Infinity Lost (7 page)

With a quiet hiss, the black plastic oval covering the woman’s face shifts and morphs, molding itself into human features. In just a few seconds the mask has transformed, the glassy black replaced with the face of a beautiful woman. She has alabaster skin, deep, sapphire-blue eyes, dark eyebrows, a perfectly shaped nose, and soft pink lips. She scans across the faces of the group. When her eyes meet mine, she stops and smiles warmly. In a very feminine, yet slightly metallic, voice, she utters only one word.

“Welcome.”

The shock takes half a second to register, but when it does it hits me like a kick to the stomach. That face. I’ve seen that face before. I’ve seen that face a thousand times.

I know the elegant curves of the eyebrows, those lips and those cheekbones, that smooth, pale skin and that delicately pointed nose. Even the beauty spot on her cheek is there. Every smile line and eyelash is committed to memory. I know that face as well as I know my own.

Suddenly my vision swirls and my legs stop working. The world goes into slow motion as I fall and darkness closes in from all sides. I’ve never fainted before. It’s something that I honestly thought I would never do. Just like I never imagined that I would ever look into those eyes, or see that face outside of a picture frame. It’s the last image I see before everything goes completely black. The smiling face of the woman in silver is the smiling face of Genevieve Blackstone.

My dead mother.

CHAPTER SIX

“Finn?”

I open my eyes to the bright-blue sunny sky of a balmy summer afternoon. Kneeling at my side is the exact person that I was hoping for. My Jonah.

“Wha . . . happen—?” I mumble groggily.

“You fell, sweetheart. I saw you from the window of my room. It was quite a tumble. Don’t move too much, Finn, you were knocked out for a little while.”

I sit up despite his insisting I stay still. Over my shoulder, lying at the bottom of the hill, is the red bicycle that Jonah bought for my sixth birthday. Its front fork is buckled, the front wheel warped, and the spokes are splayed at bizarre angles like uncooked metal spaghetti.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Jonah asks, a look of deep concern creasing his face.

“Two,” I say, blinking my eyes back into focus.

“What day is it? How old are you?”

“It’s Saturday; I’m thirteen. I’m OK, Jonah, stop making a fuss,” I say, brushing his hand away.

“I think you’re gonna be alright. Just a few scrapes here and there. Let’s get you back up to the house and check you out properly, just to be on the safe side.”

I let out a bothered sigh. I know Jonah won’t let this drop until I agree to some unnecessary coddling. I try to get up and a sharp jolt spears along my wrist to my elbow. “Ow! Wait . . . ow . . . I . . . I think I’ve broken my arm.”

It hurts a lot, but I know it’s broken mostly because my forearm isn’t straight anymore. Now there’s a freaky bend where there definitely shouldn’t be one.

Wincing, I hold my arm up for Jonah to inspect. His face turns as white as a sheet. Not the reaction I was expecting from a former soldier.

“It’s OK,” I say. “I’ll just straighten it out.”

“NOOO!” yells Jonah, but I’ve already done it. I hold the bent part in place with my other hand, close my eyes, and think of something that makes me angry. Anything to do with Nanny Theresa usually does the trick.

“We need to call the doctor, Finn, right now. Come with me up to the house,” he says in his no-nonsense tone.

“Shhhh. Wait. Just a few more seconds aaand . . . there you go, all fixed,” I say matter-of-factly, holding out my straightened arm for him to see. I give my fingers a wiggle to test them and grimace at the little needles of pain. Jonah’s expression is a surprising mixture of confusion and bewilderment, and it’s then that I suddenly remember.

He’s never seen me do that before.

Maybe if I just pretend it didn’t happen? Act like it’s no big deal, shrug it off.

“I’m calling the doctor, Finn,” Jonah insists again.

“Don’t be silly,” I say, half-laughing. “It’ll be a bit sore for a few hours, but it’ll be just like new tomorrow.”

I get to my feet and walk over to my bike.

“It’s wrecked, Jonah. And look, I’ve ripped my favorite t-shirt as well.”

He’s standing there looking at me strangely, eyes narrow, his head tilted slightly to the side.

“Finn, how did you do that?”

“It must have happened when I crashed the bike,” I say, plucking at the hole of torn fabric, deliberately avoiding where I know this soon-to-be lecture is heading. “I know I shouldn’t have been steering with my feet, and that old bike is waaay too small for me now, but if it wasn’t for that damn pothole . . .”

“Not the rip in your shirt, Finn, your arm. How did you fix your arm?”

Jonah walks over and gently takes my wrist. He runs his fingers over the skin where the bend was. “It was broken. I saw it.”

“Oh. That,” I mumble.

Usually I try my hardest not to lie to Jonah. I much prefer to keep things from him instead, but now that he’s asked, I guess I’m gonna have to spill.

