Made to Love (4 page)

Luckily, Octavius noticed
and propped me up.  “Guys, this is Calliope.  Calliope,
the guys.”

The guys grunted, then
looked back down.

I took a glance at my sorry
excuse for food.   I had no appetite for anything but the
man beside me, so I pushed my tray away.  It bumped a colorful
folder in pink, and the guy next to me grabbed for it.  
I was faster, so I picked it up and took a close look.

“
Wow, this is pretty,” I
said.

It was.  The
background was a swirling gradient of rainbows, and in the
foreground, a beautiful horse reared and shook its mane.  Or
that's what it looked like; the picture didn't move.

Or did it?

The horse tossed its head,
and I caught a glimpse of a horn on top.  It wasn't a horse
after all; it was a unicorn.  It nickered and looked me in the
eye.  I reached a finger forward to stroke its soft-looking
muzzle.

Octavius nudged me, and I
blinked.  The unicorn was still, just like it had always
been.

“
Like it?” Octavius
asked.  “It belonged to Kenny's sister.  We use it for
lyrics.”

The guys around the table
snickered and kicked at the guy sitting next to me.  That had
to be Kenny.

“
Yeah,” I said.  I
handed the notebook over, and Kenny snatched it, looking
sullen.

“
Calliope's in my poetry
class,” Octavius informed the table.   Then he looked at
me, and the room spun again.  “You must have some great poems
already, right?”

“
Sure,” I
replied.   Normally, I wouldn't admit to anything of the
kind, but I felt I could tell him anything.

“
Maybe I could have a look
sometime?”

I couldn't refuse
him.  I didn't have it in me.  “Yeah.”

He pat my shoulder, and my
skin scorched with his touch.  His voice was low,
intimate.  “Great.”

We sat like that until the
bell rang, and the student streamed out of the cafeteria.  I
shook my head to clear it, and when I came back to myself, the
table was empty.

I practically floated to my
next class.

Chapter Eight

By the time I got home that
evening, my bedroom – and most of the house – was done being set
up.  There were still a lot of boxes stacked all over the
place, but the main furniture had been set up.  The entryway
was populated with the same big chairs that had filled my childhood
home, but the sheer size of the house dwarfed them.

Mom followed me into the
house.  “So… did you make any new friends today?” she
ventured, hesitating at the bottom of the stairs as I made my way
to the second floor.

I thought of Octavius and
blushed.  “No.”

“
Do you need help with any
homework…?”

Ignoring my mom, I went
down the hall to my bedroom, shutting the door behind me.  I
dropped the backpack on the floor and stripped, pulling my night
gown out of the top drawer of my armoire – the place the maid was
always supposed to put it – and changed into it.

It felt nice to unwind
after such a stressful day, and I flung myself upon the bed,
staring up at the stone ceiling with my hand resting on the pillow
by my head.

 
Did you make any
new friends today
?  Octavius’s face swam through my
head.

I sure as heck hoped
so.

There definitely was plenty
of homework to do and months of class to catch up on.  I had
even found a nice spot in the room at the top of the tower where I
could do schoolwork.  But fatigue overwhelmed my body, and the
thought of getting up and moving was unimaginable.

Maybe I would take a quick
nap.  Just for a few minutes.

Heavy with sleep, my
eyelids dropped shut.

I dozed.

Dreams flitted throughout
my half-consciousness.  I soared above the vast, barren ocean,
arms spread at my sides.  The swollen moon changed above me,
and a crescent of shadow swept across its surface.  The stars
darkened, winked out of existence, and I could no longer see the
surface of the water.

I plunged into its icy
depths and found myself in the orchard behind the house.  The
trees towered above me, dark and oppressive.

The shadow was coming for
me.

And then… a light.  A
new star amongst the trees, coming toward me.

Calliope
…

Consciousness rushed into
my body, and I sat straight up, sucking in a hard
breath.

I stared at the room around
me, momentarily confused.  I had closed my eyes to gloomy
daylight, but I opened them now to the darkness of night.  The
clouds had parted, and the half-moon’s light shone dimly through my
bedroom window.

Leaning over, I found my
hot dog alarm clock had been plugged in and set up on my bedside
table.  It was already almost midnight.  I had been
sleeping for hours.

“
Ugh,” I groaned,
scrubbing my face.

I had to do homework at
some point, but my brain felt like mush from sleeping at a weird
time.  I stumbled to the sliding doors, shoving them open, and
took a deep gasp of ocean air.

Something – someone –
wailed in the distance.

I froze, holding my breath,
but the sound immediately disappeared.

Had I imagined it? 
Was it just a sound of the wind through the rocks? 
Or…?

And then the wailing arose
once more.  It was a cry of anguish, such pain and suffering
that it tore at my heart.  I gripped the railing, staring down
the coast along the fields surrounding the manor.

It sounded like it was
coming… from the house.

Even in the late spring,
the bite of the air inside was cold.  Such an old place had
too many drafts to wander around in a night gown.  I shrugged
into a long sweater and slipped into the hall, hesitating by my
door.  My parents wouldn’t want me up and about at this time
of night – they still treated me like I was seven, rather than
seventeen – but their bedroom was far enough away that they
wouldn’t be able to hear me walking.

I could still hear the
wailing in hall, but it was fainter there.  I hurried down the
stairs, hugging my sweater around me, and slipped out the tall
front doors to the lawn.

Circling around the house,
I tracked the cries with my ears.  It was definitely coming
from inside the manor… but where?

Following the side of the
house led me back to the orchard.  I remembered my dream and
shivered.

