Dark Spirits (13 page)

“Huh?” I glanced at Nathan, and he nodded.

“Like a glow worm,” Carrie said, putting her stuff away, trying not to look at me, but she kept sneaking peeks. “It was like a light flicked on inside you, making your whole body glow.” She leaned into the counter, raised her eyebrows and smiled. “It was pretty cool.”

I rubbed my forehead, trying to collect myself. This was too weird. At the moment, I had no words due to the chaotic thoughts swirling inside my head.

“Are you done, Carrie?” Nathan asked. “Because I think we should get going.” He sounded anxious, probably because he was dying to hear about my vision.

Carrie picked her purse off the counter. She turned the lights off, and we stepped outside. The evening sky was painted in dark purple with fiery red streaks scattering across Mother Nature’s wondrous canvas. A sharp smoky aroma hung in the cool, damp air. I slowly breathed in, welcoming the fall season.

Reaching into his back pocket, Nathan turned to Tree. “Can you do us a favor?”

“Sure,” Tree said, looking confused, like he couldn’t understand why Nathan would ask him to do something for him.

Nathan pulled a fifty dollar bill out of his wallet. “Can you get all four of us some food and bring it to Paige’s house?” When Tree nodded, Nathan handed him the money.

Tree stuck the bill in his front pocket. “What do you two want?”

Nathan looked at me.

“Mexican food sounds good to me. What about you guys?”

They all made agreement sounds.

Nathan and I told them what we wanted and then headed to his truck. On the way home, I told Nathan about my vision. I sank into the soft leather seat and waited for his reply while I mindlessly played with a loose thread on the bottom of my shirt. A semi-truck drove by, and Nathan flashed his headlights, letting the driver know he could cut in front of us. The semi eased into our lane ahead of us, and a bunch of red lights flickered on the back of the trailer, thanking us.

“I think the vision is telling you where the incantations are,” Nathan finally said after pondering it.

Something in my gut stirred, and I felt a rightness in his words. But what the hell was going on with me? I’ve been having premonitions since I was four, but now I was having visions, I could speak to animals (well, Odell, at least), I could turn lights on and off with my mind, and if I were to concentrate hard enough, I
might
be able to work with the elements, but I wasn’t too sure on that one.

“What’s happening to me?” I blurted. “And why can I talk to Odell now?”

Nathan smiled, which annoyed me because I wasn’t finding humor in this. But then my annoyance faded into fascination when he told me there’s another legend about Solomon’s ring. According to the legend, the ring gave the ancient king the power to speak to animals.

“When I saw you communicating with Odell,” he said, grinning. “I wanted to smack myself upside the head because I should’ve remembered the legend. But regardless, it was amazing to see.”

“So you think I can communicate with all animals?” Just the very thought made me giddy. I thought about all the things I could do to help animals. I imagined myself becoming a veterinarian after this whole mess was over with. Or, I could go to people’s farms and tell them what was wrong with their horses or live stock. Or, I could go to people’s houses and tell them what was wrong with their pets. Or . . .

“Paige?”

I looked at him dumbly. “What?”

“I said, we need to figure this stuff out about you. And, yes I think you can speak to animals, but we can’t let anybody know about it, besides Carrie and Tree of course.”

“Oh.” I stared out the windshield, marveling at the blood red sky and how the black trees on each side of the narrow road seemed to twist over us. “I think you’re right.” I paused, and then sighed. “I really wish they wouldn’t get involved in this.”

He glanced at me. “I know. I feel the same way, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Just remember it was their decision, and we’ll do the best we can to protect and arm them so they’re not so vulnerable like they are now.”

I didn’t respond because I was thinking of Brayden, wondering how he’d feel about this. But it wasn’t like Nathan and I had invited Carrie and Tree along for the ride. Ayperos was the one who made our decision by giving Carrie a simple but loaded statement we couldn’t ignore. And then I remembered the other part he’d said to her:
Tell Paige what you know.
What in the hell did he mean by that? My mind searched for an answer to that question, and when two correlating things popped into my head (the Ouija board she played with when she was dating Matt who was really the “old one” and the salt in front of the door), I gasped.

