Bitter Demons (13 page)

“Anyone seen my sneakers?”

I opened my locker again and rummaged through the extra set of clothes and the books in my bag. No shoes.

“Seriously, this isn’t funny,” I said.

The girls around me just shrugged. Lark came up and peered in my locker. “Are you sure you left them in here?” she asked. “When did you last see them?”

“I last saw them at the game on Friday night,” I said. “When they were on my feet. And then I took them off and set them right there on the bottom shelf in my locker. Now, they’re gone.”

“You should tell Mrs. King,” she said. “Maybe she’s seen them.”

But Mrs. King was already in the gym with some of the other girls. I told Lark to go on without me. I’d keep looking. If I didn’t come out in five minutes, she could ask Mrs. King about them. Our sneakers were the most important part of our uniforms. Misplacing them wouldn’t exactly make me look like the most responsible girl on the squad.

I searched every empty locker. The shower stalls. The ritual room. I couldn’t find my shoes anywhere. Then, just when I’d given up, I saw them underneath the bench, pushed all the way to the back. Crap. Did I take them off Friday night and forget to put them away?

I shook my head and leaned over to pick up the shoes. I checked the inside. Yep. H for Harper. These were definitely my shoes. I sat down and put them on. Cheerleading practice was the last place I wanted to be right now. I thought about Jackson checking with the local florists and wondered if he’d be able to find out anything interesting about whoever sent the flowers.

“Get it together, Harper.”

I looked up. “Hey Brooke, sorry, I-“

Brooke stood in front of me, hands on her hips, staring at my half-tied tennis shoes. “Everyone else is already working on the new dance,” she said, cutting me off. “I had to come all the way back in here just to tell you to hurry up.”

“Sorry,” I said, quickly tying my shoes the rest of the way.

“And you’re supposed to be a role model for these girls now,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “You should be the first one here, setting a good example. Since you’re at the top of the pyramid now, you need to be practicing extra hard.”

“I didn’t ask to be at the top, you know,” I said. I knew it bothered her that Mrs. King had moved me into her spot. “I could talk to Mrs. King and see if she’d switch us back.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Like that would make any difference,” she said.

“Hey,” I said. I stood and placed my hand on her arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings or anything.”

Brooke pulled her arm away from my touch. “Whatever,” she said. “I worked really hard for four years to make captain of the squad, then you come along and suddenly you’re the most important girl on the team.”

That was probably the most honest thing she’d said to me in weeks.

“I didn’t ask for this, Brooke.”

“Yeah, it’s just so hard being the future leader of the Peachville coven.” She stormed off toward the gym, and I sighed.

Brooke had been acting strange for weeks. It was obvious she hated the attention I was getting from Mrs. King and the rest of the members of the Order. Hey, if she wanted to be the Prima, I would have been more than happy to hand it over to her if I could. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

I followed her out into the gym where the others were already in the first formation. With the cheerleading competition coming up in a couple of weeks, I understood why Mrs. King wanted to actually run through the routines a few times instead of doing our normal magic training. On the other hand, I was a little annoyed at how little magic I had actually been taught so far. After talking to the other futures, I realized they all had been in training since they could walk and talk. I was already so far behind on magical knowledge, you would think the Order would have me training non-stop.

Then I thought about the threat to put me into seclusion.

I’d take cheerleading practice any day over seclusion. Still, I liked the time I spent with Zara learning how to make flowers grow and watching her shape-shift. Magic was a part of who I was, and I wanted to learn more about how to actually use that power. Backflips and spirit fingers just weren’t cutting it.

As the music began, I felt great about the routine. Thanks to the shoes and the few times we’d run through it already, I knew exactly where I was supposed to go and which moves to do to the music. But somewhere in the middle of the routine, I started to feel slightly off-kilter. Dizzy. Disoriented. I tripped over my own feet and stumbled a little to the left before I caught myself and tried to make up for it by moving too far to the right. Something was off.

The bass thumped beneath my feet, but I felt unsure of my next steps. My memories of the routine seemed to be fading. I reached deep into my mind and tried to remember. Mrs. King’s eyes flickered over to me, a worried look creasing her face.

The squad moved into the pyramid formation, and I remembered this part. Confident, I stepped into Allison’s cupped hands, then raised my arms high in a V as I was lifted into the air. By the time I moved to the top of the pyramid, I was three people high. I wobbled a little on my feet, then steadied and smiled. I didn’t know what messed me up earlier, but everything seemed to be okay.