“I’ll tell you if you promise not to get mad. Or punish me,” I say, frowning up at him, pointing my finger at his nose like I have some kind of authority over the situation.

“You have to promise, though,” I demand.

He stands there with folded arms, expecting me to fess up without bargaining. He really should know better by now.

“Cross on it, and I’ll tell you.”

Jonah sighs and rolls his eyes. He knows he can’t catch me if I run off across the fields, which is exactly what I’ll do if he doesn’t swear on it. He grudgingly crosses his heart. I make him do that every time I think he might get mad at something I’ve done. In fact, this is the third time this week I’ve made him cross on something. As far as I’m concerned it’s a binding contract with absolutely no take-backs.

I take a deep breath, let out a huge sigh, and grudgingly confess. “It’s not the first bone that I’ve broken.”

The familiar “what have you been keeping from me?” crinkle appears on Jonah’s forehead.

“Explain,” he mutters.

“The first time was an accident, I swear. One night I took Beauty out for a ride by the lake and she got spooked by something and bucked me off. I broke my arm pretty bad,” I say, absent-mindedly rubbing a spot on my upper arm.

“What? When?!” blurts Jonah.

“Three years ago,” I murmur coyly.

“Three years?! Why am I only finding out about this
now
?” Jonah bellows, his voice becoming louder with every word.

“I didn’t wanna get in trouble for taking her out without permission, so I snuck upstairs and went to bed. I willed my arm to get better, and by morning it was,” I say, looking guiltily at the ground.

“Well, maybe your arm wasn’t really broken? It could have been a bad bruise or . . . but that doesn’t explain how you just fixed your . . . you are in a lot of trouble, Miss Blackstone!” Jonah shouts. It’s kinda funny to see him so flustered.

“No punishment. You promised. You totally crossed on it.” I point the finger of power at the spot right between his eyes.

“But how did you just fix it like that? It’s simply not possible.”

“Well, quite clearly it is,” I say, waving my arm in front of his face. “I can heal cuts and bruises, too. Anything’s possible. You told me that. I used mind over matter just like you taught me.”

“That’s not exactly how it’s supposed to work, Finn,” Jonah says, softly prodding my arm. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Yeah, totally! It hurts like crazy at first, but after the bone sets, it aches for a while and my arm will be a bit weak for a couple of days. It took a lot of practice to teach myself how to do it properly. In the beginning I really had to concentrate. Had to break a lot of bones before I was able to set them as quickly as I did just then.” I slap my hand over my mouth. What is wrong with me today?

Jonah puts his hands on his hips and gives me his interrogation eyes. “Start talking.”

After I make Jonah cross his heart two more times, I tell him how I had jumped off the roof of the house and broken my ankle, broken both wrists and all my fingers with a hammer, and broken my arm three times jumping off my bike and rope-swinging into tree trunks. There was also the time I jumped out of a tree onto the front of the Bentley one day when Arthur was taking it to the mechanic. Cracked two ribs and broke my wrist again. I really feel bad about that one. When one of the maids found Arthur, he was face-down on the driveway. He had died of a heart attack. For obvious reasons, I decide to keep that one to myself.

“Oh, and my nose got busted once when Carlo threw a rock at me, and another time he hit me with a tree branch. Cracked my arm that time, too.”

Those last two confessions just slip out. As soon as I say them, I want to take them back. I swear it has to be the bump on my head. I really don’t want Carlo to get in trouble because of me, and right now it sounds like all he does is fight with me and hit me with stuff.

“Carlo knows that you can do this?” Jonah asks sternly.

“Ah, yeah, he’s seen me do it a couple times . . .” I say, knowing it’s more like five or six.

“I think I need to have a little chat with young Carlo,” Jonah says gravely. He turns and walks briskly in the direction of the stables.

“I made him do it!” I plead at Jonah’s back, chasing after him.

“Leave your bike and get back to the house, Finn!” Jonah barks over his shoulder.

“It was only a fracture!” I yell, but he pretends not to hear me. “I can honestly tell the difference! It was two whole summers ago!”

Carlo Delgado is the fourteen-year-old son of our stable master, Javier Delgado. He’s my best friend and the only other kid I know. Carlo’s dad moved into the little two-bedroom house in the Seven Acre Wood ten years ago, and Carlo has come to stay with his dad every summer vacation since to help him look after the horses. Hanging out with Carlo is the highlight of my year, and I just got him in gigantic trouble. It was me and my big mouth’s fault. I have to warn him.

