The Geis: Awakening Part 2

I checked my own reflection in the calculator's tiny screen. Not that Lucas would notice.

When Dad's job moved us to Wyoming during the summer, I was an instant celebrity. Most of the girls wanted to be friends. I even had an offer for a date from an over-eager junior from down the street. But once school started, the newness wore off, and I blended into the background. Lucas had never even given me a second look-or a first for that matter.

A clicking sound brought my thoughts back to the equations on the test. I smelled smoke before I noticed that Mr. Netty stood near my table, a lighter in hand.

"Oh." I jumped and dropped the calculator, pulling the test to my chest. I rubbed the warm edge of the paper where Mr. Netty had held a flame to it.

"Ha! Almost." Mr. Netty chuckled, moving away to light some other daydreamer's paper on fire. I breathed out slowly.

The students closest to me laughed. My stomach clenched. Lucas was looking right at me. He raised his eyebrows, his mouth curving up to one side.

Heart beating, I spun back to stare at my test, embarra.s.sed, but pleased to think that he had finally looked my way. Not helpful, I thought, now I really won't remember anything on the test.

The bell rang. I scribbled out the last few answers, missing my chance to follow Lucas out the door.

"McKayla, wait." I stopped when I heard a familiar voice calling through the crowded hall. Christa wove through swarms of people, struggling to carry a bulging backpack that looked too large for her tiny frame. Her hair was pulled back into two messy buns that only she could pull off.

"Hey, how was choir?" We walked side by side down the clearing hallway. I wanted to tell Christa how Lucas had noticed me, but she looked ready to burst.

"Lousy. Derek sat by the sopranos today. Do you think I could even get a chance to catch his eye with all of those flirty Barbie dolls giggling at his every word?"

"Maybe you should switch to soprano." I stopped to put my books in my locker. "Guess what? Lucas looked at me in physics today."

"Did you say something to him?"

"No. Mr. Netty flamed my paper, and Lucas thought it was funny." Now that I thought about it, I decided it probably wasn't a good thing that Lucas noticed me.

"What is it with that man and fire?" Christa dropped her backpack to the floor with a thud. She unzipped it and searched through a stack of library books. "I found something you might like."

Christa placed a book in my hands. A knotted circle marked the dark green cover. I flipped its pages, fanning the air with a musty smell. Drawings of strange creatures, mystical women, and powerful men followed each other through the pages. The t.i.tle page showed the same knotted design wrapped around the t.i.tle: Celtic Heroes and G.o.ds.

"Um, this looks ancient. Why did you get it?"

Christa put her hands on her hips. "Irish dance, duh. There's some stuff in there. I flipped through it during world history today. I figured it counts, right?"

"I hate to tell you this, but mythology and history are not the same." I handed the book back to Christa. "Maybe I'll look at it later."

"Whatever." Christa stuffed the book back into her bag and pulled out her sack lunch. I grabbed my own lunch, and we joined the ma.s.ses flooding through the cafeteria doors, maneuvering our way outside.

The air was warm, and students crowded the picnic tables. Beyond the school grounds, a string of houses wound between patchwork meadows like field mice snuggled in a blanket of gra.s.s.

A few guys were throwing a football around. I searched for Lucas, and saw him running backward to catch a ball. He motioned his friends to back off for a pa.s.s. I took the opportunity to observe him without a calculator.

I sat on the gra.s.s with my back against the building, where I could get a clear view of the playing field. The brick was warm on my back, almost too hot. So much for the weatherman's predictions. Zoey's field trip would be sunny after all.

"Do you think Ms. Slannon will start teaching us new material?" Christa asked, reaching for one of the strawberries I offered her.

"Probably. I'm sick of the recital dances. It will be nice to do something new." I looked at Christa. "Do you ever think about trying a different kind of dance?"

"I think it would be fun to do ballroom," Christa said. "But that will probably have to wait for college. Why?"

"No reason. I just wondered."

"I looked up some stuff about Irish dancing," I told Christa. "There's actually a ton of people who dance it. I checked to see if anyone around here teaches it."

Christa crossed her legs under her and sat on them next to me. "Really? What did you find?"

"The closest school is in Jackson."

"Jackson Hole? That's a ways away. Do you think your mom will drive you out there for lessons?"

"No, I already asked."

"Well, maybe you could carpool with Taminy." Christa made a face.

I couldn't appreciate Christa's joke like I should have. I stared at the corner of the building where the school janitor was cleaning up broken gla.s.s. Everyone knew he was crazy. He never spoke, not even when the senior boys made fun of him. But it wasn't the janitor that caught my eye. A lizard the size of a golden retriever stood on the sidewalk next to him. Wrinkled skin draped the lizard's frame and b.u.mpy k.n.o.bs stuck out in random places along its backbone. A jeweled tag hung from a collar that circled its neck.

