by Diane Farr
For an instant I thought I was still in the parlor, since the floor beneath me was wooden. But no. Everything else was wrong. The room felt huge. Cavernous, like an airplane hanger. An airplane hanger with a hardwood floor?? I was completely disoriented, and in too much pain to make sense of anything. I curled up on the polished hardwood and clutched my knees, gasping for air.
I heard Lance’s breathing beside me. He actually had the gall to sit by my head and stroke my hair, while I was too weak to push him away. “Poor Zara,” he said. His voice had a peculiar, echoey quality. “But I had to get you out of there. It was the only way. You’ll feel better in a minute.”
I rolled away from him and stared up at the ceiling, willing my eyes to focus. The ceiling seemed to be miles away. The high windows were covered with big squares of cardboard or something, but enough light came in through the cracks to tell me where I was. Not that it made any sense.
I was lying on the floor of the Cherry Glen High gymnasium.
Lying, in fact, on the free-throw line closest to the entrance doors. Which were, of course, locked.
I had been to the gym a million times, so Lance had made a smart skatching choice. I had probably stood on this very free throw line at some point or other. But Lance?? I blinked at him, bewildered. He gave me a kind of half-smile, and sent me some images. Images of a friendly janitor. And of Lance chatting the guy up, sweet-talking the janitor into showing him the gym, telling him how he hoped to try out for the basketball team once school started.
I wonder how many other places around town Lance scoped out, making sure he walked in my footsteps? How creepy is that?? Not that it matters. The gym was enough. The gym was perfect.
Clever, clever Lance.
The place was empty, deserted, and spooky. No one would dream of looking for us here, and there wasn’t a soul within shouting distance. And my phone? Back in my bedroom, exactly 1.8 miles out of reach.
I could skatch, though. I could skatch home.
The thought was still forming in my brain when Lance tackled me, pinning me to the floor beneath him. “No you don’t,” he said. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll see it in your mind. I’ll know where you are, Zara. And I’ll be right there with you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t make me hurt you.” His finger traced my cheek, sending shivers of horror through me. “I know how to hurt you. I have ways. Tricks you’d never dream of. Don’t make me use them.”
I couldn’t find my voice. But with Lance, I didn’t need to. Why did you bring me here? I asked him.
He chuckled. “We’re not staying here, if that’s what worries you. This is just a little stopping place. We’ll be miles from here by nightfall. But in the meantime, we won’t be interrupted.”
He was lying full length along my body. In my weakened condition, the full body contact made it impossible for me to block him out of my thoughts. He had total access. I lay there helplessly while Lance probed the depths of my mind, reading all the ways I thought of him, seeing my fear of him and my contempt. My dislike. And my attraction. Because I still thought he was the hottest thing in shoe leather, and I still needed desperately to belong somewhere ... and we were two of a kind, oh yes. Can’t get away from that.
And suddenly I saw, in Lance’s mind—since the full body contact was a two-way street—a glimpse of what was going on with him. Of what had made him plead my case to the Council, long before he ever knew me. Of what made him so anxious to save my life if he could.
It was ridiculously simple. It was also, quite frankly, insulting.
Outrage fired up my strength. I shoved at his shoulders, hard. “You wanted a girlfriend?”
He was just embarrassed enough, and I was just mad enough, that I was able to get away. I scooted backward across the waxed floor. “This whole thing was about sex?”
“No,” he said. All defensive. “It’s not like that. It’s not about me.”
I got up off the floor. It wasn’t dignified to crawl around like an infant. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to stare him down. Let’s face it, I wasn’t feeling my best. But I tried. “Explain,” I said. “If you can.”
Uh-oh. I was pissing him off again. I could feel it.
“What are you, eight years old? Come on. You know the facts of life.” He got up, dusting the seat of his jeans with his hand. “There’s nothing to get all prissy about. The spellspinner gene pool is shallow, that’s all. We can have sex with sticks, but we can only reproduce with other spellspinners. As a practical matter, I thought it was worth checking you out.”
