Inner Demons (5 page)

“What?”

“I'm not sure. Power. Her essence. Something like that. We're talking about things way past my experience level, here. All I know is that if there's one person who is hurt, it's not that hard for her to heal them. But if there were, say, five people critically injured, she'd likely kill herself trying to heal them all. Certain magic can really drain you.”

I thought about what she'd said. It made sense. Nothing in this world was free, so of course magic had a cost.

“So changing my hair color or something might be too hard? Or might drain me and make me sick?”

“I honestly don't know.”

“Should we try it?”

Lark looked at me like I was crazy. “Did you hear what I said about the sickness and the possible death?”

“Oh come on,” I said. “You think changing my hair color is going to kill me?”

She took a deep breath and rolled her eyes. “I guess not.”

“Okay, so here's the deal. I change my hair from blonde to brown. Then we'll see how long it lasts on its own.”

It took me nearly an hour to pull it off, and even then, my hair was more of a reddish color than a pure brown. I finally had to stop trying because Lark was right, concentrating at that level wore me out. I started to feel light-headed and weak.

By morning, my hair was blonde again.

“It must have turned back sometime while we were sleeping,” I said, studying my hair closely in the mirror.

“I still can't believe you did it,” she said. “Can you promise me something?”

I turned away from the mirror to look at her. She sounded so serious for someone who usually did nothing but giggle. “Sure.”

“Don't tell anyone you can do this, okay? My mother taught me the room thing because she was tired of having to repaint it all the time. I'm not supposed to know how to do it. If anyone found out, it could get us both in some serious trouble. Maybe even my mom too.”

“So why risk teaching me in the first place?”

Lark looked down at her feet. She was standing on the bright yellow rug. She looked embarrassed.

“Because I saw your face when you had to put that expensive blue dress back yesterday,” she said.

“I need a dress,” I said to Courtney.

We were sitting on the couch Sunday afternoon watching TV. Ever since Agnes died, Courtney and I had started hanging out some when we were both home. She was only a Freshman so I didn't see her much at school, but she was actually a pretty cool girl.

“I can't believe you're dating Drake Ashworth,” she said with obvious admiration, pulling her legs up onto the couch to sit criss-cross. She pushed her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear.

“Me either,” I said. “You should have seen him the first time we met. As soon as he learned where I was living, he couldn't get away from me fast enough.”

“Really? What changed, do you think?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. One day I was a social outcast, and the next I was being invited to try out for the cheerleading squad. I guess that's when Drake started paying attention to me.”

Of course, I didn't mention the fact that I shared a demon heritage with all of the other girls on the squad, but I knew now that was the reason why everyone treated me differently all of a sudden. Once you were chosen, you were in. What I didn't understand was why one girl was chosen and another wasn't even though they shared the same basic magical abilities. I wondered if Courtney and Mary Anne could do magic, too?

The only problem was that to ask the question, I'd be admitting I could do magic. I wasn't sure I should be talking about those things with anyone outside of the Order.

“So what kind of dress are you going to wear?” she asked.

I grabbed a handful of popcorn. “I have no clue. It's not like I have any money to buy one, but all I have in my closet are some old skirts.”

“I've never been to a school dance, but I'm pretty sure Ms. Shadowford would give you some money if you need it.”

I stuffed the popcorn in my mouth. I hadn't even considered asking Ella Mae or Mrs. Shadowford for money.

After what Lark showed me, I felt confident that if I found a cheap dress that was the right size and shape of the blue one that I liked, I could use magic to make it look exactly like the dress from the boutique store in the mall.

As I walked up the stairs, I tried to think of a store where I could find a cheap dress. That's when I saw Mary Anne step into her bedroom.

I hesitated in the hallway, then walked over toward her room. Her door was still open. I wasn't bold enough to walk in uninvited, so I knocked lightly on the door frame. “Mary Anne?”

She peeked around her closet door. As usual, she was dressed in all black. Her jet black hair was so dark against her pale porcelain skin. She stared at me, but didn't speak.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said. “Just was wondering if you were planning to go to the Homecoming dance.”

