Antigoddess (11 page)

“Not yet. Maybe in a while.” Her phone buzzed but she ignored it. A few seconds later, Aidan’s buzzed as well. Angry texts from Andie, demanding to know why they’d ditched without telling her. Cassandra sipped her cocoa and looked out onto the quiet street. The sky was gray and overcast. Everyone passing by had their necks tucked into the collars of their jackets, eyes solidly on the sidewalk or straight ahead. No stopping to admire the scenery. Cold wind reminded them that winter was coming, and they were bitter about it.

“I dreamed the other night.” She looked down into her cocoa. “Except it wasn’t a dream.”

“Tell me.”

She told him about the Cyclops, about the boy with clever eyes and shaggy brown hair. Her voice sounded like someone else’s voice, monotone, and so even it might have been prerecorded. When she was done, her lips pressed together wearily. It had only taken a few minutes to tell.

“He died?” Aidan asked.

“He was screaming.”

“But did he die?”

“I don’t know.” She swallowed. “I think so.” Thinking about it again brought a whiff of caves and old decay. She covered her cocoa with her hand. Only the warmth of Aidan’s arm around her back kept her in the booth. It still felt like she should do something. Like she should stop it; as if that were possible. Aidan sighed: a sound of relief. He kissed her temple, her ear, her neck and told her everything would be fine, the way you’d calm a child, or a crazy person.

“It won’t be all right. This isn’t normal. Not even for me. It isn’t just calling coins, or knowing when it’s going to rain. I saw you cut to ribbons by feathers. I saw a Cyclops
eat
someone, and I don’t even know how I know what a Cyclops is.” She kept her voice low, even though they were in the back of the café, in a corner booth. The confession felt strange. The words clung to her teeth.

“You have to trust me,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”

“You should be the one trusting me. I know things. And what I know right now is that everything is not going to be fine.”

“But it is. I’ll make sure it is. I know things too.”

“Yeah?” she asked. “Like what things?” He was looking at her so intently. His mouth opened and closed on words. Aidan never hesitated, or sputtered.

It must be really horrible to be around me sometimes. I must’ve really freaked him out.

She sighed and he squeezed her tighter.

“I know I love you,” he said. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

*   *   *

The hockey arena stood on the outskirts of town, an enormous structure painted a bleak, pale blue with what seemed to be a mustard yellow racing stripe along the roof. It sat beside four outdoor rinks and across from the lot where the bus garage was. The town used it for all manner of events: birthday parties, senior skate nights, and figure skating lessons, but the presence of so many yellow buses stamped it forever as being part of the school, and the specter of tests and teachers hung over it in a perpetual cloud.

Cassandra and Aidan leaned against the hood of Henry’s Mustang while Andie and Henry stood on the sidewalk and talked about pucks and passing and goalies who couldn’t get their legs closed. They’d been lucky to get a close space. Even though it was a mid-week game, the lot was jammed. Andie was in all her gear except for her skates and helmet. Her black hair was back in a ponytail, her bangs kept off her forehead with a purple bandanna. Her shoulders and ass looked enormous in the padding. It was strange that something so awkward and full of bulges could be so graceful once you strapped blades to its feet.

“I’d better go play captain,” Andie said, and motioned to Cassandra. “Want to walk me back to the locker room?”

“So you’re not mad anymore about us ditching Monday, right?” Cassandra asked as they walked down the cement steps. Andie had given her the cold shoulder for the better part of Tuesday, but by Wednesday seemed to have forgotten all about it. “It wasn’t planned or anything. I got there late. You were already in class.”

“It was for the best anyway. If I’d have ditched, they’d have benched me tonight, and I bet your brother twenty bucks I’d get a hat trick.”

Cassandra smiled. Going to the café with Aidan had helped, and she was glad Andie wasn’t pissed. Afterward, they’d gone back to his house and spent the day curled up together, watching movies. Or not watching movies. It had been too long since they’d done that, kissed until their lips hurt, the heat of his hands making her dizzy. After that there’d been no more visions and no more dreams. Maybe it had been a fluke, an anomaly, or a temporary bad spell, sort of like psychic food poisoning.

“And you didn’t mean what you said Friday night at the party, did you? About us not being friends after high school?”

