The Gathering Dark (11 page)

Jesus. Now I really
am
losing my mind.

Keira slid the sheets of newly written music into the bottom of her basket. With a sigh, she stood up and stretched, heading into the kitchen for the most sane thing she could think of: a cup of tea.

•  •  •

Sunday passed in miserable silence. Susan called and invited her over, but Keira could hear Mrs. Kim clucking and hovering in the background. She didn’t want to deal with Susan’s over-interested mother. Mrs. Kim would have too many questions and Keira didn’t have any answers.

Walker didn’t call, which disappointed Keira and she spent most of the day locked in her room, avoiding her cranky parents. The one time she ran into her dad, he gave her a twenty-dollar bill, in case any “expenses” came up while she was stuck riding the bus to and from school. It was obviously guilt-money, meant to make him feel better about having been gone after her accident. But without a job, she needed the money too badly to refuse.

School was a relief on Monday, even though she had to take the bus. Susan was supposed to give her a ride, but she’d called indecently early and announced that, as part of her punishment for coming in past curfew, Mrs. Kim had forbade Susan from using her car. She’d hinted none too subtly that Keira should call Walker and ask for a ride.

As if.

Susan flopped down across from Keira at lunch.

“Hey.” Keira waved her half-eaten sandwich in Susan’s direction.

“Hey, yourself. Sorry I couldn’t give you a ride this morning. How are things with your parents? Are they still miserable?”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks. Did you at least get some good practice in?”

“No. I couldn’t focus.”

“Oh, that sucks! And you were stuck in the house all weekend. Maybe today’ll be better, since you’ve gotten out and all, even if it
is
just for school.”

Keira hesitated. “Actually . . . I was gone almost all afternoon on Saturday, and it didn’t make any difference.”

“You were gone? Where?”

Keira shut her eyes. There was no sense holding back now. “I was with Walker. We drove down to the coast and hiked around on the rocks.”

Susan stopped with a pretzel halfway to her open mouth. “Like on a
date
?” The last word was a squeal.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“What’s this about a date?” Jeremy leaned over her and put his hand down on the table. She could smell his musky cologne and she wrinkled her nose, moving her sandwich away from his hand.

“Hi, Jeremy,” Susan said. Keira watched as Tommy stepped up behind Susan and wrapped his arms around her. Susan jumped in surprise and then cracked up. “Hey, you,” she said, tilting her head up to kiss him.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“It sounds like Keira went on a date.” The singsong tone in Jeremy’s voice made Keira grit her teeth.

Susan frowned. “Jeremy, you are totally butting in on a conversation that has nothing to do with you.”

Tommy pulled his arms away from Susan. “Hey, Jeremy only came over to say hi,” he insisted.

“Then he’s way over his word limit,” Keira snarked.

“Come on,” Tommy said to Jeremy. “Let’s get some food before they close the line.

“Fine.” Jeremy put his mouth so close to Keira’s ear that she could feel his breath. “But if you’re open for business, I am totally taking a number.”

Before Keira could think of something smart to say, the guys had disappeared into the lunch line. She settled for a disgusted groan.

“So, putting Jeremy’s jerk-wad tendencies aside, what
did
happen with Walker this weekend?” Susan asked.

A wave of warmth swept through Keira. She loved Susan. “I left my license in his car by accident. When Walker came to drop it off, my parents were . . . well. I was pretty desperate to get out of there.”

“Oh. Oh, wow. That’s so bad. And so good.”

The memory of how amazing it had been stole the words from her mouth.

“Susan?” Tommy reappeared next to their table, his voice breaking through Keira’s reverie.

“Yeah?” Susan asked.

“Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?”

Susan pursed her lips in exactly the same way that her mother did when she was pissed.

Keira swept the remains of her lunch into her bag. “I was just leaving anyway.” She looked pointedly at Susan. “I’ll be in the music room if you need me.”

Keira spent the rest of her lunch period alone at the piano, plinking out the melody she’d written on Saturday. The sudden
desire to compose still surprised her, but she couldn’t resist the urge to turn her memories into music.

