“Yo, Dust. Don’t get the new girl dirty,” Ranson Duvall yelled from across the hall. He was the male version of Lacey, only less tolerable.
I rolled my eyes and ignored him like always. Coming back at him wouldn’t end well. He’d make a public spectacle out of me and no matter how lame his insults were, the crowd would laugh.
Imani gave me the side-eye. “Your name’s Dust?”
“No. It’s kind of a nickname. Lacey gave it to me freshman year so it’s what everyone calls me.”
“Why?” she asked, frowning.
I hated explaining it because it sounded so horrible when I said it out loud. Lacey had named me Dust because dust was insignificant. Worthless. No one paid attention to it. Dust was nothing.
It bothered me at first, but recently I had embraced the name because I realized it could mean other things that were pretty awesome. I didn’t have to accept Lacey’s definition. What did she know? She had absolutely no idea what I was really made of.
“My name’s Arden.”
Imani looked me up and down. I thought she’d take one glance at my floor-length homemade dress and dismiss me, but she tossed her braids over her right shoulder. “That’s pretty.”
“Thanks. Your name’s pretty too. Anyway, you can sit with me and my friend Fletcher at lunch if you want.” I figured it was a long shot that someone so cool would want to eat with us, but it wouldn’t kill me to put the offer out there. “We always sit outside at the picnic tables. The ones farthest away from the school building under the willow tree.”
“Cool. I’ll meet you there,” Imani replied before we went our separate ways. I thought she might have just said that to be nice, but she had actually shown up. After that, Imani fell right in with Fletcher and me as if she’d been there all along. I didn’t even have to explain Fletcher to her, like I did with other people. She just got him.
Although Fletcher would always be my best friend, Imani was different. Fletcher and I were both outcasts, so that had drawn us together. We didn’t have anyone else. Imani, on the other hand, had options. The beautiful, mysterious new-girl-in-town could have been friends with anyone, but still, she’d chosen me.
Things were starting to look up for me. Just a month ago, I’d only had one friend. Now I had two.
Once Fletcher met up with us, we started home. Fletcher always walked me home even though he lived in the other direction. Imani’s house was nearest to the school, so after we dropped her off, we headed toward mine.
We strolled silently for a moment and I caught myself staring at Fletcher. I couldn’t get enough of looking at that gorgeous face, but the purple bruise underneath his right cheek, tarnished its perfection. At least his eye and lip had healed. I touched the bruise with my thumb and he flinched.
“How come it’s not going away?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Fletcher was like me, not Human. The bus incident happened almost two years before. I hadn’t known Fletcher then, but when I’d confronted him about what I seen, he’d cut himself with a knife and healed immediately. I knew then that Fletcher was some kind of miracle.
Fletcher Whitelock was the world’s most perfect guy. He had pale skin, full pink lips perfect for kissing (I knew from first-hand experience), and shaggy amber hair that always fell into his eyes. He had a good heart, but he could never love me the way I loved him. He’d told me so himself.
Fletcher looked like a Human, but he was a Walker. That meant he could make himself transform into either an owl, a wolf, or a snake. As incredible as that sounded, it was tame compared to what I was—a Bandigo. The only one in existence. I was a mixture of a Banshee, or Death Fairy, and a Wendigo. One was only a tiny bit less terrifying than the other.
I hooked my arm around his. “Aren’t you curious about why you’re not healing the way you used to?”
He took a sudden interest in his sneakers. “Not really.”
Fletcher not healing immediately concerned me, but what bothered me more, was that Fletcher didn’t seem to care. Something was wrong and he was in denial.
We stopped in front of my house. Fletcher wasn’t allowed to come inside because my parents didn’t like him or his family. I wasn’t even supposed to be hanging out with him, but they would never stop me from doing that. Fletcher shivered, which was strange considering the warm March weather.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He looked up at the sun and squinted. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just got a chill.”
