The Spirit Keeper (18 page)

What would we talk about now that school was over? What if Priscilla was right and he wanted to do more than just talk? We hadn’t even kissed yet! Adrian was eighteen years old. He must have had at least one girlfriend back on the reservation. And that meant he probably had a ton more experience. As much as I wanted to kiss him, what if it wasn’t enough for now?

I pushed all thoughts of Adrian out of my mind and instead concentrated on the pop music coming from the speakers overhead, and the rush of warm water flowing past my ears and down my neck.

After the stylist finished washing my hair, she led me to another chair and began combing out the tangles. Then she parted it in neat sections, making careful cuts and snips with the scissors. With my chin resting against my chest, I watched as large chunks of wet hair tumbled to the floor. I reached out from underneath the cape and grabbed a piece that had gotten stuck on its way down. It was a lot like fingering a dismembered body part, or so I imagined. It felt odd. I held it for a moment before flinging it to the floor with the rest of my hair. No sense in getting sentimental.

Thirty minutes later, I was staring at the new-and-improved me in the mirror. Although I’d been more than a little anxious about the end result, I couldn’t deny how great I looked. For the first time in my life, I saw my mother in my own face. It was in the slight upturned shape of my eyes that now seemed to take center stage, as well as the high cheekbones. We shared the same broad mouth and full lips, too.

Priscilla stooped to my level so that we were both looking at our reflections. “What’s the verdict?”

Instead of reaching down to my butt, my hair now swung just above my shoulders. I turned my head from side to side, enjoying the sound it made as it swished against the fabric of my shirt. “I love it,” I said.

After I paid the bill, Priscilla grabbed my hand and towed me in the direction of the largest department store in the mall. “Let’s look at makeup.”

I tugged her to a stop. “I just blew my money on that haircut. I’m all tapped out. Besides, you know I can’t afford that expensive stuff. And neither can you!”

Priscilla grabbed my hand again. “You don’t have to buy anything. That’s what samples are for. To
sample
.”

And so we entered the maze of perfume and display cases and were at once bombarded by women in dark frocks doing their best to pitch us their products. We were like bloody fish floating in the water with hungry sharks circling all around us.  

“Score!” Priscilla said, after a few minutes of searching. She pointed at one counter in particular and made a bee-line for it. “Now
this
is the good stuff. My mom used to buy it and give me her leftovers.”

The dark-haired person behind the counter turned at our approach, and I stopped dead in my tracks. The shape of her face, the thickly-lashed eyes, her bronze complexion, even the dimples when she smiled out of polite reflex . . . I had seen them all on a different, though very familiar, face before.

Her eyes went wide at the sight of us, but she managed to get her face under control almost immediately. She pushed a lock of hair behind a small, delicate ear. “You’re Sarah Redbird,” she said. Her voice was soft and higher-pitched than what I had imagined it might sound like.

I swallowed hard, my blood going cold. “Uh-huh. Shyla, right?”

Priscilla’s head snapped up from the label she was reading. “Did I miss something? Do you two know each other?”

Shyla tore her eyes away from me. “And you’re Priscilla.”

Priscilla’s forehead wrinkled. “Yeah. Why do you look so familiar?”

“My brother was just here. He said you were in the mall today.” She smiled slightly at the both of us. “You’re not exactly an inconspicuous pair.”

Pricilla’s brows shot up as she looked from Shyla to me, then back to Shyla. “Your brother. Well now I know why you look familiar.” She turned to me then. “How is it that I’ve known Adrian for three weeks now and he’s never once mentioned a sister?”

“Twin sister, actually,” Shyla said.  

Priscilla pursed her lips at me. “Did you know about her?”

I shrugged my shoulders and gave her what I knew was a feeble smile. The only reason why I knew Adrian had a sister was because Meg had told me. Adrian, himself, had never breathed a word about Shyla.

A million thoughts were pinging around in my head at that moment. Adrian had been here to see his sister, but why? And they’d obviously been talking about Priscilla and me. What did that mean? I closed my eyes, becoming even more confused as I tried to work it out in my head.

“My brother and I have a complicated relationship, so I’m not surprised he never mentioned me,” Shyla said by way of an explanation. “We don’t always agree. Still, I do care about him, and I hate seeing him make mistakes.” Her eyes cut to me then. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to see that he stays out of trouble.”

I shuddered. Was she actually
threatening
me?

“Wait a minute,” Priscilla said, pointing her finger at Shyla. “Are you implying that Adrian is too good for Sarah?”

To her credit, Shyla looked genuinely taken aback. “I’m not implying anything.”

Priscilla and I looked at each other in confusion. “All right. So if you and Adrian are twins,” she said, “how come we’ve never seen you at Hilltop?” 

“Because I don’t go to Hilltop. I live with my grandmother on the other side of the lake and go to Lakeview.”

“Lakeview,” Priscilla said, turning up her nose. Hilltop and Lakeview were bitter rivals.

“Okay,” I said during an awkward and prolonged pause in the conversation, during which we all stood around staring at each other. “This has been fun, but I think it’s time we got going. Right, Priscilla?”

She glanced at her watch, and her eyebrows shot into her hairline. “Oh crap! We were supposed to meet Laura Beth out front ten minutes ago.”

