Witch-Child

by Gerilyn Marin

  I feel awful, but this is not death's doorstep. And certainly not worth breaking a promise over.

  Heaving a sigh, and sorely wishing I'd not wasted all those ‘sick’ days last year, I climb out of bed and trudge across the room.

  I poke my head out into the hall and holler, "Jeremy!"

  After a moment, I hear from somewhere downstairs, a half-yawn/half-yell, "What?"

  "Can you make your super-strong, kick me in the ass coffee?"

  He moves to the foot of the stairs so I can see his face. Wow, he has bags under his eyes, just as I imagine I have beneath mine.

  He gives a sleepy chuckle. "Already done, sis."

  With a nod, I push my door completely open and head to the bathroom.

  A splash of cold water on my face, and some of Mom's anti-wrinkle cream under my eyes manages to slightly unzombiefy me. Never mind that she didn't have wrinkles before, but no one can tell the woman that the bajillion moisturizers she slathers on her skin aren't the reason she still looks like she's only just turned thirty.

  Genetically speaking, our family's lucky. We're long-lived—my great grandparents all lived into their late eighties and nineties, and that was something to say back then—but also slow to show our age. I can't imagine how much it would suck to look older than you actually are at, say, seventy-two.

  The only exception on the long life bit was my mom's mother. She'd taken a nasty fall down some stairs and died later from the head injury, so her death doesn't really factor in.

  Slightly unzombiefied, I think again, standing before my mirror as I quickly struggle into my charcoal skinny jeans and a sapphire V-neck sweater.

  I'd taken a shower when I got in last night, so at least that saves me some time. Even though I was worn out, the idea of climbing into bed with a cut that wasn't cleaned out, and dirt under my nails—and anywhere else dirt might have gotten to, that shall remain unmentioned—was, by no means, a pleasant one.

  After putting a fresh bandage on the slice in my palm, I try to brush the tangles from my hair, but they are particularly stubborn today. Maybe I'm just too tired to fight them, so I simply twist my mane up into a clip.

  At least I look better than Jeremy does by the time he sets a steaming mug of coffee in front of me at the kitchen table.

  I just watch him silently as he sets a tray of Equal in the middle of the table and sits down to fix his own cup. The only word that comes to mind as I stare at him is haggard.

  "Spill it," I say, as I sit up straight and reach for two packets of sweetener.

  He frowns into his mug, one eyebrow lifting.

  "That might burn." Clearly, he's too tired to have his sarcasm switch flipped on, yet.

  Or he's being deliberately obtuse. With my brother, it can be hard to tell.

  "Why do you look like sleep beat the snot out of you with a baseball bat?"

  He swallows a giant gulp of coffee and then shakes his head. From his expression, it's obvious he has probably just scorched his throat.

  "You mean, other than seeing my little sister sneak out of the house at near one o'clock last night?"

  I freeze instantly, my coffee cup inches away from my lips.

  My arms are too tired to continue holding the mug in the air, so I force a quick sip and then set it back down.

  "You saw me?" As I ask this, I feel my mouth pull into a pained frown.

  "No, I thought I would just tell a strangely precise lie and see how you react," he says.

  Okay, so I guess he was being deliberately obtuse a moment ago, since his sarcasm function seems to be operating perfectly.

  I turn my attention to my hands, which are fidgeting around the sides of my mug. "Are you going to tell Mom?"

  He shrugs and nods toward my coffee, reminding me that I've barely touched it, as he takes another swig of his own.

  "Well," he offers after a moment, "I could, but as I recall, you covered for me a couple of times."

  He shrugs, continuing, "So, we'll consider this one that I owed you. I really don't care if you're meeting up with Grey, or whoever, but I want you to be careful at night. Next time, tell me, okay?"

  "Thanks, Jer," I say with nod before taking a long sip.

  Then something occurs to me. "Wait a minute."

  The look in his eyes as he meets my gaze tells me instantly I've caught him in something. "Huh?"

