Sage's Eyes (13 page)

“I was afraid he'd step on my foot,” I said, “and I'd be on crutches for months.”

She studied me for a moment to see if I was serious. When I smiled, she smiled. “Isn't there anyone here you like? I mean boys?” she asked.

I looked around, really more for her than myself. “No one I'd pine over. Peter Murphy is a nice boy,” I said, nodding in his direction. He was talking with another boy, Danny Cook, intensely as if nothing was going on around them. They were practically inseparable in school, and they were the only boys from our class here.

“Everyone calls him a super nerd,” Cassie said. “But you're right,” she added quickly. “He's nicer than most.”

By “most,” I could see she meant everyone else.

I took a closer look at her. She was wearing a sleeveless dress that hung on her body like a hand-me-down at least a size and a half too big. She had a nice figure, but she never wore anything that would clearly reveal it. She wore a pair of dark brown, worn loafers and no socks. She had no jewelry, just an inexpensive-looking watch. At first, I thought that her mother deserting her and her father five years ago was probably what made her so timid and plain. Her dark brown hair looked unwashed, pinned up clumsily, with split ends. She was wearing only a touch of lipstick, and it looked put on too quickly. Her nails were nibbled down, and she wore no nail polish.

“I was surprised I was invited tonight,” she said. “I'm not really friends with Ginny. I'm not really friends with anybody.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She shrugged.

Jason Marks swaggered up to us. He sipped what was obviously more than soda and smiled. “How's your hip?” he asked. “Ready for some hip action?” He did a disgusting bump-and-grind. Cassie's eyes widened. “Your friend's interested,” he said.

“Not interested, revolted, as in turning her stomach.”

“Yeah, well, maybe someone should.”

“To answer your question, my hip is quite content as it is,” I said.

His smile faded. He looked at Cassie and nodded. “You're in the right company,” he said. “Enjoy yourself.” He walked off quickly and started to dance with Shirley Jones, even though she was dancing with Ward Young.

“I never liked him,” Cassie said. “He was always making fun of me.”

“Good judgment on your part,” I said.

“You're so pretty,” she told me. “You should be out there dancing with someone.”

“I'll be out there when I'm ready. Let's go talk to Peter and Danny.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

I started to cross the room toward them. Cassie stepped around someone and walked ahead of me, and I noticed a bruise on the back of her right arm. Without hesitation, I reached out and touched it. There was a flash when my fingers grazed the bruise, and what I saw next stopped me from moving.

There were two large male hands on Cassie's upper arms, holding her down forcefully against a pillow on a bed. Her face was rippled with fear. Suddenly, she closed her eyes and held her breath. I saw a head of dark brown hair with a bald spot at the center. It closed in on Cassie's naked breasts. I knew who he was. I had seen him at school.

I saw Cassie turn her head from side to side and open her mouth in a silent scream, a howl that went inward. Her father was moving all over her, mumbling distorted words in a drunken rage. In my ears, it sounded like growls over static. When he was finished, he fell forward on her, breathing hard like a racehorse. Cassie remained unmoving, her eyes still closed, her mouth still open. She was in some sort of state of shock. He raised his head and looked down at her, and
then he slapped her, and her eyelids fluttered, just as they were fluttering in front of me right now.

The whole vision had passed in seconds.

“Sage?” Cassie said. She looked at me curiously. Others dancing around us stopped and looked, too. I supposed my face was full of shock and surprise.

“What's with you?” Mitchell Barton asked me. He and Lilly Thomas stood there staring at me. “You look like you just saw a ghost. What, did you get your period or something?” He laughed, and Lilly slapped him on the shoulder.

Cassie bit down on her lower lip. She looked like she was going to cry. Maybe she was afraid I had changed my mind and was going to desert her or something.

“Nothing's the matter with me,” I told Mitchell. “But you had better check your pulse to see if your brain's alive.”

This time, Lilly laughed.

I nodded at Cassie and moved forward toward Peter and Danny, but my heart was pounding. Peter and Danny looked dumbfounded when it was clear we were coming to talk to them.

“Hi,” I said.

Danny put his hand behind his ear. “What?”

“I said hi. How are you guys doing?”

For a moment, neither replied. They looked like they didn't understand English.

Then Danny smiled. “We're all going to need cough drops by the time we leave,” he said, practically shouting to be heard over the music.

“They've got quite the sound system here,” Peter said. “Did you see the amplifier? It's real high-end stuff, too powerful for this space. They can't turn it up completely, or they'll blow out the walls. I'm surprised they don't have more feedback, and what about that woofer? I wouldn't have placed the speakers where they are acoustically,” he continued.

Cassie looked at me to see if I was going to stay there.

“Maybe we should dance,” I said.

“Dance?” Danny looked at me as if this was a foreign idea.

“When in Rome,” I said, and he laughed.

“Yeah, you're right.” He nodded at Cassie. She looked at me as if asking permission, and I smiled.

“Go on,” I said.

She followed Danny onto the dance floor. She moved tentatively, but Danny was quite aware of how poorly he danced and made fun of himself. I realized Cassie was laughing for the first time since she had arrived.

Peter looked at me helplessly. I could see Ginny and Mia now standing by the piano looking absolutely incredulous. Jason Marks was glaring my way. I took Peter's hand and pulled him along. Like Danny, he had almost no rhythm, but I wasn't doing much better. My nerves were still vibrating from the image I had seen and what I felt confident I knew as a result.

