by Tracy Clark
I couldn’t deny that it touched me. He touched me. Finn scared me, but stirred me, too. Like I’d been half-asleep my whole life and was suddenly wide-awake.
“The harmonica?” I asked as we walked through the parking lot later that evening. “Not exactly a traditional Irish instrument, is it?”
“What? You’d prefer I do a little Riverdance?”
That image made me laugh. “I’d pay cold, hard cash to see you Riverdance.” I peered at him sideways. “You owe me.” He cocked his eyebrow and waited for my question. “Are there really a hundred shades of green in Ireland?”
“Aye,” he said softly. “But not as many shades of green as in your eyes.” A sweet heartbeat of time passed. Then we both chuckled at his corniness. Finn’s cheeks reddened, but maybe it was the chill of the rainy night. “My charming Irish banter’ll be needing some work, I reckon.”
“It’s okay. Charming banter is a fine art, one I definitely haven’t mastered. We can practice on each other.”
“How will I know if I’m improving?” he asked.
“I don’t know… I’ll swoon, maybe?”
“Okay, but do I have to swoon when you get it right? I don’t know if it’s manly to swoon.”
Easy laughter bubbled up from us again.
My dad’s car idled up ahead. “Oh, there’s my dad. See you Monday.”
Instead of walking to his own car, Finn kept pace beside me. Before I could give an introduction, he stuck his hand through the open driver’s side window and introduced himself to my father. His confidence and manners were charming. My neck warmed.
“You’re Irish,” my dad said, more an awkward accusation than a question.
I threw my bag in the backseat and got in. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You bet. Cheers.” He began to walk away but turned back. “Sir, would it be all right with you if I asked Cora to the movies tomorrow?”
Holy…
“Sorry, no.”
There was an excruciating blink of surprise from Finn. I stared at his hand, which squeezed the window frame tighter while he stared at my father, both of us waiting uncomfortably for an explanation. When it became clear that one wouldn’t come, Finn forced cheer into his voice. “Some other time, then.”
Dad drove out of the parking lot. His hands clenched the wheel at ten and two.
“What was that?” I asked.
“That boy is Irish.”
“I know, Dad. Last I checked, that’s not a crime.” I couldn’t believe he had pulled a boy-block on me like that.
After a few tense moments, he let out a breath and smiled weakly. “We haven’t had to talk about dating before. But I think it’s time to establish some rules.”
“Oh God. No, Dad. It’s not time, okay? Finn gave me a ride because…” I nearly told my father about the man who’d been following me. Maybe then he’d see it was safer to finally let me drive. Then again, he’d have a whole new reason to be paranoid and overprotective. “…because it was raining and you won’t let me get my driver’s license. It’s no big deal.”
“I would be an irresponsible father if I didn’t lay down the ground rules before the need arises.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes. “What’s rule number one? No dating until I’m twenty?”
“Objection. Conjecture.” He tried to sound light. I watched his jaw clench. “Eighteen.”
“Eighteen?” My heart rate matched the click-click of the turn signal. Eighteen was a year away. “’Cause I can’t possibly be trusted to make good judgments about who to go to the movies with? When are you going to have some confidence in me? You never let me have any freedom. You won’t let me drive. You totally blew me off when I tried to tell you something is definitely not right with my eyes. You’re being irrational about the aura thing. You never tell me anything about my own mother, even when I ask you direct questions. In the hospital, Janelle said—”
“She’s gone. That’s it. There is nothing more to say about your mother.”
“You know, the more you say that, the less I believe you. Why don’t you trust me?”
He parked in the driveway and turned toward me. “I do trust you.”
“No, Dad.” I shook my head. “Not real trust. It’s easy to say you trust a bird in a cage.”
Seven
T
he next day, I woke with solid intent. I had to go back to Say Chi’s and ask Faye how I could arrange for a Kirlian photograph of my silver aura. I needed evidence of what I was seeing. Also, if having a silver aura was so rare and evil people were looking for someone like me, Faye might have a crystal like hers that could block people from seeing it.
