Alight The Peril

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Angeline, Aaron, Hannah, and Terrina, you have my deepest gratitude for skillfully coaxing this book along, and for your kind and encouraging words.

Book blogger friends, thank you for reading, reviewing, promoting, keeping in touch, and supporting me in so many ways. You have been one of the best parts of the writing and publishing journey, and I don’t tell you often enough how much I appreciate you!

For my parents

|| 1 ||

SLIPPING THROUGH THE DOORWAY just as the late bell rang, I found a seat in the back and tried to tune into the classroom instead of my telepathic link with my boyfriend. My brother, Bradley, sat a couple of rows ahead of me. Even after three years in the same grade, it was still weird to have classes with him. Maybe at a bigger school, no one would have known or cared that he was over a year older than everyone else in his grade. But this was Tapestry. The whole school remembered when he missed most of eighth grade because of cancer.

At least Sophie Marcelle’s pouty face graced a different homeroom. If I had to watch Brad and Sophie bat their eyes at each other for an entire forty-five minutes every morning, I’d have to start carrying around one of those little white airplane barf bags. They’d been dating for about a month, and although I’d accepted the reality of it, I didn’t like it any more now than I did when I first found out.

Aww, but Brad’s so happy!
Mason’s voice rang through my head, and I jumped and knocked my pen onto the floor. Stifling a laugh, I glanced around. I probably looked like a freak, jumping for no apparent reason.

Try not to scare me like that, would you? And you said you’d stop eavesdropping!

Sorry about the volume,
Mason said.
But I wasn’t eavesdropping. That was all you.

Really? I’ve
got
to get the hang of this.

Don’t worry. You will. If I can do it, so can you.
Mason’s tone was warm in my mind, and I grinned.
And if you don’t, well, we don’t need to hide anything from each other anyway, right?

My cheeks heated and my smile widened.
But what if I want to surprise you?

Hm, yeah, that probably won’t work. You’ll just have to let me surprise you instead.

Some mornings I still woke up clawing at my ears in panic until I remembered I had not only my own thoughts running through my brain, but Mason’s too. This morning I had woken up not to a panic attack, but to Mason simulating the sound of an alarm going off in my head. It took me a few seconds to look at the clock. It was a full hour before my real alarm was supposed to go off. Just
hilarious
.

At times, keeping my thoughts in my own head proved difficult. Actually, most of the time I truly sucked at it. I wished I understood why, but Mason learned to control his thought projection with ease, whereas I still struggled. Although the chattery background buzz of his consciousness streamed constantly through my mind, he managed to protect his distinct thoughts, except for when he purposely communicated with me. The way Mason described it, he imagined a soundproof wall around his mind. When he wanted to talk to me through our link, he opened a little window in the wall and sent the thought through to me. He made it sound so easy, but the same kind of mental imagery didn’t seem to work as well for me.

You’re coming with me to Aunt Dorothy’s after my shift, right?
I asked.

Yep. I’ll meet you at the café. Study hard.
I could almost feel him smirking. He’d worked ahead while he was abroad, and had already finished his sophomore year.

I sighed, opened my notebook, and tried to focus on the discussion about the use of coincidental events in
A Tale of Two Cities
.

* * *

At the nearly empty café after school, Angeline leaned against the counter beside me.

“So are you and Toby doing anything this weekend?” It was only Tuesday, but I figured she was already scheming some romantic rendezvous.

She grinned. “Yeah, we’re going to a movie in Danton on Saturday.”

“Ooo, a date in the big city—that’s awesome.”

“You and Mason could come, too, if you want,” she said. “You know, the four of us, like at Spring Queen.”

I grimaced a little. At the dance, I’d ended up kissing Mason, he and I had argued, I’d barfed, and we talked. Usual high school drama, I guess. Well, we’d figured things out, more or less, and we were together now. Sort of. Maybe not as
together
as Ang and Toby, but . . . we were getting there.

“Thanks for the invite,” I said. “But I don’t want to bust in on your time with Toby. Don’t worry about me. You and I can hang out Friday night, and then he can have you all to himself on Saturday.”

She gave me a grateful smile and squeezed my arm, then slid back to her post at the espresso machine.

A group of women around my mom’s age trooped in, and I rang up their purchases and passed their orders to Ang. The ladies sat down with their coffees in the conversation area near the door, and Ang ducked into the back room for more cups and lids.

Dad leaned through the doorway of the adjoining restaurant to give me a quick wave, and I grinned and waved back. He appreciated that I was spending so much time with Aunt Dorothy these days. Of course, I knew she’d never actually been sick, but he still thought she’d had a stroke, followed by a miraculous recovery. He worried about her living alone, but he was too busy with the café to do much for her.

Aunt Dorothy wanted me and Mason to move in with her. Surprisingly, Mason’s lax parents had vetoed it, and of course mine had, too. I’d thought maybe my dad would be relieved to have someone there in the house with Aunt Dorothy, but apparently he wasn’t into the idea of that someone being me.

When my shift finally ended, I took half of the tips from the jar and left the rest for Ang. Dell, a retired guy who worked a few hours a week in the coffee shop, headed to the back room to leave his jacket before taking my spot at the till.

Ready to go?
Mason’s voice breezed through my mind, and I looked up just as the bells on the door announced his arrival. He smiled, showing his dimples, and joined us at the counter. My heart did a little dance in my chest.

