by Stacy Juba
As he turned up the radio full blast, Dawn rubbed her aching forehead. Normally she loved music, but not right now.
She reached over and lowered the volume. "Is that okay? I’ve got a splitting headache."
"Hey, this is my car. I control the tunes." Ken jerked his gaze off the road.
"Sorry, I’m just not feeling well." Dawn fastened her eyes on the floor mats, which badly needed shaking out. Maybe she was wrong and he did hate her.
"Who asked you here, anyway? I ought to go back and drop you off at the bus stop."
"Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t ask you to drive me."
"Yeah, my dad did. Except he didn’t ask. He ordered."
"Don’t worry, you won’t have to be seen with me anymore. From now on, I’ll catch the bus." Dawn’s voice wobbled. If he snapped at her one more time, the warmth pressing behind her eyelids would explode.
"You’re not crying are you?" Ken glanced at her sideways.
"I told you, I have a headache," she said, dabbing her cheeks with her shirt sleeve. "I’m a little nervous about school."
"It’s not you, okay? Your mom’s always in my face and Dad keeps bugging me to be nice to her. If he wanted to get married, fine, but leave me out of it."
"I know what you mean." Dawn wiped away the last of her tears. It helped to know Ken had problems adjusting, too.
"I’ll keep the radio down. Okay?" He looked at her anxiously, as if afraid she’d sob into his letter jacket.
"Thanks."
They drove in silence. Dawn stared out the window at Covington Center, for once empty of tourists and kids on skateboards. Her mother said they were lucky to live a mile from the Center, where all the action was, but there were only so many times Dawn could visit the same shops and arcades. Even a mall would have cheered Dawn, but the closest one was a half hour away. She was trapped in Beach Blanket Hell.
This morning, the carousel horses were lifeless and carnival rides frozen. Gulls swooped down to vacant park benches, hunting for day-old remains of fried dough and pizza. Most everything shut down after Labor Day. Jeff had explained that the only places to stay open off-season were Mario's Pizza, the Center Sweet Shoppe and the Sand Castle Drugstore.
Dawn gave an involuntary shudder as they drove past the beach. The gray tide pitched forward, swallowing the slick mirror of sand. She gazed down at her knuckles, fisted in her lap. Her mother and Jeff worshipped the ocean, but to her it was a mysterious monster foaming at the mouth.
She heard Ken's voice rambling about some girl, Renee, and how he planned to approach her at her locker. Renee had a boyfriend, but Ken had seen them fighting a couple times over the summer. Maybe if he started saying hi to her, he’d have a chance. After all, she’d smiled his way at the movies last weekend. At least, Ken was pretty sure the smile was meant for him. All his friends were getting hooked up and he wanted to find someone special.
Dawn turned away from the beach, surprised and a little flattered that Ken was confiding in her. "What’s she’s like?"
"Who?"
"Renee."
"You listened to me talk to Billy last night, didn't you?" he demanded. "I don't believe this. I don't get any privacy."
Hot numbness swept over Dawn’s face. Oh, no. Ken hadn’t been speaking aloud just now. She’d picked up on his thoughts. Every once in awhile, that happened and Dawn couldn’t control it. Sometimes she caught on and managed to avoid making a fool out of herself. Other times, she blurted out something dumb. You idiot, you’ve got to think before talking, Dawn chastised herself.
"What were you doing, standing outside the door?" Ken asked.
"I walked by your door when you were on the phone. Sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear."
"Yeah, I'll bet."
"I didn't do it on purpose." Dawn swallowed as he tightened his grip around the steering wheel. What an awful day, and it was only 7:15 a.m.
"Why’d you bring up Renee now?"
"I don’t know. I … I thought maybe I could help."
"I doubt it. Just forget it, okay?"
That was exactly what Dawn wanted to do.
"Sure." She let out her breath as Ken fixed his attention on the road.
This curse had haunted her since she was seven. Dawn never confided in anyone that she was psychic, but whenever she slipped, other kids shrank away from her. Like last year, with Samantha, a transfer student Dawn tutored in math. She and Samantha hit it off until Dawn asked why Sam’s father was in prison. Samantha's eyes narrowed and she asked how Dawn knew that. No one knew that. Soon, Samantha found a new best friend.
