Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K

by Jennifer Sommersby

  I eased away from his neck, and Henry placed his hands on the sides of my head, his index fingers resting on the rim of each of my ears. He slowly kissed my forehead, then brushed the tip of my nose with his lips, before planting another ful kiss on my mouth. I didn’t want it to be over. I was hungry for him, a hunger born of fear and safety and longing and happiness. I puled my legs underneath me and knelt on the bench, leaning into him. He wrapped his arms around my middle and puled me closer, his upper body now wedged into the narrow space between the table and seat back. I tangled my fingers through his hair and gently squeezed the back of his neck. He felt strong, warm, under my touch.

  Henry paused only to put my hand on his chest, over his heart.

  “Is yours beating as fast as mine?” he asked. I smiled and rubbed the thin fabric of his shirt.

  “I think mine’s going faster,” I teased.

  “I can fix that,” he said, puling my face back to his. My hands migrated from his hair to his shoulders and chest, broad and firm.

  He caressed my sides, his thumbs pausing at the underwire of my bra. Just the hint of him touching me so intimately sent a fresh wave of chils throughout my entire being.

  Things were getting heated. I felt Henry pul back, exerting the control I lacked. I had no interest in time, my homework, getting to bed. What I wanted was to melt into him, forget that there was a world outside those four wals.

  “Gemma,” he breathed, slowing his kisses, “I should go…before I get us both into trouble.” I knew he was right, the voice of reason, but already I was looking forward to the next time we’d have a moment alone to just be ourselves, wrapped in the solitude of one another. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to pul him onto my bunk, draw the drape, and keep him captive forever.

  As my body, semi-reclined on his, impeded his escape, I took a long moment to catalog the minute details of his face, his eyes, his lips. Henry Dmitri was, hands down, the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

  “Gemma, you’re stunning,” he said, his voice low, soft.

  “You need glasses.” Compliments made me say stupid things.

  Pouting, I pushed myself back and slid off the bench to help him into his heavy wool pea coat. We walked toward the door, our hands locked together, not wanting to break our physical connection. Henry stopped and bent over, embracing me once again. He lifted me from the floor, not a difficult task considering the seven-plus inches of height difference, and I squealed with surprise.

  He crushed my lips with another long, passionate kiss. I wanted to plead with him to stay with me, keep me safe.

  I felt weak when he set me down again. “So, Summer said she thought you were gay,” I said.

  “She said that, huh?” Henry giggled. “Wel, what do you think?”

  “I think we can put that little theory to rest.” I stretched on my tiptoes and kissed him again. “Cal or text to let me know you made it home.” I took one final inhale of him.

  “I wil.” Grinning, he descended the stairs of the trailer. When he turned back to wave a final goodbye, a sadness had drifted into his face, maybe because he knew he was going to a home with no one but a housekeeper to keep him company. But I hoped it was because he felt as melancholy as I did about having to part ways just when things were getting so good.

  :19:

  “Some things are true whether you believe in them or not.”

  —Seth, City of Angels

  Because we were staying put in Eaglefern, the chore lists for the circus road crew had been modified. They no longer had to rig up massive tent poles, stretch miles of plasticized canvas, or put up temporary enclosures for the beasts at the end of every week. In the good old days when the Cinzio Traveling Players actualy traveled, we’d pul into a place and it would be ready for us to set up our temporary oasis of magic. Now that our wheels had been flattened, other tasks had surfaced—yucky, boring tasks. Lots of cleaning, lots of maintenance. And with it, lots of grumbling.

  With the addition of public school, I’d been lucky—my chore expectations had actualy been reduced. I took care of my elephants, scooped poop, and continued my music lessons with Irina. In a way, residential status was making me lazy. And I kinda loved it. Instead of the quiet moments puling me into dark thoughts about how much I missed my mom, how angry I was at her for leaving me, how bitter I felt about her spotty presence throughout my life, I could instead think about other stuff, stuff that “normal” teenagers spent time thinking about. Like boys. One boy in particular. And getting lost in that one boy’s eyes, inhaling his smel, feeling his face so close to mine, drowning in his attention. Yes, this new living situation was growing on me.

