Witches (Runes series Book 6) (30 page)

Norns.

I looked around the class to see if they’d replaced regular students. Nope. Same old faces. For the rest of the morning, I felt them hovering in the periphery of my subconscious. It messed with my concentration and sucked all my energy.

You want something from me, show yourselves!
I screamed at them.

By lunchtime, I had a headache. Beau and his friend were on their way out of school, but he stopped when he saw me.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I even flashed him a big smile.

He frowned. “Okay, see you tonight.” He thumped his forehead. “No, tomorrow.”

Lavania was coming back tomorrow. I had more free time today. “Can we change it to tonight?” I asked.

 
“Really? Great. Tonight. Smile. You’re wearing a long face.”

I rolled my eyes. There was really a nice guy behind all that macho crap. I caught up with Cora at the lockers. She was fiddling with her phone, but quickly put it away.

“Please, tell me you’re eating lunch here,” I said.

 
“Why?”

“I don’t feel like going home.” I put my books away, and we headed to the cafeteria arm-in-arm. She asked about Torin, Andris, and Mom’s present assignment. I was sure I’d explained Torin’s new job at Carson before. I answered her, but I couldn’t remember what I said. I just wanted the day to be over.

We turned a corner and Cora’s feet faltered. I knew why. Drew. He and a few football players stood by the cafeteria entrance. I slowed down too. Drew had slept with Maliina during the weeks she’d mimicked Cora, but he didn’t know about it. He believed Cora had slept with him, and then ditched him for Echo, a college guy.

“Ignore him,” I said, my arm tightening around hers.

“I can’t,” Cora wailed. “Part of me feels sorry for him. He must have really been into her, and seeing me just reminds him of what they had. Can’t you erase his memories or something? Make him forget their affair?”

I had Beau’s memories to worry about without adding another person’s. “I’m not ready to do something that grand.”

“I just hate the way he stares at me like I’m lower than a worm.”

“Actually, when you’re not looking, he wears a different kind of look.”

Cora grimaced. “Yeah, like he knows intimate stuff about me. Maybe I should just talk to him and apologize.”

“No. You don’t want to do that. Just stay away from him. Come on. Paste on a smile and no eye contact.” As we walked past I threw out a casual, “Hey, guys.”

“Where’s St. James?” Slade Peterson asked.

“Working. Are you guys going to Ellie and Justin’s party on Saturday?”

There was a collective, “Yeah.”

“Will you guys be there?” Drew asked, but I was sure he meant Cora.

“Torin might be working. I’ll ask him. Promise.” Cora and I continued to the cafeteria, but her relief was obvious. A shiver crawled up my spine.

Norns were nearby.

I searched the cafeteria as we waited in line for lunch—chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Cora was talking about the three girls she’d pissed off earlier. I only half-listened to her as I catalogued faces.

Kicker and Sonya caught my eye and waved from the swim table. Lunch was terrible, or maybe Torin had spoiled me with his cooking. The chicken nuggets were hard, the mashed potatoes lumpy, and the gravy watery.

A telltale prickly feeling in the back of my head told me I was being watched. Once again, I looked around the cafeteria without seeing anyone staring at me.

Where were they? I wanted to connect with my magic, but I couldn’t. My eyes would glow, and I didn’t have an explanation to give my swim friends.

“I’m so ready for the prom,” Kicker said and twirled a lock of her hair, her eyes on Cora. That hair-twirling habit of hers was becoming annoying. “You’re still planning on doing our hair and makeup, right?” she asked, looking at Cora.

“Depends. Will you drive out to the farm?” Cora asked.

Kicker and Sonya glanced at me, but I ignored them. Ingrid had already volunteered to do my hair and makeup for the prom. I tuned out of the conversation at the table, until someone mentioned prom king and queen.

“When are they posting Junior Prom Court?” I asked.

