3 Conjuring (15 page)

Getting into a new class routine is always a pain the first week of a new semester. That wasn’t made any easier by the never-ending torrent of snow constantly being dumped on us. Michigan was mired in one of the snowiest -- and coldest -- winters on record. Class cancellations were starting to pile up at a frustrating rate – and this was from someone who usually detests going to class.

“We’re never going to learn anything if this keeps u
p,” Kelsey complained. She was impatiently looking out the window as the snow continued to fall. “They’ve already cancelled classes for tomorrow.”

“I like it,” Matilda admitted. The three of us were l
ounging around the common room watching mindless television and trying to pretend we weren’t going crazy while constantly cooped up. “It’s like an extended vacation.”

“I’m sick of the snow,” I admitted. “It’s making having a social life a little difficult.”

“What are you talking about?” Matilda laughed. “Aric always picks you up.”

“He does,” I agreed. “But he’s not my entire social life.”

“Since when?” Kelsey asked pointedly. “You two spend practically every night together. Not that I wouldn’t do the same thing. With all this snow, being curled up in a bed with a really hot guy sounds like heaven right now.”

I considered the statement. Kelsey was really pretty.
No, I mean really pretty. As long as I had known her, though, I hadn’t seen her go out with a single guy. I wracked my brain trying to think of a single instance when she had shown interest in anyone of the opposite sex – or even the same sex -- but I was drawing a blank.

“Where is Laura?” Kelsey changed the subject. “She’s not out in this, is she?”

“She had to run an errand for Delta Omicron,” Matilda shrugged. “Maybe she’s spending the night there? I wouldn’t go out in this unless I absolutely had to. She probably decided to play it safe and stay there.”

“What kind of errand?” I asked, fighting to keep the suspicion out of my voice.

“I have no idea,” Matilda replied, her attention fixed on the television. “I didn’t really ask, though.”

“It’s probably safer for her to stay at the sorority h
ouse,” Kelsey agreed, although she didn’t look convinced.

“Yeah,” I sighed wearily. “It’s really crappy out there.”

“And we’re stuck in here,” Matilda grumbled. “With nothing to do or drink.”

“I’ve got a fifth of whiskey,” Kelsey announced. “We could mix it with something.”

“What?” I glanced around the room. All we had was Diet Coke.

Kelsey followed my gaze. “Maybe it won’t be so bad?” She sounded hopeful.

I was bored enough to try anything.

An hour later, I had completely forgotten my mis
givings about whiskey and Diet Coke. I was even enjoying reality television.

“So what is the point of this show?” Matilda asked, sipping from her cup happily.

“They grow long beards and kill things? And that’s it.”

“Sometimes they do stupid stuff in the warehouse, too,” I said.

“I like them,” Kelsey announced. “I think they’re funny.”

“You’re so drunk you’d find clowns in a car funny right now,” I giggled.

Kelsey frowned. “Yeah? Well so is your face.”

“What?” Matilda was laughing so hard she tilted over
as she sat cross-legged on the floor.

“What?” Kelsey asked, her face flushed from the alcoh
ol. “Why are you making fun of me?”

“No one is making fun of you,” I laughed. “You’
re drunk. You’re making fun of yourself.”

“I’m not drunk,” Kelsey scoffed. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m definitely drunk,” I agreed. “I’m not feeling so bad about the snow now, so that’s a good thing.”

“It’s snowing?” Kelsey’s face had gone blank.

Matilda dissolved into hysterical giggles again. “You’re so drunk.”

We looked up when the door to the common room opened and Laura stomped in.

She was dressed in a heavy overcoat and her knit hat, and she looked as though she’d trudged through an actual blizzard to get home.

“Oh, look, it’s Santa Claus,” I deadpanned.

Matilda broke into another laughing fit at the visual. “Where are my presence ... I mean my presents?” She hiccupped.

Kelsey smirked. “I want a pony.”

Laura didn’t look thrilled with our level of inebriation. “Well, I’m glad to see that my disappearance into the snowpocalypse didn’t worry anyone.”