The release move was a toss high into the air that had to be timed just right. This release was the main reason Mrs. King wanted us to physically practice this particular routine. So far, we’d never had a problem with it. But today, the second I soared into the air, a blinding light pierced through my memory. The light was so vivid in my brain it was as if someone had literally shined a light into my eyes. Instead of tucking and falling safely into the arms of the girls below me, I flew way too far forward.

I fell to the ground hard on my shoulder. My leg was bent back behind me and there was an audible gasp from the group. I tried to stand, but the pain in my shoulder was like someone had set me on fire.

Of course I’d have to fall on my bad shoulder. Perfect.

Mrs. King rushed over to me. “What happened?” she said, out of breath. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “My shoulder hurts and I think I may have sprained my ankle.”

Mrs. King placed her hands on my ankle and I immediately felt a cool rush of energy flow through my skin and muscles. The throbbing pain went away quickly and she turned her attention to my shoulder. “I’m not sure how much I can do to help here,” she said. “If you keep aggravating that injury, you could end up with permanent damage.”

I sucked a ragged breath through clenched teeth. Whatever she was doing was making it worse. The rest of the squad gathered around us, everyone whispering. They probably thought I was a complete idiot for messing up the routine. I mean, who forgets a routine when it’s programmed into their stupid shoes?

Unless someone messed with my shoes.

I thought back to Friday night after the game. I was certain I’d put my sneakers into my locker just like I always did. Finding them on the floor today was no accident or mess-up on my part. Someone must have taken my shoes out of my locker and messed with the memory spell. Who would do such a thing?

I searched the group for Brooke. While everyone else huddled around to see if I was going to be okay, Brooke sat alone on the bleachers, typing a text message on her phone. She didn’t look surprised or worried or the least bit concerned about my shoulder.

I left practice early and spent the rest of the afternoon with an ice pack on my shoulder. When her mother and sister left for the evening, I slipped into Caroline’s room to sit and think. Was Brooke the one who sabotaged my sneakers? Or was it another threat like the roses?

I doubted I would be able to prove it was Brooke anyway. She’d never admit to it. But other than Mrs. King, Brooke was the only one with unlimited access to our lockers. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. It was impossible to tell who was on my side in this town. The second I started to really trust someone, they tried to kill me. Or at least hurt me really bad. The pain in my shoulder was still throbbing.

I knew Brooke’s jealousy was growing, but I had no idea it had gotten so out of hand. Should I confront her? Or just be more careful about taking my sneakers home with me every night? What if she didn’t stop with the sneakers and turned to something even more dangerous?

She didn’t want me dead. That much I knew for sure. If I died, she died with me. No, she just wanted her spot back as the head of the squad. I’d have to find ways to put the focus back on Brooke during practice.

The door to Caroline’s room opened. In the sliver of moonlight coming through the lace curtains, I could see Mary Anne’s pale face and bright blue eyes. She closed the door behind her and turned to face Caroline. When she saw that I was in there, she gasped and backed into the door.

“There’s no real change,” I said. “She still hasn’t opened her eyes.”

Mary Anne didn’t say a word. She just turned and put her hand on the doorknob.

“Wait,” I said. “You don’t have to go. Did you know Caroline?”

I thought of the night Caroline disappeared and how Mary Anne had been crying. She’d been surprised to see me come home that night, I was sure of it. Now, the way her blue eyes glowed in the dark room, sent chills up my spine.

“Mary Anne, you can’t keep running away from me,” I said, wanting her to stay and talk to me. “We live in the same house and probably will for the next few years, so this whole avoidance thing is getting old.”

She took her hand off the doorknob and turned around, but didn’t move away from the door.

“What happened to your shoulder?” she said.

“I had an accident at practice today,” I said. I took the ice pack off and shuffled it between my hands. It wasn’t very cold anymore anyway.

“Oh.”

The room fell silent except for the rhythmic in and out of Caroline’s breathing. Was it possible that Mary Anne did this to Caroline? The girl was strange, sure, but a killer? I didn’t see Mary Anne being capable of inflicting so much pain on someone else. She seemed too frail. But those eyes…

“Did you want to sit down?” I asked.

“No thanks,” she said.

Silence again. We both stared at Caroline.

“How come you don’t like me?” I asked.

Mary Anne’s shoe hit the door, like a nervous tick. “I don’t know you,” she said.

“You know me well enough,” I said. “We’ve been eating meals together and riding to school together for months. It’s not like we’re strangers, but you never talk to me.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“How about how you ended up at Shadowford in the first place?” My heart beat a little faster. I desperately wanted to know more about her past, but I was afraid I was being too forward. I had no idea how to get someone like her to open up to me.

