Witch-Child

by Gerilyn Marin

  He waits quietly for me to stand up and start walking, but he's still watching me, and falls into step a little behind me. I think it's so he will see in time if he needs to catch me again.

  I clear my throat, focusing more on walking at a steady, normal-seeming pace than I feel I've ever had to before in my life. "So, you were telling me about your devil."

  Grey sighs lightly, a sound I can just barely hear as we cross the street, and I realize that even though we’ve not verbally agreed on the destination, he’s walking me home. "Well, Jack just vanished one night, but there had been rumors all over the place that people had been seeing some devil-like creature in the area. When Jack disappeared, the sightings stopped. People must've thought he had some way to look human so he could blend in.”

  "Why? What did this devil look like?"

  "You know, the usual: horns, glowing red eyes, wings, goatee."

  I can't help giggling at that. "Yes, because goatees are much more evil than full beards."

  His response to this is of a more serious tone than I'm expecting.

  "Makes sense when you consider that the Devil is supposed to look like some sort of goat-man. I mean, those depictions were just to vilify the deities and nature-spirits of the pagan religions during the Dark Ages, but it kinda worked."

  "Huh," is all I can say. Maybe studying the occult goes hand-in-hand with being told that your bloodline is routed through a man who was supposedly a devil. Although, now that he's said this, I can't help but notice there is a resemblance between The Devil and a typical pagan-folklore satyr.

  I get the feeling that Grey thinks he's said too much, but he hurries on before I can say anything more about it.

  "Anyway, so Bridgette had moved away with her kids after Gabriel died and Jack was supposed to join them later, but he never arrived. She sent a letter to the lawyer who was supposed to be helping Jack sell off their property, but he didn’t seem to know anything, and I mean anything. His reply made it sound like he didn't have a clue what she was talking about. A few weeks later the money from the sale arrived by post, with a message from Jack saying he'd been delayed, but he was on his way. No one ever saw him again."

  I frown and, sick of talking over my shoulder, hang back a step so that I'm beside him now. Walking without stumbling is still an adventure, but having this conversation to distract me from how difficult moving is helps. "Maybe he just lied, Grey; he could have left her. People do screwed up things like that all the time."

  "I don't think so." He says, his expression telling me he's considered this idea already. "I have looked for anything that could connect to him, and there is no record of him ever turning up anywhere else after he supposedly left this town."

  We're both quiet for a while and the silence leaves me to focus on simply putting one foot in front of the other again. There are a number of things I should be flipping out on myself for about the outcome of this pseudo-date, whatever-it-is. I've found out something about him that is just way more interesting than I'd been prepared for. I can tolerate him; I don't think I'm prepared for that, either. He knows my secret, because I'm not better at lying spontaneously.

  I steer him onto my block, hoping that Wendi isn't hanging out by her window, waiting for me to come home, like some gossipy little old bitty. I have no idea what I'm going to tell her when she asks how things went, so I guess I'll just have to let her wait until tomorrow.

  "Aw, but what about Bridgette’s journal?" I ask, remembering suddenly. "I actually really want to read it."

  "I can bring it to school for you, or you could, I don't know, come over some time, or something. You won't have to lie to arrange it." Though he seemed nervous before when he suggested this, I can hear a touch of humor in his voice now that he’s found an angle from which he can poke fun at me.

  "Oh, see, I don't know if I'd be comfortable with that, then," I say in mock-seriousness before sticking my tongue out at him.

  He smirks. "Hey, you wanna know the weird part? About Jack, I mean?"

  Thank you, Grand Master of steering us right back on track. "Your ancestor disappearing in the wake of Drake's Cove devil-creature-sightings that I've never heard about, then us finding his grave all hidden away like that weren't the weird parts?"

  He laughs, and I know that if not for how tired I am, I would kick myself, because I like the sound of him laughing. Damn it.

  "The places my family have lived, the ones where weird things happen? The devil-sightings happened there, too." He leans close, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper, "In fact, they still do."

