Failing to find the humor in her euphemism, Saoirse replied, “Would you prefer I use the proper word? Because I can, you know. It rolls off my tongue right easy.”
“Oh shut up!” Michael said, playfully hitting Saoirse in the arm with an embroidered pillow. “Look, I get why you don't want to tell Ronan that you have a boyfriend, he'll get all big brotherly and stuff, but you can't keep it a secret forever. You have to tell him some time.”
“Well, I was planning on making the big reveal the night of the Archangel Festival,” Saoirse said as she braided a few strands of her hair. “But David the arsemaster canceled it.”
This was news to Michael, news that was really disappointing. “No Festival! Why not?”
“Because it'll outshine his daft Tri-Centennial shindig,” she replied, releasing the three strands of hair and watching them spin.
Now it was Michael's turn to pout. Wrapping his arms around the pillow, he held it close to his chest. “But that's kind of our anniversary, me and Ronan.”
“Anniversary?” Saoirse asked. “Of what?”
Thinking back to the first night he and Ronan spent together, Michael was reminded yet again that there were certain memories that should absolutely remain private and secret. “Um, well, never mind.”
Proving that she could read minds even if she didn't possess the power of telepathy, Saoirse grabbed the pillow and whacked Michael in the head with it. “That is downright goppin'!” she exclaimed, her face scrunching up as if she had just smelled something foul. “You calendar that?”
Wrestling the pillow from Saoirse before they got thrown out of the library, Michael tossed it onto the wing chair. “Officially changing the subject now,” he declared. “Have you seen Diego? We're partners on a history project in Willows's class, and we have to do some research.”
Saoirse halfheartedly looked around the room and shook her head. “No Fuente presenté,” she joked.
With or without his study partner, Michael had to enter the bowels of the library and start doing some actual schoolwork; the time for chatting with his favorite blonde was over. Well, almost. “I've got a great idea!” he announced. “Let's go on a double date. Me and Ronan and you and the mystery boyfriend.”
Before she responded, Michael knew she loved the idea. Her clutching his hands and jumping up and down kind of gave it away. “I love it!” she squealed. “We'll go into Eden and hang out somewhere and be all adult-like. It'll be cracking!”
She was a handful, but she really was a lot of fun. Hopefully, her boyfriend was worthy. “And don't worry, I'm sure Ronan is going to get along with this guy,” Michael said. “Whoever he is.”
Flopping onto the couch like it was her bed, Saoirse laughed. “You know me, I never worry.”
Which is exactly why Michael was worried. Just as he was about to leave in search of a book on the Franco-Prussian War, Michael suddenly remembered something else that caused him concern. “Where's Ruby?” he asked. “Aren't you supposed to be with her during your free period?”
“Not since the creation of the Ulrich Doctrine,” Saoirse announced.
“What?”
Braiding her hair again, Saoirse translated. “The charter that Fritz drew up christening himself Ruby's bloomin' twenty-four-hour-a-day chaperone,” she said. “He's gone a bit potty over that one, I must say.”
Luckily Saoirse was more interested in her hair, so she didn't see Michael's alarmed expression. Well, there wasn't anything that he could say or do that would convince Fritz to ease up on his courtship of Penry's sister; Fritz was determined to make her his girlfriend. Walking into the library, Michael consoled himself with the fact that just because Ruby wasn't human, didn't necessarily mean that she wasn't also harmless.
As hopeful as that thought was, it was wrong.
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Looking at the girl from behind, Brania thought she was looking at herself. Same wavy hair, same auburn color, same curves. When the girl entered a clearing in The Forest and wasn't shrouded in tree shadow, Brania realized there were some differences. This girl's hair was much redder, much more like the color of Brania's hair when she was a young girl, and her shape, while womanly, wasn't nearly as voluptuous as hers. Still, from her current point of view the girl was attractive and would probably make a delicious meal.
Hunger pains ripped through Brania's body, determined to make her act. Usually she had control over her cravings, but now it took every ounce of restraint not to act like a cheetah and pounce on the unsuspecting girl, gently brush aside her red hair, and pierce her neck with her fangs. Take her blood, take her body, take her life. Before she realized it, Brania was right behind the girl, her fangs longing for release, her own body desperate for blood. So desperate that if Ruby hadn't turned around at that exact moment Brania would have devoured every drop of her blood in one inhuman swallow.
“Hello, Brania.”
Clutching her own throat in surprise, Brania stepped back. It wasn't the resemblance that alarmed herâbesides the color of her hair and the shape of her body the similarities endedâit was the fact that Brania didn't know what kind of creature she was; all she knew was that she wasn't human. Other than that, she hadn't a clue. Her eyes were completely white; not a pigment of color invaded either socket. Her skin was beyond translucent, and when she reached out her hand, Brania saw that it was covered in a shimmery substance. Her entire body was outlined in a white glow, making her look ethereal. The fact that this being knew her name made Brania think she was probably sinister as well.