My body buzzed with nervous anticipation, and my mind hungered for more information. Unfortunately, my dad and Janelle had also awoken with an intention—to keep me as busy as possible with inane chores.
I finished vacuuming well after lunch, all the while my insides churned and my patience strained. Since I had bookended the previous day with fights with my dad, the lie about going to work at the Boys & Girls Club fell easily from my lips. Janelle smiled conspiratorially at me, and I knew my father had told her about Finn asking for a date. She assumed I was going to meet him, but after my father’s rudeness, I wondered if Finn would even talk to me again. It seemed strange after having just a few encounters, but if there were no more, it’d feel like I lost something.
I returned to the old downtown section of Santa Cruz. The afternoon sun slanted over the roofs of the stores, casting long shadows on the narrow street. I bought one of my favorite treats—a cinnamon roll—and tried to shove my anxiety down as I walked past the eclectic stores, the sculptures of dogs made from river rock, and groups of teens who sat with their backs against the storefronts playing guitars for spare change.
I locked my bike in front of Say Chi’s and pushed at the door, expecting to be given my peaceful benediction, but it was locked. The sign on the window said Closed . Odd for a downtown store to be closed on a Saturday afternoon. I peeked through the glass and yelped when Faye’s face suddenly appeared on the other side.
She unlocked the door. I went to step inside, but she blocked my way. “I’m closed today.” Her expression was strained. Her eyes glanced worriedly behind me and up and down the block. Her gorgeous candle-like aura morphed into the sickly, fear-tinged yellow I’d seen coming from my father.
My fingernails dug into my palms. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I stayed late after you left, trying to find information on your…unique situation.” Her voice descended to a whisper. “There was a particular volume I tried to locate that I thought might have something about”—her voice lowered even more—“silver. I came in the next morning and the shop had been broken into. They stole my hard drive and left this stuck to my monitor.” She handed me a blue sticky note.
Be very careful the tales you tell. You won’t like the ending.
My nerves tingled. From my peripheral vision, I watched shots of silver flare from my body.
Faye looked apologetic but resolute. “Whoever did this was sending a message, and I got it loud and clear. I’m off the case, honey.”
My gut clenched. “I don’t understand. Why would—?”
“Someone doesn’t want people looking into this. This note is about you. Look, I wish I could help, but I’m a single mom with cancer and a special needs kid. I can’t afford to have anything happen to me or to this shop. You might want to keep this quiet. Perhaps there’s a reason people like you are so rare. I’m very sorry. Take good care of yourself. And please,” she said, her dark eyes imploring, “don’t come here again.”
Faye shut the door in my face.
A cannonball of dread dropped into the pit of my soul with a thud. It pulled my heart down with it. People like you. Rejection was a sour pit I swallowed whole. I’d been turned away because of what I was. Blamed for something I didn’t even understand. Faye was the only person who seemed to know anything about why I was diffe
rent, and she wanted nothing to do with me.
I bent to unlock my bike and head straight home, frightened by the thought that someone knew about my search for answers and had threatened Faye because of it.
A riff of guitar music close by caught my attention. Ignoring it, I slipped the key in the bike lock, but the music stopped me again. It wound around me like wind, whispering, summoning. I shivered.
Despite my fear, I was drawn to the music. Abandoning my bike and my instinct to hurry home, I wandered a couple doors down, the melody beckoning like a finger, pulling me toward it.
The song wafted from the open doorway of a brick building on the corner, as did the warm, toasted smell of freshly ground coffee. I poked my head in the door. The weathered brick walls with crumbling mortar were covered with old posters of musicians. Aluminum pendant lights hung over the tables, casting a disk of yellow over each one. I spotted the source of the music at the front of the room. Dark jeans, black shirt with folded short sleeves exposing defined arms. And another tattoo.
Those eyes connected with mine, and every atom in the room crackled with delight.