She shrugged, then turned back to her closet. God, this girl never gave me a break! Was she super shy or did she hate my guts? I honestly couldn't tell.

“I only ask because I thought you might have some ideas about where I could get a dress,” I said. She was always wearing the coolest stuff from some thrift store in town, but I had no idea where it was or what it was called.

I stepped one foot over the threshold to her room, then immediately stepped back. An eerie feeling spread through my body. I'd never been in there before, but I didn't feel welcome. The room looked very similar to my own. Large wood-carved sleigh bed. Mirrored dresser. Private bathroom. But Mary Anne had put a black blanket over the bedspread and another one over the window. Like she was some kind of vampire in here. Geez. Depressing much?

She looked over at me, and I smiled nervously. She sighed, then turned to me. “There's a place,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly soft and musical. “Downtown. They have some stuff.”

“Oh,” I said. I was shocked she was actually talking to me. “So you're going to the dance, too?”

She nodded. I wondered if she had a date. I'd never seen her with a guy before. Well, except Jackson. I'd seen them talking a couple of times before in the back yard near the garden. I wondered if she knew who Jackson was taking to the dance. I pushed away a slight sting of jealousy. I knew I was lucky to be going with a guy like Drake, but in the pit of my stomach, I felt a twinge of something like regret. I shook it off.

“Cool. You wanna go look for dresses together then?”

“No,” she said.

I shook my head, not sure I'd heard her right. “No?”

“No.” She walked toward me and started to shut her door.

“Can you at least tell me the name of the store?” I asked.

“Rags,” she said, then closed the door.

I really didn't get her. What had I ever done to piss her off? I started to knock on her door again, but she started blasting her music.

I decided to see if Courtney wanted to go instead. Ella Mae gave us each fifty bucks and dropped us off downtown while she went to run some errands.

I was a little concerned at first since we had to walk down a dead alleyway to get to the thrift store, but I relaxed once we got inside. There were three full racks of dresses, and they didn't look terribly bad.

Courtney wasn't going to the dance, so she walked over to the other side of the store to look for a new pair of jeans. Music blared in the background. Some punk band with a screaming female vocalist. I wasn't surprised this was Mary Anne's type of place. She seemed to fit here.

A plain black dress caught my eye and I pulled it from the rack. I held it up against my body. The hem of the dress fell a few inches above my knee. I checked the size. Six. Perfect. Then I checked the price tag. Thirty bucks. Even more perfect.

I made my way to the counter. “Is there a dressing room here?”

The guy at the counter had six different piercings on his face. He gave me a nod and carried my dress to the back. I heard the bell on the front door jingle and looked to see who had come into the store. I paused. It was the girl from the pep rally the other day. The girl Jackson had been arguing with.

She was dressed in all black again, just like Mary Anne. Her black hair was pulled up into braided pig tails, streaks of teal running through it this time instead of red. She looked straight at me, and I ducked my head and made a beeline for the dressing room, sure she had caught me staring. Again.

There was definitely something intriguing about that girl. Like I knew her from somewhere. Or that I was supposed to know her.

I was alone in the dressing area. I stripped my clothes of and slipped the black dress over my body. The bottom hem was frayed and there were sequins missing from the straps, but it was a perfect fit. There were no mirrors in the dressing room so I stepped back into the hallway to see if there was one out there.

I gasped as I nearly ran into the girl in black. My hand went to my heart. “Oh my God, I'm sorry. You scared me to death.”

The girl didn't laugh or even change facial expressions. Her dark eyes bored into me. The smile left my face, and my heart pounded in my ears. I knew without a doubt that this girl didn't like me. I could feel anger radiating off of her like hot sun off blacktop. For a moment, I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

“Harper Madison,” she said. “The shining hope of our little hamlet.”

What did she mean by shining hope? I felt uncomfortable being alone with her in the back hall like this. She scared me with her dark confidence. “And you are?”

“Morgyn Baker.”