At least Ken had accepted her apology and his own explanation, even though it made her look nosy.
Something made her turn her head. A weather-beaten cream cottage rose on a bluff, stunted and defiant against the broad swath of sky. Shades blocked the windows and silver wind chimes swayed from an overhang on the white-painted porch.
Iciness dripped over her body. A word detonated in her mind.
Evil.
Chapter Two
Strong scents of perfume and perspiration clobbered Dawn as she entered the locker room. Gym. Her heart skipped a beat. She was always last to be picked, never demonstrating the athletic skill that resulted in cheers and high fives. How long would it take her new classmates to discover how uncoordinated she was? A day? Two days?
Girls changed in the aisles, folding their school clothes into lockers. Dawn brought her tee-shirt and sweatpants into the adjoining bathroom in the rear. At least in the bathroom, she wouldn’t risk someone walking in on her.
A plump girl emerged from a stall and elbowed past Dawn to the sink. Baggy black sweats, black lipstick and thick black eyeliner made her bloodless face even ghastlier. Coarse red hair fell limply around her shoulders.
"Looking good, Candace," a rude voice called from somewhere in the locker room.
The girl’s head shot up and she spun from the mirror. Dawn winced at the silver studs that pierced her nose and eyebrow. Yikes, that must have hurt. A bunch of girls giggled.
Candace stared at them, long and hard. Then she smirked, strode around the corner and disappeared through the gym door.
Dawn crammed herself into the stall, giving silent thanks that she passed the appearance test. Her hair wasn’t anything special, but she’d had gold highlights added to spice up the brown. She was in decent shape from walking around Boston, and Dawn spent her birthday money on "in clothes" at the Gap.
She got changed and lagged into the gymnasium behind a blonde in tight red shorts that showed off slender tanned legs. The girl’s crinkly hair bounced with her wiggly walk.
This was Renee, the object of Ken’s crush. Dawn accepted the knowledge as she'd accepted her other certainties over the years.
She followed Renee over to a bank of bleachers. Championship sports banners garnished the dreary cinderblock walls. A flush climbed Dawn’s cheeks. Everyone had a friend to sit with, except her. She noticed Renee looking her over.
Dawn drew in a shaky breath and sat down. "Hi, I’m Dawn."
"Whatever." Renee slid a few inches away and whispered to her friend. Too late, Dawn recognized Renee’s voice. She was the girl who made fun of Candace in the locker room. Wonderful. Way to use the psychic radar.
A cute guy with wavy black hair and an athletic build glanced back from the next row of seats. "Lay off, Renee, can’t you see she’s new? I’m Scott." He nodded towards Dawn, revealing his perfect teeth in a lopsided smile that made her tingle to her toes. Gosh, he was cute.
"Oh, please, Scott, what are you, the Welcome Wagon?" Renee demanded.
"Uh, hi," Dawn stammered, but she doubted Scott heard. Her throat muscles weren’t working properly, either paralyzed by his gorgeousness or Renee’s snootiness.
Mrs. Welch, a lady with an auburn ponytail and the height of a professional basketball player, assigned them alphabetically into squads on the floor. Dawn found herself seated on a point of the royal blue star painted across center court. C
andace Caldwell, since she had a "C" last name like Dawn, knelt in front of her.
Mrs. Welch closed her book and folded her arms over her sweat suit. "Since the weather’s rainy, we’ll stay inside and play basketball. Renee, you're captain. You and Scott."
Dawn suppressed a groan. Surprise, surprise. Another lazy gym teacher who used captains rather than divide the students herself. That meant another humiliating year of being picked last.
Renee and Scott made their way to the front. Renee placed her hands on her hips. "But Mrs. W., can't Scott and I be on the same team? He is my boyfriend."
Her boyfriend? No wonder she’d gotten mad when he defended Dawn. Scott knitted his eyebrows as a couple of his friends hooted.
"Quiet everybody," Mrs. Welch said. "Just pick, Renee."
Renee chose one of her friends first. Scott surveyed the crowd and pointed at Dawn. "You. The new girl."
Dawn froze. Uncertain, she got up and shuffled toward him.
"Welcome to Covington High," he said.
