Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return (3 page)

Chapter IV

Anita was leaning over a concrete wall and staring into the gray-brown foamy swirl of the River Thames. It was high tide and the water was as thick as molten metal. She was north of the river again, in a quiet place under Blackfriars Bridge. The great black-iron structure hung above her, making the river noises echo and reverberate. She could hear traffic roaring overhead. A few people were walking to and fro. A young couple passed by her—the girl’s arm draped over the boy’s shoulder, his hand tucked into the back pocket of her jeans—stopping every now and then to kiss as they strolled along the Embankment.

Aren’t you the lucky ones?

Her phone rang. She scooped it out of her pocket.

It was her mother’s mobile number. Not too hard to guess what had happened. She’d got back home and found Anita missing.

Anita didn’t answer the call. “Sorry, Mum. No can do right now.”

She waited till the beeping stopped then opened the screen to send a text.
DON’T WORRY. I’M FINE. I’M CHECKING A FEW THINGS OUT. BACK SOON. XXX.

She sent it to her mother’s phone.

Without any hope she dialed Evan.

The number you are calling is not available right now. Please leave your message after the tone.

“It’s me. I know you’re alive; the woman at the hostel told me so. Call me back, please. Unless this is all a dream, in which case . . . Well, call me anyway.”

The phone beeped once. A text from her mother. She didn’t read it.

What I need is someone to snap me out of this.

Jade was the perfect person to do that. And she’d been planning on going to Jade’s house before the text had come from Connor. She speed-dialed her number.

The phone purred a few times. One of three things was happening: Jade was screening her calls and didn’t want to talk to her, she was out of earshot of her phone, or her phone was turned off.

That final choice wasn’t even possible, knowing Jade, and the second one was pretty unlikely.

There was a soft click, followed by Jade’s voice in full-on scornful mode. “Hey, thanks for the call. Nice of you to get in touch. I’ve missed you
soooo
much.” Anita felt a rush of affection for the familiar, and oh-so-
normal
voice—no one did sarcasm as well as Jade Anderson.

“Jade? I need to see you. It’s really important. Can I come over?”

“Let me check my diary. Aww, sorry, Tania, it says here I have an appointment this afternoon to totally screw with my best friend. Maybe you should try again later.
Way
later!”

“I get that you’re mad at me,” Anita said. “That’s fine. Mad is fine.” And then something truly appalling clicked. “You called me Tania.”

“Oh, changed the name
again
, have we? What is it this time? Tallulah? Betty? Harriet Head-case? Madeleine with the emphasis on the
mad
?”

“Changed my name . . . ?”

“Oh, don’t bother explaining. I really don’t want to know what you’ve been doing all summer. Some people with new boyfriends get so obsessed by them that they forget all about their other friends.”

“Why did I want you to call me Tania?”

“Don’t ask me, crazy girl. You’ve been way off the chart since before you bailed on me with that trip to Florida. But you know what? I couldn’t care less. Do what you like; this girl officially doesn’t care anymore.”

“Are you at home? Can I come over?”

“Yes, I’m home, but there’s no way I want you here. I’m busy. Try again in a lifetime or two.”

“Please, Jade. I really need you.”

“What
ever
.”

“I’m coming over. Please stay put.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m catching some rays in the garden. Topping up the Florida tan. There’s no one else in, so if you
have
to drop by, come around the side entrance.”

Anita began to walk rapidly toward the nearest tube station. “Thanks. Jade? My life is so weird right now. I think I’m going crazy.”

“Oh, get over yourself!”

The two patches of grass on either side of the path to the front door of Jade’s house were churned up. That was strange. Jade’s mother was one of those people who spend all their spare time in their gardens, front and back of the house: pruning, deadheading, planting, and weeding. She didn’t have just green thumbs; her arms were green all the way up to the shoulder. Last time Anita had been there, the lawns had been as smooth as a pool table. Now they looked as if a herd of cattle had stampeded across them.

