I Wish... (16 page)

I marveled at the way he carried me like I was weightless. I thought about making him put me down, but my feet were throbbing and it felt like a couple of my blisters might have burst.
Fine. Let him play gallant knight.

He broke the silence so abruptly that I jumped a little in his arms. "It's not easy. You know, for us guys in town. What we want doesn't matter. We're playthings to the women in our lives."

Funny, that sounds like the life of a woman anywhere else in the world.
I was ashamed of such an unworthy thought.

"When Lydia started messing with you I wanted to do something, but I can't. It would break tradition. I could be cast out of my Family." His voice was tormented. "Do you know how hard it is for me to watch things happen that I believe are wrong and not be able to do anything about them?"

I sighed. I wanted to be mad at him for not trying to protect me, but I knew that what he was saying was true. "What do you see for yourself in the future? Will you stay here and continue on with traditions you disagree with?"

He shrugged which lifted my body and pressed it closer to his firm chest. Not a terrible fate. "I don't know. I've always just assumed I'd find a girl to marry, probably a First Daughter since my blood lines are so strong, and if I'm lucky I'd have a daughter of my own."

"You'd settle for that? After all you've told me about feeling frustrated and unhappy? You'd just swapping one Mother for another. And after meeting the prospective dating pool, I've got to tell you, I'm not so sure you'd be destined for wedded bliss."

We weren't far from my house now and I thought he might not say anything else, but finally he spoke. "If I turn my back on the traditions of Desire, my Family will turn its back on me. I'll be cast out with nothing. At least when the Second Daughters go out into the world on their own they have a Talent to rely on. As a man, I don't even have that. I'd have nothing. Staying here means a life without certain freedoms, but it's also a life without want. I just don't see a reason to give it up."

He set me on my feet gently in front of my house. "Thank you for helping me get home. I was in pretty bad shape."

His smile was as sweet as ever. "I know you don't understand the way I feel. If you weren't so different from the other girls here we'd probably be together, but if you weren't so different, I wouldn't like you so much."

Evan waved and shoved his hands into his pockets. He turned and walked off, leaving me staring after him, sorry that things couldn't be different.

***

Chapter 7

Where am I? I can't see! I'm drowning! Someone help me! I can't breathe! Help!

Panic gnawed on the edges of my control as I struggled, both physically and mentally. I remembered going to bed after the party, although it was still a little early. I was still laying down. I must still be in bed. Not drowning.

My hands flew to my face and encountered something soft and pliant, but it wouldn't budge from my face. A pillow. My lungs were burning but no matter how hard I yanked on the pillow, I couldn't move it.

I groped blindly over my night table, looking for something to help me, but with no real ideas. My frantic searching over turned a heavy glass lamp. The sound of it shattering was muffled in my ears by the pillow, but I realized that if someone heard me, they might be able to help me. I started throwing everything I felt on the table as hard as I could across the room. When I couldn't find any other missiles, I over turned the bedside table.

If I could have taken in air, I would have been panting and wheezing. My frenzied kicking slowed and then stopped and I felt my consciousness start to fade.

I didn't hear anything, but without warning the crushing pressure on my chest, a pressure I hadn't even felt when I'd been preoccupied with breathing, disappeared. I batted feebly at the pillow and managed to knock it off even with my now kitten-weak arm.

My door crashed open and I was vaguely aware of Jack rushing to my side. "What happened? Are you ok?"

Instead of answering, I concentrated on regaining my breath. Ramona strode into the room and surveyed the damage. "Were you attacked?"

I nodded and after a few more greedy gulps of air, I answered. "Yes. Someone was holding the pillow over my face."

"Well, there's no one here now." Marla said, in an unimpressed voice.

I glared at her. "So I just made this up?" I gestured at the mess on the floor. I noticed that among the debris was my mp3 player.
Damn.

