Goddess of the Night (7 page)

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been dormant
all these years. She grabbed his hand.

"Can we
leave by going down the hill?" Her voice was steady.

"Yeah, but
we'll get in trouble. Illegal access to the Bowl."

"It's
better than ..." She didn't finish the sentence. She started
walking, pulling him behind her. What he saw as trouble, she saw as
salvation. If someone saw them creeping down the terrain and thought
they were trying to sneak into the Bowl, the person might alert the
security guards, who would rush to meet them. They would no longer be
alone.

"Vanessa,"
Michael whispered. "It's probably a coyote. They're all over the
hills. Or a skunk. Some wild animal must have smelled our food, but
it won't attack us."

Then why are
you whispering? she wanted to say. From the jagged tone of his voice
she knew he didn't believe his own words. Whatever ran stealthily in
the dry brush was not a wild animal.

Something
blundered down the hill, no longer trying to hide its approach.

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She jumped in
front of Michael to protect him from whatever was ready to crash
through the bushes. At the same time Michael bent down to pull her
behind him. Their heads collided in a clap of pain. They fell and
tumbled down the side of the canyon, scraping knees and palms.

A dried scrub
oak stopped their fall.

"You
okay?" Michael said and helped her stand. His hands traced her
face and arms as if he didn't trust her to tell him the truth.

Her hands stung
and her head pounded. She felt a trickle of blood on the inside of
her mouth.

"I'm
okay," she panted. "You?"

"Just
scrapes."

"We better
go." She reached for his hand again. He pulled back.

"If we
keep trying to protect each other, we'll kill ourselves."

"We're not
far enough away yet." Vanessa didn't let him pull his hand away
this time. She grabbed it and held tightly.

Something
tramped down the side of the canyon above them.

"I'll
follow you, then." He let her lead.

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She stepped
onto hard baked earth and slid on loose gravel. He grabbed her arm
and pulled her to him, his body hard against hers. She wanted to kiss
him, to feel his hands on her back. But another sound made her wrench
free. How had it caught up to them so quickly? She whipped around and
stood between Michael and the foliage.

"Come on,"
he chuckled. "If it's a skunk, you'll be sorry."

The closer they
came to the cement bleachers, the more comfort she felt. But no
security guards ran to meet them.

She and Michael
sat in empty seats near the back. She was sweating, her mind too
stormy to let the music wrap around her. She kept turning and staring
into the fierce shadows on the hillside behind them, but she no
longer sensed danger, not with seventeen thousand people in the
audience.

But the evening
was over, the magic gone. She wanted to leave.

She turned to
say so to Michael. He seemed upset. She felt suddenly embarrassed
that she had

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made him come
down to the bleachers the way she had. How could she ever explain why
she had needed to flee?

"Great,"
he said sarcastically. "Stanton's coming over here."

"Who?"
Even as she asked she saw a boy dressed in black walking toward them,
his hands in his pockets. His shaggy blond bangs hung in his face. He
kept flicking his head as if he was trying to whip the hair out of
his eyes.

"What a
lowlife," Michael muttered.

"Is he
from our school?"

"No, he
hangs out with a pack of losers in Hollywood."

Stanton was
good-looking, but there was something strange and foreboding about
him. His eyes were so blue they seemed luminescent. How could she see
the blue so clearly in the dark? Her body thrummed, alert and
watchful, as if something portentous was about to happen.

"Hey,
Michael." Stanton stared at Vanessa as if awaiting an
introduction. He sat down next to her. His body pressed against hers.

"I'm
Stanton," he said. His gaze lingered over

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her body as if
she had invited him to look and take all the time in the world. His
blue eyes made her wish she had worn jeans and a turtleneck.

She snapped her
fingers in front of his eyes. "My face is here." She spoke
with deliberate venom in her voice. Another time she might have let
it pass, but her emotions felt raw after the trek down the side of
the canyon.

