The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (26 page)

She
stops pacing and stares at the watch for a long moment before looking
into my eyes. “But… we shouldn’t do that?”

“
No.
What do you think will happen if Albert shows up here and we can’t
tell him why we need to stay? Even if the spell will let us tell him,
Albert never listens; he’ll throw us in sacks and ship us home
and I won’t be able to complete this assignment… then
you know what’ll happen. But, I want you to take and wear the
watch.”

Linnie’s
eyelids fly up. “What?”

“
I
don’t want you to use it, unless we get separated and you’re
in really, really serious danger; because if you press that button it
might blow you-know-who’s cover which will probably get him
hurt or
worse
.
My guess is that you-know-who is being watched closely and that us
being here has already put him at risk, or cast doubt on him or
something. We have to be really careful on how we contact him.”

“
How
we…” Linnie smiles. “Yes! That’s it! We need
to
write
the message to him!”

I
clamp my mouth shut as I take in my sister’s ‘eureka, I
found it’ expression.

Madeline
might not have prepared for the eventuality that we would run off and
not be able to contact her when we found Stephen; but there is little
doubt in my mind that she prepared for the possibility that we would
try to give Stephen the message of what she did by any means
possible.

But,
seeing the hope on Linnie’s face, I decide to go through the
motions.

Forcing
a smile, I say, “Good idea, Linnie; let’s get a pen.”

Finding
the complementary pen and pad of paper in the room, we write a very
simple, bare-bones message:

Nathan,
M called in my life debt. We need you to come with us. Yours, Amanda

Feeling
little hope that the message will work, I fold it. It immediately
disintegrates in my hand. One second, it’s a solid piece of
paper, the next it’s a powdery white ash.

“
No…”
Linnie says, crestfallen.

I
sit down on the bed. “It’s okay, there’s like fifty
pages in this pad, we’ll just keep trying.” An hour later
I, the bed and the floor beneath the bed are covered in ash. The
closest message I’ve managed is: ‘bad things will happen
if you don’t come back with us to Bangkok.’ Which is
about as effective as: ‘
it’s
important, really important.
’

Fail.

Even
writing in code makes the paper combust. Poetry makes it combust as
well (granted it was really bad poetry).

When
I fold the paper of my most recent message: Let’s go to Bangkok
to see our angry red headed friend!

Poof.

I
flex my aching hand. “Totally not use to writing this much…by
hand.”

“
Hey!”
Linnie says, “Do you think writing it on a computer would
work?”

I
sigh. “I doubt it. I think it’s either that our intent to
convey that message which is being blocked or, worse, that it’s
impossible for that message to be given to Nathan by any means.”

“
Yeah…”
Linnie says, “No, wait… what’s the difference? I
told Dad we shouldn’t have let them educate you.” She
plops onto the bed beside me and sends up a choking cloud of ashes
that makes us cough so much, it’s impossible to continue
talking.

“
I
don’t think I’ve ever breathed in straight ash before.
That is horrible.” Linnie says when we can finally breathe.

I
cough a little more, and then tell her, “Anyway. What I meant
was Madeline is either just blocking
our
intention to tell Nathan, which means maybe there is some way to get
the message to him without
intending
to. Or, if she’s blocking the message from getting to him by
any means, we’re just…screwed.”

“
Why
do I have a bad feeling it’s the second one?” Linnie
says, practically groaning.

“
We
can keep trying… but I’m starting to think that the only
way for us to convince Nathan to leave is to help him out of whatever
predicament he’s got himself into.”

“
I’m
not sure…”

“
Which
means that we have to figure out what’s going on…”

“
I
don’t think…”

“
And
help him resolve it,” I finish.

“
I
don’t know… that sounds like doing exactly what Nathan
begged us not to do.” Linnie says, slowly.

“
What
alternative do we have? The clock is ticking and Nathan made it very
clear that he’s not going anywhere until he sorts out his
business here.”

“
It’s
just all so convenient…” Linnie says, staring off, “like
that’s our only option because someone or something planned for
that to be our only option.”

I
stare at my sister, wishing that she was a little bit stupider, and
say, “But it still
is
our only option.”

Day
Seven

“
Remind
me why we did this again,” Linnie whines as she pulls at a
short multicolored clump of her hair.

We’re
retracing our path from the other day, and now I see why the kiwi
girls said that it was only a short walk down the beach, they
probably only did this walk at night. After the pitiless sun tucks in
for the night, the presumed three miles feels like a pleasant mile.
During the day this trail was deserted; now, we’re surrounded
by painted up and dressed down party-pedestrians.

Concentrating
on the dark path before us, I grumble, “I don’t think
you’re the one who made the biggest sacrifice here.” I
tuck bleach blonde locks behind each ear.

“
So
peroxide isn’t your color, I look like a fairy with a LSD
problem!”

A
group of glow-stick-toting guys heading the same direction as us
turn, one yells, “Hey lady, if you got a problem, I’ll
take your LSD. Just saying.”
Americans
.

