Destruction: The December People, Book One (16 page)

“Like what?” he asked with his teeth bared.

“
Small
things. Little things I’ve noticed. Like, you forgot you were allergic to strawberries.”

“I had to go to the hospital for that. Yeah, in 1995. You could have killed me.”

“I didn’t know you would forget.”

“What else?”

“Well, when the kids asked for pets, you told them you didn’t get to have a dog when you were a kid. But you did. You told me about him before the spell. A border collie mix named Max.”

“I had a dog? Max? What happened to him?”

“I’m sure he died a long time ago. Before you met me. I just remembered you mentioning him… before.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it. Really.”

“There could be more. Things I forgot that I had never told you about. Things you wouldn’t notice. Do you have any idea how upsetting that is? Who knows what I could be missing?”

“If there was anything big, I would have noticed. I knew you well both before and after the spell. I watched you very carefully. There is nothing else.”

A week later, the construction team started to fix the hole in the house. It took great willpower for David to keep from overseeing every detail of the project. His time ticked away. They planned to close Vandergraff Home Builders right before Christmas. He had to tell Amanda… he promised himself he’d tell her before Thanksgiving… or more specifically, before she drained their bank account on Black Friday.

Jude didn’t total his truck, but he lost his license. So when the vehicle came back from the shop, they put it in the garage and promised to give it to Patrick when he turned sixteen. Jude accepted his punishment of permanent grounding without complaint. David’s instinct told him that even if they un-grounded Jude, he still wouldn’t go anywhere—not that he planned to test the theory. Jude didn’t seem to want to. He became even quieter than Xavier. And, according to Emmy, he broke up with his girlfriend, the beautiful and popular Avery Mathison, who he had wanted to go out with for years. When David and Amanda sat him down to tell him he was a wizard, he said, “Yeah, I know” and refused to discuss it further. Apparently, one of the others—most certainly Emmy—had told him, even though David had asked Patrick and Emmy to let him do it.

Emmy’s happiness seemed directly related to Jude’s and went down in equal measure. Amanda seemed to have given birth to conjoined twins four years apart. Emmy stayed his most talkative child, but she had turned it down considerably and ran at only about fifty percent Emmy. David might have preferred this, since he’d asked her to dial down her volume on so many occasions, but he missed the other half of her.

Then, David got a call at his office from Coach Ward.

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” the coach said.

“No.”

“You don’t know that Jude quit the team?”

“I don’t think he did.”

“He told me this morning. He didn’t show up for practice. Came to my office right before first period and said he was quitting. He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Do you know why he might have quit?” the coach asked. “I don’t want to pry. I just want to make sure he’s okay. He has seemed off for a while. I didn’t know if anything was going on at home.”

“Well… yeah, he’s been having some problems. But I think he should keep playing football. He loves it. And he’s good at it.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. Perhaps you can talk to him. I hope this is just a lapse. I don’t need to tell you I want him back. If he needs some time to deal with personal stuff, I’m fine with that, but I need him in the play-offs. When he wants to be, he’s an excellent running back. I’ve hardly ever seen anyone so determined to get the ball across the field. And he’s fierce. I swear I once saw a defensive linesman with a hundred pounds on him just step out of his way and let him pass. It seems like half the defenders fall down when he gets within a foot of them, like he’s got a tailwind. I don’t know how he does it, but I don’t care.”

“Huh.”

The Coach had a point. Jude did have an uncanny ability to avoid getting hit. Like so many things, before David knew about magic, he hadn’t thought twice about it. He didn’t question the fact that Jude usually remained unscathed during the game. Had Jude done some kind of football magic? Or did Amanda knock over the poor boys from other teams from her spot on the bleachers?

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” the coach asked.

“Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”

“Listen, I didn’t take his name off the roster. I marked him as injured for now. I don’t want him to make a big life decision on a whim. The scouts don’t need to know about this.”

“Thank you.”

That night, when David headed toward his office-slash-bedroom, he felt a pull toward the kids’ bedrooms. He didn’t know how else to explain it, as if some extra gravity had accumulated there. A cool blue light emanated from under Emmy’s door. If he believed in such things, he might have guessed alien abduction.

He opened the door and saw the coolest thing he had ever seen. Samantha lay on the floor making white droplets of light drip upward from her palm like slow upside-down rain. Emmy sat on the bed, watching. The light droplets faded and popped when he opened the door. Darkness bathed the room again. David turned on the light.

Samantha sat up as if prepared to run. “I’m so sorry,” she spluttered. “It wasn’t serious magic. Just a little light.”

Emmy stood, ready to come to her defense.

“It was, uh… cool,” David said. “You’re a witch? I suppose I should have guessed.”