I frowned. “We thought you were spending the night at the fraternity house.”

“Sorority house,” Matilda corrected me.

“Right, the sorority house. We thought you were th
ere.” I thought about what I’d said for a second. “Although, spending the night at a fraternity house could be a lot more fun.” When they didn’t turn into werewolves and try to eat you, that is.

Matilda snorted out another laugh. “That’s my idea of Christmas.”

“What have you guys been drinking?” Laura asked as she stalked to the bedroom and shed her boots, coat and hat. I didn’t blame her for being a little annoyed. When you’re the only sober person in a roomful of drunks, things can get tiresome pretty quickly.

“Whiskey,” Kelsey announced proudly. “There’s still some left if you want some.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Laura said distastefully. “It’s a school night. I have classes tomorrow.”

“No you don’t,” Kelsey replied. “They’ve been cancelled.”

“They have?” Laura looked disappointed at the announcement.

“Yep. No classes for us. No learning. No learning ever again.”

“Go to bed,” I instructed. “You’re drunk.”

“And you’re seriously starting to bum us out,” Matilda slurred happily.

I raised my hand to give her a high-five, which she enthusiastically returned.

Unfortunately, our hand-eye coordination wasn’t ex
actly one hundred percent, and we missed. Badly.

Matilda dissolved into giggles again. “You missed.”

“You missed,” I shot back. “I was right on target.”

“Well, you two seem to be getting along,” Laura s
aid coldly, weaving her way between Matilda and me, and plopping down on the couch. She crossed her arms over her chest and proceeded to pout.

“Is there something wrong with that?” I asked pointedly.

“Should there be?” Laura asked with something akin to a sneer on her face. “I just didn’t realize you guys were best buds. Last time I checked, you thought we were idiots for joining a sorority and we thought . you guys didn’t like us all that much.”

“We’re just taking the edge off during a snowstorm,” I sa
id, my buzz rapidly burning away. “And I thought we had worked this whole sorority thing out?” Or at least tabled it for the foreseeable future.

“So I see,” Laura said. “So I always see.”

“What’s your glitch?” I asked. “You’re acting like we’ve done something wrong.”

“Wrong? You? Never,” Laura said sarcastically. “No
t perfect little Zoe Lake. She never does anything wrong.”

Matilda straightened up and focused her eyes o
n Laura worriedly. “We weren’t doing anything. Honest. I would never do that.”

Do what? “What would you think we were doing?”

“Bonding without me,” Laura replied piteously. “Like you always do.”

This was starting to get old. “We were just ha
ving a few drinks and watching television. It’s not some evil conspiracy.”

“Like things with you usually are,” Laura shot back.

I got wobbily to my feet. “I don’t understand what your problem is.”

“Of course you don’t,” Laura countered. “You don’t un
derstand anything that doesn’t revolve around you.”

I shook my head tiredly. “I’m going to bed. I can’t deal with any more of your drama.”

“Good. Go to bed. I think we’d all appreciate that.”

I traded a quick look with Kelsey, who seemed e
qually as shocked with Laura’s outburst. Matilda, though, seemed worried. She’d moved from the floor to the couch and was studying Laura for signs of the coming apocalypse. Or maybe she was just waiting for her head to spin around like that kid in The Exorcist?

“Well, ‘night,” I said coldly.

“’Night,” Kelsey murmured.

Matilda and Laura didn’t answer. They sat on the couch
, staring ominously at each other. I didn’t take that as a good sign.

Despite classes being cancelled the next day, Matilda and Laura made themselves scarce before lunch. Matilda had mentioned something about sorority “things” they had to do and said they wouldn’t be back until later that evening. Much later. That left Kelsey and me together in the dorm.

I had been sitting on the couch, flipping aimlessly th
rough television channels, and watching Kelsey use a small metal device to draw graphs on a project she had spread out over the floor for more than an hour when I decided to broach an uncomfortable subject.

“What do you think about Laura’s little meltdown last night?”