Anita went to the side of the house. The wooden door was unlatched. She pushed through and walked down the path to the garden. It was a big garden, shielded by tall laurels, the sculpted lawns weaving in among elaborate and colorful flower beds. There was a water feature at the far end, a low wall of white stones over which clear water washed into a small pond. The water rippled as it poured down as smooth as silk, making the wide, pale green lily pads waver and the spiked pink blossoms of the lily flowers bob and weave.

Jade lay stretched out on a sun lounger alongside the pond, berry brown from Florida, wearing a tiny yellow bikini and sunglasses. Her mobile phone was within hand’s reach. The lounger was angled so the high afternoon sun beat down on her.

Jade was listening to the radio. Some talk show or other. An overexcited voice was babbling at full speed.

“Hey, did you realize that there’s not going to be another eclipse like the one that’s coming this Friday until July 2132! That’s over a hundred years, people! You don’t want to miss this one—this is the biggie. . . .”

Jade didn’t seem to hear Anita approaching her.

Anita stood looking down at her best friend. She hesitated. One of two things could happen now: Either Jade would be part of the weirdness or she’d say something to make it all go away.

Anita dreaded one and hoped for the other. The longer she waited before making her presence known, the longer she could hope that Jade would rescue her.

“Hi there,” Jade said in a slow drawl. “How are things in Freakville?”

“Hello.”

Jade slapped her hand down on the radio, silencing the voice. She flicked her sunglasses onto her forehead with one red-nailed finger. She looked at Anita with raised eyebrows.

“So? What happened?” There was a mocking poutiness in her voice. “The bad Mr. Thomas go home without you, did he? Are you bereft and all alone now, Tania? Need some of your old friends again?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, please!” Jade stormed up off the lounger, her arms folded. “It is
so
like that. Jeez, Tania, I know love can drive you crazy and stuff, but you’re just plain unbelievable!”

“Is that what you think? That I’ve been off having high jinks with Evan?”

“I know you were reasonably normal before you hooked up with him and that you’ve been loony-tunes ever since. I know
that
, Tania.”

“Can you call me Anita?”

“I don’t especially want to call you at all.”

“Don’t be like that. I’m having a bad day, Jade.” Her voice cracked. She felt close to tears. Again. “The worst day ever.” Anita’s legs gave out and she folded up to sit on the lawn.

Jade peered down at her. “He broke up with you, huh?” She made a sharp
tik
noise in her mouth. “Typical boy! Create a need then refuse to fill it! You know, I never liked him. Too cute. Too smart. Know what I mean? You’re better off without him.”

Anita shook her head. “Don’t say that.”

Jade stared down at her for a few moments, as though weighing up her next move. Angry or forgiving? Then she gave a small crooked smile. “Sorry, it’s in the rules. The best friend trashes the ex. That’s the way these things work.” She sat down at Anita’s side. “Then I take your mind off things. I mean, have I got stuff to tell you!”

“Jade? There’s stuff I need to tell you first. . . .”

“Hush! This is therapy. Listen up and forget all about what’s-his-name. I’ve got major news. For a start, did you know we had a bunch of squatters invade our house while we were in Florida? We got home and the front garden was all messed up and ruined. And they’d been in all our rooms. It’s totally disgusting! Someone had actually slept in my bed. Isn’t that foul? I told Mum to burn the sheets. And they messed with my dad’s stuff in the basement. We think they got in through the back door—the glass was all broken and stuff was smashed and wrecked.”

Odd. Anita had the feeling she knew something about this already. But before she could get a handle on it, Jade went on, unstoppable as a wrecking ball.

“And then Dan came back early from his adventure holiday in India. He got mugged first day out there and had all his gear and his money stolen. Mum had told him to take traveler’s checks, but you know my brain-box big brother! He said traveler’s checks aren’t
cool
. So we had to wire him money for a flight home, and now he’s in residence again like a total pain. And he’s got no money and no job and he spends all his time hanging around and mooching off Mum and Dad and making my life miserable.”

“Jade—”

“And then there’s Anthea at my tai chi martial arts class—if she gets to be any more of a pain in my butt, I’m going to add an extra number to the thirty-two sword forms and cut her weaselly little heart out.”

“Jade! Shut up and listen to me!” Anita shouted.