  He was back at school, thank heavens. I didn’t want to have to deal with the stares from the sharks on my own. When Henry walked down the hal with me, the looks and comments were kept to a minimum. Like people just minded their manners when he was present. And Junie was never around to interfere. She was plenty busy learning the new flight patterns of her felow social butterflies.

  The sun had made a remarkable appearance in the late February sky, its warmth having an immediate and obvious impact on the morale of the entire student body. The stadium was filed with the lunch crowd, and although the footbal field was stil soggy, the covered team benches on the far side sat unoccupied. The perfect spot for Henry and me to hang out, to be out of the lunchroom and catch some rays.

  “I had fun last night,” he said as we rounded the rubberized track.

  “Oh, yeah?” I teased.

  “Yeah.” Henry smiled. It made my knees wobble.

  “What did you like about it?”

  “You,” he stopped and kissed me right there in front of God and everyone.

  “That’s funny, ’cuz I was thinking that you were what made it rock.” I grinned and hooked my arm in his. He kissed the side of my head. “You’d better watch yourself, Dmitri. Someone’s gonna see you mauling me.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  As we stepped into the canopied dugout, Henry took off his coat and spread it over the metal bench. Even though the sun was out, everything was stil dripping with the season. I’d grabbed food, enough for both of us, from the meal tent before leaving this morning, glad I had now that we had an excuse to be outside.

  Though my experience with eating in the cafeteria had been minimal, I’d had enough squishy croutons, stale bread, and canned spaghetti sauce for a lifetime. It made me appreciate Jean-Pierre and his team so much more. And I now understood why Henry avoided school food. Too bad Lucian hadn’t spent some of his hard-earned money to improve the culinary offerings of EHS.

  “Gemma, at some point, we need to talk about the book. I don’t know how much Ted has told you, and it’s important that you know…everything,” he said. Yuck! Why? No, nothing serious!

  I’m still basking in the afterglow. Can’t you just kiss me again so I can pretend that everything is perfect for a little while longer?

  “Do we have to do this now?” I whined.

  “Yeah…we do.”

  “Wel, then, I suppose Ted hasn’t told me enough. About anything, it seems.”

  “What do you know about the book?”

  “That it’s old. It’s magical. Lucian wants it but the people who have it won’t give it back. Because it’s theirs to begin with,” I said, taking a bite of apple. “Oh, yeah, and we’re stuck in this bustling metropolis until Lucian gets what he wants. That about covers it.” Henry chuckled under his breath. His head tilted, he looked at me, his eyes playful. “Do you want to leave this bustling metropolis?”

  “Not now,” I said. He leaned over and gave me another kiss. It tasted like tomato. “Seriously, aren’t you freaked Daddy Dmitri has spies in our midst?”

  “He does. Guaranteed.” He looked across the field. Yes, there were people watching us. It made him smile. He kissed me again, a real one this time, not just a smack on the lips.

  “You’re naughty,” I said, my eyes slow to reopen.

&
nbsp; “Am not.”

  I tossed a fluff of bread at him. “Fine. Reality check. Lay it on me: what else is there to know about this book? Why can’t Lucian just go on Amazon or something and get a copy of it?” Henry started laughing. “Wow. Dear ol’ Uncle Ted didn’t tel you very much at al, did he?” He wadded up the wrapper from his sandwich and dusted the crumbs off his pant legs. Puling his sleeve back, he checked his watch. “You have cooking class fifth period, right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Feel like skipping it?”

  “Uh, I guess…?” I didn’t want to talk about this garbage. I wanted to get lost in his eyes, climb onto his lap again and pul his hands around my waist.

  “This is an involved story, and you realy need to hear it,” he said, growing serious.

  “Why the urgency? I get that Lucian wants his precious book back, but it sounds to me like an impasse. I have no idea what my uncle is going to do.”