"If someone were trying to kill you, don't you think they'd still be here? Unless you are trying to say that they vanished into thin air?" Marla's tone changed abruptly from sickeningly sweet to accusing. "Did you drink at that party tonight? Is this some form of teenaged rebellion?"

Ramona snapped, "That's enough Marla. I believe that she was attacked. There are plenty of people in this town who could manage something as low down as attacking a girl in her own bedroom while she sleeps. It's disgusting really, but it's our lot in life, dear." She patted my arm. "Do you know who might want to do this to you?"

I looked at the circle of people around my bed. Mom, as usual, was quiet. Jack looked concerned. Marla seethed with unconcealed fury at Ramona's rebuke. Ramona, herself, seemed preoccupied.
Probably ready to declare Family warfare.

I decided not to tell them that I was convinced Lydia was the one who tried to kill me. I was afraid of what it might lead to and the effect it would have on Evan. I wanted to handle it myself. It was a decision I would soon regret.

I was pacing the floor when Krista came home. After I denied having any idea of who would want to attack me, Ramona warned me to watch the people in my life carefully to see which one betrayed me and she and everyone else left me to clean up the mess I made. I realized that I must have only just fallen asleep because it wasn't even eleven PM yet. I felt sober, but I was queasy and my head throbbed.

Krista walked through the door a little after midnight with her gym bag slung over her shoulder. She looked so casual in a pair of heather gray yoga pants and a black hoodie that at first I was shocked that she could be so callous. Then I remembered that she wouldn't have any idea what my night had been like since she'd been out of town the whole time. Her hair was piled loosely on top of her head and she was mid yawn as the door opened. She was obviously tired, but she greeted me with a smile nevertheless.

"How was the party?"

I groaned. "I should have listened to you. I didn't realize that you weren't allowed to come or I wouldn't have gone myself. Maybe you aren't comfortable with hanging out at school, but I don't have to go out of my way to spend more time supporting a stupid system that I think is unfair."

She tossed her bag on the floor and flopped stomach first onto her bed. "Awww, you aren't completely charmed with Desire's favorite children?"

I resumed my pacing from the short respite I'd taken while talking to her. "Someone attacked me tonight."

Krista shot up into a sitting position. "What? At the party?"

"No, here. In bed."

She wrapped her thin arms around me in a surprisingly firm hug. "Are you ok? What happened?"

I gently disentangled myself and sat down beside her on the edge of her bed. "I'm fine now. I think it was Lydia. We got into a fight about James and I knocked her out."

"What? Knocked her out? Like literally rendered her unconscious?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I hate to say it, but it felt good. But now I think she's trying to kill me."

She looked grim. "Kill you? And you keep saying you think it was her. Didn't you see who was attacking you?"

I shook my head. "I woke up and someone was holding a pillow over my face. I knocked some stuff over and made enough noise that everyone came in here to see what was going on. The attack stopped then and I was finally able to breathe and look around, but nobody was here."

Krista's face was pale. "I could have been coming home to find you dead in here." She shuddered and then remembered, "Wait, why do you think it was Lydia then?"

"When I hit her it was because she shoved a couch across the room to block my path from across the room using only her mind."

"With a power like that she could have easily killed you from a distance and nobody would ever be able to prove she had anything to do with it."

I agreed. "Exactly what I'm thinking."

"What are you going to do now?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I haven't told anyone except you what happened. I need to get enough evidence to prove it was her and then I think I should present it to the High Priestess and see if she can do anything to make her stop. If that doesn't end it, then I think I need to step in and take care of it on my own."

"All this because of James? He's the last person I'd fight over with anybody."

I rolled my eyes. "Right? He's awful. He told me that he and Lydia weren't dating anymore and asked me to the party as his date. Then he spent the whole time doing who knows what while I wandered around feeling stupid and out of place. For all I know he was off making out with her and telling her how into her he is."

"Did she find out? I mean, why was she so pissed at you?" Krista asked.

