Wraithsong (9 page)

“
Hello?” I say.

He makes a faint grunting
sound. “I…don’t think it’s a good idea, Sonia. We should really
just be friends from here on out. Besides, you probably need to
focus on your homework, don’t you?” He emphasizes the “don’t
you”
part of his statement.

How dare he tell me what
to do, and did he just use homework as a deflector? It’s the lamest
escape-line I’ve heard—ever. Not only that, he flatly rejected my
proposal. I wonder if maybe my powers only work in person. I decide
to be all right with his rejection for now, considering that it’s
the only option I have at the moment. I’ll try to see if my flair
worked again after school on Monday in person, and maybe I’ll dress
up a little, just to make sure he notices me. I huff at my lame
plan, but then I think: is this
my
plan, or my inner Huldra’s plan? Usually I’m a
very relaxed person like my mom, but it seems like I’m a completely
different individual now, trying to seduce Anthony. I hate this new
me, yet—I love this new me. I sigh at the thought, remembering the
warnings my dad gave me, knowing he would be ashamed of me for
acting this way.

“
Fine, no worries.” I
scrunch my eyes shut.

“
Really?”

“
Really, anything you say,
Anthony.” I sit up. “Have a great weekend.” I don’t want to admit
it, but his rejection has hurt me pretty badly, and I don’t know
exactly how I’ll get through Sunday and all of school on Monday
before I see him again.

“
Yeah, you too, and maybe
I’ll see you around,” he says.

“
Yeah.” I hang up the phone
and let myself fall into the pillows on my bed. My Huldra flair
isn’t working on him like it did on Savannah. Maybe I need to give
it more time. Maybe it has to be past midnight or something before
the magic kicks in or maybe I should just be glad that it didn’t
work and that I have a chance to do the right thing, which is to
stay away from him.

* * *

Sunday seems like the
longest day of my entire existence. I stay busy with homework, and
even help my mom mop all the floors in the house, and then I head
to Siesta Beach with Ashley to kill some time. The thought of
Anthony is in the back of my mind all day; when I do my homework,
he’s there; and when I mop the floors, he’s there. I want to
understand what’s happening to me—if I’m attracted to him because I
genuinely am interested in him or just because I’m going through a
phase as a Huldra so I’m compelled to like him. I want to believe
the former, but I worry that it could be the latter.

“
Hey—what’s up with you?”
Ashley asks. The sand that feels like powdered-sugar stretches on
for miles and long orange and peach clouds streak the blue sky as
the sunset approaches. It’s hot outside and I see beads of sweat on
Ashley’s forehead. I’m glad I don’t sweat.

“
I’ve asked you three times
now, and you pretend like everything’s okay, but you should know by
now that I know you better than to believe you.”

“
What? What you said
doesn’t even make any sense,” I say. “You lost me at ‘you
should.’”

“
I don’t care if it makes
sense or not because I know you know what I mean.” Ashley digs her
blood red polished toenails into the sand. “Does your mood have
anything to do with, what’s his bucket, Anthony?”

“
Yes,” I admit
begrudgingly. I need a confidante and know that it’s either Ashley
or my mom and there’s no way I’m going to tell my mom that I’m
interested in a boy. “Yesterday at lunch, I actually kissed him on
the cheek.”

“
So now the truth comes
out,” she says. “Anything else?”

Our eyes
connect.

“
You can tell me
everything, you know. I won’t tell your mom or anyone
else.”

I know I can trust Ashley
to keep quiet. “He kissed me on the collarbone.” I pause. “It was
the most romantic experience of my life.”

She laughs heartily. “Wow,
that’s great, but we have really got to get you some more action if
that truly was the most romantic experience of your
life.”

I laugh, half-terrified at
the thought of getting more action with Anthony, half-overwrought
by excitement. I hardly dare think the thought; it’s too risky, too
delicious. My mom would skin me alive.