I’m
about to roll my eyes and ignore the guy, but instead I pause. I
beckon Mr. Rude-American over to us, not wanting to yell.

He
strolls toward us, typical college jock turned vacation-raver,
non-distinctive anything, smug expression on his beefy face as he
asks, “Sup’ ladies? I’m Henry.”

Linnie
shoots me a, ‘what are you thinking?’
clenched-teeth-smile, which I choose to ignore.

I
attempt to make my voice a little higher pitched, the way I think
peroxide Amanda would sound, “Amanda, this is Chelsea. Nice to
meet you, Henry. What if we’re looking for something a little
stronger; there’s a pill with a V on it—?”

“
No
way! You girls take Venom? That shit? No way!” He looks us up
and down quickly, and then shakes his head, saying, “Nasty.”
He walks away. When he joins his friends he turns around and shouts,
“You chicks are nasty!” and the group of idiots
thankfully walk away.

I
grab Linnie’s arm and motion for her to slow down. “Venom,”
I whisper when Henry and his friends are out of hearing range, while
brushing my thumb over where the pill hides in my jean short’s
pocket.

Linnie,
who I already told about the pill, turns to me; obviously intrigued
by the guy’s reaction as well.

She
does kind-of look like a pixie on hallucinogens. Like, in a cute way.
Maybe… we tried a little too hard when we designed our
disguises.

We
decided that if we were going to stay, we would have to stay as
Amanda and Chelsea, two American party girls looking for a good time.
Unfortunately we already told the kiwi girls our real names; when I
suggested that we change hostels to avoid seeing them Linnie made the
very good points that we a) paid through the week and b) needed
Stephen to know where we are. So, we decided to go with just making
ourselves utterly unrecognizable.

Unfortunately,
my skin has two choices, pale or red and flaking, right now thanks to
copious sunscreen: sheet white. Since it’s (pretty much)
impossible to dye my black hair, I went with bleaching it to…
drum roll please… sheet white; you can imagine the rest.

With
a pound of make-up expertly applied by my sister, I almost look as if
a wall might object to me drifting through it; yet, I still feel an
inexplicable desire to yell, “Boo!” at random people.

“
Venom,”
Linnie repeats, too loudly, “It goes with the whole spi—“

“
Chelsea!”
I say through clenched teeth.

“
Oh,
sorry!” She gives me an apologetic smile. And… she
wonders why I keep things from her. Jeez. Linnie continues, “…bug
thing, except… bugs don’ have venom… oh, you know
what I mean.”

“
Sure.
Let’s keep moving.”

We
continue into the small town of Haad Rin, which is a very different
place at night. One hundred percent
bustling
.
People bustle around everywhere. Mostly the normal
beach-party-going-crowd type, but as we near Sunrise Beach the crowd
transforms into a mob of neon painted sweaty bodies.

Avoiding
the majority of the human-mess, most of which clusters around the
clubs, we head toward streaks of fire, cutting patterns of light into
the night. We weave through the people and mats which ring a small
group of Thai fire dancers.

As
we pass the group, we can see that there are fire dancing shows and
neon painted crowds the entire length of the beach. And everyone, I
mean
everyone
drinks out of those communal buckets.

After
we pass a few of the clubs, Linnie and I order a bucket from a guy in
a little stand, just to blend in with the masses. And, okay, I admit
that I’m a little curious.

The
guy pours a full flask of Vodka, a liter of lemon-lime cola and a
bottle of (what he tells us is) a Thai energy-drink. The whole thing
tastes like cough syrup.

“
I
didn’t expect there to be so many people,” I say after
taking a second sip, “Since there are still five days until the
Full Moon Party...”

Five
days, only five days until that destined night. That one fact makes
me sublimely happy; I’m not like Linnie; I’m not the type
of girl who can fall in love in five days. The safety in that fact is
like a glass wall I can separate Stephen and me with; no matter if my
heart begs and pleads, I won’t even be able to truly fall in
love in the time we have allotted.

“
Yeah,”
Linnie says, “The Kiwi’s told me it’s pretty much
ongoing. There’s a big party everyday leading up to the full
moon and then a couple days after, then there’s a big
‘Half-Moon Festival’ somewhere in the jungle, then ‘Black
Moon Culture’, then Half Moon, then Full Moon again. On and on,
they said it’s like the biggest party in the whole world.”

I
stop in front of a new group of fire dancers. “This isn’t
the only Full Moon Party? There’s another one?”

“
Every
month.” Linnie nods, then she furrows her brow. “Why do
you look so upset? What difference does it make?”

“
No
difference,” I say, quickly; but I’m thinking: all the
difference in the world! I can almost hear the fragile glass wall I
erected within me shatter. If that Full Moon Party vision is not of
the May 25
^th
party, but of the June-whenever-day party, then there is a month and
five days that I can very possibly fall in love in. And worse, if
it’s June, how close is that to my ‘three of three days
after midsummer’ deadline?