“As a potential source of new blood.”
“Sure. Nothing wrong with that.”
“A potential source of new blood for you, Mr. Forty-ninth Spellspinner.”
A half-smile twisted his face. He looked sorta sheepish. And sorta wistful. “Well,” he said softly. “Not necessarily me. But until today, I thought I had a shot.”
The way he said it was sweet. Sad.
I saw, for the first time, a deep well of loneliness at the bottom of Lance’s soul.
I felt myself starting to soften toward him. Just a little bit of melting around the edges.
I am so stupid, I swear.
Because the next thing that happened was, he came up to me—and I was just weak enough to let him—and cupped his hands behind my neck. He looked at me with so much tenderness, I didn’t even see what his intent was until it was too late. “Oh, Zara,” he said, with infinite sadness. “I’m so sorry I have to do this.”
And bang, he invaded my mind with his. Not like thought reading, no indeed. He was there not to learn, or observe, or communicate. He was there to demolish.
It was like he dropped a daisy-cutter on my brain. One second I was standing there, gazing into his kryptonite eyes, and the next instant I exploded, completely torn apart by Lance’s power.
My knees gave way. I heard myself scream. Lance anticipated my collapse and caught me as I slid limply toward the floor. He held me in his arms and pressed his forehead against mine. Let go, Zara. Don’t fight me.
I didn’t know how to fight him.
I had to break the contact.
Had to, but couldn’t. I couldn’t move.
And those were the only two thoughts I recognized as my own: Break the contact. Can’t. The rest of my thoughts were Lance’s.
He possessed me, filling my head with all his heat and power and confidence. His ruthlessness. His single-minded devotion to himself. I heard the faint strains of an old song that was running through Lance’s mind. It wasn’t a song I knew, but I knew—because Lance knew—that the phantom voices belonged to the Walker Brothers, whoever they were. Make it eeeeasy on yourself, make it eeeeasy on yourself ...ah, yes, of course. The voices were singing Lance’s advice to me. Make it easy on yourself, Zara. It would happen whether I fought or not, so why fight it?
I clung, hard, to the last vestiges of me. I still pulsed, somewhere, at the base of what was becoming Lance’s satellite brain. What was he doing?? With the final remnants of Zara, I sought to see Lance’s intent. And I received images, swift and strong. I don’t know if he wasn’t bothering to hide them, or if he couldn’t—now that I was occupied territory.
The images were terrifying.
I didn’t receive the knowledge in words, so it’s hard to put into words. But I saw how Lance saw me: a spellspinner born, brought up to be a stick. I was flawed. I was weak. I would never be what I was meant to be. He saw me as going through life neither fish nor fowl, as it were. That I would never completely be a spellspinner. And yet I couldn’t be a stick. So I would be caught somewhere between two worlds, forever a danger to them both.
He didn’t care what havoc I wreaked among the sticks, of course. It was his own hide that he cared about. His, and the other spellspinners’. I was a ticking time bomb, out there among the sticks. A spellspinner with no loyalty to the Council? Unheard of. Unacceptable.
I couldn’t be allowed to crash around the planet like a bull
in a china shop, ignorant of my gifts and how to use them safely. So he had come, to teach me if he could. But getting me to join the group at this stage of the game had proved ... problematic. My identity, alas, was too firmly established, with my love of sticks in general and certain sticks in particular. I resisted. I asked awkward questions. I balked. I was, in fact, more trouble than I was worth.
So Lance was turning to Plan B.
He was reluctant to do it, oh yes. He was sorry. But that didn’t alter the fact that he was determined to do it. He was going to do it. He was, in fact, doing it.
He was breaking me.
There in his mind, clear for me to see, was a picture of what I would be like when he was done. There wasn’t exactly a name for the thing he was creating, but I know a zombie when I see one. I would still be alive, still be Zara Norland, but I would be passive. Hollow. He couldn’t take my powers away, not really. But he wouldn’t need to, by the time he was done. He was beating my soul into a bloody pulp. Robbing me of any desire to withstand him.
