“Therapy?”
“Yeah, and I agree with it. I mean, she should have been talking to someone a long time ago after David and Michelle died. I’m so stupid that I didn’t think of that before!”
“Why don’t you just talk to her first? Ask her what’s making her so angry and tell her how to best deal with bullies.”
“How to best deal with bullies?” I laughed. “Personally, I think kicking their ass like she did is the best way.”
He laughed, too. “Yeah, I feel the same way. But you know that’ll just get her expelled.”
“I know. Maybe another school?”
“I don’t think that’ll fix the problem.”
We were quiet for a moment. I was lost in thought about what to do with Lyla when Lucas said, “You know, speaking of abilities, I know it’s been a little awkward between us since … you know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s been like that for me and Clothilde, too.”
“Well, I feel really bad.”
I looked at him, and his hazel eyes stared earnestly back at me. “Why?”
“Because I never really thanked you for saving me.”
“Oh.” I turned my eyes down, toward pumpkins strewn about the porch.
He gently turned my face toward him. “Don’t be embarrassed. That was … it was a miracle. You didn’t just do that for me, you did it so Jonathan wouldn’t be without a daddy. I don’t care what that turned you into. I can never repay you for what you did.”
I sadly looked down at the shadows of our feet lazily swinging over the chipped white paint on the old wooden floor of the porch. “You should care what I am now.”
“You’re still the same on the inside, Leigh.”
“Yeah,” I sighed, but wanted to say so much more, like tell him how dangerous I was.
He rested his hand on mine and gave it a little squeeze. He smelled like Jonathan’s shampoo, like soap and apples. It made me smile inside. “Everything’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
I forced a smile. “Thank you.”
He tapped one of the pumpkins with his shoe. “What’s Lyla going as for Halloween? Supergirl? Wonder Woman?”
“I don’t think she’s in the Halloween mood right now. Maybe in a couple of weeks. What’s Jon going as?”
“What else?” He brought his arms out in front of him, flexed and grimaced. “The Incredible Hulk.”
Laughing, I said, “That’s perfect!”
“A little too perfect! I have to keep him from smashing things. He breaks things and says, ‘Jon SMASH!’ He broke the microwave.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. “You want Clothilde to threaten him?”
“She already did. How you think I got him to stop?” He checked his phone. “Oh! It’s almost time for me to go.” He patted my hand. “I want to go see Lyla for a minute.”
We got up and went into the house. Lyla was sitting on Clothilde’s lap, and Clo was hugging her, smoothing back her hair, soothing her. Lyla wiped away a couple of angry tears when she saw me and Lucas.
I shook my head and chuckled. “If I was sent home like that when I was eleven, you would have burned my butt,” I told Clothilde.
“Not her fault.” She tapped Lyla on the shoulder. “Let’s take a look,” she said, and then gently pulled the bandage from her cheek. There was a thin cut there, surrounded by a yellowish bruise. “I have something that’ll fix that right up.” She patted Lyla’s hip, and Lyla stood up.
As Clothilde got out of the chair, I walked over to Lyla and extended my hand. “I’ll get it,” I said, starting to lay my hand on her wound.
“No,” said Clothilde, a little too forcefully. “I’ll get it.”
Lucas could see the anger building in me, and he braced himself. “Why can’t I fix it?” I said.
“Because it’s not that serious. I’ll just go get a little something to put on it.”
“Right. It’s not that serious. I can fix that in like two seconds.”
“Why don’t you just let her take care of it, Miss Clo?” said Lucas, gently trying to diffuse the situation.
“Because she thinks I’m poison now,” I said. “She won’t let me heal anyone, and she can’t even bring herself to look at me half the time.”
“Leigh-Leigh,” she started, but couldn’t bring herself to finish her protest, knowing it was true.
“Whatever,” I muttered.
Lyla stomped off upstairs, upset with the tension in the room. Lucas, who hadn’t lived with women in a long time, looked too uncomfortable.
“I’ll come back later,” he said. “I gotta go pick up Jon. See y’all later.” Before he left, he mouthed the word sorry.
I followed Lyla upstairs and saw the door opened to her room. She sat on her bed, staring at her school library copy of Zarlina Road in her hands.
I knocked softly on the door and walked in. “I loved that book when I was your age,” I said.
She pursed her lips and put the book down on her nightstand and stared at the floor. I sat beside her.
“I’m not angry with you, you know,” I told her. “I don’t blame you for fighting back. But I wish you’d open up to me and tell me why they’re picking on you, why they call you a freak if they’ve never seen you heal—”
“There was a frog.”
I stopped short, perplexed. “A frog?”
“A couple of years ago. Some of the boys found it outside and started kicking it around. It landed next to me. It wasn’t moving, but it was still alive. I picked it up and healed it, and it hopped away.”
“Oh. Well, that was kind of you.”
“Ever since then, they’ve been calling me a freak and throwing things at me. They threw a dead mouse at me once and told me to fix it and then laughed at me.”
I was so angry I could have choked the life out of all those brats and their parents for raising them that way. I steadied myself and said, “They’re afraid of what they don’t know.”