"Thanks." Dawn stood awkwardly behind him.
Renee glared at Dawn, her brow squelched up and eyes beady, resembling one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters. As she turned back to the remaining students, her annoyed expression cleared and once again she was Cinderella at the ball. "I’m not picking Candace, so I guess I'll take Laurie."
Dawn stayed out of the way during the basketball game, hanging back and letting her teammates do the work. Scott scored basket after basket, high-fiving his friends between points. Finally, thankfully, Mrs. Welch shrilled the whistle and told them to get dressed.
Ten minutes later, Dawn scanned her English class for a seat. Candace read a paperback in a middle aisle, speaking to no one. Renee applied lip gloss in the back row, a cheerleading jacket over her sweater and denim skirt.
Scott set down his sports magazine and grinned from the desk beside Renee. "Hey, Dawn, right? I get the feeling you don’t like basketball. I’ll bet you get good grades, though. Am I right?"
Dawn gulped, and ignored Renee’s scowl. "Yeah, but I’m better at math than English."
"Will you be joining the geek club? I mean the math club?" Renee slipped her lip gloss into a beaded sequined purse.
"I don’t think so." Dawn escaped to a seat a few rows ahead of them, against the wall. Above her, a poster proclaimed an Abraham Lincoln quote in bold italics: Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.
Dawn fished a pen out of her backpack with quivery hands. Scott kept going out of his way to talk to her. Maybe he liked her. Maybe he would even dump Renee and ask her out. Dawn scrawled a heart in her notebook and then scribbled over it. No, hooking up with Scott would take a MIRACLE, and miracles never happened to her.
Mr. Murray spent most of the class reviewing the summer reading list book, The Crucible, an Arthur Miller play about the 17th century Salem Witch Trials. Mr. Murray wore his sparse black strands combed sideways over his thinning pate. He had more hair in his salt and pepper beard than on his head.
"Tell me what you thought about the play, Scott," he said.
Dawn had disliked The Crucible with its tale of finger-pointing toward people perceived as different. She wondered if Mr. Murray’s choice of the play was an omen. God knows, she felt like a witch sometimes. Unbidden, a year-old image of cracked horn-rimmed glasses and a body sprawled lifelessly on the floor sprang to mind. Dawn forced herself back to the discussion.
Scott leaned back in his chair. In his rugby shirt, jeans and skateboarder shoes, he was easily the cutest guy in class. Stop checking him out, Dawn scolded herself.
"Those girls shouldn’t have started accusing everyone to save their own hides," Scott said. "The people running the town were morons for listening. And what’s with Abigail? She sleeps with that John dude then uses the witchcraft stuff to try to get his wife hanged? I was glad John got the ropes, not the wife."
"You’ve hit on one of the themes," Mr. Murray said. "Redemption. John was guilty of adultery, but once he was accused of witchcraft, he wouldn’t name names, choosing to die instead. People aren’t perfect and make mistakes, but we can purify ourselves by making what’s wrong right."
While the rest of the kids fidgeted and yawned, Dawn noted how Scott’s broad shoulders filled out his varsity jacket and how the light blue letter brought out his eyes. He was smart, too, smarter than he let on. Suddenly Dawn’s thoughts of Scott and the play triggered an avalanche of images.
Busy street. Worn Nikes and blue-jeaned legs. Screeching brakes. Black pickup truck barreling, barreling ... Scott crumpling to the ground.
Dawn couldn’t breathe, as though the air had been vacuumed out of her lungs.
Scott was going to die.
She twisted at her desk and bent her head between her knees. Fuzzy black dots spun around her, blurring her vision. Heat assaulted her. Slowly the dots cleared, and as she squinted up, the Abraham Lincoln poster ebbed back into focus.
She didn’t know the date or time, but the accident would be soon. No, not Scott, please don’t let anything happen to Scott, Dawn prayed. He was the only person at her new school who had been nice.
Mr. Murray loomed over her, bushy eyebrows drawn together on his forehead. "Miss Christian? Do you need the nurse?"
Dawn’s ears rang and clammy sweat prickled on her forehead. She had to say something.
"No, I'm okay," she murmured. "I get low blood sugar."
"Well … let me know if you need the nurse," Mr. Murray said.
