Sing Sweet Nightingale (24 page)

Seeing that blank fear and confusion in her eyes makes my fists clench. I want to break through the barriers and wrap my hands around her demon’s throat for taking so much of her life away from her. For taking
me
away from her.

Taking a breath, I remind myself that this might be a good thing. At least this once. If she doesn’t remember me, it means she doesn’t remember slapping me Sunday either.

Over the roof of the car, I signal to K.T., forming a zero with my hand.

I talk to Dana for another minute before jogging back toward the school. I know I need to give K.T. time to work, but some crazy part of my brain wants to grab Mariella, carry her back to Horace’s, and watch over her for the next ten days—until she’s survived her eighteenth birthday.

Like I said. Crazy.

Twenty-Two

Mariella

Tuesday, September 2 – 7:49 AM

I stare at each person I pass, waiting for one to look familiar. They all do a little, but more in the way a celebrity looks familiar. Not because you know them, but because you’ve seen them before. It’s highly unlikely that I wouldn’t know
any
of these people, isn’t it? Maybe I’ve lost more than the past couple of weeks. How much of my life is missing, and how in the world am I supposed to answer that question?

How do you remember what you’ve forgotten when you don’t know what you forgot?

“Hey, Mari! Wait up!”

I turn and see a short girl in a bright red shirt hurrying toward me, her dark ponytail swinging behind her as she moves. Do I know this girl? I stare at her, waiting for something to click into place.

Then I get a flash. A memory? She’s much younger and sitting on my bed with tears running down her face.

“Mari, if Danny asks Jen out I’ll just—I’ll just
die
!” She covers her face and flops backward onto my bed.

The light from my pendant pulses and the fog grows thicker, almost drowning out the tiny golden lights entirely. Energy rolls off my necklace and the nightingale in my pocket, sinking under my skin like the crackling heat that rolls off a fire. My vision goes black as my head starts spinning.

I blink and shake my head, trying to clear it.

Wait…I was in the car. How did I get to school so fast? And why is a girl in a bright red shirt staring at me?

The feedback noise I thought I left at home rears up, and the muscles in my neck convulse as I fight the urge to cover my ears.

Oh, that can go away at
any
time. I’d totally be okay with it. Promise.

“My name is K.T.” The girl shifts, lifting the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder. It makes noises like marbles striking against each other. What does she have in there? She runs her hand over her hair, then tosses it back over her shoulder. “I came to talk to you about Hudson.”

Hudson? That name sends a spark of energy through my chest and pulls a recent memory out of the fog.

Hudson. The towering giant with the onyx-black eyes and unusually sweet smile. Mother knew him—and she expected me to know him, too—but I’ve never seen him before. Or this girl who seems to know me. I’m a stranger in a school I’ve been attending for
years
.

K.T. shrugs. “Hudson is new this year and in the honors program with us. You’ve been assigned to be his mentor.”

I’ve been
what
?

I wait for her to laugh. This has to be some screwed-up joke on the mute girl. Part of the benefit of being called “disabled” is getting out of stupid crap like playing tour guide to a new kid. Especially one as strangely appalling and appealing as Hudson.

K.T.’s not laughing. She’s not even smiling. But…I mean, she can’t be
serious
, can she?

“You’ll do it, right? It’s easier than the community service project.”

What community service project?
I shake my head, my eyebrows furrowed.

“If you haven’t served as a mentor by the end of your senior year, you have to do this extra community service project.” K.T.’s lip twitches. “It’s about thirty hours of volunteer work. And then a five-page paper about why service is so important.”

Her blue-gray eyes watch me carefully, but I’m trying to process what she said.

Thirty
hours? The paper I don’t care about. As a replacement for my participation grades in class, I’ve been doing extra papers since eighth grade. A five-page paper is nothing, but how many service-hour opportunities are there going to be that won’t expect me to talk? I’ve never looked into it, but I’m guessing not many.

“So?” K.T. asks, her patience obviously at an end. “Which one would you rather do?”

Squire an incredibly strange stranger around school for a week or track down a service project that won’t require speaking? Neither one of them will be easy. Or inviting.

K.T. laughs, but it’s not the harsh laugh of someone poking fun at me. “You already know him, so you won’t have to explain your silence. And he speaks sign language.”

