I pet Annie’s soft brown curls. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her. “He likes you. You like him. This is good. I promise.”
“Okay,” she says. “I trust you. You’d know if he was a . . . you know. Right?”
“Right,” I say. It is not the first time she has asked me this question. One of the almost certainly unintentional gifts the evil librarian left me with was the ongoing ability to see if someone is a demon in disguise. Demons, to my enhanced eyes, have a glowing red halo kind of thing above their heads. William is entirely halo free.
I haven’t seen any red halos since I returned from rescuing Annie from the demon world.
And that is the way I would like it to stay forever, please.
Except for those two return trips, I guess, since that would be hard to pull off. But I am still not thinking about those. It could be years before the demoness calls on me again. It could be never if she forgets that humans only live for like eighty to a hundred years, if we’re lucky. Sometimes at night, when I can’t sleep, I comfort myself with the idea that I’ll probably be dead long before she thinks to call in her remaining favors.
Later, we go to Sarah Patel’s annual end-of-the-school-year party. (Earlier, we went to Diane’s, and Annie let us tell her what to wear and also let us put just a little extra eye makeup on her, and Diane did not let us tell her what to wear, and when William came to pick Annie up, we refrained from shouting lewd suggestions out the window at them.)
And now I am snuggled on a couch with Ryan, nestled under his perfectly muscled upper arm, watching the party go on around us. Everyone is slightly manic with pre-summer energy. The seniors are talking about where they’re going to college, and the few freshmen Sarah invited are mostly haunting the fringes of the room, not really knowing how to act or whom to talk to. The sophomores and juniors are more relaxed; most of us have done this before, and it’s nice to not be nervous about being young and new and also not be distracted by being about to graduate and start whole new lives in possibly faraway places.
But it is the start of my last week before camp, which has me nervous in all kinds of other ways. I’ve never gone away for the summer before. I’m excited, of course, but also I know I’ll miss Diane and Leticia and especially Annie. They promised to write and send care packages, but that will not be the same as actually getting to see them and talk to them. This is one of those camps where you have to surrender your cell phone when you get there, and laptops and tablets are not allowed. I guess that’s so we can get the “full summer camp” experience, like they did in the old days, or whatever. But it means I won’t even be able to talk to Annie on the phone. I’m sure once I’m there I’ll get caught up in the shows and everything else, and it won’t be so bad. Ryan loves this place like crazy, and that alone makes it something worth experiencing. And the idea of spending the whole summer immersed in musical theater is like some kind of magical dream. I know it will be great. It will.
But I keep feeling more and more uneasy.
All night long, I keep thinking I see something out of the corner of my eye, only to turn my head to find nothing out of the ordinary. Just people having a good time at a party.
I catch a glimpse of Annie and William, who have not left each other’s side for a second all night as far as I can tell, sitting on the floor in a corner, their heads close together as they talk.
I see Leticia and Diane dancing together through the door into the next room, laughing and holding hands.
I see random other people from my classes, some theater kids, some of Ryan’s friends whom I’ve met over the past few months, some kids I only know vaguely from the hallways or study hall or wherever else. The few strangers don’t seem at all out of place; just other kids that I never happened to have a class with or pass often enough in the hall to recognize. Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine. But I can’t stop turning my head trying to see . . . something.
“Why are you all twitchy?” Ryan asks, his question tickling my ear as he leans close to be heard over the music. I am tempted to pretend not to hear him so he will lean even closer, but I’m too distracted by . . . whatever keeps distracting me.
“I don’t know. Something . . . feels weird. I keep thinking I see something.”
I feel his body tense where I’m leaning against it. “See what?” Just like me, there is some part of him that will always be waiting for another demon to appear.
Always.
I shake my head, frustrated. “I don’t know.” I look at him and smile weakly. “It’s probably nothing. It’s definitely nothing. I’m just having end-of-the-year hallucinations or something.”
“Oh, right. Those. Of course.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I try to make this true. “Whatever it is, it’s nothing. I’m probably just tired. And excited. Only one more week before camp!”
