Secrets in the Dark (7 page)

I gasped so loud Ronny
looked startled. “You do not need to worry, there was little
lasting effect.”

It felt like my eyebrows
were trying to climb on top of my head. The strange mix of emotions
swirling inside me made me dizzy. Pleasure at getting a long held
question answered warred with irritation for living through years
of crazy stories. I blurted, “
Chimera
caused all the TSYE
fits!”

Confusion washed over
Ronny’s face. “Caused a tizzy-what?”

“
THE-STRANGEST-YEAR-EVER!
All those crazy stories.”

She continued to look
confused.

“
You’re the reason I had
to hear about birds flying backwards all these years!”

Faith rolled her eyes. “And
Mrs. Rodriquez’s roses.“

“
And Dad complaining about
dozens of calls to get cats out of trees. Every month,” Olivia
added.

Okay, I admit it, I was
starting to get into this. “And all those stupid toads on Main
Street!”

Faith’s grin looked like
she was into it too. “And Mom talking about her boss sleeping in
the bank every month because
something
kept unlocking the vault.
He thought the bank was
haunted.”

Olivia laughed. “Don’t
forget all the fire and burglar alarms in town going off every
month. It took hours to get them shut off.”

“
And every car on Main
Street flipped upside down the same night. Even those inside
garages.”

“
And –“

Ronny interrupted, raising
her hands, a flush staining her pale cheeks. “Stop,
please.”

“
There’s more,” I said.
“We haven’t mentioned how every sprinkler in town went off at
midnight. For an entire month. Even when they shut off the
water.”

Ronny’s face was
nearly as
red as the
ketchup. “No, no. Please, you must let me continue.”

I sat back and nodded. I
was
very
interested in what she was going to say.

“
The tree in the cemetery
was planted the year Chimera was created, hundreds of years before
this town was in existence. It has been our doorway, a safe barrier
between our worlds. Then, twelve years ago, when the fighting in
Chimera was
at its worst, the pressure of
so many spells forced more and more of our magick
outside.”

Olivia was definitely awake
now. “The tree is a doorway! So that’s what happened.”

Ronny hurriedly motioned
for us to keep our voices down as we broke into excited
explanations. I wasn’t sure how much she really understood, since
we were all speaking at once.

“
Wait. You must tell me
one at a time. What happened yesterday?” Ronny leaned forward
intently.

“
I’ll go,” I said quickly.
Olivia scowled but sat back next to Faith. I didn’t think she’d be
able to keep quiet for long — she was
practically bouncing in her seat. “We fell through that tree
in the cemetery. It was horrible. I thought I was
going to die!”

Ronny shook her head,
frowning. “What do you mean? Going through the doorway cannot make
you die.”

“
When you can’t breathe,
can’t see, can’t feel your arms and legs, and start falling through
space, it feels like you’re going to die!”

Ronny’s eyebrows pulled
together and she bit her lip. “That is not what the doorway feels
like. I thought you went to Chimera, but maybe I was
wrong.”

“
Well, we went
some
other place. It was
sunny and warm, and it smelled really different.”

I’d been right. Olivia
bounced forward and said, “The plants were totally strange. The
only thing I recognized was the tree.”

Faith added, “Our cell
phones wouldn’t work. We were totally freaked out.”

Ronny gave a shaky laugh
and pressed a hand to her heart. “Mother was right! You got in. I
am sorry it felt so bad to you. Maybe it felt that way because you
are not magick.”

Ronny usually didn’t show
much emotion, but she was showing it now. “Mother was sure babies
created that year would absorb the escaping magick. Like one of
your kitchen sponges. She thought it could allow you to pass into
Chimera. That is the reason I was in Santa Ramona twelve years ago,
when first I met Chris. Mother requested that I observe the effects
of the magick leaking out of Chimera into your world.”

Her smile was wistful
as
she continued, “Mother asked me to keep
a close eye on babies born that year. She was sure the magick would
have some affect upon them. And now, when it is most important, it
has happened!”

Ronny closed her eyes,
rubbing them with the heels of her hands. There was
a trace of moisture on her cheeks when she pulled
her hands away. “You can enter Chimera. You can find what happened
to my mother.”

Faith cleared her throat
and took a deep breath. When she spoke, she sounded calm and sure
of herself. At first. “No offense, but — you believe something bad
happened to your mother. And you want to send the three of us into
that strange place, all alone. You do remember we’re twelve,
right?”

I wasn’t surprised that
going back made Faith nervous. Chimera was a real place. Too bad we
couldn’t tell her we were checking out a monster. Then she’d be
fine.

Faith’s breath began to
hitch and her words came faster and faster. “I mean, a grown woman
who can do magic is missing. And you expect us to go into that
magic place all alone? Not going to happen!”

“
I understand you want to
be on the safe end.” Ronny held out her hands. “Please, I have
shown too much worry if I have made you feel so afraid.”

“
You
said
your mom was
afraid, that there was, like, some kind of
takeover going on,” Olivia challenged.

“
She handles those things
often. That does not worry me.” Ronny gave a small laugh. “I
do
not
think
someone kidnapped her or murdered her, like one of those crime
shows my Christopher likes.” For a moment she looked distracted and
her smile turned positively gooey. I had to look away.

Eeow!

She pulled herself together
and continued, “Mother is too powerful for that. I am only
concerned that she is ill or injured. No one can let me know
because I am banished. I want you to find for me what has happened.
Please.”

