Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (4 page)

     “Yeah.  It was probably no big
deal.”  I dropped the rest of my ham sandwich onto my lunch tray and
finished my tea.  Lunch wasn’t setting well with me, now. I had a sick
feeling in the pit of my stomach, and a nagging feeling that I was missing
something important.  Oh, well, I could still blame my idiocy on my recent
head injury.  There was that, at least.

     “Now,” Gwen leaned across the
table, and rested her chin on the back of her hand, “why don’t we talk about
something really important?”

     I had a sinking feeling that I knew
exactly where this was going.  “What’s more important than Rodney, the
janitor?”

     “Rumor has it that Alex Winters
walked you to class this morning, carrying your books, no less.  So why
don’t you give your long-suffering, not to mention
only
friend, the exclusive scoop?”

     I shrugged my shoulder.  “No
big deal; he asked me out, and then Jenny took her cloven hoof and tripped me.”

     Gwen’s eyes lit up in a way that
could only mean something bad for someone; Jenny, if I were to make an educated
guess.  “Ok, first things, first.  That’s awesome.  I always
knew he had a major crush on you.  It’s about time he grew a set and asked
you out.”  She started looking around the lunchroom with a predatory
glare.  She was looking for Jenny.  “And second, that little bitch is
gonna be bald by the time I get done with her,” she snarled. 

     “Gwen, calm down, it’s no big
deal.  She didn’t hurt me; Alex caught me before I went splat.  She
isn’t worth getting detention.”

     Gwen smiled sweetly.  “I can
make it worth my time.”

     “How did you ever get this
blood-thirsty?  Your parents are perfectly nice people.”  I shook my
head, and chuckled weakly.  “Just let it be.  Karma has a way of
biting people like Jenny in the ass.”

     “Ok, Iz.  Whatever you
say.  I’ll just let it drop.”  I didn’t trust Gwen for a
minute.  She may let it go for now, but one day soon, there would be a
detention to be served, and Jenny would probably be bald and sorry that she
messed with me.  Gwen didn’t let anything go for long.

     “Thanks.  Are you ready to
go?”  I stood up and collected my trash on the lunch tray. 

     “Sure.” She stood up and grabbed
her own tray.  “By the way, at some point we will be discussing your date
with Alex.  I haven’t forgotten that part.”

     I rolled my eyes.  “Never
doubted it, but there’s probably not gonna be a date with Alex.  So don’t
hold your breath.”

     She smirked at me, and her eyes
danced with delight.  Uh. Oh. That look was never good. “We’ll see. 
Oh, look, there’s Alex.  See ya!”  With that, she took off for the trash
cans at high speed, leaving me alone to fend for myself. 

     Alex came up to me, smiling
easily.  He really had a great smile, but then again, his dad was the
town’s only dentist, so it wasn’t all that surprising.  “Hey, Izzy, about
this morning… I don’t want to come off as a creepy stalker, but I really would
like to take you out sometime.”  I’d gotten to class just as the bell
rang, so we never got to finish our earlier conversation, much to my relief.
Guess this was as good a time as any to finish it.

     I kept walking what was left of my
lunch over to the trash cans.  Alex slowed down to match my much shorter
stride.  He nudged my shoulder playfully, trying to get my
attention.  I was pretty sure every set of eyes in the cafeteria were
trained on us in open disbelief.  I hated being put on the spot about
anything.  It made me incredibly uncomfortable.

     I don’t know why I was so
suspicious of him; I just kept flashing on the book,
Carrie
, by Stephen
King.  The prom king just doesn’t up and ask out the nerdy girl for purely
simple, good-hearted reasons.  There are always dire consequences for the
nerdy girl.  Alex was a good guy, though, I knew that.  I just had a
nasty, suspicious mind.

     I dumped my trash and set the black
plastic tray down on the table next to the trash cans.  I turned on
Alex.  “Maybe,” I said, decisively.

     He looked like he’d swallowed a
bug; his eyes widened, and his brows lifted towards his hairline.  I
guessed he thought I’d fall all over myself with gratitude.  He thought
wrong. “Maybe?”  He sort of paled a little bit, which took the golden tan
shade, left over from last summer, down a notch. “Why, maybe?”

     “Well, it depends on why you want
to go out with me, Alex.”

