Earth (28 page)

“I don’t know. I guess the logical
explanation would be that she’s with Ian. She’s so happy with him
she’d follow him anywhere.” That stopped me. Tracy was a victim.
Maybe not on purpose, but if you’re always a follower and never a
leader, you’re the victim by default. “We’ll need to work on that
when this mess is over.” They both nodded in agreement.

Just then the tardy bell rang overhead,
jarring us from our conversation. “Awesome,” Steven said
sarcastically and Jodi and I groaned in unison. As much as we would
have liked to stroll casually to class, we were all too goody-goody
not to hurry. We practically ran the rest of the way to French
class, sliding into our seats just as the end of the bell faded
away. Luckily, Madame Beaumont was writing on the white board with
her back to the class when we slid in and didn’t notice we were
late. We all breathed a sigh of relief. All the supernatural crap
hanging around us and we were still worried about being tardy for
class.

The rest of the day was just like that first
hour. Each class dragged on like being caught in quicksand and the
few minutes between classes passed in a second, too short to really
discuss anything. Math was one of the hardest classes for me again,
since Jensen was still suspiciously absent as well. My stomach was
in knots by the time I got to my sixth hour elective as a Teacher’s
Aide. Luckily, the kids were all taking a pop quiz and Mrs. Porter
had the first four classes worth of quizzes to be graded. It was
mindless work that left me to my thoughts, only having to line up
the answer key to the papers and marking the correct answers with a
marker if they got it wrong. I didn’t even have to read the
questions. I would have to remember to volunteer to be Mrs.
Porter’s aide again next year, God knows I’ll probably need the
break again.

In English, I saw Michelle sitting behind
Tracy’s empty desk, looking almost as forlorn as I felt and had a
spark of inspiration. To my luck, the teacher called for us to pair
off for a debate of modern poetry versus classic. I motioned for
Steven to come take my seat to pair off with Jodi and I stood and
rushed over to Tracy’s empty seat. Michelle was startled to see me
and didn’t make any effort to hide that from her face.

“I know you usually pair off with Tracy, so I
thought I’d rescue you from being paired off with the teacher.” I
flashed my best sympathetic smile and her worry lines faded
slightly from her forehead.

“Thanks,” Michelle mumbled, opening her
poetry book, fixating her eyes on the page but not taking in the
words. I chewed the inside of my cheek, feeling the waves of
annoyance coming off of her and snapping at my face. Under that I
could feel her embarrassment as she remembered coming to in the
backseat of my car looking disheveled and being told that she had
passed out in public. There was nothing I could do for that but
just ignore it like she was. I glanced up at the clock and saw that
I had been sitting there just staring at her for a full minute. I
cleared my throat and tried to break the ice.

“Funny that Trace has missed two days in a
row, huh? She, like, never misses. Doesn’t she even come in if
she’s sick?” I asked as casually as possible.

Michelle hesitated, but I caught a flicker of
something pass over her face. Finally she shrugged and said, “It
was a pretty bad storm. She probably caught something bad enough to
keep her home.”

“You mean you don’t know?” I arched one
eyebrow, trying to get her to make eye contact with me.

“No,” she said carefully, finally lifting her
eyes from the page to look at me. There was something cold and
distant in her eyes. She was hiding anger. I unfocused my stare
just slightly, seeming to still look her in the face, but I was
really looking at the space just inches away from her skin. Her
aura was pulsing red and angry. I nodded, pursing my lips and
sitting back casually.

“My mistake. I take it she’s been spending a
lot of time with Ian lately?” I glanced at Michelle out of the
corner of my eye to see that carefully controlled mask crack for
just a second at the mention of his name. “Michelle? You okay?” I
asked quietly, leaning towards her again.

“Yeah…” But she sighed, like she was suddenly
tired. “She’s like that.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno…” she hesitated. I held my breath,
not wanting to push her. “She’s that kinda girl that lets her
boyfriend become her world. She’ll blow off her friends if he wants
something and it’s like she can’t talk about anything else when
he’s not around.” She was concentrating very hard on the corner of
her book as she spoke, her hands bending the spine until it
creased.