Ronny looked at Faith for
only a moment, but something in her face made Faith sit back and
rub her forehead, hiding her eyes. Ronny continued, “Magick is much
more powerful the week of the full moon. We do not know why. Mother
believed if any child born that year could enter Chimera, it would
only be possible around the full moon.”

She looked at us
expectantly, and seemed disappointed when we just stared back.
“This weekend the moon is full. After tomorrow, if Mother is right,
the doorway will be blocked to you until next month.”

Olivia interrupted, “So we
fell through a tree into a strange place because your doorway just
happened to be open this weekend? But only for people born the same
year we were?” When Ronny smiled and nodded, Olivia rolled her
eyes. “That’s weird!”

That made me remember
something. “Speaking of weird, what’s up with time in there? We
were only there a couple minutes, but when we got back it
was
almost half an hour later. How does
that work?”

Ronny smiled again. “It is
true that time moves strangely in Chimera. First, we believe all
our magick interferes with time in some way. But mostly, it is
because Chimera is
outside the space and
time of earth.”

She hesitated a long
moment, her forehead creased. Then the lines smoothed out as she
came to a decision. She said hesitantly, “Perhaps this will help
you understand. If I had lived in Santa Ramona my entire life, I
would be nearly seventy-five years old.” She chuckled at our
expressions.

My mom would have told me
to shut my mouth if I didn’t want to attract flies.

I glanced at Olivia. She
could not have looked more surprised if the ketchup bottle jumped
off the table and squirted itself in her face.

Next to her, Faith leaned
back in denial, shaking her head back and forth so quickly her hair
whipped against the sides of her face.

“
I do not look
seventy-five. And in Chimera time, I am in my early twenty’s. For
those fully magickal beings who never leave Chimera, it is as if
time has all but stopped. I am only one-half magick so I do age,
but it is…was…very slow. I do not know exactly how it will work for
you. But I am not surprised a few minutes there is a half hour
here.”

She looked at me and
reached out her hand. “You must pay close attention to the time you
spend in Chimera. You do not want to disappear for
days.”

Faith moaned,
“Days!”

Olivia sat up straight.
“Just what, exactly, do you want us to do?”

“
I do not want you to put
yourselves at risk.” She smiled first at Olivia, then turned to
Faith before continuing, “I just want you to go back, ask about my
mother, Glenna Danaan, then tell me what has
happened to her. I will know what to do once I know
that.”

She sat back and looked at
us solemnly. After a few moments of silence, she turned to me and
pleaded, “We are family now, Kat. Blood is quicker than water,
right? Will
you
not help me?”

I couldn’t bring myself to
correct her muddled up saying. I wasn’t sure how I felt about all
this, although the fluttery feeling inside my chest didn’t seem
like a good sign. But I knew what I was going to do. I looked at
Faith and Olivia, then put my hand on the table. Slowly, first one
then the other placed their hands on mine. It was Faith who said,
grudgingly, “Fine. All for one and one for all.”

Ronny put her hand on top
of ours briefly. I was
embarrassed to see
tears in her eyes.

Note to self — Don’t make
Ronny grateful in public!

She cleared her throat, but
her voice sounded thick and hoarse. “I do not know how to thank
you!” She turned to Faith and assured her, “I would not ask you to
go if you would be in danger.”

She continued quickly,
“There are things you must remember. You are not magick users and
cannot create your own spells. But be very careful what you wish
for in Chimera! You may have enough magick to activate simple
spells that already exist there.”

Ronny tapped her forehead,
as if coaxing out an elusive thought. “I can think of just one more
thing. Do not forget to watch the time. Just ask the first person
you meet about my mother, then return.”

“
Are you going to the
cemetery with us?”

“
I do not know how long
you will be, and I am afraid if I wait inside, it will attract too
much attention. I would prefer not to do that if
possible.”

“
Okay, we’ll call you when
we get back.”

She had to clear her throat
again before she could continue, “I will be at home with Chris.
Thank you all for your help.” She jumped to her feet and hurried
out before I could think of anything to say.

Faith sounded stunned.
“What did we just agree to?”

We all jumped when Doug
Geller’s head popped above the partition on the other side of our
table. He said, “You’re going to show me how you got into Chimera,
and we’re all going to look for Ronny’s mom.”

Chapter 11

See You On The Other
Side…

Faith jumped at Doug’s
sudden appearance, knocking over her soda. As she scrambled to
clean it up, Olivia frowned at him and complained, “You were
listening to a private conversation. No one invited
you!”

“
Just a minute,” he
ordered.

Typical!

He sprang out of his seat
and rounded the end of the aisle, heading for our table.

When he took the seat Ronny
vacated, Olivia continued belligerently, “Look at the mess you
made.” She pointed to the orange soda making a puddle on the floor
and to where Faith was still wiping at the orange stain on the
knees of her jeans.

“
Hey, don’t blame me. I’m
not the one klutzy enough to knock over my soda,” Doug countered,
laughing.

While Faith bared her teeth
in a snarl, I sighed, resigned to the argument about to erupt.
After growing up two houses apart, with parents who were best
friends, I’d spent a lot of time with Doug. I knew him better then
my own brother.

I watched him square his
shoulders and shove his dark brown hair out of his eyes.

Yep, he’s ready for a
fight.

He was totally stubborn and
competitive. Even though he was shorter than most guys on the
basketball team, he was one of the best players. He couldn’t stand
to lose. I’d seen him intimidate guys a foot taller. He could
freeze most people with one glare from his dark blue
eyes.