I turned on the cold water and started splashing my cheeks, hoping to cool my heated skin, or at least stall for a moment.
“Hello, Lilly,” Melissa said from behind me in a voice that could curdle milk. I jerked my head up, splashing water all down my front. “Oops.” She smiled—a smile that could make an up-and-coming villain jealous.
“Hello, Melissa,” I replied, trying to sound confident in the face of danger. How was this supposed to work? The only thing flipping through my mind was, Don’t show fear. They can smell fear. Well, now that she was inches away, all I could smell was perfume. I wished I had something that smelled that good.
She moved from behind me to the sink beside me and started washing her hands. I ducked one of my hands into the running water again. The door slowly opened, and I prayed it was Caitlyn. No such luck. Emily poked her head in.
“Get out,” Melissa snapped before she got very far.
“It’s okay, Emily. You can go to the bathroom.” I squared my shoulders and glared at Melissa.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean,” Emily said as she edged for the door.
“Go to the bathroom, Emily,” I said, resting my hand lightly on her arm. The temptation lay just below my fingers. I could take away the sorrow Emily was feeling. It would take just a second of my time, and no one would be the wiser. Her face squinched up again like she was about to start crying. I glanced over at Melissa and almost stepped back into Emily. I might want to cry under that death glare too.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told Emily as I dipped my other hand further into the water. I hope, I thought as I crossed my fingers. This only worked well if I pushed in something before I pulled out something. I chose comfort to chase out the fear.
The tightness around Emily’s eyes eased as if she were no longer trying to hold back tears. Her short, fast breaths lengthened and she lost the frightened little mouse aura that seemed to cling to her everywhere she went.
Pull, I thought when the sensation of a balloon about to pop sprang back at me. I reached inside to the sorrow that swirled around inside Emily and followed her every waking hour and almost let go. Crap, how had Caitlyn’s pain gotten into Emily? It reached deep and had grown like a bramble bush sprouting thorns, making each moment pierced with tiny little shards of pain. I had to pull gently, make sure none of the prickly things were left behind.
“Do you hear me? We need to talk,” Melissa said, cutting through my concentration. Her fingers squeezed painfully around my arm. And just like that, the sorrow that was flowing into the water and running down the sink changed course and flooded into Melissa. The bramble bush hit fresh blood and exploded.
Chapter Five
“Can you explain this to me again?” Ms. Barns asked from behind her large wooden desk. Though her office was plastered with posters dripping with positivity, the room felt cold and utilitarian.
“I don’t know, Ms. Barns. Emily came in to use the bathroom and the next thing I know, Melissa is bursting into tears.”
“Emily said that Melissa was hurting you,” Ms. Barns said. Her eyes rested on the bruises on my arm.
“I still don’t know what happened.” I folded my arms tighter.
She patted her brown hair rendered smooth by a layer of sheen that told me a can of hairspray had met its maker. “I hear you were in an accident this weekend. Do you want to tell me about that?” she asked, throwing me off for a moment.
“I wasn’t. Just a friend of mine was.” My eyes rested on a poster with some poor cat hanging from a rope.
I totally get you, buddy, I thought as I glanced back at Ms. Barns, who had gone into laser stare mode. Could she actually look into my soul, or did it just seem like that?
“From what I hear going around school, you saved that friend.”
I met her eyes and quickly looked away. Her mind tricks wouldn’t work on me. Besides, the real story sounded crazier than anything she could think right now. Melissa had no marks on her and wasn’t speaking; nothing could be pinned on me.
“I ran down a mountain and found another hiker. If anything, that guy did the saving,” I said, my eyes drifting toward a picture of an ugly eagle. It looked more like a vulture to me. That seemed more fitting. She was picking me for bits of scrap information. Well, pick me clean; she wasn’t getting anything.
Her voice softened. “I’m not the enemy here. Melissa was a real bully.” Wow, this woman could be a detective on one of those police shows. Trying to get me to confess by saying she understood.