I nodded sympathetically, looking down at my
book as well. Sometimes it was easier to vent about something if no
one was looking at anyone else. “Yeah, I feel you, a lot of girls
can be like that,” I said vaguely, knowing Michelle was just as
guilty of what Tracy was doing; it just happened that Michelle was
single right at this moment. “Is that why she’s not here today?
Because she ditched with Ian?” I tried to keep my voice casual.
Michelle glanced up at me, suspicion plain on her face, but
underneath that was her bitter anger towards Tracy. Michelle wanted
to rat Tracy out.

“Probably,” she shrugged again, looking to
the front of the class, past my shoulder. “I mean, if he wanted her
to ditch, I’m sure she’d go.”

“I thought you two were best friends.
Wouldn’t she tell you if she was ditching?”

“I thought so,” Michelle whispered so quietly
I almost didn’t hear her over the din of the rest of the class. Ah,
bitter, party of one? “Whatever, he’ll break her heart and she’ll
come crawling back to me and we’ll pretend she hasn’t been blowing
me off this whole time.”

“Where do you think they would’ve gone if
they did ditch together?” I tried not to sound too interested, but
it wasn’t easy. Luckily Michelle was starting to let herself be
openly angry and didn’t seem to care that I was asking.

“Who knows,” she said with another shrug of
her shoulders. I pressed my lips together, trying not to become
obviously frustrated with how long this was taking.

“I dunno. Like I said, she’d do whatever he’d
want to keep him happy.” She shook her head in disgust. Just then
the teacher called for a switch in partners. I stood up and hurried
over to Steven and Jodi, pushing Steven towards Michelle, hoping
he’d be able to get some more information out of her. I knew she’d
be more comfortable talking to him now that I had chipped away at
her façade. I told Jodi what I’d gotten out of Michelle, vague as
it was.

“So, we’re banking on the fact that Tracy’s
the sacrifice and either of the twins is the guy we’re looking
for?” Jodi asked.

I sighed, not really wanting to answer the
question, but we had no other options right now. “Yeah, I guess so.
At least it gives us somewhere to start. I mean, even if we’re
wrong, we know it’s gonna be at midnight on Thursday and we know
where it’ll be, so that’s something at least.”

We rushed to history class so that we could
huddle at our table and talk before Michelle made it to class since
she sat in the row in front of us. “Ok, so I guess Ian’s been
giving Tracy a lot of gifts, taking her out to nice dinners at
least three times a week, she’s hardly ever home anymore. Um, she
didn’t seem to know anything about Ian not being home since
Thursday…” Steven trailed off, trying to remember any other details
we needed to know.

“So he’s a good boyfriend that’s spoiling
her, big deal.” Jodi sat back in her seat, a little crease forming
between her eyes.

“Oh, that’s right! Ok, so, the gifts!” Steven
picked up his train of thought quickly. “I guess one of them was a
necklace with this pendant that a symbol of some kind.”

“What kind of symbol?” I asked eagerly.

“She didn’t know, she said she didn’t
recognize it, but when she described it, it kinda reminded me of
the rune symbols you drew from the vision.” The three of us shared
a long, silent look. My stomach was in knots and I knew they were
feeling the same cold and clammy sensation I was. “But let me tell
you, Michelle is bit-ter,” Steven drew out the syllables of the
word.

“Yeah, I got that too,” I agreed,
nodding.

“This is still circumstantial,” Jodi said,
the crease still prominent between her eyes.

“I know, babe, I agree,” I said, patting her
arm. Jodi seemed to be more affected by the unpleasant developments
than Steven and that had me curious. I realized I was soothing her
more often than I was trying to calm myself. I wanted to explore
that, but the bell rang and the teacher called the class to order.
I knew I felt like I had something to lose here, no matter how
briefly I had known Jensen, but I didn’t understand Jodi’s stake in
all this. And that, almost more than Tracy’s safety, had me
worried.

