These Lying Eyes (13 page)

Max took her arm again, preventing her from fully entering the classroom. “Can’t we be friends again?”

Mina took a deep breath. Only yesterday she’d been raging that he hadn’t asked.

And she missed him.

“Mr. Mason, Miss Roth, perhaps you’d like to join us and quit wasting all our time?”

Max dropped her arm, and they found their way to their seats. As they opened their notebooks, Mina reached over, took Max’s pen and wrote in the margin of his paper, “We can try.”

* * *

“You gonna sleep?” Poppy grinned as Mina propped herself up on pillows, opened another of Grace’s books, and prepared to read to her friends.

Zizi flicked the red head. “Who can sleep when all of this is waiting?”

“People who were up all night, last night, reading,” Hitch said, not even pretending that he was going to listen to Mina read. Instead, he curled up on the pillow, settled his head on his arms, and snuggled down.

“I’m just gonna read for a few minutes, Hitchy.” Mina softly flicked his wing. “I prom…”

But the stairs creaked outside her room. They paused, praying one of Mina’s parents wasn’t outside the room, or if they were, they hadn’t been eavesdropping.

“What was that?” Zizi nodded at Hitch, and they leapt into the air, darting at the door to check.

But before, they were halfway across the room, the knowledge struck them all at once, “Sarah…”

Mina flipped the covers back, jammed her feet into rain boots and slapped a coat on. She scooped Poppy into the front pocket.

“I’ll follow her; you get a flashlight,” Hitch ordered, zipping out the patio doors and diving over the side of the second floor patio.

“I can’t find one,” Mina gasped, shuffling through the drawers and her closet.

“The linen cupboard,” Zizi zipped towards it, and Mina followed speed tip-toeing across her room.

Zizi tugged Mina towards her room saying, “I will bring Mina down the side of the patio.”

Mina scooped up the still bandaged Poppy and let the sprite slip into the collar of Mina’s shirt, feet hanging over Mina’s chest.

Mina paused at the edge of the patio, but Zizi nodded reassuringly. With a deep breath, she pulled herself onto the ledge.

“Ok?” Zizi asked.

Mina caught a glimpse of Sarah disappearing into the woods in her white nightgown. She was moving almost inhumanely fast. So, Mina didn’t think before she nodded and stepped off the side of the patio.

Grabbing the back of her jacket, Zizi slowed her fall until Mina landed lightly on her feet.

“That way.” Poppy said pointing across the yard and into the National Forest. “I can hear the buzz of Hitch’z wingz.”

In case her parents were up, Mina left the flashlight off, trusted in her memory and moved across the grass as quickly as she could.

“I’m gonna figure out what’s happening.” Zizi said as she disappeared into the trees.

Mina made her way into the woods, taking the same trail she’d seen Sarah disappear down. They were only minutes behind her, so they should be able to catch up. Except she’d been moving so fast.

It took far longer than Mina expected for Zizi to return. And when she did, Mina was already tired from running, especially being ridden by worry for her sister.

Hand on tree, heaving for air, she waited for Zizi to explain.

“She is moving very fast, Mina. Faster than she should be able to.” Zeez’s face was disturbed.

“What are you saying,” Mina asked between great mouthfuls of air.

“I am saying that there is no way she’s sleep walking.”

“Oh man…” Mina put her head down, pushed off the tree and ran almost without looking. She leaped when Poppy or Zizi told her to, wove to the left, to the right, obeyed all their instructions, entirely focused on trying to catch up with Sarah.

But, of course, she tripped. She’d almost been waiting for it and for the scream that was yanked from her as the ground reached up to slap her.

Only it didn’t.

Instead Mina was pulled to a stop inches above the grown, lifted into the air, and flown over tangled greenery.

“Straighten your legs.” Zizi ordered, strain evident in her voice.

“Oh my gosh,” Mina gasped, forcing her legs out.

She pushed her arms forward lighting the path before them with the flashlight. Zizi dodged at the last moment, time after time, making Mina hold back yelp after yelp.

“You have to beat her to wherever she is going Mina. You aren’t fast enough on your own, and you’ll need to snap her out of the spell, or whoever did this to her…”

There it was—that ominous feeling—an “or else” that was haunting them.

“What will they do?” Mina demanded.

“I do not know, but I do not think we want to find out.”

What had Zizi seen?

