The Alchemy of Forever (11 page)

By lunchtime I’m exhausted and on edge. The classes are easy, but the social dynamics are not. I never know where to sit or who to talk to, and my teachers seem baffled every time I know an answer. Kailey, it seems, wasn’t the most diligent student, but I have no idea if she wasn’t smart or was simply disinterested.

I exit Kailey’s English class—Shakespeare I—and let myself be pulled along with the river of students toward the cafeteria. It’s a large, circular room flooded with natural light, its walls almost entirely made of glass.

Searching the faces of the crowd, I suddenly panic. Some people look vaguely familiar, but I don’t see any of the girls whose faces I memorized last night. I don’t even see Noah or Bryan—in my entire long life, I have never felt more out of place.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I hear the voice in my ear at the same time I feel a hand grab hold of my elbow.

Whirling around, I recognize the elbow tugger: It’s Leyla Clark, Kailey’s best friend. I plaster a smile on my face to cover my surprise. “Hi, Leyla.”

“Why, hello,
Kailey
,” she mocks, turning me around and marching me away from the cafeteria. I’m mesmerized by her skirt, a colorful, patchwork affair that looks handmade. I don’t question where we’re going—I’m so relieved that I don’t need to enter the cafeteria by myself that I’d gladly go anywhere.

“I’m
so
glad you’re back. You feeling okay? Bryan said you were sick. Actually, I should thank you for giving me an excuse to talk to him!” She keeps chattering all the way through the empty drama wing, till we reach a narrow staircase. For a flash, I’m reminded of the staircase at Emerald City. I’m gripped by the sensation that, like that night, I’m about to cross a threshold.

“What’s wrong with you? Everyone’s waiting!” Leyla gives an impatient smile and leads me up the creaky stairs. She ducks behind a curtain, and I follow her into a small, secret room.

The smell of Chinese food and the sound of laughter hit me as I walk in. “Hey, Kailey! Welcome back!” says one girl, her ivory cashmere sweater complementing her coffee-colored skin. I recognize her as Chantal Nixon. She’s decidedly preppy, unlike the rest of Kailey’s friends.

“Thanks,” I say, joining their circle on the cushy carpet. The room is covered in graffiti and a swirling collage. I think I recognize Kailey’s style in several of the paintings: a girl lying under a tree, a purple bicycle, a deer with flowers and ribbons in its antlers.

Piper Lindstrom and Madison Cortez are here, too, and I congratulate myself on my successful Facebook research. They both look vaguely rock-and-roll, with ripped skinny jeans and T-shirts for bands I’ve never heard of.

I immediately recognize Nicole as well, the girl who’d given me a dirty look that morning in biology. She’s not, I notice, eating Chinese food out of the takeout containers like the other girls. Instead she’s got a wooden bowl full of salad. Her style is upscale hippie, with comfortable, expensive-looking leather shoes and a soft, green top.

In the coven we all had defined roles: Cyrus was the tyrannical leader; I was his subservient love; Jared was Cyrus’s yes-man and enforcer; Amelia, his doting sidekick. Sèbastien moved behind the scenes, and Charlotte served as my best friend. I wonder what role Kailey played in her group.

Piper hands me a takeout container full of fried rice, and I take a few bites before passing it along. Nicole shoots me a smile laced with ice. “Feeling better? You seemed pretty out of it in bio this morning.”

Madison, holding the fried rice, pauses and looks up with worry shining in her blue eyes. “You’re still sick?” She looks back at the food container and sets it down gingerly.

“No, but thanks for your concern, Nicole.” My tone is neutral, but in my mind I’ve already classified her as someone to watch out for.

A silver charm bracelet on Nicole’s wrist catches my attention. Glancing around subtly, I realize that Piper and Madison are wearing the same bracelets, though Leyla just wears a strand of thin red leather. “What are you looking at?” Nicole demands.

“Nothing,” I mumble, taking a bite of broccoli from the next container that Piper passes me. Leyla gives me a strange look.

“I thought you hated broccoli,” she says.

“It’s . . . um . . . healthy,” I stammer.

Leyla points at my chest. “Who are you and what have you done with Kailey?” I feel the blood draining from my face and the muscles tensing in my legs. I glance at the door, calculating how quickly I could be down the stairs and outside.

