Sing Sweet Nightingale (5 page)

I drop the sketchpad to the floor, and it smacks against the wood, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling of the mostly empty living room.

“Well, guess I didn’t buy this piece of shit property for nuthin’, huh?” Horace says, looking around his new house.

Horace’s family has been in real estate, construction, and architecture for a few generations. When I told Horace where I needed to go, he pulled some strings with Greg. Horace took over one of Greg’s deals on a house he was planning to flip, and we moved in less than a week after my first dream about that stupid sign in the middle of a forest.

Nothing I could say would convince Horace to stay the hell out of this mess.

He’s looking around the room, cringing every time he notices a cracked window or a missing door handle, or the warped floorboards in the corner. His house in New Jersey was immaculate.

“You didn’t have to come,” I remind Horace. His eyes narrow, and I’m glad he doesn’t have anything in his hands right now or he’d probably smack me upside the head with it. “It’d be safer for you back in New Jersey.”

“Would’ve been safer for you to walk away and call the cops from a payphone four years ago. Don’t mean it was the right thing to do.” He grunts as he pushes himself to his feet.

I try not to remember Horace as he looked that night, all bloody and bruised and half-conscious. It was gruesome then, and time has made the image worse.

“I’d be dead if you’d picked the ‘safe’ choice,” Horace continues. “How d’you think I’d feel if you got yourself in trouble ’cause I was playing it safe?”

“About as good as I’ll feel if you get hurt for following me.”

Horace snorts and shakes his head, but he doesn’t really have a retort for that.

I get up and help him clear away the mess I made. Once I unload the last of the stuff from the U-Haul, I grab the keys to Horace’s Camry.

“I’m going to head down to the school to get everything settled,” I tell him, jingling the keys to let him know which car I’m taking.

“Boy, don’t be stupid,” he grumbles, holding out his hand. “Give me those.”

Confused, I hand over the keys. Before I can say a word, he tosses something at me. Another set of keys. To his silver and black 1969 Camaro SS.

Horace shakes his head. “What eighteen-year-old picks a Camry over a Camaro?”

I open my mouth to argue, but he’s already moving upstairs toward his bedroom. Whatever. If he doesn’t mind me taking it, I don’t mind
driving
it. Not in the slightest.

Scanning the streets, I look for anything I might recognize from my dream. Huge old trees are everywhere, taller than most of the houses, and the houses themselves aren’t that new. There are a few Craftsmans, but none with red trim.

I wish I knew what the hell that dream meant. Am I supposed to be looking for those girls or avoiding them? Does the burning blonde need help, or is the orange fire supposed to warn me to stay away? And her friend who pushes me into the blaze—she could either be someone manipulating things the same way Calease used to, or she could be someone actually trying to help.

Guess it won’t matter much until I figure out who these girls are. I haven’t been getting anywhere until now.

After the fight with Calease, I’ve faced off with the dreamworld two more times. Neither of the attacks blasted me like Calease did, but I’ve been lucky so far. I finger the tiger-iron pendant under my shirt; my stone-bead bracelets clack together as they shift on my wrist. Gemstones like jet, malachite, spider jasper, and black jade have kept me safe so far, but my protections may not hold through a third attack. I need answers fast.

Catching sight of signs leading me into the school parking lot, I push those thoughts aside and concentrate on here and now.

The elementary, middle, and high schools all border a park with athletic fields, playgrounds, and open space. The high school is a mostly brick, two-story building that must have been much smaller at one point. Several wings stretch off in different directions, each one a slightly different design.

It doesn’t feel like a school. Not the ones I’m used to. It looks like a mansion or some ritzy private school. I mean, hell, it’s landscaped. This place is peaceful. Normal. Normal is good, though. There isn’t much else in my life that qualifies.

I walk through the hall, heading for the office. The walls are lined with blue lockers and corkboards with bright flyers for different events from last year. At the end of the main hall, a black sign with thick white lettering sticks out from the wall: MAIN OFFICE.

Pushing my sunglasses up to the top of my head, I take a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

When I step inside, I hear someone humming. Underneath that, I can hear music. It’s soft, though, like it’s pumping through the walls from another room or coming out of headphones.