I shrugged again. "She's had issues with me since the day I met her. I think she considers me some kind of threat. I went to Evan's for a project and she walked in on us and freaked out. Her Mother is even more bug-crap insane than she is. The nuts don't fall far from the crazy tree in that family."

Krista nodded. "Makes sense. Cora Spencer hates Ramona. It's no secret. It goes back to when they were kids, I think. It's logical that some of that animosity would carry over to Lydia who's never been an especially sweet natured girl."

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "I don't even really blame her for flying off the handle though. Don't get me wrong, I blame her plenty for the way she chose to handle things, but for being mad because she caught her boyfriend making out with another girl? Not so much."

She made an awful face. "Made out? That's gross beyond belief."

I held up a hand. "Wait, you don't understand. He's the one who was making out with me. Or at least he got as far as sticking his tongue down my throat. If Lydia hadn't shown up then I would have had to hurt him if he didn't figure out his mistake really quick."

She put her hand on her forehead in disbelief. "I can't believe how full of himself he is. I really wish someone would knock him down a peg."

I grinned bitterly, "Do you want to know what
I
wish? I wish that James Middleton wasn't such an arrogant jerk."

When reality ripped itself in two, I wasn't prepared. My nausea was doubled and my headache bloomed into an almost unbearable pain. However, unlike last time, I didn't have any memories to go with it. I wondered if something went wrong, a concern that Krista addressed out loud.

"I don't know what happened. I don't have any memories of the second time line either." I told her.

We talked for a few minutes longer, but she finally told me that the wish had left her feeling a little drained and she wanted to sleep it off. I climbed into bed myself, but as soon as I heard her breathing become deep and steady in sleep, I slipped out of bed. I set my desk chair in front of the window and spent the rest of the night staring out into the sky.

I peeked around the edge of Ramona’s door. She was sitting behind her massive desk, typing furiously on her sleek laptop. It looked out of place on her desk, surrounded by décor that looked as if every piece were at least two hundred years old. Her hair was swept up in a loose bun.

After sitting up nearly all of the night before, all I wanted was to sleep most of the day away, but Darcy barged into my room a few minutes before and told me that Ramona wanted to speak to me. Now. She was clearly pleased to be the bearer of bad news, but I managed to avoid falling for the bait.

I probably would have lurked outside Ramona’s study indefinitely, but without looking up she snapped, “Come in, Thistle.”

How does she always know?

I slunk in and collapsed in one of the chairs in front of her desk. Now she was giving me both barrels of her steely gaze. I wanted to be anywhere but in her office. Wrestling crocodiles for a living seemed like a much less dangerous option than having this conversation right now.

“Let’s get to this point. I called you up because someone told me this morning that you were seen going into the Spencer boy’s house with him and the two of you were alone.”

I shifted in my seat. I didn’t want to know what Ramona might have to say about it since it was obvious from Cora’s reaction that there was animosity there. I sought refuge in the first line of defense in a teenager’s arsenal: deflection. “I didn’t realize that I wasn’t allowed to hang out with boys. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Ramona sighed heavily. Evidently my obtuse act pained her. “Do you realize how embarrassed I was to hear that you were over there?”

I assumed that it was a rhetorical question and focused all my energy on staring at a spot on the Persian rug near my shoes.

She folded her hands on her desk and made her compassionate face. The one that never quite looked natural. “No, I suppose that you wouldn’t appreciate my embarrassment. I only have myself to blame for you not being able to understand the way things work in this town. I’m going to rectify this situation immediately.”

Ramona walked to a bookshelf and pulled a thick book down. I recognized it as the one she was looking at when I asked permission to go to the party. She walked back to her desk and set it down. Her fingers traced over the tooled leather cover before skimming over the ragged edges of the pages inside. The thing looked like it wasn’t in very good shape, but it also looked like it was hand bound about the time that books were invented so all things considered, the fact that it had covers at all seemed pretty impressive.

“This is the Madison Family grimmoire. It’s been in our family for centuries.”