Blackfin Sky (18 page)

Sean squeezed her to him. ‘There is definitely more to see than Blackfin, but it does have its own unique appeal.’

Sky angled her head so she could look at him. ‘You’ve never told me much about Flint. What was it like growing up there?’

He gave her a sideways glance and smirked. ‘Different from here. Not as many ghosts or crazy people. Well, not
Blackfin
crazy, anyway.’

‘Do you miss it?’

Sean shrugged. ‘Sometimes. I keep in touch with my friends online – when the frigging internet works in this town – and it’s not like I can never go back there.’ He fell silent, but Sky sensed there was more coming. ‘I miss my parents, though. Or at least … I don’t know, being part of a family.’

‘Don’t you feel that way, living with Cam and your aunt?’

‘Of course. I love them both to bits. But it seems like I’m just passing time or something. My parents are doing incredible things on their expedition, and I’m so proud of them for that. But I can’t help resenting them sometimes. I mean, Cam’s her own whirlwind, and I’ve never met a woman more independent than Aunt Holly, and I just feel … unnecessary, I suppose.’

‘I don’t think you’re unnecessary, Sean.’

He looked at her, and that spark of mischief was back in his eyes. ‘No?’

Sean laughed and spun her so that his arms bracketed her against the car. Then neither of them were laughing, something a lot more potent in the sliver of space between them.

‘Promise me you won’t disappear this time, okay?’

Sean kissed her without waiting for her answer. His lips were warm against Sky’s, and tasted of lazy smiles and strawberry laces. His thumbs smoothed down her cheeks and throat like he had to make sure she was real, was still there with him.

I’ve never been kissed like this
before,
Sky thought, tingles travelling from her head to her toes.
I can’t believe I’m actually kissing Sean Vega…

It was the first kiss they should have had, without the ugliness of the fight with Randy and the blood-tang of split lips, without the chemical taste of the spiked punchbowl between them.

This
was exactly what Sky wanted.

She moved her hands from where they hovered uncertainly at her sides and ran them up Sean’s back. She felt his muscles flex in response, so she did it again.

He broke the kiss, his breathing terse, and grinned at her.

‘I’ve wanted to kiss you for two years,’ Sean whispered, his lips barely brushing against hers. ‘I thought I’d never get the chance.’

Sky gazed into the deep bronze of his eyes, saw them looking for her reaction.

She kissed him then, putting everything she couldn’t say out loud into it as their bodies pressed together. A gust of wind whipped her hair against both their necks until Sean caught the blonde strands and threaded his fingers through them, his other hand resting gently against her cheek.

His crooked smile only accented his kiss-reddened mouth when he leaned back and took a strawberry lace from his pocket and snapped it in two, giving her half.

‘This will be the first time I try ice skating,’ he admitted.

Sky jumped up into the passenger side of his jeep and grinned at him. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t fall flat on your face.’

The first Saturday of Winterfest always drew a crowd in Oakridge. They had to wait in line for almost half an hour before the kiosk attendant handed them their skates and they made their way down to the rink.

Sean stopped Sky as she was about to head out onto the ice.

‘You go ahead, I just want to take a picture of you out there before I stumble out like an ape and embarrass us both.’

Sky raised an eyebrow. ‘All right. But I’m coming to get you if you’re not out there in two minutes, Sean Vega. Besides, it’s easier if you have someone to pull down onto the ice with you.’

Sean laughed and watched as Sky drifted gracefully into the circling skaters, her red coat flapping behind her as she picked up speed.

Sky had never been afraid of falling. She’d taken her share of tumbles as she was learning how to skate, but the bruises faded quickly and the feeling of travelling so fast across the ice, making loops and turns as she found her rhythm, was more exhilarating than anything else she’d ever done. That was, up until she had kissed Sean Vega at the highest peak of the Lychgate Mountains.

She lost sight of Sean after making a couple of laps and had to scan the faces of the people outside the frozen arena, searching for his lopsided grin in the crowd. Sky soon spotted him – or at least part of him, as he held the phone out in front of his face while he took her photo. Sky twirled, laughing as she caught sight of the flash across the ice, and made her way back to where she’d started. But as she approached the hop-out point, she realised something had changed.

Sean was no longer standing where he’d been moments ago. Sky almost stopped dead, but was bussed along by a group of kids who narrowly avoided ploughing into her. She searched the faces as she moved slowly around the edge, almost tripping when she noticed some of the faces fading in and out, as though a light were being shone on them one second, gone the next. Sky pushed herself away, faster. The faces blurred, then went spinning as she clipped the skate of another girl.

Lightning writhed around her, then was gone in a blink, like something had cracked open.

There on the edge of the rink, Miss Schwarz’s brilliant red hair flashed and was gone. Another moment, another flash, and it was the glint of metal from Jared’s piercings which caught the light and Sky’s eye, but she had to look away before she barrelled into another skater.

I need to get off the ice,
she thought, looking for the hop-out again. A flicker just above her head, and now she saw Miss Schwarz, then Jared, their faces flashing in and out like sparks, too quick for her eyes to follow.

