Madly and Wolfhardt (8 page)

We stood like that—facing off across the hall, staring at one another, lost once more in a bubble of our own making—for quite some time before Jackson finally spoke.

“Looking for me, Princess?”

He said it so quietly and his voice was so low, it sounded like little more than a loud whisper.  I swallowed the cotton in my mouth before I answered.

“Actually, I was.  Where were you?”

One side of Jackson’s mouth tipped up into a quirk.

“Watching you,” he said, pushing away from the wall.  “I’m always watching you.”

I don’t know if he intended for his words to be so provocative, but they were.  The implication of what he was saying slid over me like a soothing yet tantalizing blanket of dark silk.  They caused a fine tremor to work its way down my back and fade off into my legs.

“I, uh, I needed to talk to you about Kellina.”

“What about Kellina?” he said, taking a step forward, bringing him that much closer to me.

“I saw her just a few minutes ago.  She sort of accused me of playing a joke on her.”

“A joke?”

“Yeah.  She found some daisies in the woods this morning and she thought I’d put them there as a prank after telling her Wolfhardt’s story last night.”

Jackson’s sleepy eyes became instantly more alert and I knew that wherever else his mind had been drifting, I had his full attention now.  His mind was present and accounted for.

“Tell me exactly what she said,” he commanded, unfolding his arms and putting his hands on his slim hips.

So I did. 

“I’ll have a detail of Sentinels watch the kid.  We don’t want to spook him if he’s not involved.  In the meantime, let’s do this.  Since it’s a school day, we can take a quick trip to the woods, see if your bracelet reacts in any way, and—”

“Why would it?  It should only react in the presence of the spirit, right?”

“Right, but we don’t know exactly where Wolfhardt’s spirit is.  For all we know, he might be hovering in the forest or near his descendant.  Or even
inside
his descendant.  Nothing like this has ever happened.  In all our history, Lore have only ever been caught in their original form.  We’ve never had them escape prison before.”

“But I thought you read the law?”

“I did.  And I’ve been extensively trained for this, but it’s just that there isn’t a lot of information about this situation.  Only hypotheses.”

I couldn’t help but grin.

“Ooo, good word.”

 I must’ve caught him off guard with my teasing, because he actually smiled.  It was the kind of smile that I used to see all the time, the genuine and relaxed kind.  The kind that made me feel like I could fly.

“I know, right?”

My smile grew.  I could feel it pinching the corners of my eyes as his reaction turned my insides to mush.

As quickly as it had come about, Jackson’s smile faded, almost as if he’d been slapped.  He cleared his throat and was once again all business.

“Madly, this is serious.  It’s all up to us—well, mostly you actually—and we’re very nearly flying blind.”

I sighed. 

“I know.  I’m sorry.  And you know I’ll try whatever,
do
whatever to recapture the Lore and save Atlas.”

“I know you will.  So let’s start with the woods and go from there.”

“Ok.”

“And then it’s back to school for you.  If you keep skipping, your teachers are bound to get suspicious.”

“You’re my RA.  Tell them I passed out and you had to give me mouth-to-mouth.”

When Jackson’s eyes darkened, I thought he was angry because I continued to joke.  But as I looked into the intense black of his dilated pupils, I thought I saw a quick flash of something else.  For a moment, all the air left the hallway and I was lost.

He recovered rapidly, much more rapidly than I.

“How about just going to class?  There’s an idea.”

He rolled his eyes in such an overly exasperated way that it softened the blow of his harsh and sarcastic words.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing toward the door.

As I followed him, I marveled at both the similarities and the differences between this Jackson and the one I used to know.  It was hard to believe that they could both co-exist in there, but I was more convinced than ever that they did.  I’d seen too many glimpses of the old Jackson, the one I had adored above all others.  The problem was, why did Jackson hide him from me?

The walk was brisk and quiet until we got to the mouth of the main path that led through the forest.  Jackson stopped.

“Even if she cuts straight through the woods instead of following the path, I think she’d still come out right here.”

Together, we stepped onto the path.  The air was several degrees cooler than it was out in the sunshine, but it still had that unmistakable kiss of moisture that assured me the sea was nearby.  I could smell the dark notes of the forest flora mixed with the sweet scent of jasmine, an aroma that seemed always to permeate the humid air of Slumber.

We walked forward slowly, both of us looking left and right, scanning the forest floor.  I tried to focus my attention on my wrist, on the feel of my bracelet as it touched my skin there, but a large part of all my senses were attuned to the man at my side, as they always were when Jackson was around.  It seemed as though the air between us literally crackled with awareness.  It felt dense and heavy and highly-charged, like late evening when a storm is rolling in.

