Chasing Power (37 page)

And found Evelyn wrapped up in duct tape. She was gagged with a dust cloth. Selena was perched on the hood of the Lamborghini, a wrench in her hands. Moonbeam was standing next to Evelyn with her arms crossed like a disappointed schoolteacher. Kayla skidded to a stop and stared, speechless.

“Mom!” Daniel cried. He rushed forward.

Moonbeam held up a hand to stop Daniel. “We can explain.”

Sliding off the hood of the Lamborghini, Selena rushed to Kayla. “I did it! I really did it. I always thought I’d fall apart
when the moment to act came, but I didn’t fall apart. And my parents aren’t due home yet, so double hooray!”

“She was magnificent,” Moonbeam affirmed.

Kayla hugged Selena. “I’m proud of you. Not surprised, though. You’re more than you think you are. Stronger than you think you are.”

Selena rolled her eyes. “You
were
totally surprised. I saw you.”

“Slightly surprised,” Kayla admitted. Selena beamed and twirled the wrench in her hand like it was her new favorite accessory. “After all, you were sitting on the Lamb. You could have gotten smudges on it.”

Selena laughed. She was sparkling even more than her sequined shirt. Kayla grinned at her and wondered what had caused this change.

Daniel was scowling. “This isn’t funny. Why is my mother tied up? What happened?”

Selena waved the wrench to indicate Evelyn. “She had nefarious plans and was being all nefarious. After the spell wore off, she faked being still asleep. I caught her trying to call Kayla’s sister and father, and I bashed her cell phone with the sledgehammer. She was planning to use Moonbeam to force you two to reveal where you’d hidden the stones.”

Daniel paled. “Mom?”

Evelyn shook her head frantically, as if to proclaim her innocence.

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” Moonbeam said. “But it’s true. Selena and Kayla were right. Evelyn was the one who set this all in motion. She contacted my husband. She used you to involve my Kayla. She thought she could control everything and everyone to win the stones for herself. But she couldn’t.”

Pushing past Moonbeam, Daniel knelt in front of his mother and pulled off her gag. “Mom, is it true? Are they telling the truth?”

“Absolutely not,” Evelyn said. “Untie me. There’s been a misunderstanding. These people don’t see the potential in those stones! The historical value is phenomenal. Daniel, you have to—”

Kayla reached with her mind, lifted the cloth out of Daniel’s hands, and stuffed it back in his mother’s mouth. “She played us all. You know that. Maybe she never meant to use the stones—I can believe that. But she wanted to find them, and she used us to do it.”

Daniel ran his hands through his hair as if he wanted to tear it out. “But she burned her notebook!”

“So Jack and Amanda would need her,” Moonbeam said. “I’m sorry, Daniel.”

“And she let them trash our house!”

Evelyn squawked, her eyes wide.

“Maybe she didn’t let them,” Kayla guessed. “Maybe they did it because she wasn’t cooperating. She’s said over and over that she didn’t want them to cast the spell.”

Moonbeam nodded. “She didn’t want to use the stones. After all, if they did, you’d lose your power and she’d risk death. She just wanted to have them. So she hid the knife, thinking that would stop Jack from casting the spell.”

He took the gag out of his mother’s mouth again. “Yes, the knife!” Evelyn said. “I gave it to you to keep it safe! I knew Jack wouldn’t want to do the spell without the knife. He wanted to re-create everything about the original spell, so that meant the three original casters and the original knife. I thought if I hid it, it would keep him from casting the spell!”

Daniel studied her. “Then you admit you were planning this.” His voice was even, emotionless, but Kayla saw the hurt in his eyes.

His mother must have seen it too. “I … I wasn’t … Daniel, the stones would have guaranteed tenure. We’d have been permanently secure. That kind of security … You don’t know what it was like, growing up like I did. Never knowing when you’d be hungry. Or hurt. Or alone. I didn’t want that for you, for us.”

“But you didn’t have to do this!”

“After your father died … it was up to me. You, your future, it was all up to me. So I went back to what I knew. I figured the stones had done so much damage to your life that maybe I could use them to do some good. I was going to publish papers on them. Maybe write a book. Donate them to a museum so they’d be safe forever.”

“She thought she could use Jack and Amanda. She underestimated them.” Moonbeam looked sadly at Daniel. “Thankfully, she underestimated you too.”

Daniel was silent.

“How about you take her home?” Kayla suggested. “You can have that conversation you’ve been wanting to have. And she’ll be two thousand miles away from here.”

