Book of Life (33 page)

“Jane . . .” He smiled. “I like that name.”

He removed his sunglasses, revealing an ocean of blue just like the one behind him, swimming in his eyes. I felt the words I’d so carefully selected choke in my throat. His hand remained around mine, lingering like old friends.

Avery approached with the other boy. She was smiling wider than I’d ever seen, her eyes staring at our bound hands. “See, I
told
you.” She nudged me. “Soon.”

“Told her what?” Max asked curiously.

I gave Avery a sour look, wriggling my hand from Max’s.

“I never break a promise.” Avery winked and drew in a deep breath, looking at the boy named Greg beside her. He had green eyes, green eyes she seemed to gobble up. “You know, perhaps Max was right.”

“Right about what?” Greg seemed confused.

“Right about how
delicious
you are, my dear boy.” She winked at him, dragging him away toward the water where she conceded to splashing about the waves like a brainless floozy—though she was anything but.

I looked sideways at Max.

He shook his head. “I said no such thing to her,” he murmured.

I laughed. “She does this all the time.”

He laughed, too, but when the laughter faded, I couldn’t help but stare.

“I feel like I’ve met you before.” Max bit his lip, brows wrinkled. “Where are you from?”

“North Carolina,” I answered bleakly, simply lost in butterflies.

He shook his head. “Never been there.”

I shook my head. “I’ve never been here.”

We both laughed again, nervous habit.

“Well, perhaps we’ll have to make sure you come back more often.” He handed me the football in his hand. “Shall we, Beautiful?”

I about fell over. No one had ever looked or talked to me the way he did, let alone in the presence of Avery. Only in my dreams had I imagined a man like him, and in my dreams I truly had. Something inside me remembered him as though from a place like that—a place we only hope to visit, and a life we only hope to live.

. . .

Ladybird, ladybird . . .

By Abra Ebner

PREFACE

My name is Samantha, and I was born to a mother already dead. They say that it’s bad luck to be born under a full moon, that you’re cursed by the fires of Hell and the Devil himself, but

I’ve never seen the Devil, unless the Devil is me.

Father considers me as such, and I’ve never been able to convince him otherwise. He avoids me, and though avoidance to him comes across in angry bouts of confusion and hate, I know that at the root of it all, he’s just afraid to love me. He sees me as a murderer, the destroyer of the last thing that made him feel alive in this world—my mother. I don’t know what my father was like before, but there must have been a happy man in there, a smile.

People pity me because I never met my mother but they shouldn’t. For nine months I was closer to her than any of them could ever be. We forged a connection that transcends death, and if you pay close attention, you’ll see she’s always there.

I know because in her own way, she still talks to me.

ONE

Guns and Roses played softly in the background.

“Yeah, headed off at the end of this summer.” He tried to act smug about it, but I easily noted the small shake of his tongue as he spoke. “I’m not too excited about the idea of conceding to some army general’s every command, but at the same time, it’s better than here . . . even if I can’t always see myself actually being that kind of person.”

I laced my fingers through and around each other in the seat beside him, knowing that any second this moment could end. I needed to say something. I needed to make myself worth fighting for because that was what he was going to have to do. “Just hearing you say that makes my stomach sink. How can you handle that pressure?” I managed. It was forced—typical. I wasn’t gaining any ground.

He shrugged. “Easy. It’s all I’ve ever been raised to do.” He puffed out his chest and dropped his voice an octave, presumably impersonating his father. “Fight for our country. Be a prideful man.” His voice returned to normal and his shoulders slumped. “Besides, it gets me out of here, like I was saying.” He looked out the window to the wheat field beside us. The crop was really wheat-to-be, so early in the spring, appearing to me no more than tall grass. “It’s either that or farm. I can’t farm.”

I pressed my lips together and dropped my head. Out of here. Those words were sweet but depressing at the same time. Though I’d just met David, a part of me wanted to keep him. A part of me wanted to keep something. Though I still wasn’t sure to what degree I really liked David, we did have some similarities. There was the fact that I could sense pain in him, a pain that was similar to my own. I liked that his choice of music wasn’t mainstream. I was happy he was new to our school, having transferred from the next town over when his father’s farm was rezoned. He didn’t know the extent of the rumors about me, and in his mind they were just that, rumors. Bottom line was that I wanted to make him mine. I thought maybe for once I could, but as facts continued to trickle in, I feared otherwise.

Even if I hooked him, even if he did decide to fight for me, there was now the actuality that, in three short months, he’d be gone on a mission for his country, and surely I could not follow. I’d be left alone. I was as certain of this as I was certain the wheat would be harvested in late summer. Three months wasn’t going to be enough for me, even if I were able to keep his existence from my father. And what if David didn’t like me as much as I sort of liked him? Why would he? I was just a farm girl with a fable attached to her back that may as well scream, “Stay away!”

“So . . .” He looked at me.

I knew that look all too well. It was a look of pity. There were two looks people gave me: pity or hate. And I guess a few sad saps mixed interest with the pity—at least until they learned of the fire in me.

“Yeah,” I said because it seemed like something needed to be said, even if it was a useless word.

He continued to stare pathetically.

People called me a witch, but as far as I was concerned, I’d never done anything to classify me as a textbook witch. I’m not green or tall. I don’t own any pointy hats, and I don’t possess any real magical talent—unless you count the flash fevers, which were hardly a talent, more of a curse. Still, even if I were to say, “Yes, I’m cursed,” I didn’t look like the type to be cursed. I’m blonde, love the color peach, and ride my horse, Axon, in the county fair. I have an average body with curves that attract all the right thoughts from a boy’s mind, such as: sweet, cute, and sometimes sexy, though my experience in that area was slim to none.

