Secrets in the Dark (19 page)

I started to tell him off,
but noticed Brady Truman sitting on the couch. I was surprised. I
didn’t know he and Doug were friends. He was drinking the same
brand of orange soda that Faith liked. I had to fight back a spurt
of laughter. His hair nearly matched the orange color of the soda
can. What a total ginger!

I jammed my hands on my
hips and turned back to Doug. I scowled at him as I remembered him
dragging me through his house. “So, you gonna to tell me what’s
up?”

“
Did you know Brady and I
have been friends for a while?” He paused and I shook my head.
“Well, we’re in Math Club.”

I began tapping my foot,
hoping he’d get to the point already!

He began to speak faster.
“We had a club meeting yesterday. On my way home, I didn’t know it,
but Brady followed me. To ask me to be his partner on a club
project.”

Urrrgh. What’s the point of this?

I rolled my eyes. “How nice
for you both.”

“
Uh, okay, well, Ray
grabbed me when I cut through the park right by his house.” He cut
me off before I had a chance to say anything about that. “I know, I
know, it was stupid. Ray wanted to have another — discussion —
about getting into Chimera.”

He paused when I gasped and
cut my eyes towards Brady. Brady smiled back at me, dimples showing
at the corner of his mouth, looking relaxed. His hair stuck up in
short clumps and his clothes were slightly rumpled. He’d make a
great absent-minded professor when he grew up. All he needed was a
sweater-vest and a bow tie.

I turned to Doug and
frowned. “We promised not to discuss
that
in front of anyone.” My voice
was tight and high. It sounded like someone else was talking. I was
really disappointed. No, I was really angry! How could Doug betray
us like this?

“
Don’t say it!”

“
Say what?” I demanded,
glaring.

“
Whatever it is you’re
thinking. Give me one more minute, and it’ll all make
sense.”

I crossed my arms over my
chest and nodded once. I was so mad I wasn’t sure I could speak
even if I wanted to.

“
I told Ray I didn’t know
what he was talking about. You know, my standard line.” Doug
smiled, but when I kept frowning he continued quickly. “Ray was
really ticked off. I was amazed — I’d never heard some of those
words. If his mom heard him, she’d have washed his mouth with
soap.”

“
I was impressed as well,”
Brady said, grinning. Even through his thick glasses I could see
excitement shining in his eyes.

Doug shot him a grin before
continuing, “So, then Ray tried to clean out the gutter with my
head. I told him blood would make the gutter harder to clean, but
he wouldn’t listen.”

I sucked in a breath as my
eyes shot up to the bandage on the side of Doug’s head.

He reached up and touched
it carefully. “I’m okay. Let me finish. So not only was Ray
swearing and pounding on me, he was shouting about the tree, and
Chimera, and how his friends were gonna make us all suffer the next
time.”

Brady said, “I think Ray
wants to kill you.” He turned to me. “Ray kept telling Doug he’d
tried to show that place to Polly’s brother. He wanted to prove
Polly hadn’t been lying. But neither of them could get in and
Robert accused Ray of making a fool of him.”

Doug smirked. “Ray hasn’t
figured out that Chimera only opens at the full moon.”

Brady laughed. “It seems
that Robert’s been making fun of Ray all week. So Ray blames you
for getting them lost, and for not telling them how this Chimera
works.”

I burst out indignantly,
“That’s not fair! He and his friends weren’t invited. We don’t have
to tell him anything!”

I hated when Doug looked
at me like I was two years old. Even his voice sounded like he was
talking to a little kid. “This
is
Ray we’re talking about, Kat. What does fair have
to do with it?” I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but then
I’d
look
like I
was two.

He continued, “I thought
Ray and I were alone, so I told him the same things you just said.
And I told him to stay away from us from now on. That last bit
might’ve been a mistake. I think he was ready to do something I’d
regret”

“
You think?” Brady asked,
grinning.