Jade blinked at her.
“What?”

“I’ve lost my memory.”

A pause and then: “You’ve
what
now?”

“I don’t remember anything that happened to me over the past nine weeks.”

A wide grin spread across Jade’s face. “Funny girl. Let me fill you in, then. Uh . . . it went like this. You talked about Evan.
All the time
. You mooned over Evan. You skipped town with Evan for three days. You didn’t call me. You didn’t explain properly when you got back. You drooled over Evan. You changed your name to please Evan. You totally abandoned me although you were meant to go on holiday with me. You vanished without a word, probably because of Evan. Get the picture?”

“You think I’m joking?”

“I think you’re cracking up, that’s for sure.”

Anita took a deep breath. “I woke up on my bed at half-eleven this morning thinking it was the tenth of June.” She looked into her friend’s bright, cynical eyes. “I’ve lost nine whole weeks of my life, Jade.” She was aware of a hot feeling behind her eyes and then there were tears. “I’m so lost, Jade. I’m all alone, and I can’t get in contact with Evan, and my mum is telling me crazy things, and I just want it all to stop! I want it to stop right now!” She dropped her face into her hands.

She’d been holding herself together for hours now. It was too much. Now that she’d let go, there was no way for her to stop the crying.

A moment later Jade was at her side in the grass. “Hey, nothing’s that bad!” Jade’s sun-warmed arms enfolded her, smelling of suntan oil. Anita pressed her face into her friend’s neck, clinging on to her for dear life.

Chapter V

“Feeling better?”

“No.”

“You’ve stopped bawling, though. Drink some of this. It’s nice. Cranberry juice with just a smidge of cola. It’s my own invention. Come on, Anita—try it.”

Anita took the frosted glass from Jade’s hand. Ice rattled. The rim was cold against her lips.

Anita wasn’t sure how long she’d been crying. Ten minutes? Half an hour? They were sitting together on the lawn, except that Jade had dashed indoors and had come back with a box of tissues and some fresh, iced drinks. She had also covered up with a bright yellow top.

Anita swallowed, the ice tinkling against her teeth. “Like it?” Jade asked, nodding toward the glass.

“No. Not much.”

“Me neither. Some beverage-based experiments are just doomed to failure.” She grinned and lifted a lock of Anita’s hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear.

Jade looked thoughtfully at her. “So. Do you know
why
you lost your memory? Did you get a whack on the head or something?”

“You know about the accident—on the river?”

“Sure—everyone does. But you were fine after that.” Jade’s eyes widened. “At least, you were walking and talking. But is that what did it? Was it some kind of delayed reaction to the accident? Oh, wow! That would make so much sense. Now I think about it, that’s when you started acting crazy. Jeez, Anita—you’ve got to get to a hospital. You have to be checked out. You probably need a CAT scan or something.”

Anita looked at her friend.
Tell her? Don’t tell her?
“Maybe so—but Mum has told me the weirdest stuff,” she said in a rush.

“You’ve spoken to your mum since you woke up?”

“Yes. She was there.”

“And she let you out without getting you examined?” Jade sounded incredulous. “What’s
that
all about?”

“According to Mum, there’s nothing wrong with my head.”

“Ooh-kay. And she knows this how?”

“Because she says she knows what I’ve been doing for the past two months.”

“Go on. . . .”

Anita took a long, slow breath. “Okay, you need to let me tell you the whole thing, right? And you need to not interrupt.”

Jade made the padlocked-lips-and-thrown-away-key gesture.

Another breath before the plunge.

“Well, according to my mum . . .”

Jade stood up, turning in a slow circle, smiling and waving and calling. “Hello, guys! Nice try!”

Anita stared at her. “What are you doing?”

“Waving at the cameras,” said Jade. “I figure they’re out there somewhere, because that story has to be part of one of those reality TV shows where they check out a person’s gullibility factor.”

Anita stood up, wanting to rush at her friend and shake her. “You think I’m making all this up?”