I looked at my house. Everything was still and quiet as if no one was home. “That locker didn’t open by itself.”
Fletcher squatted to study a line of ants moving along the sidewalk. “I know.”
“I thought about it and then it happened.”
“I know.” Fletcher was still focused on the ants, so I couldn’t read his expression. I wished he would look at me. “Arden, Ranson is a testicle, but you can’t kill him.”
Something tugged at my heart. What kind of person did Fletcher think I was? “I’m not going to kill him. I haven’t even thought that. I just wanted him to stop messing with you.”
Fletcher stood again, but he didn’t look at me. He stared at our mailbox, which was a tiny replica of our home. “Okay. I’m just saying. You know you of all people have to be careful what you think.”
“Got it,” I replied, not bothering to hide my annoyance. Fletcher had no idea what it was like to be me—to know that my thoughts might actually kill someone someday.
He pushed his hair back and turned away from me. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Yeah. See you.”
I watched him hobble down the sidewalk and back up the block. I didn’t know what was wrong with Fletcher, but I had the sickening feeling that he was hiding things from me again.
Chapter Two
Inside, the house was quiet. Normally Mom would be waiting to ask me twenty-one questions about my day, hoping I had behaved like a normal person, but lately when I got home she would be out, or locked in her room busy with something. The closer I got to transformation, the more my family seemed to avoid me. I couldn’t say that I blamed them. Every day I lived, I was a step closer to becoming a Wendigo.
I couldn’t think of anything worse than that. I’d seen Wendigos up close and personal. They were disgusting creatures with the head of a wildebeest, visible ribcages that revealed yellowed-decaying bones, and large gruesome hooves with blade-like claws. Wendigos moved hunched over, with their fur-covered hands dragging on the ground. Long, gnarled antlers grew from its head like sinister-looking tree branches.
A gnawing feeling tore at the pit of my stomach. Never-ending hunger. Fletcher said it was because my body had an appetite for one thing only—Human flesh. Eating that would be the only way to stop the hunger pains but I’d starve to death before that happened.
The place was spotless as usual, thanks to Mom and the cleaning lady who came in a few times a week. I headed straight to the pantry and grabbed a jar of olives. Olives and beef jerky were my snacks of choice. I craved meat and bitter, salty things. The taste of sweetness made me feel ill. Cookies, ice cream, candy—none of those things belonged in my body, so it would reject them immediately. Sitting at the kitchen table, I unscrewed the lid and fished a few olives out. A thump came from upstairs. Mom was home.
Moments later, she bounced into the kitchen, pushing her wavy blond hair behind her ears. She wore a tight fuchsia jogging suit that showed the results of her daily visits to the gym. Mom tried her best to look perfect at all times. She was cute as far as moms went.
“Hey, hon. How was school?” Her ocean-blue eyes looked everywhere but at me.
“Fine.” Generic questions deserved generic answers.
I looked nothing like Mom because she wasn’t my mother. Not my birth mother anyway. Another baby and I had been switched at birth. My parent’s real daughter was Rose. She was somewhere in California flitting around being perfect.
&nbs
p; “I made a new friend,” I added. Mom hated the fact that I wasn’t like her or my younger sisters, Paige and Quinn, who seemed to be born perky and popular. I was an oddball who didn’t have a social bone in me. Crowds and parties were never my thing. Doing something quiet with the few people I liked was good enough for me.
Mom eyed me skeptically. “Did you really? What kind of friend?”
What kind of friend? She asked the question as if I might have made friends with a caterpillar or something.
“Not a creature, Mom. A real friend. A Human.” I’d wanted to tell her about Imani earlier, but I had to make sure our friendship was going to stick and that Imani wasn’t going to ditch me once she’d found a better group of friends.
Mom stopped fiddling around like she was looking for something in the cabinets. We both knew she wasn’t trying to find anything. Finally, she sat across from me at the table, folding her hands in front of her. She actually looked me in the eye. It had been ages since she’d done that. “Tell me about this friend.”
