“Mina.” He grinned his face lighting up, and the dimples flashed on his face as he gestured to the classroom door. “I think we agreed you’d go first.”
She sighed dramatically as she stepped into the classroom, making him laugh. She tossed a grin back before glancing around the room, carefully not seeing her cousin, Hailey. Except, the only place with two seats together was next to Mina’s cousin, and Max headed right over.
Don’t look at her, Mina told herself. Don’t remember. Hailey. Cousin. Once-best-friend.
Max stretched out his legs and crossed them as soon as they sat, and as he did, Charlie, Hailey’s boyfriend, recognized Max.
“Max Mason?” he asked, and Mina closed her eyes before slowly turning to face the couple behind her and Max.
Hailey spread her lips in the semblance of a smile; Mina echoed it. Mina and Hailey moved restlessly, not meeting the other’s eyes.
“Hailey right?” Max asked as he glanced at Mina’s cousin.
“I don’t know if you’re in good company Max,” Hailey spread another fake smile while running her fore-finger over the perfect skin above her chest, “I’m having this sudden memory of you running with my wild cousin in the woods. Seems like it’s only a matter of time before she leads you astray again.”
Wild cousin. As if Mina were the raccoon of their family. At least she hadn’t said crazy.
“Good times.” Max grinned.
Mina produced a stilted chuckle, glancing at Charlie, Hailey’s boyfriend. He was chatting with Max about something or other not noticing how Hailey was eyeing Max.
“So,” Max said a few moments later as his eyes bounced between Mina and Hailey, “I forgot how much you two look alike.”
“Yeah,” Mina tried to smile but feared her face formed some sort of post-death rictus.
She knew and hated that she was the artless version of Hailey. They had matching curls. Though Hailey’s were only blonde. But, they also had matching full lips and high cheek bones. Hailey had a single mole near her eye, bigger than a freckle, yet the darn thing still managed to be sexy. Mina’s eyes were gray while Hailey’s were deep, dark brown. Mina’s face was thinner but that was due to the combination of stress and her diet of apples. Hailey was, of course, model tall and made Mina feel like a sprite.
And, Hailey’s elbows didn’t stick out.
“Yeah,” Hailey ran her fingers through her curls, drawing attention to how much smoother, silkier her hair was than, well, everyone’s, “we used to get that all the time. Our moms even confused us a few times. ‘Member Mina?”
Hailey upped her charm, leaning forward so she could peek up at Max through her thick lashes, a near chuckle hovered on her lips as she played with the collar of her shirt. As she did, Hailey’s charm washed over the boys.
Mina pushed back her envy, sliding down in her seat. The current moment was so stark next to the previous hour when Max had been hers alone. Somehow during that time, she’d forgotten that she was crazy, sick-looking and too thin. Mina twisted her earrings and twirled her hair. She was sure she couldn’t keep up this bantering for long. Only, she wasn’t bantering; she was sitting silently, grimly while Hailey charmed the socks off of Max and Charlie.
Charlie flicked Mina’s shoulder playfully. “So Mina, Hailey tells me that you...uh…what’s the word? Take a lot of unscheduled vacation from school.”
Mina pursed her lips and shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh really?” Max asked. “I remember a few unscheduled vacation days with you.”
“Well I for one,” Mina said pretending she was having fun, “blame the grade school teachers. Noticing too late that I didn’t always come back from lunch. I mean after you spend a few afternoons innocently swinging a little longer or poking a few sticks into a pond, you learn a very, very, valuable lesson.”
“Oh yeah,” Max asked, grinning, dimples flashing, making Mina’s heart stutter before she remembered this was her childhood buddy, a near brother.
“What’s this valuable lesson?” Charlie asked.
“The fun you can have when no one knows where you are.” She explained, “It’s perfection.”
“That’s some fun I’d be willing to learn,” Max said, and a delighted grin leapt onto Mina’s face before she could stop it.
“Relearn if I remember right.” Hailey said snidely.
