From Bad to Cursed (19 page)

In the sudden darkness, I ran smack into someone.

Mrs. Wiley. “Alexis,” she said, her voice sharp. “Have you seen Megan?”

I think I would rather have run into an angry grizzly bear.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have time to talk!”

Mrs. Wiley watched in shock as we took off.

I held my camera with one hand and held on to Kase with the other. All I knew was that we had to get out of there. We had to go.

We were almost to the exit.
Almost free.

“Alexis?”

Tashi sidestepped into my path. I stopped inches short of colliding with her.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” I gasped. “I’m not feeling well.”

I was so used to Tashi’s serene smile—I’d never seen her look harsh before. Her eyes flashed, and her lips came together in a pout.

“You need to collect yourself,” she said, “and get back in there. You’re going to embarrass Carter and the whole Sunshine Club.”

“Carter embarrassed
himself
!” I said. “I didn’t ask him to get up in front of the whole school and say…say he…” I couldn’t even say the words. It was too terrible. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.

Tashi stepped closer. Involuntarily, Kasey stepped back. “You mean to tell me,” Tashi said, “that
nothing
you said or did inspired his little confession?”

My head ached. I mean—yes. Of
course
things I said and did inspired it. But that didn’t make it my fault! Carter and I had gone five months without saying “I love you.” It was supposed to be precious, private. Now it was ruined.

“How much worse will it be for
Carter
if you don’t go back?” Tashi asked.

I pictured him—standing out there on the stage, mic in hand. Having to walk down the steps. Face everybody. Alone.

A scream of feedback came through the sound system.

My heart cringed for him.

“You have no right to do this, Alexis,” Tashi said quietly. “You can’t run away. This isn’t all about you. You need to get in there and be the girl Aralt wants you to be.”

Kasey, still panting, gave me a look that begged me to leave.

Be the girl Aralt wants you to be.

I literally didn’t have a choice.

“I have to go back,” I said to my sister.
For Aralt.
“For Carter.”

Kasey stared down at the ground.

Tashi focused on my sister for the first time. “You should be there too,” she said. “Your sister needs you. We all need you.”

But Tashi’s serious face didn’t scare Kasey. She just cocked her head to the side and said, “Alexis can stay if she wants. But I’m going home.”

I expected some offended reply from Tashi—something about our duty to the sisterhood, or the bond we shared, or whatever. But Tashi just stared at Kasey like she was trying to memorize her face.

Then she turned and started walking back toward the football field.

“I’m leaving, Lexi,” Kasey said. “I feel sick.”

“Come on, Kasey,” I said. “Please. Stay. You can handle it. You’re strong. You can—”

“You’re wrong, I’m not,” she said. “Not strong enough to stand here and watch you do this.”

“But you have a duty to Aralt,” I said. “At least think about
that
.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she said, breathless. “I don’t have a duty to anyone.”

Then she started to cry—big fat tears of crystal-clear salt water.

And before she said another word, I knew.

“I never took the oath,” she said.

I felt myself rock backward, away from her.

“There. Now you know. I’m a terrible sister.” She looked toward the field, her eyes almost wild. “I got you into this, and I can’t get you out.”

She reached up and pulled the ponytail holder out of her hair.

“The worst part is,” she said, “you don’t even
want
out anymore.”

There were no words. Literally not a single word I could think of to say in reply. So I took a step backward, toward Carter and Tashi and the Sunshine Club.

“I have to go,” I said, walking away.

My escape had felt like fast-motion, but now everything slowed to half-speed. Carter was just coming off the field as I emerged from behind the bleachers, and a lane cleared between us. He held out his arms to me, and I went straight into them. The sounds blended together into one loud hum, and my eyes swam with spots from the stadium lights. Carter smushed his lips against my forehead.

“Hey,” he said. “Where’d you run off to?”

I swallowed hard and stared into his eyes.

Show me Carter, I thought. Show me one glimpse of my Carter. Then I can do this. Then I can get through it.

His eyes were blue and wide, and they sparkled in the night, reflecting back everything around us. But there was no Carter.

I started to take a step back.