He shook his head. “You might need me. Your father and sister are still out there.”

“In Louisiana. Not here.” Kayla took Daniel’s hands and stepped between him and his mother so he’d have to look in her eyes and see that she meant it. “You wanted to save your mother. This is your chance. Take her home. Let her see what her so-called allies did to her house while she thought she controlled them. And tell her the truth about where the stones are. They’re
beyond anyone’s reach now.” Kayla thought that Evelyn might already know about the house, despite her surprised reaction. She could have staged it for Daniel’s benefit, to keep him searching for the stones, to give him hope that it wasn’t over. She could have even left the photo album untouched on purpose. Kayla didn’t voice that suspicion out loud.

Leaning forward, Daniel kissed her. Kayla heard either Evelyn or Moonbeam gasp—she wasn’t sure which it was. Maybe both. Self-conscious, she pulled away from the kiss.

“You’re certain you’ll be okay?” Daniel asked.

“I’ll be fine. You take care of your family. I’ll take care of mine.”

“But I’ll see you again, right? I can jump to wherever you go. Call you whatever new name you want. All I need is a picture, and I can find you.”

Kayla smiled. “I’ll send you a postcard.” This time, she kissed him, and she ignored the others. She wove her hands together around his neck. His hands spread across her back. She drank in the taste of his lips, and she tried to memorize this feeling.

When they broke apart, he turned to Selena. “Thanks for everything. Sorry about nearly getting you in trouble, with the church thing.”

Selena waved her hand as if dismissing him. “We’re even. You did me a favor.” She smiled brightly at him. “At least now I know I don’t have the worst mother in the world.”

Daniel winced. He then put his hand on his mother’s shoulder, and with one last look at Kayla, he vanished. Kayla exhaled. She hoped sending him away was the smart choice. It did take care of Evelyn. Kayla trusted that he’d be able to keep her from
contacting Dad and Amanda, at least until she and Moonbeam could flee.

It was time now to leave Santa Barbara, leave their lives, and start over again, before Dad and Amanda tracked them down. She opened her mouth to say this, but Moonbeam spoke first. “It’s time for us to go home,” Moonbeam said. “We have a lot to talk about as well.”

“I don’t think we
can
go home,” Kayla said. “Home has Queen Marguerite, and I don’t know if she’s on our side or not. I think we have to run.” Her heart twisted as she said it. She didn’t want to start over, to be someone new, to hide again and fear again. But she didn’t see any other option.

Moonbeam shook her head. “We don’t need to run from Marguerite.”

“We don’t? But—”

Turning to Selena, Moonbeam asked, “One last favor? Can you take us home?”

“Gladly.” Selena led the way to her car and jumped in. Moonbeam climbed into the front seat. Selena turned the car on, and the music blared.

“Do we have a plan?” Kayla called over the music.

“Yes!” Moonbeam shouted back.

Kayla hurriedly squeezed herself into the backseat. She strapped on the seat belt and leaned forward so Moonbeam could hear her. “What is it?”

“I’m going to give her what she wants!”

“She says she wants the stones so she can hide them! But I don’t believe her. I think she wants to use them herself!”

“That’s not what she really wants!” Moonbeam called back.
And then Selena peeled out of the garage, and it was impossible to hear what else Moonbeam said.

As they careened down the twisting driveway, the wind whipped into their faces. Kayla’s hair battered her cheeks. It smelled as salty as the ocean, and in the distance, she saw the waves crash in sweeping lines of white foam. Beachgoers sunned and played and walked on the sand, and Kayla felt so distant from all of them.

She’d planned to spend her summer as one of them, lazing in the sun with Selena, maybe shoplifting here and there to hone her skills, not doing anything important or real or meaningful.

She kind of missed that summer that would never be. Thinking of the photos of her parents, she wondered if they missed their summers. She thought of her sister and wondered what kind of childhood she’d had. She imagined what her own childhood would have been like if Moonbeam had stayed, if she’d grown up with Dad and Amanda. And she was very, very grateful for Moonbeam.

Selena slid into a parking spot across from Kayla and Moonbeam’s cottage. “Do you need me?” she asked. “Because I’m feeling heroically brave today.”

“You’ve been wonderful, Selena,” Moonbeam said, “but we’ll take it from here.”

Selena raised her eyebrows at Kayla, and Kayla nodded in agreement. “You are going to keep in touch with me, right?” Selena asked. “You’ve known me a lot longer than lover-boy.”

