Chasing Power (16 page)

Across the fire, the orange glow of the flames reflected off two shiny disks staring out of the darkness. Kayla heard a low growl, and a jaguar emerged from the bushes.

Her mind scattered, and the fire sputtered. Carefully, she reached toward the flames again, growing them higher. She didn’t move a muscle. She stared into the jaguar’s eyes as it
paced back and forth on the opposite side of the fire. Teeth poked out as it curled its lips back.

Her heart pounded hard in her chest. She wrapped her mind around one of the embers and lifted it into the air. The cat paced closer. She flung the ember toward the cat’s face. She hit its nose, and the cat recoiled. She grabbed a second ember and threw it. The jaguar yelped. She continued to pelt it with bits of fire until it retreated into the shadows.

She heard it pacing in the brush. Leaves rustled, and twigs snapped. Tense, listening, she wished she knew exactly where it was, then it occurred to her that maybe she could “feel” for it, like she’d felt for her phone after the cave-in. Sending her mind into the darkness, she swept around their makeshift camp—and she felt it, close, very close. Kayla cast about for an idea. She picked up the bug spray and waited.

Snarling, the jaguar stalked closer. With her mind, Kayla lifted an ember into the air. As the jaguar stepped out of the bushes, she sprayed the insecticide at the ember. Fire whooshed, flaring like a firework, and she propelled the flame toward the cat.

Yowling, the jaguar spun and vanished into the darkness. She sat awake for a long time after that, listening hard, probing the area with her mind. She wished she’d realized that she could “feel” around her like this before the cave-in. If she’d known, that man wouldn’t have been able to surprise her. She built the fire back up as high as she could.

Sometime, somehow, she fell asleep again. Her dreams were filled with jaguars and fire and rocks and darkness and Moonbeam crying until she melted like ice cream into a river.

Kayla woke to the cries of monkeys in the trees above them. Daylight poured into the rain forest. Beside her, the fire had died, and her hair lay close to the ash. A few embers smoldered. Her head ached, and her mouth felt as dry as paste. Groaning, she began to push herself up.

“Don’t move,” Daniel whispered.

She froze.

“Snake.”

She breathed shallowly, every muscle rigid. “Where?”

“On your foot.”

Kayla tilted her head to look down her body. Coiled on her left sneaker was a snake with black and red stripes separated by thin yellow stripes. “Jump me out of here.”

“I can’t. Not while it’s touching you. It’ll come too.”

She reached with her mind and wrapped her thoughts around the snake. It felt smooth and dry. And heavy. Heavier than anything she’d ever lifted before. Its tongue flicked in and out, and it regarded her with flat black eyes. Gathering every bit of inner strength she had, she tried to fling it away
with her mind—and pain blossomed in her skull. Her muscles spasmed.

She felt a sudden prick in her calf, like a shot from a doctor. Yelling, Daniel touched her, and the world flashed white then black.

Her vision didn’t resolve. It stayed blurred. The world seemed to be dipping and spinning. She saw colors, so many colors, and she heard Daniel shouting at her. Her mouth tasted like copper, as if she’d sucked on a penny. She felt bile churn in her throat. Oh, God, she was going to be sick. Or faint. Or die. Her throat felt as if it were constricting, and she gasped. She flailed, trying to grab someone, anyone, to steady her, and she felt arms around her.

“Snake,” she heard Daniel tell someone. “Coral snake, I think.”

A woman’s voice answered. And then she heard more words, sonorous and melodic. The words wrapped around her as darkness rose to claim her. She felt her body turn rubbery, and she melted into the floor. “Moonbeam?” she whispered, or tried to. She smelled incense, myrrh. And then there was only darkness chasing the pain.