Mina’s mouth dropped to deliver…something, but the teacher entered the classroom giving Mina the escape she needed from her cousin. Gratefully, she turned forward and pulled out a notebook. Max nudged Mina’s foot, a little smile quivering at the edge of his mouth, and she didn’t bother to hide hers.
Chapter 3
“Did you want to tell me about your day?” Dr. Seal asked from her wide leather chair behind the broad wood desk. Her half-moon glasses didn’t obscure her piercing blue eyes, and yet again, she made Mina feel as if spiders were crawling down her spine. She just didn’t get being so interested in every little thing in someone else’s life.
It was stalkery.
“Not really.” She said, stretching her neck before beginning a small braid in one of the red locks of her hair.
“Your parents pay for these appointments, so I can help you.” There was the slightest tinge of irritation to Dr. Seal’s voice.
Mina nodded without looking up, checked her watch, and started a second braid.
“The first day of any school year can be pretty intense.”
Mina started a third braid, shifting on the velvet couch and wishing she could be at the library already. Maybe she’d stop for a wrap on the way—something with apples in it. One of the walls was dominated by a set of double doors leading into a garden. It had rose bushes, pine trees, sculpted bushes, and little stone paths. It felt like nature trapped. So, she’d stare out and imagine the little tree forced into the shape of a ball breaking free. It would punch its cultivated branches out and form a wild mass of nature as it was intended to be. The rose bushes would shake their ripe petals free, mingle them with the leaves and dirt on the ground—just as if no one was controlling their every movement.
Mina stared out those doors, watched a little horned bunny nibble on some grass and wondered what the doc would say if she did talk. Not even about the sprites or the freaky bunnies, but anything.
The clock ticked slowly on.
And Mina said nothing.
It wasn’t Dr. Seal’s fault that her parents made her come, that she had a secret she couldn’t trust her parents with, or that Dr. Seal’s eyes were too blue to be comfortable. In the end, silence was safety, so she painted her fingernails dark plum, watched the bunny—now joined by a friend—and considered getting a cookie when she bought her wrap.
Right before she left, the doc said, “Mina, I’m your friend.”
Mina stood, smiled and adjusting her bag, stepped towards the door.
“I’d like to help you.” The doc’s voice was soft and modulated, carefully gentle.
“I know,” Mina said as she escaped into one of the last days of blue skies before the rains began. She skipped down the steps, wind in her hair, and breathed deep the free sun-filled air.
* * *
“Hello darling,” Grace said as Mina plopped into the patchwork chair across from the librarian. Unwrapping her food, Mina handed Grace a brownie and took the offered glass of pink herbal iced tea.
Flower juice. Made for her, since she was tiny, by her friend.
Grace poured herself a glass of the tea. As usual, a few strands of her hair had worked free from the french knot. A pencil was tucked behind her hair, and her fingers smudged with ink.
“Mmmm,” Mina gulped some of the juice and felt almost immediately energized.
“How was your day?” Grace asked from behind the desk.
Mina looked up at her friend and saw she was valiantly trying to smother her motherly tendencies.
Mina shrugged and took a huge bite of her sandwich.
“Ok,�
�� Grace said. “I’ll ignore my desire to pry. You were asking about fairy tales for your long-distance English class right?”
Mina nodded, but said, “Max is back.”
Grace’s eyes widened. A slow smile spread over her face as she tried, and failed, to hide a rush of controlled excitement. Mina could almost hear Grace’s unasked questions. Did he seek you out? Were you friends again? You weren’t still alone were you? Not with Max…
But Grace didn’t ask them, and in the not asking Mina calmly elaborated.
“So school was kinda fun,” as Mina spoke Zizi and Hitch entered the library and shot over the tables and stacks of books to land on the back of Mina’s over-stuffed chair. “He’s all big now, and pretty, but still the same. He still grins all the time, but it’s not so dopey now.”
“Oh how lovely,” Grace said as Mina pulled out her long-distance class textbook waving it in front of Grace.
“I know you said I’d love this class, but honestly, it’s a lot more work than my other classes.”
