Wicked Sense Read online

  “Your level of dorkiness is staggering,” Boulder continues.

  “I know.” I feel like punching Boulder too, but that’s tantamount to suicide.

  Sean keeps laughing.

  Boulder doesn’t let go. “Your sissiness is the stuff of legend.”

  “I already agreed with you,” I say, my teeth clenched.

  Sean laughs uncontrollably, banging his fist on the table.

  “Never mind,” Boulder says, ignoring Sean’s antics and giving me a one-armed man hug. “A win is a win. Tell me about her. What’s her name?”

  “I… I…”

  Boulder shoves me away in disgust. “You didn’t ask?!?!”

  Holding his side, Sean sits on the ground. He’s laughing so hard, I see tears.

  Even though most students are already immunized against Sean’s theatrics, his displays of hysteria still embarrass me. I look around to check if people are staring at us, but they’re gawking at my perhaps-date. With good reason.

  “The Predator is talking to your girlfriend,” Boulder also notices.

  Even Sean stops laughing and says, “Now, The Predator isn’t ‘petite.’ Is she, Drake?”

  Boulder answers for me. “Petite? Only if you spell it with double Ds.”

  Priscilla, The Predator, earned her nickname. In the last two years she tore through the male student body—“male” and “body” being key words here—but somehow managed to sidestep me. (That’s my life in a nutshell, by the way).

  Now, done with feasting at Greenwood High, she relies on a strict diet of college guys.

  The two girls sit close together, and Priscilla is already making friends with the new girl. The bell rings and they leave side-by-side, BFFs after three minutes together. That’s weird, but not as weird as the new girl’s face-off with Jane.

  Poor new girl. On day one, she gets to meet The Predator, Jane, and me. Greenwood High is doing its best to make the worst first impression possible.

  ***

  During Pre-Calc, I overhear someone saying her name: Skye.

  I wish I could talk to the guys about her, but they are… Let’s just say we have different sensibilities. Also, let’s say that if I ever use the word “sensibilities” around them, I’ll be killed. First mocked, then killed.

  The rest of the school talks, though: I hear all kinds of comments about her. Most of them are rumors about her confrontation with Jane and the sudden friendship with Priscilla. People barely remember my cameo—one of the advantages of being invisible.

  I spend my day as I spend most of them: unnoticed and undisturbed. It’s only when I arrive at the pool building across the street from school that somebody talks to me.

  “Hey, Drake. Have you thought about our talk?” Coach Summers has given me the same hello for almost two years running now.

  “I thought about it, but I can’t be part of the swim team. I’m against team sports.” I always come up with a different excuse.

  He nods. “That’s because you suck at them. I saw you trying out for baseball.”

  “Always a motivator, Coach.”

  “Stop making excuses. The offer stands until you graduate, just in case you decide to grow a pair.”

  “Thanks, Coach. I’ll let you know when they’re fully grown.”

  We wave at each other. He doesn’t smile—he never does—but I do.

  I get all my laps in, at a leisurely pace. No competitions for me, not even against the clock. I don’t need or want the pressure. Besides, one of the most effective ways to avoid being a loser is to avoid competition.

  In the pool, I forget the world: home, school, even Skye. It’s my time, all mine, only mine.

  I leave the pool building renewed. It’s almost dark, the dusk coming earlier because of the angry clouds, but I don’t care. Even the rain doesn’t bother me. I’m at peace with myself.

  Then I see Skye, and my world tumbles again.

  “Hey,” I holler.

  “Hey, you,” she yells back from across the street.

  I take it as an invitation and cross over to her side. She looks tired, but still radiant. Again, her unconventional beauty confuses me. She looks like an average girl—the most perfect average girl I’ve ever met, if that makes sense.

  “What a coincidence,” she says.

  “Maybe it’s fate,” I say, and I immediately regret it. My comment is so lame the other lame comments look down on it in disgust. But she doesn’t mind.

  “Fate? Do you believe in fate?” she asks.

  “I do now.”