The lingering melody tugged at her through the rest of the day, making it hard to concentrate. When the final bell rang, Keira raced for her locker. There was only one lame bus ride standing between her and her piano. She pushed through the stream of students flooding out of the school. The sudden sunlight made her blink.

“Keira!” someone called from the parking lot.

She squinted against the sun. It was Walker. She wanted to be irritated at him for not calling, but she couldn’t stop the smile that swept across her face when she saw him leaning against his car. His answering grin made the pulse in Keira’s neck beat furiously.

“Who’s
that
?” Jeremy’s venom-filled voice stung her.

“It’s—he’s—” She stumbled over her words. Her own feelings about Walker were so tangled up that she couldn’t have answered the question if she’d wanted to.

Jeremy pressed in closer to Keira, and Walker straightened, pushing himself off the car and squaring his shoulders. It didn’t matter that there were twenty yards between them, it was a protective gesture. A possessive gesture. And Jeremy spoke “guy” much too fluently to miss it.

“What d’you see in
him
?” Jeremy huffed. “You’d be better off dating someone who knows you. Someone who’s friends with the same people you are.”

“We’re not dating,” she protested.

Jeremy stepped around to face her. “The way he’s looking at you? You’re dating. Or, at least,
he
thinks you are.”

Over Jeremy’s shoulder, she saw Walker take a step toward them. She shook her head at him.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your insight, it’s just that I don’t care.”

“Well,
I
care.” Jeremy glanced back at Walker. “Seriously, Keira. Lots of guys would
love
to date you.
Lots
of them. Guys that are
right. Here
.”

Why
was he
emphasizing
so many
words
?

“I’ll, uh, I’ll keep that in mind,” she stammered.

She strode over to Walker, shaking out her hands as if she could shake Jeremy off her.

“You okay?” Walker asked, watching Jeremy wade through a sea of freshmen.

“Fine. I think Jeremy’s trying to be protective. Or something. He obviously doesn’t know when to mind his own business.”

Walker’s expression relaxed. “I can hardly blame him for wanting to mind your business instead.”

She hitched her bag up on her shoulder, trying to hide that his comment had flustered her. “So, um, what’re you doing here? I thought school wasn’t your thing.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s not. But I thought you might need a ride, since your car’s in the shop. And on our way to your
house, I thought maybe you’d get something to eat with me.”

“An after-school snack?” she teased.

Walker laughed. “Something like that.”

The twenty dollars her dad had given her sat in her back pocket, begging to be used. But she’d have to give up some of her practice time.

The music she’d composed whispered its melody in her ear, making the decision for her.

“Okay. Let’s eat,” Keira said.

Walker opened the back door. Keira pitched in her bag and the two of them climbed into the car.

Chapter Fifteen

T
EN MINUTES LATER, THEY
were at the diner. Walker ordered a slice of blueberry pie and coffee, but Keira asked for a cup of tea with hers.

While the waitress was busy getting the pie out of the glass-fronted dessert case, Walker picked up his spoon and twirled it, weaving it over and under his fingers, faster and faster, until it looked impossible.

Keira’s eyes widened. “How are you
doing
that?”

Walker chuckled. “Are you kidding? You play the
piano
. This is way easier. Here.” He passed her the spoon, which was warm from his hands.

“Put it like this.” He reached across the table and gently lifted her fingers, weaving the spoon through them. The touch of his hands made it hard to concentrate. “Then you lift your index finger.”

She followed his instructions, step by step, until the spoon was flying through her fingers almost as quickly as he’d done it.

“Who’s got the tea?” The waitress appeared at her elbow, startling Keira. The spoon skittered across the table. Walker caught it just before it landed in his lap.

“I’ve got the tea,” Keira grumbled. The waitress set down their cups and plates and plodded back to the kitchen.

Keira picked up her fork and frowned at her pie. “Well, I thought I was getting it,” she said.

“You were,” Walker said. “You picked that up really quickly. Wait—don’t do that!”

Keira froze, her fork an inch above her pie. “Don’t do what?” she asked, confused.

“Don’t you know you’re supposed to eat the point last? Then you make a wish on it.”