  I turn to face him as we reach the stairs to my porch. "They have devil sightings? Like, recent ones?"

  Grey shrugs, pulling back as he shoves his hands into his pockets. "Crazy, right? Everywhere but here."

  "I'm starting to see a pattern."

  I leave out that even if it's not a devil, the people in those towns have got to be seeing something. There is a pattern, and most likely whatever's being spotted is attached to his lineage, somehow. He's probably already figured that out himself, but doesn't want to add any more colors to the current Rubik's Cube we're futzing with.

  "Exactly. So?"

  I stare up at him, clueless. "So, what?"

  He glances around quickly, like he's expecting to be overheard. "Will you help me figure out what really happened here?"

  I'm not sure that's possible, what with how patchy our town's recollections are, but this is about the most interesting thing I've ever had the chance to be involved in. "I'll do what I can, sure, but why me?"

  A frown spreads across his face instantly. "I . . . don't have anyone else to help me. No one in my family wants anything to do with digging into the past because they think it'll make the occurrences worse and no one in town seems to have a friggin' clue about any of this, anyway."

  I merely nod in agreement with the second half of his reasoning. "I don't blame your family for worrying, though. What if this does make it worse?"

  He slumps his shoulders and lets out a sigh. "If that's what I have to do to find out how to make it better—to make it stop—then I don't care."

  "Okay." There's really nothing else to say in the face of his determination, and I yawn as a fresh wave of exhaustion rolls over me, remembering at the last minute to cover my mouth.

  "You need help up the stairs?"

  Shaking my head lightly, I hold out my hand.

  "Your phone," I explain when he gives me a questioning look.

  He raises an eyebrow, but fishes a black smartphone out of his back pocket and places it in my hand.

  "My number," I say as I input my name and digits, quickly texting Grey's name to myself while I'm at it, ignoring my phone when the alert chimes. "And now I have yours."

  When I hand it back to him, he looks up quickly, a tiny smile playing on his lips. "Cae?"

  Rolling my eyes, I curse at myself under my breath and reach for his phone again, but he takes a step back, putting it away in his pocket. "Damn you."

  I didn't mean to use my childhood nickname, and being called Cae by someone I'm just getting to know might feel too familiar, but maybe he won't use my tired slip against me.

  He laughs, but leans down, brushing a kiss over the tip of my nose before I can react. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, Cadence."

  "Wha," is all I can say, but his gaze flickers from my eyes, toward Wendi's house and when I turn to look, I see the curtain in her window fluttering back into place.

  "Great," I grumble, returning my attention to him.

  "Now get in your house and get some rest before she gets to tell everyone I had to carry you to your door."

  "I—" I clamp my mouth shut immediately, because I can tell by the sudden change in his expression that he's not kidding.

  He doesn't budge as I make my way up the steps and disappear into my house. Grey Addison is worried about me. And, for some reason, I don't mind.

  Ah, damn it all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Fe
ars That Aren't Mine

  I bolt upright, gasping for air, as if I've been holding my breath for a long time. But that's not . . . I was being chased? Wait, no, I was already captured. They were—what were they doing? Something was stopping me from talking, from breathing. No, that can't be right. How did they capture me if I was still fleeing?

  Putting a shaky hand down beside me, I clutch my covers tightly to remind myself that I'm safe, I'm in bed; it was just a dream. I press my free hand against my chest and feel the stupid-fast rhythm of my heartbeat. The T-shirt I'd worn to sleep is stuck to my skin by a layer of sweat.

  My thoughts are so scattered that trying to remember what happened just makes my mind fuzzy. Taking a deep breath, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to put the images in proper order. This doesn't work; it banishes the fuzziness, but the actual progression of events in whatever I've just dreamed about doesn't become any clearer. I can't grasp who was chasing me, or why, or even where I had been; it's all a tumbling blur of images and actions.

  I jump at the sound of a knock on my door, but before I can speak, my mother says loudly, "C'mon. I think Wendi already left, I'll drop you at school."

