The Curse of Arkady (28 page)

“There's a certain amount of trust in letting someone your age go off on his own.” McIntire looked briefly at him before turning his attention back to the road.

“I know.” What was he supposed to say? He didn't want to lie.

“I'm not accusing you of anything. I just want you to know I'm paying attention.”

Jason began to nod, then said, “Okay.” He added, “Ting couldn't make it, she had to fly up early this morning, but Henry Squibb was there and we were talking about camp and games and stuff. I'm sorry we ran a little over.”

“I understand.” And he must have, because not another word was said until they arrived home, and Alicia met them at the doorway.

His stepsister was pretty, like her blonde mother, but a lot harder to take. He frowned. “I had a phone call yesterday from Ting?”

“Did you?” Alicia looked thoughtful. “Oh, that's right. You did. I am sorry. I completely forgot. Sort of like you forgot to do the breakfast dishes.”

He scowled. “I would have done them after practice.”

She tossed her head, hair swinging. “By then, I would already have been in trouble. Mother likes a clean kitchen.”

“Still . . . the message was important.”

“Oh, all right! I won't forget again.”

Jason curled his hand about the lavender crystal. It felt slightly warm and soothing in his palm. “Please try not to?” It grew hot in his hand as he talked to Alicia.

She looked at him, her face suddenly going expressionless. She blinked slowly, then said, “Whatever you want, Jason.”

That surprised him. She gave him a pleasant, if blank smile, and wandered off. He let go of his crystal hastily. He hadn't done that, had he?

Upstairs, in his room, he sat down at his desk and took out the lavender gemstone to examine it more carefully. He had been, he decided, distracted by its beauty and by the fact he'd found it where he had. He had to look beyond that . . . into it. Unable to tell Gavan of his true worry over the intrinsic nature of the stone, whether it was good or evil, he realized he had to discover that himself. He rested his elbows on the desk, his chin in his hands, and looked into it. It was much clearer than his first stone and yet more complicated in its way, with more facets and planes.

He didn't know if a crystal could be good or evil, or whether it was like a pitcher that held water to be filled or poured, with no value but function. He only knew that he couldn't afford to be wrong. He cupped the gem in his hands, bringing it closer to his eyes.

Jason stared very, very deep into the pale lavender stone. Something wavered buried in its heart, an image. He held his breath, narrowing his eyes to sharpen his vision and found himself looking into dark eyes the color of rich ale, an unlined face crowned with unruly curls of silver-gray, and a clean-shaven chin that looked as if it had borne the brunt of many nicks getting that way. The image was so clear it looked as if the man might speak to him! He dropped the stone.

Bailey had been trapped in her stone once. Had he found something cursed? Panting, Jason opened his desk drawer and swept the gemstone into it. He'd have to think. He might yet have to reveal his secrets to Gavan and Eleanora and risk their anger.

T
HE trouble with secrets, Ting thought, is that they had to be kept that way. She sat in the atrium garden of her grandmother's house, her schoolbooks spread upon the patio table, sun pleasantly warming the back of her neck, as she read over her homework. Her grandmother napped in a chaise across the table, her voice making cheerful sleep noises as she breathed deeply. She'd had chemo that morning, and the peaceful expression on her face now hid the pain that had been there earlier from the illness. Ting's mother was in the house, quietly making chicken rice noodle soup and other delights to tempt Grandmother's fading appetite. Ting worked quietly to keep from waking her, using the calculator only when she absolutely had to. She was not to disturb her grandmother's much needed rest, but sometimes she wondered how asleep the older woman really was. An abacus lay on the table as well, but only her grandmother knew how to make the counting beads fly as rapidly as her electronic calculator.

Those sharp button eyes had already flown open once to catch Ting focusing on her charm bracelet of crystals. They had not shared more words about what had been brought up, but Ting felt more and more pressure regardless. Should she tell them? They were her family. Would it make it easier for them all, or bring them all under great danger? She'd read Bailey's excited account of what had happened Saturday, and it bothered her a lot. They had all thought that the creatures needed immense mana, or power, and stayed near Gates and storms of wild mana. What if wolfjackals came to San Francisco after her? How could she keep all of them safe, especially with her grandmother fighting cancer?