  "We live in Nowhere, USA, and have, like, a crime rate of zero. I have trouble believing that you were so worried for your little sister that you couldn't sleep."

  He once more raises an eyebrow at me, lifting his mug to his lips and speaking into it. "I was . . . talking to someone."

  "Talking to someone?" My own eyebrows inch upwards.

  "On the phone," is all he says.

  My gaze flits about the room as I consider the implications. "So, an all-night phone call?"

  Jeremy nods and doesn't say anything, but his lack of response tells a lot.

  "Then, we're talking a female someone," I conclude with a smirk.

  My brother moves his head side-to-side in a motion that's not quite a nod, but not quite a shake, either. "Maybe."

  I try to keep my expression light, even as a little black raincloud with the words What about Wendi? rolls over my head. But I remind myself that not only does she not know that he's got a crush on her, he's got no clue she has one on him.

  Damn the ingrained confidences of sibling and best friend relationships!

  "A female someone I know?"

  "Maybe."

  I nod slowly, trying to recall if I've met any of his college friends; more distinctly, if any of those friends are female.

  He checks his watch and then forces a quick grin, "You should be leaving."

  Frowning, I tilt my head to one side to look at the time on his wrist, as well. "Nah, I've got time. Shouldn't you be going?"

  Settling back into his chair, he takes another sip of coffee. "I've got time, too."

  We sit in silence for about a minute. I know, because after a few seconds, I started counting in my head.

  "Listen," he says, a strange, awkward edge to his voice. "Have you had the feeling lately that things are . . . off?"

  What I feel is all warmth and sensation drain from my face as I stare back at him, all big-eyed. "What sort of things?"

  "Okay," he sets down his mug and scoots his chair closer to me; like he's worried we'll be overheard, even though just the two of us are home. "I've just had this . . . feeling the last few days. I can't explain it, except to say that it seems like something's just not right."

  I give a few rapid blinks, my brow furrowing. "You know, none of that made your meaning any clearer. Like, at all."

  He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling and lets out a little groan of frustration. "You were going on about things like this just last week, Cae."

  I'm still tired, and I haven't drunk nearly enough of my coffee to have any sort of bearing on my alertness, so it takes me a moment to catch on to what he's talking about. "Oh! You mean vibe-type-feelings."

  "Yes."

  "So," I lean in, also, making our conspirator-huddle complete, "what, exactly, are we saying here?"

  "That's the whole thing," he says with a frown, shaking his head. "I'm not sure. It's just this feeling in the air like something is off. C'mon, you're better at this vibe crap than I am; I figured maybe you'd know."

  I can't help but smile as I remember sitting on Gran's lap as she told Jeremy and me about how, at our parents' wedding reception, she'd predicted each of our births, down to the month. "Well, according to our grandmother, girls are better at this stuff."

  He cracks a half-grin. "According to Gran, girls are better at everything."

  "True, but doesn’t help me," I say with a laugh. "Seriously, when did this start?"

  "Like I said, just the last few days."

  I look away, forcing a small gulp down my throat. Of course, my brother's vibes could be completely unconnected to the fact that the last few days are whe
n Grey and I started digging into the past. The past of Drake's Cove that no one remembers.

  No one will remember.

  I startle at the whispered words from my dream echoing through my head suddenly. For just a moment, I can't quite catch my breath and fear pounds in the middle of my chest. What have I gotten myself into?

  But no sooner do I ask the question, then I remind myself that, aside from a few jumps and frights, nothing actually harmful has happened to me. I have no reason to connect Jeremy's feelings with what I've been doing recently. I'm not the center of the universe; I'm not even the center of our neighborhood. What he's picking up could be anything weird that's going on, and around here, that's a lot of options.

  "Cae?" My brother's voice suddenly breaks through my thoughts.

  I realize he's holding my shoulders and gently shaking me. Well, maybe not so much on the gently bit. "Huh? What? What's the matter?"

