Of Breakable Things (24 page)

“Sometimes we don’t know what our minds are capable of until they’re put to the test. Hence your banshee encounter and survival.” In a blink, he appeared beside Alex, shaking sand from his shoes even though none of the orbs had shattered. “You have natural ability, just not the one I was expecting. What’s your name?”

“Alex.”

“Your last name?”

“Ash.”

She noticed that his gray eyes seemed weathered like his frown lines. They were older. Deeper, troubled, and tainted after seeing too much. He turned to face the rest of the newburies. “Don’t expect yourselves to execute a block of that caliber without some practice.” His voice was low when he added, “I was merely proving a point.” And he shared a look with Professor Duvall. “Alex, you’ll work with the Bonds. Maybe they have finally met their match.”

For Westfall to speak so candidly about the Bonds, he mustn’t be intimidated by curses, but Alex doubted he was intimidated by anything.

“The rest of you will also form groups of two or three and use the provided guide to attempt the different ways to shield. Do
not
focus on just one method. You need to know them all!”

“We get to throw things at each other?” Kaleb asked in excitement. “Sweet! Come here, Jonas!”

Alex rubbed her shoulders, allowing the weight of Westfall’s judgment to lift.

Jack approached, mumbling an apology. Calla was quiet at his side.

“I’ve been nothing but nice to you and you throw a glass ball at my head to thank me.” When Jack smiled, his freckles seemed to blend together. “I should have just let that bench crush me. It would have saved me all this grief,” Alex said, turning her attention to the other groups in the room, who were hurling orbs and books and pencils at one another.

Chase mouthed, “Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Well, we already know that you’ve mastered the
barrier
method,” Jack said, glancing at the booklet in front of them.

“What is
slingshot
?” Alex asked.

He continued running his thin finger along the text while murmuring, “Oh, it’s almost the same as
barrier.”

“
Except you reverse the direction of the object,” Calla added softly.

“I thought most spirits weren’t very good at telekinetics.”

“This is different,” Jack said. ”You’re using the force the object has already generated to divert it. That’s much easier—”

“Than moving the object all by yourself,” Calla finished.

“Do you two always finish each other’s sentences?”

“Typically.” Jack tried to lean against the table smoothly but he accidentally slipped. Alex tried to hide her smile.

“Twin complex,” Calla muttered. “When he falls, I bleed, and vice versa.”

She didn’t seem pleased about this.

“Even when we died, it was the same way,” Jack shook his head of matted gray-brown hair. “I had a brain tumor, and when I died, Calla died with me, even though she had no symptoms.”

Calla lifted a finger to her forehead. “He has too much up here.”

Alex was confused until Jack snickered. “A brain tumor has nothing to do with an excess of brain power.”

“So were you a genius in life, too?” Alex asked.

“I was probably headed to an Ivy League school.”

“Lots of people do that.”

“At sixteen,” he added.

“Oh.”

Jack’s grin accentuated the puffy half-moons under his eyes.

“You look tired. Must be from staying up late and memorizing books.”

Jack vigorously shook his head back and forth, trying to wake up. “I know we need an adequate amount of sleep, but my mind just feels like it’s moving so quickly. I can’t sleep.”

“And therefore, I’m tired,” Calla growled.

“It can’t be fun being in each other’s heads,” Alex said, glancing over at the Lasalles. Kaleb was firing orbs at a disgruntled-looking Jonas. She could hear Chase’s pity for his brother.

“Quit staring at your boyfriend,” Jack joked.

Alex wasn’t quite sure who he meant.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“You’re always saying the wrong thing,” Calla accused him.

“Am not.”

“Are so.”

Alex held up her hands. “No. I’m just not sure who you’re talking about.”

“Jonas. You’re with him all the time, aren’t you? I notice things.”

“Jonas isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Oh?”

“No.”

An orb flew across the room and slammed into Jack’s back. He ignored it and kept his eyes on the text. Calla lifted an arm to rub between her shoulders “Ouch.”

“Why do you let people treat you that way?”

Jack shrugged carelessly. “I guess we’re just used to it.”

“That doesn’t make it better!”

“Heavy lies the head,” Jack murmured. Calla nodded, fiddling with her sweater. “We have more important things to worry about than people teasing us. They’ll learn their lesson one day. Calla’s and my luck will change. We’re good people. And good things happen to good people. Even if we don’t stay here in this city.”

“You’d leave?”

“It isn’t written in stone that we
have
to live here.” Jack paused with his mouth ajar, revealing his horsey teeth. “Let’s try
flickering
.”

“What’s that?”

“Flickering,” he read, “is when a spirit momentarily flickers out of visibility. Why do you look confused?”

Alex studied the text. “I know the bodied can’t see us, but how can spirits hide from one another?”

“If we aren’t looking for each other, it’s possible to fool the mind, if only for a few seconds. You just have to move yourself to a different place. Give it a try.”

Embarrassed, Alex glanced around the room at the other students.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked. Realization spread across his face. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He smacked himself. “You don’t know how, do you? No sweat, it’s one of the simplest things to learn. Just imagine yourself shrinking in all directions.”

Calla jumped in. “Like a genie being sucked into a lamp.”

“Except you’re condensing yourself into a ball in midair. Then quickly move to a space you don’t think I’ll look for you.”

Alex closed her eyes and imagined that the walls around her were closing in, the air constricting her. Nothing happened.

“You forgot to move. And keep your eyes open so you know where you’re going.”

She focused on the corner of the Grandiuse right next to Westfall. Jack wouldn’t expect her to venture anywhere near a man who had just ordered an attack on her.

She heard a tiny
gazump
like sealing Tupperware. She blinked, and she was completely across the room.

“Wow,” Jack yelled. “That didn’t take you very long at all.”