No frickin’ way.

She couldn’t be involved in . . .

“What is it?” Nathan parked the car in the driveway, anxiously looking at me.

I turned to him, my wide eyes on his face. “I think Carrie is into witchcraft.”

Chapter Thirteen

After the words came out of my mouth, my mind seemed to bend a little. It was ridiculous, I know. I mean, this was nothing compared to everything I’ve had to deal with for the past five months. But still, Carrie was my best friend, and if she dabbled in witchcraft, she should have told me. Why hadn’t she?

“I think you might be right,” Nathan said without hesitation. He reached in his pocket and pulled his cell phone out. “I’m going to tell Ameerah we’ll meet her at midnight instead of at ten.” I didn’t say anything, just watched his thumbs fly over the tiny key pad while my brain swirled with jumbled thoughts. “It should give us enough time,” he continued, “to fill Carrie and Tree in on everything.”

When I stepped out of the truck, I spotted Zeruel sitting at the edge of the yard, facing the street. The black star bent over his gray back glistened beneath the light of the street lamp. I smiled and called his name. He looked at me, then disappeared.

“Did you see that?” My voice pitched in surprise and wonder.

Nathan nodded and followed me inside the house. When his hand reached for the light switch, I blocked it. He stepped back, understanding what I wanted to do. Closing my eyes, I slowly breathed through my nose, visualizing the lamps in the living room turning on. As I held the image in my mind, bright and clear, a tingling sensation gathered at the tip of my tail bone. I had the sudden urge to rub it, but stayed focused instead. And then, like launching a bottle rocket, the feeling jetted up my spine, leaving a cold numbness in its wake. At the same time, I blew the air out of my lungs, and the bulbs flicked on. I opened my eyes. My body swayed and felt heavy. I blinked a couple times, stretching my hand, like a blind person feeling her way around a room. Nathan instantly came to my aid.

“What’s wrong?” He clutched my arm and steered me to the couch.

I plopped down and covered my face. The room spun, and my mouth filled with salty saliva. I couldn’t understand why I felt this way. The last time I turned the lights on, I experienced a slight nauseous feeling, but nothing like this.

I groaned.

“Paige?”

“I think I’m going to hurl,” I moaned.

“Take deep breaths. I’ll be right back.”

I did what he said, and when he came back, I dropped my hands, allowing him to place a washrag on my forehead. I leaned back so I didn’t have to hold it in place. The damp coldness felt good against my hot skin. A few minutes later, the room stopped spinning, and the nausea left as quickly as it came. I sighed and sat up, catching the rag when it fell off my forehead. Nathan took it and went to the kitchen.

“Can you get me a Dr Pepper?” I asked

“Sure.”

I heard the ice cubes clinking against the glass and Nathan pulling the tab on a can. A hissing noise and the liquid knocking the ice together filled my ears. He repeated the routine, and then there were a couple clunks inside the recycling bin. In half a minute, he was handing me my drink.

“Thanks.” I took a sip, remembering somebody telling me Dr Pepper was made with prune juice, and I thought how silly that was. But, hey, if it were true, it tasted yummy and definitely hit the spot. “I wonder why that happened,” I said, setting the glass on the coffee table.

“I was thinking about it,” Nathan said “I think it’s because you have to use your own energy to turn the lights on.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “But why doesn’t it happen when I turn them off?”

Nathan tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and slowly grazed his fingers down the length of cheek.

I shivered.

“It’s actually quite simple if you think about it,” he said. “You transferred some of your energy into the bulbs, expending it, which caused you to feel sick.”

 “Well, I don’t want to do it again.”

The corner of his mouth tilted into a crooked smile. God, he was cute. “I’m sure with practice and time, your body will build an immunity to it.”