Finally, Zizi darted past her sister, coming in from the side. Mina didn’t get more than glimpse of Sarah until Zizi dropped Mina to the forest floor. Mina tossed Zizi the flashlight so that Mina, at least, could see Sarah coming. The one moment of delay nearly lost Mina her chance.

Sarah was…

There was a prowl to her. She was nearly a blur, as she lunged from tree to tree. Fully black eyes seemed to suck in what little light there was. Her face was covered again in that web of dark lines. A terrible contrast to her unholy veins, Sarah’s skin was albino white. And as Sarah’s black orbs focused on Mina, they made the hair on the back of her neck rise.

“I’ll grab her,” Hitch said. “Slow her down.”

Mina charged her sister as Hitch swung around Sarah mid-lunge, grabbing her white night gown, and yanking her back while Mina jumped at her sister, wrapping her legs and arms around Sarah’s body.

A shriek filled the air. High pitched and ear splitting like a super-sized bat.

Mina had hoped to tackle Sarah, but instead Mina was clinging to a moving, barely slowed, sister.

Who dug her nails into Mina.

A horrified gasp escaped her; Sarah’s fingers gouging into the back of Mina’s neck and the base of her spine. Her fingernails—they weren’t normal—it was like Mina was being clawed.

Hitch let go of Sarah’s nightgown.

Sarah, even while she tried to haul Mina off, moved through the brush without pause.

“Help.” Mina gasped.

Zizi and Hitch each grabbed one of Sarah’s clawed hands, freeing Mina.

Shaking with pain, Mina tightened her grip on her sister’s torso.

It was as if time-slowed.

She could see her sister pull her head back. Those vicious eyes pierced Mina with a wicked rage.

Sarah growled; saliva dripped from peeled back lips, revealing jagged, yellowed teeth.

Mina cried out.

“Sarah,” she gasped, trying to reach her sister—to make her see who was clinging to her.

But Sarah, without a flicker of recognition, dug her teeth into Mina’s shoulder.

“Ahhhh!” Mina let go of Sarah’s shoulders to wrap her fingers around Sarah’s neck.

The high-pitched growling began again.

“Sarah!” Mina pled as she choked her sister. “Sarah, wake up.”

Poppy crawled out from the collar of Mina’s shirt, dropped to the ground and rounded behind their struggling bodies. Mina felt the impact of Poppy hitting the back of each of Sarah’s knees.

Sarah fell forward; the impact made Sarah release her teeth from Mina’s neck, and Mina dropped to the ground, holding one hand to her mangled collarbone.

She clutched at her neck and looked, with horror, at her favorite sister.

There was only a monster there.

“Sarah?” Mina whispered.

Poppy darted between them, diving into Sarah’s torso. At the same time, Hitch and Zizi increased their speed, pulling Sarah back by her wrists, and pinning her to the ground. It was only their grasp that had kept Sarah’s teeth from Mina’s neck again. Their struggling bodies that kept Sarah’s claws from Mina’s body.

Sarah’s body arched. Her head tossed back and forth in the dirt, and she filled the woods with unholy, inhuman shrieks.

“What do I do?” Mina held her wound with one hand, the other covering her mouth.

“Help us hold her down,” Hitch ordered.

“Talk to her,” Zizi called.

Mina dropped onto her sister’s chest, knee on each shoulder. Calling to Sarah, pleading with her, yelling at her.

There was no effect.

Sarah’s legs scissored, and even with the weight of Mina, with the strength of the sprites, they barely kept Sarah on the ground.

“It’s not working,” Mina gasped.

“Sing to her.” Zizi’s wings were blurred, her body at an angle and she pressed Sarah’s wrist to the ground.

Mina yanked off her coat to get her t-shirt. In a moment, it was off, and she gagged her sister. In only a cami and pajama pants, Mina pressed her face into the dirt next to Sarah and sang their lullaby. A series of intertwined la’s they’d created together, back when they’d shared a room and whispered into the nighttime.

Dismal and powerless as this one sided harmony felt, Mina sang on. And slowly, the black lines on her sister’s face grew smaller, a bit of color returned to her eyes.

“It’z working.” Poppy said, wings still in a sling as she joined in the song.

The two of them sang until their voices were hoarse.

Mina tried singing again, but her voice was nearly gone. She leaned her face back down to Sarah’s and whispered into her ear.

