Secrets in the Dark (10 page)

My breath caught in my
throat and my voice came out strangled. “That was Lucky.” I grew up
on stories about Lucky, our miracle dog who survived against all
odds.

“
Yes. Lucky was
dying and Chris knew it. I could see how much he
loved that dog.” She shook her head before continuing. “I should
not have done it. It broke all our rules. Magick does not even work
well outside Chimera, so I knew I might not be able to do any good.
But I could not stand there and do nothing. And I was able to
reduce the worst of the damage.”

She smiled wistfully. “I
was not at all sure it would be enough. I kept worrying about that
little boy, knowing how heartbroken he would be if he lost that
dog. I could not help myself. I had to find out what
happened.”

She smiled at me. “I came
back the next week and found Chris in the same place by the road.
He had been waiting for me every day, hoping I would come back. He
kept insisting I saved his dog.”

I spoke up, “Even the vet
said it was a miracle. Lucky should not have survived those
injuries.”

“
Fortunately, no one
believed your brother when he told of the lady he’d never seen
before. Who made the bleeding stop when she put her hands on Lucky
and whispered words in a language he’d never heard.”

It was
strange hearing the story I’d grown up with this way. It was
a family legend. How the day I was born was a lucky day. The same
day our dog Lucky beat all the odds and lived. Now I understood why
Chris always said it was
magic. All this
time I’d thought he was telling me his own stupid
THE-STRANGEST-YEAR-EVER story.

Note to self — I have to
apologize for all my teasing.
Darn
it!

Ronny continued, “I could
not convince him I had done nothing special. He was very smart,
your brother, even so young. I had never been around children
before, and I enjoyed our time together. He asked me to come back,
so I did. He liked to guess what I was: magick, paranormal, alien.
It was
fun watching him grow up, trying to
catch me out.”

She smiled again, and this
time she looked younger than ever. “When he grew to be an adult, I
not only loved being with him, I loved him. So much, I knew my life
would be long and empty without him.”

I sat up in my seat
as
I realized something, blurting it out
without thinking. “You gave up your magic to be here with
Chris.”

Her smile dimmed. “Yes. I
had to give up many things to be with your brother. Do not think of
it later and worry. Being with Chris is worth it. But it is true I
have very little magick here, and that will fade with time. And I
will begin to age the same as everyone here.”

The sound of the bell over
the door interrupted her. As Doug finally walked in, I felt a surge
of annoyance. How could he make us sit here waiting so
long!

“
Why didn’t you tell us
you were going to be…so…late…?” I trailed off as I got a good look
at him, while next to me Faith choked on her orange soda. Doug’s
shirt was
dirty and torn, his lip split,
and his hair matted with sweat.

“
What
happened
to you?”

Doug threw himself into a
chair and let out a groan. “Ray’s gang got me. Man, they sure don’t
like you three. They saw me go into the cemetery with you, and
wanted me to tell them how we disappeared.”

He looked at me and
apologized. “I should have listened — you knew we were being
followed, and I said they wouldn’t be a problem.”

That was a good thing
about Doug. He could be bossy and act like he knew it all, but he
was
usually
willing to admit if he was wrong.

Ronny sounded worried when
she asked, “What did you say to them?”

Doug laughed. “They’d just
started pushing me around when Olivia’s dad moved the fire truck
out behind the station. He asked what we were doing there. You
should have heard them stuttering before they took off. Don’t worry
— I wouldn’t have told them anything.”

His cocky smile pulled at
his split lip. It had to hurt, but that didn’t wipe the grin off
his face.

Boys!

I asked, “So what
did
you tell
them?”

“
I kept saying we were
really good at hiding. It wasn’t my fault they couldn’t find their
own heads without a map.”

Faith gave a surprised
giggle. When we turned to look at her, she shrugged and said,
“Couldn’t find their heads without a map! I wish I was brave enough
to say something like that.”

I turned to Ronny and told
her, “We need to know what you want us to do. We looked around
Chimera for an hour yesterday. We never saw anyone, so we couldn’t
ask about your mom.”

Ronny’s eyes widened and
all the color drained from her face. Her voice sounded strangled.
“That is impossible! You must have seen someone. There are always
people there.”

I shook my head. “There
was
nothing for a long time. No people, no
animals, no birds. I didn’t even see a bug.”

“
You did not see any
living thing?”

“
Before we left we did see
four animals. A cat came over to me. An owl landed on Olivia’s
shoulder. A fox followed Faith around, but seemed too nervous to
get very close. And a Jack Russell kept jumping all over Doug.
Other than those, we never saw anything. Except trees and grass of
course.”

“
A black cat I understand,
and an owl does not surprise me, but there are no foxes in Chimera.
And I don’t know anyone named Jack Russell.”

“
Oh no,” I said quickly as
a surprised laugh escaped Olivia. “A Jack Russell is a dog. And the
cat wasn’t black. It was
Siamese. My
favorite!”

“
This is not right. There
are no Siamese cats there,” Ronny insisted. “And no cat in Chimera
would come up to a stranger! They stick to their own witch or
wizard.”

The four of us started
speaking at once, describing how the animals appeared, our voices
coming out in a jumble. Ronny’s face creased in confusion, then she
shook her head. “I do not know what to think. Nothing you say makes
sense. Please — start from the beginning.”

She held up her hand as we
started to speak again. “One at a time. Please.”

I blurted out, “We went
through the tree onto a dirt road. After a while, the road split,
one part disappeared to the right behind some hills.
The—“

Ronny interrupted, “You are
speaking too fast, Kat. Slow and steady wins with
grace.”

