The Shattering (24 page)

Janna gave herself a full minute to freak out, counting out the seconds while the panic made her fingers shake. Then she took the flax inside and got to work. Stage fright was never a reason to back out of a gig. Patrick would have laughed right in her face.

In the end, the hardest part was unpicking the lining at the inside back of the jacket. Janna stabbed her finger a couple of times, and hoped that her blood wouldn't spoil the spell. Twisting a little person shape out of the flax was easy enough, even if it made her think of the napkin poppet in her car, and the clay fig-ures Sione and Keri had talked about. Thinking about those two made the gross voice in her head start whispering again, and she had to stop and breathe calmly before she could go on. It was a good thing she hadn't started the actual spell yet. She'd have tainted it, with all that twisted fury.

She found a piece of blue cloth in her mother's sewing drawer and spread it on her bedroom floor, kneeling in front of it. On top of the cloth, she set two long, blue candles, and a squat, red one, which she wound a silver ribbon around before lighting. Janna let the candles burn for a while, thinking of Takeshi. His quick eyes, sometimes frustrated with the things he couldn't quite put words to. His drive, his enthusiasm for the unknown — new cultures, new worlds. His shoulders, muscles gleaming under a light layer of sweat, and his mouth, curving upward as he happily took everything she had given him in the big, white bed.

Janna unwound the silver ribbon while the red candle still burned, and wrapped it around the little flax figure, from crooked head to spindly legs. The sap was sticky and smelled fresh and strong. She could have made up a chant to go with it, but she always felt silly doing that, and it seemed important that she be secure and certain in this. Instead she settled for saying Takeshi's name, three times, and finishing with, ‘Keep him safe,' as she tucked the ends of the ribbons in. She wasn't asking anyone in particular to look out for him, because she wasn't sure whom to ask. But it was her will, with all the emotion she could gather behind it, and that had to count for something to any spirits or gods that might be listening in, didn't it? She slipped the figure into the jacket lining and sewed it up again, then blew out the candles and stood, her feet prickling with the new blood flow.

There. Give the jacket back to him, and make sure he wore it on New Year's Eve, and he was as safe as she could magically make him. And as for physically — Janna struck what she imagined a kung fu pose might look like in her mirror. ‘Bring it,' she said, and tossed her hair. It was only play, but she really felt like Stardust for a second, powerful and strong, impossible to scare. For the first time, Janna wondered if everyone had a secret self, named or unnamed, waiting for their time to emerge. Who might Schuyler have been, alone in this room that had become hers?

All this daydreaming was making her sad, and the clatter from the hall announced the kids were returning, no doubt stinking of chlorine and complaining of sore eyes.

Sure enough, Petra and Mariel were in the kitchen, wet hair dripping everywhere, fighting over who should have the first go with the blender. Lurking in the hall, Janna felt a huge surge of love for them, so overwhelming that she thought it should trickle out her fingers in ribbons of light, ribbons she could wrap around her sisters to keep them always safe and loved.

Of course, such weakness could not be revealed.

I'll make sure they have a future. Anywhere they choose
, she thought, and stepped through the door. ‘Oi, you brats,' she said. ‘Give it a rest.
Some
people are trying to concentrate.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SIONE

On the third day after the fifight, when the housekeeper once
again came in after noon and found him still in bed, Sione
decided that he'd better do something, so he could stop telling
so many lies to his mother.
Every day, he'd been talking about walks on the beach and bird watching and long, quiet sessions of communing with nature, and promising her that he was getting out of his room and away from his computer. Somehow it was easier to lie about what had happened than to think about it long enough to tell her. The one time she'd mentioned ‘those girl friends of yours,' he'd swift ly changed the subject, feeling sick to his stomach, and she'd let it go.

He'd just about managed to stay in touch with Janna and Keri, but the spell was getting stronger, creeping into his dreams so that he woke exhausted and hating. They were down to exchanging text messages now, unable to cope with each other's voices on the phone. At least that had meant Keri's itemised lists of plans had stopped coming; they'd grown increasingly detailed, and more and more dictatorial on what he and Janna should do and where they should be, with backup plans for the backup plans.

But being able to contact either of them was increasingly something that concerned him.

He screwed up his courage and sent them both a text:
WILL WE BE ABLE TO COME TOGETHER AT BASH?

IF WE TOUGHEN UP
, Keri texted back. Trapped at home, she always answered messages right away. Sione stared at the screen, wondering how much of that was a sneer at him.

Janna's message came later, beeping at him when he got out of the shower.
TLD U. USED SPELL. ALL GUD
.

He rolled his eyes at it. One out-of-practice witch trainee couldn't do that much, could she? And she refused to tell them know what kind of spell it was.

CM SEPRATE THO,
she added a few seconds later, and Sione had to see the sense in that, even though he had no idea how he was going to get backstage, where Takeshi was apparently going to be. Keri had given him four ways to do it, ranging from sneaking through the security fence to faking an injury to get him to the medical tent in the backstage area.

Her micromanaging made him angry. But over the last three days, what didn't? Everything about this hotel reminded him of either Matthew or the girls. The picture over the bed, of the bright people at the Beach Bash under the gathering clouds, was impossible to look at without feeling sick. At any rate, he didn't want Maukis art anywhere near him. He'd asked the housekeeper to take it away.

That was more words than he'd spoken to anyone but his mum and dad since the fight.

Something had to give. He put his camera and phone in his bag and slouched down to the lobby.

Keri's mother was at the reception desk, and he nearly turned to go back, almost missing the red-haired girl in the lobby, curled into a chair with a book. But she moved her head, and the light streaming through the enormous windows caught strands of gold in the pile of fuzzy curls. He walked toward her, trying to pretend that Keri's mum wasn't staring a hole into his back.