Jade rested her hands on her hips. “Do I think that was all crazy talk, or do I think you’re a fairy princess? Well, let me see. . . . Hmmm, which is more likely? Crazy or a princess? Fairy princess or crazy? It’s so hard to choose!”

“Stop it!” Anita shouted, stumbling forward. “Just stop!”

Jade backed off a couple of paces. “Oh. My. God. You’re serious, aren’t you? Your mum really told you all that stuff? And she expected you to believe it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure she wasn’t teasing you? Come on, Anita—she had to be kidding with you.”

“She wasn’t. I swear she wasn’t.”

“Jeez louise!”

“Exactly! Now you know how I’ve been feeling all day!” She looked hard into Jade’s face. “And there’s something else. Something that’s only just clicked. Mum told me that when we were hiding from the Gray Knights, we were in someone else’s house. A friend’s house. She didn’t say which house—which friend. But I’ve just figured it out.”

Understanding crept over Jade’s face. “No . . . way . . .”

“I think so,” Anita said. “I think I was here. I think all that mess you found when you got back here from your holiday—I think that was me.”

Jade lifted her hands, palms out, fingers spread. “No! This is insane.
You’re
insane.” She ran for the lounger. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m calling your mum right now.” She picked up her mobile and pressed buttons.

“I can’t let you do that!” Anita said, moving toward her.

Jade stepped backward over the lounger, the mobile held to her ear, her other hand stretched out, fingers pointing. “Keep back, Anita. I’m going to make this call, whether you like it or not.”

Anita took a half step forward.

She paused as a sudden muted sound rang in her ears. It was like discordant music sounding from far, far away. At the same moment the air behind Jade—the air over the wall of water-slicked white stones—began to shimmer and darken.

“What the . . . ?” Jade frowned, shaking her head. “What’s that noise?”

The air behind her was crackling now, sparks striking up off the stones, and a heart of deep, grainy blue was forming like a bruise over the trembling pond.

The sound intensified in Anita’s head. Now it was like an orchestra tuning up, like strands and fragments of disparate music weaving together—growing louder, making the air vibrate.

The stain of deep blue light over the water feature seemed to be taking on definite shapes. There were two human figures hanging over the stones.

Anita was about to yell to Jade to turn and look when the music faded and the ultramarine blemish in the air over the stones dissolved.

“That was a weird noise,” said Jade. “What was it?” She looked at her arms. “Check this out! It made the hairs stand up all over me.”

Anita gasped. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Jade.” Anita tried to keep her voice steady, to keep from sounding crazy. “Something nearly happened. Something”—she licked dry lips—“behind you.”

Jade glanced over her shoulder. There was nothing to see now. “What kind of something?”

“I’m not sure.”

There was a taste in Anita’s mouth that seemed familiar. Unpleasant but familiar. She associated it with pain or discomfort.

“Oh! Hi, Mrs. P. It’s Jade.” The phone was still to her ear. “Yeah—fine, thanks.” She stared hard at Anita, one arm extended toward her, warning her to stay back. Between her Sunday morning tai chi classes and her karate night school lessons, Jade was not a person to mess with.

“Thing is—I’ve had a strange call from Anita,” Jade continued.

That was something—at least Jade hadn’t told her mother she was here.

“Huh?” Jade’s eyes were wary as she looked at Anita. “No. I have no idea where she is. Why?”

Jade listened for a few moments. Anita watched her distractedly, her brain still tingling from the outlandish music. The charged air prickled on her skin. And she had that bad taste in her mouth. A taste like rusty iron.

“Really?” said Jade. “That explains the strange stuff she was coming out with. Listen, I’ll give her a call back, okay? I’ll try to talk her down—see if I can persuade her to go home or to meet up with me so I can bring her home. I’ll let you know how it goes. Yeah. Fine. Okay. Bye.”

“Thanks for not saying I’m here,” said Anita. “What did she tell you?”

“She said you hit your head,” Jade said, her voice cautious now. “She said you ran out of the house before she could get you to a doctor. She said that you’re probably not too coherent right now.”

Anita felt a chill in her heart. Her mother had lied. It felt like a betrayal. “She
would
say something like that,” she insisted. “Of course she would. She’s not going to tell you that other stuff over the phone. Even if
she
believes it, she’d know you wouldn’t.”