I looked at him doubtfully. Immunity or no immunity, I didn’t want to do it again. Besides, I didn’t see any real benefits in it. I mean, we could see in the dark, so honestly, I could give a flying flip if I never tried it again.

“I need to talk to you about something before Carrie and Tree arrive,” Nathan said when I picked up my glass and took a drink. The nervousness in his voice caught my attention. I set my glass down and turned to him. “I meant it when I told you I want you to know everything about me,” he went on. “I realize we can’t encompass everything about each other in one day, but I think now is the time to share this with you, considering the circumstances.”

Oh, God.

I think my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. My first thought was he’d been hiding something from me since we met, and if that was the case, I wondered if it’d be bad enough to ruin us.

He placed his hand on my arm. “I know about witchcraft. In fact, my homemade incantations are a powerful form of it.”

I released the air from my lungs, not realizing I’d been holding it. I didn’t know whether to be relieved it wasn’t something like he knew secrets about my mom and didn’t tell me, or pissed he’d never mentioned this to me. Especially after my grandmother’s spirit had told us I came from an ancient line of witches. Then I remembered how confused and upset I was about the whole damn thing, yet he didn’t say a damn thing about what he knew. You’d
think
he would have imparted his knowledge about witchcraft onto me, to ease my mind. But he didn’t and that to me was bullshit.

Okay, I was pissed.

I jumped to my feet and stormed out of the room.

That was it.

I’ve had it with his secretive crap.

I couldn’t believe he didn’t frickin’ tell me, and then I wondered what else he’d been keeping from me.

“What are you doing?” Nathan followed me up the stairs, straight into my bedroom.

I snatched his overnight bag off the floor beside his side of the bed and threw it at him. Reflexively, he caught it. A combination of fear and sadness filled his eyes, while hot angry tears stung mine.

I pointed toward the door. “Get out,” my voice cracked.

He stuck his hand out as if he were halting traffic. “Paige. Please. Let me explain.” Desperation saturated his voice. “I didn’t tell you because there was so much going on,” he quickly said. “I didn’t want to add something else and overwhelm you even more. I was just looking out for you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

I hastily wiped the tears off my cheeks. “If you continue with that train of thought and end it with,
I did it because I love you and can’t bear to see you in turmoil,”
I said in a high voice, eyebrows raised, lips tight. “You could sell it to Hallmark, but not to
me.
”

Speechless, he stared at me. Probably because I’d never been shitty to him like this before, but I didn’t care because I wanted to hurt him for all the months he’d kept this from me. So despite the little annoying voice in the back of my head telling me to back off and get a grip on myself, I plunged the stake deeper into his heart with my next biting statement.

“Brayden would have never kept this from me.”

 Nathan angrily tossed his overnight bag on the bed. “You’re in love with Brayden, aren’t you?”

“What?” I gasped. “No!”

He swiped his hand across his face. I noticed his ears were red, but when his eyes locked onto mine, they were glassy, wrought with emotional distress. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, Paige,” he said. “First, Brayden has faith in you, and I don’t. Now, Brayden would have never kept this from you.” He paused to clear his throat. “It’s obvious I don’t measure up to your standards.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true,” I vehemently said. “I’m in love with
you,
not Brayden. It’s just in some ways he knows me better than you, and I wish you wouldn’t treat me like a fragile doll. I’m a strong person, and I feel like you’re too busy fussing over my well-being to recognize that. And besides, even Ayperos said you were hindering me because you were too focused on your own agendas,” I pointed out, hoping my words made sense because when I heard myself say it, they seemed too crowded to my ears.

Nathan ran a hand through his hair. “I agree. So I decided it was time to share this with you because I want you to know everything about me.”

“Really?” I narrowed my eyes. “Because what if the circumstances were different tonight?”

He made a face. “Huh?”

“You said now is the time to share it with me,
considering
the circumstances. So what I’m asking is . . . would you have still told me tonight? If not, then how long would you have waited?” I put my hands on my hips, watching him closely.

“Honestly, Paige,” he said, meeting my eyes. “I was going to take you to my house tomorrow and tell you.”