“You shouldn’t even worry about it, Raine,” Kicker said. I wasn’t. “You and Torin are the most popular couple, so you’ll be nominated to the court and maybe even win. The only problem is you,” she pointed at Cora, “will be nominated, too. Everyone reads your blog, so you’re a shoo-in. The question is who will we,” she pointed at Sonya and herself, “vote for?”

“Cora,” I said and buried my nugget under a pile of mashed lumps. “I don’t want to be nominated.”

“Too bad,” Cora said. “You might even be a princess in the senior court because of Torin.”

The conversation shifted to books and their movies, and I went back to trying to communicate with the Norns. They were beginning to piss me off.
 
First, they’d refused to take care of the forest, letting me deal with it. Now they were taunting me with their presence.

When we left the cafeteria, I expected them to appear like they had a few days ago. They didn’t. But then again, they never did when I was with other people. I felt their presence as though they were inside my head probing for information. To thwart them, I gave them naked jocks, full frontal, all the way to class and in-between.

Yeah, get a load of that, you celibate hags.

I was on my way to the band room for my last class when I saw Matt Langer, the boy genius I’d spoken with at the library last week. He was talking to Mr. Finch. But that wasn’t what shot anger through me. It was the presence of the Norns hovering above them.

What were they doing? Surely, they weren’t messing with my charges.

I jabbed a finger at them and at the nearest room, but it was occupied. The students stared at me when I opened the door since it wasn’t my class. Frustrated, I backtracked and hurried to the band room, entered the little office the band teachers used, and closed the door. The few students in the band room glanced my way and went back to assembling their bassoons and oboes. I had my oboe with me, which I placed on the table.

Seconds later, they floated in, but stayed invisible and in their true wrinkly forms. They must have decided to stop mimicking regular people because I could always see past their disguises. The fact was I preferred their average teenage girl forms because I could be rude and annoying without feeling puny and insignificant. They were intimidating in their true forms.

I engaged my invisibility runes. “What do you want? I’ve already taken care of the forest.”

“That was something any witch with elemental magic could have done,” Marj said. “We have your first training assignment. It is a test of your other powers, so don’t disappoint us.”

“Training assignment? I’m not one of you.”

“Oh but you are, my dear,” Catie said in her annoyingly sweet voice. “How many destinies have you altered since we made contact? Let’s start with your swim team members.”

“Samantha Mathews,” Jeannette said and continued to list every swimmer who didn’t die the evening lightning hit the pool at the swim meet months ago. “Autumn Byron, Abby Rose Penworth, Trevors Knox, Josiah Evans, Shon Baker, Gabriela Molina, Ryan Jacobsen, Piper Stone, Cord Kincaid, Liv Thomas, and Daniella Greene.”

I stared at her in shock. “What are you saying?”

“We’re saying you’ve been doing the work you were born to do for months now,” Jeanette continued. “Your friend Cora would not be Immortal if it weren’t for you. That boy in the hallway, Langer, would have committed suicide before he hit his thirties but now has a bright future ahead of him. Then there’s Beau.” She looked at the others and they smiled, wrinkles creasing their gray faces. “The gifted young man you’re fighting so hard to help. You won’t just alter his destiny, you’ll alter his stepfather’s and mother’s.”

A hollow feeling settled in my stomach. “Are you saying I haven’t altered his yet?”

“He’s a work in progress, Lorraine,” Marj said. “Anything could still go wrong.”

I swallowed, feeling a little sick at the veiled threat. “Leave him alone.”

“Of course, we will,” Catie chimed in, her sweetness so fake I hoped she choked on it. “We don’t interfere in the lives of Mortals under a different Norn’s care, even if she is a Norn-in-training. However, if he were in a witch’s care, we would be free to do as we wish.”

They had to be kidding. “Are you saying I can only help others as a Norn or not at all? Students here tutor each other. People around the world go out of their way to help others.”