“
I didn’t know Brady heard
the whole thing. When Ray tried to smash my head in, Brady stepped
up with his phone open. He told Ray he’d already entered 9-1-1, and
all he had to do was press ‘Call’.” Doug and Brady grinned at each
other, although none of this sounded funny to me.

Doug said, “Dude, I
couldn’t believe it when Ray backed down.”

“
Actually, I couldn’t
either,” Brady said. “I was sure I was
going to spend my afternoon explaining everything to the
police.”

Doug looked back at me. He
looked apologetic. “Brady told me he wanted to talk about Math
Club, so I asked him over. At first, we talked about our project. I
started hoping he’d missed what Ray said about Chimera.” Brady’s
grin now looked more like a smirk as Doug continued, “Then he said
he wanted to join us.”

I groaned, and Doug held up
his hand. “I said ‘join who’? He told me he’d seen Ray beating up
on me during basketball. And how we go into the cemetery around the
full moon each month. He’s smart. He put that together with what
Ray was screaming today and figured it out.”

Brady shifted on the couch
and cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “It was easy for me.
I’m good with puzzles. I won Top Young Scientist in Southern
California last year. After the work I’ve done with puzzles and
codes, figuring this out was…easy. I would prefer to join you. I
believe I could help. But if you don’t want me to go with you, I’ll
go on my own.”

“
We’ve already got the
Rejects wandering around in there. Now you could be there too?” I
shook my head, disgusted.

Note to self — Watch out
for anyone born in TSYE!

“
Let me go with you. That
will eliminate three different groups tripping over each other,”
Brady said calmly.

I could recognize a lost
cause. Doug and I took turns trying to explain that Ray would be
his enemy too. But Brady insisted he didn’t care. He was fascinated
by the whole idea of Chimera. He kept insisting, “I want to go with
you.”

“
I have to talk to Ronny,”
I finally told them grumpily. I pulled out my phone and asked Doug,
“Do you trust him?”

“
Yeah,” Doug said slowly.
“I do.”

“
Okay then.” There was a
pause as I waited for Ronny to answer. I decided not to let Doug
and Brady hear what Ronny had to say.

”
Hi Ronny, its Kat.
Something’s come up. A friend of Doug’s overheard a fight between
Doug and Ray…No, he’s fine…No, there’s nothing Doug could do. His
friend figured out everything…Yes, everything. He wants to help,
but I didn’t want to take him without checking with you
first.”

When I paused to listen to
a question from Ronny, Doug mouthed, “What’s happening?”

I frowned at Doug, then
answered, “Yes, Ronny, we trust him.” I gave Brady a challenging
look. “We’ll take him next Saturday, and bring him to meet you
Monday after school. We’ll tell him everything we know, so you
won’t need to go through it all again.” I nodded a couple times
as
I listened to her, then said, “Okay,
thanks. Talk to you later.”

I shut my phone with a
snap and turned to Brady, frowning. This whole situation was making
my skin feel twitchy.
“Once you’re in,
you’re in. No sharing any of this with anyone else, got it? And you
have to agree to follow our rules.”

“
I understand,” he said
quickly.

“
You need to swear you
won’t tell anyone,” I said. “Swear it!”

Brady leaned forward and
stared straight into my eyes. “I swear it.”

I believed him.

So I explained who Ronny
really was and what we’d learned about Chimera. Brady interrupted
me a few times with strange exclamations. “Not scientifically
plausible.” “Irrational.” “Inconceivable.” “Highly improbable.”
Each time, I stared at him until he apologized for
interrupting.

He hung on each word when I
described our familiars, and laughed out loud when I described
Olivia’s owl dive-bombing Ray and Andrew.

He sounded eager when he
agreed to meet us Saturday morning at 9:30. I explained that was a
little later than the last two months. We hoped the Rejects would
get tired of waiting and be gone when we got there.