“Okay,” Ryan says. “But you’ll tell me if . . . you know.”
“Of course!” I elbow him for asking such a stupid question. Even though I suppose he has some tiny justification for wanting to remind me of the rules of disclosure. “But it’s not anything like that.”
“Okay.” He smiles at me, and that helps a lot to make me forget whatever else might be going on in the room.
“Okay,” I say, smiling back.
Then he pulls me closer and kisses me, and the rest of the room no longer has any significance whatsoever.
This is good, Old Cyn reminds me from somewhere in the back of my brain. Everything is good. Everyone is alive and happy and good and this is going to be the best summer ever. Theater camp! All summer! Ryan Halsey is your BOYFRIEND!
Yes, I know. Now shut up. I’m busy.
I focus my attention back on the kissing.
Oh my God the kissing.
I will never get tired of this.
It is going to be the best summer ever.
The best summer ever begins ridiculously early.
My alarm screams at me from the darkness, and I feel around for the snooze button.
“Cyn?” my mom calls from somewhere in the ridiculous early darkness. Like she was lurking outside my room just waiting for this signal. “You up?”
“Uhhh,” I groan in response. Why does the stupid bus have to leave so early?
She heartlessly flips on my light, forcing me to burrow more deeply into my covers. “Let’s go,” she says. “Ryan’s parents will be here in an hour.”
I crawl half-conscious to the shower. The hot water and the aggressively energetic scent of my tangerine bodywash work their magic, and wakefulness slowly descends upon me. I am washed and clothed and downstairs with my enormous duffel in time to grab an English muffin and some orange juice before we hear the horn outside.
“Have a great summer, sweetie,” my dad says, getting up from the table to envelop me in a giant dad hug. We already said our real good-byes last night, but ever since the “chemical leak” at the school in the fall, he has been making an effort to hug me a lot. I don’t mind, really.
“Don’t forget to write,” my mom says with a not-quite-ironic smile. She hugged me last night, too, but I think that was enough for both of us. We’re not really huggers. Of each other, I mean.
I smile back at her. “I won’t.”
And then Ryan is at the door, offering to carry my duffel because he is awesome and it is freaking heavy. He is smiley and excited. Like a puppy. A tall, sexy puppy. I try to shake off my lingering grouchiness at the early hour for his sake.
In the backseat of the car, I lean my head on his shoulder and half listen to the radio and his parents’ occasional conversation. It’s not only this early morning that’s got me so tired; I’ve been exhausted all week. Some of it is because of many late nights with Annie and Leticia and Diane, but some of it is because of the relentless baseless uneasiness that still hasn’t gone away. I still keep looking around for . . . something. It happens all the time when I’m awake, and my sleep is filled with demony nightmares that I can’t quite rememb
er when I wake up. I’m sure it’s just anxiety about leaving my friends for the summer manifesting in wonky ways. It has to be. I focus on believing that once we get up there I’ll be able to relax and have a good time.
Ryan gets his own parental hugs when they drop us off at the bus stop. They don’t leave, exactly, but they go park in a spot in the parking lot and stay in the car and pretend not to be there, like all the other parents. There are a bunch of kids already waiting. Ryan knows nearly all of them, and he introduces me as his girlfriend to everyone, which cheers me up immensely.
“You waking up finally?” he asks after all the introductions are over, giving me a little squeeze.
“Yes, sorry. It’s just been a weirdly long week. And I haven’t been sleeping so great.”
He kisses the top of my head. “It’s going to be a great summer. You’ll see.”
I squeeze him back. “I know.”
The bus arrives, and we all stack our duffels in the storage compartment and then climb aboard. The bus makes a few more stops and then heads for the hills. Chatter on the bus ranges from catching up on the past year to speculation about what the shows will be this summer.
“They’re way overdue for Candide,” a guy Ryan introduced as Craig says for about the fifth time. He’s sitting across the aisle from us.
“Craig, you are the only one who likes Candide,” someone calls from another seat. “None of us are going to hope for that with you.”