“You’ve only had those other classes for a day,” Grace laughed as Mina shrugged before shoving back her curls and winding them, yet again, into another messy knot.
“You want to graduate early, and it meets one of your English class requirements.” Grace squeezed Mina’s hand mockingly and then her sly smile was back as she turned and pulled out a huge pile of books, placing them with an exaggerated thunk in front of her young friend.
“I know,” Mina drawled, slowly running her finger along the spines of the books in front of her. She tapped the books several times, adding, “But I think I actually have to work to pass it.”
“Don’t forget why you’re doing this,” Grace said splitting the pile of books, so they could still see each other.
“College. With a beach. A warm one.” Mina reminded them both. “Far away.”
“And summers in Europe.” Grace added.
“And frittering my summers away in Europe or on the Great Wall of China, but not in Ocean Haven.” Mina put her head down on the desk between the stacks of books muttering under her breath. “College, a warm beach, Europe, biking the Alps, the Great Barrier Reef.”
“Lying on the beach in the Canary Islands.” Grace added.
“Walking along the Seine all moody-like with a coffee I won’t drink and a journal I’ll burn later.”
“Swimming by a waterfall, possibly with a muscular native man.”
Their eyes met, and they laughed together.
“A muscular native?” Mina mocked.
“Really any muscular but kind man will do.”
“Whom I love?”
“Of course, what’s the point otherwise?”
Mina rolled her head back and forth and stretched her neck muscles. “So, I guess I should bust it on this class.”
“And your extra history class, and your…was it Zoology you took?”
Mina nodded as Grace sifted through the books and handed her one titled, Creatures of the Haven. It was about 3 inches thick and at least fifteen pounds. Mina let it thud onto the desk again, and looked over both shoulders before dramatically whispering, “I kinda want to go curl into my window seat and read a romance novel.”
“What about this one?” Grace pulled a thin, gray book from another stack on her desk. The linen binding was worn, the cardboard showed through on the corners, and the pages were weathered, “It’s kind of a romance. It’s about a witch who falls in love with a sort of…elf-man. Set during the 20s. Lovely clothes, adventure, speeding trains, and maybe a suspenseful dance. And since I’ve read it again and again, I can tell you there’s a few fairy tale creatures in it.”
Mina scrunched her face. “Sounds like I could write a paper on it. AKA Homework.” Mina pulled a frown before dropping it onto the giant book she already had.
“Handsome men.” Grace added.
Mina spun the book in a circle before saying, “Sounds like more fun than the journal I have to write for Twelfth Night and my math problems.”
“If you can’t slack off at the beginning of the term, when can you?” Grace’s smile went mischievous when she added a few more books to Mina’s pile.
“I think I like how you think.” Mina leaned back in the chair, propped her feet on the side of her bag, and sank into the little gray book. Slowly the light in the library changed, but Mina didn’t notice. She ate her food and more when Grace put out a tray of snacks.
As the evening pressed on, Grace closed the library and continued to work while the quiet become deeper. The buzz of Mina’s phone sent them both jumping.
“Oh my gosh,” Mina said glancing around in a near daze. Poppy, Zeez and Hitch were snoozing on the back of her chair. Grace was reading across from her and a plate of apple and cheese lay demolished between them. Mina pressed her palms to her eyes before reading her text.
“It’s Sarah. I gotta go. I took Kate’s scooter and have to get it back before my Dad gets home.”
“Oh, Mina.” Grace said as Mina was shoving the stack of books into her bag. “How much trouble will you be in?”
“Who can tell?” Mina laughed as she lifted the little gray book and the giant book and shoved them into an outer pocket. “But if I get grounded to my room, I’ll have something to do.”
* * *
Mina pushed the scooter up the drive sticking to the border of the forest. Since no one was around, she pushed the Scooter into the garage and headed to the mini apple orchard she’d planted with her grandfather. Her mother’s roses were still blooming, so Mina leaned forward to pluck one and caught sight of a line burned into the ground.
Wait, what was that?
