King 02 - Breathless (32 page)

“It all came out by accident,” I said by way of explanation. “Michael knows.”

“Rafe, I’m sorry. Won’t you sit down? We’re usually a little more hospitable. It’s been an upsetting afternoon.” Marly’s voice was tired.

Rafe perched on the edge of a chair, his unease obvious. I picked up some running thoughts from his head and frowned.

“Rafe, how did you and Cara end up at the lake?”

He shifted slightly. “We were walking out to the parking lot, and Cara thought she saw her dad’s car pulling out. She was worried he was looking for her, and we tried to follow him, but by the time we got to my car, he was gone. We drove around a little, just keeping our eyes open for him, and then Michael called Cara. He said he thought her father had you, and that you were in trouble.

“He told us what he’d overheard on the phone, so we took off toward Cara’s house. She remembered something her dad had been saying, about atonement through water, and she thought of the lake. I guess the church does its baptisms there. And then we saw his car…” I could feel Cara’s pain and panic as Rafe remembered it, and I hurt along with them.

I leaned toward Rafe and laid a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” I said quietly. “If you hadn’t gotten there, I don’t think Marly and Luke would have found me alive. You and Cara saved my life.”

Rafe nodded, but he didn’t answer.

Luke patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry for Cara, and for all the Pryces, actually. But don’t you think we need to tell someone what he tried to do?”

No one responded right away. Finally Rafe said, “I know you just met me. You don’t have to listen to what I’m going to say. But I don’t think Rev. Pryce is a danger to anyone, not anymore. He was only confused and feeling very guilty when I left. My guess is that they won’t stay around here very long.”

I could hear everyone considering the situation. Marly and Luke were still leaning heavily toward calling the police or at least talking to someone from Rev. Pryce’s church. I knew mine would be the deciding opinion.

“We need to let it go,” I said softly. “There’s too much risk of exposure to both Rafe and me. Luke, Marly…” I sagged into Marly’s arms. “I know you’re worried about me, and I understand. But this is the only way.”

“What are you going to tell your parents?” asked Marly.

I smiled wearily as I answered her.

“The truth.”

The truth, of course, is a relative thing. What I told my parents, what I told Michael and Amber, as I related the story again and again, was a version of the truth. Actually, none of what I shared with them was a lie. I simply omitted what they didn’t need to know.

Cara didn’t come back to school the next day, nor the next. Rafe pulled me aside before classes that Thursday.

“They’re gone,” he reported tersely. “Cara called me last night. She said her father resigned, and they’re on the way back to Pennsylvania.”

“I’m sorry, Rafe,” I said softly. “I’m sorry it worked out this way.”

He held up his hands, palms out to me. “Hey, I liked Cara. We were just starting to get to know each other. But it’s not like we were—you know, like a thing.”

“Still… I want you to know that I miss her, too. I wish it hadn’t ended like this. I wish Rev. Pryce…” My voice trailed off. What did I wish about him? That he had understood about my abilities or didn’t care? That he hadn’t been on the scene last year to help save my life? There wasn’t a good answer.

Rafe was looking at me steadily. “I know,” he replied simply.

Michael had wanted to come home, to make sure I was all right, but Marly, Luke and I convinced him that there was nothing he could do. Still, I wished for his arms around me and the comfort of hearing his thoughts. All I could feel was stress and tension: my parents’ anxiety had ratcheted up another few notches in the past week, and there was no relief in school, where Amber and Rafe both emanated unhappiness and people were talking about Cara’s sudden disappearance.

I hadn’t seen Ms. Lacusta since I left her in the clearing. I heard some of the juniors grousing about the lame sub filling in for their chem. teacher, and I wondered with a pang if she’d given up on me. Would she have abandoned me, decided I wasn’t worth all the effort? And why wasn’t I relived by that idea?

When Monday came, I wasn’t certain if I should go to the chem. classroom or not. I meandered down the walkway, dawdling, until I saw Marica standing in her doorway.

“I wondered if I’d see you today,” she remarked quietly.

“I wondered the same thing. If-if you were going to be here. If you wanted me to come.”

Leaning back against the doorframe, Marica focused her eyes on a point somewhere above my head.

“I thought about leaving,” she admitted. “When I saw him take you away, when I saw you
go
… I thought, well, it’s all over. After all this time, the searching… to have been so close and then have you yanked away like that… I’ll grant you that I was shaken, and that is a rare thing for me.”

“I didn’t want to go with him. He tried to drown me.”