She nodded. Emmy and Samantha stared at him, perhaps waiting for a punishment. However, David was unprepared to distribute punishments for things like making light rain upside-down.

“Good night,” he said and shut their door again.

David had last seen Samantha’s parents, Penelope and Aaron Carthage, in August. He had never met any two people who could make him feel so uncomfortable so fast. He didn’t go over to their house unless he absolutely had to.

He had dropped off Emmy for a sleepover, and when the girls ran upstairs, Penelope ushered David inside. She had the body and tan of a beach volleyball player, large, but very real, breasts, and a toothpaste model’s smile. None of this really tempted David. He couldn’t call himself a one-woman man, but he certainly could call himself a two-woman man. He didn’t sleep with anything with breasts for the hell of it. But any woman that beautiful and that friendly had some inherent risks.

She welcomed him to her home as she would welcome Santa Claus bringing presents. Four thick candles burned on the coffee table. From what he could tell, each candle had a different scent, and the combination made his head spin. She picked up the first one.

“What do you think?” She put the candle right under his nose, practically singeing his nose hairs.

“It’s uh… nice.”

“Does it remind you of anything?”

“Um… vanilla?”

“No, vanilla is wrong,” she said dismissively. “Breathe deeply. Relax. What does it remind you of?”

An image of the green moss that grew behind his childhood house popped into his head. But he didn’t say it out loud because it sounded crazy.

“I really don’t know.”

She put the candle down and held up the next one.

“Try this one. What does it smell like?”

This one made his heart race and his stomach ball up into a fist. He pushed it away.

“I don’t know,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

“You reacted to that one. What did it smell like?”

“Fear,” he said.

She nodded as if he had said something normal such as ‘cinnamon’ or ‘pine trees’.

“Very interesting,” she said. “Anything else? Any images?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean. Listen, I have got to get going…”

“No, wait. Please stay. Have a drink.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on, David. Stay,” Aaron Carthage said, who had appeared through the patio door. He had dirt all over his jeans and twigs in his hair. He had a deep tan on his bare chest—and a few red patches from sunburn. His brownish red hair had become streaked with blond from too much sun.

“What have you been doing outside?” David asked. “It’s 110 degrees.”

“The heat doesn’t bother me. Good for the soul.”

Then Aaron proceeded to kiss Penelope as if he hadn’t seen her in a year. He tugged at the little knot on the back of her halter-top as if he planned to take it off right then and there. David backed toward the door.

Penelope giggled and pushed Aaron away. “Stop it. You’re making David uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine. I just have to go.”

“You have got to try Penelope’s Sangria,” Aaron said. “It’s amazing. She uses Texas peaches and Texas wine. It’s worth a taste; I promise you.”

“I made it without strawberries just for you,” she said with a pout.

Well, if she still wanted him to have a drink with her husband there, at least that must mean she didn’t intend anything inappropriate. Unless they were
both
coming on to him, an idea too distressing to consider.

“Okay,” he said, cautiously.

They looked way too pleased.

“Have a seat,” she said and pointed to their couch, a morbidly obese version of a regular couch. David sank into it so deeply, he knew he couldn’t get up quickly if he wanted to. Penelope went into the kitchen, and Aaron sat in the armchair across from him.
Personal space. That’s better.

“Smells interesting in here, huh?” Aaron asked.

“Interesting is a good way to put it,” David said.

“Smell the green candle,” he suggested.

“I can smell it from here.”

“What does it remind you of?”

“Shush,” Penelope said. “I already asked him. He doesn’t know.” She put down a tray with three glasses of candy apple red wine with bits of fruit floating in it. She handed one to David and one to her husband. To her credit, the Sangria
was
amazing. It took only a couple sips for the drink to spread warmth into all of his extremities. He felt as if he had had a two-hour massage.

“What’s in this?” he asked, putting the glass down.

“Just wine, brandy, juice, and ginger ale,” Penelope said. “Do you like it?”

“Yes. It’s delicious.”

“Drink up,” she said.

David took another sip.

“Tell me about your childhood,” Penelope said.

“Uh… like what?”

“What were your parents like?”

“Normal.”

“Normal,” she repeated, as if she’d never heard the word.

“Yeah.”

She sank back into the couch, looking defeated.

Aaron showed David a blue and green marble in the palm of his hand. “Do you know what this is?” Aaron asked.

“A marble,” David said.

Aaron dropped it into David’s hand.

“Now what is it?” he asked.

Okay. That’s enough. World’s greatest Sangria or not.

“A marble,” David said.

Aaron glanced at Penelope and shook his head. They looked at David as if
he
acted crazy.

“I really don’t think he knows,” Penelope said.

“Destruction,” Aaron said. “Has to be.”