I continued to observe him, looking for signs that would contradict what he just told me: shifty eyes and fidgetiness, but there were none. He was telling me the truth and kept his eyes planted on mine. They were clear and honest, and as the seconds passed in silence, they became pleading.

Okay, I could pardon him on that, but the months he’d kept this from me were a little hard to swallow. I couldn’t just wave it off like some dimwitted airhead, excepting his reasons behind it because his opinion was the only one that mattered.

Hell no!

If I did, I’d fall into a role that was totally not who I was. And then I thought about Anwar and the things he could have told me, but didn’t. Wasn’t what Nathan did essentially the same thing?

“Are you going to say something?” Nathan asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I am.” I straightened my back. “I do believe you, and I’ll give you that. But don’t you think keeping this from me for months is the same thing as what Anwar had done?”

Instantly, Nathan went off. “What Anwar did was wrong and what I did”–he roughly jabbed a finger on his chest– “was nothing like that!” he hollered.

“How so?”

Again, he poked his chest and raised his eyebrows. “My knowing about witchcraft and not telling you didn’t harm you in any way, whereas Anwar could have spared you a ton of heartache if he had told you about your father from the beginning.” He took a couple deep breaths, and then continued with gritted teeth. “I’d
never
do that to you.”

“I know you’d tell me if it had to do with my family, but why would you not tell me you knew about witchcraft?”

He threw his hands up in frustration. “I told you already, because I--”

“Didn’t want to overwhelm me,” I said, finishing his sentence, rolling my eyes. “This isn’t the 1800s where the man has to constantly protect the woman.”

He leaned forward and jerked his finger at me. “You can spin this--”

“I’m not spinning anything!” I shouted. “What I said is the--”

“Hey! What is going on here?” Tree asked, entering my room.

“Why are you crying, Paige?” Carrie rushed to me. I didn’t realize I was still crying until she mentioned it. “What’s wrong?” She glanced at Nathan standing on the other side of the bed looking miserable.

“He knew about witchcraft all along and didn’t tell me,” I said, sounding like a tattling child.

“Because there was too much going on at the time, and I didn’t want to add to it,” Nathan replied when Carrie and Tree looked at him.

“I’m not some meek helpless girl from two centuries ago,” I countered, and before I could stop myself I continued. “If Nathan can’t treat me as an equal, then what’s the point?”

“Whoa.” Tree raised his hands. He glanced at Nathan’s overnight bag askew on the bed, then at me. “You’d seriously break up with him over this? I thought you loved him.”

I swallowed hard, and my throat made a weird choking sound. “I love him more than anything.” My gaze drifted to Nathan. He was staring at me with red, glassy eyes.

Tree turned to him. “What about you? Do you still love Paige?”

“Absolutely,” Nathan answered with a fierceness that made my belly flip, his eyes still on mine. “She’s everything to me.”

“Okay, then.” Tree said. “Now, I’m going to give you some insight on Paige.” He shot me a look and smiled. “Paige is strong-willed, and she doesn’t like to be bossed around or treated like a lesser person.”

“And she’s very independent,” Carrie added, bumping her shoulder against mine, drawing a small smile out of me.

“I’m aware,” Nathan said. “So I’m coming clean with her now.”

“Paige,” Tree said, looking at me. “I can see why you’d be upset about this, but it is in Nathan’s nature to protect you, just like it is in mine to protect Carrie. You need to accept it and face the fact he’s more experienced than you. You need to trust he knows what he’s doing.”

“But--”

Tree flipped his hand out, palm facing me. “If you two want this relationship to work, you’re going to have to accept everything about each other, flaws and all. And keep no secrets and helpful information from each other.”

“You’re right,” Nathan said and looked at me. “I’m sorry, and if you give me a chance, I’ll tell you everything I know.” He glanced down, and then peered at me with partly squinted eyes. “But I have to be honest with you. You’re not going to learn everything I know overnight, and I’m sure there’ll be things I’ll forget to tell you.”