“Her name is Imani Hughes. She’s really pretty and a lot of fun. Her family just moved here from Texas.”
“Huh,” Mom said and I could tell this bit of news had escaped her. Usually she and her friends knew everything that went on in Everson Woods, but the Hughes seemed to keep to themselves.
She narrowed her eyes. “What do her parents do?”
The answer to that question could make or break your social life in our town.
“Her mom sells stuff from home for some makeup company, I think, and her dad’s the new police captain at our precinct.” My family and I were very familiar with the police department. We’d dealt with them plenty in the past few months. “He got transferred. That’s why they moved.”
With the killings and disappearances in Everson recently, the police department felt it needed to shake things up. The mayor was also worried about how the attacks would affect tourism, not that people were lining up to vacation in our town. There were a few bed-and-breakfasts and several hotels, though. I thought the people who decided to waste a trip on boring Everson Woods, deserved whatever crappy time they had.
I couldn’t tell if Mom was impressed or not. She loved cosmetics and a captain was pretty high up on the police ladder, so maybe she was. Mom pushed her hair behind her ears again. “Well, I can’t wait to meet Imani and I’m glad you’re trying.”
For some reason Mom thought my lack of friends was due to my lack of effort, but that was just not the truth. I was almost tempted to remind her that the last person she encouraged me to be friends with turned out to be a deranged lunatic who tried to kill me.
“I was talking to Rhonda Youngblood this morning at the gym. I think her daughter, Mary-Kate, would be a great friend for you. You should ask her over sometime.”
I liked Mary-Kate a lot, but just the thought of hanging out with someone that perfect made my stomach hurt. I felt inadequate just passing her in the hallway. Mary-Kate was our class president and number one in everything. On top of that, she was gorgeous and super nice to everyone. I’d never seen her have an imperfect moment.
“There’s nothing stopping you from having more friends. You’re just as pretty as any of those popular girls, Arden.”
“I know, Mom.” I never thought I wasn’t pretty. That wasn’t the problem. It was not knowing how to act and just not fitting in with the normal people. I was no good at that. That was the reason Fletcher and I fit perfectly together. He was no good at normal either. Somehow, Imani and her normalness, fit in with our weirdness. A small part of me was waiting for her to show us that she wasn’t so normal after all.
The first couple of days, I’d had my guard up with Imani. The last girl friend I had, was not who I thought she was. I had known Bailey since the second grade and up until a couple of months ago, I had no idea that she was a creature. Fletcher assured me that Imani was Human. He could tell from her scent.
I pushed the olives away, weighed down by thoughts of Bailey. Mom hated that I ate so many olives and I wanted her to be proud of me sometimes, so maybe I would start eating them less. “Everything’s going to be okay, Mom. I’m going to fight this.” I knew my transformation was something she worried about all the time, and even though it wasn’t my fault, I felt guilty. I wanted to set her mind at ease.
She nodded but she didn’t look like she believed me. “I know. I know you want to and you can try, but this isn’t cancer or some disease, sweetheart—this is just . . . different.”
My mom and sisters were Human, so they didn’t understand. They had no idea what I was going through.
I would have appreciated a little more encouragement from my mother, but she was right. I had two entities living inside me—Banshee and Wendigo. One of them was destined to come out by my eighteenth birthday which was only seven months away. A Banshee could predict death. A mature Banshee could cause death with just her thoughts, she could even receive warnings of other people’s deaths. A few months ago I had seen a purple and black cloud around my biology teacher, Ms. Melcher. The cloud was an omen only I could see. Shortly afterward, she disappeared and hadn’t been seen since. Fletcher was sure she was dead, but I thought she could still be out there.