     “Why wouldn’t I?”  He looked
legitimately confused.  I almost felt sorry for him.  Almost, but not
quite.

     I started back towards the
lockers.  There really was no private place to have this conversation, but
I figured if we kept moving, the gossips would only get part of the
story.  “Why, all of a sudden, half-way through senior year, would you ask
me out?”

     He chuckled weakly. 
“Sometimes I forget how blunt you can be.” He turned sad, puppy dog eyes on me,
and I kind of felt like a bitch, but it had to be said.  “Look, Izzy, I’ve
liked you for a really long time.”  He drew a deep breath before
continuing. “When I heard about your accident, I realized that I might never
get the chance to tell you that.  So I am, now.  And I didn’t tell
you before, because I thought you’d shoot me down, and I didn’t want you to
tell me ‘no.’”

     I almost stopped walking. Now I
really felt like a heartless bitch.  “You’ve dated a lot of girls,
Alex.  Lots and lots of girls.  What difference does it make if one
more says ‘no’?”

     He shrugged.  “It didn’t
matter if they shot me down; it matters if
you
do.”  Aww.  That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

     I was about to open my mouth and
say ‘yes’ when Gwen popped up behind us.  “She’d love to, Alex.  What
time will you be picking her up?  Better yet, bring a friend, and we can
double date.”  I rolled my eyes.  If I didn’t love her so much I
would have killed her.

***

     I went over to Gwen’s house after
school.  My dad was working late at the restaurant again, and he could
pick up something for supper there.  I liked Gwen’s family. Her dad,
Timothy, always reminded me of the Nutty Professor and her mom, Missy, had
practically adopted me the first day she’d met me, many years ago.  Her
little brother James was a pain in the butt, but kind of cute, too, for a five
year old.  Going home with Gwen was better than going home to an empty
house, any day.

    Missy, was sitting on the front porch
steps when we got there, up to her elbows in a gutted pumpkin.  James
grinned from ear to ear as he dipped pumpkin guts out of his own pumpkin, and
dumped them into the open trash bag lying between them.  He waved at us
excitedly, orange goo and pumpkin seeds clinging to his small hands. 

     “Do you guys want to make jackal
lanterns with us?”

     Gwen scrubbed his fine blonde hair.
“That’s Jack O’ lanterns, squirt.”

     “Izzy can help me do mine.” 
He practically trembled with excitement as he handed me a small book of pumpkin
designs.  I laughed at him as I dropped my book bag on the old porch
swing.  “Pick one, Izzy. I like the witch on the second page, but we can
do one you pick.”  He looked so earnest, I couldn’t help but smile.

     “Hold on, mister.  Izzy may
not feel like carving your pumpkin.  She might want to rest.”  Gwen’s
mom tried to look stern, but she was never much of a threat and James knew
it.  He was the family baby and we all pretty much spoiled him rotten.

     He turned big blue eyes on me,
prepared to beg if he had to.  He really was incredibly cute and he
reminded me of a tiny version of Gwen.  “It’s ok, Missy, I feel fine and I
would love to help with your pumpkin, James.”  Besides, it would hardly be
Halloween without the annual carving.  James beamed a gap-toothed smile at
me as I flipped the little pattern book open.  “That witch is pretty cool.
We can do that one, if you want.”  It didn’t take much to make the little
guy happy.

     Gwen dropped her bag next to mine
and grabbed one of the half a dozen pumpkins lined up on the steps.  She
tried to be cool about it, but I could tell from the gleam in her eye she was
as excited as James about the pumpkins.  There’s just something extremely
satisfying about cutting into a pristine pumpkin on a cool fall day.

     Missy grabbed a roll of paper towels
and started wiping pumpkin guts off of her hands.  “Be right back, girls.
Don’t let Little Man get hold of the knife while I’m gone.”

     “No problem.”  I sat down next
to James and he handed me his pumpkin.  I eye-balled the inside. 
“Looks like you missed a spot or two.  Or ten.  Let me have your
scraper.”  The little plastic pumpkin scrapers that came in the carving
kits usually broke.  Missy found out years ago, that ice cream scoops are
great at thinning the pumpkin walls, and getting the seeds and stringers
out.  I got to work thinning the walls out while James continued pulling
the guts out for me, every so often.  The kid was wild about pumpkin guts.