Jonah strides off into the distance. He glances over his shoulder and points toward the house. I nod and make it look like I’m doing what I’m told as I head back up the hill, but the second that I’m out of Jonah’s sight line I break into a furious sprint. I veer away from the house and go tearing across the main lawn, bolting toward the quaint rows of hedges surrounding the groundskeeper’s shed. The stables are behind the polo grounds. It’s a good eight-minute walk, twelve if you’re as slow-moving as Jonah. I’m sure that I can make it there in less than three minutes if I take one of the quad bikes in the shed. With any luck, Jonah won’t even see me kidnap Carlo to safety.

I sprint across the grass and almost make it to the hedges in less than two minutes. The doors of the shed are wide open, which means Graham the groundskeeper is in. He’s a quiet guy who likes to keep to himself. He’s thin and wiry with a thick white beard and glasses that perch on the tip of his crimson-pointed nose. He seems to be much more comfortable around plants than humans, especially a rowdy thirteen-year-old girl like me. I can see him inside as I get closer, standing at the bench, completely absorbed in doing something plant-y with some seedlings. He’s dressed in his usual plaid shirt, green overalls, and black rain boots. He dresses like that year-round, even on summer days like this. I know from past experience that my mere presence always scares the living crap out of him, so, with a little smile on my face, I go barreling through the open door like a force of nature.

“Hi, Graham!”

He jumps a foot off the ground. His glasses spring off his nose, flip once in the air, and disappear into an open bag of potting mix. I grab a set of keys off a hook by the door and leap onto the nearest quad.

I twist the ignition, the engine roars into life, and I full-throttle the quad out of the shed, spraying dirt and dust backward all over Graham.

“Sorry!” I yell over my shoulder as I swing the handlebars wildly to the left, carving fat curves in the loose gravel outside. I peel out as fast as the bike will take me, speeding across the lawn behind the house and right through one of the yellow rose gardens beside the hand-carved gazebo.

The wind rushes through my hair as I round the corner past the high fence of the tennis court and down through the green grotto. The growl of the quad bike echoes all around as I weave along the paths that snake through the dense tunnels of trees.

I burst out into the sunlight again and see the polo grounds coming up quickly. I’m almost to the edge of the field when Carlo appears from behind one of the grandstands, a heavy saddle in his arms.

“Carlo!” I yell toward him. By the time I’m near enough to see the expression on his face, I can tell that he already knows what we’ll be doing this afternoon—hiding in the Seven Acre Wood around his dad’s house.

I brake, slide-skid the quad bike across the grass, and stop right beside him. “Get on,” I say breathlessly, rubbing and flexing my aching arm.

He drops the saddle on the ground and wipes his brow with the back of a dirty-gloved hand.

“What have you done now?” he asks, climbing on the back of the quad.

“I’ll tell you at the pond.”

I gun the throttle and swerve the bike toward the woods. I glance to the right and see Jonah in the distance, waving his arms at us as we hit the path that leads to the outer edge of the trees. I swerve to the left and into the forest. There’s no doubt that Jonah knows where we’re going, but we would hear him coming and be gone again long before he got to us. Through the forest we go, the quad bike bumping over the terrain as I expertly weave in and out of the trees. I’m pretty sure most grownups would have trouble handling the bike as well as I do, even with a weak arm like mine, but that doesn’t stop Carlo from holding on to me as tightly as he can.

We roar over the top of the hill and down the other side into the clearing. I hit the brakes, slide through the loose dirt and twigs at the bottom, and finally stop beside the cool, clear water’s edge of the sheltered rock pool we discovered five summers ago. Our private meeting place.

Carlo jumps off the back, pulls his gloves off, and stuffs them into the pocket of his shorts. “What’s going on, Finn? Where was Jonah heading?”

I cut the engine, get off the bike, and walk over to the old log we dragged to the edge last year. “He was looking for you, but he’s probably going to talk to your dad now, instead,” I say regretfully, flumping down on the log and digging my toes into the dirt.

“What for—what did I do?!” asks Carlo.

I shrug my shoulders and look at the ground to avoid looking him in the eyes.

“I might have mentioned that . . . you broke my arm?” I wince at the thought of how he’ll react. I’m expecting Carlo to be mad at me; I would be if someone got me into this level of trouble. Just
how
mad he gets is another question. “It just slipped out, I swear! I bumped my head and I didn’t know what I was saying. I’m really sorry.”

“Finn.” The tone of his voice isn’t angry at all. He walks over and sits on the log beside me. “It’s cool. I told my dad about that ages ago.”

“What? Why?”

Carlo laughs. “Because it was freaky. I had to tell somebody, and you know how chill my dad is. He said you must be part devil and that I should stay away from you. He was just kidding, though. At least I think he was. Anyway, I never would’ve hit you if you didn’t ask me to, and if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes what you can do. I was there that time you jumped out of the oak tree remember? My whole family ride horses, Finn; I know what a broken arm looks like.”