  With a confused frown, I look at the clock and find I've slept through my alarm by about half an hour. This day is starting out beautifully.

  "I need, like, ten minutes!"

  After a moment—I can only imagine she's checking her watch—she replies, "Five minutes."

  "Seven!" I may be quick to throw myself together when absolutely necessary, but five minutes is going to have me putting shoes and socks on in the car.

  "Fine," she says finally, and I hear her footsteps moving down the hall before she shouts, "Starting now!"

  Groaning, I stumble out of bed and hurry about gathering clothing, brushing my teeth, and jumping into a two-minute-long shower. To add to my early morning unhappiness, I discover that, aside from the black top my mother tossed onto the bed yesterday, I've grabbed a pair of powder blue jeans that are a bit snugger than I usually wear to school, but too late now.

  I hop out of the bathroom on one socked foot, and then switch to the other so that I'm mobile as I shove my feet into my boots, tucking a detangling comb and my cell into my back pockets. Walking out of the house barefoot? Not gonna happen. Tugging a brush through my wet hair in the car? Not happy about it, but do-able.

  I snatch up my messenger bag from where I'd left it beside my bedroom door on my way to the bathroom and bolt down the stairs, stopping into the kitchen to grab a soda from the fridge. I almost crash headlong into my brother and, by his expression, I can tell a snarky comment is forming, but one look at my drowned-rat-in-a-hurry state keeps his mouth firmly shut.

  In the car, Mom frowns at my choice of morning beverage as I snatch one of her granola bars from the stash she keeps in her glove compartment.

  "It's as close to coffee as I have time for," I grumble, popping the tab to take the first swig of fizzy, artificially sweet caffeine, and then slipping the can into the cup holder, but she doesn't back out of the driveway until I'm buckled in.

  My phone's text alert chimes as I take my first bite of granola. I ignore my mother chuckling at me when I wedge the bar into my mouth and shift beneath my seatbelt, reaching both hands back to grab my cell and the comb. I toss the comb up onto the dashboard and scroll through my phone's messages. Mom has the windows down, which will likely cause me an issue with getting my hair to cooperate, but whatever.

  There look to be about eleven text messages from Wendi, and each one demands to know things. What happened with Grey? A few to the effect of Why aren't you answering? Or, Are you ignoring me? Is this 'cause I was peeking out the window? I'm sorry, with like twenty exclamation points. And, oh, look, another What happened with Grey? I must've been so deeply asleep I didn't hear the alerts. To be fair, I’d probably act the same way if it were Wendi and a guy she liked, and might be dating—unless said guy is my brother, because ew.

  Mixed in with the Wendi-questions is a text from Grey.

  I cough, forcing the granola bar to fly out of my mouth and into the dashboard, glance off, then land in my lap; I'm just relieved no sloggy little bits of granola escaped with it.

  That would just be gross. My mother darts her gaze toward me in surprise.

  I only notice her direct attention from the corner of my how. How she manages while keeping her attention on the road is beyond me.

  I shoot her an innocent look. "Wrong pipe, sorry."

  She nods, arching a perfectly tweezed chestnut eyebrow at me. "So how did last night's 'not-date' go?" For someone who's not psychic, the woman has a downright eerie sense of timing every now and then.

  Or maybe I'm just more transparent than I think I am.

  I press the screen against my shoulder to hide that a text from Grey on my phone is what turned my breakfast into a projectile, and not a bit of honeyed grain falling into my trachea. It takes me a moment to regain my composure. I know I was the one to have us exchange numbers, and I shouldn't be surprised, since I'm all he's got—in regards to his ancestry issue, I mean—but seeing his name pop up first thing in the morning makes me a little unexpectedly happy.

  Ugh. Isn't this the sort of reaction I didn't want to have to the boy? I peek at the message, Library, lunchtime, and clear my throat awkwardly as I put the phone back into my pocket so that I'm free to comb my hair with one hand while I retrieve the granola bar with the other.