But Leyla just chuckles, tossing her magenta-streaked hair. “
Anyway
,” she continues, “can we get back to discussing the party?”

“You’re coming, right, Kailey?” Madison waits for an answer.

“To what?” I ask. I figure that since I missed school yesterday I don’t have to pretend to know about it.

“Dawson’s party Thursday night,” she huffs incredulously. “It’s up in the hills, in Montclair. Dawson’s parents are gone. We’ve only been talking about it for the past two weeks.”

“Oh, right. Um . . . I can’t go,” I say, hoping I sound sincerely disappointed. “I’m grounded.”

“You are?” Chantal is incredulous. “What for?”

For being a very bad body snatcher,
I think. “I got in a fight with my mom. It was stupid.”

“Does this mean Bryan’s not going?” Leyla asks, an urgent tone to her voice.

“I have no idea,” I reply. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Her brown eyes sparkle. “If you insist.”

Nicole clears her throat. “I thought we were forbidden to talk to your brother?” A rosy flush appears under her freckles and a defiant glint flashes in her eyes. She tucks a loose lock of hair behind an ear.

A look passes between Leyla and Nicole that I don’t understand, and Madison seamlessly changes the subject.

While the girls prattle on about what to wear to the party, I look around at Kailey’s friends, bonded by years of history and inside jokes. I think of how well I knew Charlotte—that she snorted when she was embarrassed, that she could only memorize things if she made up a song for it—and how well she knew me. My decision to leave the coven was the only secret I had ever kept from her.

I have been so distracted by waking up as Kailey and by looking for Cyrus’s book that I am only realizing just now how utterly alone I am. No one knows my real name or what I really am. And the thought makes me want to burst into tears.

But then my phone buzzes and I look down. It’s from Noah; he’s played another word: “friend.” And I wonder if I am not quite as alone as I think.

My second day at school is a little easier. I know where I’m going and where to sit. I speak up in my English class, offering my thoughts on
Hamlet
and impressing the teacher. I eat lunch with Kailey’s friends, still feeling slightly shy, but not like a cannon about to go off. It helps that Nicole has a doctor’s appointment—“Isn’t that, like, her fifth appointment this month?” Chantal asks suspiciously—and isn’t there.
Fake it till you make it,
Charlotte and I would joke every time we were disoriented after a switch or had to move to a new house we didn’t like, and I repeat the mantra to myself on a continuous loop.

I have to stay late to make up a French test Kailey had missed when I ditched, but I breeze through it, finishing in a half hour, and dash out the front door with other detention-goers. Bryan’s at practice and Noah’s long gone, so I have to walk. I’ve only gone a few steps when I stop, noticing a pay phone just outside the school.

All day I’ve been mulling over how to find Taryn. I keep circling back to one idea: calling my car in as stolen. It’s risky, I know—it could raise a lot of questions—but I decide it’s worth it if it means I get Cyrus’s book back. I won’t be able to give them Kailey’s cell, so I quickly download Google Voice and create a second line on her phone with a different number. Then I drop a few quarters in the pay phone and dial the police.

It rings three times before a perky woman picks up.

I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping I am doing the right thing, and lower Kailey’s voice to make it sound older. “Hi, I’d like to report a stolen car.”

I give her the details—the license plate, the fake name I bought the car under, the location where it was stolen, and the new number I just programmed into Kailey’s phone. I hear the woman typing loudly as I speak.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” she warns. “Stolen cars rarely turn up. The thieves usually change the plates or get it to a chop shop within hours. But we’ll call you if we find anything.”

I thank her and hang up, then set off toward Kailey’s home, my mind working overtime. I don’t need the car back, I just need to smoke out Taryn. I feel badly possibly getting her arrested, but she really shouldn’t have taken my bag and my car.

I’m a few blocks away from the Morgans’ house when I hear someone shout Kailey’s name. I turn around and spot a familiar silhouette behind me: Noah is out walking his dog. As they approach, Harker growls at me again, but this time I kneel in front of him and rub his ears.

“It’s okay, Harker,” I murmur, feeling the silky fur. After a minute the dog calms down. It appears we have a temporary truce.

