Fury's Fire (12 page)

“Fire on the water,” Kirk whispered, and Will saw Gretchen shudder.

The shower didn’t last long—not more than twenty seconds—and when it was over, the partygoers burst into applause, as if Jefferson had planned the spectacle for their entertainment. Then the chatter began again, this time at increased volume.

Kirk looked at Gretchen then, his large eyes resting on her with an unreadable expression.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” Will said, before Kirk could answer.

“Wow!” Angus said. “Wow! That was awesome!” He clapped Kirk on the shoulder and said, “Aren’t you sorry you weren’t up in that tree?”

Kirk looked at him, then turned away, letting Angus’s hand drop from his shoulder.

Angus opened his mouth, as if he might call Kirk back, but Gretchen touched his arm. “Don’t,” she said.

Angus looked at her serious face. “Okay,” he said.

“You don’t look so good,” Mafer told her, and Gretchen squeezed her eyes shut.

“I have a headache,” she admitted.

“Let’s get out of here,” Will suggested.

“Okay,” Gretchen said faintly. She let him drag her away, much to his relief.

They climbed into the Gremlin, and Gretchen sat behind the wheel. It was quiet, and the noise from the party provided a low murmuring background to the darkness that surrounded them.

Gretchen put her hands to her face.

“Are you okay?” Will asked, touching her shoulder, and she leaned into him. She was crying, softly, making no sound, just the gentle, shaky intake of breath. “Hey,” Will said. “Hey.” And he wrapped his arms around her.

“Fire on the water,” Gretchen whispered.

“I know.”

“I remember it. The night on the bay.”

Will felt deafened by his own heart. “You do?”

Gretchen shook her head, her eyes closed against his chest. “Just now. I’d forgotten—but now I remember.”

“What else?” His voice was a whisper, faint and strange to his own ears.

“I remember those things.”

“The seekriegers. Sirens.”

“And … Asia was there. Wasn’t she?”

Will couldn’t speak. He nodded.

“And they all died. They died in the fire.”

Will nodded again, still mute.

“But—” She looked up at him with those limpid blue eyes. “Why was Asia there? Was she one of them?”
Her face was a shifting kaleidoscope of confusion, fear, pain.

“No,” Will said.

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“But—why was she there?”

“She was …” Will’s tongue felt heavy. He wasn’t sure what to say. “She was trying to protect you.”

Gretchen watched his face carefully. “But she was
something
.”

“She was a Siren,” Will admitted. “But she wasn’t one of them.”

“She died because of me.”

“It isn’t your fault.” He pulled her to him, trying not to remember the blood-red eyes, the monster Gretchen had become when she lit the surface of the bay with fire.
That wasn’t Gretchen
, he told himself. He pulled her into a kiss, and at the moment their lips met, Will forced himself to think only of the present moment. Not the past, which he couldn’t change, and barely understood. Not the future, which he couldn’t guess at and which he had no control over. Just the floral scent of Gretchen’s hair, the smoothness of her skin, the sweetness of her lips.

Just the now.

Gretchen sat in the kitchen, debating whether or not to heat up her lukewarm coffee, when a light rap at
the front door made her nearly jump out of her chair. She’d had a restless night and had woken with the same ugly feeling of dread she’d felt so often lately, as if there was another presence in the room, someone watching her.

So she’d called Mafer.

“Hey, Gretchen,” Mafer had said when she’d picked up the phone. “What’s up?”

“Listen, can you come over?”

“Just tell me where you live,” Mafer had replied, and that was the entire conversation.

Now Gretchen headed into the front hall, but her father had already pulled open the door. He was laughing at something Mafer had said.

“Gretchen!” Johnny said with a smile. “Your friend is here.”

“Hi.” Mafer gave Gretchen a wink. She wore a long, thin gray scarf looped around her neck, plus her usual off-white jacket. “I’m here and ready for action.”

“Are you two working on a project?” Johnny asked.

Mafer turned to Gretchen with lifted eyebrows.

“Yes,” Gretchen said.

“Okay, well, have fun.” Johnny beamed from one girl to the other like a goofy dad on a 1950s sitcom. It made Gretchen want to laugh, but also touched her heart. Her father worried about her, she knew that. He wished she had more female friends. He was more delighted by Mafer’s presence than Gretchen was.

“Come on upstairs,” Gretchen said.

Mafer followed her down the cramped hallway and
up the stairs. “Hm,” she said when she stepped into Gretchen’s room.

“What is it?” Gretchen asked. She closed the door behind them, cognizant that her father might be below them, listening.

“You’re messy,” Mafer noted, which made Gretchen laugh. “I just wasn’t expecting that. You seem like the tidy type.”

Gretchen looked at her desk, strewn with charcoal and an open sketchpad. There were clothes and books all over the floor. The bottom of her closet was littered with shoes, one on top of the other like rats jumbled in a cage. At least her bed was made—crooked, though, and lumpy. “I can be tidy sometimes,” Gretchen said.

Mafer took off her scarf and jacket and dropped them both onto Gretchen’s bed. She crossed to the window and looked out. “You can see the house next door.”

“Will lives there.”

