Sleight (28 page)

They’d never come to me in less than ful form before. My eyes darted from one to the next, bile rising, burning my throat. The whittler had moved from his spot in the corner and was standing right next to Irina, across the room at another table. With every pul of his knife, he didn’t shave wood; he shaved his own wrist and hand, the putrid flesh and clotted meat dropping to the ground.

Irina shoved her hands to her temples, head bent, brow furrowed. She heard them.

I looked at Lucian. He was watching my every move, the corner of his mouth upturned ever so slightly.

“Gemma, your nose is bleeding!” Marlene blurted out, nearly kicking her chair over to move toward me.

My hand flew to my face, my fingers immediately coated in red.

I was on my feet, unable to take any more. I ran from the tent before Marlene reached my side of the table.

Henry folowed close behind, caling my name as I sprinted for the trailer. “Gemma, wait!”

I was up the stairs and in the bathroom, unroling a huge wad of toilet paper to shove under my nose, before he reached me.

“Where have you been?” I sobbed, my voice muffled by the tissue. He didn’t answer me but wrapped his arms around my body, kissing the side of my face, stroking my head with his hands. The warmth radiating from him felt heavenly, safe.

“I can’t talk. They won’t let me out of their sight,” he said, his face pressed into my hair.

“Henry, so much has happened,” I said, puling away to wipe my nose. He gently moved me to the side and grabbed a washcloth, wetting and wringing it in the sink.

“Your mom—I saw her. She was crying,” I said. “She wanted me to tel you she loves you.”

“Yesterday, right?”

“Yeah. That’s why I was bombarding you with texts. Wel, that and about a hundred other things.”

He swabbed at the blood above my lip. “She’s gone. It’s quiet.” He pointed to his head. “We have to leave.”

I heard voices coming near. I put my hand to his mouth to quiet him.

“Lucian’s coming. I can hear him.”

“How…?”

I shushed him again. “For some insane reason, I can hear everything. And I mean everything. It’s driving me crazy.” We stood, neither of us breathing. There was a brisk knock on the trailer door.

“I’l come back as soon as I can, I swear,” he said, kissing me hard.

Henry moved to exit the trailer but it wasn’t Lucian standing on the top step. It was Ash.

“Leave her alone, Dmitri,” Ash hissed.

“Back off, Ash,” Henry said, pushing his way out the door. Just as his feet hit the ground, Ash tackled him from behind, knocking him into the sawdust.

“Ash! Stop it!” I screamed, flying after them. I knew if Henry got his hands on Ash, the result would be devastating.

“Boys!” Lucian’s voice boomed from the other side of the courtyard. Henry and Ash sprang from the ground, frozen in their tracks. Without another word, Ash ran off, Summer close behind, and Henry spun on his heel and charged toward the parking lot. He jumped into his car, slammed the door, and sped off.

“How’s your nose, Gemma?” Lucian asked. But he hadn’t moved from his place across the yard. He was speaking to me from beyond the boundary of where I should’ve been able to hear him.

He knew.

“Fine. Thank you,” I whispered, wiping under my nostrils, eyes averted. He nodded and moved to the opening of the meal tent from which his mother was emerging.

“Take care of yourself. I’l see you again soon,” he said, walking in the direction of the lot, Lilith’s hand tucked in his bent elbow.

“Are you okay, dear? You look like you’ve just lost your puppy,” Marku said. He startled me; I hadn’t noticed his approach.

Standing next to him in the brisk nip of the late winter evening, it occurred to me that Henry must’ve gotten his height from Alicia’s side of the family. Of course he had. He wasn’t even a Dmitri.

But I was.

Though a diminutive man, Marku carried himself with confidence and silent strength. His shoulders were broad, his spine straight.

Upon closer examination of his face, few signs of aging marked his complexion. His skin was smooth, not at al haggard, and could’ve belonged to someone not quite fifty. But the pristine man standing before me was alegedly 2,842 years old, courtesy of the AVRA-K.

“It was such a pleasure to meet you, Miss Gemma,” he said, folding me into a grandfatherly hug. “I’ve been waiting many years for this day,” he whispered in my ear.

“Thank you again for coming to our show, Mr. Dmitri,” I said, replacing my game face. “I hope to see you again soon.”

“Please…cal me Poppa,” he said, as he took my hand in his.

His kind eyes were moist and twinkled under the field floodlights.