“How do you know me?” she demanded.
Ruby smiled, her red lips parting slightly to show teeth that didn't contain fangs, but were whiter than any Brania had ever seen before. “I've known you your whole life,” she replied, even though her lips didn't move. “It's so nice to finally meet David's daughter.”
So that was it, she knew David. If that were true, she had to be sinister, no doubt about it. “How do you know my father?” Brania asked, her voice losing all of its calm. “Answer me!”
This time Ruby laughed, but her body didn't move, and if her eyes laughed along with her voice Brania couldn't tell; they were still pure white, the color of total absence. “I've known your father for a very, very, very long time,” Ruby said. “And now I'd like to get to know you.”
When Ruby touched Brania's hand, she felt the world around her disappear. Gone was The Forest, gone was this strange girl who claimed to know her father, gone was everything except a white canvas. For a few seconds she felt like she was floating within a cloud, protected, hidden, comforted, and then she hit the ground. Immediately, she tried to get up, but her body refused. She felt that her own flesh was rebelling against her, but she quickly understood that it was merely being controlled by someone else.
Looking down at Brania, Ruby was disappointed. She had thought that Brania would resemble David a bit more. Ah well, the girl wasn't as young as she looked; age did change the body somewhat, even when that body belonged to a vampire. She did wish Brania's hair were less auburn and more of a true red, more like the coloring of her hair. And David's.
She began to walk in a circle, and Brania noticed that when she moved a white light appeared behind her like a laser beam. What power that beam possessed or signified, Brania had no idea. She just knew it wasn't normal. When Ruby had traveled once around Brania's body, she stopped and stepped back so the light could connect and create one complete circle in the air. She raised her arm and, as if it were connected, Brania's body also began to rise, not stopping until it was level with the circle of light.
Unable to move even her eyelids, Brania was consumed with fear. She was one of the most powerful creatures who walked the earth and here she was immobilized by some girl without eyes, incapable of doing anything except staring up into the bit of sky that was still visible and not blocked out by the trees. Whatever this thing was, she was stronger than Brania, much stronger, so along with her fear, Brania also offered her respect.
There was a sudden noise from within the wood, just a rabbit scurrying away, uninterested in the spectacle, but enough to distract Ruby. When she turned, the spell was lost. The light disappeared, and Brania fell to the ground, her body hitting the dirt hard, her mind losing consciousness. The sounds of The Forest grew louder as Ruby watched Brania's motionless body, the wind, the chirping, the rustling, just the sounds of nature, sounds that would continue no matter what Ruby chose to do. But looking down at Brania, she remembered what David had always taught her: timing is everything, nothing can be rushed, and if something is important it's worth waiting for.
Yes, David was right. It would be better if she introduced herself to Brania another day. Satisfied that it was the right decision, Ruby walked further into the depths of The Forest, leaving Brania alone so she could sleep in peace. As she walked, her right hand swirled to create a circle in the air, a faint white light emanating from her fingertips. At the same time a circle was formed around Brania's body, a circle that was made up of the most beautiful white roses.
chapter 17
At first, Michael thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He wanted so badly for it to be true that he thought he was hallucinating. But when he saw the funnel of gray fog slice through the clear, dark sky only to stop and hover in front of him near the edge of The Forest, he knew it was real. Phaedra had returned.
“Hi, Michael.”
Thrilled to see his friend again, Michael was speechless. He threw his arms around Phaedra and hugged her, immediately noticing how warm and soft she felt. She was definitely more efemera than human. It didn't matter; it still felt wonderful to feel her, see her once again since he had thought she was out of his life, all their lives, forever. But here she was standing before him dressed in the familiar St. Anne's uniform, her hair still a mass of unruly curls, her eyes still gray-blue and peaceful. Even though her reappearance brought Michael joy, he knew she hadn't returned simply to pay him a friendly visit. Her homecoming must have been prompted by a far more important purpose. “I've come to warn you about something,” she said.
“Before you tell me why you're really here, can't we just hang out for a while?” he asked. “Can't we take a walk so I can fill you in on what's been happening since you left?”
A breeze blew past them disrupting her curls even further, and she tucked the wayward strands of hair behind her ear. It was a simple gesture, but it filled them both with sadness because it reminded them of the teenager she used to be and how she would never be that young girl again despite her convincing appearance. She was an ancient spirit with a message, a message that Michael had to hear even if he thought it was old news. “Ruby isn't what she seems,” Phaedra said.
Nodding his head, Michael agreed. “I know. She isn't human.”
“That's only part of it.”
Intrigued, Michael sat down on a boulder, the same color as the fog Phaedra so effortlessly transformed into. “What do you mean?”