Really? Huh. I guess that makes it easier. And I have to admit that she’s right, in a way. Communicating with Hudson will be a lot easier than the service project.

“Plus, he’s really cute.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me and I almost agree, remembering his smile. It doesn’t matter, though. “Cute” doesn’t cut it when I have Orane to compare everyone to. Next to my love, Hudson is no more than passable.

So, I have a choice between Hudson and community service. Given the options, Hudson is definitely the lesser of two evils.

Sighing, I nod, and K.T.’s grin spreads across her face, her eyes lighting up.

“Great! One last thing.” She pulls a piece of paper from her purse and hands it to me. “I need you to fill this out and sign the bottom. It’s the mentor contract.”

They have a
contract
? They take this way too seriously. But K.T. is standing there with a smile on her face, waiting for me to take it. Fine. Whatever. It’s a piece of paper.

I take the sheet and the pen she’s holding, lean against the closest locker, and fill in my name and the dates I agree to mentor Hudson at the top. A week, K.T. said. Tuesday to Tuesday. At the bottom, I sign with my wide, loopy signature and pass the paper back to K.T.

“Thanks, Mari!” She raises her eyebrows. “Guess we should go find Hudson, huh?”

I gesture for her to lead the way. It doesn’t take very long for me to notice there’s not much “finding” involved. She heads straight for the corner of the school where Hudson is waiting like she’s tracking a homing beacon.

“Hey, Hudson! Mari is going to show you around this week, all right?” She glances up at Hudson, and it’s like she’s trying to tell him something without talking.

Standing between the two of them, the feedback shifts, getting higher-pitched and transforming into something a lot more pleasant. It sounds like high C on Mother’s piano.

Then K.T. spins around and skips off down the hallway. “See you guys in class!”

The farther away she gets, the more the piano fades and the feedback takes over. Guess it was too good to last for long.

Looking up at his face, I flinch when I meet his coal-black eyes. I try not to, but even expecting it, those eyes are a shock. Steeling myself, I look again. I hate when people talk about me like I can’t hear them or treat me like a moron because I choose not to speak. If I can help it, I’m not going to do the same thing to this guy simply because his eyes are…strange.

I open my backpack and reach for the notebook I usually pretend to take notes in. Hudson stops me before I pull it from the bag, his hand hot and heavy on mine.

As soon as he touches me, a tremor of energy runs up my arm, like a breeze carrying an electrical current. Though my body is warming under his steady stare, I shiver. Staring up into his eyes, it’s like I’m looking into the night sky. I can almost see stars and hear someone whispering stories in the dark.

But then he blinks and the image is gone. The electricity isn’t, though—that subtle warmth and quiet tingle that wasn’t there before.

“Forgot already?” His lips tilt into what may be a frown. “I understand sign language.”

I flush and look away.

“Right,” I sign. Glancing up at him, I add, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He shrugs and picks up the backpack sitting on the ground at his feet. Like K.T.’s purse, it clacks like it’s full of rocks. “I’m getting used to the fact that you find me incredibly forgettable.”

He makes it sound like I’ve forgotten him more than once. My stomach rolls, and I hug myself tight. How many times have we met? I want to ask him. I
want
to, but I don’t. Missing time is awful. Finding out it’s happened more than once? That would be
so
much worse.

I wrap my hand around my pendant and take a deep breath. It doesn’t matter. Orane promised we would figure out what happened and fix it. He’s never broken a promise.

“That’s new. Where’d you get it?”

Hudson is staring at my pendant, his eyes squinted like he’s trying to look straight into the sun. Without letting go of the nightingale, I fingerspell, “Gift.”

He snorts. “Uh, yeah. Kinda figured that. You’re not exactly a shopper, Mari. I meant who gave it to you? It matches that other bird you always carry around.”

My grip on my pendant tightens. He knows about my other nightingale?

I let go of my pendant long enough to sign, “Not important.”

Hudson’s expression tightens, his forehead creasing and highlighting the scar along his left temple, but then the wrinkles disappear. “All right. Whatever. How’d you sleep?”