“Ask Emily. I didn’t touch her. She touched me. Can I go now?” I stood before she could answer.
“I’d like to meet again,” she said as she, too, rose and opened the door to her office.
“I think Melissa needs your help more than I do,” I said before hunching my shoulders and leaving the office.
The moment the door swung shut, Caitlyn stuck her head out from around the corner. “You were in there forever. I thought you’d never come out. So what happened? You go all kamikaze on Melissa?”
“I didn’t even touch her. She touched me,” I said, repeating the words I had just given to Ms. Barns. I couldn’t help but look back to confirm the door was shut.
“Are you sure that’s it? Melissa’s a mess. The school nurse sent her home.”
“Like I said: she touched me,” I said, then leaned closer. “But my hand might have been in the water.”
Caitlyn paused, not her usual long pauses for drama. She seemed to be really thinking about this. “Did you do it?” she asked, then looked around and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Holy cow. Did you do it again?”
“I don’t know how it happened, but somehow your emotion got into Emily,” I hissed back. I made myself start walking. Pretend like everything’s normal and you didn’t just pour a rose bush of sorrow into someone.
“What? Then what’s wrong with Melissa?”
“I was taking it out of Emily and Melissa sort of interrupted,” I whispered back.
“How did it get into Emily?”
“I don’t know. But I feel awful about it. Isn’t Emily your neighbor or something? What if it went down the drain? How many people did it go into? What are we going to do?”
“Crazy! And I don’t think it went into everyone. Old Mrs. Henry next door is as happy as ever.”
“Well, how did it get into Emily, then?”
“I don’t know. Emily used to babysit for my little brother and sister but stopped.” Her voice dropped even quieter. “About a year ago. Besides, I thought you said you weren’t going to do it again.”
“I wasn’t planning on it, if that’s what you meant. At first, I didn’t want Tyler to die.”
“What?” she asked so loudly, a few students looked over. She dropped her voice again. “You used it on Tyler too?”
“So he wouldn’t die. I never wanted to use it again, but I couldn’t just let him die if there was something I could do.” I clutched my books tighter to me and made myself look at her. “And I only used it on Emily because it’s my fault it got into her. I need to figure out what happened.”
I was relieved to see no loathing or fear there. We didn’t talk about that night, so it was weird to have a whole conversation about something we pretended hadn’t happened.
“Lilly, you made the right choice,” she said, throwing me off. Of all the things I expected to come out of her mouth, that wasn’t it. “There’s a lot of stuff we can’t control. Life is crap that way. But you could do something about it, and you did, and that was the right decision. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I said as I let go of the building tension. “But I’ve got to do it one more time. I’ve got to take your sorrow out of Melissa and get rid of it. No one should have to feel that way.”
“Just let me know if I can help,” she said. She had that Cheshire smile again as she walked away.
.o0o.
I didn’t see Melissa the next day. Rumor had it she was really broken up over what happened to Tyler.
I didn’t bother to correct anyone.
When she did show up, she looked a little like me the morning of the hike. There, but not all there. I did my best to keep away, stalling until I came up with a plan. It turned out I didn’t need to because every time I’d catch a glimpse of her, she’d turn tail and run.
Caitlyn stuck her head out of the janitor’s closet as I headed toward third period. “Hey, Lilly. Hey, get over here!”
“What are you doing in there?” I whispered back. I glanced back and forth down the hall. The air wafting out the door smelled of bleach and floor cleaner, followed closely by a light hint of perfume.
“No,” I said as I stepped closer.
“Yes, you said you needed to fix her—so fix her,” she hissed as she grabbed my wrist and pulled me in.
Shelves of cleaning supplies lined either side of the small room. The single swinging utility light set the perfect mood for a horror movie. Melissa, crammed in the corner, whispering, “No, please, no,” amped up the creepy atmosphere. Caitlyn pressed herself against one of the shelves so there was enough room for us to shut the door.
“Melissa, I’m going to take it away, okay?” I said as I squatted down. My eyes rested on a small spigot at the back with a mop cart below it. “Want me to take it away?”
