Chapter 58: Casual Disregard
By the time school ended, I was so frazzled I could barely remember my locker combination. Pain's intuition along with the obvious tampering she underwent made me jumpier by the minute. Not to mention the absolutely casual disregard the entire student body had for what was clearly a huge event. It wasn't very often what the family could do scared me. Creep me out, give me the willies, turn my stomach yes. But flat out scare me?
All of a sudden, I felt heart-poundingly, cold sweat inducingly terrified.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I arrived home and found Mom's pristine blue and white '66 Mustang coupe parked in its usual place in the driveway. At least I wouldn't have to wait around for hours while she did her coven crap to talk to her. I could never convince the woman to carry a cell phone. Mind you, I could at any time reach out to her with my mind, but it seemed like such a waste of magic, not to mention risky in the barfing department. Plus, it felt like such a mundane use for something I still held in a fair amount of awe.
I practically burst into the empty kitchen. A brief moment and I took the stairs two at a time. It was only seconds to her bedroom door.
"Come in, Syd," she said before I could knock. I went in, wondering if she already knew I was freaked out. Had I been leaking all day? Probably. I knew bits and pieces of my magic probably dribbled into the earth and the air, the two elements I couldn't avoid.
Mom sat at her mirror, brushing her long, black hair. Funny how a simple act can trigger such a massive surge of emotion as I felt at that moment. All of a sudden I was just a little girl again, watching my mother brush her hair. I guess I was so freaked by what was happening I was lost, so lost it took Mom turning around to face me, hand and brush dropping, for me to remember what I wanted to talk to her about.
"Hi," I said, wondering where my fear had gone and equally, if she used magic on me. For once, I didn't mind.
Nope, no power. Just my mom.
"What's wrong, honey?" She set down her brush, rising elegantly to her feet, her full black skirt swirling around her. I smelled her subtle perfume in the air as she moved toward me.
How come I wanted to cry?
I pulled myself mostly together, pretty sure I still looked a little wild around the eyes. "No one remembers," I blurted out, as if that would explain everything.
Cool thing about my mother? For her, it did.
She smiled a little, her hand reaching out to stroke my hair back from my cheek. "There wasn't much for them to remember, Syd," she assured me. "We simply gave them a happy ending. Or," her smile slipped a little and I know she thought of Suzanne, "at least mostly happy."
"Pain." I wasn't even sure what to tell her or how. "Pain suspects something."
"No one will listen to her," Miriam said. "It's okay."
I shook my head. "No, Mom, seriously. She's really on to us. She has-"
I didn't get to finish my thought. I saw and felt at the same moment her attention captured by magic and watched her detach and have a silent conversation. I shifted impatiently from sneaker to sneaker, waiting, as it seemed I was always waiting, for her to finish with the coven before she made it to me.
No bitterness and resentment there, huh?
She started for the door, still deep in her talk with whomever she was linked. I didn't even bother trying to stop her as she left. She wouldn't have heard me anyway.
Mental note to self. Get to the freaking point already or don't even bother.
I went to my room, feeling at least a little better, but wishing I had been able to warn Mom about Pain's suppressed power. And struck myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand. Ethpeal! I forgot all about my grandmother's crazy warning the night before in the face of the possibility we would have to pack up and run yet again.
I dumped my backpack, until then completely forgotten, and considered homework. Nope, no time. Not if I was going to make it to Johnny's for my birthday dinner.
I really didn't want to go. My mind was just too busy. But, I didn't want to let my friends down. And besides, I knew when I made it there I would have a good time if I could just get past my bad attitude.
So, I did my best to put aside my worries and spent the next half hour trying to decide what to wear. I finally settled on designer jeans, platform sandals and two t-shirts, both tight, layered over each other. I briefly considered jewelry but made a face at myself in the mirror. I wasn't exactly the bangle type. For some reason, my hair and giant earrings didn't like each other much and I didn't feel like an all-out battle every time someone hugged me.
Oh, the hugging. I winced again as I thought of it, almost poking myself in the eye with my mascara wand in the process. Not that I had anything against hugging, mind you. Problem was, I grew up in a very huggy society where coven members invaded each other's personal space all the time, both physically and magically. The very process of it now gave me the creepies. Not to mention the fact the physical act of hugging a normal left them wide open to a witch. With no barriers to protect them, normals were unable to hide anything, even if the witch wasn't interested in what they thought. Talk about no privacy.
I recapped my mascara tube and agreed to myself to keep the hugging to a bare minimum. No need to get all sappy. That agreed upon, I swished on a thin coat of pink lipgloss and I was ready to face my birthday dinner.
Mom was gone by the time I went downstairs. Wonders of all, she left a note. I pulled it free from the fridge door and read it.
Honey, your sister is at the Patrick's and I have your grandmother with me. Have a wonderful dinner with your friends and please don't worry. I'll see you home at eight pm sharp. Love, Mom.
