Entangled (21 page)

“Mom, Raj is going to hang out a little bit with me,” Gray called out once she’d led him inside.

Mom appeared in the hallway before Gray had a chance to make it to the stairs. Her mom’s eyes went straight to Raj. “Hello, Raj,” she said.

“Hi, Mrs. Perez.”

“Would you guys like something to eat?”

Raj turned toward her mom.

“Maybe later,” Gray said quickly. “We have stuff to do.”

Mom’s forehead creased. “What kind of stuff?”

“Don’t worry, it’s kosher. Come on, Raj.” Gray charged up the stairs. She didn’t look back until she’d reached the upstairs hallway. She was happy to see Raj right behind her. “I’ll teach you in my room.” She led him inside and shut the door behind them.

“Tidy,” Raj observed.

“Yeah, there’s not much picking up to do when you don’t have to worry about clothes lying around. Now let’s get to work,” Gray said, standing in the middle of her room. Raj was still having a look about, and she’d rather he focused on her than her personal effects. “This spell is ridiculously easy. Have you heard of the graphic artist M.C. Escher?”

Raj shook his head then shrugged. “Maybe.”

Gray pressed the shift bar on her computer to wake it up and bent over the keyboard, typing. She brought up a picture and stepped back so Raj could see. “I’m sure you’ll recognize his Drawing Hands.”

“Oh yeah, he’s done a lot of cool stuff,” Raj said when he got a look at the black and white picture of two hands, each drawing the other.

“I like to think of the invisibility spell in opposite terms—as you, the artist, erasing yourself from a 3D canvas.” Gray held up her hands. “I have this eraser in my mind and I’m moving it back and forth, picturing my hands disappearing and, as you see, my skin vanishes from sight.” Gray held up two seemingly decapitated hands. “Pretty cool. Now you try.”

Raj held his hands out and stared at them.

Gray watched his face and steady concentration. She half expected him to peel back the layers of his skin right down to his bones. Yeah, a walking skeleton wouldn’t go over so well.

“Stop concentrating so hard,” Gray said. “Staring at your hands isn’t going to make them disappear. I don’t even look at myself when I’m going invisible.”

Raj closed his eyes as though that’d work. When he opened them he looked surprised to see himself fully in the flesh.

“Let’s try a different analogy. This is by far my favorite. Imagine yourself as a drawing on an Etch A Sketch and then shake it back and forth. I find that’s the fastest way to make my entire body go invisible all at once. When I fill myself back in, it’s more like a wax mold or glass of juice I pour color back into, but we’ll get to that part after you accomplish invisibility.”

Raj shook his body side to side.

“No, you have to do that in your mind!”

“I’m having trouble concentrating.” Raj attempted a laugh. “I feel like my brains have been sucked out.”

Gray filled in her hands. If she couldn’t teach him to erase himself she wasn’t going to get a chance for Lesson 2: Making yourself re-visible. “I’m not surprised. That looked pretty intense back at the hospital.”

“This isn’t normal. Usually I’m fine.” Raj moved to the foot of the bed, the place he’d been standing in Gray’s dream. A shiver ran through her and it wasn’t half bad.

Gray cleared her throat. “What do you think Stacey’s chances are of coming out of that coma?”

Raj pierced her with his gaze. “She’s not coming out.”

“He didn’t stick around long,” Mom said once Raj McKenna was out the front door.

“See? No funny business.”

“You could’ve invited him for dinner.”

Gray rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right, like he’d want to have dinner with me and my mom.”

“You never know.”

Mom ended up ordering Chinese takeout. It was nice, just the two of them sans Charlene’s usual dramatics. Gray felt guilty thinking it, but it was the truth.

“What have you and Raj been up to?”

Gray dipped her spring roll in sweet sauce and gave her mom a look.

“Not being nosy,” Mom said quickly. “Just making conversation.”

“Raj helped me with something today so I’m teaching him one of my spells… or trying to teach him rather. He couldn’t grasp it. Not so great on the male ego.”

“We all have our areas of strength. Raj may never learn it. There are certainly spells I was never able to master.”

Gray chewed her mouthful of sidewalk noodles and swallowed. “Well, we’re going to try it again Saturday morning. Whatever Raj did at the hospital sucked out all his energy.”

Mom’s chair creaked when she sat up. “What were you doing at the hospital?”

Oops.

Gray looked at her plate. “I went to visit Stacey Morehouse. I thought Raj might be able to help her or at least get through to her.” Even though her head was down she could feel her mother’s eyes boring into her.

“Did he get through to her?”

“No, but the most amazing thing happened. Her head opened up and this white light started shining out. I thought for sure they were communicating, but Raj said she wasn’t in there.” Gray stuffed another spring roll in her mouth.

“That poor girl,” Mom said.

“What happened to her?”

“I remember briefly hearing about her car accident. I can’t recall much about it. You’d just died. I was walking around in a fog at the time that happened.”

Gray pushed her bean curds around with her fork.
Did she dare say the words?
“Do you think Charlene had anything to do with it?”

Silence followed. Gray was afraid she’d angered her mom, but when she glanced up, Mom was studying the wall behind her thoughtfully. “She couldn’t have. Her powers are useless against Stacey. I made sure of that months ago.”

“What about Ryan?”

“I can hardly imagine Ryan Phillips capable of attempted murder.”

Was that Mom’s way of saying she could imagine Charlene was?
Gray jammed her fork into her bean curd and stuck it in her mouth.

“No, I really don’t think she could have,” Mom repeated. “Charlene was distraught after she found you—tearing at her hair, screaming. I thought she was going to hurt herself.”

That was sorta touching. Crazy, but touching.