She barely nodded, and I turned the handle, letting the water flow.
“Okay, let’s fix this sucker,” I said to fill in the awkward silence. I closed my eyes and reached for the thorn bush. If I could just find the root of the sorrow, maybe I could pull it out a little easier this time.
I pushed back winding branches of Melissa’s sorrow that had already started to curl around the core. She hadn’t broken up with Jacob because of any of the reasons Caitlyn had told me. He had broken up with her because she’d missed his football game. Yet she still felt crushed about it.
“I know you’re back together, but you should dump him,” I said, sinking in further. Emily’s pain swirled around, no longer connected to her but making things more complicated. I hesitated, unsure whether I should pry into what dragged her down. It didn’t seem tied to the center, so I might not have to deal with it. Maybe I’d leave it for later.
The middle was a dark misty thing, born of a sorrow I’d seen before. Caitlyn’s sorrow had grown monstrous, untouched by the passing of time, and fed by others’ fear and sadness. “Oh, Caitlyn,” I whispered
“What?” she asked from the corner she had stood silently in since hijacking Melissa into the closet.
“I think we’ve got a bigger problem,” I whispered, glancing at Melissa. “Can we talk outside?”
“You can’t fix her?” Caitlyn blurted out. Melissa started to whimper.
“No Melissa, everything will be okay. I promise,” I said as I glared at Caitlyn and pushed her out the door.
“It keeps growing with each person and getting stronger. I don’t know how it got into Emily, but I’m afraid what will happen if I put this down the drain and it gets into anyone else.”
Caitlyn wouldn’t meet my eyes. “What do you want to do?”
“Okay, so I’m thinking what if we put it into a bottle—and never open that bottle again. Does that sound stupid?”
“It could work. You stay with Melissa and I’ll check my car. I think I’ve got one in there.” She left before she finished talking.
“Hurry,” I called after her before sneaking back into the room.
A few minutes turned into a few hours, and by now I was ready to free Melissa and call it a day. I had already missed two classes and didn’t have a way to explain my absence. Hah, if I tried to explain to Mom that the crazy stuff Grandma used to say was real, well, nothing good would come of it. Even Melissa’s perfume seemed to have given up its battle against the cleansers because I could no longer smell it.
“Maybe she forgot,” Melissa whispered as if reading my thoughts.
“She wouldn’t,” I replied. Although secretly I thought Melissa might be right on this one. What could be more important than this?
I heard whistling and froze. I knew that tune too well, and I had no idea how to explain why we were hiding out in a closet together. I glanced over at Melissa, but she didn’t seem upset by the prospect. Technically, she’d been kidnapped. I was going to be grounded for life.
The keys jangled outside, and the door swung open. Bob, the janitor, froze, his eyes narrowing. “Oh good, you finally came. We’ve been waiting all day,” Melissa said from her seat on the floor.
Bob’s suspicion zeroed in on her. “You were waiting inside a locked closet?”
Behind Bob, I heard the squeak of tennis shoes on linoleum and hoped it signaled Caitlyn’s return—fat chance that it would help us now.
“Well, I was looking in the closet for something to clean the bathroom mirror. Some girl wrote something really mean, and I thought I’d get rid of it before she saw it. Lilly came to help, but then the door closed behind us and we couldn’t get out and no one could hear us and it was awful,” Melissa said, batting her eyelashes at Bob.
This can’t be working, I thought as I prepared for an escort to the principal’s office. But wait. He hadn’t moved. “What did the message say?” he asked, his voice carrying a note of caution.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to repeat it in polite company but,” she leaned forward and whispered the rest in his ear.
“Oh.” His eyes widened.
“So you see why I wanted to take care of it before Caitlyn saw it,” she said, then glanced behind him. “Oops.”
“Before I saw what?” Caitlyn asked, clenching the water bottle so tightly, I expected to hear a crunch.
“I’ll take care of it. Nothing to worry about,” said Bob as he shooed us away and reached for one of the scarier-looking cleaning bottles.