It was my third eye, and this time, I had used it to look into the darkness, just as Uncle Wade thought I might.

The question now was, what did I do about what I had seen?

When I looked at my watch, I realized it was nearly eleven, and I had spent almost all my time at the party with Cassie, Danny, and Peter. We had eaten together, danced some more, and sat talking comfortably about school, our teachers, and books we had all read outside of what was required in English class. I was happy to see Cassie open up and talk. Her timidity dwindled thanks to the way Peter and Danny listened to her and got her to participate. She became more and more relaxed. It was as if we had created an impenetrable bubble around us. No one bothered with us or tried to get us to talk to them, and none of the other boys asked me to dance.

Ginny was obviously not too happy with me. Whenever she looked my way, she shook her head and smirked. She retreated from everyone, however, as she became more and more involved with Ward Young. The night began winding down, at least for me. It was obvious to me that along with Cassie, I was going to
be one of the earliest to leave. She announced that she absolutely had to go at eleven.

“And not a minute later. I know it's early, but my father wouldn't have let me come otherwise,” she explained to Danny, Peter, and me.

“I'll probably be going soon myself,” Danny told her. He had been eyeing some of the cakes and cookies no one else was touching and wasn't going to leave without having some more.

A few of the others had disappeared, but they hadn't left the house. Some, I realized, had gone up to Ginny's bedroom, and another couple had gone to one of the guest bedrooms. More drinks and some drugs were being passed around. The party was becoming more raucous. Nick looked very busy policing the expensive knickknacks and furniture and literally lifted Skip Lowe off a small table he had decided to use as a chair.

I saw how nervous Cassie became as it grew closer to eleven. She was looking at her watch practically every thirty seconds. Just a little after 10:55, she got up quickly and said she had to go out to wait for her father. He'd be coming any minute. Danny took that as an opportunity to attack the desserts again, but before he did, he told Cassie he had enjoyed being with her. He added that he was looking forward to seeing her in school. After he said that, she wasn't just smiling; she was beaming. I had the feeling that laughter and smiles were rare in her house. I knew how mousy she was around her classmates, always lingering in the background and slinking along through every available shadow.

In the back of my mind, I thought that perhaps she was afraid someone would talk to her or just look at her and know what had happened to her and what was probably still happening to her. I was confident I knew what that was. Fear had become her sister, her second shadow.

“Should I go thank Ginny?” Cassie asked me. Ginny and Ward were in the den now, practically glued to each other on the sofa.

“I'll tell her for you later,” I said. I could see how nervous it made her even to contemplate going in there and interrupting the love scene. She couldn't look long at any of the couples who were kissing or embracing each other passionately. The sight put fear in her face, every tiny muscle straining in anticipation of something dreadful about to happen to her.

I wanted to walk her to the door and see her father pick her up. She stood out front trembling as we watched for any oncoming automobile.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, but I could see her lips trembling. She practically leaped off the front stoop when he drove up.

“Night!” she cried. “Thanks for being my friend tonight,” she added, and ran toward the car. I started toward it, too. She stopped. “Thanks,” she said again, obviously afraid of my getting too close to him.

I paused. I was close enough, and I didn't like making her any more anxious.

When she opened the door, the inside of the car lit up, and I saw him glaring out, looking past her and
directly at me. The flow of dark, negative energy came freely at me and didn't dissipate until Cassie closed the door, shutting off the light. Silhouetted in the glow of the streetlight, she seemed to shrink in her seat. She turned to wave good-bye to me, but he said something that stopped her, and she turned her head away. He drove off quickly. I watched until the darkness swallowed them up.

Peter and Danny were eating cookies and drinking soda when I returned. I stood there, still a little shaken by that flow of dark energy. Todd and Darlene came up to me.

“You did your good deed for the night,” Darlene said. “Now, how about coming with all of us and having some real fun? We're going to the Doll House in about forty minutes. It doesn't get good until midnight. Jason knows the owner, and we can get in even though we're underage.”

I looked at them both as though I were really from another country, another culture. How could they stay out so late? Weren't they worried about their parents finding out where they had gone?

“You know what the Doll House is, right?” Todd asked when I hesitated.

“It's just a dance club,” Darlene said before I could reply. I had heard about it at school.

“Just the best dance club. Good stuff's passed around,” Todd added.

“I would have thought you had enough good stuff here,” I said.

His smile withered, his face suddenly becoming
a dried-out grape. “Yes, Mommy,” he said, sounding like a little boy. “I guess you're not interested in having a really good time tonight.”

“I had a really good time here,” I said.

“You had a really good time with losers? C'mon,” he told Darlene. “We're wasting our time.”

“Sure you won't come?” Darlene asked. “It will be fun. I promise.”

“I can't, but thanks.”

“Okay,” she said, and joined the others.

I could see they were all talking about me. They weren't looking at me now much differently from the way they had looked at Cassie. I wanted to talk to the girls, explain how this was my first real party and how worried my parents were, but they all turned away from me. I felt like an iron curtain had come down between us. It was close to eleven thirty anyway.

“I've got to go,” I told Peter and Danny. “I had a good time with you guys.”

Danny beamed, but Peter considered it for a moment the way he might mull a serious math or physics problem and then nodded.

“Yes, it was better than I had expected it would be.” He leaned in to me to whisper. “We got invited only because we do Ginny's homework,” he revealed.

“You do her homework?”