Finn stopped playing his guitar and scooted off the stool.
“Cora! What a perfect surprise. Get in here!” he said, jogging over. “You’re peeking in the doorway like you might not come in.” He squeezed my hand and tugged.
“Well—”
“I’m so glad you came.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got hold of your address from your mate, the serious girl who’s always sparkling,” he said with a teasing grin. I blinked in shock before I realized he meant Mari’s sequins.
“Mari. She’s my cousin.”
“I stuck a message on your front door this morning. Didn’t you get it?” When I shook my head, he said, “Brilliant. It’s serendipity, then. Please stay.” The look he delivered was pure smolder. My resistance burned to ash. It was both infuriating and completely delicious. “I’m warming up now. I start in thirty minutes.”
He led me to a table next to a window near where he’d set up. “I—but—I—” But before I could utter a single pronouncement about how I didn’t mean to come, how I had simply followed the music, how it had led me here, to him, Finn bent down and kissed my cheek.
“You smell like cinnamon. Yum,” he whispered with a slight bite to his bottom lip. He held me with a look. “Don’t run away, Cora.”
I told myself this would be good, for just a little while, instead of going home and ruminating in spooked-out feelings about Faye and who might have broken into her store. Trepidation flared anew. Who would be threatened by someone looking into silver auras? Earlier, I had felt like I was in some kind of danger. Today, Faye had insinuated that I was the dangerous one.
People filed in and filled up the tables and the booths along the walls. I noticed Queen Bee Serena Tate, surrounded by her drones, eyeing me from their VIP perch in the front row. Serena’s eyes scanned me derisively. This surprised me. The Queen Bee usually flies too high to take notice of the little people far below her. I could only assume her sudden hostile vibe had to do with Finn.
I knew I looked like a gigantic idiot for being there by myself. My teeth scraped against one another, and I contemplated bolting. Instead, I called in backup.
While I waited for Mari and Dun, Serena eyed Finn with a predatory glint, following his gaze to where I sat. She sauntered over to where he was set up, leaned in boob-grazingly close, and whispered something in his ear. He smiled but his eyes were locked on me. I distracted myself by pulling out and studying the aura color chart from Say Chi’s.
I already knew the chart didn’t mention my silver aura, but I wanted to learn and memorize what the various colors meant. If this wasn’t going to go away, I’d better figure out how to use it.
White was supposedly the most transcendent and supreme of all colors. Purity. It was described on the chart as the color of a spiritual master. The chart clearly said that no one was ever pure white, which didn’t explain the man who’d been following me.
I took a pen from my bag and wrote Silver? And along the bottom, Faye’s warning to me: There are those who want nothing more than to find someone like you.
“What are you doing here?” cooed Serena’s candy-coated-poison voice from over my shoulder. I was struck by the scattered orange-red-green of her aura. She was…inconsistent.
“Same thing you are, I suppose.”
She leveled a challenging stare at me. “I doubt that. Finn invited me.” She glanced down at the chart. “Peculiar reading material. Let me guess, you believe in past lives, too. Might as well,” she said before I could retort. “Since you have no life, you can always fantasize about how fabulous your other lives might have been.”
I stuffed the chart into my bag. “Mind your own business.”
“Oh, hey,” Mari said, appearing with perfect timing. She squared her shoulders at Serena. “I’m so glad I ran into you, Serena.” I gaped suspiciously at Mari’s agreeable tone. “I’ve been meaning to ask you a question.”
“Yes,” Serena said with a bored look. “What is it?”
“What grade did you get in Bitch 101?”
“Silly Mari,” Dun singsonged with a smile. “Serena graduated from that class years ago. Isn’t that right, Serena? You’re what? In the Master Bitch class now? Jedi Bitch?”
“PhD in bitchology,” I said, though my heart raced uncomfortably to be so forward.
An aggressive, dirty brown–red color flowed from Mari’s torso toward Serena. Serena actually leaned back a hair. When she stalked off, Dun whispered, “Hey, didn’t you tell us on the phone that Mr. Lucky Charms invited you here?”