I restuck the note by the bit of tape. So, no chance to talk to her until later. Fine. It would have to do. A glance at the kitchen clock gave me 4:45 and only fifteen minutes to get to the diner.
I just made it to the sidewalk when a black truck pulled up. Brad's handsome face appeared from behind the tinted glass as the driver's side window hummed down.
"Did you think I'd let the birthday girl walk?"
Despite my mixed and misguided feelings for the yummy football captain, I caved yet again. I happily settled beside him, buckling up as he pulled away.
"Missed you at school today," he said, replacing his sunglasses and turning down the booming of the radio. "I wanted to wish you happy birthday."
"Thanks," I said and blushed. Damn it.
I'm sure he noticed, but he was way too nice to say.
***
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR SYD!" The last of the traditional birthday song blared through Johnny's as my friends howled it in horrendous, ear-bleeding volume, with absolutely no regard to key or pitch. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!"
I tried really hard not to be embarrassed and won. Actually, I was mostly flattered. My demon purred happily at all the attention, so maybe that had something to do with it.
"Speech!" Alison raised her glass of diet cola.
"Speech!" The rest of the ungrateful, traitorous wretches echoed her. Seriously.
No way, uh-uh. Not going to happen. And yet, they all stared at me with those happy, expectant smiles, their glasses hovering in the air as if they would stay there forever until I actually said something. I couldn't bear the silence.
"Thanks," I muttered, raising my glass a little. "For my birthday dinner. And the lovely singing, you fools." They all laughed. "Seriously, thanks."
We all clinked glasses like a bunch of idiots, but I was grinning by the last clunk of plastic on plastic. I had great friends.
On cue, the huge pizza arrived and we fell suddenly silent. Funny how steaming pepperoni and melting cheese can make the silence happy.
I polished off my first piece in about two seconds and happily munched my second when a small pack of cheerleaders entered the diner. I watched them go to the counter to huddle there like lost sheep in a storm.
Alison met my eyes when I looked away.
"Suzanne's not doing very well," she said.
Simon wiped at a cheese string on his chin. "I heard she's still really messed up."
Beth nodded. "My mom's a nurse at the hospital," she said. "She's not supposed to talk about it, but I overheard her telling my dad Suzanne's not getting any better. In fact, they think she's getting worse and they don't know why."
The party lost all fun for me. Despite my dislike of Suzanne and her cheer squad bullies, no one deserved to be tortured by whatever that thing had been.
"I tried to go visit," Brad said, "but she was sedated. I guess they are keeping her asleep a lot."
"I'm telling you," Pain daintily picked a piece of pepperoni from her pizza and set it aside for later, "a good exorcism would do that girl a world of good."
Alison rolled her eyes at me, but Pain was dead to rights. It sucked I couldn't stand up for her and say so.
I excused myself as they continued to talk about it, wanting a few minutes to gather my thoughts. I closed the door of the bathroom behind me and stared at myself in the mirror. Surely Mom and the others tried to free Suzanne already. Maybe she was damaged beyond hope. Or maybe that thing still had a hold of her and the coven was unable to free her without finding it. The thought of Suzanne being trapped made me cringe. I had been under the influence of evil myself before, only the edges of it, but still. I could imagine what she was going through and promised myself and my reflection in the mirror I would find a way to help her even if the coven couldn't.
My demon snarled her approval.
Feeling a little better with sort of a plan figured out, I turned to leave the bathroom. Just as I reached for the door, it swung inward.
I stepped back as two local women entered. I received a vague smile from one and a total ignore from the other. I reached for the handle again when I overheard what they were talking about.
"I tell you, it's just not like him," the first woman, mid-fifties, a little frumpy but with nice brown hair, said to her friend as she entered a stall and closed the door.
The other woman, also mid-fifties but looking like she fought it with every breath, checked her lipstick in the mirror, bleach-blonde hair perfectly stiff around her too-thin face.
"I hear the sheriff's looking into it," the blonde said. "Actually calling it a missing persons."
"Honestly?" The first woman's voice was a gasp from behind the stall door. I heard her flush, frozen there with my fingers on the metal handle, knowing what I overheard was important and hoping, hoping it had no connection to what rose from the field two nights before but positive it did.
"Well," the second said, "I'm telling you, Donald never missed his morning walk or coffee at the store, not with Phil there to talk an ear from."
"When was the last time Bea saw him?" The first lady emerged from the stall and I tried hard not to move, to be invisible. I shouldn't have worried. They totally ignored me as they went on.
"She said they both heard a ruckus Saturday night, and he went out to check the chickens. He worried about coyotes."
That clinched it. Saturday. I started to reach for my mother.
"Excuse us," the first woman looked at me funny as she waited to leave.
"Sorry," I said, stepping back. They both shot me strange glances as they exited, but I ignored them. I reached again, but couldn't find Mom. It was time to go home, obviously. She needed to know about the missing man and the fact the thing we were looking for probably now had the power it needed to fight back.
So much for the party. Happy Birthday, Syd.
***
