A Faerie's Secret (Creepy Hollow Book 4) (2 page)

I drop the butterfly blossom and smile as I take the box from him. “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

“Yeah, well, I’m making up for last year.”

With nervous anticipation fluttering like sprites in my stomach, I carefully lift the lid and push it back. Sitting on the cushioned interior, attached to a gold chain, is a delicate metal lily with a pearl at its center.

“It’s a calla lily,” Zed says. “Since, you know, that’s where your name comes from. And I picked the gold one because it matches your look. The gold hair and eyes, you know.”

“It’s beautiful,” I breathe.

“So you like it? I’m usually pretty terrible with girl gifts, but I had help with this one.”

I beam at him. “I love it.”

He grins back at me with a smile I know better than my own. A smile that has the power to turn my insides to liquid. His blue-green eyes move across my face, and I wonder, yet again, if he ever feels the way I feel. With his eyes staring into mine, I can almost imagine he does. And this gift is the most thoughtful gift he’s ever given me. It must mean something.

I take a step closer to him as blood pumps faster through my veins. I’ve never been brave enough to do this before. I’ve always respected the distance our student-instructor relationship required. But I’m seventeen now. I’m basically an adult. What reason is there for me to hold back?

The nerves in my stomach give one final lurch as I rise onto my toes and press my lips against his. My eyelids slide closed. His hands grip my shoulders—

But instead of pulling me closer, he pushes me a step back. “Whoa, Calla, hang on.” He shakes his head slowly, giving me a wary look.

Oh shoot.
My eyes fall to the ground as embarrassment heats my face. “Um … I …”

“Look, it’s not that you aren’t … I mean, you’re beautiful. You’re an amazing girl. You’re just … so much younger than I am.”

I look up, managing to meet his gaze despite my humiliation. “There are only thirteen years between us.”

“Exactly. That’s a huge difference when—”

“My mother is thirty-eight years older than my father. It makes no difference to them or anyone else.”

He hesitates, then says, “Faeries live for centuries. Decades mean nothing to us. We both know that. But when you’re still growing up, thirteen years
is
a significant difference.”

My gaze returns to the ground. “So you still see me as a child.”

“Well … you
are
still a child.”

I snap the small jewelry box shut and clench my hand around it. “I’m not a—”

“I have a girlfriend,” he blurts out.

My breath catches. “What?” I whisper.

“She helped me choose your birthday present. She thought you’d really like—”

“Oh my goodness.” I stride past him with my eyes still fixed on the ground. This is utterly mortifying. Of
course
Zed has a girlfriend. What on earth possessed me to think kissing him was a good idea? In what realm could that
possibly
have ended well?

“Calla, I’m really sorry,” he calls after me. “I don’t want to hurt you, I just—”

“Good night, Zed,” I shout without looking back. I stop in front of my tree and bend to retrieve my stylus from my sock. Before Zed can say anything else, I scribble a doorway onto the bark and hurry inside.

I run upstairs and fall onto my bed. Throwing stars attached to the inside of my jacket poke into my chest. I sit up, pull them all out, toss them into my bedside drawer, and flop back onto the bed.

I’ll never be a real guardian.

I’ll never have their sparkling magical weapons.

I’ll never have their defining marks on my wrists.

And I’ll never have Zed.

Despite the fact that he just rejected me, my stupid brain imagines Zed finding a way into my house, coming into my room, and confessing that he doesn’t actually have a girlfriend. He loves me desperately, but there’s some other reason he thinks we can’t be together, so he made that story up.

My mental wall cracks, and, for a moment, I actually see him walking through the door into my bedroom.

“Ugh!” I squeeze my eyes shut and smack my fists against my forehead. I imagine the wall. I see the hole my crumbling emotional state has created. I push a brick into the hole. Another brick. And another. I fill up the tiny gaps with magical, imaginary cement.

When I open my eyes, Zed isn’t there.

A noise downstairs signals my mother’s return from work. Surprised, I adjust my position and pull my amber from my back pocket so I can check the time. The shiny, rectangular device is so thin I’m surprised I haven’t snapped it in half by sitting on it. It’s the latest of its kind; a birthday present from my parents. It’s compatible with all the latest social spells, but that isn’t why I wanted it. I wanted it for the art spell that allows me to draw and paint with my stylus or fingers and then transfer the image to canvas later on. It means I can create art whenever inspiration strikes, even if I don’t have a sketchbook with me.

I touch my thumb to the amber’s surface. Gold numbers swim into view. Just as I suspected, it’s too early for Mom to be home. Tuesdays are 6 pm days, so technically she’s still got twenty-three minutes of work left. And technicalities are something Mom pays great attention to.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand.
Forget about Zed. Forget about secret training. Forget about how unfair it is that your brother gets to be a guardian and you don’t.
I head out of my room toward the stairs, twisting a lock of golden hair around my finger. Whatever the reason for Mom’s early return from work, I’m glad it happened after I got home. She would have freaked if—

I stop.

At the foot of the stairs is a man I don’t recognize. A man in a dark, hooded coat that reaches his knees. A man with a long scar marring his left cheek. A man raising a knife.

And looking directly at me.

CHAPTER

TWO

The knife flies straight at me. I jerk to the side instinctively, and it zings past my ear. The man raises an eyebrow. “Nice reflexes,” he says. “But can you dodge this?” Red sparks sizzle through the air and strike my chest, throwing me back against the wall outside my bedroom. Momentarily stunned, I crumple onto the floor. Blinking, I look down at the singed hole in my T-shirt. If it weren’t for the protective vest I wear beneath my clothes whenever I go out with Zed, my skin would be as burned as the T-shirt.