Stanton looked
in her eyes and smiled with one side of his mouth. He seemed to enjoy
her reaction.

Michael stood.
"Come on, Vanessa, we have to leave before the crowd." Was
he jealous?

"I was
just saying hi." Stanton grinned as if Michael's jealousy fed
some need inside him.

Michael walked
quickly, his face a scowl. Once they were away from the concert, they
hiked to his van in the hills.

Michael helped
her into the van, then went around and climbed into the driver's
seat. He looked at her curiously. Under the streetlight his face
tottered between looking angry and seeming frightened.

"Did you
feel it, too?" she asked.

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"You mean
when we were being chased?"

"No, I'm
talking about Stanton," she said. "Something's weird about
him."

"You
noticed it? The way he gets all happy if he makes other people
uncomfortable or angry or--" He stopped. Was he going to say
jealous?

"Yes."
She looked directly at him.

He started the
engine. They drove back to her house in silence. Michael parked with
a slam of the brakes, then got out, opened her door and walked her up
to the porch.

"I better
get going." His eyes were dark and intense. Then he ran back to
his van.

Where's my
good-night kiss? she wanted to scream. She unlocked the front door as
his van pulled away from the curb. She didn't turn to wave good
night, because she was too afraid he wouldn't be waving back.

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Chapter 9

THE HOUSE WAS
DARK inside and still smelled of her mother's late-night coffee.
Vanessa climbed the stairs. A spill of light from her mother's
bedroom covered the hall runner. She stopped at the door. Her mother
had fallen asleep reading, an empty coffee mug on the nightstand
beside her. She walked to the bed. The fragrance of her mother's hand
lotion and face creams filled the air. She wanted to curl against her
mother as she had when she was a little girl.

"Mom,"
she said softly. Her mother did not stir. She pressed her cheek
against her mother's and let it rest there a long while.

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Finally, she
took the book, set it on the nightstand, switched off the light, and
went down the hallway to the bathroom. She turned the spigots. Hot
water rumbled into the tub. Then she caught her reflection in the
mirror. Dirt streaked her face, but it was something more that made
her stop and stare. Her eyes looked wide, haunted, different. The
pupils dilated, the lashes longer, darker. What was happening to her?

She bathed
quickly, put on PJ's from the hook on the bathroom door, and hurried
back to her bedroom. She started to turn on the light, but caution
made her stop. She crept to the window and closed the shutters
against the night, then switched on the small lamp on her desk. She
looked at her computer and scanned her room to see if anything looked
disturbed.

The door to her
bedroom stood open. The dark hallway loomed before her. She took
three quick steps across the room, shut the door, and locked it. When
was the last time she had done that? Even knowing her mother was down
the hallway did not comfort her now. Finally, she called Catty.

A sleepy voice
answered the phone.

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"Can you
spend the night?"

"Now?
What's going on?" Catty mumbled, her voice still sluggish with
sleep. "What time is it?"

"I don't
know. Midnight maybe. Can you come?"

"Yeah, I
guess," she said. "How am I going to explain it to my
mother?"

"Your
mother never needs an explanation." Vanessa looked behind her.
Why did she feel so edgy?

"I don't
know," Catty hesitated.

"Take a
cab. I'll pay."

Vanessa waited
at the front window, impatiently watching cars drive past her house.
Finally headlights turned down the street, and an orange- yellow taxi
pulled up to the curb. Catty climbed from the cab. She held a tackle
box in one hand and an artist's pad under her arm. Her messenger bag
dangled from her shoulder. She wore bunny slippers and a tan trench
coat over her pajamas.

Vanessa ran
outside and gave the driver fifteen dollars. He waited until they
were inside before he drove off.

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Vanessa locked,
then bolted, the front door. When they were in her room, she spoke.
"Do I look different?"

Catty's mouth
fell open. "What did you do with Michael? Tell me all about it.
Every detail."

Vanessa flopped
on her bed. "Nothing happened with Michael, other than I acted
like a fool. Someone followed me again tonight. I don't look
different to you?"