“
Why didn’t you tell me
sooner?” Ashley pushes me so I have to catch myself from falling
face first into the white sand. I don’t really like the beach for
the reason that there’s sand everywhere, and I can never get rid of
it. It’s like a magnet, sticking to everything for months
after.

“
I don’t know. My mom is so
paranoid about me kissing anyone that I just wanted to keep it a
secret.” I rub my hands together, trying to get rid of the
sand.

“
You know I’d never tell
your mom.”

“
I know you wouldn’t,” I
say.

Ashley’s eyes sparkle with
mischief. “But you want to kiss him, don’t you?”

I glance at Ashley and then
back at the sand. “Yes,” I say faintly, my eyebrows furrowing. I
want to kiss him a lot more than I’m willing to admit and it’s so
stupid because I just met the guy.

“
Why do I get the feeling
that you’re upset about him kissing you?” A puzzled look crosses
her face.

“
Well, after I got home, he
called me and apologized for what happened.” I tuck my knees under
my chin and wrap my arms around my legs. I feel vulnerable
admitting to this and I hadn’t anticipated how much rejection would
hurt.

“
What? Why?”

“
He says we can only be
friends and that we shouldn’t even keep weeding together,” I
say.

Ashley’s eyes widen and she
gasps. “What a jerk!”

“
I don’t think he’s a jerk.
I just think he’s confused,” I say.

“
Oh puh-lease, don’t make
excuses for him. He knows what he’s doing. He probably has a
girlfriend—the one he’s taking to the prom—and just wants to flirt
with you because he thinks you’re beautiful, like all the boys at
our high school do, and then plans to, after he conquers you, dump
you and get back with his girlfriend, pretending nothing ever
happened between you two.”

I look at Ashley, wide-eyed
and in shock. I had never thought of that. “You think?”

“
Maybe,” Ashley says,
looking out onto the blue ocean. “You like him a lot?”

“
Yes.” For the first time
in history, I’m the girl with her heart exposed, the pathetic girl
who can think of nothing else but Anthony, and it is pathetic,
because I barely even know him. I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself.
I should be tougher than this, but for some reason Anthony has
completely spellbound me.

“
What happened to ‘I’ll
never fall for anyone?’” Ashley says, quoting what I said just a
few weeks ago.

Before I can respond, a
volleyball collides with my skull.

“
Ouch!” I exclaim, standing
up.

“
Sorry, miss, I didn’t mean
to—”

Anthony stands in front of
me in nothing but his beach shorts. “Hello Anthony.” I try not to
stare at his sculpted physique and I hone in on his blue eyes
instead. That doesn’t prevent my heart from pounding and my cheeks
from blushing.

“
I didn’t expect to meet
you here,” he says. “Sorry about the volleyball. Are you
okay?”

Anthony reaches for my
head, but I knock his hand away. “I’m fine,” I say, but what I
really want to say is: ‘Looks like you suck at volleyball just as
much as you do at making late night phone calls.’ I don’t bother
though, knowing what a lame comeback that would be.

“
Is this a friend of
yours?” Anthony asks, gesturing to Ashley.

“
Yes. This is my best
friend Ashley. Ashley, this is Anthony. The weed guy.”

“
Thanks for the compliment,
Sonia.” Anthony chuckles and reaches his hand out to greet
her.

I smile
sarcastically.

Ashley doesn’t take his
hand, but crosses her arms in front of her chest instead. “Anthony?
Do you know him? I’ve never heard of him.” Her hazel eyes glare at
him with the power to melt metal, and I’m pleased to see how
uncomfortable he is under her unrelenting scrutiny. I know I can
always count on Ashley to have my back.

If I had known I’d bump
into Anthony today, I would have made a plan to see if my flair had
worked on him, but improvising on the spot will do no
good—especially since I’m unable to focus because he’s so
ridiculously distracting with his shirt off. I glance at him from
the corner of my eye when he turns around to look for someone. His
back is broad and he has a tattoo of a beast on his right shoulder,
and though I can’t tell what kind of a beast it is, it looks
dangerous.