“Yes they do, dear,” Catie said. “But they don’t change destinies. They all follow a path we’ve set for them, the heroes and the victims. You, on the other hand, alter paths already woven. You have done that over and over again.”

“So if I decide I’m not one of you…”

“You can’t deny what you are,” Catie said, smiling. “We saw it the night of the battle when your powers emerged. Not because you were one with nature, but because the Immortals who were supposed to die that night, including the Earl of Worthington, survived. By immobilizing them with vines, you changed their destinies. And because they couldn’t fight, the Witches they were meant to kill that night survived too, their destinies changed. That night we knew you were one of us, and that when you were ready, you would come to us.”

How the heck was I supposed to know different rules applied to me? Had I played straight into their hands by helping people? “So I’m supposed to do nothing when I see people suffer?”

They looked at each other. “You want to explain?” Marj asked Catie.

Catie shook her head. “No, go ahead.”

“There’s a reason we keep away from Mortals,” Marj explained. “A reason we don’t live or interact with them. Everything we do, think, or say alters destinies. A smile, a handshake, a pat on the back, a spell to change hair color, or an instruction to a boy to chase his dreams. It doesn’t last an hour or a day; the effect is sweeping and life-changing. Your abilities came too early, not after your eighteenth birthday like other future Norns. We tried to steer you, but you’re a stubborn young woman. Like Catie said, when you’re ready you’ll come to us.”

“I’m never—”

“Let’s finish here before they break down the door,” Jeannette interrupted me, and I realized that someone was trying to open the door. The jiggling said they were trying different keys. One of them must have stopped the door from opening.

“We want you to erase everyone’s memories here at school,” Marj said. “No one should remember the Valkyries or Grimnirs, except the Immortals. Memories that include your association with them should also be erased. Memories of you and Eirik should also be altered. You didn’t attend any schools here. You were both homeschooled. Your neighbors will remember you as the girl raised by eccentric parents. You’ll create new memories for everyone, including your neighbors.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not doing it.”

“Yes, you will, Lorraine,” Catie said, her voice once again sweet and cajoling. “Tap into your powers now and project your wishes. Recreate new memories and replace those that need to be replaced. The Valkyries are done here.”

Helping people and healing the forest were things a witch would do. Erasing memories was Norn territory. I refused to get into bed with them.

“I won’t,” I shot back.

“Yes, you will,” Catie said. “You are one of us. If you don’t then all your work and all the good you’ve done will have been for nothing.”

“You said you don’t interfere with works by other Norns,” I shot back.

“But a Norn who rejects her calling is not a Norn, is she?” Marj asked. “Think about what’s going to happen to all the people you’ve helped.”

“Or those you could save if you stopped that airplane next weekend from crashing.”

One by one, they disappeared. The person on the other side of the door finally succeeded in opening it and it swung open.

I engaged my invisibility runes and went into hyper-speed, grabbed my oboe and slid past Mr. Zakowsky, who was looking around the room and scowling. Still invisible, I went to the back of the class, opened my oboe case and attached the pieces. By the time he stepped out of his office, I was on my way to my seat.

“Sorry, I’m late,” I called out.

“Were you in my office?” Mr. Zakowsky asked.

I shook my head. “I just arrived. My reed broke so I went to get a spare one from my locker.”

Mr. Zakowsky glared at Grayce Shephard, and I knew she’d seen me go into the office and told him. A confused expression settled on her face. I guess I should care that I’d gotten her in trouble, but I couldn’t. I had Norn problems. I refused to believe the things they’d said. I’m not supposed to interact with people now?

What were they going to do if I didn’t do as they asked? Go after everyone whose destiny I had changed?

The bleak reality of my existence hit me. I played without hearing a sound. I had two choices. Either I embraced my calling as a Norn and did as they’d instructed, or ignored them and people died.

I must have put on quite a performance because Mr. Zakowsky didn’t single me out once. He had an ear and could always tell when someone was out of tune. I left the band room just as Beau left his class.