Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) (20 page)

“Not this
spellspinner
.” I jammed my hands further into my pockets.
“Nobody knows who my parents were. I could have been born anywhere. To anyone.”
I tucked my newborn suspicions about my origin away quickly, before he could glimpse them.
“They can’t send me there by force, can they? I mean, if I haven’t been there, I can’t
skatch
. And you can’t
skatch
another person—can you?”

Lance
frowned at his fingernails, thinking
. “
It wouldn’t be easy
. Not if you’ve really never been there. Plus it’s taboo—forcing another
spellspinner
like that.”

He looked uncomfortable. As well he should. We both knew he had
forcibly
skatched
me once. It’s part of why I banished him.

“Uh-huh,” I said drily. “I can see that it would be. So n
o trip to
Spellhaven
for me.”

I felt something kind of funny in Lance’s emotions. It took me a second to realize he was embarrassed
—and only partly because he didn’t like remembering that day when he tried to
zombify
me
. “Actually, Zara, I was wrong about something I told you.
” He gave me an apologetic half-smile.
“
I thought none of us knows where
Spellhaven
is.
G
eographically.
Turns out the Council knows. And Rune.”
Rune knows a lot of things
most of us don’t know.

“
But
there
are
no roads?”

“Right. You
normally
get there by
skatching
, so
it’
s inaccessible to
sticks
. But in a pinch, Rune could get you there cross-country.”

This puzzled me. “If I
can get there cross-country
, why couldn’t a stick?”

“
T
here are
chasms and
rivers to cross
. But if Rune can take
you where you can see across the chasm, you can
use your powers. Either throw up a temporary bridge—which is what the Council does when they carry you to the mainland—or
hold onto Rune and
skatch
across.
Spellspinners
can get in or out. Sticks can’t.
”

Interesting. I hadn’
t considered
that the ability to
skatch
to a place you
can
see would enab
le you to travel
pretty much anywhere
by short hops.
Until you came to an ocean.

Which
made me think of something. “Hey. Doesn’t that
rule
make our shield no good? If
spellspinners
can
skatch
to a place they can see, even if they haven’t been there before, why can’t they walk up to our shield, look through it, and
skatch
to the other side?”

Lance almost laughed. “You
might be able to
do that, but you’d be the only one. Remember the banishment you put on me? I couldn’t even
skatch
to the park, once you were there. The shield is going to work like that.
Spellspinners
can walk up, look through, and try to
skatch
. But nothing will happen.
Except for you.
”
He shot me a sly look. “And maybe me, babe. Once you lift this crazy curse you’ve got on me.”

“Are you
sure
they can’t
?”

“Positive.
Remember, seeing through to the other side of the shield isn’t enough. They would have to be touching one of us. Touching someone who’s been there.
”

I blew my breath out in a sigh. “It’s
a lot to process,” I told him.
“And I don’
t know why everybody’s
so hot to get me to
Spellhaven
anyway.”

“They want to get you someplace safe. So they can talk to you.” I heard the wry emphasis he put on the word
talk
.

“
They could
talk to me in Cherry Glen.”

“They could,” he agreed. “But they won’t.
Whatever they decide will need the consent of all of us. And t
he only place the Council will gather all of us is
Spellhaven
.”

I got up and moved restlessly around the room, thinking—and blocking Lance. Rune was obviously the guy to talk to. Lance knew a lot, but Rune knew more. And some of the things Lance told me didn’t add up.
Something told me Rune’s stories would have fewer holes.

Unfortunately, Rune wasn’t exactly in my corner.

And, come to think of it—whatever the future holds for me and Lance—at this point I wasn’t a hundred percent certain he was in my corner, either.
We are so
freaking
different.

Ah—I hadn’t meant to send that out, but I did. I felt him catching it. And it annoyed him, naturally, which is why I hadn’t meant to send it out.

I was over by the windows at this point, so I turned to face him and leaned back against the sill. “Sorry,” I said.
“But you’ve said it yourself.”
I hope I didn’t sound snippy, but maybe I did.

“You’ll come around,” he said. “Once you accept who you are.”

“Lance.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Remember the night you taught me to
skatch
? You took me to the mall
when it was closed
. And you told me
spellspinners
don’t shop, they steal.”

He looked pained. “I never said—”

“It’s what you meant. You think the rules don’t apply to
spellspinners
. You think right and wrong are for sticks.” I leaned forward. “I am
never
going to
think
that.”

I was getting emotional. Rats. The hotter under the collar I got, the cooler Lance would get. Because he thought emotions were for sticks, too.

He answered my thoughts instead of my words.
“
Stick rules don’t apply. That doesn’t mean there are no rules.
We
have rules too.
Different
rules
.”