     I looked up a few minutes later as
the screen door slammed shut behind us.  Missy came out with a pitcher of
spiced apple cider and four glasses.  The woman thought of everything.
Seriously.  “How much homework do you two have tonight?”  She started
pouring cider out for us and set mine down next to James.  The scent of the
cider made my mouth water.

     I wiped my hands off on the paper
towel James handed me. I got them clean enough the glass wouldn’t slip through
my fingers, at least.  Steam floated up in the cool fall air. 
 I blew on the cider and inhaled deeply.  Mmmm…cinnamon and apples. “Thanks.”
A tiny sip warmed me all the way to my toes.  “I don’t have much homework
tonight.  A book report for English, but that won’t take long.  I’ve
read “Jane Eyre” about a dozen times, just for fun.  What about you,
Gwen?”

     Gwen looked up from the keyhole
notch she was carving into the top of her pumpkin.  “I’m good. I had some
calculus, and a little biology due, but I got it done in study hall.” 
Gwen was so smart she literally never had to study.  She’d read the
material once and she had it forever.  I would have killed to have that
ability.  I was smart, but not all of it came easily to me.  Math
would always be my Achilles heel.

     “Great.”  Missy sat down on
the step below me and grabbed her pumpkin back up.  “In that case I’m going
to order pizzas for dinner and we can start putting the Halloween decorations
up. We only have a few weeks left before Halloween, you know.”  James
squealed and launched himself at his mother’s neck.  Sticky little hands
wrapped around her and a dozen kisses were bestowed.  Missy had a great,
tinkling laugh that made me happy every time I heard it.  I’d never known
my own mother, but I was very grateful, in moments like this one, that Gwen
shared her mom with me. 

     We worked on the pumpkins for a
couple of hours. When everyone’s hands started seriously cramping up from
maneuvering the tiny saws, we called it a night.  We didn’t get all the
pumpkins carved, but we’d made a good dent in them.  A few more days and
both sides of the steps leading up to the front porch would be lined with jack
o’lanterns and fall chrysanthemums of orange, red, and yellow.

     Missy wasn’t kidding when she said
we would “start” putting decorations up.  She’d been collecting
decorations for the entire twenty years she’d been married to Gwen’s dad. 
They literally had skeletons in their closet; at least the closet under the
stairs.  It was crammed full of ghosts, ghouls, witches; you name it.
 Just dragging all of the totes full of decorations out was a big job.
  I felt fine, but Gwen insisted on doing most of the work.  I
thought about telling her I wasn’t hurt anymore, but I couldn’t think of a good
explanation for why I wasn’t hurt. Also, I still owed her for the whole
embarrassing scene with Alex, earlier. So I took it easy. Instead, I took small
breaks when Missy insisted, and avoided picking up anything heavy when they
were watching me.  I felt like a total sham.  Not to mention, a freak
of nature.

     We put James in charge of the fake
spider webs while Gwen and I started unravelling the giant tangle of orange
lights.  I love decorating for Halloween, but the light ball was always a
nightmare.  We ended up just laying each strand out across the yard as we
went.  Once we got all the strings untangled we started testing the lights
on an extension cord.  We got lucky. There were no burned out bulbs to
replace, this year.  We declared them good to go, and James ran inside to
drag his dad away from his home office.  Timothy popped his head out the
door reluctantly, like an unhappy turtle coming out of his shell.  He was
always happiest with his laptop, but even he wasn’t immune to the Halloween
craze at the Rose house.

     Missy looked like a tiny, blonde
drill sergeant pointing out where Timothy needed to hang the lights up. 
Wrapping the porch pillars proved a little tricky but between the four of us,
we managed it. Not that they allowed me to do much more than keep the lights
untangled as they wrapped, but it was better than nothing.  By the time we
finished, the pizza delivery guy was pulling up in front of the house, and we
were all getting tired.  Even little James looked pitiful as he dragged a
huge wad of fake spider web around the yard looking for something to stretch it
over. 

     He had done his level-best to haunt
the yard.  Trees, shrubs, even the mail box had thick chunks of spider web
draped over them.  We would have to go back behind him and stretch all of
it out, preferably when he wasn’t looking.  There is a fine line between
spooky spider webs, and looking like a sofa exploded on the yard.  James
hadn’t learned where that line was yet, but his enthusiasm was boundless, and
we weren’t about to discourage him.