Andie made a face and flipped her blue Gatorade into the air. “Please. Since when am I serious?” She pulled open the door of the locker room. The sounds of Velcro being stretched and adjusted, sticks rattling, and the excited voices of a dozen girls spilled out to mingle with the cold hum of the arena lights. Andie ducked inside and said, “See you after.” Then she paused. “Hey, are we going to win tonight?”

No.

Cassandra smiled. “I’ll never tell.”

She and Aidan got seats in the bleachers low along the home-side blue line. It was the best spot to watch from, and they didn’t have any trouble getting it; girls’ games weren’t as well attended as the boys’. Most of the people there were parents and older alumni with a few pockets of students in twos and threes peppered throughout.

The opening puck dropped and everyone cheered. Christy passed to Andie and she took control, weaving through defenders and getting off a shot that barely missed, ringing off the post.

“I’m going to get a hot dog.” Aidan stood. “Do you want anything? Red rope licorice?”

“And maybe a hot chocolate?”

He smiled. “Yeah. Maybe.” He edged past her and she watched Andie try to dig the puck out of the corner, apparently by elbowing a girl on the opposing team repeatedly in the face. There were shouts from the crowd, and a bark. Someone must’ve brought a dog to the game.

The ref blew the whistle for a new face-off after another missed shot let the goalie freeze the puck. The crowd quieted, except for the dog. It got louder. The bark was rough and raw.

That’s no dog.

Another bark joined it, and another, until the arena could have been filled with them. The sounds of snarling and growling came from every direction. Cassandra turned her head, hoping ridiculously to see a Labrador retriever or a husky. Maybe a team of them. But there were only people. When they opened their mouths to shout, snarls came instead.

Sweat broke out across Cassandra’s forehead and panic coursed down to her feet.

I should run.

Don’t be stupid. It’s only a vision. Nothing worse than any other.

Only it was. It was like the dream. She sat still as stone, trying to ignore the urge to fly, to jump up and run screaming through the arena, through leaves and steaming jungle.

Leaves and steaming jungle. Something was out there.

They’re already chasing me.

The mad barking took over her ears, changing to something else, losing the dog quality that made a bark familiar. This sound was feral and wild. It came from wet, hungry throats. Across razor teeth. It was a sound you ran from until blood broke into your lungs and your legs failed.

They’ll be on me as soon as I fall. So fast. They could take me any time they want, but they like it better that way. With me broken and degraded. Without the breath to scream. They’ll tear me into ribbons and gulp me down. I’ll see their necks and shoulders jerk while they do it. I’ll hear the shredding of my own skin.

Except it wasn’t her they were chasing. She knew that even as she was terrified, even as the temperature inside the arena spiked, the humidity so stifling and heavy it felt like breathing water. Leaves took over her vision, hanging heavily from branches, enormous and dark green. Strange ferns peppered the ground, curled in like alien fingers. The light was hazy, indirect. Tree trunks stood choked with vines.

It smells like dirt. Rich, black dirt. And something else. Something nauseating and sweet. Rotten.

“Cassandra?” Aidan set the food on the bleacher and knelt by her knees.

“It’s not me.”

“What? Cassandra?”

Had she said it out loud? Sweat beaded on her forehead. The jungle was incredibly animal, alive and sinister. But the sound was the worst. Rustling leaves and roots being crushed underfoot. Branches being pulled and snapped back. The sound of something giving chase.

“It’s not me they’re chasing.”

“Tell me what you see.” Aidan’s hands slid over her knees.

“Be still,” she whispered. “Don’t run.”

“Run where?”

No. Not you. Not us.

She fixed her eyes on the sheet of ice that was no longer ice but humid forest. She fixed her eyes on the girl, who was Andie but no longer Andie.

Silvery hair flew out behind her like a flag as she ran, ducking vines. It was stringy with sweat and dirt, but still had a glow, like a pale moon. She wore brown clothes, torn and streaked with dirt. Her feet were bare.

“She’s so fast,” she whispered. “She’s run for miles. She’s almost laughing. But there’s blood. So much blood on the leaves.”