A dim light flickered in a
frosted window near the ground, not far from the back door leading
into the kitchen.  That must have meant there was a
basement—but I had never seen a way down.  Unless that’s where
the locked door led.

Crouching by the window, I
squinted through the glass.  I could make out some shapeless
forms—nothing moving.  But the wail was loudest
here.

Someone was crying in our
basement.

I moved to knock on the
window, but there was a new sound from within—a thump, a scuffle,
something moving.  The wail abruptly cut off.

Silence.  The light
disappeared.

I hugged my sweater around
me and stood, confused.  What in the world had that
been?

Shaken, I returned to my
bedroom.  The night was frighteningly silent without the
wailing.  On impulse, I pulled my armoire in front of the
door.  I would definitely need a lock for the door.

I got into bed and pulled
the covers around me.  It was warm in my bedroom, but I
shivered anyway.

The rest of the night was
long and sleepless.

Chapter Nine

“
Did you sleep okay,
Cal?”

I looked over at Mom
through bleary eyes.  “What do you think?”

“
It takes some
adjustment,” my mom said.  “New places.”

“
Yeah.”  I pretended
to focus on my plate, although I watched my parents through my
bangs to gauge their reactions.  “I have to get used to the
crying thing in my basement.”

There was a clatter, and I
looked at my dad.  He'd dropped his fork on the plate, and he
was exchanging a worried look with my mom.

“
What are you doing down
there, Dad?” I asked.  “Who keeps crying?”

His clenched hands shook
with fury.  “I told you to stay away!”

“
Dad! 
What--”

Before I could finish, he
got to his feet and stormed out of the room.  I pounded my
hands on the dining room table, and the dishes rattled.  Mom
put a hand to her forehead.

“
That's not a constructive
way to solve things,” she said.

Tears streamed down my
face.  “I need to get out of here!”

“
It's a little early for
school--”

“
I don’t care!”

My mom got to her feet and
grabbed her car keys.  I snatched my backpack from where I'd
put it by the front door and stormed out the front door, sniffling
all the while.  I climbed in the passenger's seat and slammed
the door, then stared at nothing as Mom climbed in and started the
car.

We went a block before she
spoke.

“
It's not like he doesn't
want to tell you,” she said.  “He just can't.”

“
Why are you defending
him?”

I thought I saw a flash of
fear on my mom's face.  But I was so tired, she could have
been making faces and there was no way I'd be able to
tell.

“
Here we are,” she
said.  Apparently, she'd been lost in silence longer than I
thought.  Maybe I'd fallen asleep.

I scowled.  “I hate
you both.”

The car hadn't even stopped
completely when I stormed out of it.  I stumbled, but there
was no one around, since I'd gotten there so early. 
Perfect.

I ran into the cafeteria
and curled up in a corner, then propped my head on my
sweater.  I napped until the bell rang, at which point I ran
to my first class.

To make matters even worse,
Octavius didn't have any of the classes that I had that day:
Advanced Catalan, Advanced US History, or Advanced Chem Lab. 
And he wasn't at lunch, either, even though the rest of his friends
were at the same table.  I was so miserable I wanted to be
dead, and every minute I didn't die became a further
disappointment.

It wasn't until I went to
my locker after school that I heard his dulcet tones, and he snuck
up behind me.

“
Hi,” I breathed.  My
heart started to pound.

“
Hey,” he said.  His
eyes seemed to glisten in the florescent hallway lights. 
“What are you doing this afternoon?”

I shrugged. 
“Homework?”

“
I figured.”  He
leaned in, and I leaned in, too.  My eyes closed.  
“My band has practice.  Why don't you come listen?”

Butterflies bounced against
the walls of my stomach so hard I thought it would rupture. 
“That sounds great.”

“
Great,” he said. 
“Follow me.”

We left the school through
a north entrance that I'd never seen.  It didn't go into the
main parking lot, but a smaller gravel area that had broken down
cars.

“
This is the auto shop
area,” he said.  “It makes it easier to get out at the end of
the day.”

He pulled me around a
twisted wreck, and I saw his mode of transportation.

A motorcycle.

Octavius approached and
pulled two helmets off the seat.  He tossed one in my
direction, and it fell to the ground at my feet.

“
You...had two helmets?” I
asked as I picked it up.

He flashed me his perfect
white teeth.  “I was hoping you'd come with me.”

In a smooth motion, he
straddled the bike and beckoned me forward.  I walked toward
him like I was entranced.

When I was standing next to
the bike, he took the helmet from my hands and plunked it on my
head.  I swung my leg over the back and sat on the bike. 
It felt so
small
.

He reached an arm back and
felt for me.  “You have to press up against me,” he said,
tugging me forward.  “Get real tight, and don't let
go.”

I complied and felt a rush
of heat through me.  Apparently, snuggling so close made my
temperature rise, even in Oregon.  I wondered why.

He started the bike, and we
jumped forward onto the road.

Chapter Ten

His band practiced in an
old warehouse not far from my house.  Of course, in Coos Bay,
nothing was far from my house.  Octavius led me in by the
hand, and I tried desperately not to sweat from my palm.

The ride on the motorcycle
had left me exhilarated and flushed, but when I saw Octavius’s band
mates, my heart only sped faster.  He was introducing me to
his friends.  Like, officially.  Outside of school. 
Distantly, it occurred to me I hadn’t told my parents that I
wouldn’t be home after class, but I didn’t care.  I just
reached into my pocket and turned off my phone to make sure they
couldn’t bother me.