Scary Cool (The Spellspinners)

©
2012
by Diane Farr
Golling

All rights reserved.

The Nobody

Playing to Win (
originally published as
Fair Game
)

Falling for Chloe

Once Upon A Christmas

Dashing Through the Snow (
originally published as
Reckless Miss Ripley
in the anthology
A Regency Christmas Eve

The Fortune Hunter

Duel of Hearts

Under the Wishing Star

Under A Lucky Star

Wicked Cool

Scary Cool

Information available at
dianefarrbooks.com

Dedication

To
JEFF BEZOS and MARK COKER

who
made this book possible

Acknowledgements

The author thanks
Diana
Belchase
and
Suz
deMello
for their excellent book midwifery
.

Chapter
1

I knew he'd come back. Well, I was right. So why was it such a shock to see him in my homeroom? I guess I was thinking of other things. I mean, hey, it was the first day of school. Lance Donovan was the last thing on my mind.

For once.

What I was thinkin
g about was my new look. C
all me shallow, but changing my look
had been
a big step for me. Now that I was actually walking through the doors of Cherry Glen High, I was a teensy bit nervous.

It's my clothes that are new, not me. I still have long, black hair, way-too-pale skin, and violet eyes. But on the inside, I had changed a lot over the summer—and the new Zara
just
couldn't wear the old Zara's clothes.

The old Zara was all about camouflage. Blending into the wallpaper. Flying below the radar. It's hard to blend into the wallpaper when you have a sort of built-in, natural, spooky look. So m
y clothes have always been bo
ring. On purpose. Like,
don’t look at me.

The new Zara? Hmm.

I guess you would say I'm sick of hiding. Now I'm like
,
yeah, I'm different. I've always been different. Deal with it.

I must admit, it feels great.
T
here's something about new clothes, especially clothes that reflect who you really are. Even the way I walk in them is different. Smoother. More confident.

Except that my confidence slipped a little when I actually got to school.

I guess it's easier to maintain an in-your-face attitude when there are no faces to get in.

The only face I had actually gotten in, and that was a couple of months ago, was Lance Donovan's. I had done it in my old-Zara clothes, come to think of it, so maybe the new wardrobe isn't as important as it feels. But th
e day after I got rid of Lance,
I went shopping.

I was feeling pretty full of myself. Nothing like banishing a demon to give a girl a power rush.

Okay, Lance isn't exactly a demon. In fact, he's a
hottie
. But he's a
hottie
with (a) supernatural powers and (b) no
discernible
conscience. So I banished him. (Temporarily, as it turns out. Oh well.)

It's a long story.

Anyway, I h
it the back-to-school sales with—Meg tells me—a dangerous gleam in my eye.
Megan O'Shaughnessy
is my best friend.
She goes to St. Francis, so she has to wear a uniform. No back-to-school wardrobe for Meg. She
went to the mall with me
that day
because she likes to live vicariously.

Meg uses a lot of big words.

I walked right past the racks of bland, unthreatening clothes that matched everything I owned, and headed straight for a skirt that I actually liked. I had never done such a thing in my life.

I saw Meg's eyebrows climb. “Zara. What do you think you're doing?”

I held it up. It was a kind of smoky mulberry color, with a subtle pattern. It was clingy and
floaty
. It looked like somebody might have s
ewn it together from
scarves. This was not a blend-into-the-wallpaper skirt. It wasn't
loud
or anything. But it was sort of ... I don't know ... dramatic. Interesting.

“I like it,” I said. “I'm trying it on.” I pulled out a top that went with it. And another cool skirt—a dark purple silk
wrappy
thing, with a
hem
line of knotted fringe. It looked like something a gypsy might wear. A fortune-teller's skirt.

I looked at Meg. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

As if I hadn't heard.

Meg went into the dressing room with me. When I put the stuff on, her eyes got big. She shoved her glasses higher on her nose and cleared her throat. “Well, well.”

“How do I look?”

She sighed and shook her head. “It's you, Zara. It is
so
you.”

“So why the long face? I think I look cool.”

She nodded glumly. “You look wicked cool.”

I had to laugh. “You say it like there's something wrong with that.”

“There is. And you know it.” She glanced around, as if somehow we were being watched inside the dressing room. Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “Zara, you can't get away with this look. It's
witchy.”

“It suits me.”

“It sure does.” Her expression was grim. “I thought you didn't want people to notice?”