Discussion continued on the themes of guilt and innocence in The Crucible. Dawn drew a shallow breath. There was a slight chance she was wrong. In fifth grade, she’d had the awful feeling her mother shouldn’t go on a business trip. Worries plagued Dawn for weeks. She lost sleep and couldn't eat. To her relief, nothing happened.
This was her very first day in this school. Maybe she should mind her own business. If she kept quiet, who would ever know? Dawn’s stomach coiled. She would know. Scott had been kind and he deserved a warning.
After dismissal, she lingered in the crowded hallway. Scott's group gathered near the wall of lockers. Candace slouched near the bubbler, wiping her charcoal lips with her palm. She gave Dawn a stony stare.
Dawn shifted from foot to foot as anxiety jellied her muscles. School was out for the day. If she waited, she might never get another chance. She tapped Scott’s shoulder as he retrieved a book from his locker. "Can … can I talk to you? It’s kind of important."
Scott turned around and smiled. "Yeah, sure."
"Alone?"
Renee snaked her arm around Scott's waist. "Anything you can say to him, you can say in front of me."
"I … it's just..."
"Is this important?" Renee’s mouth crimped in annoyance.
"Come on, chill out," Scott said. "Let's hear what she has to say."
"Please be careful if you're on the street," Dawn whispered.
"Huh? Be careful of what?" He closed his locker door and positioned himself against it.
"A black pick-up truck."
Silence.
A snide laugh broke the quiet and a gangly blond guy with short spiky hair folded his arms across his designer shirt. "I think she wants you to look both ways before you cross. Maybe you'd better have your mommy hold your hand."
Renee tugged on Scott's jacket. "Let's get out of here. What a weirdo."
Scott motioned for her to go ahead and hung back with Dawn. "Sorry about my friends. They can be idiots. I’m fine though, seriously. But thanks for the warning. I’ve never had a girl so worried about me before."
"Come on, Scott, let’s go!" Renee snapped from down the hall.
Scott muttered something under his breath. "I’d better split. See you around, Dawn."
He headed toward his friends. Dawn bolted down a corridor, wanting to get as far away from Renee as possible. Thank God it was time to go home. If she could only find the way out of this maze before her bus took off. She sto
pped to get oriented beneath a bulletin board of yellow stars and meteor showers against a dark blue background. "Making stars of the future," the title read.
So much for a positive future in Covington. Dawn had done it again, shattered another opportunity to fit in. Wait till her mother found out. With any luck, she wouldn’t hear about it. Dawn started walking again and jumped as Ken caught her by the shoulder.
"I’ve been looking all over for you," he said. "You coming or what?"
"Coming? I was going to take the bus."
"Are you kidding? My dad will kill me if I don't give you a ride home on the first day. Come on."
"I don’t want to be a pain. If you can get me to the bus, I’ll–"
"Look, here’s the deal. You can ride with me in the morning, and on afternoons when I’m going straight home. We’re both going to the same place, so it’s no biggie. But if I’ve got plans after school or hockey practice, you’re on your own."
Her spirits arced higher than the Ferris Wheel in Covington Center. She’d rather miss all those lonely bus rides than win the lottery. "Thanks, Ken. Are you sure?"
"Yeah, but remember if I have a girl with me, three’s a crowd."
"Uh, okay." Dawn exited with Ken out a side door to the parking lot. Around the front of the building, a line of buses stretched along the curb. Light rain drizzled from the overcast sky, a chill nipping the air.
About five feet from the car, Dawn sighed inwardly. They had to pass Scott, Renee and two of their friends to reach Ken’s Toyota.
"Leave her alone, guys," Scott muttered too softly for Ken to catch, but Dawn had excellent hearing.
Renee deliberately walked in front of Dawn. "Better watch out, Scott, there's cars all over the place."
"Hey, dude, what are you doing hanging around with this weirdo?" asked the spiky blond guy.
Ken put an arm around Dawn's shoulders and glared at the blond creep. "Back off, Tim. Leave my new stepsis alone."
Dawn stared at Ken, shocked he was sticking up for her. She would have thought that with Renee around, he’d try to fit in with her crowd.
Sneering, the blond guy stepped forward. "Listen you–"