The Spirit Keeper (5 page)

It was early spring, and a thin veil of snow covered the ground. I was eleven years old.

I’d come awake to the sound of the smoke alarm and stumbled from my room in search of my mother and grandparents. I called out to them, screaming their names, but the roar of the fire swallowed my cries. Flames licked the walls, consuming everything in their path, and I realized I had nowhere to escape but back to the relative safety of my room.

I struggled with the window, its wooden frame warped with moisture and age. Once I had finally managed to get it up, it took several tries to kick out the old and rusty wire-mesh screen. All along I was very aware of the fire raging at my backside, sure that at any moment my clothes would burst into flame. And yet, somehow, I managed to get out and stagger to a neighbor’s house for help.

“Whatcha thinking about over there?” Priscilla said. I craned my head so that I could see her floating not far behind me.

The sharp pop and hiss of the house fire, accompanied by the haunting cry of a lone wolf from somewhere in the night, had been the soundtrack of my nightmares for many years thereafter. 

“Nothing much,” I lied.

“Well, I’m thinking about Adrian. You’ve got to meet him. He’s got these gorgeous brown eyes and lashes to die for.”

I snorted and sat up all the way, squeezing the water out of my hair. “You seriously need a boyfriend. Maybe you should ask him out.”

Priscilla sat up, too. “Yeah, right. He was hanging out with Katie, in case you forgot. What does that tell you?”

It told me that even if Adrian turned out to be my new neighbor, chances were he’d never give someone like me the time of day. Not when there was Katie. What she lacked in the brains and common-decency department, she certainly made up for with her looks. And high-school guys didn’t tend to discriminate.

When we were sufficiently cold and wrinkled, we got out and stretched flat on the bank to let the sun scorch us dry. The forest had gone momentarily quiet, lulling us into a deep state of relaxation. Neither of us spoke, exhausted from the week of school now behind us.

Just as my eyes were growing heavy and about to close altogether, I sensed movement in the distance. I glanced over at Priscilla to ask her if she’d seen anything, but her eyes were closed and she had one arm flung over her face. By the steady rise and fall of her chest and the occasional twitch of her leg, I knew she was asleep.

I quickly got to my feet and reached for my shorts and t-shirt that were wadded in a heap on the ground, but another movement made me stop. I held my breath, too freaked out even to breathe. I was certain I’d seen someone that time. But when I turned to look, there was nothing but empty space and shadows.

I’d come to the creek lots of times on my own. No one had ever bothered me, and I’d never been afraid of being alone. But I couldn’t ignore the way my heart was galloping in my chest, or the nagging fear that someone had been spying on us all along.

I yanked on my clothes as quickly as I could and turned to shake Priscilla awake, and it was then that I caught the definite outline of a person standing in the shade of a distant tree. My heart leapt in my throat, and my skin zinged with a sudden burst of adrenaline.

“Who’s there?” I shouted.

The person was too far away for me to see clearly, but it looked like a girl. After a few seconds—easily the longest seconds of my life—she turned and ran away.

Priscilla had jerked awake when I called out and was now sitting up. “Huh? Who’re you talking to?”

“There was someone standing over there,” I said, pointing. “But whoever it was, she’s gone now.”

Priscilla rubbed her eyes, blinking away the sleep. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

She shrugged. “Probably just someone out for a hike.”

“Maybe,” I said, feeling very freaked out by the whole thing. “Let’s go. I’m sure dinner will be ready soon.”

David was in the kitchen tossing a salad when we got back. He plucked a nasturtium flower from the wooden serving bowl and held it out to Priscilla. When she hesitated, he arched a brow in a silent challenge. She finally took it, but held it between her thumb and forefinger as though it were a noxious weed.

“I’m supposed to
eat
this?” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“It won’t kill you,” David said with a smirk. “Don’t you trust me?”

Priscilla, who I thought would do just about anything to impress David, put the entire blossom in her mouth. Her eyes widened seconds later, and she began fanning her mouth so fast her hand was a blur.

“That’s got kick,” she said, sucking air through her front teeth.

“It’s not that bad,” David said. “You just have a very unimpressive tolerance for anything remotely spicy.”

She turned on me. “Why didn’t you warn me, you traitor?”

I grinned and shrugged. “I can’t help that you’re a wimp. Seriously, they’re hardly spicy at all.”

Meg came bustling into the kitchen and pushed a plate of cookies wrapped in plastic into my hands. “I got sidetracked,” she said. “You and Priscilla take these to the new family across the street. But don’t be long. Dinner will be on the table in a few minutes.”

Both cars were in the driveway, but no one answered the door when I rang the bell. Priscilla suggested that I leave the plate on the stoop, so I centered it on the mat just far enough away from the door so that no one would step on it by accident. Then we turned and left for home. But just as we reached the edge of the lawn, I heard the unmistakable click of the front door opening.