I stared at her for a
moment, trying to figure out what she meant. Faith muttered, “Slow
and steady wins the race.”

Wow, no wonder Chris
has
to correct her all the
time.

I grinned and continued,
speaking slower. “The main path curved to the left. We went that
way. We passed a field covered with strange flowers. On the left,
there were giant apple trees. That’s—”

Doug was the one who
interrupted this time. “So, we were arguing about that. It’s okay
to eat the apples, right?”

Ronny looked at him,
startled. “No, they are not safe. We call them Sleeping Beauty
apples, and they are poison. My aunt thought it was funny to put a
sleep spell on them, like your story of Snow White. No one
has
been able to reverse the
spell.”

I glanced at Doug, who was
looking a little green. Good thing he got interrupted.

Ronny propped her chin on
her hand. “You were definitely on the Mountain Road, but you say no
one was there. I do not understand what can be
happening.”

Doug opened his mouth to
speak, but Ronny held up her hand. “I think…I think you should go
see Ghalynn. He is an elf who lives away from most of us. He and I
are friends, of a sort, and I believe he will agree to help
you.”

I would have felt better if
Ronny had looked, or at least sounded, a bit more
certain.

“
Is he a nice elf?” Faith
asked timidly, her voice higher than normal. “I’ve heard there are
nice elves and dark elves. What kind is Ghalynn?”

Ronny’s laughter rang
through the room. When heads began turning in our direction, she
stifled her amusement and lowered her voice. “Nice is not the word
I would use. Irritating, frustrating, rude and short-tempered would
be closer. But he is not a dark elf. Set your mind to ease on that.
I am sure he will help, once you get him to listen.”

She pulled a piece of paper
and a pencil out of her purse. “I will draw a map to his cabin, and
give you an introduction.”

“
I guess that means we’re
going back.” Faith’s shoulders slumped as
we watched Ronny quickly sketch Chimera. I recognized the
tree and the road leading away from it.

I took the map with her
introduction on the back and folded it into the pocket of my jeans.
“We’ll try to find him the next time we go.”

Doug spoke up, “If your
mom is right, the last Saturday in February will be the next time
we can get in there.” He glared at me as he said,
“
They
said we
have to wait and go together, so we can only go that
Saturday.”

Ronny nodded, “I hate to
wait that long, but I agree. Since you did not see anyone near the
tree, there is something strange happening in Chimera. You should
stick together.”

I said, “So we need to find
Ghalynn. Anything else?”

Ronny sat forward. “Not
now. But I am curious what is happening between you and this boy,
Ray,” Ronny told Doug.

He said, “Ray’s dad is the
Mayor. My dad says the Tate’s are always Mayors or on the City
Council. They’re big dogs in this town.”

Ronny interrupted him,
smiling. “I did not know they allow dogs on your Council. The
Mundane world keeps surprising me, even after all these
years.”

Doug chose to ignore her,
while the rest of us just stared, not sure what to say. “Um, Tate
Road, next to Main Street, was
named for
them. Ray seems to think it makes him better than the rest of
us.”

Faith spoke up. “Ray’s best
friend is Andrew. Andrew thinks you shouldn’t live in Santa Ramona
unless you’re rich or important. Anyone else, like Mom and me,
should just get out.”

“
It sounds like you must
avoid Ray and also this Andrew as well,” Ronny said, worried. “It
is clear,” her glance went to Doug and lingered on his torn lip
before she continued, “they are not afraid to hurt others, and they
are watching you now. Please, do not get hurt on my
account.”

“
Don’t worry, we’ll be
careful,” Doug replied cheerfully. “They won’t hurt us.”

I wondered if those would
count as ‘famous last words’.

Chapter 14

Initials…Who
Knew?

I couldn’t wait for the
end of February for both Chimera and Chris. I’d talked to Chris
briefly on the phone, but couldn’t wait to talk to him in person
when he got back from his current research trip. He said he was
glad I finally knew the truth. I said
I
was glad I wasn’t still waiting
for
him
to tell
me about it. Because he should have told me himself! After that, he
didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Go figure.

I was relieved we were able
— mostly — to avoid Ray and his friends the first three weeks of
February.

Faith spent a lot of energy
avoiding Andrew. But I couldn’t stand being around the real leader
of the gang. I found myself gritting my teeth every time I caught
sight of Ray’s short spiky black don’t-mess-with-me-I’m-tough hair
between classes.

He bowled through the halls
with his friends as if he owned the place. He was tall and broad,
and everyone moved out of his way without him saying a word. He
didn’t even need to glare at anyone out of his
freeze-you-where-you-stand pale grey eyes to totally intimidate
them.

He gave the three of us an
evil grin each time he saw us. His chipped front tooth made him
look like a wannabe pirate. I’d heard his mom wouldn’t let him fix
it until he was
done playing sports.
Probably because his father loved to brag how Ray wasn’t afraid to
get ‘a little rough’ on the basketball court.

Would he be proud that Ray
liked to get ‘a little rough’ in the hallways, too? This week, the
last week in February, we weren’t always able to avoid
him.

Tuesday, I was late getting
out of gym. I threw on my clothes quickly, ignoring the sweaty hair
that stuck to my head and the shirt tails that flapped loosely when
I took off at a run. Mr. Gordon didn’t like his History class
interrupted by someone coming in late.

Of course, that would be
when Ray caught me.

I wasn’t even surprised
when I heard him bellow, “I’ve always known you were a stupid
troll, Taylor. You don’t even know how to dress
yourself.”

While Andrew and Polly
laughed, a group of passing cheerleaders looked at me with scorn. I
felt the blood rush into my cheeks and knew my face must resemble a
tomato.