Footsteps sound on the stairs. My heart thunders in my chest. My lungs struggle to find breath. I close my eyes, playing dead while I gather power. “You know, it’s a shame I have to get rid of you,” the man calls as he climbs the staircase. “You are exceptionally pretty. Have you been told that before?” His footsteps stop.

I crack my eyelids open and see him standing by my feet. I pull my leg back and kick his shin as hard as I can, grunting out, “Many times. Mostly by jerks like you.” I spring to my feet, throw a conjured-up splatter of paint in his face, and dash down the stairs.

His cry of pain is short and followed by a string of curse words. I reach the living room and run to the other side, hoping to make it out before the man gets downstairs. But a loud thump makes me swing around before I can open a doorway. He must have jumped from the top to the bottom in a single leap, because there he stands, his hood fallen back to reveal his smirking face.

I can
’
t get away
, I realize suddenly. The thought is followed almost instantly by another:
Why do I
want
to get away?
I want to fight bad guys and now there’s one standing in my living room. When am I going to get another opportunity like this?

“Remember when I said I have to get rid of you?” the man says. “Unfortunately, I meant that.”

I don
’
t think so.
Magic glitters above my palms. The sparks transform into angry, winged insects, which zoom toward the man and swarm around his head while I gather more power in my hands. I’ve only stunned someone once before, and it’s about time I tried again.

A strong gale sweeps the insects aside before I’m ready. They vanish as I duck behind a couch, a ball of magic swirling above my hands.

“You’re not what I was expecting,” the man says, sounding almost amused.

“Were you expecting to get your ass kicked?” I ask, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. “Because that’s what’s about to happen.”

He laughs. “Definitely not what I was expecting.”

I jump up and throw my hands out toward the man. But instead of stunning him, my magic hits the invisible shield I now realize is hanging in the air in front of him. Magic rebounds in all directions, sizzling one of my framed artworks, knocking an umbrella off the coat stand behind me, and smashing a glass lampshade. I drop down behind the couch again. “Shoot,” I murmur. Mom is going to flip her lid.

Footsteps approach the couch. I clench my fists as I think of how useful guardian weapons would be right now. Even a simple throwing star would help. If only I hadn’t removed every single one from my jacket less than five minutes ago. “Tired yet?” the man asks as he appears beside the couch.

I grab the fallen umbrella, hook it around his ankle, and yank. He goes down with a grunt. I jump up and bring the umbrella down fast toward his head. His hand snaps up, catches the umbrella before it strikes him, and twists it out of my grip. He throws it at me, but I duck down and it sails over my head. He rolls onto his side and pushes himself up, then kicks at me. I dodge backward and sweep my hand out toward the broken lampshade. Glass shards rise into the air and whizz toward the man. A flick of his hand turns the glass to dust. He pulls a piece of rope from the inside of his coat. Another flick, and the rope is a vine-like whip, curling toward me. I pull my arm out of the way just in time, feeling the sting of the whip’s end as it snaps against my skin.

“Missed me,” I say as I dance further out of reach.

The man lets out a breathless laugh. “Tamaria clearly didn’t know what she was talking about when she said this would be easy.” He snaps the whip once more, and flames blaze into existence along its length. “And
you
didn’t know what you were talking about when you said you’d kick my ass, because I’m about to wipe the floor with yours.”

Before the flames can reach me, I leap onto the back of the couch, jump into the air, somersault over the coffee table, and land on the other side. I spin around, drop down to use the coffee table as a shield—and see my mother standing in a doorway behind the man. Her features are frozen in a mask of shock.

Realizing there’s someone behind him, the man swings around. He hesitates a moment, then runs at Mom.

“No!” I jump back over the table, onto the puffy couch cushions, and launch myself at the man. I land on his back, and the two of us fall to the ground while Mom shrieks unintelligible words. He tries to elbow me, but I catch his wrist and twist his arm backward. I lean all my weight on it. He cries out and attempts to roll over, but with one arm pinned behind his back, and my body weighing him down, he can’t get enough leverage.

Still lying on top of him, I reach forward with my free hand and grasp his whip, which is an ordinary rope once again. I wrap the rope around his pinned-back arm, but when I try to get hold of his free arm, I find a knife glinting in his grip. I jerk back with a cry as he slashes blindly behind him.

“Calla!”

I look up at the sound of my father’s voice.

Taking advantage of my distraction, the man throws me off his back. He leaps to his feet, dodges the sparks Dad throws at him, and dashes across the living room. In seconds, he’s up the stairs. Dad shouts and follows after him. I jump up, all set to go after Dad, but Mom wraps her arms tightly around me and gasps, “You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re okay.” Her wispy blond hair tickles my cheek as I try to see over her shoulder and up the stairs.

“He’s gone,” Dad says, hurrying back down the staircase. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Mom asks, her shaking hands fluttering near my singed T-shirt before rising to touch my face. “He had a knife. Are you sure you’re not … and how did you …” She frowns, her yellow eyes filling with confusion. “You were fighting him. The somersault. Leaping over the couch. Tackling him and pinning him down. How did you do that?”

I bite my lip and stare at the floor.
What do I say, what do I say?

Dad places a hand on my shoulder. “Calla? What’s going on?”

Realizing there’s no way out of this other than the truth, I stand straighter, lift my eyes, and look first at Dad, then at Mom. “I want to be a guardian.”

Mom lets out a half-sigh, half-wimper. “Calla, not this again—”

“It’s what I want!”

“It’s
too dangerous
,” Mom wails. “We almost lost you once, and I won’t go through that again.”

“I already know how to fight, Mom. I’ve been training privately.”

“You’ve been
what
?” Dad says.

“Training. Learning how to fight. To defend myself and protect others.”