She didn’t know how long she floated there, in that dark sea. But her thoughts chased through it like fish. Moonbeam. Selena. Amanda. She kept seeing her sister, the once vague memories now crystal clear. Amanda, playing school with her: Amanda as the teacher and Kayla as the student. Their dolls were the other students. Amanda liked to be the boss. Other times, they’d sing together into microphones made from the cardboard rolls in paper towels. Kayla would be three backup singers at once. On her fifth birthday, Amanda made her a paper crown, and they
had their own coronation ceremony, complete with imaginary knights and horses. The summer that Kayla turned six, Amanda taught her how to ride a bike. Kayla also remembered fighting with her over stupid things—toys that broke or lipstick that neither of them was supposed to wear—and screaming at her to play with me, talk to me, pay attention to me! And Amanda screaming back that she wasn’t her mother or even her friend. But then they’d be together again, curled up in the same bed, Amanda reading a bedtime story to Kayla while Moonbeam looked on. Except she wasn’t Moonbeam back then. She was Mom.

When Kayla woke, she was crying.

A woman held her, and Kayla sobbed against her plump chest. When she drew back, she saw it wasn’t Moonbeam at all. It was the voodoo queen. Queen Marguerite pushed her hair away from her forehead. “Better now?” she asked in her deep drawl.

“Am I dying?” Kayla asked.

“Not anymore. Your boy did the right thing, bringing you to Queen Marguerite. She knows just how to leech that poison out of you. You’re healthy as a mule now.” Her accent thickened when she talked about herself in third person, as if she were deliberately trying to sound more familiar and comforting. It worked. Kayla felt herself relax.

“I heard a spell,” Kayla said.

“There’s a spell that encourages a kind of sleep—that’s what you heard—and another that draws the toxins out. Requires a certain special herb, which you yourself preserved when you cleaned my shop, little fixer.”

Kayla scanned the room, looking for Daniel. He was by a window, watching her. His expression was shadowed. He had
bruiselike circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept, and his hair stuck up at all angles. He didn’t look happy she was awake.

Beyond him, outside the window, she saw an alleyway with cobblestones, garbage cans, stacks of boxes and crates, and the rear entrances to shops and restaurants. A cat perched on a crate. Kayla belatedly realized she was in New Orleans.

“I won’t blame you if you quit,” Daniel said. She knew how much it cost him to say that. He looked so very alone by the window, angled light spilling onto the floor at his feet. She wanted to say something, anything, but her throat felt clogged.

Queen Marguerite pounded her cane on the floor. “She can’t quit!”

Both Kayla and Daniel looked at her.

Instantly, Marguerite schooled her expression into a laidback smile. “You may have done a nice cleaning job, but saving a life, well, that requires more. You owe Queen Marguerite, and I need my payment. You can’t quit.”

Kayla felt prickles walk up and down her spine and wondered why she cared so much. She thought she’d heard a note of real panic in Marguerite’s voice. “I wasn’t going to.”

“Why not?” Daniel asked.

Kayla opened her mouth and then shut it. He deserved a real answer. He’d saved her life. Maybe that was why she wasn’t going to quit? Or maybe it was because he wasn’t really that cool, tough guy who’d blackmailed her. Or because when he talked about his mother, she saw herself. Or because he needed her. Or because with him, she could use her power and have it mean something. Or maybe it was because she’d hated how she felt in the dark temple when the cave collapsed and how she felt
in the jungle when she’d woken with the snake, and she couldn’t let that feeling win. “I don’t like being afraid.”

“I understand,” Daniel said. He held her gaze, and, for a moment, Kayla felt as if they were alone together. The rest of the world faded away. Then he turned to face Queen Marguerite. “It’s my mother who’s in danger. What does it matter to you whether Kayla quits or not?”

Marguerite’s smile faded, and she rose. “That spell shouldn’t exist. Even incomplete, it causes a burden that no one should have to bear. But complete … it will change lives.
Your
lives, whether you want it to or not. People will suffer. Empires have risen and fallen with that spell. Cities have burned. It’s an abomination. You need to find those stones, bring them to me, and I will see them hidden where no one will ever find them.” She thumped her cane again. “I must do this! You children don’t understand—”

“Then explain to us,” Daniel said.