“Same as all of us, I guess,” she said. “Foster homes. School problems.”

“Where did you live before you moved to Peachville?”

“Why do you want to know?”

I paused. I couldn’t very well tell her the real reason I wanted to know. “I was just making conversation,” I said.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

I bit my lower lip. I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. She was the hardest person in the world to talk to. “Is there anything you do want to talk about?”

Mary Anne opened the door. “I have something I need to do in my room,” she said. She turned to go, but before she left, she said, “It might have been nice to be your friend. If things were different.”

Before I could think of anything to say to stop her, she was gone.

Midnight couldn’t come fast enough. I paced the floor of my room in the dark, checking the time on my cell phone religiously. At ten til midnight, I unhooked the latch on my window and pushed the window open. I shivered at the blast of cold air.

The window was large enough for me to push my legs through and sit on the windowsill without ducking my head. I sat there for a moment staring up at the starry sky. Everything seemed so still and peaceful out here.

A bird flew from one tree to another in the distant woods and I froze. Was it a crow? It was too dark to tell, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the crow was watching me, biding its time until it could find me alone and vulnerable.

I wondered if meeting Jackson in the barn was such a brilliant idea. My heart pumped in my chest, and I glanced back toward the safety of my warm bedroom.

I took in a deep breath. I could do this. I wanted to know what he’d found out at the florist. Plus, I wanted to tell him about my fall today at practice. If I didn’t show up, he’d get worried and come looking for me anyway. I had to go.

I closed my eyes and let all the clutter of my mind fall away. I concentrated on a single image - a blue butterfly like Zara taught me - until there was nothing else in my mind. When I felt the pulse of electric energy flowing through me, I opened my eyes and pushed away from my window. The feeling of being suspended so high above the ground was such a crazy rush.

I let myself down slowly, floating to the ground without banging my knee this time. I looked around to make sure no one was around, then slipped around the house and into the barn.

Jackson was already there. I could see the glow of his cigarette in the far corner as he tossed it to the ground and stomped it out.

“Hey,” I said, smiling. There was something about meeting him here like this, in the dark after midnight, that felt so exciting. My pulse quickened.

“Have any trouble getting out?” Jackson passed through the moonlit cracks between boards. His face appeared, then disappeared as he walked closer.

“Not at all,” I said. Then I thought about the movement in the woods. “I saw a bird and almost chickened out.”

Jackson laughed and ran his hand down my arm. “Understandable, but I won’t let anything happen to you Harper. I promise.”

“I might still make you walk me back to my window,” I said. “Just in case.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He jumped up on a wooden crate, his boots dangling just above the dirt floor. “I went to both florists in town and found out that the box was definitely one from Alice’s Florist on Broad Street. I talked to the owner. She was out front arranging some flowers, so I just asked her if she knew who’d sent black roses to a girl at Shadowford.”

“What’d she say?”

“She said she had no idea what I was talking about. She said black roses would be a special order and she would have known if something like that had come through her shop.”

“Crap,” I said. I kicked at the crate. “But if the flowers came in a box from her store, she had to have placed the order.”

“I know,” he said. “I got the feeling she was hiding something from me. So I went around back and talked to this guy Aaron I know from school. He works there after school, so I thought he might know something. He said they had this one weird lady come in a few days ago. She was dressed in all black and had jet-black hair.”

I shivered. “Like a crow?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Aaron said he didn’t know what the lady ordered, because Alice sent him out of the room when the weird lady came in. He also said that he’s the one who delivered the box to Shadowford. Alice asked him to do it first thing when he got there Saturday morning.”

“Do you think Alice is the crow?”

“I doubt it,” he said with a laugh. “More like a cow than a crow, really.”

I rolled my eyes and slapped his leg. “Don’t be mean.”

“What? I’m just saying I don’t think it’s her. But she definitely didn’t want me to know about the roses. I think it’s possible she knows who the crow is.”

“Did she have blue eyes?” I asked, thinking of the way Mary Anne’s eyes had looked earlier in Caroline’s room.

“No, brown,” he said. “But she did give off a magical sort of energy. And she’s not a member of the Order of Shadows.”

“How do you know?”

“I know everyone in the Order,” he said. “And she’s not one of them. I did some digging around town and found out that she moved here about three years ago. No family. Nothing. And apparently she never talks about her life before Peachville. The guy at the barber shop said that he’s been having lunch with her for months and whenever he asks about her past, she closes up like a clam.”

I chewed on a fingernail, thinking.

“Do you think this lady, Alice, could have some connection to Mary Anne?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just that you told me I should be suspicious of everyone, right? Well, Mary Anne’s been acting strange lately.”