“You got that right.”

“How did I hit my head? Did she tell you that?”

“No.”

“But she made out it was recent, yes?”

“I guess so.”

“Feel my head, Jade!”

“Excuse me?”

“Feel my head—if I hit my head there’ll be a cut or a bump or something. If I hit it hard enough to scramble my brains, there’d be some sign of it, surely?”

“Okay.” Jade pointed to the grass. “Sit down with your hands in your lap. Make any sudden moves and I’ll swat you like a fly. Okay?”

“Okay.” Anita folded her legs under her and knelt on her heels in the grass, her fingers linked together in her lap.

“If I find a bump or whatever, you’re going to let me take you home, right?” Jade said as she padded across the grass.

“Yes.”

Jade stood behind her. Anita felt her hand moving slowly over her head, feeling for anything unusual.

“Well?” Anita asked, staring straight ahead.

“No bumps. No lumps.” Jade sounded puzzled. “This just keeps getting weirder by the second. Why would your mum tell me you’ve had a bash on the head if you haven’t?”

“To cover up for something too weird to tell you about?” Anita suggested, craning around to look up at her friend. “Are you freaked out yet?”

Jade shook her head. “I don’t freak out that easily. Let’s just say I’m intrigued with a side order of slightly spooked.”

Anita got up. “I need something else to drink. I have the foulest taste in my mouth.” She was halfway to her feet when the jangling music came crashing into her head again. Louder this time, dissonant, grating—clashing and strident. She staggered at the shock of it. Through the cacophony she could just about hear Jade’s voice shouting words she couldn’t make out.

The air thrummed, the laurel trees rippling as if they were reflections in troubled water. The grass seethed under her feet. The flowers in the beds bled into one another till all the different colors became a single rainbow swirl. Shards of silvery blue light skidded on the stones over the pond. The wound of dark blue light appeared again, throbbing in the air, pulsing and darkening and becoming more solid.

The terrible music grew even louder, coming to a crescendo of screaming strings and clashing cymbals and blaring trumpets. A silvery line cut down through the heart of the dark blue blemish that hung over the stones. A thin line that sparked and flared and opened.

Through the widening gap Anita caught the briefest possible glimpse of a shingled shoreline and a cobalt sea that stretched away to the horizon. There was a galleon—an old-fashioned, fully rigged galleon! A huge, white lizard reached forward with raking claws.

Two figures blocked the light: one male, the other female. They came tumbling through the gaping silver-lipped portal, plunging headlong into the pond, sending up a fountain of greenish water.

The fire-rimmed mouth closed. The dark blue stain winked out of existence, and the music stopped abruptly, as though someone had thrown a switch.

“No . . .” It was Jade’s voice, strangely loud in the sudden silence. “No . . . this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. . . .”

The two figures scrambled to their feet, water flooding off their clothes as they stared wildly around themselves.

One was a girl, a dark-haired beauty in an old-fashioned olive green dress. The other was . . .

The other was
Evan
!

But he was wearing the weirdest clothes: a strange black tunic and leather boots, like someone in a Shakespeare play. Like
Romeo.

“Forsooth!” gasped the girl, floundering to the edge of the pool. “Your powers are formidable indeed, Master Chanticleer! But I’d fain travel a less hectic path in the future and mayhap arrive dry-shod!”

“No. Way. No. Way. No. Way.” Jade backed away, shaking her head.

Anita took a stumbling step forward. “Evan?”

Evan Thomas was knee-deep in the pond, gazing at her, his fair hair hanging wet in his silvery eyes.

Silvery eyes? No! Evan’s eyes were brown! But . . .

The girl stepped out of the water, a slow grin spreading across her face as she opened her arms.

“Come, Tania!” she cried, her eyes shining. “Look not so moonstruck! We are neither apparitions nor flibbertigibbets! By Master Chanticleer’s Arts we have come across entire worlds for you! Come, my sweet, darling sister—embrace me and tell me all that you learned in the airy realm of Tirnanog!”