“Alexis?” he asked, a hint of hurt in his voice. He was still waiting for my explanation.

I had a wardrobe malfunction.

Behind Carter, Tashi stood with her arms folded in front of her, waiting.

I put my hand behind his head and pulled his ear down to my mouth.

And I whispered that I’d had a wardrobe malfunction.

But I was sorry I’d run away.

I wouldn’t be running anymore.

I closed my eyes against his chest, inhaling his smell—laundry detergent and sweat. I loved his smell. He didn’t act like Carter. He didn’t talk like Carter, and his eyes weren’t Carter’s eyes. But he still smelled like himself. Somewhere under it all, he still
was
Carter…right?

I could be happy. I really could.

If I was just willing to lie to myself about everything that mattered…

I could be happy.

Carter dropped me off at home after we made appearances at three postgame parties in three hours. When I got inside, I was so tired that I practically swayed on my feet.

But halfway down the hall to my room, I was stopped by my mother’s silhouette in the near blackness.

“Alexis?” she asked. Her voice was strained. “Do you have a second?”

“Sure,” I said, turning on my bedroom light and sitting on my bed. For a second I was afraid that she’d noticed something was up with Carter. Had somebody called her? A nosy teacher? A meddlesome parent?

“It’s about Kasey,” Mom said, sitting in my desk chair. She took a deep breath. “She was using my computer earlier, and she left, and I—I guess I’ll admit it, I was snooping. I checked the Internet history.”

The breath went out of my lungs. “What did you find?”

“Oh, Alexis.” Mom closed her eyes and shook her head. “Weird stuff. Spells, charms, books about dead people…Something called a
creature
? A
creatura
? I don’t know. Everything she was supposed to be staying away from.”

“Wow,” I said.

Deep inside me, something perked up.

Something dark.

“I don’t know what to do. I have that phone number, but I’m afraid to get her in trouble without at least talking it over. But then I think about last year—talking wouldn’t have helped then.”

This was it. The perfect chance to get Kasey—and her traitorous hidden agenda—out of the way.

“You spend time with her. Did you know about any of this?”

No, Mom. Wow, it sounds dangerous. I hope she’s not planning anything violent.

I stared at my mother. The voice in my head tried again, louder this time.

No, Mom. Wow, it sounds dangerous—

I closed my eyes, inwardly focusing every bit of strength I had left inside me.

“Um…you know what?” I said. “She mentioned it to me, actually—it’s a project she’s doing for school. She’s taking European history, and I think they’re on the medieval unit. You know, Merlin, Camelot…”

Mom sat back while a fresh pulse of pain worked its way up my arms.

“She hasn’t been acting weird at all,” I said, and the words physically hurt to say, like I had a mouthful of tiny shards of glass. “Trust me. I’m on the lookout.”

It was like Mom had been holding a breath inside herself for three hours. She sighed—a big, quivering openmouthed sigh that could just as easily have ended in a sob. “Oh, thank God.”

“I’ll let you know if anything changes, though,” I said.

“Thank you so much, Alexis,” Mom whispered. She got up, took my face in her hands, and kissed me on the cheek.

As soon as she was gone, the headache began, way back at the base of my skull. It grew stronger and stronger until I couldn’t think about anything but the throbbing pain in my head, like a baby dragon trying to break out of its egg.

I didn’t brush my teeth or wash my face or change out of my dress. I just pulled the pillow over my eyes and braced myself for a very long night.

But a minute later, my door opened.

“Lexi?”

I wasn’t asleep. I didn’t even pretend to be. I flipped over and looked at Kasey. Being distracted soothed the aching in my head, so I sat up and turned on my light.

She didn’t come into my room. She leaned against the doorjamb, examining me from a distance, like I was an animal in a zoo.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You lied to Mom,” she said.

“So?”

“Why? You could have turned me in. Then I’d be out of your way.”

But part of me didn’t want to turn Kasey in. She was still my sister.

Because everyone deserves a second chance,
said the voice.
And it’s not too late for you. If you just take the oath, you won’t be a liar anymore. And I’d be so proud of you.