  She blinks a few times, seemingly amused. Her glasses are gone, and I notice her eyes are a bright shade of blue I’ve never seen before. It’s hard not to stare. For a moment, those deep pools suck me in, play with me, own me, and spit me out. She looks away, reaches into her backpack, fishes the strange rainbow glasses out, and puts them back on.

  I wonder if that eye color has a name.

  “So, Drake, huh?” She offers her hand.

  “So, Skye, huh?” I shake it, gently, lingering for a nanosecond too long. “Nice to meet you too.”

  “Gossip is a popular sport here, isn’t it?”

  I shrug. “It wouldn’t be high school without gossip.”

  The rain picks up. Real rain, not the perpetual drizzle we usually have. “Welcome to Seattle in October,” I say, pointing toward the clouds.

  “Yes, a real downer, after living in sunny London,” she says, a resigned expression on her face. “What’s there?” She nods past my shoulder to the building behind me.

  “The pool. I was swimming.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Wow, you swim? That’s cool.”

  What an odd thing to say. I look for sarcasm in her voice, but I can’t find any. She sidetracks me with her comment, and these words escape me somehow: “Are you going home? May I walk you?”

  She eyes me and ponders it for a while, disregarding the rain dampening her hair. “‘Walk me home?’ Aren’t you the old-fashioned gentleman?”

  It’s getting dark. The announced thunderstorm is coming. I look up pointedly.

  Chapter 4: Skye

  Drake sounds trustworthy. My only uneasiness is his fuzzy aura. I still don’t know what it means, and it bothers me a little. Not enough to refuse his offer to become my escort, though.

  “I live on Stone Avenue,” I say. The rain is heavy. We start moving north.

  “What were you still doing in school?” he asks.

  “A bunch of paperwork. They misplaced my school records, a mess.”

  It’s pouring, and even for us, people rained on for all our lives, it gets uncomfortable. As a good Londoner and a good Seattleite, we don’t carry umbrellas. But we move faster.

  “Are you north of 97th? If you are, we can take a shortcut through the park.” He points to a walking trail surrounded by thick trees. In the middle of a residential area. Emerald City, indeed.

  A quick thought crosses my mind: is he trying something?

  He must have noticed my expression. “Never mind,” he corrects himself. “Stupid idea. It’s probably muddy and slippery.”

  The skies rumble. I want to get home soon. The darkness on the brink of overtaking us is both an incentive and a deterrent. If he has a hidden agenda, he’s a hell of an actor—and I know actors. I feel safe. Besides, I’m already drenched. So, I say, “No, let’s. It’s okay.”

  He looks at me, surprised, and changes direction. I follow him.

  It is muddy. The trail is mostly dirt with a layer of dead leaves. To our right, an upward slope has several trees with exposed roots, and we hold on to them when we lose balance. To our left is a downward slope, not as steep as the other side, but falling and sliding is a possibility.

  My feet falter, but Drake catches me, his warm hands steadying me. He seems self-conscious and lets me go as soon as I regain my balance.

  “How much more?” I ask, a little louder than I intended. The thunder and the rain hitting the canopy muffle our voices. This storm
got ugly fast.

  “Three blocks,” he yells. He is not afraid, but perhaps a little embarrassed by his suggestion of taking a shortcut.

  It wasn’t a good idea. Streams of thick mud cross our path and flow down to our left. We’re caught in the middle.

  We hear a roar at the same time. I glance at him. He looks to his right, and then he shoves me away without warning. Before I know it, I’m sliding down the slope, grasping for plants to stop my descent, and a tree is falling over him. He tries to get out of its way. The trunk misses him, but one of the main branches hits him in the head. He tumbles over, and I scream.

  Pulling myself up with the help of the vegetation, I try to get back to the path. My special glasses are gone, and I know I sprained something, but I don’t care.

  The falling tree slides down with Drake caught in the branches. It drags him for just a few feet. He’s facedown, motionless, a little to the left of the trail. At least the tree didn’t drag him down all the way. I crawl to him and call his name. I turn him over.

  Drake’s unconscious, but breathing. Under the dirt, his face is scratched, the mud making a grotesque mask. On his right temple, a big gash pours red, sticky blood.

