by Scott Tracey
“I’ll be fine.”
“Not in this town,” Trey muttered. “Just hold on to it. In case.”
“Okay.” It was an insurance agent’s card, and on the back was Trey’s number. I slipped it in my pocket, feeling it bend around the hotel key. And then a realization struck. There was something I needed to know. “So where is the Belle Dam anyway? I haven’t seen anything like that around here, and that’s what the town’s named after, isn’t it?”
Trey laughed. “Good luck trying to find it. They tell kids around here that it’s a secret dam hidden in the woods out west. But it’s actually just French. Or at least it used to be. Belle Dame. It means ‘pretty lady’ or something.”
Time to go. I hesitated once the door was open, glancing toward Trey. But everything I could think to say sounded stupid the moment it popped into my head.
I slammed the door and hurried away.
Thirteen
Before I even walked in the door the next morning, I ran into Jade. My first instinct was panic—like she’d somehow know who my father was.
“My new best friend has taste,” she noted with raised eyebrows. But if she’d learned any secrets about me, they weren’t showing on her face. I released my breath and tried for a smile. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad.
I stopped long enough for her to look over my outfit. Dark jeans, a dark blue T-shirt, and a button-up.
“You act like getting dressed is hard,” I said with a laugh.
Her head shifted a bit to the side. “Someone hasn’t been paying attention to some of the fashion disasters roaming our halls. It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy in there some mornings.”
“I think you’re exaggerating a little bit,” I said, but then I thought of Riley in her gypsy outfit yesterday. Or maybe not. I glanced down, suddenly unsure of myself. “You’re sure it looks alright?”
“Not bad,” she admitted. “But go with a lighter T-shirt next time. Too dark with the glasses and the jeans.” She shook her head. “Definitely not jeans. Go with khaki. Doesn’t make you look like a pseudo-goth.”
“Jeans make me look like a goth?” I wondered.
The look she gave me was blank. “Of course not. Stop getting sidetracked. You’re as bad as Gentry. He didn’t get the fashion gene, sad to say. So it’s my sisterly duty to go through his wardrobe and burn everything I hate,” she said, eyes twinkling. “I mean, he wears flannel.”
I thought back to how many flannel shirts Uncle John and I had between the two of us. “Flannel can be comfortable,” I said.
Jade threw her head back and laughed. “And whoever told you that fashion was comfort?” Case in point, Jade’s outfit was a black pantsuit with all sorts of gold accents. Her hair was pulled back today, everything except that shocking streak of pink, which hung down over her face.
I shrugged. “Okay, no flannel. I don’t think I even have any here.” I hadn’t seen any in the drawers at the hotel. So maybe Lucien knew what he was doing.
Jade was still eyeing me carefully. “Actually, that shirt’s still a little big. Baggy clothes won’t work on you. You’re too small.”
“I’m not small,” I laughed, looking down at myself. “They’re just new, that’s all. A few washes, and they’ll fit fine.”
“We should go shopping soon. There’s a few places with some really great stuff in town.” she pushed.
“Sure.” We entered through the front doors, and I glanced around as if Riley would be just standing around waiting for me to show up.
“A bunch of us are going out tonight. You should come,” she said. “It’ll give you a chance to meet everyone.”
I nodded. “Maybe. I’m still not sure what my plans are for tonight. But if I have time, then definitely.” We split up after that, each heading to a different side of the school.
It’s a conflict of interest being her friend. Nothing good will come of this. I tried to shrug off the dark thoughts and focus on finding Riley in the halls. Without any luck.
“Did everyone read the first three chapters of The Sound and the Fury?” I flinched in English, realizing that in all the drama of the night before, I’d skipped out on homework. That meant double tonight. “Who wants to tell us what’s going on?”
I hoped and prayed she wouldn’t call on me. The gods of Forgotten English Homework must have been listening, because she picked a girl in the front of the class. It was much the same in Algebra, when I didn’t turn in the even-numbered problems from page twenty-four.
After class, I hung back. “I’m really sorry about the homework,” I admitted to the teacher, a young blonde woman whose name I couldn’t remember.
“You’re already a week behind everyone else,” she chided lightly. Miss Masters. The memory came to me suddenly.
“I know. It’s just with getting here the day before yesterday, and then enrolling in school first thing in the morning, I kinda spaced on it last night.”
Eventually, she nodded. “I don’t want this to become a habit, Braden. I realize you’ve got some … extra considerations, but I’ve got to think about the rest of the class. I can’t give you special treatment every time.” She closed her lesson plan and slid it into the desk. “But turn it in tomorrow, and I’ll overlook it this time. After that, any late assignment will be an automatic zero. Do you understand?”
I nodded with relief. “No problem. I’m not normally a slacker, I promise.”
“I hope not,” she said with a smile. “Now go on, you’re going to be late for your next class.”
The school was a bit easier to navigate the second day. The whole experience was underwhelming. A few of Jade’s friends, who’d noticed us talking the day before, went out of their way to say hi to me, which was cool.
