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Authors: Joy Preble

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Historical, #Europe, #Love & Romance, #Fantasy & Magic

Haunted (8 page)

BOOK: Haunted
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Thursday, 6:45
pm

Anne

My mother’s Volvo is in our driveway as I park the Jetta, and Ethan pulls up into a space on the street. We walk up to the house together. This is not good.

“Maybe I should just run in. I’ll change, make up some story about a cloudburst. I don’t know.” I wring another few drops of pond water out of my skirt. This is
so
not good. “I mean, you’re soaked too. What are you going to do? Sit around my kitchen in your boxers while your jeans dry?”

“No.” Ethan flushes slightly as he answers, and I feel some heat rise in my own face in response.

“Well, I didn’t mean that—”

“Anne.” My mother has walked out of the back door and is standing on our driveway, hands on her hips. She’s wearing black jeans, a white shirt, a snug-fitting denim jacket, and her black Nordstrom’s ankle boots.

My heart freezes in my chest. That’s actually what it feels like. It’s the same outfit—the one that the rusalka had on when she walked into the pond and made me feel that she was going in to drown.

“So,” my mother says. “What in the world were you thinking today? You had better have a very good reason for why you left in the middle of your shift. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was for me to get that message from Amelia? I get you this job, and this is how thank me? By—um, and why exactly is your skirt plastered to you like that?”

This is what gets the fear to subside and gets my brain to decide that it’s actually Mom and not some supernatural something or other—her bitching at me. No crazy Russian rusalka would do that. I don’t think.

“I was—we were—walking by the pond. You know, the one near Aqua Creek?” I hurry into my explanation, hoping she won’t notice that I’m skipping the first question. If it was any other job, I probably wouldn’t have to explain. She wouldn’t even know I’d cut out. But it’s her store and her boss, and I get that she’s pissed. Even if she has no right to be, since she was supposed to be working too. “I guess the grass was wet,” I go on, “and when I went to feed some bread crumbs to the ducks—well, I slipped and fell in and then—”

“I pulled her out before she did any real damage to the mallard population.” Ethan finishes my sentence. I stare at him. Just a few seconds ago, he was actually blushing at the image of sitting in my kitchen in his underwear. Now he’s smooth-talking my mother like a pro.

My mother looks over at him, startled. I guess she’s been so busy griping at me that she hasn’t noticed that I’m not alone. She narrows her eyes. I can see the wheels turning in her mom brain. My mother might be depressed and on the verge of an eating disorder, but she is still my mother.

“You’re Ethan, right?” she says after the few beats of contemplation. “The boy whose father works for one of the oil companies?”

“You remember.” Ethan smiles and holds out his hand. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Mrs. Michaelson. Sorry I’m a bit soggy.”

Mom shakes his hand. I shake my head. I’d forgotten that even though the world sees him as eighteen—or now nineteen, I guess, although I don’t even know his birthday—he’s been around a lot longer than that, at least when it comes to talking to parents. Who, of course, are a little closer to his real age.

“Ethan’s been in Europe, Mom. But he’s back now. He’s going to be majoring in Slavic Studies at NU.”

“Lovely,” my mother says. This is her standard response when she’s either not sure what to say or she’s busy thinking about something else—which is probably more likely right now.

“And I’m sorry about work. I don’t know—I just didn’t want to be there. I know it puts you in a bad position, but I—”

“Wasn’t there a—? Yes, there was. Amelia told me about it. I hadn’t heard last fall; I think that’s when I was in the hospital. But the other day, she mentioned something she’d heard from a friend of hers who lived in Moscow, I think. Or maybe it was Budapest.”

“Mom. Get to the point. Please,” I add since I’m already on pretty thin ice here.