“I don’t see how she could have managed to do something to Stacey Morehouse’s car two days later. Charlene wouldn’t leave her room for a week after you died. Now that I think of it, she even refused to see Ryan when he came by to check on her every day that she missed school.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Gray said, though she wasn’t entirely convinced. Weird coincidences were entirely possible, but where there was a witch, there was suspicion. “I’m stuffed,” she said after polishing off the last of the noodles from her plate.

“Save it for lunch tomorrow…” Mom started to say then fell silent.

Gray looked down at her leftover bits of mushrooms and bamboo shoots. “This sucks.”

“I know, honey. I’m going to fix it as soon as possible and then I’ll have both my girls at the same time, all the time.”

Right, until Charlene found out about Gray’s incident with Blake. Once she did, she might very well kill her. Then again, Gray might have cause to blackmail her sister for life.

Did you do something to the brakes on Stacey Morehouse’s car?

Gray wondered if Charlene would really answer that question. She tapped her pen against the open notebook. Gray was seated at the countertop, jotting notes before bed while her mom washed their scanty pile of dishes and moved leftovers to glass containers.

Gray followed her mom’s progress then looked down at the notebook once more.

P.S. There was a slight incident involving Blake at school today
…

“Um, excuse me. Um, do you mind moving?”

Raj didn’t realize the words were being addressed to him as he leaned against a locker across the hall from Charlene Perez and watched her arms fly around as she spoke to Blake Foster. Blake’s jaw appeared wired shut, as though he planned to give Charlene the silent treatment.

“Can you please move over just a little so I can get inside my locker?”

Raj blinked and noticed the petite brunette speaking softly through a mouthful of braces. He moved to the side.

“Thanks,” she said and opened her locker.

When the girl left Raj moved back. No sense going through the same conversation with the occupant of neighboring locker 324. Shay was hugging her text and notebook to her chest when she rounded the corner. She glanced in the direction of Raj’s gaze.

“I wonder what she’s thinking,” Raj said by way of greeting.

Shay’s eyes rolled up in her head. “I’m not breaking any vows for you.”

“I didn’t ask anything.”

“Please, I know what you were hinting at.” Shay planted herself beside Raj and looked at Charlene. “I don’t need to read minds to guess what’s going on. Her sister is no doubt messing things up with Blake. Blake is getting tired of the rollercoaster ride they’re taking him on and is pulling away. Now Charlene is alarmed and afraid she’s going to lose him—thus the transparent black top and lace bra underneath. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s sent home to change before the morning’s out.”

“Hmm,” Raj said, rubbing his chin. “And you got all that from body language?”

“Like I said, people are so predictable.”

“Nice skill.”

“I call it the power of observation. Speaking of which, you’ve been going around wearing your heart on your sleeve. I hope Graylee Perez isn’t taking advantage.”

Raj grinned. “If Gray wants to take advantage of me, I don’t mind.”

“You’re impossible, you know. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Blake’s jaw had relaxed into a lopsided grin. Whatever Charlene had said had convinced him to follow her toward the set of double doors down the hall.

“What’s going on?” Max Curry said as he walked up. His eyes followed Shay’s playful punch to Raj’s shoulder.

Shay’s smile brightened when she looked at Max. “Raj is on stakeout.”

“Stakeout?”

Raj turned his head at the same time as Shay to the spot Charlene had occupied a moment earlier. She was gone now.

“Charlene Perez,” Shay clarified.

“Excuse me,” Raj said.

Just a quick peek, he told himself. He wasn’t going to be late to first period.

Raj paused in the alcove outside the double doors and looked into the student parking lot. Charlene and Blake were getting inside her car. There you had it—they were taking off. Blowing off school. Not that Raj blamed them. He might as well turn around and head to first period.

But the car never rumbled to life. Thirty seconds later it was still parked.

Didn’t matter. There was nothing to learn from Charlene in a parked car with Blake. It wasn’t like she’d do any nefarious plotting with Blake The Mortal Jock. Raj looked sideways at the double doors. If he hurried, he could get to class just as the last bell was chiming.

He stepped toward the parking lot instead.

“Time for a little Etch A Sketch erasing action,” Raj said under his breath. He was a good visualizer. A bloody brilliant visualizer according to the personal coach his mom had hired once she realized he knew more magic than all the peer leaders at Gathering combined.

Just do it. Real quick.

Particles of Raj briefly floated in the air like specks of dust before disappearing altogether.

Awesome!

So he hadn’t gone all at once, but he’d get there.

Raj took his first step forward, the familiar feeling of unsteadiness returning when he looked down and saw no foot. He couldn’t wait to show Gray on Saturday morning. Maybe he’d knock at her door a la invisible mode. Then again, Mrs. Perez might answer, and on the other hand, if Raj already knew the spell there’d be no reason for him to stick around as Gray gave him his tutorial before she dashed off on whatever mission she had planned.

The corner of Raj’s lips turned down. He continued walking toward the Beetle, his steps becoming steady the closer he got. The driver and passenger seats were empty. Blake Foster reclined on the back seat, his head tilted up, mouth open, groaning. As Raj stepped closer, he saw Charlene kneeling, the back of her blond head between Blake’s thighs.

Raj grabbed his left wrist—the fist that wanted to slam right through the window.
It’s not Gray
, he reminded himself.
Not Gray. Not Gray.

Charlene could blow the entire basketball team for all he cared. Still, the sight was disturbing. Raj moved away.

Damn, now he really was going to be late.

Gray was right. The first opportunity he’d got, he’d used the spell to play Peeping Tom. But he’d done it for her. Lately he felt like everything he did was for her.