“No freaking way,” Priscilla muttered with excitement, grabbing my arm so hard I was afraid she’d leave bruises. “I
told
you!”

Adrian stooped and picked up the plate of cookies before making his way over to us. I tried not to notice the fact that he wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of navy sweat shorts, but it was difficult to ignore his naked chest staring me right in the face. He was even cuter up close. I raked my fingers through my hair and hastily twisted it over my shoulder, wondering why I hadn’t thought to comb it first.

“Priscilla, right?” he said. He smiled, revealing bottomless dimples that even Mario Lopez would be jealous of.

I looked from him to Priscilla to find that her face had gone an embarrassing shade of red. What’s worse, she was completely speechless for once. “Breathe,” I reminded her, nudging her in the ribs with my elbow.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding vigorously. “We have calculus together.”

Adrian looked at me then. It was my turn to say something. He was expecting me to say something,
anything
, so I couldn’t just stand there looking like a complete nimrod. “Oh. I’m Sarah, by the way.”

Adrian unwrapped the plate of cookies and held it out for each of us to take one. He smiled again, his dimples making me go weak in the knees. “Yeah, I know who you are. I’ve heard about you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let me guess. Your source was none other than Katie Cunningham.”

He gave me an embarrassed look but then laughed. “Well, she
did
offer to show me around. I take it you’re not a fan?”

“We’re not exactly best friends, no.”

“I wouldn’t call her that, either,” said Adrian. “Honestly, I had no idea she was so toxic. Girls like her should come with a warning label.”

“Just don’t believe everything she says about me,” I said. “Or any of it, for that matter.” 

“I don’t know,” he said, his brown eyes twinkling in the light. “You must be something special if she went to all that trouble to warn me to stay away from you. Personally, I think she’s jealous.”    

I snorted, too flustered by his obvious flirting to make an intelligent remark.

“And anyway,” he said, “I prefer to make up my own mind about people.”

“That’s good,” I said with a smile. “Really . . . that makes me very glad . . . very happy. Yeah”

“So it’s a little late to be starting a new school,” Priscilla said, saving me from myself. “Did one of your parents get transferred or something?”

Adrian looked over his shoulder at the house before turning back to us. He had a strange expression on his face. “Oh. It’s just my dad and me. He uh . . . he has something . . . yeah.”

“I heard you telling Ms. Wylie that you grew up on some Indian reservation,” Priscilla said. “Is that true?”

I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer that Priscilla wouldn’t say anything about tepees and leather moccasins. But before Adrian could answer, the front door opened, and a man I could only assume was his father yelled at him to get back inside and help finish unpacking.

“That’s my dad,” Adrian said with an apologetic sigh. He turned to his father and yelled that he’d be there in just a minute and to hold his horses. His dad glared at him for a minute, as though trying to convey some silent message, but then he went back inside the house without another word.

“So you’re a junior, too, right?” I said, dismissing the incident.  

“Yeah. Well, technically I’m a senior already. School let out a week ago on the reservation, but I figured I’d use these last few weeks at Hilltop getting to know people. I can’t believe how big the school is.”

Priscilla and I stood there staring at him, our mouths hanging open in twin gapes of astonishment. Was he seriously going to school when he didn’t have to?

Adrian grinned sheepishly, as though reading our exact thoughts. He shrugged. “I’ve gone to school with the same people my whole life. It kind of sucks being the new kid.”

“Whatever you say, dude,” said Priscilla, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “If you want to put yourself through the torture, that’s your prerogative.”  

Adrian laughed. “Seriously, it beats sitting around the house being bored. I used to help my best friend, Caleb, fix cars in my spare time, but—”

“Adrian!”

His dad was standing in the doorway again with his arms crossed over his chest, watching us. Somehow I sensed it wasn’t boredom Adrian was trying to escape, or the need to make new friends. Something about his dad gave me a serious case of the creeps. I’d probably want to go to school, too, if only to get away from him.

“I’d better go,” Adrian said.  

“Yeah. We’ve got to go, too,” I said. “Dinner and all.”

“Now!”

Adrian huffed and turned around. “I said I’d be there in a minute!”

A shadow passed over his dad’s face, but he didn’t say anything more. He simply stood rooted in place, content with giving us the evil eye.

“Sorry about him,” Adrian muttered.

“Been there,” Priscilla said. 

“So, maybe I’ll stop by this weekend. We could hang out or something,” he said, briefly touching my arm with the tips of his fingers. It was a completely innocent gesture that made my legs go all weak and wobbly. 

“Sure,” I said, with as much nonchalance as I could muster. I thumbed over my shoulder. “I’m in that house over there. The one behind the fence. The gate’s always unlocked, so feel free to come over whenever. Or you can circle around back to the greenhouse. That’s where I work.”

“Adrian! Get in here
now
!”