Goddess of the Night (16 page)

Chapter 20

BY THE NEXT
FRIDAY the loneliness inside Vanessa was as big as a boulder. She
missed Catty. Tears had been creeping into her eyes all week and if
she hadn't been in the middle of Urth Caffe with everyone hanging
around, she would have started crying again. The coffee and muffin
smells reminded her of the crazy times she and Catty had there. She
tried not to think of Catty wandering in the nightmarish land between
times, but the thought came uninvited. She had a painful feeling that
she was never going to see Catty again.

She set her
cafe mocha on the table near the back window, then pulled her books
and papers

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from her
messenger bag. She doodled on a course outline, drawing the face of
the moon. Then she opened her geography book. The words blurred.

Footsteps
pounded across the wood floor. Someone jarred the table and her cafe
mocha slopped over the side of the cup onto the map of Japan.

Morgan sat
down. Her smile was like morning sunshine. She crossed her legs. She
was wearing new chunky-heeled lace-up boots, her thighs golden and
slim under a black mini.

"Hey, I've
been looking for you," Morgan said breezily. "I'm going out
with Stanton tonight, you want to go with?"

"I don't
think so." Vanessa was still angry with her.

"It'll get
your mind off Catty," Morgan said. "Look, you got to face
it, she's not coming back."

Vanessa dabbed
at the spilled coffee with her napkin.

"I know
you miss her, but she ditched you," Morgan said. "She
didn't even tell you she was running."

The disquieting
tunnel flashed in Vanessa's mind. "Maybe she couldn't tell me,"
she snapped.

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"Come on,"
Morgan cajoled. "I'm just trying to cheer you up. It's better to
think she ran than to think--"

"Enough!"
Vanessa shouted in a burst of anger.

Morgan was
silent for a moment, then she held up her slim tan wrist. "Look."
A silver watch dangled on it. "Stanton gave me this watch. He
didn't like the one I was wearing."

"I liked
your old one." Vanessa frowned.

"This one
is digital," Morgan said. "He said I had to get modern."

"Morgan,
maybe Stanton isn't really the guy you should be going out with."

"Jealous?"
That seemed to please her.

"No."
Was she? She had never warned a friend away from a guy. Why would she
be? She still liked Michael. But she couldn't get rid of the uneasy
feeling she had about Stanton. "Stanton hangs with some really
strange people and--"

"Quit
worrying about me. I like Stanton. He doesn't act like other high
school boys. You know, how they have to be tough and have this
attitude like they're so cool. He's different--dark and

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intense like a
poet. I've never had a guy write a poem for me before."

Vanessa felt a
sudden yearning for Michael. She wished she hadn't ruined things with
him.

"Besides,
it's nothing serious." Morgan looked down and waited a long time
before she spoke again. "I need a guy in my life. I know that's
not cool, but I can't help
it.
How could you understand
anyway? You make friends in a snap, you're really popular and you've
got the look."

"Me?"
Vanessa looked up, surprised. "That's what everyone says about
you."

A satisfied
smile crossed Morgans lips. "Thanks. So don't worry about me.
It's a waste of time. I've got it all together."

Vanessa sighed.
"Be careful."

"I don't
need to be." Morgan looked outside. "He's so fine."

Stanton stood
at the edge of the back parking lot, wearing jeans and a black shirt,
hair blowing in his eyes. He was incredibly sexy in a wild and
dangerous way. She could see why Morgan was attracted to him. Maybe
he really did like her.

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"Yeah,
well, gotta fly," Morgan said. She almost knocked into Serena
and Jimena as they walked into the cafe.

"Hey."
Jimena walked over to her table. She had transferred to La Brea High
on Tuesday. Maggie thought it was safer if they all went to the same
school. Vanessa still didn't believe the things Maggie had told her
last week. But she liked Jimena and Serena and had started to sit
with them at lunch. After school they went to Pink's for chili dogs,
Retail Slut to look at punk rock clothes, and Aardvark's Odd Ark so
Serena could buy Hawaiian shirts. More than once, she'd had a strange
feeling that she had known them a long time. Everything would be so
good now, if only Catty were back. Well, and Michael. She wished she
could think of the right thing to say to him.