She scoffed. “No they’re not! They think I’m weird and laugh at me. When I get into fights, I don’t even heal myself anymore because when I show up the next day with nothing wrong, they notice and I’m an even bigger freak. ” I saw the tears forming in her eyes, and I hugged her to my side. This time she let me.
“There’s so much more to life than these kids and what they say and do to you. I’d like to tell you that it’ll be easier when you’re older, but that’s not true. You’re always going to have to deal with assholes.”
Lyla giggled, and I realized what I had just said.
“Sorry, I mean jerks.”
She giggled again, wiping her eyes.
“Seriously, Lyla, you have a wonderful gift, and it’s something they don’t understand. Maybe they’ll never understand it. But you can’t let that stop you from using it for good. As you get older, you’ll see how great it is to be an original.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry I got suspended.”
“It’s okay. We’ll make it work. But I’d like you to do something for me, please.” She looked up at me with questioning eyes. “I’d like you to start talking to someone—a counselor to help you deal with things. Not the paladin stuff because we have to keep that hush, but about getting bullied and about … losing your mom and dad.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need a counselor.”
“I think you do. I think it would help to talk to someone who knows some techniques to help you cope with things. It would be like having a friend you can tell all your secrets to.”
She gave me an obnoxious pre-teen look. “A friend I can tell all my secrets to? You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a five-year-old.”
“All right, Sassy, but just do me that one favor, please?”
She thought it over for a moment. “Fine.” She leaned back in bed, picked up her book and began to read.
When I went back downstairs, Clothilde was in the kitchen, making some kind of salve for Lyla. I wanted to talk to her, but my stupid pride got the better of
me, and I just left.
When I got back to my house, a familiar black Mercedes was parked on the street in front. Something in me just wanted to keep driving and hope I wasn’t noticed, but I turned in to my little covered parking spot, shut off the car, and gathered my faculties, telling myself not to start an argument.
I got out of the car, and Miles got out of his.
“Hello, Leigh,” he said, smiling politely, but on guard, like he was prepared for me to not want to see him.
“Hey,” I said, walking to my front door, and he followed me.
“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.” He sounded hopeful but cautious.
After I opened the door, I hesitated at the entrance. “Um, okay. Come in.”
He looked around the living room, approvingly. “You have a nice house.”
“Thanks,” I said, tossing my keys on the coffee table. “Not as nice as your house, of course.”
“I had a place quite like this when I was around your age.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
There was uncomfortable silence for a moment, and I gestured for him to sit. I knew he was here for a reason, so I just blurted out, “Why are you here?”
The warm smile he had been trying to keep up since he arrived faded, and a more serious tone darkened his face. “I’d like you to come with us—Noah and myself—to France.”
“Yeah, Noah had sent a message about that. So, what’s going on?”
“Remember the masks we needed to get back around Mardi Gras?”
“You seriously think I could forget that?”
“Yes, well, I’m afraid there is something brewing, and those masks were just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.”
I raised an eyebrow and stared at him. “In other words, you’re asking me to put my life in danger again.”
He thought carefully about what he said next. “I’m afraid your life is already in danger. And not just yours, but your family’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you been getting strange dreams lately?”
I shook my head.
“Have you had them before?”
I started to shake my head again, but remembered something. “Back when we were dealing with those masks, I had a weird dream that someone called me and told me there was another mask and that I had to go back to New Orleans.”
Miles nodded thoughtfully. “Anything else? What about since you’ve moved back to Louisiana?”
“Just … well, I used to dream about my mom a lot.”
A glimmer of hurt and regret flashed in Miles’ eyes, and then he said, “Were they just dreams, or did they serve a purpose?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s one thing to dream about someone, to talk to them, or see them in a familiar setting, but, in any of these dreams, did your mother tell you about something or warn you about anything that later came true?”
“Savoy,” I said without even stopping to think. “When I first moved back last year—actually it was the reason I moved back—this guy named Walter Savoy was after Lyla. My mom appeared to me in my dream and told me about his cabin in the bayou. And later she more or less told me to go to New Orleans.”
“You said there was a dream where someone called you, telling you to go back to New Orleans and that there was another mask. What did that voice sound like? Do you remember?”
I shrugged. “That was months ago. But I couldn’t hear them very well.”
“Them?”
“I couldn’t tell if it male or female. I remember that much.”
He thought for a moment, lost in concentration.
“Um, my family in danger? Remember? What did you mean by that?”
He sighed. “When Father Ben was alive, he saw bits and pieces of your future. He saw you in Paris, and had an image of something you needed to do, something that was very important. And what you did would save your family.”
“’Bits and pieces of my future?’ I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but Father Ben wasn’t exactly my favorite person. He tricked me to get me into this whole paladin club in the first place. Look, sorry that you’re having problems again, but I don’t really have time to run off to Europe. I mean, I have a job now. I have rent to pay now, and I need to start paying off my student loans—”
“Those are taken care of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Miss Clothilde told me about your financial hardship, so I took care of your student loans for you. It was the least I could do.”