Brady got up to go and Doug
reminded him to watch his back. Ray or Andrew would be looking for
him.

Brady laughed. “Same goes
for you!”

“
I gotta go,” I told them.
I knew I had to give Faith and Olivia the news. When I did, I
wasn’t surprised that Faith liked the idea of having another person
along. The reaction I didn’t expect was
Olivia’s.

“
Brady Truman? He’s a
total nerd! How can you even think of letting him there with
us?”

“
Look, Olivia, he found
out about it and plans to go with us or without us. It’s better to
have him with us. Right?”

“
I guess it doesn’t matter
what I think since you already told him he could go. Oh, just
forget it! See you at school.” I was
left
looking at my phone, not quite sure what had just
happened.

Chapter 23

Say What?

The next Saturday was clear
and warm, and there was no sign of the Rejects when we got to the
cemetery.

“
Watch your step,” I told
Brady, and stepped into the tree. The cold heavy center was still
filled with terrible silence and darkness. It swallowed me up,
tumbled me down, then spit me back out. I hit the ground and rolled
out of the way, watching as one by one the others stumbled onto the
road in Chimera.

“
You told me the tree felt
like jello,” Brady exclaimed from the ground next to me. “But it
feels viscous, not gelatinous.” He looked around in interest,
unaware we were all staring at him.

On the other side of me,
Olivia sneered, “Nerd.” At least she kept it under her breath. I
didn’t think Brady heard her.

He said, “I understood this
place in my head, but it feels significantly different to
experience it. It must be at least 7 degrees Centigrade…” at our
quizzical looks he continued, “…um, about 12 degrees Fahrenheit
warmer than Santa Ramona. And the scent of the air is quite
dissimilar.”

“
There’s no cars,” Olivia
said shortly, raising her eyebrows so high they looked like they
were crawling into her hair.

I remembered arguing with
Doug about that and decided to change the subject. Brady was
looking at his arm where a large bulky watch hung loose. I pointed
to his wrist. “Hey Brady, what’s that?”

“
It’s my
dad’s.”

“
O-kay… I’ve never seen
you wear a watch. Why are you wearing it here?”

“
Well, it’s kinetic.” He
sighed when he took in our confused expressions. “Self-winding.”
His face lit up as he explained, “It uses the motion of your arm
instead of a battery. It seemed logical it might work here, where
electronic items can’t.” He held it up to his ear. “It’s still
ticking, but I don’t know if it will work on Chimera time or Santa
Ramona time. It might help once we know.”

“
Won’t your dad get mad
that you took it?” Faith asked.

“
Oh no, he doesn’t like it
— too big and heavy.”

He looked like he was going
to tell us more, but got distracted as our familiars approached. He
watched intently when Doug and I bent down to welcome Rusty and
Shadow. I looked up in surprise at an odd high-pitched squeaking
and the rapid fluttering of wings. Brady grinned as a black bat the
same size as Pyg swooped around him.

Faith jumped, then cowered
down and covered her head, letting out a squeal that didn’t sound
much different than the bat.

“
What’s the matter?” Brady
asked, startled.

“
Duh! It’s a bat!” Faith’s
voice was high and tight and positively dripped with
sarcasm.

“
Um…so?” Brady asked, his
eyebrows mashed together so tight, he looked like he only had
one.

“
So
, I don’t want it stuck in my hair.” She shot him a look that
clearly said he was crazy.

Brady shook his head in
disbelief. “Bats don’t get caught in people’s hair!” He sounded
exasperated when he continued. “Why does everyone say that? Bats
have a sophisticated ability to sense where they are and what’s
around them. Like sonar.”

Faith took her arms down
slowly and asked, “Really?”

“
I’ve researched bats. Two
years ago, I wrote a report on them for my science project. They’re
totally awesome. Some pollinate flowers, like bees. Others eat
hundreds of insects
every
night
. If you’ve got insects, install a
bat box. I could help you if you’d like.”