Jimena handed
her a roll with pink sugar sprinkled over the top.

"Here, my
grandmother made
pan duhe.
Dunk it in your coffee," she
said. "It's really good." She pulled two more from a brown
paper bag.

Jimena had
three dots tattooed in a triangle on the web of her hand between
thumb and index

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finger. She
caught Vanessa staring at it.

"I got
that when I got ganged up. It's for
mi vida loca!'
She smiled
but there was sadness in it, then she pointed to the teardrop
tattooed under her right eye. "I got this in a Youth Authority
Camp. Means I've served time so all the little hood rats will know
I'm one tough
chola.
I got caught up again but the judge gave
me community service instead."

Vanessa didn't
know what to say. Jimena understood. "You don't need to say
anything."

Serena set two
cups of cafe au kit on the table, then sat down. Her hair was parted
on the side and slicked back, eyes and lips metallic violet. She
looked pretty.

Serena smiled.
"Thank you."

Jimena laughed
at Vanessa's shocked expression. "You'll get used to Serena
reading your mind."

Serena's green
eyes stared at Vanessa and then she said in a low whisper, "I
can't do it all the time, or the way I need to be able to do it, but
I'm learning. Maggie's been teaching me."

"For me it
just happens.
Wham, like
a brick in

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the head,"
Jimena said, playfully hitting the side of her head with a clenched
fist. Then she looked sad again. "The first time it happened . .
." She gazed out the window as if she were remembering something
that still caused her pain. "I was seven, playing with my best
friend, Miranda. All of a sudden I got this picture of Miranda in a
white casket. Then Miranda touched me and another picture filled my
mind. She was walking down Ladera Street. A car was going by. Shots
fired. I can still see the white flash coming from the gun barrel.
Miranda was killed. I saw everything. After that I wouldn't let
Miranda walk down Ladera. It meant we had to go a block out of the
way every day when we walked home from school."

"But it
came true?" Vanessa asked softly.

Jimena nodded.
"I didn't go to school one day. I had to stay home because I had
the flu. It was around two-thirty, when kids were getting home from
school. I heard the shots and then I knew." She looked away and
brushed at her eyes.

"I thought
I made it happen because of my premonition." She smiled but her
chin still quivered. "Maggie told me I was seeing the future,
not

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making the bad
things happen. I don't know what I'd do without Maggie, but in the
beginning it took me almost a year to believe everything she said. I
mean,
goddess!"
She laughed now and the sad memories
seemed to fall back into their dark secret places.

Serena tore her
roll in two and dipped half in her coffee. "When I was young, I
answered people's thoughts. Not all the time, but often enough so
people noticed. I couldn't tell the difference at first."

"That must
have shocked everyone," Vanessa commented.

Jimena laughed.
"No doubt."

"Yeah, I
must have really freaked them out. I know it upset my mom."

"Do you
know everything a person is thinking?" Vanessa asked.

"No,"
Serena said. "Like the night you came over to have your cards
read. I didn't know you were a Daughter at first. Then I saw your
memories. First I was shocked, then I was excited. I couldn't wait to
tell Maggie. I knew Maggie had been looking for you a long time. But
then the

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cards started
showing danger for you. Could you tell I was flustered?"

"I thought
you saw something in the cards that you weren't telling me."
What had she seen?

Serena gave her
a curious look. "Just what I told you already."

"That I
can't run from this problem?"

Serena nodded.

"After you
left, we went over to tell Maggie," Jimena said. "She is
one cool woman."

"How did
you meet her?" Vanessa asked.

"In our
sleep." They both laughed.

"I started
having dreams about her when I was about five," Serena
explained. "Then when I was around twelve she started asking me
to meet her."

"Did you
go?"