A sudden fury rose up in me. I couldn’t believe Clothilde was sharing my business with this stranger. I didn’t care how well she knew him. I didn’t care how well he thought he knew me.
“You had no business doing that. I can take care of myself. You might be my biological father, but you’re not my dad. And I’m sure as hell not a charity case!”
“Fine. Then you can work it off by going to Paris for me.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said, rising from my chair. I marched to the door and held it open for him. “I have company coming in a few minutes,” I lied.
He seemed shocked and a little hurt, but he left anyway. Before I closed the door, he added, “I know I can’t make up for the past, and I’m not trying to make up for it, but please know I didn’t come here for you to help me. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe you and your family were really in danger. Please at least think about it.” With that, he got in his car and left.
2
Nightmares and Care Bears
My phone rang. Jolted out of my sleep, my eyes flew open to see my bedroom bathed in soft blue light and my phone vibrating on the night stand. Hardly conscious, I closed my eyes again, but the ringing persisted. I stumbled for the phone. It was 3:18 AM. The caller ID read Unknown.
I pressed the answer button. “Hello?” I mumbled.
A tiny, panicked voice from so far away. “You have to come to Paris!” it pleaded.
“Who is this?” I said, now more alert.
“Please, Leigh! You have to come. You have to save her!”
“Save who?”
“You have to come!”
“WHO IS THIS?” I yelled into the phone.
The connection sounded like it was breaking up. “You … come … save her!”
“WHO IS THIS?! WHO DO I HAVE TO SAVE?! WHO IS THIS?”
The sound of my own voice woke me up. I was shouting in the dark. It was pitch black and deathly silent in the room, and that somehow terrified me. It felt like there should be someone in the room with me, but I was alone.
With a shaking hand, I turned on the lamp on the night stand. The soft white glow relieved me somewhat. I reached for my phone. It was 3:19 AM. I brought up the call list, but I hadn’t had a call since that afternoon.
That voice again …
For some reason, I found myself wanting to call Noah. I looked down at the phone in my hand and was surprised to see that, without realizing it, I had brought up his name in my contact list. My finger lingered longer than I wanted it to over the call button. I put my phone back on the night stand and went into the living room to turn on the TV. Wrapping myself in a throw, I watched almost an hour’s worth of Night Court reruns until I felt better and fell asleep on the couch.
***
Late that afternoon, there was a knock at the front door. I opened it to find my best friend Carrie standing there, looking hesitant. She had dyed her hair; it was a fiery dark red now. She met my eyes for a moment and then looked away.
“Oh, Care! Your hair is gorgeous!” I could tell she wasn’t convinced by my fake enthusiasm. I hadn’t even convinced myself. It was pretty, but I wasn’t exactly in a chipper mood. Of course she saw right through me.
“Hey, can I come in?” From the sound of her voice, I could tell that she wanted to have a serious chat.
I already knew what this was about. She was feeling neglected by me, and she was right to feel that way. Ever since
I became a dark paladin, I had been avoiding everyone I loved. I had convinced myself that it was because I loved them that I did this, because I didn’t want them to get hurt, but lately I’ve been seeing the toll it’s taken, especially on Lyla. But at least my family and Lucas knew why I was being distant. Carrie knew nothing of paladins and the Dark Side. She was vaguely aware of strange things that happened in my life sometimes, but she didn’t pry.
I held the door open for her and motioned for her to come in.
“What’s up?” I said, trying again to sound pleasant.
She sat on my couch, eyes on the glass-top coffee table, while her finger nervously played with a lock of her wavy hair. Her other hand picked up the large decorative candle she got me as a house-warming present. She absentmindedly rotated it, the sequins glimmering off the fleur de lis.
“You want something to drink?”
She shook her head.
“Um … I have some leftover spaghetti from last ni—”
“Did I do something to upset you?” Her eyes were on me now, pleading, bordering on anger.
With a heavy sigh, I sat in the recliner adjacent to the couch. “No, Care. You didn’t do anything to upset me.”
And, almost in one breath, she let me have it: “Then why are you avoiding me? You let your phone go straight to voice mail, and you never call me back. You don’t reply to my texts, even though I know you see them because I have an app that lets me know when someone reads my texts. I go to see you at the store to invite you for lunch, and you just say that you’re too busy for lunch, but maybe another day. I even called Lucas, but he was acting weird, too, but just said it’s probably nothing.”
She stared at me, awaiting my response.
“I know. And I’m really, really sorry, Care. I … I can’t explain it, though.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t. Please understand that.”
“Well, I don’t. And I deserve better than that, Leigh.” She furiously slammed the candle down on the edge of the table. A big chunk of glass broke off of the edge, it and the candle falling to the floor.
“Oh, shit! I’m sorry,” she blurted, moving to pick up the broken glass and the candle, but in her haste, her leg scraped the jagged edge of the glass top, making a huge gash in her leg.
Nancy K. Duplechain - Dark Trilogy 03 - Dark Legacy Page 11