I waited until we were outside before I turned to Caitlyn and held out my hand.
“I got busted. I was pulling it out of the car and they thought I was trying to ditch school. I spent the last little while in Principal Watkins’ office explaining Melissa looked bad and said all she wanted in life was a water bottle and I was just being friendly by getting it.” She turned to Melissa. “And if she asks—that’s your story.”
“Hey, if it gets rid of whatever is messing with me,” she said as she grabbed the purple water bottle out of Caitlyn’s hand and shoved it at me. “Now fix it!”
“We’ve got to find a quiet place, and it needs to have water in it,” I said as I glanced up and down the hallway.
“Bathroom,” Melissa and Caitlyn said at the same time. I wanted to disagree. Last time, things hadn’t gone down so well in the bathroom, but who was I to say differently? From one small space to another—good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic.
We hurried to the bathroom on the other side of the school to avoid Bob. Caitlyn scanned the restroom before waving us in. Ugh, someone must have been sick before this because already my eyes were watering with the smell. “Move it,” she said when I hesitated.
I headed to the sink and filled the bottle as full as I could. I wanted as much leeway as I could because I didn’t want to use running water.
The instant it was full, Melissa stuck her hand out. She already seemed to be more like herself. Did I really need to do this?
Get a grip. Yes. Fix it, I told myself before grabbing her wrist and sticking my fingers in the hot water. Despite the heat, I shivered. Back down the rabbit hole I go.
The sorrow was darker now, like I had given it time to fester and the ink had set. It had twisted into an almost-entity, a parasite. Spiky spines dug in and it had no intention of coming out. Ugh, and all I had to combat it was a bottle of water.
I closed my eyes and pictured the hot water steaming, causing the freeloader to sweat and shrink. It didn’t budge. In fact, it seemed to take the water into itself and dig in deeper. Melissa’s face drained of color.
“Sorry,” I whispered before rocking back on my heels. Not only had I failed at taking it out, I had made it embed itsel
f that much harder.
“So that’s it. You’re giving up?” asked Caitlyn. Her hands were clenched tight as if she could squeeze the emotion right out of Melissa.
Yes, I thought. Aloud I said, “No. I just need another game plan.”
“What if we get a gallon bucket?” she asked, glancing over at Melissa.
“I don’t think more water will help.” Besides, where were we going to hide a gallon bucket?
“I don’t know. Tell me what to do,” Caitlyn said as she strode to the door, peeked outside, and came back.
I glanced between her and Melissa, wishing the answer would fall in my lap. According to all the books I’d read, right about now was when my white knight should swoop in and fix things, but my white knight was still in the hospital.
“Melissa, I think this is going to suck no matter when I do it, so I’m going to leave it up to you—now, or later?”
“Make it stop.” She shuddered.
I swear if an inkblot could smile, this one would be grinning. I was having an invisible showdown with an out-of-control emotion, and all I could think about was the old black and white westerns where the cowboy stands on Main Street and the onlookers peered out their windows at the coming gunfight.
“Melissa, tell me your happiest memory,” I whispered as I dug into myself. I felt like I was right on the verge of being able to crawl into her thoughts, but didn’t want to unless I had to.
“That’s none of your business,” she whimpered. Yeah, I had to fix this fast. Hearing her whimper was just wrong.
“You want me to take care of this, tell me your happiest memory,” I ordered. No use taking the fluffy encouraging route—we were past that.
The image floated up. I rolled my eyes. Really? Melissa’s happiest moment was her first kiss with Jacob. That was messed up.
I shoved my own thoughts down and focused on the bubbly feeling this thought gave Melissa. With any luck, I could smother this sucker in joy. She liked how brown his eyes looked, like a puppy dog’s. I staked the bit down just past the furthest tentacle. She liked how she was so close she could smell his laundry detergent. I had to give her that: his clothes did smell good. Stake two down.
A Touch of Water (Touch of Magic Book 1) Page 3