"After a
few months I made Collin take me. He thought I just wanted to check
out L.A. By then I was thirteen and he had just gotten his driver's
license, so he was really happy to drive me anywhere." Serena
took another bite of roll. "I didn't think she'd be there,
but--"

"There she
was," Jimena finished. "Me and

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my home girls
went to check out the address I saw in a dream."

"I never
dreamed about her." Vanessa thought a moment. Her nightmares had
always begun with black shadows covering the moon. And the other
night she had dreamed of a woman riding the moon across the sky. The
woman had said something before the shadows had seeped into the dream
and hidden the moon.

"The Atrox
must have sent you nightmares so Maggie couldn't talk to you in your
dreams," Jimena mused.

"Maybe one
of the Followers saw you go invisible," Serena added.

"A woman
saw me once." Vanessa spoke slowly. "I was afraid she was
going to tell my mother."

"But she
didn't," Serena guessed.

"Yeah,
'cause she was one of them," Jimena said.

The nightmares
had started after that. Was it just a coincidence?

"You want
to go dancing?" Jimena asked. "We'll teach you some more
moves.

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Vanessa smiled.
She admired girls who had enough nerve to dance the way they did.
"You'll have to teach me
a lot"
she said, laughing.
But suddenly she thought of Catty. How could she go out and have a
good time when Catty was still missing?

"Actually,
I better not," Vanessa decided. "I need to study."

"It's all
right." Serena gave her a sympathetic look. "We can
practice when Catty gets back."

Vanessa stacked
her books and hurried outside. Tears came, uninvited.

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Chapter 21

VANESSA SAT AT
HER desk, her geography book open to the same coffee-stained map of
Japan. She couldn't tolerate sitting at home another evening knowing
Catty was lost, even if
it
was in another dimension. There had
to be something she could do. She wanted to go to the Hollywood Bowl
and see if she could find any trace of Catty. Maybe she could find
footprints. And then what? Even if she found a print, what could she
do? Probably nothing. But the urge to return to the Bowl became
greater as the minutes passed.

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Her mother had
always told her to follow her instincts. Intuition was an infallible
guide. She slammed her book closed and crept to the top of the
stairs. Voices and strained laughter came from the television
downstairs. Her mother must have fallen asleep on the couch. It was
late, past midnight. She didn't think her mother would check on her
when she finally woke and staggered up to bed.

She went back
to her room, pulled on a jacket, wrapped it tightly around her, and
opened the window. She stood in the soft night breeze. The velvet
darkness welcomed her. It was hard for Vanessa to make herself go
invisible at will. Usually the feeling came, and she either fought it
or gave in to it.

She closed her
eyes. Silky moonbeams from the last quarter moon washed over her. She
relaxed and stretched her imagination out to the stars. In her mind's
eye she was in deep space, the blackness as warm and soft as a womb,
then she came back to her body and again surged upward into the
depths of the universe.

One by one her
molecules lost their connection to gravity. They detached from each
other

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with soft
pings, until she was a gray mist, shimmering half inside, half
outside her bedroom window. A cool breeze filtered through her body
and she became one with the night.

She floated
over the city. Traffic sounds, sirens, and horns seemed as far away
as a dream. She sailed on a current of air over the Hollywood Walk of
Fame, then caught a breeze up the hill, and hovered over the
Hollywood Bowl. The concert had ended and workers were picking up
trash.

She focused all
her energy on tightening her molecules.

"Please
let it work," she whispered.

Slowly she slid
through the treetops and fell to earth, a trickle of vapor settling
between eucalyptus trees and flat-leafed shrubs. Her molecules
whisked together in a maelstrom that made her body sting. She stood,
dazed with the pain for a moment, then stepped forward. Her feet
crushed over dried leaves. Floodlights from the Bowl made long narrow
shadows slant up the slope.

She stepped out
on the ledge where she and Michael had sat. She picked up a paper
plate, left behind in their haste. Ants crawled over the plate

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