Kelsey looked up from her work briefly and shrugged. “It seems par for the course for her these days. She’s an emotional wreck. It’s like she should be on medication or something.”

That was an interesting – and sobering – thought. I had never even considered that.

“You think she’s emotionally unstable?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t ... she couldn’t ... you don’t think ... .” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

Kelsey swung back on her haunches so she coul
d meet my gaze evenly. “You’ve honestly never considered it?”

“No.”

“Come on,” Kelsey said incredulously. “She’s all over the place. One minute she’s happy. The next minute she’s sad. Sometimes she’s furious.”

“We all get that way.”

“Not like that,” Kelsey countered. “And we usually have legitimate reasons for getting that way. Plus, she’s really needy.”

“That I noticed,” I admitted.

“You couldn’t miss that,” Kelsey agreed. “She was fixated on you when we first moved in here. Then things shifted.”

“To Matilda,” I mused.

“Yeah. The thing is, Matilda is pretty needy, too. It’s like she doesn’t have her own personality. She takes on the personality of whomever she’s closest to at any given time.”

Huh. “Did she do that with you?”

“Last year,” Kelsey nodded. “I thought that was her real personality. I was obviously wrong, though.”

“And you didn’t know her before you moved in together last year?”

“No. It was just luck of the draw.”

“So she took on your personality?”

“Kind of,” Kelsey said. “I mean, she pretended she was all into schoolwork and stuff, but there was always something else there.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Kelsey evaded. “She’s hard to read sometimes.”

So are a lot of people.

“Do you think that Matilda is crazy?”

“I think crazy is a word that gets thrown around a lit
tle too often,” Kelsey replied evenly. “I think that Matilda has a few personality quirks that aren’t exactly normal to other people.”

“That’s a delicate way of putting it,” I laughed. “It’s not exactly an answer, though.”

Kelsey’s face was sober and fixed. “I don’t think that Matilda could do a lot of damage on her own,” she said after a few moments of thought. “I don’t think she thinks that way.”

“What way?”

“It’s never her idea,” Kelsey continued. “She’s a follower, not a leader.”

“So she gloms on to leaders and lets them tell her what to do?”

“Basically.”

“That’s more dangerous than an overtly evil person sometimes,” I pointed out.

“It’s a lot more dangerous,” Kelsey agreed. “That’s why you have to keep an eye on her. If this were the 1950s and you were black and that sorority was full of the KKK she would help them string you to a tree and not think twice about it. It would never be her idea, but she would do whatever they told her to do.”

“You said something, that first night with the beets,”
I said. “You said that Matilda had insisted on living with us. Why do you think that is?”

I was putting her on the spot. I knew it. I didn’t back down, though.

“I was drunk.” Kelsey averted her eyes uncomfortably. “I don’t remember what I said.”

“You said that you didn’t think it was a good idea w
hen Matilda insisted on living with us,” I reminded her. “I just want to know why.”

Kelsey had gone from uncomfortable to caged animal. I f
elt a little badly for putting her on the spot, but if last night’s Laura outburst was any indication, things were going to get worse before they got better.

“I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “Maybe it’s because
I didn’t know you then. That’s probably what I meant.”

I didn’t think it was. “I think you meant something specific.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It just felt like you were trying to tell me so
mething. Something important.”

“And you haven’t brought it up again until now?”

“It never seemed like the right time,” I ceded. “And I thought maybe I was imagining it.”

“Why have things changed now?”

“You were here last night,” I reminded her. “Things are always changing and shifting in this room.”

“How does Laura freaking out have anything to d
o with something I said months ago? I didn’t know Laura then and, quite frankly, I still don’t know her all that well now. The funny thing is, you don’t seem to know her all that well either. Why did you choose to live with her? You seem to like Paris a lot more. I would have thought you would have decided to live together. Although, that probably would have had you living with Brittany again, and that’s a whole other issue.”

“We were in a fight,” I explained. “Laura had made ou
t with Paris’ ex-boyfriend and Paris was openly trying to turn people against Laura. I just didn’t want to abandon her, like everyone else was doing.”