  "Um, it wasn't terrible," I say, opting for truthfulness. "We even talked about maybe hanging out again."

  I immediately come to regret that choice when my mother says in a knowing tone, "Oh, I see. Are we thinking he might fit the currently empty role of . . . 'boyfriend?'"

  Not if I can help it, I think miserably. "No, mother, I mean hang out, as in like, just friends."

  She frowns, not because of my words, but because I've just talked with my mouth full.

  "Oh, look, we're here!" I make no attempt to hide my relief as Mom pulls up to school, but it's short-lived as I see Wendi waiting on the steps.

  Mom grins, crinkling the bridge of her nose at me. "That's what you get."

  Shaking my head hopelessly, I unbuckle my seatbelt, but look back at my mother before I open the door. "Will you be home when I get in?"

  She shrugs. "Not sure yet, Halloween's in just a few weeks."

  "Okay." I should know better—this time of year is always busy for the paper, what with party stores and annual events taking out ads; it's always like this in the month leading up to big-spending holidays. I lean in and drop a kiss on her cheek. "If you're picking up, I'm really feeling tacos tonight."

  "Ah, perfect meal over which to grill my daughter about boys," she says as I climb out of the car, and then slam the passenger door

  "Oh, ya know what, that's okay" I begin, turning quickly to speak through the open window but she's already pressed the button to raise it, effectively—and metaphorically—shutting out any argument from me.

  Helplessly watching her peel away from the curb, I stuff the granola bar back into my mouth, purposefully occupying it. Crap, I left my soda in the car. I turn on my heel and stroll toward Wendi, chewing determinedly as I finish combing wet tangles from my hair.

  As we enter the building and head to homeroom, she proceeds to fire questions at me like some auctioneer ticking off biddings. Oddly, though, I find it kind of comforting after yesterday's weirdness and that freaky nightmare. For a moment, she makes everything seem normal, and I let her.

  I'm running. My instinct is to get a good start, but I can feel that it would be useless, because I'm limping as it is. This is bad, they're going to catch me. Fear pounds in my head, clouds my vision. My throat burns, each time I try to speak there's a sensation like I'm choking down jagged, white-hot shards of glass.

  I don't understand what's happening. I know something is very wrong with me, but . . . why don't they just k—

  "Cadence!"

  I give a start and blink my eyes open to see that
Grey occupies the seat beside me. "Oh—" My voice rumbles out clipped and tired, and I immediately cut myself off.

  His eyebrows draw together at the creaky sound that's just escaped me, but he doesn't say anything.

  Clearing my throat awkwardly, I try speaking again.

  "Sorry, um, not a very restful sleep last night, I guess." This feels a little phony to say, since I know that I slept for over ten hours, but the exact words I've used, not a restful sleep, actually hit the nail right on the head, though I've not consciously thought through what I'm saying.

  He looks like he's about to say something, but he pauses. Glancing over his shoulder, he confirms that it's just us and the school librarian.

  I had all I could do to scrape Wendi from my side. I love her to bits, but I swear that girl must've been a barnacle in a past life. I told her that Grey and I are meeting to discuss plans for a maybe-this-time-it-is-a-date date. Of course, I'd also had to let her believe that I'd been wrong and was turning out to actually sort of like him, but I suppose there have been worse misunderstandings in the history of the world.

  That almost made things worse, because then I had to make sure she didn't sneak into the library after me and hide behind a nearby bookcase.

  He leans a bit closer, I guess in case any other students do come in while we're talking, and lowers his voice to a whisper.

  "Is it because of that . . . that thing you did yesterday at the cemetery?"

  "No," I reply quickly, but stop shaking my head a moment after I start.

  Odd that it takes Grey mentioning my episode to make me consider that there may be a connection. I mean, I don't have nightmares . . . not since around the time Gran died when I was graduating fifth grade.

  "Uh, maybe, I don't know."

  "Are you okay?" His gaze searches mine.

  "Huh?" I blink and then shake my head once more. "I'm fine."