  I pull back, not in disgust, but in shock. Another roar of thunder startles me, but it also awakens me. I know any head wound will bleed profusely, even a minor cut. And he’s knocked out. I reach for my cell, before remembering I didn’t bring it to Seattle. I recall he received a text when we were talking earlier; he had a clip-on on his belt. I search in vain for it. It probably fell and slid down the slope, lost in the dark mud now.

  Desperate, I try to clean his face with rainwater. I use my jacket’s sleeve to halt the blood coming from the gash. When the fabric absorbs the thick liquid, I see the cut is deep and wide. Serious. Life-threatening.

  I look around, as if the trees have the answers. Wake up, Skye. This is real. And you can do something about it. I focus, ignoring the storm, the thunder, the pain. I try to remember Judi’s and Mum’s lessons, all those words and gestures I thought would be useless. They come to me.

  Still kneeling, I close my eyes and stretch out my arms to the sides, the palms of my hands facing up. Rainwater washes over me, cleansing me; the rawness of the storm helps me attune to nature. The elements and I become one.

  Empowered by the Goddess, I feel my personal magic flowing inside me. With my eyes wide open now, I lean over him and remove the jacket’s sleeve from the wound. I get his blood on my right hand and make a triangular shape of dark red on his forehead. I take off his sneakers and socks, arrange his body in a spread-eagle position, and draw triangles on the palms of his hands and on his feet. Without my ceremonial knife, I have to improvise: my fingers dig deep into the wet dirt to make a circle around Drake. I get back to my original stance, kneeling beside him, and use the words from a language long gone.

  There, in the dark, in the deluge, I say my ancient prayer. I hope it’s enough.

  Chapter 5: Drake

  So, that’s what being hit by a truck feels like, I guess.

  The emergency room smells of antiseptic and boredom. The doctor, a cutie too young to be out of med school, reads my CAT scan results. She tells my father that I’m okay, but they’ll be watching me overnight.

  A still-soaked Skye stares at them. She’s standing next to the curtain that separates me from other unfortunate people. The blue of her eyes is subdued.

  “Are you sure?” Dad asks the doctor. “Skye,” he continues, pointing to my savior, “said a tree fell on him. A tree. He’s only got a mild concussion. How is that possible?”

  I look at Skye. There it is, a faint knowing smile. I see it—it’s not my possibly damaged brain playing tricks on me. That smile goes to the top of the pile of questions I have for her.

  “He was very lucky, that’s all,” the doctor tells my father. She looks like a kid wearing a lab coat for Halloween. “What we see here is not unlike a football hit. They bring boys to the ER with this type of concussion all the time.”

  It’s true. Boulder had one last year. Which is not really comforting: no way he can be called a model of a healthy mind.

  After the young doctor leaves, my father approaches my bed. “You feeling better, buddy?”

  “I’m buzzed, that’s all. Feeling very good, actually. Please add Percocet to the shopping list, Dad.”

  “Okay, you sound like yourself,” he says, tapping my hand, but still concerned. That’s my father: concerned all the time. Adding another burden to him is almost cruel, after all he’s been through. He turns to Skye, “Thanks again, Skye. I—”

  She cuts him off gently. “Don’t mention it, Mr. Hunter.”

  “No, I mean it. Anything, anytime. Just let me know.”

  She nods sympathetically.

  Dad faces me. “It was a hell of a storm. A lot of fallen trees, mudslides, flash floods, even a blackout west of I-5. Be glad the hospital has backup energy.” I can see the wariness in his eyes. “Now, Drake, I’ll tell the good news to your friends. And call Mona. Be right back.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Wait. My friends?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Sean and Boulder have been sitting outside for hours, but visiting time’s over now. I’ll tell them to go home.”

  That surprises me. Even though they’re my best friends, I’m not their best friend. I mean, Sean is Boulder’s and vice-versa. I’m kind of their backup best friend.

  There’s this unspoken pecking order among us: Boulder is the alpha-dog, Sean is his sidekick, and I’m there just for entertainment purposes. I don’t complain. They hang out with me, and I’m grateful. Having them watching over me is unexpected.