“The Slavic Studies program at Northwestern. There was a terrible tragedy there, Amelia said. One of their best professors—his name starts with O: Olen or Olenowitz or something like that. No. Olensky. That’s it. Professor Olensky. She says he was murdered last fall, right on campus in his office. Can you believe that? I don’t know why it wasn’t shown on the news more. Or maybe we just missed it. Things were so crazy then. But Amelia says that’s what happened. It was a great loss for the program.” She turns to Ethan, whose face has drained of color. “Had you heard of him?”

Ethan’s silence lasts a number of long seconds. “I was acquainted with him, yes,” he says finally. It’s one of those moments that happens with him every once in a while—when the way he forms a sentence reminds me that he isn’t really an American college student. Usually, it makes me smile when I hear him do that. It’s sort of sweet, somehow. But right now, I’m not smiling.

But if there’s one thing my mother is familiar with, it’s grief. So it actually doesn’t surprise me when she chooses not to push the conversation further. She just pats Ethan on the arm and says, “You must have been very shocked when you heard. It’s hard to lose someone, especially when it’s unexpected. I’m sorry, Ethan. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. That was thoughtless of me.”

Ethan swallows. “It wasn’t thoughtless at all. You had no idea that I would have known him. He was a great man, actually. A really wonderful professor. I’d heard him speak in Europe last summer. That’s how I got to know him. Um, well, the fellowship that I have—it’s named after him. I’ll be a teaching assistant under one of the adjunct professors.”

“Well.” My mother smiles at him. “You must be a wonderful student if you’re already accepted into an advanced program like that. Your parents must be very proud of you.”

I stand there praying that eventually Mom will run out of awkward things to say and give Ethan something he can respond to without mentioning,
Professor Olensky? Sure, I was there when he died. And you know who killed him? Your great-great-grandfather, who happens to be the illegitimate son of Tsar Nicholas Romanov. And my parents? Well, even if they hadn’t been murdered by the Cossacks, they’d pretty much be dead now anyway since I’m over one hundred years old.
Or something along those lines.

Luckily, none of this occurs. Unluckily, it’s because Ben chooses this moment to pull into my driveway in his Saturn two-seater convertible and honk the horn.

“Hey,” he says. He unfolds himself from the driver’s seat and hops out, looking tall, blond, and cute in dark-wash jeans, a gray polo shirt, and flip-flops and—compared to the rest of us—acting pretty darn calm, considering that a mermaid almost killed him earlier in the day. “I tried to call you, but your cell kept flipping to voicemail. Then I called your work, but Mrs. Benson said you’d left early, so I figured I’d find you here. And here you are.” He grins at me, then—because he’s one of the things in my world that my parents actually do know about, and he feels at home around them—strides over, pulls me into a hug, and kisses me. He even flicks his tongue against my lips a little for good measure. Next to us, Ethan clears his throat.

A few seconds after that, my father, home from his law office and with no place to park in our driveway, pulls up behind Ethan’s Mercedes and walks over to join us.

“What a day,” he says.

“Well.” My mother places her hand on my shoulder and pulls me back from Ben. “Now that your father is home, you can finish that little story you were telling me. I’m sure Dad will be fascinated.”

Oh, yeah. I’m sure he will.

Thursday, 10:12
pm

Anne

I was going to wait until Saturday night, but I’m glad I didn’t.” Ben pats the silver, linked bracelet he’s just clasped around my wrist. A small silver disc engraved
B&A
dangles from one of the links. “It looks nice on you.”

He smiles his sweet Ben smile and waits for me to say something—probably something other than,
I really, really like you, but I think maybe I’ve been going out with you for all the wrong reasons, and now this bracelet is making things worse.

We’re in Ben’s room, sitting on his bed, the bracelet box between us. There’s a card too, which he signed,
Love, Ben
. He’d even drawn a little heart.

“It’s beautiful, Ben. Really. Thank you.” Just to make my mixed messages even more mixed, I lean in and kiss him, which feels safe and familiar but doesn’t erase my thoughts of a certain, blue-eyed, annoying Russian.

Interestingly, Ethan seems to be in Ben’s head too.

