Ever (7 page)

Now!

As though I had willed it, Romeo suddenly lost his balance. He swayed to one side and an escape route opened up, which I took full advantage of. I slipped under his arm and rushed outside, hearing him bellow as he fell into two Jocks making their way down the stairs.

I ended up near the gazebo, breathing hard. The drunk guy had really thrown me off. I could almost feel his nasty energy trying to sink into me. I took a cursory glance around the backyard. Val and the others were not where I had left them. I looked around wildly, spying a wooden bench just off the lighted stone path. I hurried to it and sat down, trying to disappear.

The warning buzz coming from my crystal receded into a low hum. My fingers went to the pendant; its warm pulse comforted me. The negative experience I had endured moments ago tried to hang on to me but I forced myself to blank my mind. A branch brushed against me from behind the garden bench. That same image from before came to my mind—a large tree, with an immense, red trunk, beckoned to me, a massive branch bending in welcome. It was a weird thing to think about, but it had a calming effect on me. After a few moments, I felt like I was expanding and becoming lighter.

Finally, I looked up. My mind felt clearer, my emotions more controlled. My anxiety had floated away on the night air. Now, I wanted to leave. There was no way Val or her brother was going home right now—the party was just getting started. Still, they were my only hope of leaving. Stuffing my hands in the pockets of my slim jeans, I walked toward the noise and lights. Seeing no one I knew, I groped around in my bag for my phone and tried to text Val but the reception was crap. Ugh. I should have driven myself.

There were people everywhere; socializing, drinking, smoking, dancing. I was a Nobody-slash-Loner-slash-Outcast with no group to join. There was a small seating area near the pool—maybe I would chill there until I found Val or the others. As I headed there, I spied Romeo marching directly toward me. A bright red cloud of angry energy surrounded his head, but I knew I was the only one who could see it, even though I didn’t even have to blur my eyes this time.

I rushed down the patio stairs and looked for someone I knew. I could almost feel the creep’s energy getting closer. Somehow, I knew that the red swirls signaled that he meant me harm. As I looked around frantically, there was only one person I recognized. I could tell it who he was by his blond hair. He sat with his back to me, in one of the deck chairs. The chair next to him was empty.

“Hey!” I heard Romeo call out to me. “You little bitch! You pushed me!”

Panic infused my body.
I need to hide!
Like it was orchestrated, some partygoers jostled in front of Romeo, effectively getting in his way. I raced to the empty chair by the pool and slumped down, my heart pounding. Romeo stumbled out toward the pool and I slid down lower. My chair faced the pool, so I turned the other way, to hide my face. Unfortunately, this position pointed me toward Jaren, who also threw me off kilter, but in a completely different way.

“Crap!” I swore under my breath, as Romeo got closer. I could hear him muttering drunkenly.

“So…looks like we meet again,” Jaren’s gaze was not focused on me, but over the top of my head.

I didn’t respond. I had visions of Romeo kicking my ass…or worse. He apparently thought I had pushed him, even though he had clearly tripped over his own drunken feet. I hadn’t exactly seen him trip, but I certainly hadn’t pushed a guy twice my size down the stairs. I wasn’t sure what had happened, actually, but I just wanted the guy to go away. I squeezed my eyes closed. Maybe Romeo would disappear if I couldn’t see him.

“Hey,” Jaren’s voice stole into my anxiety-ridden brain. I opened my eyes a crack. I could barely look at this guy either. I fixed my glance on his chin.

“He’s gone.”

“Wh-where did he go?” Dammit, I didn’t mean to sound like a whiny little girl!

“Headed down toward the pool house. Is he bothering you?”

“He’s wasted. I need to get out of here.” I stood up, hearing the rise of Val’s voice somewhere in the vicinity.

“Hey!” Jaren grabbed my hand as I started to turn away and again I felt a sharp jolt of something like electricity shoot from my fingers to the roots of my hair. I stifled a gasp.

“What’s your name?”

Oh, God.
What
was
my name? I was frozen again, unable to respond with the current running through me. Somehow, my name slipped from my lips in a whisper and fell over my shoulder.

“Everleigh,” he repeated. “It suits you.”

When my name fell from his lips, I felt another ripple go through me, like a warm waterfall.

“Nice to meet you…again.”

“Uh huh,” I muttered, reeling from the onslaught of sensation. I couldn’t think at all with his hand on mine. My brain was short-circuiting. I jerked my hand back and did the same thing I always seemed to do when our paths crossed.

I ran away.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Attunements

L
ucky for me, but not for everyone else, Val was totally wasted when I finally found my group. She had apparently downed a bunch of Jell-O shots with Kamryn and some of the Jocks and was mumbling about finally being Popular. I wasn’t sure how Popular she had become, with the puke stains on the front of her new dress. Val’s brother was pretty pissed off on the way home. I guess that was the last rager we were going to with him, and I didn’t mind at all.

My mom was happy to see me get home before midnight. She’d had the evening off, and she had used the time well. I was starving for sugar, and the s’mores bars she had made hit the spot. After my binge, I sat up in bed, staring out the window at the large tree that had been there ever since I could remember. The elm swayed comfortingly in the night air. I watched it until I was lost in the rhythmic motion of the branches, and the soft whisper of its leaves. There was just something about trees lately. I was eventually lulled into a deep sleep, the image of that same red tree settled firmly in my mind.

When it was morning, I was restless. I had to get some answers…otherwise I was certain to end up in the loony bin. I wanted to find out more about trees, and color bubbles, and maybe…crazy people. Because, I was either going crazy or there was some other explanation. There was only one place I could think of to go.