“You guys taking off?” Ang asked.

“Yeah, um, Mason’s going with me to Aunt Dorothy’s.” I gave her a pointed look and tilted my head in Dell’s direction. I couldn’t very well tell Ang that my great-aunt was going to teach me about the
pyxis
liquids when someone else was within earshot. “She, um, needs some boxes moved in from the garage, so, you know, I thought I’d bring some muscle with me.”

A hot flush crept up my neck. Ugh, did I really just call Mason my “muscle?”

“Oh, well, say hi to her.” Ang pressed her lips together, probably to hold in a burst of giggling. I wished she could come with us, but she had another hour left in her shift. My great-aunt said the
pyxis
didn’t really concern Ang. She couldn’t do anything as a Guardian until we figured out who her counterpart was, anyway.

“Sure, will do. See you in the morning.” I snatched my bag from under the counter and made for the door. Mason’s amusement rolled through my head in little waves.

Want to see me flex?

Oh, stop. It’s not that funny
.

He caught up to me outside the coffee shop and we strolled down Main Street toward Aunt Dorothy’s neighborhood.

“Aw, the flowers are up,” I said, pointing to a basket hanging from the nearest lamp post. It was bursting with annual blooms. The appearance of the flower baskets was one of my favorite harbingers of summer. Winter was finally behind us and the sun’s warmth gained strength with the promise of hot days ahead. Summer was fleeting at this altitude, and we made the most of it in Tapestry. The early highlight of the season was the Summer Solstice Carnival, an all-night party in late June.

I glanced across the street just as Sophie sauntered by with Hannah and Genevieve.

“Oh, look, it’s the Queen B—” I started, but Mason elbowed me hard in the side, and I squealed and rubbed my ribs.

Hannah raised her hand in a half wave and started to smile at me. Sophie glared at her and moved her lips, and Hannah’s hand fell to her side.

After we passed them, Genevieve snuck a peek at me over her shoulder, and I grinned at her. She’d re-dyed the purple streak in her hair that I’d done for her a few weeks back, which probably made Sophie want to spit nails.

“Brad’s really into Sophie, huh?” Mason asked after the girls were out of sight.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Can you believe it?”

“Guess it’s more than just a little fling, then.” Mason’s voice was low, and my pulse kicked up a notch. Even without our link, I knew he was thinking back to the dance . . . our kiss.

I shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not that I don’t want him to be happy. It just stings. She’s practically made a career out of snubbing me and trying to make me feel like I don’t deserve the air I’m breathing.” I frowned at the ground and knocked a pebble off the sidewalk with the side of my shoe.

“She’s probably jealous.”

“Of me?” I snorted an incredulous laugh. “Jealous is probably the
last
thing she is.”

“Anything’s possible,” Mason said, his voice mild. He looked into the distance with a mysterious expression, but I’d had enough Sophie talk for one day.

“I seriously need to get a grip on my thought projection,” I said after a few moments of silence.

Mason grinned and eased his arm around my shoulders. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m kind of digging all this access to your leaky brain.”

“Jerk,” I said, and I pushed his shoulder. He stumbled half a step sideways and laughed, a deep rumble in his chest. I bit my lips to hide a smile.

Mason’s laughter died mid-chuckle, and he halted with an abrupt scrape of his Chuck Taylors against the sidewalk. As I turned to ask him why he stopped, he clamped his hands against his temples and bent at the waist.

“What’s wrong?” I grabbed his forearm and leaned over next to him to peer into his eyes, but his eyelids squeezed shut, and his face twisted in pain.
What is it?

He groaned and swayed. My heart punched a fear-driven tempo in my chest, and I clasped his shoulders, trying to steady him.

Then, everything around us went dark. My gaze shot to the sky. All I saw was a swath of stars. My feet shifted and I realized the ground beneath me had some give to it—sand?—just as Mason called out in pain and fell to his knees.

“She’s in my mind,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Who?!” I squinted in the dim light, trying to make out anything around us. Was that a picnic table?

Fear and confusion gripped my stomach as realization hit: we stood on the beach at the cove. How could this be?

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, sunlight streamed over me with painful intensity. I shielded my face against the sudden brightness and looked down, trying to let my eyes adjust.

Concrete. I’d returned to the sidewalk, Mason on his knees at my feet. I knelt next to him. He drew a couple of ragged breaths and his eyes met mine.

“What happened?” My voice trembled.

“She was in there. . . . She blocked you out of my mind.” Mason shuddered and then straightened slowly. I stood up with him.

“I did feel like I lost you.” I licked my dry lips. “And I don’t know how, but we were at the cove for a few seconds.”

Mason closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. “Yeah, I saw the change. Like we blinked into a different dimension.”

“But who did that to you?”

“Green eyes . . . from my dreams.” He scrubbed one hand through his hair.

“Harriet.” I barely managed to choke out the name. “It had to be.”

Mason nodded. He looked up and down the empty street. “She’s gone now.”

I touched his shoulder. “Can you make it the rest of the way?”

“Yeah, I feel fine now, like the last five minutes never happened.”

We stood there a second, then hurried the last two blocks to my great-aunt’s house. I practically sprinted up the walkway to the front door, I was so anxious to get inside. I knocked on the door as I opened it.