Students made a wide path around where the janitor swept the gla.s.s, but they didn't seem bothered by the enormous reptile.

"Christa, look at that lizard!" I flattened my back against the wall so she could see.

"A lizard?" Christa recoiled.

I pointed to the janitor, and gasped. The lizard was gone.

"Are you trying to freak me out?"

I searched the grounds. Could I have imagined it? "I thought I saw this giant lizard."

"There are no lizards here-it's too cold."

I put my uneaten sandwich back in its baggie. Was it possible I was seeing things?

"What is that?" A girl sitting at the table near us was pointing away from the janitor. I whipped my head around, expecting to see the lizard.

Across the gra.s.s and next to the curb was Aunt Avril, exiting her atomic-orange Corvette. She had purposely parked the sleek car with red-rimmed wheels at the curb, outs.h.i.+ning all of the economy cars and pickup trucks in the school parking lot. Aunt Avril leaned against the hood of the car and motioned for me to come over.

I sighed and stood, brus.h.i.+ng gra.s.s off my pants. "I better go see what she wants," I told Christa. "Do you still want to meet at your house before dance?"

"Yep, see you then." Christa gave me two thumbs up.

Most of the school went back to eating, but as I walked to Aunt Avril, Lucas jogged toward me. I thought he'd pa.s.s by me on his way into the cafeteria, but he stopped in front of me. A familiar tickle crept up my neck, and I knew my cheeks flushed red with the splotchy rash that always spread to my face at exactly the wrong moments.

Lucas stood at least a head taller than me, and I had to look up to see his face. This close to him, I could see a small scar on his cheek that disappeared when he smiled.

"McKenna, right?" Lucas said.

I looked at Christa. Her eyes were wide.

How many times had I rehea.r.s.ed what I would say if I got the opportunity to talk to him? Now that Lucas was standing right in front of me, my mouth was dry and my tongue refused to speak. "Yes, no-I mean, it's McKayla." I focused.

"You danced in the school a.s.sembly at the beginning of the year, right?"

My heart sank. Of all the things for Lucas to know me by, the disastrous a.s.sembly was the last thing I would have picked. At the opening a.s.sembly I had performed a ballet solo, and it hadn't turned out as well as I'd hoped. Halfway through the number, I forgot the dance and attempted to ch.o.r.eograph my own steps on the fly. It wasn't pretty.

"Oh, yes, that was me." I smiled widely, trying to cover my embarra.s.sment.

"So, who is that?" Lucas asked. He leaned toward me to get a better look at Aunt Avril's car. The muscles in his arm flexed as he squeezed the football in his hand.

"That's my aunt."

"Sweet." He stared at the Corvette. "What's she here for?"

"I have no idea. Aunt Avril's not exactly predictable. She'll probably want to go drag Main Street."

Lucas laughed, and my stomach flipped. He faced me dead on, searching my face like this was the first time he'd ever seen me. "Wish I could ditch English. I'd trade my truck for that sweet ride any day. Tell your aunt I will babysit her car anytime."

I couldn't think of an answer, so I smiled. Excitement at Lucas's attention bubbled up inside of me until I thought I would burst.

Some of the guys complained that Lucas was holding up their game. He tossed the football in the air and caught it. "See you around."

"McKayla, dear, did you already eat?" Aunt Avril eyed my sack lunch. I shook my head and she shooed me into the car. "I'm taking you out for lunch."

"Don't you need to check me out first?"

"I think the boy you were talking to already did that." Aunt Avril squinted at me, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "Who was that?"

"Just a guy named Lucas." I tried to act casual, but I couldn't stop the smile that snuck onto my face.

"Theron won't mind if I say that 'just a guy named Lucas' is one fine specimen."

I looked at Aunt Avril in surprise. She winked.

The dashboard and leather seats of her car matched the orange paint on the exterior. A navigation screen filled the instrument panel. I rubbed my hand along the armrest, surprised at the softness of the material.

"Where in the world did you get this car?"

Aunt Avril pulled out of the parking lot-revving the engine a bit more than I thought was necessary. We glided onto the main street-practically hovering over the pavement. "Let's say it's a little gift the FBI gave me for all of my hard work."

"This car is a gift from the FBI? I hope you are not trying to go undercover."

Aunt Avril laughed. "I picked it out myself."

It surprised me that Aunt Avril took me out of school for lunch, especially after the conversation I'd overheard between her and my mother.