I saw his goal. I saw Zara in his mind’s eye, a beautiful plaything he could keep by his side. I would do his bidding. I would have no strength to do otherwise. No ideas of my own. No will of my own.
He was using his powers to give me the spellspinner equivalent of a lobotomy.
And even as horror flooded what remained of my being, I discovered I had no strength to stop him. Already I was helpless. I was motivated like never before, to get away and get away fast—but I could only lie there, with Lance’s forehead burning against mine like a hot iron pressed against my flesh. I lay there, unmoving, while his mind washed over mine in waves, washing every trace of me away. Every trace of me that mattered.
How long did this go on? I don’t know. It seemed to take a long time. Every once in a while I would struggle, feebly, and Lance would hold me closer, murmuring, “Shh, shh. Easy.”
And then for a few seconds it would feel easy, and I would relax, exhausted. My flame would flicker almost all the way out. And then that troublesome Zara-ness would rear its head again, fighting back, refusing to go quietly. Each time this happened, I was weaker. Each time, resistance was more painful. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I agreed completely with Lance ... that Zara was more trouble than she was worth. Let her go.
And then Lance made one tiny mistake.
It really wasn’t much. All that happened was, as I was gathering myself for one last flutter of protest, Lance allowed himself a tiny flicker of emotion. And I saw it.
You know what? He’s right. Emotions are dangerous for spellspinners. They trip you up, every time.
Lance’s fatal emotion? Irritation. For just a second, there, he was irritated that I was proving so difficult to subdue.
In other words, he hadn’t been expecting it. He hadn’t banked on encountering this much resistance.
His momentary irritation gave me a glimpse of something important. That Lance had thought I was weaker than I was.
Which means? That I am, when all is said and done, stronger than he bargained for.
You know, in the state I was in, I have to tell you that I’m surprised the penny dropped at all. But it did. I had my first coherent thought in about half an hour. I’m stronger than you think I am.
Now, of course he heard my thought. Loud and clear. And it startled him. Distracted him.
You can’t afford to get distracted when you’re turning Zara Norland into a vegetable. I’m here to tell you.
All I needed was that tiny break in his concentration. I grabbed a toe-hold in my own bright, shining spirit. Just a toe-hold. And once I had something to cling to, I did what I should have done at the beginning.
I called upon the Power.
And it answered like it never had before.
There came a rumbling sound from beneath the Cherry High gym, like an approaching earthquake. My legs straightened, and I leaped to my feet. Lance went sprawling. His mouth fell open in shock. And the Power slammed into me like a glorious, onrushing freight train.
It entered through the soles of my feet, as if fired from the center of the earth, and shot all the way through me. My hair lifted and snapped as if I were standing in a strong wind. My eyes lit from within with purple fire. Rays of amethyst-colored light crackled in my hair and shot out my fingertips.
I know these things because I was able to see myself through Lance’s eyes. You know what? I looked way scary.
I felt terrific. After all the weakness and pain I had just endured, woot, this was great. I towered over Lance like a vengeful goddess, lit from within by my own, magnificent power. I have to tell you, it was wicked cool.
It occurred to Lance that he’d better call up some power of his own, to level the playing field.
That’s as far as he got with that idea. I pointed at him, and he sailed backwards down the polished floor of the basketball court, like a hockey puck on ice.
“Don’t even think about it,” I advised him. My voice sounded like it was coming through a seriously awesome sound system. It was still my voice, but amplified and enhanced to an eerie beauty it doesn’t normally have.
I thought it might be harder for Lance to call up any power if I removed his contact with the ground. Our power seems to come from the earth, for whatever reason. So ... still pointing at him ... I lifted my finger slightly. And Lance left the floor.
Interesting.