  His eyes widen and he shakes his head. "You're asking me what's wrong? You can't be serious. You just completely spaced out on me!"

  Wow, I really need to be more aware of my surroundings when I let my imagination run away with me.

  "I'm sorry!" I don't want him to worry, so put my hands over his and explain; well, I lie. "I'm okay. Between so little sleep last night and this weird dream I had, I probably am kind of spacey today."

  He sits back, and so do I, our hands dropping as his eyes narrow. "Weird dream? Weird dream about what?"

  Crap. This is what happens when you lie by using a sort-of truth. "I don't . . . really remember, actually. I just remember the first thought I had when I woke up was that it was weird." His reaction piques my interest. "Why? Have you been having weird dreams?"

  "I think so." Jeremy shrugs, "Thing is, they're kind of blurry, so I really don't remember what they're about, either."

  He glances at his watch again. "Okay, now we both gotta go. I am late for my bus, and you're going to be late for school."

  I finish my coffee in a few long gulps and then smile up at him. "You're late for your bus every morning."

  "Yes, and my professors are starting to notice."

  "Oh." I get out of my chair and grab his backpack from the kitchen counter. "Now I see the problem."

  "Uh-huh," he says with a quick chuckle as he takes the bag from me and slings it over his shoulders.

  I turn away to grab my black messenger bag as Jeremy darts out of the kitchen. As I slip the strap over my head and turn toward the door, he suddenly comes bursting back through the entrance.

  "Geez," I say breathlessly, putting a hand against my chest. "What is your problem? You scared me."

  "Look, just . . . promise me you'll be careful."

  My eyebrows shoot up into my hairline. "Careful how? What are you talking about?"

  "I don't know."

  "Huh?" I don't bother to say that I don't follow, because I think that's pretty obvious.

  His face is more serious than it's been since the day our parents' divorce was finalized. "I don't know why you need to be careful, only that you do. Okay? I just woke up this morning with this feeling."

  "Clearly you've had a lot of feelings, lately," I say with a forced laugh, attempting to lighten the mood, but his continued scowl tells me it's not working.

  He really is scaring me.

  "Cae, I feel like something bad is going to happen to you. Promise me you'll be careful!"

  I nod stiffly, ice coiling in the pit of my stomach and curling up around my shoulders. He nods back and walks out of the kitchen again. This time he continues to the front door, glancing back at me once before he steps outside.

  I lean against the counter for a moment and just focus on my breathing. I just saw something in my brother's eyes that hasn't been there since we were little and still thought there were monsters under our beds.

  I saw fear.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Forgotten History

  Monday is a bit of a bust. When I ring Wendi's bell for our walk to school, she comes to her door looking like hell, only to inform me that she is staying home sick.

  My walk to school feels longer than usual, and only gives more time for Jeremy's warning to bounce around in my head. The corridors and classrooms seem so distant from the cemetery last night that I wonder a few times if it hadn't been a dream, but then I find poor Grey is barely half awake most of the day. He catches trouble with our teachers, twice, for falling asleep at his desk.

  I am just as useless. I walk a very strange, very jagged line. On one side of the line, there is the tired fog that hangs over my thoughts, and on the other, a twitchy fear that causes me to glance over my shoulder, looking for some impending disaster or another that will probably be the end of me.

  During a lunch period for which it seems neither of us can keep our eyes open for longer than a few minutes at a time, we agree to go through the books at his house Tuesday after school.

  My walk home, plowing through homework, even eating dinner with Mom, passes in a blur.

  It's just Mom; Jeremy is mysteriously missing. It only sticks in my head that this is odd because she has brought home fried chicken, his absolutely favorite thing in the world.

  The one bright spot of Monday is that I don't have any dreams that night. Or, if I do, I don't remember them.

  Tuesday afternoon finds us walking to Grey's house, as planned, but there's a little hiccup.

  I stare at him, wide-eyed and unblinking. "You can't be serious."

  "You say things like that entirely too often," he replies with an uncertain smirk.