A tall, Formica-topped desk divides the center of the room, and behind it, three workstations take up the rest of the space. The carpet is dull red and threadbare in places, and the walls are covered in wood paneling that’s starting to crack. It was probably nice once. When they redecorated in, like, 1975.

The humming turns into soft singing as someone shuffles papers. Leaning over the main desk, I spot a girl sitting on the floor, papers spread out around her in neatly stacked piles.

The back of my neck starts tingling, an irritating prickle that makes me twitch. It’s a feeling that usually warns me when I’m close to something dangerous. I don’t know why it’s coming up now. She’s sitting there, bobbing her head and sorting. Her brown hair is down and hides her face, but the longer I watch her, the stronger the prickle gets.

“Excuse me.”

She doesn’t look up, just keeps humming.

I try a little louder. “Hello?”

Nothing. Looking around, I pick up a rubber stress ball shaped like an apple and drop it.

The girl jumps and looks up. I’m staring into the blue-gray eyes of the brunette from my dream. My eyes widen, and she jumps again.

“Holy crap!” Yanking her headphones out of her ears, she leaps up, her skin flushing pink. “Wow. You—I didn’t hear you come in.”

She’s real. Exactly the way I saw her in my dream, right down to the silver bracelet. I want to throw a thousand questions at her, but that’d probably freak her out.

“Sorry,” I say. “I tried to get your attention.”

In my head, two words play on repeat. She’s real, she’s real, she’s
real
.

She’s real, but I have no clue what she might know, which side she’s on, or what I’m supposed to do. But I have to start somewhere.

Since I picked them up from Calease, I’ve learned how to control the different ways she had of looking at the world. Mostly. Shifting my vision, I search this girl for energy left over from the dreamworld. This mental filter slides over my vision easily, but it doesn’t change anything. Nothing around her glows. No blue, no orange, and no white. None of the light show I’d expect on someone who’s touched that hellish dreamworld.

They haven’t found her yet; she’s just a teenage girl in jeans and an orange T-shirt who’s staring at me like she can’t decide if she wants to smile or scream for help. I think she’s leaning toward screaming. Every time she looks at my eyes, she jumps. It’s the tiniest catch in her breath, but it’s there.

“What? Oh. Right.” She shifts her weight and looks away, gathering up her iPod and earbuds and dumping them on the desk. “Are you looking for someone?”

“Kind of. I need to enroll.”

Her eyes pop open. “Enroll? Here? How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

She looks me up and down, her eyes narrowed and her nose scrunched like she’s not sure whether to believe me. She starts gathering a bunch of papers anyway.

“What’s your name?” I ask as she warily hands me the enrollment forms.

“Um, K.T.”

“Katie?”

Her nose wrinkles, and she shakes her head. “No, K.T. It’s short for Katalina Therese.”

I can see why she shortened it.
That’s
a mouthful.

“I’m Hudson.” I hold my hand out over the desk, and although she hesitates, she takes it and smiles. She has to tilt her head back to look up at me.

“How tall are you?” She takes her hand back and hands me a clipboard.

“Six-five.”

Her jaw drops a little. “Wow.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much what everyone says.”

“Guess they would.” K.T. blinks and seems to shake herself out of a daze. “Um, can I have your ID so I can make a copy?”

Nodding, I hand her my license and then sit down to fill out the papers. My bracelets clack against the wood as I write. I push them up to get them out of the way, but the noise draws her gaze. As soon as she looks, her eyes pop open wide.

“What happened to your arms?”

Shit. Should’ve put on a long-sleeve shirt before I left the house. I look down, trying to see my skin like she does. Underneath the soft, cerulean-blue glow, there are so many lines it looks like a roadmap. I’m so used to the ruts and puffy scars crisscrossing my arms that I forget about them sometimes. They’re the legacy of the questionable talent that’s kept me alive as often as it’s gotten me in trouble.

The story of my life is written in the wounds on my skin. I just wish other people could read the story, too. It’d save me a lot of explaining.

Glancing at K.T., I shrug. “It’s a long story.”

