Guardian of the Dead (12 page)

‘Ellie,' he said. ‘Reka needs a ride home.'

I nodded.

‘So you can walk,' Reka said, without even looking at me.

My jaw dropped at her rudeness and then I straightened. ‘Actually, I can't.'

Kevin was looking bemused, and Reka stepped closer to him. My skin prickled all the way down my spine. ‘You've walked home from the library by yourself plenty of times,' he said slowly, as if he were talking out one of his trickier Calc problems.

‘I promised Chappell,' I said. ‘It's nearly time, come on.'

‘She can walk,' Reka said, looking directly at him.

He blinked twice, and then pulled away from her. ‘What? No. I promised I'd drive her.'

Reka's face was blank, but her fingers tightened in Kevin's coat collar, twisting in the fabric. Then she let him go and stepped back. ‘Another time, then,' she said, and smiled. ‘Sometime soon, I think.'

The hairs rose on the back of my neck, but Kevin said goodnight as pleasantly as if she'd never said a thing out of place, and I couldn't exactly bitch about his new friend without being truthfully accused of envy and spite.

But though I replayed the highlights of the evening in my head, with first Blake and then Mark talking to me like someone they'd like to know better, I could not recover my previous good mood.

I managed to spend only half an hour reading in the living room before I resolved that I really would honestly and for true write the damn
Odyssey
essay now.

I went to my room, crammed my knees under the desk, and levered the laptop open.

There was a scrap of paper lying across the keyboard.

M
ARK
! B
IBLE
! D
ON'T
F
ORGET
!

My head cleared as the memories jolted back into it.

‘Shit,' I whispered, and stared at the letters I'd inscribed, trying to think it through.

Mark had done something to me, and I couldn't come up with a logical explanation. So I went with the illogical one.

Magic.

Magic was
real
.

Humiliation smothered me. All this time Mark had been talking to me like a normal person, like someone who
liked
me. But it had been an excuse, a way to make me stay in at night, or an opportunity to steal the Bible. Even tonight, at the theatre, he must have been checking to see if his enchantment had held, while I babbled about tae kwon do and
eum-yang
. And I'd thought it was a happy coincidence that he'd been passing by. I'd thought I was
lucky.

I'd told him about my mother.

The rage tasted hot and sour in my mouth. I got up to stalk around the room.

‘Stupid,' I hissed, clenching the note tight in one hand and pressing the cool palm of the other to my burning cheeks. ‘Ellie, you are so –
God
.'

We had Classics the next day, which would provide ample opportunities for saying ludicrous things like, ‘So, are you a wizard, you
unbelievable dick
?' He'd bewitched me on a bus, which probably meant he wasn't worried about witnesses, but it would make
me
feel a lot better to be surrounded by curious students before I confronted him. And La Gribaldi would be there. She could probably stop a charging bull with a level look and a raised eyebrow, much less Mark – magic or no magic.

It seemed that if I was reading or touching the paper, I could remember what it said without Mark's damn headaches. I cautiously slipped the scrap into my back pocket and waited. The memories were still there.

It turned out that I
could
stop procrastinating on essay writing if I was using the essay to avoid thinking about something even more huge and intimidating. I worked steadily, touching the note in my pocket every now and then to make sure it was still there, like tonguing a sore tooth.

My usual sympathy for Circe's frustrating position in the
Odyssey
kept sliding into something more frightening as I wrote. A fear of a dangerous, beautiful woman controlling hapless men was so obviously ancient-Greek paranoia. But my head was clear now, after days of fuzz and mixed-up memories. And if Mark could do magic – I touched the note again – why not Reka, with her sometimes-strange eyes? He'd asked me about her on the bus, I realised, without ever seeming to.

‘Kevin likes her?'
he'd asked.

And Mark had transferred into Kevin's classes, and come to the theatre tonight, to participate in some weird standoff with Reka.

Too many questions, and far too many of them concerned my best friend. I pounded out a frankly shaky conclusion and emailed the completed essay to myself so that I could print it in the morning. My knees made horrible clicking noises when I got up, stiff from being crammed under the low desk for so long. The curtains were still open. No wonder my back was cold.

I went to close them and froze, staring out into the garden. It was dotted with wooden benches, and sitting on one was a tall figure in a dark suit, white hair in wisps around his head like a dying dandelion, waving at me.

It was the crazy preacher from Cathedral Square. My fury returned, with an all-new target. He'd found out where I
lived
.

I hauled up the sash window and climbed out, not wasting time by putting on shoes or grabbing my coat. The wet grass soaked through my socks immediately, but I covered the ground in seconds. He stood as I approached and held out a
Good News Bible
, looking very serious.

‘This is for you,' he said. ‘To save your soul.'

I stared at it. It was the same copy Mark had taken, I was sure, down to the blank faces and brilliant smiles.

‘Where did you get that?' I demanded.

The man blinked at me. ‘It's mine. But you need it.' He opened it to a passage underlined in red ink. ‘See? I marked it for you.' He took a deep breath and began to read. ‘“ While I slept, my heart was awake. I dreamed my lover knocked at the door.” '

‘I don't want it!' I hissed, flicking a quick glance at the buildings behind us. As far as I could tell, mine was the only light on. ‘What do you know about Mark?'

‘Mark?' he said vaguely. ‘Mark's a good boy.'

I hesitated, then went for broke. ‘He's a magician, right?'

The man's eyelids shivered nervously. There were liver spots on his hands, dark against the brown skin. ‘Mark's a good boy,' he repeated. ‘He can't help what he is. He tried. She's the demon.'

I took a step towards him. I was on the brink of something important. ‘Who's the demon?'