Phaedra hesitated only slightly before she sat down next to Michael. She was reluctant to get comfortable because she knew she couldn't stay long. She shouldn't even be here now; she should be at the Holding Place awaiting instructions, finding out who she had to protect next. Another breeze enveloped her, bringing with it an annoying voice that whispered in her ear, reminding her that no one could be more interesting than Michael and no surroundings could be more welcoming than Double A. That's because Fritz wasn't a student at any other school.
“Phaedra, what do you mean?” Michael repeated.
Focusing on the boy sitting next to her and not the one occupying her mind, Phaedra replied, “Because of what Ruby sets into motion, you're going to be challenged like never before.”
Intrigue had graduated into full-fledged concern, and Michael was starting to realize the gravity of the situation. “What is she going to do?”
A few yards away, a twig snapped. It was a random noise, probably just an animal in search of a warm place to sleep, but it reminded Phaedra that she was breaking rules, defying the universe's orders. If she wanted to stay here on earth any longer, she had to take precautions. “I think we should take that walk,” she said, abruptly getting up and walking into The Forest.
Michael was quick to follow and even quicker to understand her motives. “You don't want anyone to see you.”
“I
can't
have anyone see me,” she corrected. “I'm not supposed to be here.”
“Then why did you come?” he asked. “You must know that I figured out Ruby wasn't human the first time I saw her.”
Leading Michael away from a well-worn path and into an area more densely populated with trees and bushes, Phaedra finally stopped when she was satisfied she would be camouflaged from prying eyes. “To remind you that you can only trust yourself and Ronan and to remember the things that he's told you.”
Michael wished she didn't look so serious; he wished she would smile again. But obviously this wasn't going to be a happy, hugs and kisses type of reunion. He thought back to the many things that Ronan had told him and instantly knew what Phaedra was referring to. “You're talking about my dream.”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “If there ever comes a time when you have to make an impossible choice, listen to your heart and you'll find the answer.”
His heart understood the command; it had ever since he first heard Ronan speak the words in his vision. His brain was having a bit more difficulty comprehending the message. “Of course I'll protect Ronan, you know that,” he replied, twirling his ring around his finger with his thumb. “But he's so much stronger than I am, I can't imagine he'll ever need my protection.”
Finally, there was her smile. Unfortunately, it was borderline condescending. “Michael, you really have to let go of this idea that immortals are invulnerable,” she said. “It's sort of like being human. Humans have free will, but that doesn't mean they're not going to sin.”
Michael turned the comparison around in his head. “So just because you're immortal doesn't mean you can't die?”
“Exactly,” she replied. Phaedra didn't want to frighten Michael, but she had to make him understand. “And despite that knowledge you must choose to do what your heart and your destiny command.”
A cold chill clung to the early evening air, but Michael didn't feel it. His body erupted in an explosion of heat, heat that housed fear and panic. Phaedra was telling him something he didn't want to comprehend; she was telling him that Ronan could die. It was an unimaginable thought. Ronan was a vampire; he was amazingly powerful; he couldn't die. And yet those weren't the reasons Michael wanted him to remain impervious to mortality. It was because without Ronan by his side, Michael didn't know if life would be worth living. She was also suggesting something incomprehensible, that Michael must stand by and allow it to unfold. He knew he could never let that happen. “Phaedra,” Michael began, surprised to hear himself speak when it was so difficult to breathe, “if you know something, if you know that something is going to happen to Ronan, you have to tell me.”
Looking down at her pleated skirt, she pulled on the material and stretched it out a bit. How she loved wearing this uniform, how easy it was to slip back into it. “Even if I knew exactly what was going to happen, I couldn't tell you,” she replied. “I'm only here because you're my friend and because Ruby cannot be trusted.”
Michael rubbed his sweaty palms on his thighs and tried to shift his mind from worrying about Ronan to figuring out the truth about Ruby. “You have to give me a few more clues about her,” Michael pleaded. “I don't think she's a vampire, she hasn't shown any signs of being an efemera, but she is immortal, right?”
In many ways The Forest resembled the Holding Place, not at all in appearance, but in feeling. Both places held secrets, both places offered refuge from the real world, but both places were only meant to be resided in temporarily. “I have to go,” Phaedra announced, standing in preparation to transform back to her natural state.
“No, please, you just got here!” Michael cried, grabbing her arm, saddened that it felt as light as air. “And you haven't told me anything that I didn't already know. Ronan may someday need my protection, and Ruby's immortal.”
“Just remember that immortal creatures aren't bound by morality,” Phaedra replied. “They can have their own agendas and may be here on earth for their own reasons.”
Suddenly it made sense to Michael. His friend's return had nothing to do with otherworldly warnings or supernatural pronouncements; it had everything to do with good, old-fashioned human emotion. “You're jealous of Ruby.”