Anthony picks up the
volleyball, turns around again and smiles at me like he’s really
happy to see me. “Come join us,” he says, bouncing the volleyball
in his hand. I’m tempted to accept, but before I can give an
answer, a blonde girl in a tiny lavender bikini shows up and grabs
his arm.

“
Come on, Anthony, we’re
waiting for you,” she says, pulling him along. Of course she has to
be gorgeous and have a body that looks like she paid for
it.

Bimbo. My jaw tenses and I
have to do everything in my power to not say something rude. Deep
down, I know it’s not a fair assessment, and I wonder whether it’s
my own jealousy that makes me hate her so suddenly or if being a
Huldra has this kind of effect on my emotions.

“
No thanks, we’ll pass,” I
say, squeezing my hands into my faded jean short pockets. I’ve
never really been good at sports. Well, that’s not totally true.
I’m not good at team sports, but for some reason, I never miss a
goal whether I’m throwing, batting or kicking a ball. But either
way, my passion is for classical ballet, though I’ve taken a break
from it my senior year to focus on getting my grades up.

Anthony squints at me for a
second, his eyes almost looking like they care. “We’d really like
for you to come join us,” he says as if I hadn’t heard him the
first time.

“
No,” I say so firmly that
the bimbo by his side jumps. Then she looks at me like I’m
mass-producing spit bubbles like an angry crab or
something.

For a split second, Anthony
looks shocked, but he quickly regains his cool demeanor. “See you
at school then.” He jogs off. In the distance he glances back at me
one more time and seems to be baffled by the fact that I turned him
down.

“
What a prick!” Ashley
yells. Then she says at a normal volume, “I told you that’s what he
was up to, but he’s hot though. Really hot. Maybe you can just
chalk the whole experience up to a steamy encounter, no strings
attached?”

I don’t want to admit it,
but Ashley’s probably right. Why does the first guy I’m attracted
to have to be the maestro of all players? I should have known that
he was that type of guy. The signs are all there, but I thought
maybe he was different, especially since I,
a Huldra,
am attracted to
him.

Why did my plan fail so
miserably? Why didn’t my kiss work? I think back to the meeting
with Principal Jenkins where my mom only had to grace her finger
with saliva and touch Principal Jenkins’s hand and then he
conformed to her wishes nicely and in an instant. I, however,
planted a kiss on Anthony’s cheek, so it should have been more
potent. Maybe it’s harder to use my flair than I thought, or maybe
there’s such a thing as an immune human.

Chapter 9

Back home, I pick at my
dinner plate with my fork. Homemade lasagna is usually one of my
favorite meals, but today, not even ice cream for dinner would have
tempted me. I want to ask my mom about Anthony and why my flair
didn’t work on him, figuring that maybe it’s different when I use
my flair on a boy. I know my mom would be furious if I admitted to
kissing a boy, even if it was only on the cheek, but if I don’t
tell her, I might never find out.

“
You don’t have to keep
sulking over my decision about the prom. It’s not going to make me
change my mind.” My mom sits down next to me. She’s been unusually
moody since she found out that her sister vanished and the Huldras
were killed. I don’t blame her; I just wish there was something I
could say to help her through this tough time, but I have a hard
time finding the right words.

“
That’s not why I’m upset,”
I say.

“
No?”

“
No. I’m just tired, that’s
all.” I look out the window, over the man-made lake behind our
house. The lake is smooth, with nearly no disturbances on its
glass-like surface.

“
Do you feel sick?” she
asks.

“
Maybe.” I should skip
school on Monday. It will be embarrassing if I meet Anthony in the
hallway, especially if he’s with that blonde bimbo. I even consider
skipping school for the rest of the year and just leave for
Kensington. “I’ve been thinking about Kensington.”

“
Yes?”

“
I guess I’m kind of
excited to go.” I’m not too excited, but there’s not much for me
here in Sarasota at the moment and I think getting away will feel
good.