Scary Cool (The Spellspinners) (6 page)

I waved my hand in a grand gesture. “
Fire when ready.”

The air between us thickened with Lance’s intensity. This mattered to him. A lot. And he was afraid that whatever he was about to tell me would tick me off.
But
he really, really needed me to hear him.
So he was choosing his words carefully.

His eyes gleamed greenly as he leaned forward, drawing me in.
“Zara. They’re coming for you.
”

A chill wind tugged at my hair and set little pieces of trash in the parking lot skittering across the asphalt.
I reached past Lance’s words and into his mind. He was afraid for me. Lance being Lance, was also worried about his own hide. But the concern
for me
was genuine. He wasn’t just trying to yank my chain, or exert his power. He wasn’t even particularly interested in hiding stuff from me.

“Who’s co
ming for me
?”

I already knew the answer, of course. My unknown kin, the
spellspinners
, were coming for
me.

He heard my unspoken thought and nodded. “It’s not just Amber. Rune’s here, too. And believe me, three
spellspinners
in the same town—four, counting you—is a very big deal. There’s not that many of us, and
we don’t hang out.”

“But
why?”
I pounded my fist on the metal table in frustration. “Why can’t you all just leave me alone? I’m no threat to anybody.”

A
nger
sparkled in his eyes
. “You’re a threat to all of us.
You’re a threat to yourself.
And you don’t even know it.” He raked his hand through his hair and sighed. “What’ll I do with you?” he muttered, shaking his head.
“
We’ve got
wholesoul
and I still can’t get through to you.”

“
Wholesoul
isn’t everything
,” I said tartly.
“Just because I read you loud and clear doesn’t mean I agree with you.”

“You hear me, but you don’t listen.”
He leapt lightly down from the table, a panther move, so he could pace. “You need to get serious about this. You’re a
spellspinner
. Be a
spellspinner
.”

So basically, the message was old,
although
the attitude was new.
I curbed my instinct to tell him off, and tried to appreciate his sincerity.

“No thanks,” I said. But politely. “
How many times are we going to have this conversation, Lance?
I get to choose my life. Not you. Not
Amber.
”
I couldn’t keep the
attitude
out of my voice when I said her name. “I’m finishing high school. Then we’ll talk.”

“
You’re fighting it. But it’s your destiny.
It’s your nature.
So s
top fighting it.”

“And do what? Exactly.”

A crooked smile softened the corners of his mouth
and he stopped pacing
.
My heartbeat spe
d up.
“Come with me.
” He
reached out his hand, inviting me to take it.

I had to fight to keep my hands jammed in my jacket pockets. The boy is gorgeous. Have I mentioned that the boy is gorgeous? And he’s more than that, I realized, staring at his hand, so long and strong and pale, the masculine mirror-image of my own. He is
the yang to my yin. My counterpart.

My destiny.

I felt a longing that nearly brought tears to my eyes.

But I didn’t trust it. I gritted my teeth and looked away, forcing myself to breathe evenly. “Whatever mind
games you are playing, you can stop right now.”

“No games.” His voice was soft. “I won’t hurt you again, Zara. My word on it.
I’m here to protect you.”
If I can.

“From what?”

He
reached for the word,
found it, and weighed it carefully before he said it aloud. He didn’t give it voice until he was sure the word he’d chosen was
the
right
one
.
This
made it all the more chilling when he said, “Destruction.”

Meg
has her own take on things.
When I confided the night’s exper
iences to her in the clear light of morning
, she waggled her fingers and popped her eyes and said, “
Ooooh
, scary!”

There’s nothing like a healthy dose of Meg’s
mockery
to make me feel better.

“You don’t think I should take it seriously? I think he was serious. And, you know, he did say ‘destruction.’ Don’t you think—“

“Come on,” she said. “We’re
gonna
be late.”

I reflected, as I hopped on my Schwinn and sailed down Meg’s driveway, that I hadn’t had time to tell her everything.
I hadn’t mentioned Amber, for example.
So it’s possible she was making light of it without having enough information. But
it still cheered me up, because
on the whole,
Meggie’s
snap judgments turn out to be right.

Except, of course, when she falls in love.

And today happened to be the day when Meg fell in love
. Or maybe I should say,
one
of the days when Meg fell in love.

I don’t want to sound cynical or anything, but Meg falls in love on a fairly regular basis. And she tends to fall for boys who never look twice at her.
She’s making progress, though. The Justin
Bieber
thing was just ridiculous, and falling for Lance Donovan wasn’t much better—although
at least he was in her world
, which was an improvement—but until she crushes on a boy who finds
her
interesting, she’s going to spend way too many
Saturday
nights
drinking
marshmallow
cocoa and
writing
sad
poe
ms
.