Perhaps it’s my eyes that scare everyone so much: so blue that they’re a reflection of the full moon on a cold, spring night. As if those eyes weren’t rare enough around here, I hadn’t heard of anyone whose eyes burned umber when a person was angry or nervous. Not like mine did. That sort of thing was a clear sign of a monster lurking within. Luckily for me, the car was dark. The only light came from the few working bulbs in the truck’s dash.

Bottom line is: I’m different. Most of the townspeople around here are bland, tired, and heavy featured. I was soft, pale, and what seemed this town’s epitome of frightening. They had loved my mother, and I was the one who had killed her.

David touched my arm softly, as though imagining that touching me might burn him, as it had a hundred others. But my emotion had been subdued by my thinking. I was cool to the touch. “I’m glad I took you out tonight. You’re much more than . . .” His voice trailed off, and if the moon had been brighter, I was certain I would have seen him blush.

“More than they say, right?”

David grinned at me, his touch on my arm growing brave and firm.

I shook my head and smiled, trying my best to keep my nerves at bay, though his grasp on me forced my heart to start beating just a little bit faster. “It’s amazing what a small town can do to your reputation,” I commented bitterly.

He nodded slowly. “I don’t really buy into all that. That’s just one reason I can’t wait to get out of here. There’s no such thing as a curse. It’s all a bunch of hoopla and small-town bull.”

Hearing him say that was like a dream. He was perfect for me, but then there was the
can’t-wait-to-get-out-of-here
part. “But then you’ll be gone along with my last hope of proving them all wrong. I’ll be stuck here for another year until I’m old enough to go to college, and even then there’s no guarantee I’ll have the money to go. I’ll end up the town legend and the old lady with a million cats one day. Just you wait. I’ll rival Mr. Buckhead on Chatterley Lane,” I finished in a rush.

David laughed loudly. It echoed through the car. “No one could rival Mr. Buckhead or his kid.”

I lifted my brow. “Just you wait, David Lane. One day I’ll prove you wrong. One day you’ll turn on me as though this whole conversation had never happened. I’ve seen it a million times.”

He shook his head decisively. “We’ll see.” But as expected, his touch slipped from my arm and he recoiled. Maybe he didn’t have the bravery I’d hoped for after all.

As though on cue, two large lights crested the hill in front of us. I shut my eyes to them. My already speedy heart rate peaked and my back steeled, body heat rising without a means to control it. I could never quell the way I felt toward such actions—the actions of my controlling father.

David shielded his eyes. “What the . . . ?”

A feverish hate overcame me, and the air in the car surged a couple more degrees. I clenched my jaw and held tight to my sanity. “It’s my father.” I opened my now fiery eyes to the light, seeing the horrified look on David’s face and feeling the dread in my stomach. I reached out to David in a foolish attempt to defuse his growing apprehensions. As my hand touched his skin, I did just as I expected: I burned him.

He jerked away, his face filled with a mix of anger and confusion, the smell of lightly singed skin filling the car. “Get away from me!” he gasped.

His reaction was genuine. From his gut to his lips, his conscience had changed his mind. I had lost David long before I’d gotten a real chance at having him.

I exhaled away my losses as the sound of the machine grew louder. Lights barreled toward us through the wheat-to-be. I leaned back. “I’m sorry,” I whispered and shook my head. I knew he couldn’t hear me but Mother could. David wasn’t the one for me after all. “I think you should go,” I yelled over the grinding of gears, assuming it was the thing to say, though I was in his car. He looked at me in clear agreement.

Feeling flustered, I quickly reached for my sweater and got out of David’s truck. “Thanks again,” I yelled out of habit, not too sure what I was thinking. Manners no longer had merit. I was biting back the urge to cry, the fibers of the sweater in my hand twisting under my blistering grip. Considering the circumstances, manners were all I could cling to.

The combine stopped just inches from the hood of David’s truck, letting out a loud moan. David’s truck clicked into reverse and pulled away fast. I waited, staring angrily at the lights of the machine before me. There was a cry of metal hinges, and a shadow hopped down onto the side of the combine. “Girl!” The anger in my father’s voice swept effortlessly over the noise of the machine. “Get on over here, right now!”

I inched my way over the dirt road. David and his truck were long gone, and there was no telling what he thought of me now, though I had a good idea. I’d made another believer out of him. How stupid of me. This was how it always started. This was why the rumors even existed. So many boys found my beauty irresistible—until they met my father and my fury, a dangerous combination.

Father marched across the distance between us. I braced myself for the worst. Without hesitation, he grabbed my arm with his gloved hand, dragging me back to the machine. He let go and climbed on before turning back and easily lifting me onto the combine. My feet searched for footing until he tossed me down onto the decking beside him. “Whadya doin’ with that boy? You gonna get yerself knocked up, and I ain’t keepin’ you in no state like that. Yer enough trouble already,” he grumbled.

I rubbed my wrist, knowing that it was destined to bruise. Had he not been wearing gloves, I would have been able to hurt him back, but tonight he seemed a little more in tune with the world. He must have been out of beer.

“I see ya with that boy again, and I’ll hit ya till there’s nothin’ left,” he warned.

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing he were joking but knowing he wasn’t. Despite how hard he was on me, I really couldn’t blame him for being that way. He had no idea how to raise a child, let alone one like me. I had killed his wife and brought shame upon him. Tears formed in my eyes. To my relief, he’d had his fill of punishing me and climbed back into the cabin of the combine. I was left on the decking where I would stay, just to be away from him.

The machine lurched forward, the blades stationary. He’d done this for the sole reason of making a point, as he always did. Showing up with a shotgun in his hand wasn’t drama enough for him. My father had to bring his ten-ton combine to the dance. Why couldn’t he be more traditional? Why couldn’t he leave me alone? But most of all, why couldn’t he love me?