Perilous Waters

by Diana Paz

  Open up to Angie? To anyone?

  Having magic definitely had its drawbacks. She had gained a hideous scar and lost her friends and her standing at school, all for being able to light a candle across a room and not having to get up when she didn’t want to reach for something. The trade-offs weren’t really paying out.

  Then again, blasting her enemies with beams of energy was pretty fun.

  “Come on,” Angie beckoned, her blond ponytail bobbing as she turned and headed down the stairs.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened to a gothic den. Bookshelves lined the far wall. A low table surrounded by cushions, a lot like the one Indira had, was set out as usual. Candles were the only light—Angie said this was to help the air retain the most magical properties—and bones lay scattered on a side table. Kaitlyn had a feeling she didn’t want to ask where they came from.

  Angie took a small, ornate box from one of the shelves. “Where are the raven’s claws,” she murmured. Dressed in a white eyelet top that was trimmed in pale pink flowers, Angie looked more like she should be swinging in a flower garden than handling shriveled bird parts like a little witch.

  “That is completely gross,” Julia said, turning from her pixie-like friend in disgust.

  “Agreed,” Kaitlyn said. “So, why did you want us to get together last minute like this?”

  “We think the Fates are going to summon us to a mission,” Angie said, plucking up a curled claw and setting on the table. “Soon.”

  “Angie had a vision at work today,” Julia added.

  Kaitlyn gave them both an indifferent glance, but inside a pinprick stung her heart. The way they said we when they talked always meant the two of them.

  But, why did she even care?

  “We need to figure out as much as we can before we travel back in time,” Angie said.

  Kaitlyn felt a moment’s curiosity. No matter what, having been to Paris when Marie Antoinette was alive had been pretty bad ass. “You already know where we’re going?”

  “Um… partly,” Angie said, holding her pretty blond ponytail to one side with both hands.

  “‘Partly’? That isn’t going to cut it,” Kaitlyn said. “Last time we were ‘partly’ in a war.”

  “That’s why I wanted us all here. I want to use the threads of time to look through the past and see if I can find us in history, somewhere.”

  Kaitlyn released a heavy sigh, but her fingertips tingled with excitement. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “We should freeze time first that way we’re not late to the bonfire party,” Angie said, canting her head to the side as she looked up at Kaitlyn. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? You might have fun.”

  Kaitlyn tensed. Was she pitying her because Ashleigh and Becca dropped her? Did she think she had nothing else going on? “I don’t consider hanging out with you fun.”

  Angie’s lips parted noiselessly.

  “Harsh, Kaitlyn,” Julia said, her brows lowering.

  Kaitlyn was still getting used to not saying everything that came into her head around these two. Ashleigh would have laughed if she had said something like this to Becca. It would have been funny to see Becca try to make a comeback and fail, of course. No one was as good at insults as Kaitlyn was.

  But not with these two. Throughout the past few months she hadn’t seen them blast backhanded compliments that were really insults. It was a completely different wave-length, and half the time she ended up not knowing what to say around them. For a moment Kaitlyn remembered back to her friend Dawn. She had trusted Dawn. She had never wanted to hurt her, and had never been mean to her, but in the end Dawn had betrayed her. Kaitlyn exhaled a measured breath, trying to control the images that flooded her mind. Dawn was ancient history, she reminded herself.

  Then why do think about her all the time?

  “You need to stop being such a jerk,” Julia continued, cutting into her thoughts, and for once, Kaitlyn was grateful. Even all these years later, remembering about Dawn hurt, and she was relieved to put her attention elsewhere. “Angie has only ever been nice to you.”

  Kaitlyn wouldn’t have cared about being ‘harsh’ to Angie, or a ‘jerk’ or whatever else Julia thought about her… except Angie… her little face did look hurt. Sometimes when Kaitlyn said things, the way Angie blinked rapidly and sucked in her breath made Kaitlyn feel a sharp prick of pain in her chest. She didn’t like feeling that way.