The house remained quiet until my sisters came home, then it came alive with the sounds of televisions, blaring music, and jibber-jabber about school days. My relationship with my sisters wasn’t very sisterly. I was seventeen so having some distance between myself and ten-year-old Quinn and thirteen-year-old Paige was to be expected. But it was more than that. We had nothing in common. Ever since the girls learned the truth about me, they had become more standoffish than usual. I didn’t think we would ever be close.
My sisters were blond and blue-eyed just like Mom. They fit together perfectly.
Paige entered the kitchen and headed straight for the pantry without acknowledging me. She grabbed a bag of Chips Ahoy and settled down on a barstool at the kitchen island. “Mom, the spring dance is coming up and I need a dress.”
“Let’s go shopping this weekend. We’ll make a day of it,” Mom called from the living room, where she filled out a field trip permission slip for Quinn. Mom loved to take the girls shopping. That was one thing she never did with me because I always made my own clothes. Dresses specifically. Long dresses with frilly sleeves and sashes that looked like they belonged in another time period. I always added pockets so I wouldn’t have to carry a purse. Wearing homemade dresses to school was a sure way to get made fun of, but I didn’t care. I didn’t feel right in anything else. I wouldn’t be uncomfortable just so people would like me.
Paige eyed me as she bit into a cookie. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said back. I didn’t know what else to say to her. School dances weren’t my forte so I had no big-sister advice to offer her.
“You should come dress shopping with us,” she mumbled with her mouth full of cookie.
I shrugged. “I probably won’t.” But she already knew that. Her invite was just going through the motions. I guess I should have appreciated that she even did that.
Paige looked down at the package of cookies, wide-eyed. “O.M.G. Dress shopping. No more cookies.”
That comment hurt my heart a little. I wanted to tell her that she was being silly and to go ahead and eat the cookies, but I knew she wouldn’t listen to me anyway. We’d had that conversation before. She’d only point out how she could count each of my ribs so I had no idea what I was talking about. Paige wasn’t as thin as me, but she didn’t have any weight to spare.
She watched me for a moment, put the cookies back into the pantry and then rushed upstairs as if she couldn’t bear to spend another second in my presence. Quinn, the brains of the family, came into the kitchen and grabbed a juice pouch from the fridge.
“Hey, Quinn.”
She jumped as if she hadn’t seen me there. “Oh, hi. I—I gotta go do my homework. Big project due tomorrow. Huge!” Then she sealed herself up in her room for the rest of the aftern
oon. Mom found a reason to spend an hour poking through boxes in the basement, even though she hated being in the basement and when Dad came home, he gave me a quick peck on my forehead and then holed up in his office to make a conference call. That was normal for us. Completely normal.
That night as I crawled into bed, a scraping sound came from the hallway. I opened my bedroom door to see where the sound was coming from. Someone, probably Dad, had pushed my great-grandmother’s antique armoire in front of my door, blocking me in. It usually stood against a wall in the center of the hallway. That was new. Without a word I shut the door and dialed Fletcher.
“They’re barricading me in my room like some kind of prisoner,” I told him as soon as he answered.
“They have to,” he told me. “Don’t take it personally, but they have to protect themselves. I told you, when I first went through the changes my parents made me sleep in a cage.”
He was right but I still felt insulted, like they didn’t trust me. “I know. But it just seems unfair. I’ve never hurt them. They could have at least told me first.”
Fletcher was quiet for a moment. “Do you want to hurt your family, Arden?”
What kind of question was that? “Of course not!”
“Then let them do what they have to do. It’s the only way they’ll be able to sleep at night. They need to feel safe. Put yourself in their shoes.”
“Okay,” I said before hanging up. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear, but it was what I needed to hear.
Before, I thought my parents might have been lowering their guard when they’d cancelled the rest of my therapy sessions with Dr. Scarlett. While it had been a relief at first, I realized they hadn’t done it because they thought I was getting better. They stopped the sessions because they were afraid of Dr. Scarlett learning my secret.
I listened to my father on the other side of the door. His voice sounded muffled because of the armoire, but still, I heard every word.
Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy Page 2