Alex practically danced back to their table. “Could you see anything?”

“Right before you moved, I noticed your light.”

“What does it look like?”

He considered his answer for several moments. “It’s never still. Like the reflection of the moon over the ocean.”

Calla nodded. “It’s pretty.”

“Could the bodied see it?”

“Rarely. But it has happened.” Jack flipped through the text. “I think that’s why sometimes the bodied think we aren’t in a whole form, why they think that we’re hazy or we flicker.”

Chase appeared beside her. He turned his head and kissed her cheek before disappearing again. Jack and Calla both stared at Alex, openmouthed.

Alex hoped she wasn’t blushing. “This is pretty cool. Thank you so much, you two.”

Calla looked away. She’d probably never been complimented in her life. Jack grinned, exposing his large teeth.

“I can’t believe something like this is possible,” Alex breathed.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” a voice barked.

“Hello, Ardor Westfall,” Jack said, saluting.

“After all, all you are is a projection. A memory,” Westfall said, crossing his arms. “And memories never stay in one place.”

Kaleb was always suspicious of Jonas. He loved his brother, of course. He loved all of them, but the others made it easier than Jonas did. Jonas was sneaky. Kaleb was certain he would stab any of them in the back in order to make himself look good.

He drummed his pencil on the table and glanced at the door, but the rest of his clan had yet to arrive. Despite its old-fashioned exterior, the Ex House on Lazuli Street was relatively modern. Its thick wooden tables and armchairs deep enough to sink into resembled a coffee house. They served flavors of the misty froth passed around during festival street parties. The newburies around here called it the Ex drink. Every cup displayed a blurb explaining the history of the mist and its creator, Xander Aris, but Kaleb didn’t care enough to read it. He liked to have it, though, because it provided a brief buzz like a shot of some super energy drink.

Usually Kaleb hung out in the Back Room of the Ex House, an area much louder and rowdier, with pool tables, foosball and ping pong. But today he had work to do. Instrumental music drifted through the more studious front half of the bar. The little black notes rose to the ceiling and arranged themselves into a life-sized sheet of music. He didn’t know how, but his mind told him it was called Vivaldi. He’d never admit it to anyone, but he actually liked it. Kind of.

It was easy to distinguish the various newbury cliques. The legacies typically loitered in the Back Room, competing to see who could hold their nose the highest. Tonight, they’d arrived without Skye Gossamer, so Kaleb didn’t give them a second glance. She was the only one worth staring at. Then there were the movers, whose belongings hovered around them like flies. The chokers sulked in the corners reading Poe or Emily Dickinson.
You’re dead
, he always wanted to shout,
get over it
! The crew of “earthly” newburies showed avid interest in stones, plants, and herbs. Naturally, they faithfully followed Professor Duvall. Kaleb hated teacher’s pets.

Tonight there were a few random spirits, like Hecker Smithson, who took up more room than a pro lineman and never spoke to anyone, or Reuben Seyferr, who was always itching like he had fleas. Kaleb had waved to both when he arrived. The Lasalles—as they had done in life—discriminated against none, but befriended few. Kaleb had learned a long time ago that trust was not something to hand out like candy, but friendliness went a long way.

Jonas was the first to show his ugly mug. He stood at the serving station with one foot propped leisurely behind the other, leaning against the counter of the bar like a wannabe cowboy watching the door. Probably waiting for Alex. Pitiful. Jonas didn’t seem to realize that his fifteen minutes with her were over. Chase was back, and things were normal again.

Jonas always went after things he couldn’t have. And then he got pissed when he didn’t come out on top. Impossible odds.

When Alex predictably arrived with Chase, Jonas turned around and pretended he hadn’t been waiting. Kaleb shook his head in amusement. Jonas was wasting his time. Alex and Chase had been attached at the hip since they were born. In life, Kaleb would sometimes enter a room and wonder how in the middle of winter it could possibly smell like spring. Then he’d hear giggling and look down to find the two of them playing together. That strange feeling in the air, it had to be love. It followed them now like a trail. He thought of those two as one entity. Before Alex died, Kaleb would look into Chase’s eyes and his brother would not be there. Some part of him was missing.
She
was that part of him. How the hell could Jonas not see that?

Kaleb wasn’t sure he believed in love. But he believed in whatever hovered between Chase and Alex.

Jonas turned and acknowledged Alex, a dowdy straw dangling from his mouth. None of them noticed Kaleb sitting behind a computer.

The barista appeared. “What will it be?”

“Want anything?” Jonas asked Alex, but she shook her head. “What about you, delinquent?”

Chase stepped up to the counter and surveyed his options. Jonas waited, resting an elbow on Alex’s shoulder and flicking the straw in her hair.

“Cut it out,” she said, swatting him away.

“Did you have fun trying to beat the crap out of Jack Bond? I know I would.”

“I thought you didn’t mind Jack.”

Jonas shrugged indifferently. He was trying to act cool, but he just looked dumb. Kaleb snorted loudly, and they all turned to see him.

Alex drew back her head slightly. “Kaleb! I’ve never seen you look so serious!”

He winked at her, and she walked around the table to sit next to him. “You’re going to scare all my admirers away,” he joked.

“I don’t think any of your admirers have ever been intimidated by me.”

It was true. Alex was a good wingman, actually. He wouldn’t have put up with her for so many years if she wasn’t.

“What are you wearing that for?” she exclaimed in surprise.

“What?”

She picked at his shirt. His mind projected a jersey each day by default. He typically didn’t question it because it didn’t bother him. Now, however, he looked down and realized why Alex was wrinkling her nose.

“You hate that team,” she said as if he didn’t know.

“I have no clue why I have it on. Maybe because I hate doing homework.”