She nods, biting her lip. I watch her for a second. When she doesn’t say anything else, I go back to the papers.

“Are you wearing contacts or something?” The words burst out, and K.T. slaps her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. Never mind. I just—I’ve never seen eyes that dark.”

Curiosity. Curiosity is good. Most people who notice that my eyes look like onyx marbles cross themselves and leave. Or scream curses at me. And
then
leave. Can’t blame them. I would’ve done the same thing three months ago. It’s why I’ve been wearing sunglasses since we arrived in Swallow’s Grove. I want to delay the screaming and the pitchforks.

But she isn’t screaming or leaving. And she hasn’t asked about my blue glow, so I’m guessing she can’t see it. Or she is
really
good at dealing with the weird. No one else has seen it yet, but I think someone else who’s lived through the demons’ games would.

If she hasn’t ever had firsthand contact with the demons, maybe her connection to the dreamworld is through the burning blonde. This is a small town. If the blonde is anywhere near our age, K.T. probably knows her.

“They’re not contacts,” I tell her when I realize I never answered her question. “It’s another long story.”

“Oh.” She starts playing with that bracelet again. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to tell me. My mom always told me to stop asking so many questions.”

I watch K.T. for a second, surprised when she looks straight into my eyes for more than a blink. She’s the first person other than Horace to manage it.

“I don’t mind telling you,” I say. “I’m not sure you’d believe me if I did, though.”

K.T. stares at me like she’s expecting me to start laughing. I don’t, and her expression shifts, her eyes narrowing and her head tilting to the side. “Um, it’s okay. Really. It’s none of my business.”

She goes back to sorting papers, using the desk this time instead of the floor and leaving her iPod off. Although her eyes flick in my direction every so often, she doesn’t say anything else until I finish the packet and stand up.

“Why aren’t your parents doing this?” she asks as I hand over the stack.

“They’re gone.”

“Oh my gosh.” She bites her lip, her eyes darting away. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, no.” I rub my hand over my face and shake my head. I really need to find a better way to explain this. “They’re not dead. They’re just…not around.”

“Oh.” K.T. blinks quickly, looking like she’s trying to put the pieces together with the little bit I’ve given her. “I’m…um, sorry?”

My relationship with my parents was always rocky at best. The sole part of my family I cared about was J.R. Now that he’s gone…well, it’s hard to be sorry that I haven’t seen the people who kicked me out of their house the night my little brother died.

“Told you. It’s a long story.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” She takes my paperwork, puts it into a folder, and places the folder in the exact center of the desk. “Stop by the first day of classes, and they’ll give you your schedule.”

She bends down, scoops a backpack off the floor, and slips her iPod into her pocket. I guess she’s done for the day.

“Why’d you move to a town like Swallow’s Grove from a city like Trenton?” she asks as we walk through the halls. I wonder how she knows where I’m from for a second, but then I remember she made a copy of my license. She raises one eyebrow when I don’t answer right away. “Or is that another long story?”

“All part of the same long story, actually.” I hold the door to the parking lot open, and she turns with me when I walk toward the Camaro.

“Well, I know you probably have a ton going on getting settled and everything, but here.”

She passes me a Post-it with a phone number written under the name K.T. Dowling. “I’m basically the one-woman high school welcoming committee.” She sighs and shakes her head, but her eyes are crinkled in the corners with hidden laughter. “I don’t know what they’re going to do if new kids show up after I graduate.”

Turning the square of yellow paper in my hand, I bite back the questions I want to ask. How the hell do you bring demons into a conversation without sounding like you escaped an institution? Better to leave it for now.

I pull out my phone, dial her number, and press
call
. Her phone starts buzzing, and she smiles as she hits
end
.

“There might be something going on this weekend,” she says as we approach the edge of the lot, scanning it like she’s looking for someone. “Don’t know what or where, but someone will probably throw something—”

K.T. stops dead in her tracks, her eyes locked on Horace’s car.

“Holy crap,” she mutters, eyes wide. “Is that a ’69 Camaro SS?”

I glance back at her as I unlock the door. “Yeah. You know cars?”

She shakes her head, her lips trembling. “Just this one.”