‘Back off, Spencer.' Mark was suddenly moving toward us out of the shadowy trees, his hands thrust into the pockets of his long coat. He was glaring at me, as if I were the one in the wrong. I glared back, and had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.

‘You arsehole! What did you do to me? What's going on with Kevin?'

Mark's expression went pleasantly blank, and he fumbled for the bracelet around his wrist. ‘I don't know what you're talking about. It's nothing, Spencer. Nothing.'

I could feel a pressure at the back of my skull, but my memory stayed intact. I fished the note out and brandished it. ‘Mark! Bible! Don't forget!' I quoted savagely. ‘A
charm
bracelet! That's
hilarious
!'

Shock flashed in his eyes. ‘Shit,' he said. ‘You made a memory aid.' His hand made an abortive gesture that was nearly a grab; I stepped back, clearing kicking range.

‘She needs guidance,' the man persisted, turning to Mark as if to enlist his aid. ‘She nearly sees things.'

‘Through a glass darkly, and with extremely bad timing,' Mark said, and sighed. ‘Spencer, this is my father. He is actually trying to help you. Dad, this is Ellie Spencer.'

My mouth dropped open. I registered, again, the clean and ironed clothes.

Mark's father bent to grasp my free hand, and I was too shocked to resist. His palm was rough and dry. ‘What a charming young lady. I met a charming lady, once.' He kissed my hand and straightened, giving me a smile of such sweetness I felt tears prickle at my eyes.

‘So if you can stop harassing him . . .' Mark said, putting his arm around his father's shoulder.

‘Why didn't you just say it was your dad's Bible? Why does he think I need help?' I tried to sharpen my voice, but the sunken sorrow of Mark's father blunted my most righteous efforts.

Mark ignored the second question and answered the first. ‘Because you said he grabbed you. And the last thing he needs is assault charges.'

‘I wouldn't do that,' I muttered.

‘Did I do something wrong?' Mark's father asked, hopeless and sad.

‘No, Dad. I did.' Mark lifted a shoulder, grimacing. ‘Sorry, Spencer. I should have just said.'

It was ridiculous to feel mollified just because he'd baldly admitted to being in the wrong. And it wasn't the point anyway. I settled back onto my heels. ‘Why were you even talking to me? What did you do to me?'

He didn't bother to lie again. ‘I'm not going to tell you right now.'

‘Hypnotism?' I tested.

‘Sure. If you like.' He gestured at my note. ‘Can I have that?'

I smiled unpleasantly and tucked it back into my jeans. It seemed to vibrate faintly between my fingers. The soles of my feet were going numb, the toes tingling painfully in the chill, but I refused to dance from foot to foot with Mark bloody Nolan staring at me.

The old man held out the Bible again. ‘You need it,' he said.

‘You really don't.' Mark sighed. ‘I don't think it can help you. Anyway, I'll take care of everything.'

I started to ask him about ‘everything', but the old man began to cry. He wept like a child, noisy and unembarrassed, but with an agony that was entirely adult. I thought of my own father, so far from me, and flinched away.

‘Oh, Dad,' Mark said helplessly. ‘Please don't.'

His father worked his hands together, dodging nervously away from Mark's embrace. Tears collected in his wrinkles, dropped onto the lapels of his jacket. ‘You see me now, but never again. If you look for me, I'll be gone. Don't let your people practise divination or look for omens or use spells or charms. You will know them by what they do! It's in the Bible!'

The whole situation, I decided, was well beyond awkward. When Mark's father tried to give me the Bible again, I took it from his calloused hands.

Mark didn't seem to care. He took off his scarf. ‘Here, put this on.'

The old man let Mark wrap it around his neck and tuck the edges into his jacket. ‘Like a cloud that fades and is gone, we humans die and never return; we are forgotten by all who knew us.'

‘I know you, Dad. You did what you came to. You warned her. Let's go home.'

‘Home,' the old man agreed, blinking at Mark. ‘You're a good boy. You can't help it.'

Mark flinched. ‘Spencer,' he said.

‘Yes?'

‘Just forget about it for now. I'll take care of it. Trust me.'

‘But I don't,' I said, and saw him accept that with the same pained resignation he gave to his father's madness. He took his father's arm and they made their slow way out of that wavering circle of light.

I managed to climb back into my room without being enchanted or sick or falling off the windowsill, which felt like a minor miracle all on its own. The Bible went in my backpack, and two pairs of dry socks went on my feet. I tucked my memory aid into the socks, which was a bit tricky with shaking hands.

The mask went on the desk, the only beautiful thing in my cluttered, cramped room. So exhausted that I could barely think, I sat for a long time, staring blankly at that perfect face.

Eventually, I mustered the energy to get up, and closed the curtains, shutting out the cold, and the magic, and the blind, wet night.

CRAZY
?
YES
!
DUMB
?
NO
!

I
WOKE BEFORE THE ALARM
.

During the night, the note had had some lasting effect; I tested it by putting it on my pile of clothes when I undressed for the shower, but the memory of Mark's enchantment no longer dropped out of my mind or provoked those awful headaches when I let the paper go.

I traced my fingers over the letters, and thought about the way I'd written it, pressing the words into the paper, willing it to help me remember. And it had.

In the shower I let the warm water beat against my head and back, formulating and rejecting questions for Mark as either too broad (‘What can you tell me?'), too obvious (‘So magic's for real?'), or too personal (‘Is your crazy father magic too?'). Or too scary.

‘Do you know what you are?'
he'd asked me.

When I arrived at Classics for third period, having spent all twenty minutes of morning break struggling with the computer-lab printers, a note taped to the door informed us that Professor Gribaldi was on leave; we were to have a study period instead.