Abruptly, as if something had upset her, Marguerite walked to the window, clasped her hands behind her, and looked out. In a quieter voice, so quiet that Kayla had to strain to hear, she said, “I hate thinking of Evelyn all wrapped up in this again. She came so far in escaping her past. Your father was good for her. So different. Shame he died. If he hadn’t, she might have stayed focused on the future, instead of turning back to the past.” All trace of the affected persona was gone, and Kayla felt as if she was seeing a rare glimpse of the real Marguerite.

“You knew my father?” Daniel asked. “What do you mean ‘wrapped up in this again’?”

“Oh, her history with those stones goes way back,” Queen Marguerite said. “And it should have stayed history. Told her she should have left it alone. Smart enough to do anything she
wanted, that girl. But no one ever could tell Evelyn what to do. Never could, once she got an idea in her head. Led her into trouble once. Looks like it led her into trouble again.” Cutting herself off, she bustled back to Kayla and poured her a glass of orange juice. “You ask her about it when you find her.”

“The more you can tell me …”

“It’s not my story to tell. And anyway, it won’t help you in your search.” She tapped Kayla on the forehead. “Stay focused. Don’t be distracted by the past. Eat food, and then go. You are running out of time. Your enemies speed toward your destination, and your mother needs you.” She vanished before Kayla or Daniel could ask her more questions.

“Why do I feel like she knows more than she says?” Daniel asked.

“Because she obviously knows more than she says.” Kayla pushed herself up to sitting. Stretching out her legs, she pointed and flexed her toes. Everything seemed to work okay. She even felt less tired than she had, perhaps due to the magic-induced sleep. “But so long as she wants what we want, it doesn’t really matter.” Pushing the blanket off her, she examined her leg where she’d felt the bite. Two red-brown scabs dotted her calf. She hadn’t imagined it.

“Used to wonder what my mother would have been like if my dad hadn’t died,” Daniel said. “She switched to anthropology then. Got her PhD. If she hadn’t done that, if she hadn’t kept that notebook, if she’d never heard of the stones … What ‘history’ with the stones?”

“You can ask her when we find her.” She put an emphasis on the word “when.”

Daniel exhaled loudly but didn’t say anything else.

Kayla looked around. Queen Marguerite had left her a tray with a few croissants plus a jar of blackberry jam. It was balanced on an upside-down barrel. The room they were in seemed to be for storage. It had shelves filled with jars, bins, and boxes, labeled with the names of powders, herbs, and roots. A few skulls sat on one shelf, decorated with feathers and black paint. Symbols from various religions were nailed to the door.

“We’re in the back room of her shop,” Daniel said. “It’s impressive how much she’s fixed already. Except for the missing glass on the display cases and a few broken shelves, it’s like it never happened. I don’t know how she did it in such a short period of time. I think there’s more to Queen Marguerite than meets the eye.”

“I think you saved my life,” Kayla said.

“Couldn’t remember a hospital well enough. But I knew here.” Leaving the window, he crossed to her and took her hand. He caressed her fingers. “How do you feel? Really. Because I’ll take you home. Right now if you say so. Forget what Queen Marguerite said. This is none of her business.”

She smiled at him. He sounded like he meant it. “They’re speeding toward our destination, she said. Can you jump again, or do you need to rest?”

“I’m all right. But you—”

“Let’s get this over with. I’m rapidly losing my desire to travel.”

“You’re an amazing girl, you know that?” His eyes bored into hers as he held her hand, his hand so warm. She thought his eyes seemed damp, as if he’d cried, and she wondered how close she’d been to dying.

They jumped back to Central America.

Reappearing with Daniel next to the remnants of their fire, Kayla sent her mind through the camp, searching for the snake. It wasn’t there. “All clear. But be careful anyway.”

Quickly (and carefully), they reclaimed their supplies and continued on.

Rain forest.

A turquoise lake.

Gnarled trees with brown fruit next to a house made of blue cement blocks.

More jumps. And more. At last, they reached a field of yucca-like plants with green mountains in the distance. Here, they stopped. Kayla plopped onto the ground. Rubbing her neck and shoulders, she watched Daniel consult the photo of the parchment. He looked pale but not in immediate danger of collapse.