“I don’t know why he keeps doing that,” says Noah. I catch his gaze, his eyes as blue as the Caribbean Sea.

“He’s just protecting you.” I stand, and we fall in step, meandering down the street. I take a breath. There is something I want to know. “Why do you run off to bio without me every morning?” I don’t look at him, instead watching the trees, the way the last long-limbed reaches of sun are lighting them up against the sky.

I am surprised when he laughs. The sound is warm. “Kailey, you’ve made it pretty clear that our friendship only exists outside of school. I’m not the one ignoring you.”

I look down awkwardly. I’m getting a fuller picture of who Kailey was. And she was . . . complicated. Imaginative and artistic, with plenty of friends who cared for her. But also somewhat manipulative, if she really did forbid her friends from talking to her brother. And now this.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

Noah pulls a small digital camera from his pocket and points it at me. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Recording this moment for posterity.” He grins and takes a photo. “I can’t remember the last time Kailey Morgan issued an apology.”

We pass a house with open casement windows, taking in the cool breeze. Inside, someone is playing the piano. Noah stops, his head cocked. “I love this song.”

“It’s the second movement of the
Pathetique
sonata,” I answer reflexively. Beethoven is one of my favorite composers.

He looks at me wonderingly. “There’s definitely something different about you. Don’t get me wrong—I like it.”

I stiffen as the song continues, the notes uneven on the soft wind—the kind that only comes after a storm. Noah’s still looking at me. For some reason I think of Cyrus’s icy blue eyes. Noah’s are nothing like that.

“Let’s walk,” I say, keeping a space between us as we continue down the street. Our shadows stretch out in front of us in the orange light, an optical trick making the distance between us appear very small.

We pass an antiques shop, and Noah stops to peer in the window. It’s absolutely packed with objects—old books, teacups, musical instruments. A small handwritten sign in the corner of the window captures my eye:
HELP WANTED
. I pause, thinking.

“Do you think they’d hire me?” I ask Noah.

He looks at me curiously. “What happened to ‘I’d rather be poor and have time to paint’? Besides, what do you know about antiques?”

This makes me laugh. “I know a
lot
about antiques, for your information.”

“What’s so funny about that?” he asks.

I shrug. “Inside joke.”

Harker whimpers and pulls on his chain. “He wants to run,” Noah explains, with an apologetic tone.

“We should run, then. Running is fun. You should use your body to its full potential while you’re young.” I know it isn’t the kind of thing Kailey would say, but I don’t care.

Noah’s long hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it back behind an ear. “You keep saying the weirdest things.” He smiles. “But I like weird. Let’s go.”

The three of us race down the street, and I easily take the lead. It does feel good to run, to feel alive, to crunch through fallen leaves on the wet sidewalk, to splash through puddles and soak the legs of my jeans.

When we reach our houses we stop, gasping for breath and laughing.

“Kailey?” Mrs. Morgan appears at the door. “Where have you been?”

I look apologetically at Noah. “Uh, I should head inside.”

“See you,” he says, waving to Mrs. Morgan.

As I head up the front walk, I glance back at Noah, bending down to pet Harker, and am struck suddenly by how alive, perfectly alive, and human he is. He is both his spirit and his body, bound by the silver cord. Cyrus says it’s a physical phenomenon, that modern chemistry just hasn’t figured out how to quantify it yet, but I don’t believe him. I may be immortal, but Noah is the magical one.

Having spent a few days with the Morgans, I know what it’s okay to talk about: Bryan’s upcoming football game, my homework, Mr. Morgan’s job as a librarian. I smile and nod at all the right places, even though I’m distracted. I can’t stop thinking about the help wanted sign in the antiques shop window.

Finally, I clear my throat. “I know I’m grounded, but—”

“Here we go,” says Mr. Morgan. Bryan leans in eagerly, sure I’m about to get into even more trouble.

“. . . but I was wondering if I could get a job?” I finish.

Mrs. Morgan raises her eyebrows, and Mr. Morgan nods slowly. Bryan’s jaw drops slightly. “That is not what I expected you to ask,” he says.

Kailey’s parents look at each other, communicating silently, the way longtime couples learn to do. Mr. Morgan glances back at me. “I don’t see why not,” he says thoughtfully.