“You felt bad for her,” Kelsey said sagely. “You didn’t want to leave her alone.”

“No.”

“Have you asked yourself why?”

“No. What do you mean?”

“You know,” Kelsey was picking her words carefully
now. “Before we moved in with you, before I’d even met you, I’d heard of you.”

Here we go. Finally.

“People were talking about you on campus. There were whispers. The first time I heard your name brought up someone said you kicked a guy in the balls outside of the library because he was attacking his girlfriend.”

That seemed like a long time ago now. “Yeah. Fun times.”

“I thought that you sounded pretty cool,” Kelsey said. “I wished I could’ve seen it. Then Matilda mentioned that she had class with you. She was more interested in the fact that you lived across the hall from that Rick guy than anything else. She kept bringing you up, though.”

“Yeah, Matilda was obsessed with Rick.”

“And now she’s obsessed with the sorority,” Kelsey pointed out. “When was the last time she even mentioned Rick? It’s like he’s an afterthought – or never existed at all.”

“So she finds something to obsess about and then fixates on it.”

Kelsey rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly. “Pretty much. What about Laura, though? You know, when I kept hearing stories about you, Laura’s name never came up.”

“We were mostly just acquaintances,” I admitted. “
I knew her but I wasn’t really close with her. What kind of stories did you hear about me, by the way?”

“You mean beside the fact that there was some sort o
f fight at the Alpha Chi house that you were in the middle of?”

“Yeah.” No one wanted to talk about that little incident, especially me.

“I think most people were just jealous that you were seen with Aric Winters so often,” Kelsey explained. “He’s pretty famous on campus himself.”

“I bet.”

“The thing is, it didn’t seem like you were dating. It seemed like he wanted to date you but you were kind of resisting. And that just sent girls everywhere into a tizzy. Who could say no to that?”

No one. At least not for long.

“Then there was that whole thing about that Zach guy probably being a killer and disappearing. And lo and behold, you were in the center of that, too.”

“I guess I’m just lucky,” I offered lamely.

“Or maybe you’re something else?” Kelsey asked pointedly.

I averted my gaze quickly. “What?”

“What’s a mage?”

Crap. I had started this but the conversation had take
n a turn I that didn’t exactly thrill me.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

Kelsey didn’t look convinced. “I know that this campus isn’t normal,” she boldly announced. “I know that there’s something else going on here.”

“You do?” I was hopeful that I might have another a
lly when this was all said and done.

“Yeah, there’s weird stuff happening here all the t
ime,” Kelsey said. “And you’re often in the middle of it. Do you want to explain about that?”

“Not particularly,” I sighed. “Even I don’t understand it most of the time.”

“Most of the time? But not all of the time?”

“Let’s just say it ... I mean I’m ... is a constant work in progress.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” Kelsey’s face fell.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” I admitted.

“You don’t trust me.” Kelsey looked disappointed.

“I do,” I replied hurriedly. God, I really wanted to. “This is just all really complicated.

I think it might be complicated from your end, too.”

“And that’s what you’re worried about?” Kelsey couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Trust me; I don’t think the complications are coming from me.”

“No, Matilda and Laura definitely aren’t helping matters,” I agreed.

“For once, I wasn’t talking about them,” Kelsey replied.

“You weren’t?”

“I was talking about you.”

“Oh.”

“Just know, if you want to talk, I’m here. I’ll be ready when you want to tell me what’s really going on.”

“You seem perfectly happy just waiting around to see
what will happen. I don’t get that.” I didn’t live in a world where I could wait for the answers to come to me – I had to chase them.

“I can’t change it,” Kelsey replied dryly. “There’s
no sense of worrying about it. Things will fall into place when it’s time. I can’t make it happen any faster, so I refuse to sit here and obsess about it.”

I wish I could think that way. I felt as though I kept
moving in the same circles. It was as though something bad was about to happen, and I was powerless to stop it.