Phaedra was so stunned by Michael's allegation that her body fluttered. Part of it turned to mist, while the other part clung to its more solid shape. “That is so not true.”
Gleeful, Michael wanted to jump up and down, but curtailed his excitement by shoving his hands into his pants pockets and forcing his body to remain still. “You sound more like Fritz's ex than you do some ancient paranormal creature.”
Just as she knew everything there was to know about Michael, he knew all about her. Phaedra couldn't lie to him, and what made her different than most efemeras was that she didn't want to. She considered him her friend. “I miss Fritz,” she confessed. “Actually I miss what we could have shared. We never really got to any of the good stuff.”
Now this was the type of conversation Michael wanted to have. “Then stay! Pick up where you left off!” Michael shouted. “Guaranteed this thing Fritz has for Ruby is totally a rebound because he's never gotten over you.”
Another breeze, another wave of sweet emotion. It was all beginning to be too much to bear. As much as Phaedra loved this place, as much as she missed being a part of Michael's life, seeing Fritz every day, living as a teenage girl, that chapter of her existence was over. “I do miss Double A more than I thought possible,” she said.
“Then that settles it!” Michael declared. “We'll make up some excuse that your parents were sick and you had to leave school... .”
A few more words tumbled out of Michael's mouth before he realized Phaedra was holding up her hand in front of his face as if to block the sound. She couldn't hear about the possibility of returning to the life she had almost chosen because it was the life that she had given up. She had made her choice, and she had to stick to it. As much as she looked the part, she wasn't a teenager who could flit from one decision to the next just because she had changed her mind; where she came from things didn't work that way. “I'm sorry, Michael,” Phaedra said, her words as faint as her appearance, “I gave up my chance to ever be human, and I can't stay here as what I really am.”
Before Michael could protest or debate the reasons why her decision was dumb and foolish and just had to be discounted, he saw her body disappear before his eyes. Her uniform, her curls, her sweet face, gone and replaced with a soft mist of smoke that undulated, rippled in midair until it turned into a column of gray fog. As the fog rose to travel to heights Michael could never imagine visiting he heard Phaedra's voice for one last time. “Remember what I said. Do not trust Ruby; she isn't what she seems.”
In spite of the seriousness of Phaedra's tone and the urgency of her message, Michael couldn't resist one final comeback. “Yeah right, like anyone in this place is what they seem!”
An odd smell washed over him, and Michael thought Phaedra was answering him with some weird, cosmic joke. But then he remembered that the girl really wasn't one to play tricks. No, this smell was earthbound, and it was foul and repugnant. Not interested in trying to solve another puzzle, Michael walked in the opposite direction of the unpleasant odor, leaving the task of uncovering its origin for someone else.
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Nakano winced as he inhaled something equally repulsive. Compelled to move toward the smell, he stopped in his tracks when he saw the source, his mind bombarded by a flood of questions. Why won't those bloody white roses just die? What the hell are they doing in The Forest and not clinging to the walls of St. Joshua's where they belong? And why is Brania sleeping on the dirt surrounded by a circle of those ugly things?
Kneeling down next to her, Nakano's knee squashed one of the roses, burying it into the earth, its delicate, stark-white petals ripped from its stem. He didn't even have to speak Brania's name and she woke up. Like a wild animal disturbed from a deep slumber, Brania clawed at the dirt, her arms and legs acting without thought, only purpose, to retreat and put space between herself and this intruder. When her eyes focused she realized her intruder was unexpected, but harmless. “Nakano, what are you doing here?”
“Crikey, Brania, I could ask you the same question,” he replied. “Did I, um, interrupt some dodgy fertility ceremony or something?”
Ignoring Kano, Brania scoured the land and her memory for some clue as to what she was doing in The Forest or why she had been sleeping inside a circle of white roses. She knew they held some unknown significance and they had not been placed there arbitrarily. Whoever did this to her did so for a reason.
The last thing she remembered was walking in the woods, hungry, in search of a meal, the silhouette of a girl in the distance. Brania closed her eyes and tried to envision what had happened next, but her mind was empty; all she saw was black. When she opened her eyes, she was stung by how white the roses were, almost blinding, not natural, which meant whatever had happened to her, whatever had taken place here was not going to be remembered simply by willing her mind to concentrate. Best to use the situation, as bewildering as it might be, to her advantage. “Thank you, Kano,” Brania said, trying to sound like a confused victim. “I don't know what happened, but it looks like you came to my rescue.”
Nakano was also thankful, thankful that the darkness hid his face from Brania so she didn't see him blush. “It was ... nothing,” he stammered. “But sure ... You're welcome.”
Walking toward him, making sure not to step on any of the roses, Brania grabbed Nakano's hand. “I owe you my life,” she stated. “We both know The Forest is not always a safe place.”