“And I wil be seeing you soon, young lady, don’t you fret.” He dropped my hand and pecked my cheek. He was so charming, so genuine, the polar opposite of his son. Marku sauntered to the car to take his place in the back seat.

“Gemma, thank you again for your glorious performance,” Lucian whispered across the space. As he walked around to the driver’s side, he puled a trimmer out of his pocket and snipped off the end of a thick cigar. He didn’t light it but rather bit down on its end, the dark brown of the roled tobacco a stark contrast against the white of his perfect teeth. He winked and climbed into his car.

I watched them leave, much as I’d watched Henry drive away.

The sole difference in the departures was Marku waving goodbye through the rear window; Henry hadn’t even looked back.

:31:

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

—Confucius

I’d gone to bed exhausted, after a thorough yet fruitless search of the grounds for Ash. No one knew where he’d gone, not even Junie. He’d taken his mother’s rental car, and I overheard her threatening her husband with caling the police to report it stolen.

The open-and-close click of Emelie Thomassen’s cel phone as she paced in the cold of the courtyard was maddening. When Ash finaly slinked in long after midnight, he was in the shit with his parents, but I was relieved for the onset of quiet.

Monday at school was a whole new world. Junie and Ash had ascended to celebrity status, the student body abuzz about the spectacular weekend performances. A few people even spoke to me, congratulating me on my own part in the show, but geneticaly gifted, death-defying trapeze flyers were far more glamorous than little old me and my violin.

My stitches had pretty much dissolved, though a couple of girls in my lit class asked me if I was feeling better. They’d probably heard the stories circulated by Summer Day as their inquiries were cautious. I offered an equaly careful response, unsure of how to answer as I didn’t know what they knew, if any of it held a figment of truth.

Henry was absent, and I’d heard nothing from him. No emails, no text messages, no cals. I was unhinged with worry, and as I’d suspected, the noisy, crowded environment of school was unbearable, waves of new conversations bombarding me at every turn. When possible, I kept my iPod in my ears, the volume cranked. After the brief convo in lit class, no one realy talked to me, though the majority of the conversations I did overhear had plenty to do with Henry and me.

In chemistry, we had to pick lab partners.

“Hey.” I felt an elbow in my rib. “Be my partner?” Ash.

“Whatever.” I plunked my lab book on the counter and reached for a Bunsen burner.

“Are you going to be mad at me forever, Gems?” He leaned on his elbow and gave me his classic Ash look. I hated him for looking so perfect when I was feeling so alone.

“What page are we on?” I said. Yes, I am going to be mad at you forever.

“212,” Ash said, flipping open his text. I clicked the flint lighter over the burner spout and eased open the gas spigot. A smal blue flame ignited. “I’l get the solution from Cuthbertson. Start heating this up—20 cc of deionized water.” Ash slid a beaker from the center of the lab table before lining up for his turn at the teacher’s desk.

“Miss Gemma,” the voice said. It made me jump. I looked to my left, directly into the eyes of the little shade from the old building along the border of the parking lot. “Miss Gemma…the mean one…she won’t let us go through.”

I couldn’t acknowledge the shade. People would see me, hear me talking to nothing. “Please,” I whispered. “Not here.”

“But the mean one. She won’t let us go through. We need help,” she said. I kept my head forward, eyes on the flickering blue flame of the lit burner in front of me.

“My sister is begging for your help. Won’t you help us?” It was the biggest of the three shades, a boy. His tone was less friendly.

“You have the ability, and yet you let us suffer?” My breathing was shalow, quick. I felt lightheaded, sweat tickling my forehead and upper lip, my whole body shaking. I was terrified. This shade, even though he couldn’t have been any older than fourteen, was scary, menacing. I couldn’t respond, couldn’t even look at him. Someone would see.

“Please, I…I can’t help you.” I squeezed my eyes closed, wiling the ghosts to go away.

Suddenly, the older shade grabbed my left wrist. “My sister…

she’s asking for your help. We need your help.” He was so strong, his grip so ferocious and cold, I couldn’t break loose.

He pushed my hand over the burner and lowered it until the flame licked at my palm. I baled my fingers into a fist and tried to fight free. “The mean one, she’s helping him,” he said. He was centimeters from the side of my face. His breath was cold, and he smeled like death. “You have to find the way out to set us free. Al of us.”