  Henry took a deep breath and stared out across the field. The crowd of students had sweled as indoor lunches were finished and classes were abandoned, kids intoxicated by that big yelow shiny thing in the sky that had been hibernating for an eternity in a den of thick, grey clouds.

  “Yesterday, when I saw the Italian shade in the mess tent, Irina said I had to be ready. But I don’t understand what that means.”

  “My mother…she’s told me…things are in motion. Dangerous things. Stuff that is way bigger than you and me, and somehow, we’re both involved.”

  “You’ve said that before, but I stil don’t get how I’m involved.” His eyes looked sad, but also hesitant, like there was something he wanted to share with me but couldn’t.

  “Let’s get out of here. Away from school. And I’l tel you everything I can.”

  We cleaned up our lunch mess and walked back toward the school. I saw Summer Day and Ivy running from the smokers’

  lounge toward the stadium, though if they saw us, they didn’t give us a second glance. But that didn’t mean our hand-in-hand strol away from the stadium and to the parking lot didn’t attract its own share of attention. Normaly I didn’t want people to notice me or what I was doing, but it felt good to be walking across campus with the one guy al the girls slobbered over. Yeah, ladies, it’s my hand he’s holding. Sucks to be you.

  “I don’t want to sound lame, but are we going to get in trouble if we leave?”

  “Nah. It’s an open campus. And I’m an adult,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I’m not, at least not until May 30.”

  “Wel, then you’d better stop trying to seduce me or else I’l go to jail.” He winked and opened the door for me. It was unnerving to be back in his car. I held my breath, expecting Alicia’s voice to power through the speaker system. To be on the safe side, I avoided the mirrors.

  Henry puled out of the lot and down the main drag, heading for the town’s only Starbucks, Eaglefern’s one other redeeming quality, besides Henry. We went through the drive-through and parked in the lot, away from other cars and curious onlookers. Unfortunately for Henry, his face was a familiar one. Everyone in Eaglefern seemed to know the Dmitris.

  Once the car was off, he turned in his seat to face me.

  “Okay, Miss Gemma, you ready for this?”

  I sipped my latte and licked foam off my upper lip. “Ready as I’l ever be.” In truth, I was unsure, skipping school and al, especialy in the spooky ghost mobile. But I was with Henry, and that, hands down, was loads better than getting screamed at by Ms. Garces.

  Henry took a long blink and inhaled deeply. “Here goes. The book: there are only seven copies of the AVRA-K. They are written in Aramaic, each one an exact copy of the original, each one given to its intended owner at the time it was made. The book is a covenant of sorts, not unlike the Bible, but instead of the word of God, the AVRA-K pertains to the magical realm. It holds rules that govern the art of magic, healing, and mysticism and the people within that domain.”

  “It’s a magic book? Like, something David Blaine or that Mindfreak dude would use?” I said.

  “No, those guys are magicians in the modern sense of the word.

  They perform ilusions and card tricks, but that’s not at al what this is. The AVRA-K—the word itself, ‘avrakedavra,’ comes from either Hebrew or Aramaic, and it was once used in incantations meant to heal and protect.”

  “Avrakedavra, abracadabra…so, the same thing basicaly.”

  “Just different interpretations,” he said.

  “It sounds sily. Like, if I say it and wave my magic wand, I can turn an ant into an elephant? Hey, Conductor, can you direct me to Platform 9¾?” I said, affecting a bad English accent. Henry’s face looked serious.

  “This isn’t magic-wand-Harry-Potter magic, Gemma.” I cleared my throat and dropped my smartass tone. “Sorry. I’l behave.” Wiping the smile off my face wasn’t as easy. I thought I was being pretty funny. “So, what does this book do?”

  “Think of the book like a mini encyclopedia. In its pages are the secrets of the mystical life—spels, incantations, remedies. Those who believed in this life were around long before Christ. They migrated from areas of Mesopotamia, like Babylon, into Egypt and north into Europe. My mother’s family eventualy settled in what is now France, and Lucian’s in Romania and Turkey, even though those countries were caled by other names back then. You have to remember, too, that there were a bunch of gods and goddesses and people worshipped idols big time. Beliefs were different depending on where you were in the world.