  He's just told me what the books we'd found with his family's register appear to be, after he promised not to look at them without me. And he simply came out and said, without any sort of prompt or trickery on my part, that he went ahead and did it, no thought to my absence from the moment, whatsoever.

  "I mean, you gave me your word that you wouldn't try to do any of this without me . . . . Ya know, again!"

  "Oh, right," he says with a sheepish grin, his blue-green eyes rolling. "Look, it isn't like that. I wasn't trying to keep anything from you. My curiosity just got the better of me."

  I scowl at him for a silent moment.

  "So, you're telling me that if you were the one who brought the books home, you wouldn't be tempted?"

  "I didn't say that." If I had been the one to hold onto those books, I'd have probably had to lock them in a drawer and throw away the key to keep from at least flipping through their pages. This still didn't feel fair, though. "Were our roles reversed, you'd be mad at me, too."

  "Probably," he concedes with a shrug.

  Maybe I can't be too mad at him, though, because he is being honest. I'm aware that he could have simply refrained from mentioning that he'd opened the books. I, on the other hand, still haven't told him about my dreams, or what my brother said. And I might tell him about the dreams, if I start to feel that they're actually relevant to what's happening and not just my imagination running away with me. But I won't tell him about the red eyes in the mirror.

  And I'm definitely not telling him about Jeremy's vibes.

  "I also can't say I'm happy to have to keep lying to Wendi." Tuesdays after our homework, she and I do an anime-and-nachos thing.

  "What did you tell her?"

  I shake my head and give a little laugh as we turn a corner. "What else? That you and I have a date."

  "Well, I guess, technically, this could be called a date; it's an appointment to do something with another person, so . . . ."

  Halting in mid-stride, I pivot on a heel to frown at him. "It's not funny, Grey."

  His brow furrows as he stops beside me. Apparently, he only now realizes that I'm serious. "Wait, you're mad at me because you lied to your friend?"

  Wow, way to push the responsibility on me. "You're telling me that if you had friends here, you'd be able to tell them what we've really been doing when we hang out?"

  Grey's mouth twitches side-to-side as he thinks this over. "Fair poi
nt."

  When nothing else is said, I start walking once more, and he falls into step beside me. According to the address he told me, there's one block left until we're at his house. His is actually one of the smaller, slightly more inclusive-seeming neighborhoods in Drake's Cove, with a small string of Mom-and-Pop stores on one street. A majority of the homes here are two-or three-family units that were converted—and endlessly renovated—from old boarding houses that dot the avenues closer to the shore.

  There are also newer, shinier homes that could be described as sprawling. I have the feeling that Grey lives in one of the shiny houses.

  "Hold up."

  I grumble under my breath as he slips a hand around my elbow and pulls me to a halt.

  "Are you mad that you have to lie to Wendi because you don't like lying to your best friend, or is it because this isn't a date?"

  Blinking up at him, I pull out of his grasp and scoff. "I don't want to date you." Okay, so even I realize there’s a chance I’m in denial, here, but he just got on my nerves, and it can be really difficult to disengage bitch-mode.

  "Ow, ouch," he says with a frown as he rubs his fingers over the center of his chest.

  I really want to feel bad, but it's not in me right then.

  "You could have said that without the pride-mangling tone, you know."

  I shrug and turn away from him to continue toward his house. "That's what you get for assuming." Yup, still in bitch-mode, but now I’m forced to wonder if it’s a defensive reaction to noticing that, damn, I do like him.

  We walk the last block in silence. Fidgety silence, but silence all the same.

  I’m still ignoring the nagging question in the back of my skull as to whether or not I lied when I just said I don't want to date him.

  Once in his house, which turns out to be very shiny, and very sprawling, he wastes little time setting the old books out on the living room coffee table. I can tell his family register apart from the rest on sight, but the others, they look mysterious, and antique and weird in a beautiful way. The dried, thick cloth covers are cracked and worn.