Read The Gathering Darkness Online
Authors: Lisa Collicutt
“My dreams I was telling you about when I was little,” Marcus began, “they’re the same ones. I’m surrounded by light, but there’s darkness all around me and, of course, I’m calling to Claire.”
“It’s just so weird. We’ve essentially had the same dreams all our lives, only slightly different, and now they’re coming together to make one dream, if that makes any sense,” I said.
“Perfectly.”
Some supernatural power was messing with me, and I didn’t like it, even if it was connecting Marcus and me together in some twisted way.
“This place is too weird,” I said.
“It hasn’t always been.”
“Before I came, you mean.”
Marcus didn’t comment. We sat quietly, engrossed in our own thoughts for a few minutes while I pushed the swing back and forth with my good foot. Sometime during our conversation the lawn mower up the street had stopped, and I could almost hear Marcus breathing.
“You know,” I said suddenly, as if I needed to defend my sanity. “I would never admit this to anyone else, but my life has been pretty normal up until now. Other than getting into trouble a few times and being sent here against my will to live out my sentence, nothing unusual ever happens to me, I swear.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t implying that you were the cause of all the weirdness.” He leaned forward to get up. “I should leave. You need to keep your leg up.”
“No!” I blurted.
He hesitated on the edge of his seat. No way could he leave now. Not after the huge secrets we’d just shared with each other. “Please, stay.”
He relaxed his body, but didn’t sit back.
Despite everything, this felt like an intimate moment between us, and I wanted it to last.
“I wanted to tell you something.” I stopped pushing the swing. “What you saw in the boathouse. Well, I wanted to tell Evan that he was delusional. That we were never a couple, but I was in too much of a bad mood, and my ankle was throbbing.” My voice had picked up an angry tone midway through the sentence. “And then he hugged me, and I felt bad.” My expression softened. “Then you walked in. I’ll talk to him the next time I see him.”
“It’s your choice,” he said simply.
What did he mean, it’s my choice? Was he offering himself as one of my choices? Was he asking me in some subtle way to choose between them? There was no choice. It was him, but I still didn’t have the guts to tell him so. I broke into a sweat and shrugged out of my jacket.
“Well, I’d better get to work before Maggie puts a curse on me or something,” Marcus said suddenly.
“What? What did you just say?”
“I said, I—”
“No, I heard you. You said ‘curse’. Why did you say that?”
He sat up straight and looked at me strangely. “It’s just a joke, Brooke. The whole North Shore jokes about Maggie being a witch.”
My body went numb, all but one spot. My arm where Maggie had touched pulsed with pain.
“Brooke, you’re pale again. What’s wrong?” When I didn’t answer he grabbed my shaking hands. I looked over at him and tried to speak.
“She’s a witch,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“It’s just a local myth. There’s no such thing as witches.”
“I don’t feel very good,” I mumbled.
I rested my elbow on the arm of the swing chair and dropped my head into my hand. The sudden hum in my head threatened to drown out the neighborhood noises, but I concentrated on the car that was driving past and Aunt Rachel’s tinkling wind chimes until the humming stopped.
“Can I get you something? Are you going to faint?”
“No, no. I’ll be fine.” So, that was it. It had to be. Maggie was a witch! I lifted my head from my hand and let it drop to the backrest of the swing. “Geez, you must think I’m whacko.”
“Brooke.”
It was then that I realized our hands were linked together, resting in the small space between us. Out of shyness, I was careful not to move a muscle of that hand. I turned my head to look at him.
“I don’t think you’re crazy. What I think is that something strange is going on—”
“It’s more than just strange.”
“Right, it’s definitely something bizarre, and somehow we have to figure out what it all means. Have you told anyone else?”
I shook my head. “You?”
“Well, my parents know about the ‘Claire’ dream of course, but not the ones I’ve had since you moved here.”
He lifted his hand from mine. Cool air replaced his touch. I wanted to grab it back, but didn’t.
“Can I see the tattoo before you go?”
I wanted so badly to touch it, and I wasn’t going to let another opportunity slip by. Before Marcus could push his sleeve up, I lifted my hand and pushed it up for him. My fingers were so close to it they trembled. I held the sleeve up with one hand and lightly brushed my fingers over the still-raised spirals. The pendant within the confines of my T-shirt grew warm against my skin. I let the sleeve drop, but kept my fingers on the tattoo. With my other hand, I reached inside my T-shirt and pulled out the pendant. My skin tingled ever-so-slightly where the spirals touched it.
Marcus jerked his arm away from my touch.
“What?” I asked, curious.
He looked at me strangely. “Did you feel that?”
“You felt it too?” I asked.
“Just now when you touched my arm; it felt like some sort of mild shock.”
I held the pendant out to him and put my hand on his tattoo again. He took the pendant from my hand.
“Wow, the same thing. I feel it.”
The hint of a smile played up one corner of his mouth.
We discovered that when one of us touched both his tattoo and my pendant at the same time, a mild current flowed from the symbol into us.
I pushed his sleeve back up and rubbed over the tattoo gently with my thumbs. Before I knew it, both my hands were circled around his biceps. The muscle involuntarily flexed under my touch. Then I became aware of a new sensation between us—a sensation that electrified
every
cell in my body.
I lifted my eyes. Marcus stared at me. Our faces were close. My cheeks warmed. I let my hands drop to my lap. Marcus let the pendant drop to my chest, leaving it hanging on the outside.
