Tales of Aradia The Last Witch Volume 1 (11 page)

"You okay?" was the
first thing Aradia asked
him.

The boy whipped around
to face her, and immediately regretted it. He’d also banged his
head on the way down, and the rapid turn made his forehead throb.
"Who the hell are you?"

He had short blonde
hair which was glistening with sweat. His face was sharp with a
pointed chin and a nose that was almost triangular. His green eyes
blazed and his face was currently twisted with a combination of
pain, anger, and, Aradia suspected, fear.

Aradia was taken aback
by his rudeness and also at how cute he was.
This school!
she thought.
Is there something in
the water here?
This boy, however, wasn’t one of the
preternaturally good looking ones. So far as Aradia could tell, he
was just regular old all-American cute.

She ignored his snappy
response and continued with her attempt to help. "My name is
Aradia. Are you okay?"

"Do I look
okay?"

"No, but that's why I
am asking," Aradia stated matter-of-factly.

The boy peered at her
bemusedly.

After a brief standoff,
he went with, "Well, it’s none of your damn business."

"What if I paid you a
penny for your thoughts?”

Jayce stared blankly,
not seeing where she was going.

“Would that make it my
business?" Aradia expanded on her last question,
smiling.

Jayce sighed and asked,
"If I tell you, will you get the hell out of here and leave me
alone?"

"Probably not, but
maybe," said Aradia bluntly.

The boy sighed and
said, "I just found out that I sprained my ankle.”

“Are they sure?” she
asked.

“Look at it,” he
replied. She complied. His ankle was already swollen to the size of
a small grapefruit.

“Oh geez,” Aradia said
without thinking.

“Yeah,” Jayce agreed.
“It’s definitely sprained, or worse. I’m not walking this off.
There is no way in hell it will heal in time for the homecoming
game.”

“And that’s a big
deal,” Aradia said, trying to follow the thought process as closely
as she could.

Jayce scoffed at her.
“Yeah, yeah that’s a big deal. It’s going to be the first and most
important game of the whole season.”

Aradia squinted a
little. He was holding something back, she could tell. “Why’s it
really so important to you?”

Jayce turned his eyes
back to his ankle. “I won’t be able to play for my dad. He works
and travels a lot. He can’t make it to most of my games, but he’s
going to be there this Friday."

He began to breathe
heavily as soon as his explanation was done.
Holding back tears, I bet
.

Aradia considered the
situation. Distractedly, she said, "Bummer."

The boy raised an
eyebrow and snapped, "Really? That’s what you have to say? Who the
hell even says 'bummer' anymore?"

Aradia shrugged and
said, "But that's what it is, isn't it? Your injury and your entire
situation."

The boy thought about
it until finally he sighed, and nodded his head in agreement. With
a sorry laugh he said, “Yeah. Bummer.”

Aradia came to a
decision. She knew how her parents felt about her use of her
abilities in public, but she couldn’t let Jayce miss out on playing
for his dad. Trying not to draw too much attention to it, she
positioned herself between Jayce and her backpack. She reached in
as if she was rummaging, but she closed her eyes, focused, and
hoped nobody noticed the white light as she summoned.

Turning back to him,
she said, "Let me look at your ankle."

The boy drew back until
Aradia explained, “I think I might have something that will
help."

"I can’t use steroids
you know," the boy pointed out sarcastically.

“Oh please. Like they’d
even help."

The boy was clearly
freaked by Aradia, but his interest was definitely
piqued.

Raising an eyebrow, he
cautiously asked, "What can you do?"

Aradia held up the
small white container she’d summoned. It was filled with about two
ounces of peach-colored cream. She’d mixed it at the same time as
her anti-blemish balm.

"Ah, I see. You’re
going to make me wear makeup." The boy said incredulously. “Because
that totally makes sense.”

"No! This isn't makeup,
this is cream, and it can heal sprained limbs."
I think
.
Or maybe it cures hiccups. Or causes
hiccups.
Aradia wasn’t always so good
at getting her potions to do what she wanted them to do.

Jayce looked at her
skeptically. "Look, um, thanks for the, ah, help, but I think I’m
going to take Frasier up on his offer for a ride to the
hospital."

I guess that’s the
nurse
, Aradia noted, filing the name
away.

"Oh c'mon, Jayce, what
have you got to lose?" Aradia argued.

The boy shrugged and
seemed about to acquiesce, but after a second he turned to her
suspiciously.

"How’d you know my name
was Jayce?" he demanded.

“I heard Frasier use
it,” she replied happily. Gesturing with the cream, she asked, “You
going to trust me on this?”

"Trust you? I have no
clue who you are. Do you even go to school here?"

"I’m new," Aradia said
with a shrug. "Look, if this turns out to be something that screws
you over, you know where to find me. You can come kick my ass or
call me names or do whatever jocks do to get even."

“I wouldn’t hit a
girl.”

“How antiquated of you.
Look!" Aradia practically shouted, tired of arguing with him. "I am
trying to help you out of the goodness of my heart. Just don’t make
me regret it, okay? Now shut up and hold still, I’m thinking
this’ll hurt."

Before Jayce could
argue, she grabbed his ankle and tried not to retch from the smell
of his sweaty, smelly feet. He grimaced from the pressure, but did
a pretty good job of holding his ankle steady as she applied the
cream.

Noticing that he had
his eyes clenched closed, she decided to speed up the process. Two
seconds later, the tips of her fingers glowed white. Her summoning
was dim in the bright sunlight, and Aradia was confident it went
unnoticed.

“There,” she said, and
gingerly set down his ankle.

“Ah, thanks,” Jayce
said. “I’m going to go to the hospital now. I’ll see you
around.”