Her eyes widened briefly, and I felt her small flare of rage. “I’m sorry. I was afraid—but then I thought it might actually be worse if I tried to intervene. Worse with him, worse with whoever came to your aid. You understand that, don’t you?”

Somehow I did. I had been angry at first that she had abandoned me when I really needed help, but thinking about it more clearly now, I saw that she was right. Still, I wasn’t sure I should let her off the hook so easily.

“I guess now, from the living side of an attempted drowning, I see your point. At the time, it might have been nice to have someone there to rescue me. You didn’t even try.”

She was truly contrite, I could feel that, and she reached toward me earnestly. “I did try. If you had stepped toward me when I told you, I would have surrounded us both within the flames. Once you made the decision to go with him… well, I thought you’d made your choice.”

“I had to see,” I murmured. “I had to find out if he was right, about me being—wrong. Evil. But when he had me under that last time, I knew that I wasn’t. He saw me as cursed. I know that I’m not; what I can do is a gift. And I think it does come from God. Not from Rev. Pryce’s God, or his view of God. Actually, I don’t think he really knows God at all.”

Marica’s eye twitched slightly. “I agree that you have a gift. Where it came from… perhaps we can talk about that another time.” She glanced around us. The walkway was deserted now; the bell had rung, and all the classroom doors were closed.

“I’ve thought quite a bit about you over the past week,” she said quietly. “I realized that perhaps I forced your hand a bit more than I intended. I was certain that once you knew the truth, realized the depth and extent of your power, you would embrace it. I see now that I was really being very self-centered. For so long,
you
were my goal, the end of my journey. I was single-minded in my pursuit, and that has affected my actions toward you. I’m sorry, Tasmyn.”

My head was spinning. She was
apologizing
? Now? And I was supposed to do what—nod politely and walk away?

“What I’m saying,” she continued, “is that I am no longer going to force you to come here. The threat of exposure is gone, at least from me. I will keep your secret no matter what you do. You may simply go to the library every day during school, and I’ll give you an A for your independent study.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “Really? You’re giving up, just like that?”

She laughed softly. “I don’t know that I see it as giving up. Believe me, I’ll be very sad if you decide to step away. But I won’t do anything. I won’t even say anything.

“On the other hand, if you
choose
to come back, to continue your education with me… well, I will be tremendously pleased. For you see, then it’s not simply me getting my own way again. It’s you making a decision to embrace your power and your heritage.”

This was the last thing I expected to hear. After our experience in the clearing, I had thought Marica would be even more insistent. Instead, she was giving me freedom, and a choice.

“I’ll be here, every Monday, every day, actually. Should you decide you want to learn more, I’ll be waiting.” She turned and walked into the classroom.

I collapsed against the wall. Thoughts swirled around my mind, and I couldn’t make sense of anything.

I could walk away. I never had to see her again, and I could wipe this whole episode from my mind. I could go back to my life as it been this summer, being completely honest with Michael and my parents, free from guilt.

But my feet didn’t move me away from her door. Instead I remembered the energy that had flowed between us, the power and how indestructible it had made me feel. I wanted to feel it again. I wanted to know more… to see how far I could go.

I pushed off the wall and moved swiftly into the classroom. Standing in front of her desk, I looked Marica in the eye.

“I’m ready.”

The gardens outside the ballroom were filled with thousands of twinkling white lights. Standing on the wide veranda, I looked out over the grounds and decided it resembled a fairyland.

There was just enough chill in the air that I was glad of the light wrap my mother had insisted I wear. The breeze made my curls stir and tickle the back of my neck. I shivered.

Michael put his arm around me.

“Chilly?” he inquired, drawing me closer.

I shook my head. “Maybe just a bit. But it’s lovely.” I smiled up at him. “All of it—just perfect.”

“It wouldn’t be if you weren’t here.” He tipped my chin up again with the tip of his finger and brushed my lips softly with his.

“Where else would I be?” I teased, snuggling closer so that the buttons of his sports coat bit into the bare skin of my shoulder. “Homecoming is the biggest event of the fall, right?”

He shrugged. “It’s only a big deal for me because you’re here. I’m so glad I could show you everything. Feels like I’ve been waiting years to share it all with you.”

“I’ve had so much fun.” It was the truth; being here, away from King and Marica, made it so much easier to be with Michael. I could pretend that my other life was nothing more than a dream; this was reality.

Abruptly I felt a change in the air, and I began picking up an odd kind of… static. I frowned and shook my head slightly, trying to clear my inner ear.