The Shattering (26 page)

KERI

Since I was home anyway, Mum made me do the cleaning,
with a list of chores to complete each day.
Everything was still tidy from her massive session after Jake's tangi, so there wasn't much point, but I did it anyway. I dusted every china doll on the mantelpiece, polished all the wedding silver, vacuumed, and ironed, all of which was even less fun with one good hand. Mum came home every lunch and dinner break to check on me and called the home phone at random times during the day. The message that she didn't trust me couldn't have been any clearer. I tried to be a good daughter and not complain about it too much.

I remembered the horrible things
they
had said, that I was an awful daughter who should have died instead.

Or had I said that? It was hard to remember. Thinking about the fight, or the other people in it, made me feel sick and small. And getting everything in the entire house to Mum's ridiculous hotel standards of cleanliness gave me far too much time to think.

I was able to give the others plans at first, going over them again and again, because I couldn't trust either of them to do it right the first time. But as New Year's Eve drew closer, I had to concentrate on things I could do without thinking of those two at all. On the thirtieth, in between wielding the duster and the toilet brush, I practised punching one-handed and kicking with my cast held out to balance me. Then I swung the baton around until I had a good idea of how to be effective with it. Sergeant Rafferty and Mr Davidson were going to be the problems. The Maukises were foul, but I didn't think they were really physical people. And Daisy was skinny and middle-aged; she wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight.

Unless it was with spells.

But everything she'd done had been quieter and less immediate — no big flashes of lightning or anything, just those dolls to put us off balance and whatever she'd done to make us hate each other. And she hadn't done anything like that again; maybe she thought she'd succeeded in warning us away, turning us against each other.

I swallowed back my nausea and tried to think.

Tomorrow night was the Beach Bash, and I knew where Takeshi would be. Originally, I'd thought we could all stick by him, and I'd come up with various ways so that Sione and I could be around him all the time, and Janna when she wasn't on stage. Janna had been maddeningly vague, and I didn't trust her protection spell, but she was pretty sure that since the coven had started with the crown, they'd need to use it again to complete the ritual. Which meant they'd have to take Takeshi somewhere quiet. My first plan had been to find the crown, but there were just too many possibilities of where it could be, and if we got caught, it would totally destroy the illusion that the three of us had given up.

But though we couldn't locate the crown, we
did
know where Takeshi was going to be. With all three of us around, they couldn't grab him without us making a big fuss.

As a last resort, I was prepared to start screaming about magic.

I'd be labelled the crazy girl for the rest of my life, but at least the idea would be in people's heads. They'd wonder if Takeshi then died. They might start asking questions. And the one thing I knew about the conspirators was that they
hated
people looking into what they were doing. If I was loud enough, long enough, the coven would have to resist sacrificing Takeshi, just to keep their secret.

Now I was wondering how far I could rely on the other two. Janna could be distracted by anything shiny, and Sione was a coward who'd probably curl into a ball and start crying at the first hint of violence. A better plan might be to get Takeshi away and hide him somewhere, by myself, until New Year's Eve was over.

Then I'd be grounded for the rest of my
life
, stuck in Summerton until I died, unloved and alone.

But it would be worth it if Takeshi lived.

On New Year's Eve, I got up late. Mum was home, sipping coffee in her dressing gown, with her fair hair falling around her shoulders. The browny roots were getting longer, the real Mum peeking through the blonde Lillian mask.

‘Sit down,' she said, and I turned a chair around and straddled it, crossing my arms over the back. Mum hated it when Jake and I did that, but this time she did nothing but sigh. ‘I've noticed that you've been very helpful,' she said. ‘Obviously repentant. I appreciate it.'

‘Oh,' I said. ‘Yeah. I'm sorry.'

‘I accept your apology. And I'm sorry you fought with your friends. That Sione seemed like such a nice boy.'

My skin prickled. ‘He's not.'

‘He keeps moping around the hotel, no company but that red-haired girl. Poor kid. I don't know what his parents were thinking, to send him here alone.' She looked at me. ‘Was this a lover's quarrel, Keri? Did you and Janna fight over this boy?'

My laugh was harsh, tearing at my throat. ‘No! No way! That's disgusting, Mum.'

‘Well —'

‘Really, I'm done with them,' I interrupted. ‘Do you and me have to talk about it?'

‘No, not if you . . .' She sipped. ‘Anyway. I've been asked to take over the management tonight. Mr Davidson invited you to come along and help, if you like. Earn some money.
Or
I could call in sick, and we could both stay home and have a nice New Year's Eve together.' Her face tightened over the cheekbones. ‘Talk about . . . your brother, maybe. Share some good memories.'

Oh, this was just fantastic. A chance to talk about Jake with Mum, one she really needed, and I had to turn it down.

‘Maybe some other time?' I said instead. ‘I mean. It's all a bit — I don't think I can —' She scraped a sliver of nail polish from the side of her thumb and nodded. ‘Well, come to the hotel, then?'

‘Sione might be there,' I said, almost gagging on the name. ‘I'm sorry, Mum, I can't. I think I'll just . . . have a quiet night. Watch the New Year specials on tv.'

She looked suspicious, but it wasn't as if I'd ever been much of a party girl, and I
hadd
been really good all week. ‘I'll call you at home,' she said, the faint threat clear.

‘That would be nice,' I told her, and her face soft ened.

She reached out and cupped my cheek. ‘I love you very much.'

I willed myself not to confess everything. I was going to scare her and hurt her all over again, and there was no way out of it. ‘I love you, too,' I said, and grabbed the dirty breakfast plates.