Mina let go of the rose and traced the mark in the ground. It was a line, as if someone had drawn with fire. She frowned and hobbled forward with her finger on the burns. Without her touch on the line, Mina may not have noticed its change to a string of seeds. She lifted one. Sunflower seeds—her dad’s favorite—so it wouldn’t have been too weird to find them in the grass, except they were part of this weird line of stuff. She hunkered along the seeds. Only the seeds stopped only to be continued on by feathers. Water that beaded like dew carried the line onward. Mina glanced around. The grass a few inches over showed no signs of moisture.
She stretched her back and felt a chill along her spine. It was just so weird. Goosebumps sprang onto her arms as she continued her hunched over walk following a defined circle of debris. Apple slices that showed no signs of browning. Another feather, but weird.
A small naked doll, followed by wax, poured hot and coating individual blades of grass. The clear line continued until she was back at the edge of the roses. She pictured her route in her mind and was sure the debris made a perfect circle encasing her house.
Mina scrutinized the forest, almost expecting to find someone laughing at her in the shadows and caught sight of the circle from the corner of her eye. The circle grew into a wall of light, a warm blue cylinder reaching towards the sky. If she looked directly at the odd line, she barely found the junk and the light was gone.
She tested her eyes again and the cylinder sprung up when she was almost entirely turned away. Her nose itched; the hair on her arms stood up. She followed the circle again kicking seeds and feathers picking up anything that would puncture the bare feet of her smallest sisters. As she did, the glow in the corner of her eyes winked out, and with it, her nearly allergic reaction.
Mina held her hands out in front of her. A doll, pebbles, shells, could she even be sure she was holding anything? Mina jabbed her finger down on the corner of the shell, and it cut her like a knife. She stuck her finger in her mouth and considered whether she was bleeding. Her sense of touch told her she held a pile of garbage, but it also recognized when Poppy sat on her shoulder, when Zizi kissed her cheek. Mina’s eyes confirmed the items in her hands, but they also saw the glowing light.
“Someone did a spell on your houze.” The deep buzz of Hitch’s voice filled the air. Mina chucked the things in her hands into t
he trees.
“Spells aren’t real.” Mina declared, squeezing her eyes tight.
“Course spellz are real. Maybe you’re family iz witchez. Probably that’z what you are. I guezz you could be a fae.”
“Hitch.” Mina protested, shaking her head. Funny, she thought sarcastically, how her imaginary friends were referring to characters she’d read about just that afternoon.
* * *
Mina pressed her face into the table letting the wrought-iron pattern imprint on her face while she took slow breaths and remembered that she still had to get past her parents.
She slowly followed the broken circle to the back of the house, staying in the shadows of the trees hoping she’d be invisible until she appeared in the kitchen. Maybe they’d believe she’d been in Sarah’s room. Her phone was quiet in her jeans, so she knew no one but Sarah realized she wasn’t in her room. Then she glanced around, and pulled her phone out of her pocket to check the time.
Man, it was almost ten-thirty. She stood facing the house and debated a race through the side door against the risk of being caught climbing the trellis; maybe if she came downstairs from her room, they’d think she’d been there for hours.
She heard a branch crack behind her. Gasping, Mina whirled certain she’d be faced with something that had too many claws. Or her dad.
Only, instead it was almost worse. A pale figure in a white gown walked through the trees. Mina frowned and watched; her heart racing in her chest.
“Sarah!” She yelled while still trying to keep them from hearing her at the house. And her sister didn’t turn. That white blond hair could only belong to Sarah or a ghost. And she almost floated through the woods. Mina tromped after Sarah, muttering curses in the sprite language, Zydekaune.
“Sarah.” She called again glancing back to make sure no one had seen them. Mina knew she’d be the one in trouble if they were discovered, so she stifled her yells and struggled through the undergrowth using her phone as a flashlight as she tried to catch up with her sister.
“Shiz, Sarah.” Mina tripped over a tree root and grabbed Sarah’s arm. The sleeve was torn, Sarah’s feet were bare and dirty, her eyes blank.
These Lying Eyes Page 3