Another car went past. The headlights swung through
the room
,
spotlighting
our standoff, throwing my shadow up on the wall. I remained motionless, tensed by the window, but my shadow chased Lance’s, crazily racing left to right, then
vanishing into darkness again.

In the darkness, Lance came closer. “Zara.” His mind reached for mine. I closed it like a fist.
“Zara,” he repeated softly. “It’s not a bad thing to be a
spellspinner
. You don’t have to…renounce your humanity.
It’s not so much that we’re
other.
It’s more like…” He was searching for words. “Extra.
Not
other.”

“Extra.” I tried the idea on. It didn’t quite fit. “Yeah,
spellspinners
have something extra. But you have something less, too.” I flung my arms out, indicating the room. The school. The town. The world. My emotions were too large to express. “You’
ve given up a lot
, to live the way you do. And you’ve never had it, so you don’t know what you’re missing. I’ve had it. I can’t give it up.”

I had to let him in, now, to
show him
what I meant.
So
I sent him images. They were so personal, it was hard for me to share them…but they were all I
had, to
explain
what I meant.

I let him see how it
felt
as well as how it looked, to have a best friend. A home.
My
home
in particular
.
And
Nonny
—
the
name I gave as a
toddler to a woman who
said
she
was ‘
not-mommy.
’

I sent him
way it feels when school lets out for summer vacation.
The view from my bedroom window.
T
he
smell
of breakfast waf
ting up the stairs as I snuggle
beneath my q
uilt, listening to
Nonny
sing
her stupid show tunes in the kitchen.
I sent him
Meg and me, laughing ourselves sick
at a private joke. The
scent
of furniture polish in the parlor.
F
inches hopping around in my peach tree.
The creak of the porch swing. Chapman Road spinnin
g out beneath my bicycle tires.

I sent him
Christmas morning.

I got that far and had to stop. My
eyes were wet and my throat felt tight. My
emotions had reached Lance, but he was trying to keep them at a distance. He pushed them away far enough so he could examine them. I felt a wavering little smile twisting my features. “You can’t understand that way,” I told him. “You have to feel what I’m feeling, to get it. But I know you’re not comfortable with that.”

“I get it,” he said. His voice was barely audible. “You’ve been lucky, I think. Lucky to have what you have.”

I nodded. “Yes.” He was right. I was lucky by
any measure. Because my life is
amaz
ing. Simple, but abundant. I  have everything that matters, everything that makes
a human life worth living.

And
I have
more. Like
Lance, I have
power.

And u
nli
ke Lance, I have
n’t had to pay a price for it. Yet.

“So you see,” I said, “that the notion of leaving all this to go off and skulk in the woods doesn’t exactly appeal to me.”

Silent laughter shook him. “Skulking in the woods? Is that how you think we live?”

I shrugged. “You’re a bunch of loners, as far as I can tell. Islands unto yourselves. You’re all suspicious of each other, and contemptuous of
normal
people. So superior, yet so competitive. You’re a bunch of snobs, if you ask me. It’s a pretty unappealing life.”

“Compared to what you have, I guess it
seems that way
.” But Lance was grinning. “It has its compensations
, though
.”

“Whatever.” I was starting to feel cross. “So
tell me again. H
ow am I getting to school on Monday?”

“Ride your bike to the meadow and ditch it in the grass. Then
skatch
to my place and I’ll drive you.
In a car.”

I noticed he didn’t say ‘Rune’s car’ this time. I opened my mouth to ask him—then closed it again. No point in going there. Being Lance, he’d have a car
Monday,
one way the other.

Later I realized Lance never did finish telling me about
wholesoul
.

That boy is so distracting.

…

After I
skatched
back to my room,
I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed in the quiet house and listened to the September wind rattling the peach tree outside my window. I felt tension gathering in me, worsening by the minute. When I heard the clock downstairs strike four, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I slipped out of bed and padded downstairs.

Nonny’s
cedar chest was calling my name.

I knew where she kept the key, so retrieving the blanket was no problem. I slipped outdoors to examine the thing—in private, I told myself. But of course my bedroom would have been private. It wasn’t privacy I was after, not in my heart of hearts.

It was P
ower.

My bare feet made no sound as I crossed the cool, damp lawn and headed for the side of the house that faced the creek. I’d be invisible from the road there—just in case. And
Nonny’s
room was on the opposite side of the ho
use.

The only sound was the wind, gusting softly across the meadow, tossing my hair behind my shoulders and teasing the hem of my
sleepshirt
. I needed whatever light the moon could give me, so I couldn’t seek cover among the trees at the bottom of the meadow. No matter. My only audience would be the crickets.