I screamed in agony, the skin on my fingers bubbling over the open flame.

“Gemma!” Ash yanked me backward, away from the counter.

The shades vaporized. “What the hel are you doing?” He grabbed my arm, just above where the shade had been squeezing. “Your wrist…it’s so red. And oh, my God, look at what you’ve done!” Mr. Cuthbertson was right behind Ash. The two of them dragged me over to the massive sink. Ash stepped on the floor trigger and shoved my sizzling fingers into the cold stream of water.

I fought the urge to scream.

“Here,” Ash shoved a wad of tissue into my hand. He dampened a paper towel and wiped at my shirt. Another bloody nose.

“Gemma, dear, what happened? That was real fire, not something to play with,” Mr. Cuthbertson said. He looked worried.

“Ash, can you take her down to the nurse’s room?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“She’s going to need a Silvadene wrap. The nurse wil give her some cream to cool the burning. Just be sure to tel her it was a flame burn, not chemical.”

The other students looked at me with a mix of confusion and disgust. One girl looked sympathetic, but the rest, they just looked at me like I was crazy.

Ash didn’t say anything as we moved down the halway. I let him lead the way, one arm around my middle, his other arm holding my wrist and hand out in front of us. I kept my head back, nose pinched. I was beginning to realy hate the taste of blood running down the back of my throat.

I could hear only the little shade’s voice in my head. Miss Gemma…the mean one…she won’t let us go through.

Once in the office, the nurse moved quickly. Ash gave her the lowdown on what he thought happened, and I didn’t bother to correct him. No, I didn’t accidentally burn myself. A ghost shoved my hand into the open flame. That would’ve gone over like a turd in a punchbowl.

“You gonna be okay? You want me to stay with you?” Ash said.

“No, I’m good. Can you grab my bag for me? I left in the room.”

“Yeah, I’l bring it.” He cupped my cheek in his hand before he left, and for the first time in days, his eyes showed genuine concerned. My old Ash.

The nurse swabbed a thick white cream onto the skin of my fingers. It burned at first but then cooled, eliminating the sting. She folowed up with a loose wrapping of a silvery gauze and tried to convince me I should go home and see a doctor.

“No, I’m good. I need to finish the day.”

“Wel, you should sit in here for a few minutes, at least through lunch. Are you okay to take ibuprofen or acetaminophen? Any alergies to those?” She stood and moved to a locked medicine cabinet.

“Either is fine,” I said. She opened a red and white bottle and tapped two pils into a tiny paper cup. She then handed me some bottled water and the pils.

“Bottom’s up!” she said, smiling. I swalowed the Tylenol like a good patient, and sat back against the pilows on the cot. “You rest here for a bit, okay? Are you sure you don’t want me to cal home for you?”

“No, realy. I’l be fine. It’s not that bad. Thanks, though.” She smiled and left me alone.

I kept my eyes closed, afraid to open them and see the shades standing next to the cot. The ferocity of his grip around my wrist…

that was worse than the burn. The mean one…she won’t let us go through. Who was the mean one? And what did any of this have to do with me?

My cel phone buzzed in my pocket.

Ur hurt. I saw something. I can’t come 2 u. So so sorry. She won’t let me leave. Plz B careful. Wil come as soon as I can. xo—

HD

Henry. He knew.

:32:

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

—Socrates

I managed to nod off, and the nurse let me sleep through lunch and fifth period. I only woke up when my cel buzzed again. I hoped it would be Henry, but it wasn’t. It was Junie, maniacaly texting to make sure I wasn’t dead.

I made it to sixth period philosophy, though why I didn’t just stay hidden in the nurse’s room…especialy when I walked into the classroom and saw Summer Day sitting in the desk right next to mine.

“Hey, Gemma. How’s your hand? Ash said you burned yourself?”

“It’s…fine,” I said, looking at my gauze-wrapped fingers. News traveled fast. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I transferred in. Last-minute shift of my schedule. I dropped math because it was lame. Besides, Mr. Poole is a pedo.” I turned in my seat so as not to invite further conversation. The discussion for the day was shaping up to be a total bloodbath, anyway. Mr. Harbourne—Ben, as Lucian had caled him—seemed more excited than ever to talk about La Una, and the students, Summer included, were lapping up what Harbourne was pouring out. Between the throbbing in my hand and the discomfort in my head, I felt like I might throw up.