Our town library was considered a historical site, despite some relatively recent renovations following a fire that had occurred when I was a lot younger. The place was still and quiet. The smell of books and the low hum of computers were soothing. I did a few halfhearted searches on crystals and wrote down a some book titles, but none of them seemed to fit what I was looking for. What was I looking for? I didn’t even know. Feeling ridiculous, I did a search on “magic” and “non-fiction.” This search led to an older, less traveled bay of bookshelves at the very back of the library.

I passed through the renovated hall into the darker, mustier section that had existed prior to the fire. I let my hand rest briefly on one of the shelves and it came away dusty. Absently, I wiped my hand on my jeans and perused the titles. I ran my finger across the book jackets and was startled to feel a little spark of energy prick my neck. My pendant felt warm again. I took a step and the sharp prickle from around my neck stopped me dead in my tracks. I turned to face the other direction and the prickle receded into a warm hum.

This way?

Oh, great. I was talking to a necklace. I took several more steps until I had passed all of the shelving and was now facing the far wall of the library. My crystal was vibrating nonstop, but I was confused. There was nothing here—just a wall.

What am I doing? Maybe I need to look into mental disorders instead of magic. Ugh.

Frustrated, I kicked at the wall and then clapped my hands over my mouth to cover up my shriek of surprise. My foot went right through the plaster and stuck there. Frantic, I yanked hard and my foot popped out, along with a rather large section of the wall.

Oh, crap. I did it again!

I couldn’t seem to go anywhere without breaking something! I dropped to my knees and examined the damage. Great. There was no fixing this. I was going to have to make a hasty escape before anyone noticed what I had done. My crystal pricked me hard as I stood up. I hesitated, pulling it out from under my shirt. In the dim recesses of the library, the light that danced in the center of the stone looked ethereal. I started to shove it back under my shirt but the palm of my hand suddenly went cold.

“What do you want?” I gasped out loud.

Two seconds later, it felt as though the pendant weighed a ton, pulling me down until I was sitting on the floor, at eye level with the hole I had created in the wall.

“Is—is there something in there?” I whispered. It no longer seemed ridiculous that I was talking to an inanimate object. The crystal warmed in response and immediately felt lighter.

Okay. I stuck my hand into the small space. The ground was dirty—I could feel dust clinging to my hand. I felt around inside the hole, feeling sillier by the minute until the tips of my fingers brushed something. It was just out of reach. I hunkered down on my belly and reached in as far as I could. My fingers were closing around the item when I heard footsteps approaching.

“Hey, it’s dark back here,” a girl giggled.

“That’s the point, baby,” a boy responded.

I pulled my arm through the hole and stuffed what felt like a small book under my shirt just as a young couple made their way to the wall.

“Come on, baby, just a kiss, okay?”

I recognized them. The boy was a Popular senior and the girl he was with was a Cheerleader. The last thing I needed was to witness their make-out session. I crawled to the nearest bookshelf and held my breath as they made their way to the exact spot I had just left. The unmistakable sounds of kissing ensued as I ran back into the main building to examine my find.

The book was small and nondescript, with no illustrations on the cover. I flipped it open and saw that there were diagrams inside that looked hand-drawn. The title read,
The Archive.
The author’s name jumped out at me the moment it registered in my brain: Sylvia Maven.

Sylvia.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. I looked inside the book but there was nothing to indicate that the book belonged to the library. I shuffled to the front desk.

“Can I help you?” the librarian, Ms. Ackerman, asked.

“Um, yeah, I mean I—I hope so,” I stuttered.

She tapped her pencil. “Well?”

“Um, I want to check out this book but there’s no bar code on it.” I said, keeping Sylvia’s book hidden beneath the desk.

“Oh, well sometimes books are donated to the library and they get onto the shelves without getting a bar code. It’s a mistake. Where is the book? I can get it assigned a code and then you can check it out.”

“The book? Oh, I mean, I’m actually not sure where it is.” For some reason, I didn’t want anyone to see the book—not yet.

Ms. Ackerman glared at me down her long pointed nose. “Young lady, are you trying to waste my time on purpose?”

“No, ma’am!” I replied. “I mean, um, I was looking for a book on the back shelves, but um, there were some kids back there doing something…” I trailed off, feeling bad for throwing Popular Senior and Cheerleader under the bus, but they shouldn’t be making out in a public library, anyway.

“Doing what, exactly?” Ms. Ackerman did not look pleased. Not at all. “Oh. My goodness.” She reached for the phone. “Security! Those kids are at it again.”

While she was distracted, I fled, my contraband tucked firmly under my shirt.

I couldn’t wait to get home to open the book so I sat in the library parking lot for a few minutes. Of course, there was no way to tell whether or not the author of
The Archive
was the same Sylvia as the one I had encountered in the Third Eye Book Shop, but the coincidence was just too much for me to ignore. There was no author’s photo in the book jacket. In fact, the book was more like a journal. There were sketches—mostly of gems, stones, trees and animals. Short descriptions accompanied each sketch.

The main written section was titled, “The Attunements.” From what I gathered, you could perform rituals to enhance your senses. Traditionally, there were five senses. Yeah, I knew about those—sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The book said that there was a sixth sense, intuition. I scanned the chapter and saw that
Artemis Vulgaris
played a role in that attunement. I must have unwittingly cranked up my intuition. I read through each attunement and when I put the book down an hour later, my hands were shaking.

She hadn’t called them attunements, but Gram had done these rituals with me when I was younger. All of them—except the one for intuition. I had done that one quite by accident.

A female child must wait for the time when her cycle aligns with the full moon. On that day, three hours prior to dusk, she will anoint her dominant palm with the essence of
vulgaris.
Allow the light of the moon to bathe the palm. Sleep. When she awakens, she will have awakened her innermost power of Knowing.