Aunt Avril looked so much like my mother, and yet they were so different from each other. They shared the same rounded face and dainty lips, but where my mother dressed conservatively, Aunt Avril chose to express her flamboyant personality through her wardrobe.

Today she wore a velvet patchwork vest over a ruffled peasant blouse. Her ever-present necklaces fell in various heavy lengths down to her lap. Her thick brown hair matched my own curly mop, but she didn't even try to control the curls. They circled her head like a poufy hat.

She looked over and saw me watching her. This close to her I could see flecks, like glitter, in her blue eyes. "What?"

"Why do you wear those necklaces all the time?"

Aunt Avril looped one finger through the chains. "These charms protect me from spirits that might want to cause me harm."

The look on my face must have given away my disbelief.

"You remind me so much of your mother," Aunt Avril said. "You have a hard time believing what you can't see." It wasn't a question.

I thought about how I kept seeing a monster reptile that no one else seemed to notice. "If you can't see something, how do you know it's there?"

She parked in front of the fish house on Main Street, but made no move to get out of the car. "The FBI calls me in on cases where it's impossible for them to look at the evidence and understand what happened. They can't discover the truth because they rely too much on their eyes. You have to figure out your own way of discerning the truth."

Aunt Avril may have had some strange ideas, but part of me wanted to believe she could really do what she claimed.

"I think it's great what you do, Aunt Avril." I coughed.

She smiled at me. "Do you think that I'm a fake?"

I couldn't really understand how she could see what simply wasn't there. But I knew the FBI wouldn't rely on her unless she recovered legitimate information for them.

"I think there is some truth in what you do. But how can you know for sure about something that you can't see?"

"Aha!" Aunt Avril's voice made me jump. "It's a mistake to shun what you don't understand. But there is hope for you yet." She chuckled to herself, and reached out for both of my hands. I rested them in her palms. She leaned forward like she was going to read my fortune.

"You don't have to see something to know it is real. In fact, some of the truest things in life are intangible."

A tune rang from inside her purse. Michael Jackson's voice trilled through the car, and Aunt Avril dug out her cell phone. "h.e.l.lo Crew." She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. "Are you sure? Was there a cause of death?" She raised one eyebrow at me. "Tell them not to touch anything. I'm on my way."

Aunt Avril drove past the police station and continued down the highway out of town. When we drove through the Narrows and into the town of Thayne, I realized that she wouldn't be checking me back into school. Mom was going to be ticked.

Aunt Avril didn't say anything on the way, and I thought it best not to interrupt her thoughts, contenting myself with looking out the window.

Salt River carved its way through the canyon, where the trees turned patches of the summer greenery yellow and red. I'd lived in Star Valley for only a few months, but it didn't take me long to fall in love with a valley so large that it took forty-five minutes to drive from one scenic end to the other, yet small enough that people still waved to each other at the stoplight-free intersections.

The Corvette cut the corners of the canyon with grace. I relaxed into the leather seat that hugged every contour of my body. When we left the pavement behind, I could barely feel the usual bounce and jolt of a washboard-graveled road. Even so, Aunt Avril slowed her car down to a crawl as we climbed the mountain, cringing every time a rock hit the undercarriage.

From behind a grove of trees emerged a house that could only be described as a castle. Cone-roofed turrets stood sentinel at each corner of the gray-bricked manor. The walls were even scalloped to represent a medieval castle, and I spotted a few stained-gla.s.s windows peeking at us from lofty heights.

"Wow," I said. "I had no idea there was a castle in Star Valley."

Emergency vehicles were parked with their front ends to the castle door, like spokes on a wheel. Aunt Avril parked directly behind three of them. She bent her head to lift the heavy necklaces from around her neck, motioning for me to put them on. Opening the glove box, she pulled out a metal dagger. Clear crystals the size of dimes studded the length of the blade. It was an odd weapon, and I wondered what in the world Aunt Avril needed it for. She hurried to put it in her purse. "Stay here, dear."

I leaned over her seat as she got out. "Does this have to do with the case you're working on?"

"I'm counting on it." She squared her shoulders and strode up to where the door stood open like a gaping hole. I expected her to walk in and take charge, but she hesitated at the doorway. Instead, she reached her arms out and stroked the air with her hands, as if she could coax the truth out of it. Backing down the stairs, she swept the yard in an erratic formation, following an unseen path. When she reached the door again, she dropped her hands and looked my way, winking at me before going inside. The darkness swallowed her, and I s.h.i.+vered.

I fiddled with the necklaces she had burdened me with. Four or five loops of dissimilar chains were the backdrop for dozens of trinkets. Some of them I remembered from when I was a small child and she told me of distant lands and foreign places. But others were new, probably acquired in the last few years that Aunt Avril had been abroad and too busy to visit.