Эприлинн Пайк: Spells

Please leave, she thought desperately. Please go before I change my mind. Go.

As if hearing her silent thoughts, Tamani turned without a word and walked silently into the trees, disappearing before her eyes.

Laurel couldn’t look away from the spot where Tamani had been just a second earlier. She knew she needed to. The longer she kept looking the harder things were going to be with David.

She ripped her eyes away. David was already at his car door.

“David!” she called. “David, wait!” He paused but didn’t turn to her. “David, don’t go.”

“Why not?” he asked, his eyes locked on the driver’s seat, refusing to look at her face. “I saw what happened. All that’s left is for me to imagine what I didn’t see.”

“It wasn’t like that,” she said, guilt and shame pounding through her.

“Wasn’t it?” He turned now and faced her, his expression flat. If he had looked sad, or even angry, she could have accepted that. But he looked neutral, like he didn’t care at all.

“No,” she said, but her voice was quiet.

“Then what was it like, Laurel? Because I’ll tell you how things look from my point of view. You lied to me to come out and see him, to be with him !”

“I didn’t lie,” Laurel protested weakly.

“You didn’t say the words, but you lied all the same.” He paused, his jaw clenched, his hands tense on the car door. “I trusted you, Laurel. I have always trusted you. And just because you didn’t actually tell me a lie doesn’t mean you didn’t break my trust.” He looked up at her. “I got off work early because I was worried about you. I was afraid for you. And when your mom told me you were at Chelsea’s I called her and she didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. And you know what my next thought was? That you were dead, Laurel! I thought you were dead!”

Laurel remembered having the same thoughts about David on Monday and looked down at her feet, ashamed.

“And then I realized that there was one place — one person ,” he said scornfully, “who you would sneak off to go see. And I come out here to make sure you’re safe and I find you kissing him!”

“I wasn’t kissing him!” Laurel yelled. “He was kissing me.”

David was silent, his jaw muscles working furiously. “Maybe this time,” he said, his voice steely. “But I saw the way he kissed you, and I promise you, that wasn’t the first time. Go ahead, deny it. I’m listening.”

She looked at the ground, the car, the trees, anywhere but at those accusing eyes.

“I knew it. I knew it!”

He slipped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door, his engine roaring immediately to life. He backed up quickly, just missing Laurel as she stood rooted to the ground, unable to move. He rolled down his window. “I don’t…” He paused, the only sign of weakness he’d shown the entire conversation. “I don’t want to see you for a while. Don’t call. When…if I decide I’m ready, I’ll find you.”

Laurel watched him drive away, finally letting her tears come. For a second she glanced back at the trees, but there was nothing there for her either. She slid into her car and let her forehead fall against the steering wheel, sobbing. How had everything gone so wrong?

Laurel sat on her bed, her guitar on her lap, watching the shadows that danced across her ceiling. She’d been sitting there for two hours as the sun sank and the room darkened, playing random melancholy chords that — no matter how much she tried — were strangely reminiscent of the music she’d heard earlier that day, in Avalon.

This morning her life was good — no, great! Now? She had destroyed everything.

And it was her own fault. She had spent too long straddling the fence. She had let her attraction to Tamani get out of hand. It wasn’t enough to be faithful to David physically, he deserved her emotional fidelity, too.

She thought of the look on Tamani’s face when she told him she didn’t love him; this wasn’t fair to him, either. She had been hurting everyone, and now there were consequences.

The thought of living out the rest of her life — even the rest of the week — without David made everything inside her hurt. She imagined seeing him with another girl. Kissing someone else the way Tamani had kissed her today. She groaned and rolled onto her side, letting her guitar slide onto the bedspread beside her. It would be like the end of the world. She couldn’t let that happen. There had to be a way to make things right.

But two hours of thinking hadn’t given her any ideas. She just had to hope that he would forgive her. Eventually.

She tried to drift off to sleep. Usually it was easy, once the sun went down, but today all she could do was sit and watch the numbers change on her alarm clock as the darkness enveloped her.

8:22

8:23

8:24

Laurel went downstairs. Her parents always did inventory on Saturday nights and wouldn’t be back for another hour at least. She opened the fridge, more out of habit than hunger — no way she could eat at a time like this. She closed the fridge and let herself blame David and Tamani a little. She didn’t want to hurt either of them, she wanted them both to be happy. They were both important in her life. Why did they keep insisting that she choose between them?

A movement in the yard caught her eye, but before she could focus in on it the picture window shattered, sending shards of glass skittering across the floor as Laurel’s scream filled the air and she dropped into a crouch, hands protecting her face. But as soon as she closed her mouth, the room was deathly silent; no shouts, no more rocks, not even footsteps.

Laurel gazed at the shards of glass littering the kitchen floor. Her eyes settled on the large rock that must have come through the window.

A piece of paper was wrapped around it.

Laurel reached out with trembling hands and unwrapped the paper. Her breath caught in her chest as she read the bright red scrawl.

In an instant she was on her feet, running for the front door. As she threw the door open she paused, peering out into her front yard. It looked calm — serene even — under the glow of the streetlights. Laurel studied every shadowed form, looking for tiny shivers of movement.

Everything stood still.

She looked at her car, and back down at the paper in her hand. Tamani was right — she kept trying to do everything on her own. It was time to admit she needed help. She turned and began running, not to her car, but to the tree line behind her house. She paused at the edge of the forest, not sure how far the warding reached. After a moment’s hesitation she started to shout. “Help! Please! I need your help!”

She ran along the tree line to the other side of the yard, shouting her pleas over and over. But she heard nothing except her own words echoing back at her. “Please!” she shouted one more time, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer.

The sentries were gone. She didn’t know where or when, but if a single faerie had been in those woods, she felt certain they would have answered her call. She was alone.

Desperation coursed through her and she pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, forcing herself not to cry. The last thing she could afford to do was fall to pieces. She ran to her car, sliding into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door shut. She stared at her dark, empty house. It had protected her for months; even before she knew about the sentries and the powerful wards. But she couldn’t stay. She had to leave the protection of the wards. She knew it was what the trolls wanted. But she didn’t have a choice; there was too much at risk. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to jam the key into the ignition and start the engine, peeling out backward, her tires spinning on the asphalt as she jerked the car into first gear and kept a wary eye on her rearview mirror.