“And you think she could be connected to this whole thing?” he said. “Mary Anne is a sweet girl. She’s not the type to torture someone or try to kill them.”

“I know,” I said. “But I thought Agnes was a sweet girl, too. She was my first friend here, remember? And Tori’s dead because of her. I almost died because of her.”

“Mary Anne isn’t Agnes.”

“I know that, but what I’m saying is that you can’t ever really know someone as much as you think you do. Everyone has secrets,” I said softly. “Even you.”

Jackson grabbed my hand. “Come here,” he said. He slipped down from the crate and pulled me into his arms. “You know I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you. If it will make you feel better, we can look into Mary Anne’s past. But how?”

I relaxed and leaned against his chest, safe in his arms. “I need to get into Mrs. Shadowford’s office,” I said. “She keeps the files on us in her desk. I saw her put mine in there when I first got to Shadowford. If I can get ahold of Mary Anne’s file, maybe I can find some kind of clue.”

“Do you really think Mary Anne could be the crow?” he asked.

“It’s her eyes, Jackson,” I said. “There’s just something about them that seems so similar to that crow. It’s eerie.”

He sighed. “Then we need to keep an eye on her at all times,” he said. “I’ll follow her around a bit at school over the next few days and see if she has any weird routines or talks to anyone strange.”

“Any ideas about how I can get into Mrs. Shadowford’s room?” I said, pulling away slightly but keeping my fingers entwined in his. “She’s in there every minute of every day.”

“Not this Wednesday,” he said. “The Order called a special meeting of all local members to discuss the use of dark magic in this town.”

I cocked my head to the side, studying him. “How do you know all these things?”

“I’m just good that way,” he said, laughing.

I smiled. He had no idea how good I thought he really was. Just being close to him made my insides tingle. I trailed my fingers down his chest. “So meet back up here Wednesday night? Same time?”

“Sounds good,” he said.

The barn grew quiet except for the sound of the wind in the trees outside. We both knew it was time to say goodnight, but I didn’t want to leave. I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed the tips of his fingers. Our eyes locked in the moonlight and he leaned down, sweeping me into a kiss that turned my knees weak.

Jackson put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me closer, but my injured shoulder protested. I pulled away with a sharp intake of breath.

“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“It’s not you,” I said. “I fell on my shoulder at practice today. It hurts like a bitch.”

Jackson’s eyebrows came together, questioning. “You fell?”

“Mrs. King moved me to the top of the pyramid for this routine we’re working on,” I said. I explained about how the shoes worked and that someone had tampered with my shoes at practice. “I think it might have been Brooke.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” he asked. “Brooke could be the crow, Harper.”

“I meant to tell you, but then we got to talking about the crow and I forgot,” I said. “And Brooke’s not the crow. She’s just jealous and wants her spot back at the top of the pyramid.”

He paced the space in front of me. “Take your shirt off,” he said finally.

My stomach did a back-flip. “What?”

“I won’t look,” he said with a smile, “but I want to see your shoulder.”

A blush crept up my neck. “Turn around,” I said.

He turned around, and I quickly pulled my black long-sleeve shirt over my head. I did my best to wrap the shirt around my body, leaving my shoulder exposed.

“Okay,” I said, a thousand butterfly wings beating inside my chest.

Jackson came to me and ran his finger along the scar on my shoulder. I trembled at his touch. The scar had never healed well. It was still an ugly, puffy knot of a scar where the dagger had pierced my skin.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered.

I stared into his green eyes. They told me I could trust him, so I closed my eyes. He pressed his palm hard against the sorest point, and I winced, but didn’t pull away. An icy cold poured into my shoulder and a bright light shone through my closed eyelids. I gasped as the pain disappeared completely. My eyes flew open and I stared at the scar on my shoulder. It wasn’t completely healed, but the scar was noticeably smaller. More importantly, that constant ache I’d felt for weeks was gone.

“How did you do that?” I asked. “I thought drawing was your only gift.”

“I have a lot of gifts,” he said. “It’s just been a while since I had access to any of them.”

“So what changed?” I asked. I thought about the way Aerden’s shadow had disappeared into Jackson’s body.

He shook his head. “Let’s not talk about it tonight,” he said. “Tonight, you should rest.”

I pulled my shirt back on and he walked me to my window. He leaned forward and kissed my neck, just to the side of my scar. I inhaled sharply at the feel of his warm lips against my skin.

“I’ll see you here Wednesday night,” he said, then disappeared into the night.

I stayed awake the rest of the night, thinking about Jackson and all his secrets.