Mafer didn’t react to this news.
Perhaps she knew it already
, Gretchen mused as her friend walked over to the bookcase. “Oh,” Mafer said suddenly. She rubbed her arms, shivering, and looked over at Gretchen. She peered at the ceiling. “Not good.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“Something?”

Mafer locked eyes with her. “There’s a presence here.”

Gretchen nodded. “That’s why I called.”

Mafer rubbed her arms again and frowned at the corner of the ceiling. Then she walked over to Gretchen’s bed and perched on the end of it. “Are you afraid?”

“Sometimes,” Gretchen admitted. She was still standing near her bureau, unsure whether to sit down. “Should I be?”

“Maybe.” Mafer cocked her head. “So, what do you want?”

Gretchen sighed, and she felt as if all of the air whooshed out of her at once. “I don’t know. I want it to go away, I guess.”

“We could ask it to leave.”

“Will that work?”

Mafer shrugged. “I don’t know. What else should we do?” Her dark eyes watched Gretchen, serious, unafraid. Gretchen realized that she had been hoping that Mafer would have an answer—that she would be psychic enough to know what to do.

“There isn’t some way to get rid of it?” Gretchen’s voice was almost pleading.

Mafer giggled, then clamped her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. It’s just—I’m not a witch, or something. I just get feelings. I know things. That’s all. I don’t have, like, mysterious powers. If there’s something here, I can’t just order it around. I don’t even know if I can talk to it.”

“Could you try?”

She glanced up at the ceiling. “Yeah, okay. Do you have a candle?”

Gretchen went down the hall to the bathroom and
brought back the scented candle she’d bought the year before and a box of matches.

“Ooh, gingerbread.” Mafer sniffed the candle, and Gretchen couldn’t help wishing that her friend would be more serious, or mysterious, or magical, or something. She wished that they had a beeswax candle, or maybe a scent like sage.

But Mafer didn’t protest that she couldn’t talk to a spirit with a gingerbread candle. She just sat down on the floor and lit the wick without any fanfare.

Gretchen settled across from Mafer as the wick caught. Mafer blew out the match, and the smell of sulfur filled the air. Mafer watched the smoke rise from the charred splinter and then looked at Gretchen. “Did you see that?” she asked.

“The smoke?”

“The face,” Mafer replied.

“No,” Gretchen admitted.

Mafer shrugged. Then she shut her eyes. It was late morning, and light streamed in through the window. It didn’t seem like the proper setting for a séance.
Is that what we’re having?
Gretchen wondered.
A séance?
The word raised images of slumber parties and eight-year-olds.
I’m such an idiot. What am I doing?

“We sense your presence,” Mafer said aloud. “Is there something you would like to tell us?”

Gretchen waited, but she didn’t know what for: for the windows to blow out, for books to fly off the shelves, for the walls to bleed? But none of that happened. Nothing happened at all. Mafer just sat still.

Then, suddenly, the candle flared. Gretchen’s heart leaped into her throat, and she had to strangle a scream.

“Please leave this place.” Mafer’s voice was firm.

It was then that Gretchen realized that her friend wasn’t simply sitting there, motionless. She was listening. Mafer could hear something. Or she thought she could.

Gretchen’s whole body was tensed, like an animal that fears it may have to dart away at any moment. After what seemed like an age, Mafer opened her eyes. She blew out the candle and ran her hands through her long dark hair.

“Did you—did you hear anything?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes.”

“Is it gone?”

“No.”

“No?” Gretchen wasn’t prepared for this answer. Tears burned behind her eyes; her throat swelled.

“Gretchen.” Mafer reached out and took her hand and pressed it reassuringly. “It wants to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Gretchen’s voice was almost a shriek. “That thing is scaring the crap out of me!” She thought about the golden-eyed waterspout, the attacking dog. “It tried to kill me!”

Mafer shook her head. “Not this presence.”

“How do you know?”

She looked down at the floor. “I just know.”

“Who is it?”

Mafer pressed her lips together, then looked Gretchen full in the face. “The spirit doesn’t communicate in that way. Like I said, I get feelings. I know things. That’s all. It’s someone who cares for you and wants to protect you—that’s all I’m sure about.”

Gretchen studied her friend’s face. Mafer looked pale and tired, as if communicating with the dead had sapped her. Mafer held her gaze a moment longer, then looked away. There was something about the way that Mafer had held her eyes that felt forced, and once the gaze was broken, Gretchen was besieged by doubt. How did she know whether Mafer was telling the whole truth?

Mafer stood up and walked over to the window. “Whose room is that?” she asked, gesturing toward the house across the creek. “Across from yours?”

“Will’s. Tim’s was on the third floor.”

Mafer nodded. “You and Will are close. You’ve been close a long time.”

Gretchen felt herself blush, and Mafer cocked her head but didn’t ask why. Perhaps it was obvious.

“You trust him,” Mafer said, but Gretchen sensed that the statement was more of a question.

“Of course.”

Mafer nodded and returned her steady, thoughtful gaze to the window, and again Gretchen had to wonder at the inner workings of her friend’s mind. It seemed unfair that Mafer knew things that other people didn’t. How did she decide what to share and what to hide?