I finally spotted Riley making her way through the halls, swimming against the tide of students swarming toward the cafeteria. I waited for the herd to pass, and then started to follow her.
She headed back toward the far corner of the school, down the hall from where Jade and I had spent lunch yesterday. I almost passed her by when I caught just the glow of a computer screen in a darkened classroom.
“Riley?” I poked my head inside.
Newspapers lined the walls closest to the ceiling, the rest of the walls taken up by whiteboard with newspaper mockups posted on it. Riley was at one of the computer stations in the middle of the room. She nearly leapt out of her chair at the sound of her name. I bit back a smile.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, craning her neck in my direction.
I took a few steps into the room, looking over the mockups on the wall. A back-to-school issue. “I’ve been looking around for you all day, but it’s like you’re avoiding me.”
She laughed. “Not hardly. I had a dentist appointment. I just got here a little bit ago.” She swiveled her chair around and looked up at me. “So what’s going on?” The mix of curiosity and suspicion in her voice was hard to miss.
“I was hoping you could fill me in on some stuff around here,” I said, sitting in one of the chairs next to her. “You said you were an expert in local stuff.”
“Depends on what you want to know.”
I sighed. What did I want to know? There was already too much information clawing its way around my brain as it was. “I guess I just don’t understand this whole feud thing everyone keeps talking about.”
She nodded, tapping a pen against her lips.
I went on. “Everyone acts like it’s like … war, but you go outside and it’s just like any other small town. I mean, if things were really that bad, why would anyone live here?”
“It’s not that simple,” she said, as if that would put it all in perspective. “It’s politics, and it’s competition, and a whole lot of other things. But it’s not war. At least not anymore.”
�
�So things used to be worse?”
She nodded. “You have to read between the lines, because they’ve always controlled the media here, but it’s gotten bad before. And depending on who you talk to, it was somewhere between an old Western and a horror movie.”
“But then what’s it like now? Because everyone talks about it, but that’s all it is. Talk.” I tried not to think about my close, personal encounter with a transportation vehicle.
“It’s like high school,” she said simply. “On the one hand, you’ve got Jade and her friends, right?” She held up one hand as if to demonstrate. “And on the other is everyone that doesn’t fit in. Either Jade doesn’t like them, or their parents work for Mr. Thorpe.
“Jason and Catherine don’t actually do all that much to each other. Remember, I told you how Drew always compared them to the mob? They’re like the mob bosses. They’ll step in when they have to, but most of the time it’s the underlings that stir up trouble. Just like Jade doesn’t have time to personally ruin every single student’s life. Other people do her dirty work for her.”
“Jade’s not like that,” I protested.
Riley lifted a shoulder. “You’ve known her a couple days. I’ve known her all my life. I’ve gathered a lot more empirical data than you have.”
I shook my head, not wanting to hear this. Jade had been nothing but sweet to me since I’d met her. “But what about her mom,” I asked, trying much too hard to be casual. “What’s she like?”
Riley’s eyes narrowed, and I realized I’d made a mistake. Apparently nothing passed by her without getting filed away. But instead of pressing me about why I wanted to know, she answered my question instead. “Catherine is the nicest, most charming person I’ve ever met,” she said, unexpectedly.
“What?” That was some kind of joke, right? My heart sank, and I was picturing my encounter with Jason last night. She was nice?
“Catherine’s a politician. She knows how to put on a front and be this classy, sophisticated soccer mom,” Riley said. “But she’s not really like that at all. I’ve seen her blow up on people before … she’s got a temper like you wouldn’t believe.”
The tightening feeling started to loosen. “So she’s not a nice person,” I asked, mainly for the sake of clarification.
Riley shrugged. “I’m sure if you’re Jade’s new BFF she’s going to be the nicest person ever. But she’s not the one you should worry about, Braden. Just be careful around Jade.” She put her hand on mine, the bracelets clacking down her arm. “And don’t fall for her, Braden. I wouldn’t want to see what she does to you, too.”
“Me?” The idea of falling in love with Jade was … completely alien.
Riley nodded. “Just trust me. Jade’s great, but she gets bored easily. Boredom brings out the Lansing side of her.”
I was about to ask her what she meant by that, when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, and then held up her hand and hurried out of the room. I waited a few minutes for her to come back, but she never did.
¤ ¤ ¤
The headache started sometime after lunch. A low throbbing behind my eyes that felt like it was trying to shove them right out of my skull. My fingertips started tingling, and I started getting cold sweats.
Going through a migraine in the building wasn’t an option. I wasn’t sure of the exact protocol, aside from trying to explain what I was going through to the school nurse. And that would be a waste of time. Instead, I just grabbed the stuff I knew I needed for homework, and lugged my now-too-heavy bag outside.
The hotel wasn’t far from the school, realistically. Nothing was “far” from anything else in Belle Dam; the town was too small. I called Lucien to see if he could get me excused, but the receptionist wouldn’t pass my call through. She probably didn’t know how.