  Kaitlyn ran her fingers through her bangs, unsure of what to say. What was up with her, lately? She found herself wanting to make Angie happy. “Whatever, mother,” she finally mumbled. “I’ll try to tone it down.”

  “It’s okay,” Angie said, her pink lips forming a soft smile that changed her face back into its usual doll-like expression. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and added, “If you change your mind about the bonfire, we’ll be at Cabrillo. You could always join us later.”

  “It would be kind of cool if you could come,” Julia said.

  Kaitlyn blinked in surprise. Julia didn’t usually want her around.

  Before she could think to answer, Julia added, “If you come, we can just use our powers to teleport there. It’ll save us so much time driving and we won’t need to find a parking spot.”

  No surprise. The only reason Julia wanted her to come along was so she could use her magic.

  Whatever. She would never join in their little fake friendship. They only cared about themselves, and that was just fine. She didn’t want to go to an idiotic beach bonfire. What was this, 1965? “You’ll have to figure out parking at your little Beach Blanket Bingo thing without me,” she said, bored of them both and letting her voice show it. “Like I said, I’m not going.”

  Angie only nodded and returned to setting out black crystals and other objects of power on a candle-lined table. “There,” she said, sitting on a cushion and holding her small hand out in invitation, indicating the cushions on each side. “Let’s get started.”

  Kaitlyn took her spot, sitting on the pillow in front of the symbol matching the one on her arm. A star surrounded by smaller stars shimmered on the table. If she looked at them long enough, something in them shifted. They became like real stars on a blanket of darkness. Their silvery light shone with secrets, and Kaitlyn watched their flickering brightness for a moment before blinking rapidly, chasing the image away.

  Even using this small amount of magic caused the mark on her arm to become warm. The normally golden symbols that snaked around the skin below her shoulder grew white with blazing power. The other girls looked at her—one with wide blue eyes and parted, rose-petal lips, the other with a dark, narrowed gaze that made Kaitlyn’s hands curl into fists.

  “Good start, Kaitlyn,” Angie finally said, holding out her hands.

  Kaitlyn’s magic coursed through her body. She liked the way it felt as it built inside of her. The aching pressure of it… the power. She placed her hand in Angie’s and offered her other hand to Julia. The moment the three of them touched, the magic became a living thing between them. Kaitlyn formed a protective barrier across her mind as whispered thoughts and echoed emotions coursed through her body. The part about them sharing emotions sucked. She didn’t want anyone poking around in her brain. The force field she had learned to put up helped, but Angie was more powerful than she was. If Angie really wanted to go into her mind, there wouldn’t be much Kaitlyn could do to stop her.

  She felt Julia drawing out a portion of her magic. Kaitlyn’s instinct was always to try and stop her, but she eased up and let a small amount of magic flow from her body.

  “I need more than that,” Julia said.

  “It doesn’t take you much to freeze time,” Kaitlyn said.

  “Not much, but I’d rather not pass out from using all of my own magic. That’s why there are three of us.”

  Kaitlyn’s jaw tightened but she allowed more magic to release into Julia’s body. “There. Are
you happy now?”

  A small burst of satisfaction filtered through Julia’s emotions. Kaitlyn nearly yanked her hand back, but acting out would only give Julia more reason to mock her. Anytime now, she said, sending her an aggravated stab of magic.

  Julia’s satisfaction only grew. “There,” she said, her eyes blinking open.

  Kaitlyn glanced around the dim basement. Each of the candle flames remained utterly still. She remembered the first time the three of them had trained down here. With time frozen, Kaitlyn had reached out to a flame, curious about whether it still burned. It didn’t. The sliver of red and yellow had felt like nothing… no substance whatsoever. Like the rest of the world when time was frozen, there was no warmth or coolness, no real scent to the air. It was a paper world; a stage with props and frozen actors.

  Julia began withdrawing her hands, but Angie stopped her. “We need to look through the threads of time, remember? I had a vision about where we’re going next.”