"You look
tired is all. Someone followed you with Michael there?"

Vanessa sat up
and cuddled a pillow against her. "I acted like some freaky
Amazon woman."

"He saw
your true self? So what? I bet he liked it."

"I don't
even know why I did it. I felt like I had to protect him. He's
probably never going to speak to me again."

"Then you
don't want him. Did you see who was following you?" Catty set
her bag down, opened the tackle box, and took out several charcoal
pencils. She sat on the floor with her artist's pad as Vanessa
explained everything that happened, from the walk down the canyon
wall to the

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strange look in
Michael's eyes when he didn't give her a good-night kiss.

"We could
go back, you know, and see who was following you."

Vanessa sat
cross-legged on her bed. "That's not why I asked you over. I was
... I didn't want to be alone."

"Maybe
it's date anxiety. You've never been afraid of anything before.
You've only had these strange feelings since Michael started acting
like he liked you. Maybe they're panic attacks."

Vanessa
laughed. "I don't think you can call the way he makes me feel a
panic attack. You think he likes me?"

"Yes."
Catty nodded firmly.

"Did you
bring anything to eat?"

Catty pulled a
glass pan covered with aluminum foil from her bag. Vanessa could
smell the rich chocolate before Catty removed the crinkling aluminum
foil.

"The
dateless made fudge," she said, and handed the pan to Vanessa.

Four pieces
were already missing.

Catty looked at
her. "Maybe you should tell

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your mother. I
mean, it could be some pervert or something. Your mom would know how
to handle it."

"Tell her
I think someone is following me because I can make myself invisible?"

"It's not
like you can't prove it," Catty pointed out. "Sit in the
light so I can sketch you."

Vanessa sat in
the overstuffed chair next to her bed. Catty's pencils scratched
across the paper.

"I think
we should go back while it's only a few hours in the past and see who
was there," Catty declared.

"Yeah, and
end up falling down the canyon. Sorry, your landings make it too
dicey."

Catty didn't
argue this time.

"Maybe I
should visit Serena. She might see something in her tarot cards.
Morgan said she was good."

"You don't
think she can really tell fortunes, do you?" Catty drew
Vanessa's hair in long swirling lines.

"You're
right. The best thing to do is talk to my mom." Vanessa watched
Catty draw her face,

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pouty lips, the
dimples in her cheeks. Catty was too quiet, which meant she had
something more on her mind. Finally she stopped drawing and looked
up.

"Did you
ever think my mother was right?" Catty said finally. "Maybe
we did come from another planet and the spaceship crashed. That would
explain the two memories I have."

"The crash
and the fire."

"Maybe we
survived both, and the moon is like a guidepost that tells us how to
get home, only we don't understand it yet because we're still in a
sort of larvae state."

"Great,
that's all I need. You mean we haven't grown our green antennae yet?"
Vanessa joked. She started to laugh, but then she thought of the
changes she had seen in her eyes when she looked in the mirror an
hour ago.

"Maybe
together our powers can take us home."

"Your
mother's theory only works if I was adopted," Vanessa said. "And
my mother has assured me with gory descriptions of ten ugly hours of
labor and twenty-two stitches that I was not."

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"But what
if--" Catty stopped drawing. "What if something happened to
her real child?"

"Like
aliens ate it!
"

"I'm
serious." Catty frowned. "Maybe there was an alien mother
who gave birth that night, and a nurse got confused."

Vanessa stared
at her. "I look like my mother. You've said so yourself."

"What
about the necklaces? Maybe they're like a homing device." Catty
started smudging the charcoal drawing with her finger, then stopped
and stared at Vanessa. Vanessa knew by the look on Catty's face that
she didn't want to hear what she was going to say next. "It
might explain who's been following you."

"How?"

"Government
agents. The ship might be repaired now. And they're going to send you
back to your own planet but they have to make sure you're the right
person."