Memories, stories they told each other, random nonsense.

“One nail is gone,” Hitch huffed.

Mina whispered until her voice was nothing more than a rasp, and finally, Sarah’s body returned to normal.

As soon as the last black line faded from her skin, the last claw slipped back into her flesh, Sarah fell limp.

“Now what?” Mina’s words were barely audible, still digging her knees into Sarah’s shoulders.

Just in case.

* * *

They loaded Sarah onto a sheet that Zizi delivered. After they dragged Sarah’s boneless body onto it, all of them collapsed, speechless to the ground.

Mina wiped sweat and dirt from her face with her cami as Hitch tore Mina’s t-shirt into strips.

He and Zizi bound Sarah’s hands and feet.

“She is probably ok for now,” Zizi said, tightening the bindings.

Hitch followed after Zizi, checking each knot. Their goosebumps had not faded, and the fear had not left them, and it wasn’t because it was cold, damp, and dark in the woods.

“What are we going to do?” Poppy finally asked.

“Grace is gone,” Zizi commented, on her knees next to Mina.

Peter’s family? Mina wondered as she looked at the form of her sister and knew she could never trust her sister with people who had left Mina to suffer as Peter and his family had.

“Thiz wasn’t a normal spell.” Hitch didn’t need to explain, even to Mina. She knew almost nothing, but enough to have a fair idea of what a normal witch or fae could do. They shouldn’t be able to take someone from their bed, against their will, change their bodies, and give them a strength they didn’t have. All the while hiding the soul of the person behind the viciousness of the spell.

“We need someone very good,” Zizi huffed. “Better even than good.”

Poppy pushed back her mass of brilliant red hair as she said, “My grandmother.”

Mina’s eyes darted between the sprites. Looking for some indication of what they thought.

Hitch nodded, and Zizi whispered, “Yes.”

Hitch and Poppy were gone a moment later, racing towards Poppy’s grandmother and whatever help they could find.

* * *

“We have to get there before my parents wake up.” It was, perhaps, the third time Mina had said it.

But all hope of witch lessons, all hope of helping Sarah faded if the parents went into super protective mode again. And how was she going to explain the bite on her shoulder? Sarah’s state? They’d assume she’d been doing drugs or something. They’d jump to overdoses. Raves in the woods.

Anything but witchcraft.

Zizi nodded, but they didn’t speed up. They couldn’t. Mina’s legs were shaky, she held onto her end of the sling with sheer stubbornness.

It took them more than an hour to make their way back to the house. At the edge of the wood, they stared at the house, at the second floor patio, and they hated it.

Zizi left Mina with Sarah to scout ahead. The sprite came back with lazy bobs, as if gravity had become too much.

“It’s all clear, but your Dad’s alarm goes off in twenty minutes.”

Mina was too tired to speak. She just pushed herself to her feet and took up her side of the sheet.

They reached the trellis, and Mina grasped her side with one hand and pulled herself up, shaky step after shaky step. About halfway up, she stopped, legs trembling, certain she would be unable to keep climbing. Her fingers were screaming, her arms burning, her head was a million pounds.

“Remember the time,” Zizi huffed, “that Jase was mean to you? Sarah snuck into his room coloring on his face with sharpies. He was covered in flowers from permanent markers for several days.”

Mina didn’t nod, but she pulled her feet, her body, and her sister up another rung.

“We can do this.” Zizi gasped.

“Remember,” Mina choked, “my Vespa.”

Another rung, another break.

“Six to go.” Zizi said, and they pushed through another rung.

“F-f-f-five.” Mina breathed.

“You should steal her shoes for this.”

“Four, her feet are bigger than mine.” Mina’s hands shook as she pressed her face into the wood of the trellis.

“Three. Almost there.”

Mina’s arms were barely obeying. If she unlatched her arm from the rung, they’d surely fall.

Mina looked at Zizi, her wings were almost slow motion. They smiled wan smiles at each other. And the alarm buzzed through the house.

Panicked eyes met each other, and Zizi ordered, “Go!”

Without thinking, teeth grit, Mina pushed through the last three rungs, pushed her sister’s body onto the ledge, and let it fall to the ground.

She had barely pulled herself over the ledge when her parents stepped onto the patio.

“Did you hear that?” Mom’s voice said.

Mina heard their rustling movement and tried to suppress her gasps. They were mere feet below her.