Chapter 16

I dreamt of Jensen that night. I was standing
on a beach. In the distance, I could see the figure of a man
standing on the edge of a cliff. I stopped, feeling the grass and
earth reach up and meld with my feet, and watched him. Cautiously,
I walked towards him, concentrating on keeping my feet above the
ground. I stopped a few feet away from him, watching the line of
his shoulders set against the horizon. I waited. Eventually he
turned to me, as if he had known I was there the whole time,
setting fathomless blue eyes on mine and smiling sadly.

We stood there staring at each other in
silence. I was terrified to speak, as if the sound of my voice
would break whatever wonderful spell had brought us together here.
I heard him take a deep breath, holding it for a moment before
letting it out, steeling himself. I knew he was going to speak and
I wasn’t sure I wanted him to, but before I could summon up the
courage to stop him, preferably with a kiss, he spoke.

“It was unfair of me to come here.” I
shouldn’t have been able to hear him speak so softly with the waves
crashing against the cliff just behind us, but this was my dream; I
could hear the birds singing in the trees over a hundred feet away
if I wanted. “But I had to see you one last time. I had to warn
you.”

“Warn me?” I took another step closer towards
him, wanting to reach out and touch him.

“I don’t know if you can stop what is going
to happen, but,” he hesitated and took a small step closer to me.
We were merely inches apart now and I had to tilt my chin up to
look him in the face. “I don’t know if you can stop what is going
to happen, but I cannot stand the thought of you dying…” he
whispered the last word as if afraid of it.

“I can’t let anything happen to Tracy if I
have the power to stop it,” I said calmly, accepting without
question that we were talking about the same thing.

With bravery I didn’t know I possessed, I
reached with both hands and set them on his chest, feeling the
warmth beneath his shirt and the beat of his heart. The skin was
firm with muscle and I had the desire to clutch at his chest.

“How do you know you have the power to stop
it?” He was still whispering and reached and laid his hands over
mine, holding them against his chest.

“I don’t,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I
do, but I have to try. Tracy deserves that much.”

“And if you die trying?”

“Then at least I’ll die with a clear
conscience.” That seemed to cause him pain. He closed his eyes
tightly, pressing his lips together and gripping my hands. He
pulled me to him, closing that last inch between our bodies and
pressed me into him. I clutched the fabric of his shirt in my
fists, my arms pressed along the length of his chest and his arms
encircled my arms and back, his fingers curling into my ribs. I
turned my head and laid my cheek against the hollow of his
collarbone and he buried his face in my hair. I felt hot tears
spill out of my eyes into his shirt before he slowly pulled his
hands around and gripped my upper arms. With gentle force he pushed
me away from him, holding me at arms length. There was a hard
determination in his eyes as he leaned a little to look at me.

“I never meant to bring you into this; I hope
this is enough for you to forgive me.” Suddenly, he pulled me close
again and pressed a hard kiss against my lips. His lips were warm
and I crushed myself to him, trying to take all of him into me in
that one moment but, as always, too soon he broke away from me. My
eyes were still closed and I knew when I opened them he would be
gone. I could taste the metallic warmth of blood in my mouth from
the split in my lip he had caused when he kissed me. My hands
trembled and my knees felt weak, but I found the courage to open my
eyes.

My bedroom was dark around me; only the
ever-flickering blue-white light of my television illuminated
anything to give me a sense of where I was. I lay there staring at
the ceiling, savoring the fading aroma of salt and damp earth. I
traced my tongue over the wound on my lip, cleaning away the blood
that was drying there and barely noticed the sharp pain from doing
so. The only proof that the kiss had been real was painful. The
life of a teenage girl can be so unfair.

I lowered my hand from my face to lay it on
the bed next to me when I felt the cool, soft leather of my
journal. Confused, I sat up and stared at it as if it could speak
to me and explain what it was doing there. I reached out to turn on
my bedside light and sat up Indian style. I pulled the book into my
lap and opened it where my pen laid like a bookmark. The book was
opened to the pages Steven had found that I didn’t remember writing
and suddenly they made complete sense to me. There was a sketch on
one page of the clearing in the woods from my dreams and notes
written all around. I had found the five trees that marked the
seals of the circle of power that would be cast and the point in
the middle where the sacrifice would be made.