Aidan squeezed her tighter. She saw it, dripping down from the shining green, a trail for the slathering tongues behind her. The dogs that weren’t dogs could smell it. They would taste it as they passed.

“Blood on the leaves,” Cassandra whispered. “And in her silver hair. They’re going to tear her apart.”

“No,” Aidan whispered back. “No.” He pressed against her and buried his face in her hair.

*   *   *

Cassandra spat on the asphalt of the arena parking lot, where she sat in the seat of Henry’s car, her legs out the open door so she could get air.

“My mouth tastes disgusting.” Like bitter leaves and something organic she couldn’t quite identify but that reminded her of snails.

Leaves. Leaves from a forest I’ve never been. Where a girl is running to her death.

“Here.” Andie rifled through her backpack and handed her a half-eaten Nestle Crunch. Cassandra peeled the foil and took a bite, tasting chocolate, crisp rice, and snails. It coated her mouth, like the scent of carrion and humid rot coated the inside of her nose. After a few chews she twisted and spat it out.

“Thanks anyway.”

Andie nodded. She leaned against the car, back in her street clothes except for the purple bandanna in her hair. Henry and Aidan stood farther off. They looked lost. Aidan looked worse than that. When he’d helped her out of the arena, Cassandra had felt him shaking.

She exhaled a cloud, spat again. The parking lot was shadowed and empty, lit only by three sets of large fluorescent lights. The game was still going inside, but there were a bunch of little kids skating on the outdoor rinks beside the arena. The sound of the ice shearing beneath skates and the kids’ exuberant shouts made their corner of the dark lot all the more somber.

“This is getting old,” said Cassandra.

“What is ‘this’ exactly?” Andie asked. “Tell me you’re not pregnant.”

Cassandra snorted, but Aidan didn’t seem to be listening.

“I’m not. I don’t know what ‘this’ is. I miss the days of coin tosses and weather prediction.”

“Is that gone?”

“No. You’re going to lose in there, by the way.”

“Maybe we should take you to the hospital,” Henry suggested.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“But maybe we should.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and his shoulders slumped. She felt bad, pulling him away from his friends for the second night in less than a week. But he didn’t look irritated. He looked worried and no more enthusiastic about the hospital than she was.

“Are you dizzy?” Andie asked. She held her phone in her hand, trying to WebMD it before jumping to any conclusions.

“No,” said Aidan. “No doctors. No hospitals. No Internet searches.” He was still apart from them, staring into the pavement. Something was wrong.

“Well, what are we supposed to do then?” Henry asked. “It could be a tumor, you know.”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know? She’s been seeing all this weird shit—that’s what it was again, wasn’t it?” Henry looked at Cassandra. “It was like in the park.”

“Sort of. It wasn’t the same. It was a girl this time, running, in a jungle. She was cut, or hurt, or something. She was being chased.” Cassandra paused. “And she didn’t seem human.”

“What?” Andie asked.

Cassandra blinked. It hadn’t occurred to her until then. The way that the girl ran was so effortless and so blindingly fast. No one bleeding the way she was should be able to run like that.

She shrugged. “What are you listening to me for? It was a hallucination. Maybe I really should see a doctor.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” said Andie. “I saw an old John Travolta movie once, where he got all these special powers and it turned out it was just this weird brain tumor, activating dormant brain parts.”

“So what’d they do? Did he live?”

Andie blanched. “I’m sure that’s not what it is.”

“Aidan?” Cassandra asked. He had sunk down against the cement wall with his hands between his knees. She got out of the car and walked to him.

“It’s not a tumor,” he said quietly. “And it wasn’t a hallucination.” He took Cassandra by the hand. “The girl you saw in that jungle. I think she was my twin sister.”

*   *   *

Twin sister. Aidan didn’t have any sisters. Or at least he’d never mentioned one.

After the initial confusion and flurry of questions, he’d refused to say any more in the ice arena parking lot, so they drove to Andie’s house, which was empty on Wednesday nights when her mom worked the night shift at the county hospital.

“What do you mean it was your twin sister?” Cassandra asked. “You have a sister?” Aidan closed his eyes and shook his head. But it didn’t mean no. He was stalling. Whatever it was he needed to say, he couldn’t figure out how to say it.