak for you—”
“They will,” Skip promised. Just as soon as I talk to them, his expression told Jennifer.
“—then we can certainly get you started. My assistant will get you going on the paperwork, and then perhaps Mr. Wilson here will be kind enough to escort you through your classes for the day…?”
“I can find my way around,” she assured them both. “Skip, go on. If I don’t see you around, I’ll just meet you out front at the end of the day, okay?”
He took a tentative step back. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
“All right. I’ll, you know. Check things out. We’ll talk later.”
“Sure.”
Once Skip was gone and Mr. Mouton had put her at an assistant’s desk with a small ream of paperwork, Jennifer carefully considered her options. It was the first moment she had to herself since Skip had told her the horrible truth.
First, she could fight. She had her daggers on under her skirt and a throat full of fire. The plan: Start here in the office, destroy as much of the school and its ghastly occupants as possible, and work her way over to that horrid building in the soccer field.
On the plus side: This would feel really, really good, and that building was important for sure. How could anything that huge and ugly not be a headquarters? Which meant she might smash something hard enough to change things back.
What were the cons? She would probably die before getting out of this building, much less into the other one.
Her second option was to do as her father asked and give up completely. She would forge a new life here in Pinegrove, come to love spiders and other supercrawly things, and occasionally get out to the countryside just to stretch her wings in peace and quiet. Decades from now, when she was on her deathbed with lots of adoring grandchildren around her, she’d flick over to dragon form and give them all a nifty scare. They’d be shocked but they’d love her anyway, because she made really good Christmas cookies, like all grandmothers do, except these wouldn’t be shaped like frosted snowmen and cinnamon angels. Instead, they’d be shaped like little gingerbread ticks and chocolate-sprinkled tarantulas…
Ennnh! No go. Third option?
Her third option was to finish this paperwork, start classes, and keep her eyes open. She could not possibly be the only dragon left in existence. There would be a few others at least. Maybe they were the dregs of the school social classes, the untouchables of the community—but they would befriend her and introduce her to others. Same with beaststalkers. If the kids wouldn’t talk about it, maybe their parents would. She could slowly build up a group who would be willing to—
“Do you need help getting started, dear?” The kind administrative assistant was leaning in closely, and Jennifer suddenly realized her pen had been frozen over the paperwork for a full minute or more. “Are you feeling all right?”
Jennifer smiled at the white-haired woman, imagining her with eight eyes and trying with no small difficulty to refrain from stabbing six or seven of them with her pen. “No, thanks. Just got lost in thought for a sec.”
“Happens to me all the time,” the assistant said, waving a hand in kind dismissal. “Sometimes, it feels good to pretend you’re somewhere else.”
“You said it.”
Her schedule of classes was a bit different from what she was used to. Her first two classes—arithmetic and geometric applications, and history and literature—had already passed by the time she was out of the principal’s office. Ahead was music, then lunch, then chemistry, then study hall, and then Spanish. Spanish had an asterisk in front of it. At the bottom of the page was the n
otation:
*Excused from Introductory Astronomy for one semester.
No straight English class, she noted on her way to the band room. And why don’t they just call math “math?” And what’s with the Astronomy class, and the excuse? There were never any Astronomy classes at Winoka.
She didn’t have good answers to any of these questions by the time she got to the band room. Which was good, because she would have forgotten all of them anyway.
The band room was lined with an array of instruments: some typical brass and percussion, and others of completely foreign design. One such device in the center of the room—what at first appeared to be a collision of three or four different harps—had an elaborate wooden frame and reminded Jennifer of multiple legs on strings.
At least twenty other students were in the class, but none carried an instrument. Instead, they were gathered around a grand piano, where Tavia Saltin sat. Tavia looked exactly the way Jennifer would have hoped, with chocolate hair wrapped in a tight bun topping a spindly frame, but the older woman betrayed no sign of recognition.
“So you’re our newest student!” she greeted Jennifer with a mixture of warmth and interest. “Tell me, have you had much musical training?”
“Just the normal music program from my regular school. It’s, er, a bit like this one.”
“That’s fine. And do you prefer to morph when you play?”
“Oh! Geez, Ms. Saltin, thanks, but I’m not ready…I mean, I’m more comfortable…”
“Not a problem at all!” Tavia’s beam was wide and understanding. Just as when she first met this woman, Jennifer was unnerved by the overfriendliness. “You just take whatever form makes you most comfortable.
“So let’s get started!” she announced to the class as she absentmindedly poked at the piano keys. A simple but catchy melody emerged, perfect background music for conversation. “I believe we left off yesterday in the middle of our discussion of the more complex stringed instruments. The piano, like the one I’m playing now, is an example of such a stringed instrument—though many would call it a hybrid of string and percussion. But of course you’ve all seen a piano, so I don’t expect that’s very exciting for you.”
The Silver Moon Elm Page 10