“D-d-d-d!” she sounded
at him, holding up a now non-glowing finger. “Give it a
minute.”

“You’re weird,” he said
bluntly, but he gave it a minute.

“How do you feel?”
Aradia asked nervously. No hiccups or boils or sprouting horns, so
far, which was good.

“Actually,” he said,
“it doesn’t hurt so much anymore. Hardly at all. What was that,
something to numb it?”

“Take a look at your
foot,” she said, grinning.

He did. The ankle was
still slightly swollen, and a little purple, but he could see
dramatic improvement.

“No way.”

“Way!” She quickly
added, "Now I can't be sure if it helped you all the way. You might
reinjure it. Stay off the ankle as much as you can and soak it for
a couple days. Do you have Epson salt at home?”

He shook his head. “I
dunno.”

“You drive?”

He nodded.

“Pick some up on the
way home. It’s easy to find. They’ll have it at CVS.”

“What’s
CVS?”

“Oh, right. Um,
Walgreens? Any drug store. Follow the instructions on the box for
soaking. I think you'll be ready to rumble by homecoming game
time."

"Ready to rumble?” he
asked, raising his eyebrow again.

"You know you're going
to go blind if you keep doing that," Aradia quipped, raising her
own eyebrow back at him.

Jayce chuckled. "Hey,
thanks," he said, sincerely this time.

“No
problemo.”

He began to walk toward
the parking lot, taking care with his footing. Suddenly, he stopped
and turned back to her. "Look, I appreciate you helping me out and
all, but, uh… next time we see each other…"

“You’re still a jock
and I’m still a geek?” she proposed, smiling.

“Well, yeah, I guess,”
he replied, smiling himself at how silly it sounded when she
spelled it out. “I mean, you can say hi and stuff, if you
want.”

"Say hi to a football
player," Aradia gasped while clutching her heart for dramatic
flair. "Heaven forbid! No disrespect, Jayce, but I have a carefully
fostered reputation as a loser at this school, and being friends
with you would totally ruin it!"

Jayce chuckled while
Aradia winked at him.

Beyond the initial
thanks, Aradia hadn’t expected Jayce to acknowledge her help with
his injury. For the rest of their second week at school, he more or
less ignored her, confirming her expectations. And yet, maybe it
was because his ankle had fully recovered by Friday or because the
game had gone so well, but he ended up surprising her.

After the game, he
jogged over, helmet in hand, to where she was sitting in the
bleachers. "Hey Aradia!”

“Oh, hey,” she said,
trying to play it cool. It had been a lot easier talking to him
when he’d been injured and she’d had all the power,
literally.

Lowering his voice to a
whisper, he said, “I’m having a party tomorrow. My dad’ll be back
out of town. Would you like to come?"

Stunned by his offer,
especially in front of their peers, Aradia was immediately
suspicious. "Are you serious?"

"Well yeah," said Jayce
sheepishly.

Aradia shrugged and
said, “Um, yeah, I guess I could go."

Jayce smiled and turned
to leave.

“Oh!” Aradia exclaimed.
He turned back, and Aradia asked, "Can I invite my friends,
too?"

Jayce winced and said,
"No, sorry, it’s a private party. Only… certain people are
invited." He dialed up the charm and added, “Only my
friends.”

Aradia hated how
special that made her feel.

"It’s alright, Rai. We
understand. You should go and have fun,” Rhonda assured her
friend.

Calvin nodded his
encouragement and said, "Yeah Aradia, you should go."

“I’m sure Everett and
Felix would say the same thing.”

Aradia and Rhonda had
scheduled a girls’ afternoon at the mall. Rhonda was thrilled to
have somebody to go shopping with her. She could usually convince
one of the guys to come with her, but she didn’t trust their
fashion sense so much.

When they bumped into
Calvin, who was shopping for a new pair of pants, he’d been
surprisingly happy to tag along. As it turned out, he didn’t trust
his fashion sense so much either.

Now they were in the
food court munching on Chinese food.

Aradia exhaled deeply
and said, "Okay. I'll go."

Rhonda beamed, and even
Calvin smiled.

"Why are you guys so
excited for me to go to a party without you though?" Aradia
couldn't help but point out.

Calvin held up three
fingers and began to tick off the reasons. "One, we know the people
who hang at those parties. Dislike isn’t a one way street. We don’t
like them any more than they like us. Why the hell would we want to
get trapped with those jerks surrounding us like a bunch of wild
animals? Two, this 'Jayce' guy would never have invited us to one
of his parties, so I’m cool not being there. Three, we
are
your friends so
if you have an opportunity to go to a popular guy's party, and you
want to, no way would we ever hold you back. If it makes you happy,
it makes us happy."

"Oooh, four!” Rhonda
chimed in excitedly. “If you get in good with the popular crowd you
can introduce us to them and then we can get to be part of their
crowd.”

Calvin shook his head,
exasperated. “I just said we can’t stand that crowd.”

"But you guys..."
Aradia began to argue.

"Seriously, Aradia, go
to the party," Calvin commanded. "Even if I think it sounds like a
night in hell, everybody says Jayce's parties are the
best."

"Or at least that's
what they say on Facebook," said Rhonda. “They don’t actually talk
to us directly about them much.”

Chapter
Nine

The first thing Aradia
did for the party was lie to her parents. She never liked doing it,
but she felt like she had no choice. She told them she was going
over to Rhonda's for the night, and Rhonda was happy to corroborate
her story. Liza, who was in the area anyway, picked them up from
the mall, made a quick pit stop for Aradia to get her toothbrush
and a change of clothes, and dropped the pair off at Rhonda’s
house.