Anyway, we were
passing the alfalfa field about a half mile from
Cherry Glen High
when the chain came off Megan’s bike.
She
almost crashed, which was alarming
, but we managed to stop at the side of the road like good little
troopers
to survey the damage.

“Rats,” said Megan glumly.

“Can’t you fix it?”

“Yeah,
I can fix it. B
ut it’s jammed, so I’m about to get my hands
dirty. Do you have a Wet Wipe or anything?”

“No, but …” I leaned closer so I could whisper. “I’d better not fix the chain for you because somebody
driving by
might see it happen.
So you should do it yourself.
But who’s going to notice if the grease on your hands disappears?”

“You can do that?”

“Sure.”

“What if you miss?”

“What do you mean, ‘miss’? How could I miss? You’re standing right here.”

“Yeah, but what if you take off a couple layers of my skin? That could be totally painful.”

“It’s not like that.” I struggled to explain. “It’s not the same as physically scraping at the grease. It’s more like—I don’t know—“

Just then, a beat
-up
convertible
jeep-like
thingamajig
pulled
over in front of us. It was totally open to the air, so we immediately shut up. Besides, we were surprised.

The
boy
behind the wheel turned off the engine and
vaulted
out—the driver’s side door was bashed in and tied to the frame with steel wire. “Hi,” he said. “You need help?”

“Not really,” I said—at the same time Megan said, “Yes. Yes, we do.”

He strolled back to us, eyeing Meg’s cruiser. He
looked like the kind of
boy
who knows how to fix stuff. I’m not sure why this is, but with some people you can tell just by looking at them that they’re
exactly the person
you want
to have
around
when the chain comes off your bike.

He wasn’t very tall, but he looked bright. Maybe it was the glasses. They gave him sort of a Harry
Potterish
appeal. Anyway, he told me to hold the handlebars and Meg to hold the back wheel, and he squatted down and gave it a look. Then he stood up and shook his head. “I can put it back on for you, but it’s
gonna
give you more trouble.
You’ve go
t an issue with the sprocket spacing
—see?” He pointed. “You might need a new chain.”

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he was pointing to. I bet Meg couldn’t, either, but we both looked anyway.

Meg bit her lip. “So what should I do? Can I ride it as far as St. Francis?”

“You could try, but I
dunno
. I think you should let me give you a lift.
We can put your bike
in the back of my jeep.” He looked apologetically at me. “It’s just a two-seater, though.”

I shrugged. “No problem. My bike’s fine, and I’m only going as far as CGH.”

“My name’s Alvin, by the way.”

I almost said,
no way
,
but caught myself in time. I mea
n, honestly. Who names their son
after a cartoon chipmunk?

“I’m Megan, and this is Zara,” said Meg, and she started thanking him
,
and marveling at the fact that he stopped
,
and
basically gushing like she just won the lottery
while Alvin lifted her bike like it weighed nothing at all and popped it in the back of his strange-looking vehicle. While his back was turned, she made a crazy face at me and mouthed, ‘Can you believe this!’

I had to grin. It isn’t every day that Meg gets driven to school by a real, live boy. And in an open-air two-seater, yet, so everybody could witness this miracle and be suitably impressed.

So Alvin and Megan roared away in his banged-up jeep and I glided off on my Schwinn, pedaling alone through the pearly light of morning past the last couple of fields on
this side of Cherry Glen High.

When I arrived,
buses were stacked like a long line of Twinkies in front of the admin buil
ding, disgorging my fellow classmates. Buses are how most people get to school because CGH is what they call a “rural hub” school. It’s pretty upscale, but it’s also in the middle of nowhere—a weird combination, I guess
, but it’s because the
population here is
all
spread
out,
over a huge area of vineyards, wineries, family farms and “
ranchettes
.”

Ranchettes
are a fairly recent invention.
They’re not ranches by any stretch of the imagination.
Ranchettes
belong to
rich city people who left thei
r rich city lives and
moved to the proverbial
“nice little place in the country.” These people are totally not farmers. They just want to live in the country
so they can see trees
and breathe fresh air. You can’t blame them, I suppose
, but they
are so far out of their element it’s laughable
.
Their
snooty
kids form the upper echelon at Cherry Glen High—the kids who call me “Spook” behind my back and think I don’t know it.

I parked my cruiser and watched them for a minute. Athletes and cheerleaders, student government politicos-in-training, all the kids you just knew were going to be bankers or realtors or
corporate drones
someday. I think it’s a big mistake to enjoy high school too much. These kids were going to remember CGH as the highlight of their existence, before their rich parents lowered the boom on them and reality set in. And come on, how sad is that? Who wants to peak at sixteen?

“Yeah,” said Lance,
at my elbow. “That would bite
.”

I managed not to jump. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” I told him. “And eavesdropping is rude.”

“Then don’t think so loud.”

He was wearing the
leather
jacket from last night. It looked
just
as good in daylight. And so did he.