Craig seems undeterred. “It’s a great show. You just don’t know how to appreciate it properly.”
“What do you guys have against Candide?” I ask Ryan.
“Oh, nothing,” he says back. “Craig’s just been obsessed with that show since birth, so we like to give him a hard time about it. Someday they really will do Candide, and we’ll all be happy for him.”
Not everyone is there for musical theater; there are straight plays as well, although I don’t pay as much attention to the speculation on those. But no one seems to have any real information — it’s all guesses and rumors and wishes. They’ll announce the list tonight. And then tomorrow are auditions, and by the end of the day, everyone will know what show they’re in. The audition equivalent for the set designers happened when we sent in our applications, but we won’t find out the shows and our assignments until the same time everyone else does.
At some point I must doze off, because suddenly Ryan is shaking me gently awake. “Come on, sleepyhead. We’re here!”
We stand and file off the bus. Through the windows I can see a crowd of other campers waiting to see who disembarks. Ryan jumps down ahead of me, and before he has taken three steps, someone streaks out of the crowd and tackles him to the ground. For a second my heart stops, but then I see that he is laughing, and I relax. Someone he knows. Obviously. Besides, I’m pretty sure a full-body tackle in broad daylight in front of scores of witnesses isn’t most demons’ style.
And then I see that the tackler is a tall, pretty, blond girl who has completely wrapped herself around him in her enthusiasm, and I stop relaxing.
Someone gives me a polite nudge from behind. I step off the bus and walk over to where some girl is sitting on top of my boyfriend.
“Hi!” I say brightly.
Ryan disentangles himself, climbs back to his feet, and smiles at me. “Cyn, this is Jules. She’s been coming here as long as I have, so we’ve known each other pretty much forever.” Then he turns to the girl. “Jules, this is my girlfriend, Cyn.”
For the briefest moment, her smile seems to falter just a tiny bit. But then she reaches out to shake my hand. “Hi, Cyn! Welcome to paradise. You’re going to love it, I promise.”
“That’s what Ryan keeps telling me.”
“Well, he’s right. What bunk are you in? Do you know yet?”
I look at Ryan helplessly, and he comes to my rescue. “Those people with the clipboards have the bunk info. They’ll tell you where to go.” He pulls my duffel from the storage compartment onto the ground and then hefts his own onto his shoulder. “Go on and get settled. I’ll see you at the big gathering before dinner tonight.”
Then he kisses me on my head again (it’s less charming this time) and walks off. With Jules.
I make myself stop watching them walking away together and try to figure out what I’m supposed to do now. Other kids are swarming around me, grabbing duffels, hugging friends, squealing and shouting. There are a few other confused-looking idiots like me, too. I turn in place, trying to locate these alleged clipboard-holding entities. As I scan the crowd, I suddenly see a flash of red.
Demon-halo red.
This time my heart stops for more than a second. Everything seems to stop. I am alone in the universe with my horrible fear, trying to see where the demon is.
But now it’s gone.
I stare around more wildly, but I don’t see it again.
Probably because it was just your imagination, moron, my brain tells me. My brain is still grouchy and tired, apparently.
Was it my imagination? That would be nice to believe. I am still tired. And disoriented. And annoyed at the whole Jules thing even though I’m sure she is a perfectly nice person and there’s nothing at all to be worried about there even though she has apparently been Ryan’s summer BFF for practically his entire life and he never actually mentioned her until today. Not one time in all his gushing about camp over the past few months. Not one time ever.
I finally spot a college-age-looking girl holding a clipboard and drag my duffel in that direction. It was my imagination. I’m going to go with that. Because why would there be demons at camp? There would not be. That’s just ridiculous.
“Name?”
“Cynthia Rothschild.”
The girl flips through her pages. “You are in . . . bunk six.” She looks me up and down. “First time?”
I love that it’s so obvious.
“Yes.”
She smiles reassuringly. “I know it seems crazy right now, and it’s weird when almost everyone else knows one another already, but you’ll pick it up fast. And there’s another new girl in your bunk — her name’s Susan.”