Almost in unison, we turn toward our first class. K.T. mentioned that Hudson was in the honors program, so I know he’ll be in all of my core classes. Maybe
all
of my classes. As we walk through the crowded hall, he watches me, waiting for an answer. As though the answer matters.

“Fine,” I sign.

There’s a slight pause before he says, “Oh, I brought the stone you asked for.”

He reaches into his pocket and brings out a green stone with black spots and whorls. It’s small in his hand, but about the size of my fist. When I don’t immediately take it, he shifts closer and holds it out again. The feedback noise gets louder, but it’s different, layered with a higher-pitched sound. Softer. Something closer to the high C I heard earlier. Similar to the chime I heard this morning when I touched the black horse statue in my room.

“To go with the amethyst I gave you last week,” he says.

My entire body tenses. The amethyst? That purple stone in my room is an amethyst? And
Hudson
gave it to me?

“Gave you the black jade horse, too.” I don’t answer right away, and he sighs. “Here, I’ll put it in your backpack.”

He steps behind me and opens one of the pockets on my backpack, dropping the stone inside. The feedback is in the background, but the chime is more prominent. I don’t understand how, but it’s such a relief I’m not sure I care.

Did I ask him for the green stone? I don’t even know what it is. Did I ask him for the other two sitting on my nightstand, or were those gifts? If I ask, he might get upset. I know I’d be a little peeved if someone didn’t remember I’d given them a present.

Biting my lip, I sign, “Thank you,” when he reappears at my side.

His eyes are so dark it’s hard to tell where he’s looking, but I think he glances at me as he says, “No problem, Mari.”

When we reach our first classroom, he holds the door open for me, claims the desk next to mine by dropping a notebook onto the seat with a
thwap
, and walks up to the teacher with a piece of paper. The teacher checks some paperwork and signs a few pages while Hudson waits. Everyone else in the room is eyeing Hudson like he’s a sideshow attraction.

It’s obvious when they catch a glimpse of those glossy, black eyes. More than one person gasps, and then the whispers start. The girl in front of me is nearly shaking as she gasps, “What is
wrong
with his eyes? I thought Danny was exaggerating, but
Jesus
!”

If he hears it—and how could he
not
?—it doesn’t show on his face.

Standing up there, a good half a foot taller than the teacher, he doesn’t look like he should be in high school. Hudson glances down, and the man flinches before handing back the paperwork and waving Hudson toward his seat. Even a
teacher
can’t treat Hudson like a normal person?

Watching him walk through the aisle, while the idiot children pull away from him like he’s about to reach out and strangle them, I try to figure out what to do. I promised myself I wouldn’t treat Hudson like the others treat me. Guess I should start by actually communicating with him. What do people usually ask new students?

“Where are you from?” I sign, hoping I haven’t asked this question already.

“Trenton,” he fingerspells out of the teacher’s line of sight. “New Jersey.”

“Why move here?”

He looks at me, and I concentrate on meeting his gaze. It’s hard not to fidget under the weight of those eyes. After a second, he looks away, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out his wallet. I don’t understand until he unfolds a newspaper clipping and hands it to me. It’s a slightly crumpled and well-creased article.

LOCAL BOY DIES IN GANG-RELATED INCIDENT

Oh my God. I skim it quickly, trying to figure out what happened.

According to the article, Hudson helped the police apprehend three street thugs, putting them in juvie for nearly killing a man named Horace Lawson. Over four years later, Jackson Ryan “J.R.” Vincent died in a retaliatory attack against Hudson. It was revenge for something that happened before J.R. was born.

Under the title is a picture of Hudson and a grinning little boy. I can’t keep from staring at Hudson. Not the one sitting next to me, but the Hudson in the picture with the happy smile and the bright eyes. The bright and very normal eyes. If this glowing teenager became the blackeyed, glowering giant in front of me, something in him—some core part of him—must have died.

With shaking hands, I pass the article back, but I can’t meet his eyes as I do.

Trying to look anywhere else, I see K.T. across the room. She’s not looking at me. She’s watching Hudson with a concerned furrow in her brow. K.T. might be the only one who isn’t scared of Hudson. Maybe I can do something to get them together. Everyone needs someone to rely on, someone they can confide in and trust as much as I trust Orane. Maybe I can help Hudson find that here.