She swore they’d take care of it, though. By the time I was in my room, worrying about school was the last thing on my mind. I pulled the curtains tight over the windows, then took it a step further and threw towels on top of them. Blocking out any sense of light whatsoever. A few pills for the headache, a nap, and a shower, and I’d be okay. I hoped.
I glanced at my cell phone, pressing my lips together to stop the shaking. My first instinct was still to turn to Uncle John and expect him to bail me out. I just needed to know I’d be okay. But while I tried to think of what to say, and how to say it, I started to drift off. I was asleep before I ever even opened the phone.
Fourteen
The first thing I did when I woke up was smack my hand against the phone next to me, sweeping it off the bed and onto the floor with a clack.
Fantastic. I reached up against the nightstand for my glasses and slid them on slowly. There wasn’t any trace of pain left over from earlier, just an overwhelming sluggishness trying to pull me back down into sleep.
I leaned over the side of the bed and fumbled around for the phone. The room was pitch black, so it took awhile. Muttering annoyed protests at the inconvenience, I struggled up out of the warm, comfy bed and went for the windows.
After I was done pulling down the towels and opening the curtains, sunlight streamed into the room once again. It was good to know I hadn’t slept the whole day away—just the school day.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I dialed our number in Montana. Would he let me go over to voicemail? Or would he pick up the receiver only to slam it down again? I expected each of these and worse, so when Uncle John answered the phone like nothing had changed, I sat there in silence.
“Braden? What’s wrong?” Uncle John’s voice came through crystal clear, not even a hint of static across the line.
Every ounce of tension slid out of me, and I eased back into the still-warm bed. It was so good to hear his voice. “Hey,” I said. A master conversationalist, I was.
“Are you okay?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?” It slipped out, along with all the hurt and confusion I was feeling.
John didn’t respond right away. “Lucien told me you’re in school,” he said carefully. “How do you like it?”
“Someone tried to kill me yesterday, and you’re asking me about school?”
I heard him suck in a breath. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “But why didn’t you tell me about this? About my father, about Catherine Lansing … any of it!”
He asked me a question instead. He softened. “Why did you run, Braden? What happened?”
“Would it kill you to answer even one of my questions?” I leapt off the bed and stalked to the window.
“It could,” he said, and at first I thought he was joking. And then I realized he might not be.
“Uncle John?”
I heard bedsprings squeaking as John said, “Remember we’re not the only thing out there in the dark, kid. There’s a lot more to the world than witches and magic.” A phone rang in the background, which didn’t make sense because we only had the one phone, and he grunted. “Remember when we talked about when it’s best to use tools for your magic?”
That was another difference between casting spells with just your will, and casting them with tools. The former used a lot more power, and that power called attention to itself. Ritual spells, meanwhile, could float under the radar. “Yeah, I remember.”
“You probably haven’t picked up anything, have you?”
I shook my head, not even considering that he couldn’t see me. So finally I added, “No.”
“There’s a place on Fourth Street. It’s called Gregory’s ’Mix. Don’t be shocked at what you’re going to see.”
Before I could say anything else, the phone went dead. Uncle John was gone.
¤ ¤ ¤
Most occult and New Age shops had an overly bright display of everything even remotely mystical. There were friendly people
behind the counter full of good intentions and pseudopsychic vibes. And there was always, always a prominent display of pentacles and runes spread out throughout the building.
Gregory’s ’Mix was none of those things. In fact, as far as I could tell, it wasn’t even an occult store. There weren’t any voodoo dolls hanging in the window, no elaborate knives or chalices displayed in the front window. The windows were reserved for names like Alan Moore and Frank Miller. Posters for comic book characters I’d seen on television, but never read, were plastered everywhere.
I had to have the wrong place. John had to be messing with me. If it hadn’t been for the tingling at the corners of my eyes, a vibration in the air that suggested old magic, I might never have gone in.
The man behind the counter wasn’t as young as the store itself would suggest. Comic book stores appealed to kids, or so I thought, and I figured whoever was working would be closer to my own age. At first I thought he was Uncle John’s age, somewhere in his forties, but his novelty T-shirt and messy hair suggested younger. He had a laptop opened next to him, the screen turned away from me.
“Help you?” He had light gray eyes underneath his glasses, the color of the sky after a particularly strong storm had let up.
“This is just a comic shop?” I wasn’t sure how to say ‘Hey, is there magical contraband hidden in another room?’
The man’s expression grew guarded. “It’s my comic shop, if that’s what you’re asking.” Oh, so this is Gregory. “But you need an adult for anything you’re looking for. Unless it’s the new Wolverine.”
Well, that wasn’t the reaction I was looking for. By far. “You have anything Old World?” I asked instead. It was a term I’d heard my uncle use before, an expression that was supposed to refer to the old days when magic and monsters had still walked the earth.
The man’s expression intensified even more, but ultimately he shook his head. “No adult, no access. This is not the store you’re looking for.”