Priscilla took off ahead of me, but Shyla called out my name. When I turned around, she was standing with her slender arms crossed in front of her and her brows pulled together.

I woke Saturday morning with a nasty brew of anxiety and anticipation festering in the pit of my stomach, twisting my insides so that I felt very close to throwing up.

It was like the time Priscilla forced me on my first-ever roller coaster, a ride called The Viper. There’d been no doubt in my mind that the seventy-five-foot drop and five loops would be an experience to remember, but I’d been deathly afraid of puking from the feeling of having my world turned upside-down at fifty miles an hour. I imagined being alone—
truly alone—
with Adrian for the first time would feel a lot like riding that coaster: exhilarating, yet extremely terrifying.

Priscilla’s dad was back in town again after having been away, and he’d scheduled vacation time for them. They were going to Niagara Falls, and we wouldn’t see each other again until Tuesday. An eternity, as far as I was concerned. Worse, I wouldn’t get to tell her how my date with Adrian went until she got back, considering her dad was making her leave her cell behind.

Mr. O’Malley dropped Priscilla off at our house with plans to pick her up right after our three-hour shift. All morning long she taunted me with vague, and often inappropriate, references about my impending date with Adrian. By the time her dad picked her up, I was actually glad to see her go. As much as I loved my best friend, she was seriously getting on my nerves.

I stood at the end of the driveway waving them off. Mr. O’Malley honked the horn twice before rounding the corner, and then I hurried inside to yank a brush through my hair and run a wand of tinted gloss over my lips. I breathed into my hand, testing my breath, and then brushed my teeth for good measure before reapplying the gloss. Finally, I pulled on my sneakers and rushed out the back door, ducking out while Meg and David were too busy with customers to stop me. It was half-past noon already, and I was late. Getting to the creek to see Adrian was the only thing on my mind.

But when I arrived, Adrian wasn’t there. I shielded my eyes from the sun streaming down through the trees and looked back the way I’d come, thinking I’d either see or hear him approaching in the distance. But there was no sign of him, at least not that I could see through the dense brush. To bide my time, I kicked off my sneakers, waded into the creek, and took a seat on the fallen tree to wait.

The forest was alive with the sound of birds’ high-pitched trilling and the lapping of water as it dipped and swirled around my legs. I closed my eyes and did a series of meditative breathing exercises Meg had taught me to release pent-up tension, but I couldn’t relax. What if Adrian didn’t show up, I kept thinking? But even more than that, I couldn’t get Shyla’s parting words out of my head.

If I were you, I’d watch my back.  

Did Shyla mean I’d better watch my back because she had plans to hurt me? Or maybe Victor had something up his sleeve and was going to use her as a weapon against me like he had supposedly done years ago when he set the fire. Other than the occasional dirty look from him when our paths happened to cross, he’d done nothing to make me think he was dangerous. Maybe he really
was
here on personal business. Maybe their being here had nothing to do with us at all.

Maybe we were all just being paranoid.

And yet, the implied threat of Shyla’s words was staring me right in the face, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer. We’d been waffling in this nebulous state of indecision for the past few weeks, all of us tip-toeing around each other to see who would make the first move. Either Victor and Shyla were going to do something, or they weren’t. But I couldn’t stand not knowing, and I couldn’t stand the waiting. I had to find out today. I was going to get some answers. No matter what.

“Sorry it took me so long.”

I bolted to my feet and spun to face Adrian. He’d sneaked up on me, startling me out of my thoughts. I offered him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, even though my heart was thumping as quickly as a rabbit’s foot. Thinking about his dad and sister had gotten me all wound up.

“My dad needed some help with his car, and I couldn’t get away,” he said. “I skipped out when he wasn’t looking. He’ll probably be pissed when I get back, but I don’t care. I’d rather be here.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“If you mean your aunt and uncle, you can relax. I used one of the trails a few houses down from yours. No one saw me. We’re alone.”

I sat down again while Adrian stood at the edge of the water looking back at me, and I wondered if being alone with him was such a good idea, after all. We lapsed into silence, our conversation having gotten off to an awkward start. I was beyond feeling any normal degree of self-consciousness, and I nervously twisted a strand of hair around my finger.

“I really like it,” Adrian said. “Your hair, I mean. I really like it.”

I untangled my finger from my hair and placed my hands under my thighs, looking down to hide my face. Meg had made a spectacular production over my new haircut, but Adrian’s one simple compliment had me grinning from ear to ear.

“Thanks,” I said to my feet hiding underwater, only daring to look at him through the cover of my lashes.

Adrian sat down on the bank to unlace his shoes, giving me the perfect opportunity to stare at him. His gray tee hugged his chest and accentuated his dark, muscular arms. A lock of thick hair fell across his forehead as he bent forward, and he ran his hand through it to push it out of his eyes. He craned his neck to look at me then, and I glanced away in a hurry, biting the inside of my bottom lip to keep from smiling.

“So, how do you think you did on your finals?” he said.

I thought about my Spanish final and hoped I hadn’t totally blown the oral part of the exam. Katie had sat in the front row, mouthing nasty insults to me the entire time and totally throwing me off my game. “There’s only one I’m worried about, but I’m pretty sure I got at least a B.”