As the moment grew awkward, a sharp caw jump-started my heart. We both turned toward the sound. A huge black bird landed in the oak in the front yard. We both stared at it. It stared back.
“I’ve seen that crow before,” I whispered.
“That’s not a crow,” Marcus said. “It’s a raven.”
“Oh. No wonder it’s so big.” And then I remembered something that made my skin prickle. “Last night, before you found me in the well, I saw it again.”
“How do you know it’s the same bird?”
“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling.” I shuddered.
Marcus stood, taking my jacket with him. He leaned over the railing, waved the jacket toward the raven, and told it to go away. At first the bird protested by beating its wings and squawking sharply, and then it conceded and flew off over the rooftop of the house across the street.
With his back to the railing, Marcus looked at me. “It’s gone now, and I really do have to get to work.”
“Yeah. You’d better go before Maggie turns you into something.” I laughed, while trembling on the inside.
He held my jacket out to me. I took it, both our hands lingering close together a few seconds.
“I’ll see you Tuesday,” he said, letting go.
“Oh right, Monday’s Labor day.” That sucked.
“Don’t let this, whatever it is, freak you out too much.” He got up and walked down the steps then turned to look at me. “Remember, we’re in this together, and we’ll figure it out together.”
I watched him walk away. He turned at the end of the driveway and waved. I sat holding the pendant, watching him walk down the street, until the neighbor’s shrubbery hid him from view. Then I listened to his footsteps fading on the asphalt.
I sat for some time pondering over our conversation. I knew one thing; I had to find out more about Maggie and who, or what, she really was.
When I awoke the next morning, sunshine streamed through my bedroom window encompassing me in its warmth. The soothing press of the double spiral reminded me of its presence around my neck. I reached for it and opened my eyes.
For the first time since I was little, I’d slept a peaceful, dreamless sleep in Deadwich. The only downside was, I hadn’t dreamed of Marcus. I wondered if he’d had his ‘Claire’ dream.
B
y the Tuesday of my second week in Deadwich, my ankle felt good enough to walk on without limping. After the long weekend, I was almost as nervous as I had been on my first day at school, but for different reasons. I wanted to see Marcus. Even to just see him from a distance would help the empty feeling that had returned. Also, I wanted to have it out with Evan. I had promised myself I would tell him the truth; just give it to him straight. The thing was, I’d never broken up with anyone before, and I was angry. To me, the thing between us wasn’t even a relationship yet. We hadn’t even kissed! But I decided to treat it as if it was a real relationship—because Evan obviously thought it was, and dump him as gently as possible.
I stood on the school grounds with Sammy’s group of friends, excluding Megan—which suited me just fine. She absolutely hated me now and didn’t try to hide it. We’d picked up a replacement for Megan, anyway. Justin stood close to Sammy now. I was glad she’d finally gotten over Evan.
We were talking about basketball try outs, which were on Thursday, when the boom from a sub-woofer vibrated the pavement. I jerked my head around in time to see the red Civic pull into the school driveway, setting off sparks of excitement inside me. As hard as I tried to pay attention to Robyn, I couldn’t peel my eyes from the Civic.
Marcus had driven and was now getting out of the driver’s side. I got a sick feeling when I saw Evan getting out of the other side. They both came towards me. As much as I thought I was prepared to face Evan, I wasn’t.
Evan’s face held the same cute, boyish expression as it did every day, but I didn’t waste the moment looking at him. The hem of Marcus’ black shirt was bunched up around his wrists as his hands were shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. He wore a black leather jacket over the shirt, and under them both, a white V-neck T-shirt peeped through. He looked good in black. It suited his dark mood. Just watching him filled the emptiness inside me.
As the brothers neared, I forced myself to turn back to the group. I laughed at whatever they had been laughing at. Evan, who thought I hadn’t seen him yet, came up behind me and nudged me in the arm. I was disappointed when I turned to see it was him and not his brother.
“Hey,” he said, grinning, his blue eyes sparkling down on me.
“Hi,” was all I could think of to say.
This wasn’t going to be easy. My stomach churned at the thought of what I had to do. And when would be a good time? There was never any alone-time during school hours.
Marcus went to the other side of the circle to talk to Justin. It didn’t appear that he was paying any attention to me at all. But I hoped he was. I wondered if he’d dreamed about me, but then I figured, I hadn’t had a nightmare, so there was no reason for him to come to me, and therefore no reason for me to be in his dreams.
Last week the buzz at school had been about the party on Skull Island, this week it was all about the upcoming school dance on Thursday. Again, I didn’t want to go. This time I would make an excuse.
I spent the entire morning classes devising a plan. Ten minutes before the lunch bell, I would raise my hand and ask to use the washroom, but I wouldn’t come back. Instead, I would sneak upstairs to where the senior classes were and wait for Evan to come out of class. Third period was passing slowly as I watched the clock, but finally the time came to put my plan into action.
My stomach twisted into knots as I climbed the stairs. I’d never been on the senior floor before. I glanced in all the classrooms until I found Evan. He and Marcus were sitting in the back row of room 12-B, a few seats apart. Evan’s head rested on the backrest of his chair. Marcus sat slightly straighter, his head forward, scribbling something into the wooden desktop. Evan looked bored, Marcus preoccupied. Somehow, when they came out for lunch, I would have to get Evan’s attention without Marcus noticing me.