“So tell me again.” Ben kisses me some more: tiny kisses down my neck that make me tingle straight to my toes. Ben is a great kisser. “How do you know Ethan? And why were you and Tess with him at the pond behind Aqua Creek?”

“Told you that. We went back to the pool. Tess left her cooler, and we went back to get it.”

“But you were supposed to be at work.”

“I know, but Tess was still so freaked about what had happened to you, and I was distracted, and I just didn’t want to sit there tagging jewelry all afternoon. So I wasn’t exactly honest with Mrs. Benson. She’ll get over it.”
I’m not being honest with you either. And I have no idea if you’ll get over it if you ever find out.

“And Ethan?” Ben kisses my neck some more, but I can tell this is really bothering him, because normally, Ben is not a talker when we’re making out. He’s quite focused that way—especially at times like now, when we’re alone in the house. Ben’s parents—with whom he hasn’t shared the pool incident because he thinks it isn’t a big deal—went to a play in the city, and when they do that, they usually stay the night at their studio apartment off Lake Shore Drive, rather than driving all the way back out to the suburbs.

Tess thinks that this makes Ben the perfect boyfriend. He’s not only cute and athletic, but he’s rich and the youngest of four kids—the only one still living at home until he goes to college in the fall—and his parents pretty much leave him to do his own thing most of the time.

But right now, an interrupting parental unit would be just fine with me. As long as it wasn’t one of
mine
, that is.

My conversation with my own parents hadn’t gone any more smoothly than this back-and-forth dodging the truth with Ben. But how smooth can things go when you just can’t tell the truth? Or rather, when you could tell the truth, except then your family would think you’re crazy?

And maybe I am. Because what else other than crazy explains my attraction to Ethan? Ben is sweet and wonderful and perfect. He likes funny movies, and he’s smart enough to have gotten accepted into the business school at U of I, and when I let him, he rattles on about things like Keynesian economics and why the recession is probably going to last a little longer. He’s taken me out for Lou Malnati’s pizza and to a Cubs game, and next week—if I make it to next week—we’re going to the improv show downtown at Second City. He’s the first boy I’ve ever seriously thought about having sex with—although right now, I’m glad we haven’t actually done the deed because that would only make things worse.

Ethan, on the other hand, pops in when there’s danger brewing. He brings craziness and mermaid attacks and witches and a princess I just couldn’t help. He’s absurdly good-looking, and when I saw the sadness on his face at my mother’s mention of Professor Olensky, my heart ached for him. What I feel for him is impossible to categorize, even though I keep trying. Mostly, it’s like he’s part of me—that whatever he is and whatever I am are just somehow more whole when we’re together.

You don’t have a relationship with him,
I’ve told myself over and over these past months.
You’re like his work partner or something.
But that’s not how it feels. I’ve been lying my ass off about so many things lately. Maybe it’s time to stop lying to myself about how I feel—which, it seems, is not in love with Ben.

“Ethan’s Ethan. God, Ben. Don’t worry about it so much. You had a bad enough day. Let it be.”

Ben dips his hands under my tank top and runs them along my sides, edges me down on the navy and tan comforter. “You smell good,” he says. “Your hair smells like candy or something.”

His hands are familiar, and the weight of him feels good against me, but I sit up because being honest about at least one thing feels better.

Ben looks at me carefully. “Carter says he remembers this Ethan guy. From last year. I told him he had to be wrong. But he says he saw you and Tess with him at Northwestern. But that’s not what you told me.”

My heart skips a beat. Northwestern. Shit. Carter goes to Northwestern. Why hadn’t I remembered that? This is going from bad to worse. It’s bad enough that I ended up in a shouting match with my parents.
Why don’t you ask Mom why she wasn’t at work either?
Because you don’t want to know about that, do you? So don’t tell me what to do! I’m seventeen! If I want to screw up my job, it’s really none of your business!
I’d screamed at my father before I’d stomped upstairs, changed into jeans and a black tank top, and walked out to Ben’s car without looking back. Ethan, of course, had already driven off, after telling me quietly but firmly yet again that he really needed to talk to me later.

