Bitter Demons (18 page)

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.