  Kaitlyn took a deep breath. “All right,” she murmured, drawing in magic from the other two… mainly from Angie, since she poured her magic into Kaitlyn as if she would never run out.

  The additional magic seeped into Kaitlyn’s body, soaking her essence and filling her with heat and power. The threads of time took a lot of energy to sustain, so she waited until she was sure she would have enough magic to let them look through the threads without having to stop.

  “Anytime now,” Julia mocked.

  “Shut up,” Kaitlyn hissed. “This is hard enough without you being yourself.”

  Julia’s mouth opened, about to say something, but Kaitlyn shut her up with a blanket of threads. The long, endlessly entwined strands formed a pale rainbow. Shifting iridescence lit up their faces as the threads moved and breathed in front of them.

  All of Kaitlyn’s focus centered on the threads. Soon she couldn’t see the other girls or the room, or even her own hands.

  “Look for the brightest threads,” Angie said, her voice a silvery echo.

  Kaitlyn searched through the shifting colors. The future spread infinitely across the world in a chaos of possibilities. And yet, some futures shone brighter than others. Kaitlyn reached for one, following it into a vision of the future.

  An island. A lush forest… a waterfall… an endless beach with white-crested waves rolling onto the sand. It looked like the Bahamas, and for a moment Kaitlyn half expected to see the resort she and her family stayed at when they vacationed.

  The vision angled back. She and the others emerged from the dark line of trees. They seemed out of breath, and they wore big dresses—not as poofy and frilly as the ones they had worn in France, but definitely something from the past.

  Why were they so scared? She watched as Julia looked behind her and seemed to scream. Angie took her hand and tugged her forward. The three of them argued over something… then a group of men stormed out of the jungle.

  Beside her, the real-world Julia said something. Kaitlyn tried to ignore whatever Julia was talking about. They weren’t in the same vision, and she needed to find out what was going on in hers.

  “No, no, no,” Julia mumbled. “He can’t be… I don’t understand.”

  “Shut. Up,” Kaitlyn ground out, nearly losing her hold on the vision.

  “I can’t help it,” Julia said. “It’s Brian. Something terrible might happen to him.”

  Kaitlyn focused on her own thread. The men attacking them had swords. Jewels covered their filthy bodies. Most of them wore hats and mismatched clothes.

  “Pirates,” she whispered, nearly losing the threads of time again as the realization hit her.

  “That’s what I’ve been seeing,” Angie said. “But pirates like this roved the world for centuries. Try to look for something that identifies a date or a place.”

  Kaitlyn watched in macabre fascination as the pirates bore down on the three of them. If only she could hear, but the threads of time filtered through images of the future, not sounds. She watched the three of them blast the pirates back, but there were so many of them. Even just watching, she could see that their magic would give out before they were able to defeat them.

  “A little help, guys?” Julia asked. “I think this sign is in Spanish… what does cantina mean? Singer?”

  “I don’t know Spanish,” Angie said.

  “Cantina means tavern. Like a bar,” Kaitlyn said, hearing the contempt in her voice as she added, “Do you even try to know your own language, Julia?”

  “Hey, let’s not start arguing again,” Angie said, her soft voice cutting off whatever Julia’s reply might have been, but Kaitlyn felt the waves of anger pouring out from Julia. It was obvious that not knowing how to speak Spanish was a huge sore spot for her… Kaitlyn didn’t know why, but it made her feel better that she could speak Spanish and Julia couldn’t.

  A fierce cord of bitterness coiled around her heart. She did know why it made her feel better. It was because she was a jerk, just like Julia had accused her of being. She had known for a long time that she didn’t care about anyone except herself. A hard place inside of her stung, bringing sharp heat to her eyes. She would always be this way. She wasn’t like Angie… she wasn’t nice. She was naturally mean and jealous and full of boiling rage, and she liked feeling better than other people. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t.

  Suddenly Kaitlyn wanted to let go of their hands. She wanted space. She wanted to be alone.

  “Can you tell which time period it is?” Angie asked, sounding more faraway than ever. “Maybe there’s a year on one of the signs.”