“He says it didn’t occur to him at first,” Ben continues, “but then something just clicked. He remembers because it was one of those days we kept having all those weird thunderstorms. The weather was really freaky for a couple of days, remember? And he says he saw you and Tess with the guy on campus. And that he might not have thought about it again except that he recognized you ’cause he used to hang with your brother. Says he would have said hello except he almost got hit by some huge bolt of lightning or something just as he saw you and Ethan running across Sheridan Road.”

My skin feels hot and cold at the same time. Carter remembered me. Of course Carter would remember me because Carter knew David. How could I be so stupid to forget that my brother had this circle of friends? Carter might not remember Baba Yaga flying at us in her mortar that day or a witch’s disembodied hands flopping onto Sheridan Road—like everyone else, he seems to have blocked that part out—but he remembers me and Tess being there. And he remembers Ethan. Is there any way out of this conversation?

I know I should feel guilty about lying to Ben. I do feel guilty. So I try for some semblance of honesty.

“Well, yeah.” I pause, fumbling for the right words. “I guess he’s right. We were hanging out that day. We’d gone to the campus to visit a professor friend of Ethan’s.”

It’s the wrong thing for me to say. In my mind, I see Professor Olensky’s body lying dead on the floor of his office. And I guess because of that, anger mixes with my guilt. I’m angry with Ben for poking at this so much. But more than that, I’m angry with myself.

“I told you I knew him,” I say. “I told you it’s no big deal. I’m entitled to have things you don’t know about, Ben.”

This is totally unfair, and I know it. None of this is Ben’s fault. He’s perfectly right to think that something strange is going on. But if I can’t tell him the truth, I don’t know what else to do. It’s not like there’s some rule book for how to behave when the guy you’re dating has no idea that you have magic powers, an all-access pass to a witch’s forest in my dreams, and an undeniable crush on a guy who just finished a century of immortality. Not to mention a stalker mermaid pal.

“Yeah.” Ben’s tone shifts to something a little sharper. “You’re entitled. That seems to be your story a lot lately.” He rolls away from me, sits on the side of the bed, and places his hands on his thighs. I can see the muscles in his biceps tighten. I brace myself for him to say something else, but he stays silent.

“Ben. It’s nothing. Really.” I move to sit next to him, my leg against his. I reach up and touch the side of his face. The silver bracelet slides down my arm and the little
B&A
charm winks up at me.

I know I’m confusing things more, but I kiss him again because part of me really wants to love him—the same part, I guess, that wants Ethan out of my head because having him in my head makes me feel out of control. My body relaxes a little when Ben stays quiet and kisses me back.

Against me, his lips still pressed to mine, Ben shivers. This is how I realize that the temperature in the room is dropping. I open my eyes.

The rusalka is hovering in the doorway, her wild hair flicking tiny drops of water onto the hardwood floor. Tears well in her gray eyes. She shakes her head at me and smiles. “Oh, my sweet, sweet girl. So sad. Don’t be. He is just a man. He will get over it. Men forget so easily. Not like us. Not like me. Have you figured it out yet? I have tried to show you as best I can. But it is hard. This body does not always do what I want it to. It has desires of its own. You understand that too, don’t you? So sweet, my Anne. My dearest Anne.”

My body floods with fear. The stupid, stupid magic rises into my fingertips. Ben yelps in pain as I yank my hand away from his cheek. On the smooth tan skin just at his right cheekbone, I see three angry red welts the size and shape of my three fingertips.

“What the hell?” He touches his hand to his face. But this is all he reacts to. He hasn’t heard her speak like I have, and though he saw her at the pool—I now realize she must have wanted him to—when he whips around to look where I’m still staring, he clearly doesn’t see anything but his door.