“Thanks,” I say with real gratefulness. It hadn’t even occurred to me that everyone else in my whole bunk might already be lifelong friends. In fact, I hadn’t really given much thought to whom I might be living with. All of my thought had been focused on Ryan and musical theater. Which are both totally thought-worthy, of course. But I probably should have left a little for all the other details of camp.
I manage to get my duffel into some semblance of a fireman’s carry and trudge off in the direction she indicated.
The campus is pretty much as expected. I mean I’d seen pictures and stuff, and I had a general image in my head of square wooden cabiny things for the bunks, which are basically what they are. The boys and girls are housed on opposite sides of the campus, to prevent after-hours fraternizing, although of course that happens anyway, according to Ryan. There’s a lake somewhere that I can’t see from here, and a lot of trees, and a cluster of buildings in the middle, and few farther-off buildings in various directions that I assume are the performance spaces. All of the bunks have helpful numbers painted on them, and I locate number 6 without too much trouble.
Inside, it’s kind of rustic but not dirty or anything. There are five sets of bunk beds and two regular beds, and several of them are already claimed by piles of stuff. Six girls are standing in the center of the room, chattering excitedly. They all turn to look at me when I walk in.
“Um. Hi,” I say to the room in general.
“Hey,” they respond nearly in unison. One of the girls adds, “You can take any bunk you want that doesn’t already have stuff on it.”
“Thanks.” After a quick survey of what’s available, I settle on one of the bottom bunks at the far end. I am fully aware that some part of me is probably choosing that because it’s most like a cave that I can hide in, but I don’t care. Besides, I can’t change my mind now. I’d look
stupid.
The girl who told me to take any bunk I wanted walks over. “I’m Hana. There’s shelves and stuff that we all kind of share along the wall that you can use for your things, and you can keep some bathroom stuff on the counter in there if you want. There’s room.”
“Thanks,” I say again. “I’m Cyn.”
She nods and indicates the other girls, who are still talking, “That’s Amina, Lisa R., Lisa P., Sasha, and Caroline,” she says, pointing at each one. “Hey, guys, this is Cyn,” she adds, a little louder.
There is a chorus of “Hi, Cyn” and some repetitions of names, and then another couple of girls walk in and everyone erupts into excited squeals. I focus on unpacking and making my bed.
By the time the announcement comes over the loudspeaker to gather at Hines Hall (the center building/gymnasium, where a lot of social activities happen), the rest of the girls have arrived. I am introduced to all of them but only remember one or two of their names. Susan turns out to be a painfully shy girl who doesn’t speak much but nevertheless seems to want to attach herself to me as the only other new person. I follow Hana and the others out with my silent new appendage looking fearfully around beside me.
The noise and movement is almost overwhelming when we first enter the packed hall. I search for Ryan (not for anything else, certainly not for flashes of demony red) and find him after a minute in the middle of a group that, of course, also contains Jules. I consider trying to shake Susan, but that seems unnecessarily cruel, so I just let her tag along with me. The other girls from our bunk have melted into the crowd, looking for more old friends.
Jules sees me first and points me out to Ryan. He turns and gives me a delicious Ryan-smile that instantly makes me feel better about being new and clueless and everything else. Well, almost everything else. I think about maybe telling him about the halo. But then I remember that I already decided it was only my imagination, and he seems so happy right now, and I really don’t want to ruin it.
I am introduced to about ten more new people whose names I instantly forget. I introduce Susan in turn, who mumbles hello and tries to burrow more deeply into my side. I must draw the line at this, because right now the only person I want touching me is Ryan. Luckily, just then the camp director steps up to the front of the room, and everyone begins settling down on the floor. Ryan pulls me down to sit with him, and I snuggle between his legs, leaning back against his chest. Susan seems to realize at last that she is not actually connected to my body in any literal sense and sits down a few inches away. Some of Ryan’s friends attempt to be friendly to her, which is really nice of them.
Revenge of the Evil Librarian Page 2