I beckoned, and Lance floated toward me. Still dangling in the air, mind you. I studied his emotions, as he had so often studied mine. They were a fascinating mix. He was a little bit scared, but not nearly as scared as I would have been in his shoes. Lance is no coward. He was a little bit angry, a little bit chagrined—since he had lost the upper hand by underestimating me, which any fool knows is the stupidest thing you can do in battle—but the strongest emotion he felt was astonishment.
He was really, really surprised.
He was also a little bit turned-on, but I discounted that. You almost have to, when you’re inside the mind of a teenaged boy. I have to admit, though, I was fairly gorgeous, all shot through with Power. In Lance’s eyes, I was unbelievably hot.
Boys are so weird.
I pulled him toward me until he was dangling right in front of me. Still outside of arm’s reach, though. I was not going to make Lance’s mistake, and underestimate my opponent.
Even in mid-air, Lance managed to look graceful and powerful. Go figure.
“You know, I really did want to learn,” I told him sadly. “It’s a shame that things turned out the way they did.”
“Maybe we could start over.”
I thought about it. Would it be different, now that Lance knew I had real power? Maybe.
Maybe not.
“You know what?” I said. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”
And I banished him.
Looking back, I’m trying to figure out how I did that. I’m not really sure. I was so infused with Power at the time, I didn’t have to think about how to do things. I looked at Lance, suspended in the air by my will alone, and I thought: Bye-bye. And he was gone.
I don’t know where he went, and I don’t care. Back to Spellhaven, I suppose. Good for him. Take a nice, long, rest, Lance.
And have fun explaining to the Council how you screwed up.
The power ebbed immediately, once Lance was gone. I wanted it to. The good news in that is, I guess, that I controlled it. Always when I call, it has answered, one way or another. But doing exactly what I ask of it, no more and no less ... that’s new. And leaving me when I tell it to? That’s new, too.
That’s probably huge, but I just can’t make myself care right now. I’ll ponder all this another day. Tonight? I’m totally wrung-out.
I banished Lance. And he disappeared, right on cue. And I sent the Power back into the earth. And then I was left standing there. Zara Norland, all alone in an empty gymnasium. The last light of a very long day threw golden shafts across the room. Dust motes danced in the a
ir. The room smelled of floor wax and, faintly, basketballs. After everything that had happened, I was limp with exhaustion.
I did a mental inventory. Memories? Still there. Personality? Intact, as far as I could tell. Powers? Uh ... I’m guessing yes. So even though my mind felt like somebody had squeezed it like an orange, it was bruised ... but not broken. Still a little juice left in the old bean.
Time to go home.
17
I know, now, what happened back home. Meg was already on her way to see me—to have it out with me, of course, not to make up—when she heard me dinging her phone. The phone was in her backpack and she didn’t pick up my voicemail or my text. But when she got to the house she heard the last thing she ever expected to hear emanating from Helga Norland’s peaceful home: the sounds of a knock-down, drag-out fight. She had never heard my voice produce anything like a panicked scream, needless to say. So at first she wasn’t even sure who was in there.
She looked through the parlor window just in time to see Lance dragging me backwards with a pillow held against my face. And then we vanished.
The pillow dropped to the floor and lay in a pool of sunlight. Dust motes danced above it; the only clue that anything had been moving in that room a second before. We were gone. Meg didn’t screech or faint or even hyperventilate. Meg, after three years as my best friend, is not easily startled.
Unlike the average person, Meg’s problem wasn’t deciding whether she believed her eyes. She knew what she had seen. Her problem was deciding what to do about it.
Call 911? Yeah, right. And report what, exactly?
Dash across the street and fetch Nonny? What, pray tell, would that accomplish? Other than freaking Nonny out. Answer: not much.
Meg did the only sensible thing she could think of. She ditched her backpack and went around to the kitchen entrance, away from the road. And she broke into our house.
Once she was in, she hunted upstairs and down, calling my name—just to be sure. But of course I didn’t answer. And then she went into the parlor and dining room to assess the damage and look for clues.