Rebellion stirred in my blood. I looked at my reflection. My reflection stared back at me with stormy eyes.

Amethyst eyes.

Yeah, I looked witchy. Yeah, people were going to notice.

So be it.

“I'm sixteen, Megan. It's time.”

Poor Meg. She looked so worried. “Don't get me wrong. I like it. It's a great look for you. It's just ...”

“I know.” I bit my lip, then smiled. “Hand me the next skirt.”

Like I said, I was feeling pretty full of myself.

Nonny
almost had a heart attack when she saw what I brought home. You'd think I was flashing a lot of skin or
had gotten a tattoo.
Most parental-types would be worried about sexy, right? Not my
Nonny
. Sexy, she could probably handle. Anything that made me look like other teenagers, she could probably handle. But I had chosen stuff that made me stand out from the crowd
—at least in Cherry Glen
. And
Nonny
was scared to death of my standing out from the crowd.

I gave her a one-armed hug and told her to buck up. “I know you're just trying to keep me safe,” I told her. “But don't worry. We've hidden long enough. If the Men In Black were coming to take me away, they would have shown up by now.”

This
was the closest we'd come in ages to talking about It. “It” being the deep, dark secret at the heart of our tiny, two-person family.

This is how bad it is
:
Nonny
never even told me, until a few months ago, that she and I aren't actually related. Not by blood, not by marriage, and not by adoption. She found me, more or less, when I was a tiny baby. And just
…
kept me.

That's bad enough, but that's the small half of the secret.

The big half is, I have all these weird powers. Even I'm not sure what they all are. And that's the secret that
Nonny
and I
have been tiptoeing around
since I was way little. I think she's hoping that I've outgrown my, uh, abilities. And if I haven't? She really,
really
doesn't want to know. So we don't talk about it.

Meg's the only person I can talk to about it. She's the only person on the planet, other than
Nonny
, who knows.
(If
Nonny
even knows, any more.)

I use the word “person” advisedly. Because, obviously, I know. And so does Lance Donovan. But he and I aren't regular people at all. We're
spellspinners
.

I have Lance to thank for putting a name to what I am. Until he came along, I didn't have a clue. So okay, I'm grateful.

But at this point, that's the only thing I feel like thanking him for.

He spent the summer trying to teach me w
hat being a
spellspinner
i
s all about. Let's just say it ended badly.

So I walked into homeroom on the first day of school in my new-Zara clothes, trying not to notice the curious looks slanted at me. I didn't return any of the looks, mind you. I wasn't feeling that bold. But at least I kept my cool.

I tossed my books on a desk and was just about to slide into the seat when I heard it. Lance's voice, inside my head:
You look hot.

My composure instantly shattered.

I whirled around, and there he was. Standing in the doorway. Leaning against the doorjamb with one arm, and gazing at me as if we were the only two people in the room.

The thing about Lance is, no matter where he is or what he's doing, he always looks perfectly relaxed. I was willing to bet he'd never set foot in a public school classroom before, but you'd never know it. There isn't a nervous bone in that boy's body, I swear.

His arrogance is maddening.

It's understandable, though. I mean, he's not only gorgeous, he's a creature of power. And unlike me, he's been brought up knowing it. And
using it. And feeling superior.

Which, to be perfectly honest, he is.

The jerk.

If I seem a little conflicted in my attitude toward Lance, it's because I am, in fact, a little conflicted in my attitude toward Lance.

He genuinely thought I looked hot. I know this, because I could read it in his mind. I thought he looked hot, too. But Lance did
not
know this—I hope—because I blocked him out before he could pick it up.

I think.

It's amazing how quickly I'd forgotten the effect he has on me. The instant I lay eyes on the boy, half of me wants to give him a swift kick in the shins. The other half of me wants to fall, swooning, into his arms.

I try to hide
that last half
. But with the weird mind-meld we have going on, I'm afraid a little of it gets through to him—at least sometimes.

It's
so annoying
!
How can a treacherous
fiend
be
so attractive??? It's not fair! For
one
thing, he's lusciously tall. I'm on the tall side, myself, so encountering a boy who is taller than I am is a rare, yummy event. Plus the lock of dark hair that falls across his forehead always gets me. And the green, green eyes? Killer.

You're weak, Zara. Weak.

Finding him luscious does not mean, however, that I want Lance Donovan in my homeroom. Far from it.