“Go to her,” the rusalka says. “The Death Crone. Baba Yaga. Give in to it. She has your answers. Let her help you fix what is damaged. Let me have what I deserve. I cannot do it on my own.”

“Leave me alone,” I tell her.

And then, in a blink, she’s gone.

“What do you mean,
Leave you
—did you just burn my face?” Ben pushes off the bed and walks to the mirror over his dresser. I follow him. We stand reflected, his faced burned, mine horrified. For a second, I see the rusalka reflected between us, black hair dripping, gray eyes huge like storm clouds. Ben pivots and looks behind us. “What the—?” he begins, but once again, there’s nothing to see.

I reach out to touch his face again. If I’ve hurt him, maybe I can reverse it. It’s something I’ve been trying, something I haven’t learned to control yet. Not that I can control anything right now. But Ben pushes my hand away. The fear rises inside me again, and only one thing echoes in my head.
Leave now.

“Shit, Ben. I’m sorry. I don’t know—I’m sorry. Oh, God, Ben. I just can’t—I need to go. It’s better if I just go—better for you. I can’t stay here.”

I don’t stop to let him respond. I just scoop my purse off the floor and run. Out of Ben’s room, through his house, out the front door, and onto the street. My only thought is to run.

Two blocks from Ben’s house, I finally stop to catch my breath.
Should I go back? Will the rusalka go after him if I’m not there? Or is it just me she wants?
I’m totally clueless.

I dig into my purse for my cell phone—my dead, waterlogged cell phone that I need to replace.
Wonderful. Just damn wonderful.
I should go back to Ben—Ben Logan, who loves me and didn’t ask to be a part of the weirdness that is my world.
I’ll come up with something.
That’s what I’ve become an expert at, isn’t it? Lying to everyone. Covering up the stuff they just wouldn’t understand or that I just can’t explain.

I’m about to slam the phone onto the sidewalk—smash it to bits, like I’ve probably just done to my relationship with Ben. I hear Baba Yaga’s voice in my head.
Steady, dear
, Baba Yaga says to me.
You are stronger than you think. But you must embrace your gifts, or they will destroy you.
And as though she’s placed it in my mind, I see myself on the train with Ethan and Viktor, the other time I’d trashed my cell phone.

“Okay,” I say aloud. “Okay. I get it. You don’t have to drop a house on me.” If Baba Yaga is listening in and gets the joke, she doesn’t let me know.

I wrap my hand as tightly as possible around my poor little phone. The AT&T people obviously didn’t have me in mind when they built this thing. And most people who know magic like mine probably use it for something other than burning their boyfriends and recharging their phones. Maybe once I figure it out, I’ll write a user’s manual to leave for the next girl who gets chosen for all this craziness. But right now, I just close my eyes and concentrate. The phone warms encouragingly in my hand.

A minute or two later, the result isn’t much: a couple of bars and a half-charged battery. The head shot of Ben that I’d been using as wallpaper looks dim and foggy. This makes my stomach knot up even more than it already is.
I’ll walk back anyway
, I think.
It’s really what I should do.

But it isn’t Ben I call as my heart thuds faster than I’d like. I press in the numbers that I’ve memorized, even though I keep telling myself I should forget them.

“Anne?” Ethan’s voice sounds tired and alert all at once.

I swallow. No fear. That’s what Baba Yaga keeps telling me. “I need a ride. I hurt Ben. He’s okay. But I need a ride. Please, Ethan. Can you come get me?”

“On my way. Where are you?”

I tell him, grateful beyond words that he hasn’t hesitated in offering to come to my rescue.

***

I’m studying the prices on the specials sign at the 7-Eleven on Lake Street when he pulls up fifteen minutes later and gets out of the Mercedes. It’s given me something to do other than obsessing over Ben or watching the various stoners choose their late-night junk food stash.

“So what do you think? Two ninety-nine a pound for Land O’Lakes American cheese? Or how about a blueberry muffin and a large coffee?”

BOOK: Haunted
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