  “I’ve got nothin’,” Julia said, “but wherever it is, we sure go to a lot of bars.”

  Kaitlyn should be doing her part. She should leave this vision of the three of them fighting on the beach. It told nothing about the location or the year, and that was what they needed to know… but she watched as Angie was tied up by pirates. Julia lay face down in a pool of her own blood. A man knotted her hair in his fist and pulled back her head. Still, she watched.

  What was she going to see?

  Her heart rose to form a lump in her throat at the sight of the struggling girls. She didn’t want to help anymore. She didn’t want to be in this basement. She wanted to go home and forget the world, listening to music until she fell dead asleep.

  “Are we done here?” she finally asked, releasing the vision with a shove of her palms as her own throat was about to be slashed.

  Angie blinked rapidly, her enormous blue eyes looking childlike and lost for a moment. “Please try not to pull us from visions so abruptly.”

  “My power wasn’t going to hold out forever,” she said, forcing the image of them all being killed from her mind. “And as much fun as you guys both are—” and she didn’t bother hiding the fact that they were anything but— “I have a life of my own I’d like to get back to.”

  “We barely started,” Julia said. “This is our second mission. We’re not just practicing for funsies, you know.”

  “Good thing, because this is boring as hell.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  Before she could reply, Angie placed a gentle hand on Kaitlyn’s arm. Kaitlyn looked down at it, swallowing hard as she looked back into Angie’s eyes.

  “That’s okay. We can take a break from the magic,” Angie said, her eyes filled with so much compassion that Kaitlyn had to lower her gaze. She could see why Angie was so well-liked at school. Looking into her eyes, it was nearly impossible not to want to please her.

  “Can you stay for a bit to help us research?” Angie added.

  Kaitlyn nodded, not trusting her voice yet.

  “Great,” Angie beamed. “Julia, let’s start with you. What did you see?”

  Julia frowned, her forehead puckering. “Nothing about us. Just…” she trailed off, waving her hand as she looked away.

  Angie sat next to her and took her hand. “Are you okay?”

  Kaitlyn’s jaw tightened a little and she looked away. Dawn used to sit bes
ide her just like that. Are you doing okay? she would ask, tilting her head and making Kaitlyn feel as though she really cared.

  “It’s Brian and Ethan stuff,” Julia said. “Nothing to do with the mission. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” Angie said, giving Julia a sideways hug. She glanced up at Kaitlyn. “Okay, then. What did you see?”

  “A gorgeous beach,” Kaitlyn murmured, her voice devoid of its hard edge as she forced memories of Dawn from her mind. “But if we end up in that future, this will be our last mission.”

  Julia’s brows knit together.

  “What do you mean?” Angie asked.

  “We die. Killed by pirates.”

  The other girls became stiffly silent. Even without their connection, Kaitlyn could feel the tension running through them like a taut violin string.

  Kaitlyn shifted on her cushion, tucking her feet beneath her as she went through the vision with them. Running on the sand, the pirates, the way they were killed… but what she had seen was only a single future, one of many that might not happen. There were hundreds of threads, each one a possibility. They had no way to know which of the paths they would follow until they were already on it.

  “We’ll need to be careful,” Angie said, getting up and heading for a bookcase.

  Kaitlyn watched Angie a moment. “Watching that possible future sucked, but I don’t think we need to worry. With our powers, there’s no way that will happen.”

  “I guess,” Julia said, finally releasing the lower lip she had been gnawing on. “What did you see, Angie? More ways we might die?”

  “No. I saw the Jolly Roger flying,” Angie said, coming back with several books. “I picked these up at the library after my vision showed me pirates.”

  “It’s cute that you still use books, I guess,” Kaitlyn said, taking her tablet from her purse.

  “I thought it would be good to have the books in front of us. Besides, I love the feel of pages between my fingers,” Angie said with a mousey little grin. “And this way it will be easier to look at multiple things at once. See? We can spread the books out in front of us.”