  I look to my right and see Skye staring at me. She comes over, puts her hand on my shoulder, and I feel a tsunami of goose bumps.

  “The shortcut was a little longer than I thought,” I tell her. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You saved me,” she says.

  I remember. I shoved her away when the tree fell. Instinct.

  “Well, you saved me more.” I smile.

  Skye lets out a soft chuckle. “Actually, I left you and found someone with a cell phone. Not very heroic.”

  I know that’s not all, but she doesn’t mention it. I respect it. I owe it to her.

  “Still,” I say instead.

  “Call it even?” She grins. She’s so beautiful my head hurts. Oh, wait, that’s not it.

  Dad pokes his head in. “Drake, listen. I’m taking Skye to her house. I’ll be back, all right? Mona is sleeping over at her freaky friend’s house.”

  I’m drifting to sleep, and I try to understand what Dad says. Mona is my little sister, the world’s most neurotic fourteen-year-old. Right now, she’s probably thinking my near-death experience is some cheap ploy to get Dad’s attention. Her “freaky friend” is most likely that goth girl who calls herself “Rain” or something. Okay, brain still works.

  “I think I’m going to crash before you get back,” I say, suppressing a yawn.

  Skye’s hand leaves my shoulder, and I miss it. I wish I could keep her touch with me the whole night. I long for a gesture of caring from her.

  “Sweet dreams,” Skye says as she leaves.

  That will do.

  ***

  I wake up in the morning, and I remember the year and my name. So far, so good.

  The problem is, I also remember what happened during the storm. What I didn’t have the heart to ask Skye last night.

  I was drifting in and out of consciousness with an excruciating pain in my head. Skye was in front me, in a yoga pose or something. Then, darkness.

  My eyes opened, and there she was again, blood all over her hands, and she was… chanting, I guess. Besides my head hurting, I felt painful pinpricks throughout my body and a strange sensation of weightlessness, almost as if I were levitating. Before I could understand what was happening, I blacked out again.

  When I woke up again, my whole body was hot, as if ablaze, even in the freezin
g rain. In my mind, I was burning alive. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Skye was breathing deeply, using a guttural voice, and rubbing my head, my hands, my feet. Swaying back and forth like that, she looked like a lunatic, to tell the truth.

  That’s the last thing I remember before the ER. I have to admit it was dark, but the night darkness was different from my lights-out darkness, and much clearer. Also, I could have been hallucinating, with my banged head and all, but it felt so vivid. So real.

  So, I have many questions, and the most important appears to be: when is it a good time to ask a girl you’ve just met whether she’s a Satanist or a nut-job?

  Chapter 6: Skye

  I wanted to make contacts and be discreet. And I ended up almost killing someone. On my first day of school. Good job, Skye!

  My glasses are gone. Now I can’t see auras anymore. And I can’t disguise my weird blue eyes. I couldn’t attract more attention.

  I’m drinking my morning coffee when Aunt Gemma walks into the kitchen. She smiles warmly and gets a mug.

  Aunt Gemma is not my aunt, but she’s my host family here. She’s not a witch either, but a Knowing—a non-magic user who knows about the Veil and is trusted by the Mothers. Knowings are usually friendly, which makes sense, since the unfriendly might incur the risk of being “dealt with.” Some of them benefit from magic, but most of them keep quiet out of plain loyalty, like Aunt Gemma. The British Mothers arranged for my lodging here. I can’t complain. Aunt Gemma is okay. As with the other Knowings, she’s fascinated by us and tries to learn as much as possible.

  After we say our good mornings, I ask her, “Did you know there’s already a Sister at Greenwood High?”

  “No.” She looks surprised. “Who?”

  “A girl. Jane Kaplan. Do you know her? She rides a red motorbike, er, motorcycle.”

  Having Jane at school is truly annoying. I can sense her energy all the time. It’s like being back home, when Mum’s energy was always around me. Only I love Mum, while Jane… I don’t.

  “Kaplan, Kaplan…” Gemma goes through her list of neighbors and acquaintances from church. Yes, she goes to church. I don’t even ask her about it. “No, I don’t know her.”