Ting found her hand on her bracelet, cupping the huge central rose quartz that made up her crystal, as if seeking comfort or answers from it. It did give her comfort, knowing it was there.

Her grandmother's eyelids flew open. Ting looked up to see her watching. Flushed for no real reason, Ting caught up her pencil again and returned to diagramming sentences.

“Secrets,” her grandmother said slowly, “can be very powerful.”

Had she been reading her thoughts? Ting looked back at her. “Grandmother, you know I love and honor you very much.” She hesitated, unsure of what else to say.

“But you cannot tell me.” Her grandmother sat up, straightening her quilted silk jacket about her. “That is the way it should be. Granddaughter, let me say this again. I understand what it is to have magic. As I grew older and saw nothing of it in my children, I became very sad for losing what was in our blood. Seeing it in you fills my heart and heals me as none of this medicine could possibly.” She held her arms out. Ting went and knelt by her chaise lounge and hugged her tightly. Her grandmother was even tinier than she remembered and she held back her strength, afraid she might hurt her.

“Maybe someday I can tell you,” she whispered in her grandmother's ear. “And have you meet the others.”

“That would be both good and wise.” Her grandmother smiled. “In the meantime, if you have a question, without revealing your secret, perhaps I have an answer or two.”

“That would be wonderful. Someday.” Ting pulled back reluctantly. “Now I have sentences to diagram.”

Her grandmother shuddered. “English,” she muttered. “An impossible language! And American is even worse.”

Giggling, Ting settled back into her seat and picked up her pencil.

 

Despite what Gavan had promised, days dragged by without Jason hearing anything. Halloween weekend drew close. Soccer practice got harder, and Jason was afraid his ankle might start hurting, the old sprain acting up. It rained once, making the grasses slick, but the dirt stayed firm below, and he and Sam slid about the field, laughing even as they tried to take shots at the goal net. After practice they hurled insults at each other and let those of Brinkford and Canby roll off their backs as they dressed to go home. They could say anything to each other, but no one else had that right.

“What are you doing for Halloween?” Sam asked as he hoisted his backpack over one shoulder.

“Dunno yet for sure, but I think Joanna has some charity Haunted House we have to run. She's been trying to decide if I'm still too short to dress up as the Grim Reaper.”

That made Sam laugh. “Better than dressing up like some wizard wannabee,” he added, snickering. “They're gonna be all over the place.”

“What's wrong with wanting to be a wizard?”

“Please,” snorted Sam. “I want to live in the real world!” He pulled his sweatshirt jacket out of his locker and kicked it shut. “See you tomorrow!”

Jason watched him go. “Yeah. Right.” He could hear the footsteps of Sam and one or two other stragglers jogging out of the P.E. building, and the clang of the metal door banging shut. He found himself holding his breath. How close he'd come to finding a way of telling Sam what he was! And what would have happened if he had? He'd have broken a vow to the Magickers, and all he would have done would be to set off his friend's scorn. Sam wouldn't have understood at all.

He got up off the wooden bench, gathered the last of his things, and closed his locker slowly. He had almost made a total fool and oath breaker of himself. It saddened him a little. It was like finding out your best friend really wasn't, and he wondered how he could have misjudged Sam that way. Not liking magic? How could he feel that way? Sam was always the one saying, “I wish” or “if only.” Not that Magick worked that way, but there were possibilities Sam could only dream of, and Jason had them at hand.

There wasn't anything he could do about it, and it wasn't like he didn't have Trent, Bailey, Ting, and the others. He guessed it was that he didn't have anyone that stayed close in his life for long. No one that went all the way back to the beginning, and he missed that. He missed belonging.