  “These mystics, before Christianity, were very respected for their powers and wisdom. When people got sick, they would actualy go to magicians instead of doctors. And people were crazy superstitious, so curses and vexations were common. If someone felt they had been cursed, they’d seek the advice of a magician.”

  “People cursed each other, for real?” Junie and I had messed around with voodoo dols and sily love spels, but, man, if we’d known about a book ful of magical secrets, we could’ve done some serious damage. That would’ve actualy been sorta cool…

  “Yeah, but there were laws that ruled against evil spels.

  Folowers of the AVRA-K were not into black magic. Only magic for the greater good. The book is an extremely precious resource to the people in the realm of healing magic, and the secrecy that surrounds it is intense,” Henry said.

  “So these books are like heirlooms that have been handed down through thousands of years of your family?” I said.

  “Not handed down. Gemma. Owned, by the Original Seven, the mystics responsible for its creation.”

  “The Original Seven? Were they the men who wrote it?”

  “Yes,” said Henry.

  “And there are only seven books?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a sec…if the AVRA-K predates the Old Testament, that would mean it’s at least two thousand years old. No one can own a book—or anything—for that long, Henry.” My mouth was parched.

  “That’s impossible. Two thousand years?”

  “Actualy, closer to three,” he said. Something’s not adding up here… I narrowed my eyes at him and set my coffee in the cup holder. The car’s interior grew claustrophobic, the air tight. Alarm bels clamored through my brain.

  “Where are al seven copies right now?”

  “Lucian has six of them. The seventh is with the Delacroixs in Rouen, France. But Lucian wants it, very, very much.” I shook my head.

  “Please. I know this sounds totaly out there, but I swear on my life that I’m teling you the truth.” Henry gave me a pleading look.

  “Could you please turn the key so I can rol my window down?” I said. “Fresh air would be great.” I so wanted to believe him. I had to believe him. Things were getting too unreal too quickly for me to doubt.

  I stared at the dash clock. We should’ve been halfway through fifth period.

  Henry continued. “Like I said, the secrecy around it is crazy, and there’s a reason for it. The AVRA-K provides its owner an
amazing gift, but it comes with a price,” he said, taking a deep breath before continuing. “The bearers are given the gift of long life, as long as the ages of man, in exchange for protecting the AVRA-K. But if the owner loses his copy, the punishment is swift and severe.”

  “As long as the ages of man? What does that even mean?” Henry laughed under his breath. “It means a long-ass time.”

  “Like, forever? Are the owners immortal?”

  “No, not immortal. Not exactly. They are protected from disease and aging, so they live for thousands of years, in some cases. That’s where that ‘impossible’ part you mentioned comes in.”

  Henry reached for my hand, but I stuffed both of them into the pockets of my sweatshirt. I needed to hear him unencumbered by the influence of his touch.

  He instead fumbled with the green anti-splash stopper stick from his coffee before dropping it on the console. “If an Original Seven loses his book, the curse kicks in and the owner wil age just like a normal person. His family won’t be able to create future generations. New babies born after the loss won’t live. Eventualy, unless the book is recovered, the owner wil die, as wil his remaining family through natural progression. And if the AVRA-K

  fals into the hands of someone who has not been initiated into its use, the book becomes inactive. If left for too long, it wil lose its potency and fade. The AVRA-K, as I understand it, is a use-it-or-lose-it scenario.”

  “As long as the books are in the possession of the right people, the magic is stil good?”

  “Something like that,” Henry said.

  “What if a bad guy got it?”

  “Wel, they’d have to know how to use it, and they would’ve had to been inducted into that select group of people who are alowed to access its magic. Otherwise, it’s just an old book. Not very many people left in the world have even heard of the AVRA-K, so the potential for corruption comes from that tiny group of what they cal ‘initiates.’ Like Marku Dmitri, Lucian’s father, and Thibeault Delacroix, my mother’s father. And Lucian, of course.”