After Mum went to work that afternoon, I drift ed around the house. I'd packed a bag with all the stuff I thought I'd need and slipped my baton into my cargo pants, where it would be close at hand. But I'd decided not to leave for the Bash until later; I hoped that I could answer Mum's checkup phone call before I went and save her the worry.

There was nothing to do. tv wasn't distracting, I'd read all my books, and Sione still had my Wii, the thieving shit. As after-noon faded to evening and the sounds from the beach got louder, I started doing chores out of desperation. Mum hadn't left a list, but I wiped down the stove and cleaned the microwave and emptied out my drawers to refold all my clothes. Everything else was done.

Except, I remembered, the basket of loose socks in the laundry cupboard. We added to it every time we found a stray, but no one had sat down and matched them for at least three years. That would be soothing.

When I yanked out the basket, my favourite pair of jeans tumbled down from where they'd been shoved in beside it. They lay crumpled on the floor like a shed skin as I stared at them openmouthed.

Mum hadn't thrown them out. She'd washed them and put them away, the last piece of my final moments with my brother, and told me they were gone. I wasn't the only one who'd been lying.

I was very calm. I shook the jeans out and looked them over. They'd been washed, probably several times. The marks weren't stains, really, more like shadows against the worn denim, a suggestion of what had lain in my lap and bled on me.

It was three hours until midnight and nearly dark outside. The Bash would be starting in earnest.

I unzipped my cargo pants and slithered out of them, pulling the jeans on. They settled against me like a hug, warm and familiar. Nothing had ever fitted me as well as those jeans.

The telephone shrilled as I locked the front door, but I didn't turn back for it. I went, dressed in blue denim and my brother's blood, to destroy his murderers.

Completely.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SIONE

On New Year's Eve, Sione slid his belt through his jeans, gave
his messenger bag the routine check for clay figurines, slung
the strap over his neck, and worried about Aroha.
Not that there was anything wrong
with
Aroha. She was funny, she was smart, she was really pretty.

And she was honest, all the time.

No, the problem was with him, who'd been lying to her from the beginning. Who was going with her to the Bash so he would have an excuse to watch her host brother.

‘Just until this is over,' he mumbled to the boy in the mirror, who couldn't meet his eyes. ‘When it's done and Takeshi's safe, I'll tell her then.'

He met her in the lobby, where Mr Davidson was nowhere to be seen.

‘Takeshi and Janna went ahead,' Aroha said. ‘To — what?'

Sione tried to stop staring. ‘I like your hair.'

Aroha smiled and flicked the coppery strands off her bare shoulders. They fell sleekly down her back, looking as if they were glowing with their own light. ‘Thanks! It's a pain to straighten it, so I only do it for special occasions.'

‘I like it curly, too,' he said quickly, and tried to concentrate on why he was there. ‘Why did they go ahead?'

‘Oh. They're meeting the band there.' She watched him carefully. ‘Was that wrong? Did you guys make up?'

‘Not yet,' he half lied. He risked a smile and reached for her hand as they left the hotel.

Aroha's breath caught, her fingers curling round his. She said nothing more about the fight.

Do it
, he thought.
Make something true and good, before all this is finished
.

‘Hey,' he said at the same time she tilted her head and said, ‘So . . .'

They both stopped, laughed, and did the you-first-no-you thing, and when that was done, it was Sione's turn.

‘When we go back to Auckland,' he said. ‘Would you . . . I mean, I don't know, if you're interested, maybe you were thinking just for Summerton, but —' He could have gone on in hypotheticals forever, but she squeezed his hand and spun around to face him.

‘Are you asking me out?'

‘Um. Yeah?'

‘Are you asking me out because you want a rebound relationship?'

His first instinct was to tell her what he thought she wanted to hear. But Aroha deserved the whole truth for once. ‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I don't think so, but wouldn't that feel the same?'

‘Probably,' she said, and grinned up at him. ‘Okay. Yes.'

‘Oh,' Sione said stupidly. ‘That's really —'
Shut up
, his brain advised, and luckily Aroha seemed to be reading his mind, because that was when she kissed him.

It seemed that it might be his destiny to be kissed by girls instead of kissing them, but he thought he was going to be okay with that.

This, unlike Janna's hot-and-heavy moves, was a close-lipped kiss, quick and very sweet. Her lips were soft and warm.

‘Wow,' he said when he got his voice back.

‘Good start,' Aroha told him, and snuggled her arm tightly in his as they started walking again.

Sione felt stupidly good. He should have been worried about Takeshi, but Janna would be watching him until Sione got there to take over — well before the Vikings went onstage. Unless her greediness for fame meant that she wasn't paying attention.
That's very likely,
the slimy voice in his head argued.
You could
probably distract her
with something glittery on a string.

Trying to seem casual, he increased his pace. There were a few people on the streets, all heading toward the beach, but it sounded as if most of the town was already gathered there. He could hear music — not Vikings to the Left, but a hip-hop group that he and Matthew had both loved, singing about Friday night being the scene.

He wondered if Janna had worked out that the Maukises didn't really want her stupid band. The only reason Vikings to the Left were playing after these big acts was because they wanted her out of the way when they took Takeshi.

He felt something cruel curl his lips. Maybe he'd get a chance to tell her before the night was over. Maybe before she went onstage and begged for people to love her, like she'd been doing all her life. He reckoned that would shake up her show.

They were passing the library now. The gallery was the next building, gleaming white under the waning Summerton moon. Sione thought of the glass crown.