“Wow. So, I’m guessing you’re superstitious.” But even as she said it, she spun her plate around so that the crust was facing her.

Walker shrugged, stirring cream and sugar into his coffee. “I don’t think you should waste a chance to make a wish. You never know, right? But the spoon spinning—seriously, you have fast hands. I should teach you some card tricks some time.”

“I’d like that,” Keira said, breaking into the flaky pastry with her fork and watching the purple-black blueberry filling ooze across the plate. “Why’d you quit doing them, anyway?”

Walker lifted his mug and took a long drink.

He was stalling. The wall that had been crumbling between them came inching back up.

“There didn’t seem to be much future in sleight of hand,” he joked, setting the mug on the table.

Keira pointed her blueberry-tinted fork at him. “You’re always at your wittiest when you’re avoiding something.”

Walker froze. “Ouch.”

Keira speared another bite of pie. “Just sayin’.”

For a long moment, Walker stared at her. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “All those years of trying to play music—and failing spectacularly, I might add—it wasn’t totally my idea.”

“Stage mom?” Keira guessed. She’d run into them at competitions before. Whenever she heard someone playing something with perfect technique and zero heart, there was almost always a grimly determined parent hovering somewhere in the background.

Walker shook his head. “No. The town where I come from—let’s just say that the people who ran things were really counting on me to be some sort of musical genius. When it turned out I wasn’t, they were disappointed. Hugely disappointed. The card tricks only highlighted the fact that my hands were gifted in
all the wrong ways. My mother asked me to stop. It made her nervous.”

“Were you mad at her? For making you quit something you loved? I’d run away from home before I’d stop playing the piano.” As soon as she’d said them, Keira realized the words sounded unnecessarily harsh. He’d lost his mom, and here she was, practically accusing the poor woman of being a bad mother.

“I thought about running away, but I was ten. Where would I have gone?” He shook his head. “My mother was only trying to protect me. I knew it, and so I quit.” The wicked grin she loved streaked across his face. “Well, mostly. I kept a deck of cards under my mattress. After my parents left, when I couldn’t sleep, I would get them out and practice until my hands were numb. It was the only thing that helped.”

“What happened to them—your parents, I mean? Where did they go?” Keira’s voice was gentle, but she could see the question sink its claws into Walker.

“They were working for the government. I guess you could call it a scouting mission,” he said bitterly, knocking back the last of his coffee. “But everyone knew they wouldn’t find what they were looking for. It was a suicide mission. That’s why no one was surprised when they disappeared.”

Keira watched him struggle to restrain his fury—a cold, black rage that went bone deep.

“Do you have other family?”

“I have an aunt and a cousin,” Walker said grudgingly. She could almost hear his teeth gritting against one another. “But they don’t live in Sherwin. Smith, my cousin, visits once in a while. My aunt doesn’t like it when he comes to see me.”

“Why?” Keira was too curious to blunt the edge of her question before it shot out of her mouth.

Walker looked into his empty coffee cup. “Basically, my aunt thinks I’m a bad influence—that I take too many risks. She’s convinced I’ll follow in my parents’ footsteps, and that I’m going to put her ‘baby’ in harm’s way.” He sighed. “Smith thinks that I have all the fun, and he wants in on it, you know? My aunt doesn’t let him do
anything.
”

Keira nodded. “Susan’s parents are like that. Super overprotective.” The corner of her mouth quirked up. “That’s why they like me. They think
I’m
a good influence.”

“Is Susan their only kid?”

“Yep.”

“Smith, too. He’s all my aunt Holly has. It’s been hard for her. She was already a single mom, and then I came along. Who wants to be saddled with the orphaned black sheep?”

Keira turned the information over, shifting it around, fitting it into the Walker-shaped puzzle in her mind.

“What’s so bad about what you’re doing?”

Walker shrugged. “I’m away from home, running my own life without her input. I think she really believes that if my parents hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have become so independent,
and Smith never would have seen me as a role model. I think she finds the fact that they’re dead very
inconvenient.
” The last word was so bitter that Keira could taste it on her own tongue.