Of course, when Aroha looked up from her reading, he had no idea what to say.

‘Sione!' she said, and bounced to her feet. ‘Hi! Haven't seen you in ages! How's it going?'

She likes you
, Keri had said. And if she wasn't trying to make a fool out of him . . . No, she'd said that before the spell, when they'd still been friends. So it had to be true.

How did you talk to girls? Matthew would know.

‘Oh . . . okay,' he mumbled, and nodded at the book. ‘What're you reading?' That seemed safe.

She shrugged. ‘Some sci-fithing of Takeshi's.'

‘He reads science-fiction?' He craned to look at the book and was surprised that he could read the title. ‘In English?'

‘Yeah. Although I think he read this one in Japanese first. He reads English a lot better than he speaks it. It's the other way around for me, with Japanese.'

‘But you borrowed it?'

‘Stole it, really. But he wasn't using it,' she said, and rolled her eyes. ‘He's busy.'

With Janna
, Sione thought, automatically bracing for the way the thought of her curdled his stomach.

‘You don't have a thing for him, too?' he said. He was going for joking, but it came out twisted.

But Aroha only looked resigned. ‘Ew, he's my host brother. But this was supposed to be — God. My parents treat these Summerton trips like a second honeymoon, even though they always make me come, too. But they go off together to be lovey dovey at each other, like they're our age. It's pretty gross. And I thought, since he was coming, that I'd at least have someone to hang out with. But he's spending all his time with Janna, and it's okay, I get it, summer romance, but today I got kicked out of our suite.' She winced. ‘Well, not kicked out, exactly. They were just . . . I said I might go for a walk, and they looked so grateful, I thought I'd better do it before they went to his bedroom anyway. But I stole his book. So, you know, we're even.' She tried to smile, but it was weak around the edges.

Abandoned and lonely, with nothing to do and no one to be with. Sione felt a pang of sympathy so sharp that it went right through the fog that had been hanging around his brain since the fight with
them
.

‘I was going for a walk,' he said. ‘Wanna come?'

Which was stupid, of course — the last thing he should do on a walk to clear his head and put together alternative plans to protect her host brother was invite Aroha along. But her face lit up like the fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day, and he couldn't feel sorry

about it.

During that walk, he discovered something interesting: Because he knew Aroha already liked him, he didn't get as nervous about talking to her, and she talked enough to fill in his gaps anyway, without expecting him to take an even share. Which made it easier for him to talk. They discussed their schools, and books they'd both read, and movies they'd both seen. She laughed, more than once, as they wandered up through the hills.

So did he.

He'd liked Janna because she was exciting and dramatic — and because she was Matthew's kind of girl, but she'd kissed
him
. And he'd wanted to kiss Keri because . . . well, because he'd seen her with her shirt off and been full of adrenaline after the confrontation with Daisy.

He was wondering if he might like Aroha because she was Aroha. Maybe he
should
have a rebound relationship. Talking to girls was pretty easy when it was the right girl.

‘So you play drums?' he asked. ‘I bet you're good.'

‘I'm okay. Dad hates the noise, but Mum loves it. She was a punk-rock chick in the early eighties.'

Sione tried to match that to the red-haired lady he'd seen after the crash. ‘Really?'

‘Really. Riot grrrrrrrl! Angry feminist music, you know.' She gave him a look that was partly challenging. ‘Mind you, they had a lot to be angry about.'

‘No lie,' Sione agreed. ‘My mum, she was a social worker before she moved into psychotherapy. She's got some stories.'

‘I bet. I'd like to meet her.' She blushed, and Sione stopped, amazed. On her it was a hectic flush, a bright wash over her pale skin. ‘I don't mean that —'

‘She'd like to meet you, too,' Sione told her, and started walking again. Mum would probably be interested in any girl he introduced to her, but he thought she'd like Aroha as Aroha, too.

They were on one of the easier trails, a footpath, really, with matai trees towering greenly on each side instead of buildings, and the cheeps of fantails instead of traffic noises. The manuka were in flower, little white blossoms everywhere. Aroha stopped to grab an empty chip packet that someone had dropped.

‘I hate litterers,' she said, stuffing it into her pocket. ‘Who would want to spoil this place? It's so beautiful.'

Sione held his tongue and nodded.

The path broke out, finally, into an empty wooden platform just over a tarn. The water was so clear that Sione could see the rocks at the bottom when he leaned over the rail, even make out an eel slipping through the water weeds to his left .

Aroha took pictures, but he was content to stand and watch, without the mindless devotion that still caught him in town. Was this far enough away from Summerton? Was it only the area around the bay that held people in that worshipful trance?

‘What are you thinking about?' he asked to break the silence.

Aroha lowered the camera and turned to him slowly. ‘Takeshi said Janna said your brother died,' she said, and winced when he flinched at the name. ‘Sorry, I shouldn't have —'

‘It's not that,' Sione said, and kept on talking before she asked what it was. ‘I mean . . . yeah, he died. Suicide. Carbon monoxide poisoning.'

‘I was thinking about it. I'm an only child. I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose a sibling.'

‘Matthew was an only child before I came along,' Sione said. ‘He said he liked it better that way.'

‘I'm sure he was just joking.'

‘Nah, he meant it.'

Aroha gave him a dubious look, and he felt himself starting to get annoyed. ‘Look, he was my family, okay? We loved each other, and we would have been there for each other in emergencies, but he didn't like me very much, and he wasn't real shy about showing it. I embarrassed him.'