As he moved beside me, I felt a tugging, as if he pulled me along with him—two magnets, drawn together and held in place by an invisible force. 

The hair on my arms stood at attention.

“There,” Jackson said, pulling me from my silent reverie.

He walked off the path a few feet and squatted.  I bent over him, looking at the half dozen daisy petals scattered through the dirt and leaves.

Jackson picked up four of the delicate drops and stood, turning toward me.  With his free hand, he took my fingers in his and laid the thin white ovals on my palm, folding my hand into a fist over them.

His hand was big and warm and I felt the contact all the way down to my core, as if his fingers touched me everywhere.

“This is something he touched.  Maybe it can help,” he said quietly, looking down into my face. 

“O-ok,” I mumbled, totally distracted by how beautiful he was.

I wanted to sigh at the picture of Jackson standing so tall and proud in front of me.  A single ray of sunshine broke through the leaves to slant across his face, making his black hair shine and his skin look like smooth, gilded steel.

“Let’s keep walking,” he said, turning and urging me forward, still holding on to me.

After a few steps, when Jackson finally released my hand, I wanted to reach out and grab it back so badly that my fingers actually tingled with it.  But I refrained.  Instead, I tried unsuccessfully to focus on anything but Jackson.

When it became clear that the forest held nothing else that was significant or noteworthy to either me or my bracelet, we circled back around. 

Even though we didn’t talk much and nothing was really happening, I was sad to see my time with Jackson come to an end.  Every day that passed seemed to further solidify that Jackson was somehow becoming a part of me, like he was the missing puzzle piece, moving snugly into place.

Once I was back at school, it wasn’t until I saw Kellina that I remembered I’d failed to ask Jackson about the wisdom of telling her the truth.  For that oversight, I spent most of the hour-long Calculus class pondering the decision.  In the end, however, I managed to convince myself that it would be better for her to know the whole story, the
real
story, than to try and keep it from her.

It was with that in mind that, later, I forced Jersey and Aidan to wait with me at the cafeteria entrance so that we could grab Kellina as soon as she came through the double doors.

“Do you think this is really the best idea, Madly?”

It was Aidan who expressed his concern as we waited.

I shrugged.

“I don’t see that we have any choice.  She’ll be safer if she knows just how serious this is.”

“Yeah, but what if she doesn’t believe you?  Or worse, what if she does, but she thinks we’re freaks and she refuses to see me anymore?”

That irritated me.

“Aidan, this is bigger than your stupid crush.  This is important.  We
have to
catch Wolfhardt so that we can try to free my parents and save Atlas.”

I saw the muscle at his jaw tick with his pique.  Aidan had very little temper, but when it got stirred up… Watch out!

“First of all, it’s not a stupid crush.  You have no idea what’s going on.”

“Actually, I think I do.”

“Oh, yeah.  And what’s that?”

“You’ve tied to her.”

Aidan looked surprised.  He obviously didn’t think I recognized the signs.  Unfortunately, I knew them all too well.  And now I knew of them firsthand.

“Well then you know it’s not a stupid crush.”

I sighed.

“I know.  I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” he agreed, looking out over my head as his ire died off.  Finally, he looked back at me, concern starting to creep into his eyes.  “You’re not mad?”

“Mad?  Why would I be mad?”

Aidan snorted.

“Because of…well, because of us.”

He was worried that I thought he’d abandoned me, left me and our future for a human.  In a way he had, but it was nothing he could control.  I had no more desire to see him bound in misery to me than I had to be bound in misery to him.  Luckily, our relationship problems were the least of our worries at the moment.  We’d have plenty of time to sort it all out later.

“It’s not like you did it on purpose,” I said consolingly.  “Besides, we’ll have plenty of time to figure all that out later.  We’ve got a planet to save first.”

Aidan took a deep breath.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me, too,” I said under my breath.

When Kellina came through the doors, we snatched her out of the crowd and took her outside to a grassy spot in the sun where we could talk privately.  The four of us sat facing each other, forming a circle.

Kellina looked around the group with a dubious eye.

“We’re not having a séance, are we?”

“Why are you a witch?  ‘Cause you’ve totally put a spell on me,” Aidan declared cheekily.

Jersey burst out laughing.

“Oh.  My.  Gosh. I can’t
believe
you just said that.  Could you
be
any cheesier?”

Aidan looked around the group, wide-eyed and innocent.

“What?  I’m man enough to totally pull that line off.”

Jersey continued to laugh.  Kellina just smiled prettily.

“Whatever,” I said.