Kayla hesitated. It would give her father a way to track them, if he suspected. Look how much trouble had come from Moonbeam keeping in touch with Evelyn. On the other hand, Dad didn’t know Selena. “This isn’t good-bye,” she said firmly. She’d
find a way to make it work, somehow. “Are you going to be okay? I mean, with your parents?”

She smiled, and Kayla saw tears in her eyes. “Actually, for once, yes.” Pulling out her sunglasses, Selena put them on. “I think I’m going to visit a boy I know.”

“Glad to hear it. And, Selena … You’re the best friend anyone could have.”

“I
am
the best. But no worries. You’re the penultimate.”

Waving, Selena drove away, and Kayla had the unsettling feeling that she wasn’t ever going to see her again. Despite what she’d said, it had felt like a good-bye. Moonbeam put her hand lightly on Kayla’s shoulder, as if she didn’t know whether to comfort Kayla or not.

Together they crossed the street. Moonbeam moved to push the gate open, but Kayla caught her arm. “Are you sure about this?” Kayla asked.

To Kayla’s surprise, Moonbeam smiled. “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”

Side by side, they pushed through the gate and went into the garden. The garden was still a mess. A gnome had been knocked over. Its base was broken, revealing its hollow inside. It looked like a war victim. Clippings from the hack job that Kayla had done on the hedge still littered the lawn. The flowers had been half trampled. As Kayla and Moonbeam walked through the verdant wreckage, Kayla felt her palms sweat and her heart hammer in her chest.

Reaching with her mind, Kayla “felt” inside the house. There was a figure, about the size of the voodoo queen, within. “She’s there,” Kayla said softly.

“Alone?”

“I think so.” Creeping up to the window, Kayla peered through into the kitchen. She reached with her mind to touch the scarves, sewing needles, and herbs, ready in case she needed them.

Seated at the kitchen table, Queen Marguerite shook a handful of bones. She spilled them on the table, squinted at them, and then scooped them up again. “I know you’re there, fixer girl,” she
said without looking up. “You may as well come in and tell Queen Marguerite what happened.”

Behind her, Moonbeam said in a trembling voice, “Marguerite?”

Dropping the bones, Queen Marguerite rushed out of the house. “Lorelei? Lorelei, you’re alive!” She scooped up her skirts to run faster, and Moonbeam ran toward her.

Kayla stepped out of the way as the two women crashed into an embrace in the middle of the garden. Laughing, Marguerite pressed her cheek to Moonbeam’s. Tears were pouring down their faces, and Moonbeam was laughing too.

“Um, okay, guess I’ll just … Yeah.” Kayla released her hold on the scarves and other items inside the house. It looked like she wouldn’t be needing them. “So, I take it she’s not an enemy?”

Marguerite stroked Moonbeam’s cheeks and her hair. “Lorelei, oh, Lorelei, are you well? The spell … Did it complete? Tell me what happened.”

Moonbeam smiled through her tears. “My Kayla saved me.”

Queen Marguerite beckoned to Kayla. “Come here, child.”

Kayla inched closer to them, and Queen Marguerite snaked out an arm and pulled Kayla into an embrace too. “What one destroys, the other heals,” Marguerite said. “I knew it! Our little fixer!” She then pushed Kayla back at arm’s length and studied her. Her other arm remained firmly around Moonbeam’s shoulders. Clucking her tongue, she said, “You don’t have the stones.”

“Two of them are gone,” Kayla said.

“Jack and Amanda have the third,” Moonbeam said. “We left them back in Louisiana. Daniel has taken Evelyn home to Chicago. Oh, Marguerite, she was responsible for it all! She contacted
Jack. She led him to you. She set Daniel and Kayla on their path … She wanted the stones for herself. She was so blind to everything else that she even let slip to Jack where to find me, though she claimed it was an accident. Fact is, she betrayed me. And you.”

Queen Marguerite comforted her, then turned to Kayla. “Exactly what do you mean ‘two of them are gone’?” Her voice was casual but her eyes were intense.

Kayla described how she and Daniel hid the stones in a way that neither would know where they were. “They’re beyond anyone’s reach. Even yours.”

Queen Marguerite stared at her for a long moment, and Kayla tensed, prepared to defend herself if she had to, then the queen tilted her head back and laughed loud and long. “Well played, my dear. Well played. Aren’t you the clever one? Lorelei, you did something right here.”