I sat back and crossed my arms. “Apparently I’m one of many invitees.” I didn’t want to compete for a boy’s attention. It was futile, anyway. I was a plain girl in a decorated society, and I wasn’t about to change who I was to hold Finn Doyle’s interest.
Dun and Mari slid chairs out and sat. They talked with the intimate familiarity of best friends: eye contact, hand movements, light touches. Yet it was more than their normal body language. A pinkish cloud extended from the middle of Mari’s body toward Dun. It merged slightly with his own, infusing his yellow with a sunset glow.
I felt like I was watching a secret kiss.
Was this a new development? I cleared my throat. “I hope you guys behave yourselves,” I warned.
“Afraid we’ll scare away Dreamy McDublin?” Dun said.
Mari kicked him. “Why do you keep doing that—making up stupid names for him?”
Dun shrugged. “Heads up. Sir Shamrock approacheth.”
“Howya,” Finn said in greeting. He shook hands with both Mari and Dun as I introduced them. “Thanks for coming. I’ll be starting now.” His eyes flicked to me, and he winked. “Hope you enjoy.”
Dun waggled his brows at me. “Well now—”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Shutting up.”
Finn began to play. Voices descended into a respectful hush. Soft strums of the guitar lifted and fell on shafts of daylight from the windows. A small patch of sun warmed my exposed neck as I listened. The orange beads of his bracelet flashed as he plucked the strings with slender fingers. His head hung over the guitar in reverent concentration.
His playing was amazing, sweet and peaceful. For a while I let go of how bizarre my life had become. I was entranced long before Finn closed his eyes and opened his mouth to sing. His voice was rich, smooth suede, perfectly suited for the blues: soulful and vulnerable. The kind of voice that reaches inside and squeezes what’s tender.
When he sang an Irish bar song called “The Wild Rover,” he got the entire crowd to join in on the chorus. A couple of times during his performance, his gaze fell on me and lingered as if he sang directly to me. I rested my chin on my hand, hiding my smile behind my fingers. The last song was in a language I didn’t understand, but my soul spoke that language. Deep inside, something cracked open so that a bit of
my truest self could peek out. His music was bluesy and mournful, eerily familiar, and it opened my heart in locked places. A tear landed on my wrist.
When the final chord of the last song reverberated through the coffeehouse, the audience jumped to its feet and applauded wildly. The force of energy from the crowd knocked the breath out of me, making me dizzy. I dared a look at the people in the room. The colors were unbelievable! Such power. It rolled toward Finn in a wave, a tsunami in slow motion. I had the impulse to leap in front of him, to protect him from it.
My body jerked in response to the thought, and I squeezed the sides of the wooden chair, willing myself to sit still. I couldn’t trust myself and the strong urge to protect him. But from what? The big, bad colors I could see but that were invisible to everyone else? He’d think I was crazy.
Maybe I was.
A chill spidered up my spine. The man with the crazy eyes and pure white aura leaned against the brick wall a couple feet away, staring intently at me. Icy fear spiked through me, making my fingers tingle and my breath come in quick bursts. The sounds of the room fell away. My heart sped and my aura sparked as I saw the roiling ball of the crowd’s energy pass over the man and collide with Finn. But rather than crush him, the energy crashed and blended with his own bright aura, making it grow and pulse fiercely. He seemed to absorb the light until the room grew dim to my eyes.
Untouched by the energy, the strange man moved closer and closer to me. I called out to Dun, but he couldn’t hear me over the shouts and clapping. I was so small in my chair amid the standing crowd. The man and his dark eyes were all I could see. I tried to leap up to run, to grab Dun’s arm, to call for help, but my chest jerked toward the stranger as if I’d been punched in the spine. I couldn’t draw breath, couldn’t move through the thick ice of my draining energy and rising panic. I was hit in the face with a blast of air. Then, a sudden flash of white.