If you belonged, then you could trust—no matter what. He wasn't sure how he fit into the McIntire household, and if Statler caused enough trouble, Jason wasn't sure he would even have a home. What if they decided to foster him out as some sort of troubled youth? Could they, would they, do such a thing to him? He didn't know and he never wanted to find out. His mom had been lost so long ago he had only bare memories left of her, usually ones he found in dreams. His dad . . . well, he couldn't help what happened to his dad. Car accidents took people every day, no matter how you wished that away. It had just happened, and he'd just been left behind.

Jason shouldered his gear securely before going out the gym door. They'd stayed really late, and he'd lingered, so it was nearly dark, the sky going into the deep gray-purple of dusk. Daylight savings time had gone into effect, and Halloween was just around the corner, and five-thirty in his neighborhood meant nightfall. He ought to hurry.

Outside the big gym building, he could see that the middle school campus looked deserted. The teachers' parking lot had one car left in it, and that probably belonged to one of the janitors. The cold air hit him. As he shivered slightly, he decided a slow jog home would be the best way to keep warm. He angled across the grounds. It was his own fault for thinking too much, and he had science lab and math homework waiting for him after dinner. That meant no television tonight at all, and maybe a half hour at most for the computer. If he hurried, he might be able to stretch that, because he wanted time to play with Trent and Henry, as well as time to talk with Bailey and Ting and anyone else on the network of Magickers.

His sneakers thudded rhythmically over the blacktop as he left the physical education area and neared the social studies wing where his footfalls made odd noises echoing off the breezeway. So odd that, for a moment there, he thought he heard two sets in a running tempo. Past the buildings and crossing the driveway, with only the physical plant building which provided energy for heat, lighting, cooling, pumped water, and had the trash bins lined up against its walls between him and the way home, Jason stopped dead in his tracks.

He could hear the tattoo of something racing after him. Then it stopped.

His heart thudded. Not shoes. Not sneakers. He began walking, then broke back into his steady jog, listening. After the briefest of pauses, that slightly out-of-place echo joined him. He was being followed.

By who? . . . or . . . by what?

He drew close to the physical plant. He could hear the generators and pumps inside humming away, doing whatever it was they did. The building almost radiated a comforting heat. As he swung toward it, a howl sounded sharply just behind his right shoulder. Wolfjackal! And unbearably close.

Jason swung around and grabbed his crystal from his pocket. It almost jumped into his hand as if knowing it were needed, filling his palm with a barely felt warmth. He summoned the alarm beacon. He caught a brief, mind-filling glimpse of the great crystal ball in Gavan's office, turning, scintillating with red-orange rays of alarm, and then it went dark. He blinked, his own sight and thoughts jolting back to the dusk shadowing his school.

No alarm beacon again! Yet he had triggered it . . . he'd seen it! It was as if something or someone had snuffed it almost immediately. He had no more time to consider it as a black-and-silver form came slinking across the open parking lot, growling and heading for him.

Jason backed up. Here, in the open, was no place to use his crystal. Not where he could be seen by anyone who still might be hanging around the school, despite the fact it looked abandoned.

The beast grinned, red tongue lolling from between its great ivory fangs as if it knew Jason were cornered. “Mine,” it growled, shuddering and quaking as if forming a word took great effort and left it in greater pain.

“No way,” Jason said. “Not today.
Not ever.
” He looked about. The janitor's car still sat in the deep purple shadows across the diagonal. He hated to do it . . . but it was the only option he could think of.

Jason turned quickly and ran to the trash bins. He spotted the least full one with a lid half open, took a running leap, and dove headfirst into the metal shape. The lid clanged shut over him not a second before it shook all over as a heavy body collided with it, growling and snarling.

Jason's nose ran and his eyes stung with the stench of the container. Trash pick up was a day or two off, which meant the thing was pretty ripe and awful. Usually when Brinkford and Canby tossed him in, it was the day after trash collection. On a scale of awfulness, it wasn't all that bad, really, except for the humiliation. And today he had jumped in on purpose!