If I said all the right things, there was a really good chance I could use a combination of guilt, threats, and charm to coax her into taking the oath, joining us for real.

But for some reason, I didn’t want to do
that
, either.

I just wanted to go to sleep.

Not that I was any less furious with Kasey.

“I felt like it, okay?” I said. “Now leave me alone before I change my mind.”

F
ARRIN AGREED TO MEET
me at eleven. When I pulled into the parking lot, she was waiting for me outside the main door, reading a magazine in a very Sunshine Club– like manner. The difference was that this magazine cover was a picture
she’d
taken.

She stopped in front of suite six and unlocked it. “What did you bring to work on today?”

“Actually,” I said, “I was hoping we could talk.”

“Is everything all right?”

I followed her to her office but didn’t answer.

She sat down and gave me a concerned smile.

“How much do you know about Aralt?” I asked.

“Ah,” she said. She was silent for such a long time that I was afraid I’d offended her. Then she turned to me. “How much do
you
know?”

I shook my head. “Not enough.”

She pursed her lips and stared at me. “Things are happening that you don’t understand.”

“To put it mildly.”

“Have you ever heard the term ‘a charmed life’?”

“Of course.”

“And you know what it means.”

“That things go well for you,” I said. “It’s like being lucky.”

“The phrase is tossed around these days, but once upon a time, it actually meant something. To lead a charmed life was to lead a life that was…touched. By a supernatural force. A spell, or an incantation—”

“Or an oath.”

“Precisely. Now, when you have this force acting inside you, it’s a form of energy. And the laws of the universe state that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It’s only transferred.”

“And how does that happen?”

“All of the wonderful changes in your life,” she said. “How you look and feel. How your mind works. The energy is burned off through all of those things. You sublimate it into your regular life—it becomes your edge.”

“But not every change is wonderful,” I said, thinking of the odd, blank look in Carter’s eyes, my moment of feeling like I could kill my sister.

“Aralt cares for us, Alexis. He wants the best for us. It’s all he wants. So if you are experiencing problems, you have to question your own precepts.”

I wasn’t quite sure what a precept was, but I got the distinct feeling I was being told it was all in my head. “But what does he get out of it?”

“When you’re at your best, he’s at his best,” Farrin said. “It’s as simple as that.”

She considered it simple? That a supernatural being was feeding off of us?

“Have you cried lately?” I asked.

“I have nothing to cry about.” She folded her hands and looked directly into my eyes. “And neither do you.”

I slumped lower in my chair.

“I care about you, too, Alexis,” she said. “I don’t like to see you struggling needlessly. You could make this very easy for yourself.”

Just swallow the blue pill, right?

Farrin was staring right at me. “This could be the best thing that ever happened to you,” she said softly.

“But I—” I stopped mid-sentence.

Suddenly I couldn’t remember what I was going to say.

All I could think was,
This could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

“This is a lot to process, Alexis. Why don’t we look at your photos? I don’t believe that you didn’t bring anything,” she said.

“Well, I did, but…”

“Let’s get some work done,” she said gently. “You shot color, didn’t you? I’m excited to see the pictures. You can think about the rest of it later.”

I can think about the rest of it later.
She had a point. I could think at home. I couldn’t process color negatives at home.

The office phone rang. “Excuse me, please,” she said, grabbing the portable handset from her desk. “Hello?…Oh, yes, I’ll be home by five…No, don’t. I’ll order in.”

Her tone was silky, hypnotic. I drifted to the bookshelves and looked at the picture of Aralt’s girls again. This time, my eyes had leisure to wander across each of the faces, ending up on the angelic face of a pretty, tanned girl. Behind her headband, her hair was a thick mane of curls.

She could have been sixteen or twenty-five—it was so hard to tell in old pictures.

But I knew the face.

It was Tashi.

“Are you ready?” Farrin asked, hanging up the phone.

“Actually,” I said, “I…”

She came over to me and, in a gesture that felt almost maternal, tucked my hair behind my ear. “Of course you’re ready, Alexis.”

I felt myself smiling. “Yes,” I said. Of course I was ready.