Sky squinted against another flash, and another, like lightning, or a really powerful camera.

‘Sky.’

She lost sight of them again, the flashes of cameras and kids with glow sticks and the fluorescent glare of the spotlights overhead blending together in an overwhelming, pulsing web of light.

‘Skylar!’

Something crashed into her. Sky’s landing was much warmer and softer than she’d expected, and she looked down to find Sean lying winded under her.

‘It took … forever … to reach you. Thought you’d … vanish before I …’

Then she understood. It hadn’t worked. Putting all the unanswered questions to the back of her mind, trying to keep her life normal and sane – none of it had worked. The weirdness had sought her out, tracked her down and dragged her back into its embrace, even here – outside the limits of Blackfin. She’d been on the verge of disappearing again, vanishing into whatever strange universe she’d glimpsed in the swirling pattern of faces, until Sean had pulled her back.

Sky’s heart pounded a terrified rhythm in her chest.

The skaters around them looked down worriedly to see if they were okay, but continued their leisurely circles as Sean started laughing underneath her.

‘Is it all right if I say I hate ice skating?’

Sky couldn’t laugh along with him. She helped Sean get to his feet, trying her best to keep him from stumbling as they made their way back to the rink side.

‘I saw…’ Sky stopped. What exactly
had
she seen? Had she somehow glimpsed another version of her life where Jared and Miss Schwarz knew each other?

Or had she been hallucinating, bringing two of the people who remained an elusive part of the mystery out into the forefront of her mind?

All the unanswered questions kept piling up on top of her, burying Sky almost as the Swivellers had tried to, until she had no choice but to try and dig her way out.

‘You saw what?’

Startled out of her reverie, Sky found Sean staring at her. Just a couple of weeks ago, Sky would have been able to put her hand on her heart and swear she’d never seen Sean look anxious for one moment of the time he’d lived in Blackfin. Now, she was starting to recognise the fine lines which framed his mouth when he was worried, and she hated that she was the cause of them.

‘I’m so sorry, Sean.’

He frowned. ‘Sorry for what?’

For complicating your life. For being a massive freak.

Sky shook her head, forcing a smile. ‘Never mind. Let’s go and get rid of our skates and see if they have any hot chocolate over at the food stall. Hot chocolate fixes everything, you know.’

15

Sky had started the day feeling a wary kind of happiness. As she lay in bed that night, all she could focus on was her growing frustration.

But maybe if she could travel back to the circus again, she would be able to find out how what had happened there was connected to what was happening to her here, now. Why she was drifting in and out of her life like a kite caught by the wind. And not just her life now, but her past, too…

With a start, Sky realised she
did
know when she had travelled back to – to within a matter of weeks. Her father’s muttered words,
in your condition,
played over in her mind, and she knew that her mother must have been pregnant at the time. It hadn’t been noticeable, so Lily couldn’t have been far along in the pregnancy. That, and the heavy coat her mother had been wearing to combat the cold night, would mean it must have been January or February – only sixteen years ago.

Which meant someone had been murdered in the Blood House within her lifetime, too. But was it a coincidence? It seemed unlikely, but she couldn’t fathom how she played a part in events which had happened before she’d actually been born.

Okay. So whenever I’ve … travelled, it’s been to some point in my life. Either in the past, or another version of now.

But why?

Sky stared at the ceiling, debating. It hadn’t taken any deliberate effort on her part to travel there the first time, so surely if she focused on letting herself fade…

Should I try to go back to the circus? Is it worth it just to get a few answers?

The pulsing light which forked across her ceiling seemed to think so. It tangled, formed a web in front of her. Sky felt herself fading just as the light snaked down the wall and touched her with an icy finger, and the world split open around her.

Opening her eyes, Sky expected to see the underside of the grandstand seating again. Maybe even a trickle of orangeade dropping towards her eyeball. Instead, she found Jared peering down at her, one eyebrow raised. He looked just the same as he had when she’d glimpsed him in her vision – or whatever it was – of him and Miss Schwarz at the ice rink.

Jared, dressed in a warm coat, boots and jeans, took a step back to give her room to get up.

They were in Blackfin Woods. The lights and music of the circus drifted faintly from the clearing a few hundred metres away, but otherwise, the woods were silent.

‘Do you know where we are?’

Jared’s tone held curiosity, as though his being suddenly alone with Sky in the middle of the woods with a supposedly derelict circus very much in full swing in the near distance was nothing more than an intriguing turn of events.

Sky wiggled her toes in the grass where dew had gathered. There was not a lick of frost anywhere. In fact, Sky found that even in only her camisole and pyjama bottoms, she wasn’t really cold.

‘This isn’t the same time as it was before,’ she muttered, more to herself than to answer Jared’s question. ‘Everything’s different.’

A little way from where they stood, Sky spotted the church spire rising straight and strong through the trees. There, at its peak, Silas watched her with his single eyehole. Except Sky could somehow tell the weathervane wasn’t haunted in this time, in its original spot on the church.

Weird.