“Well, nice to meet you too, Morgyn,” I said. I tried to step past her but she put her hand up against the wall to block me.

“I want you to stay away from Jackson Hunt,” she said.

Not exactly what I'd expected her to say. “I've hardly ever talked to the guy.”

“That's not true and you know it. You may not exactly remember it.” She picked up my hand and ran her finger along the scar on my palm. “But you know it.”

I shivered. Who was this girl? And what role did she play in this town with all its secrets and lies and strange powers? Was she a witch?

I wanted to ask her what she knew about my scar, but she turned away before I got the chance. She disappeared out into the store and a few seconds later, I heard the little bell over the door jingle.

I laid my new black dress across the bed and felt a chill. My window was open and the air outside was getting colder as the sun started to go down. It was that strange time of year in Georgia when the days were still nice and warm, but the nights were freezing. I rubbed my arms to warm them, and walked over to the window to shut it.

Voices in the garden caught my attention. It was getting darker outside, but there was still enough light to make out the two figures half-hidden in the tall weeds. Mary Anne and Jackson. They were talking. I saw Jackson hold something out to her. She hesitated, looked around, then took a small vial from him and shoved it in her pocket.

I stared down, confused. What exactly had I just witnessed? Some kind of drug deal?

“
Come on, Jackson, give me what I want.”

Tori's voice came back to me. I'd seen them down in the garden together the first night I moved to Shadowford, and Tori had wanted something from him that he wouldn't give her. It was another one of those memories that seemed to come out of nowhere. That had been happening to me a lot lately. As if my own memory was a puzzle slowly putting itself back together over time.

I thought about the way that girl Morgyn had touched the scar on my palm that afternoon. She had said something about me not remembering things. How did she know about that scar? Ella Mae told me I got it when I passed out from the fever, but sometimes I wondered.

I looked down at Jackson and Mary Anne in the garden. They were still talking, huddled close together like they shared some great secret.

What had he handed her in that vial? He didn't seem like the drug dealer type. It didn't really seem to match the softness in his eyes, but what did I really know about Jackson Hunt? I looked down at my scarred palm. Maybe I knew more than I could remember.

“What are you thinking about?” Brooke asked. We were down in the training room studying history. Or at least that's what we were supposed to be doing. Instead, most of the girls had paired off to talk about Brooke's eighteenth birthday party coming up on Saturday. They talked about what they planned to wear or who they planned to bring. I had been so focused on Homecoming and magic and secrets, I had almost forgotten about the party.

I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”

“You look like you're a million miles away,” she said. “Everything okay?”

“Yep,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. I changed the subject. “I can't wait for the party.”

“Oh my God, it's going to be totally insane. My parents are pulling out all the stops.”

“Someone said the theme is a night at the fair?”

“Yes,” she said. She turned her body toward me on the bench and talked excitedly about the plans. “There's going to be a huge ferris wheel and everything.”

My mouth opened slightly in surprise. When she said her parents were pulling out all the stops, the girl wasn't joking around. “Just as long as I get some cotton candy, I'll be fine.”

She giggled. “I'll make sure you get cotton candy in every color.”

“Sweet,” I said. I turned back to the notebook on the table. Our task for the afternoon was to practice writing on the pages without touching the pen. So far, all I'd written in my notebook was my name and today's date. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” she said.

“What happens when you turn eighteen?” My pen sailed across the page, writing my name in cursive this time with swirly curly letters.

“What do you mean?”

I looked around to make sure Mrs. King wasn't standing near us. “I mean the final induction into the Order of Shadows.”

“You know I can't tell you that,” she said. Her voice got quiet and she turned to her own notebook.

“Do you even know?”

I saw a scared look cross over her normally calm features. “Sure, it's just a secret from those of you further down the food chain.”

She was lying. I could see it in her face. So in just a few days, they were planning to put her through some kind of secret final phase of training and they hadn't even told her what to expect? I didn't like the sound of that. I mean, why was it such a big secret?

“Can you at least tell me when it happens? I mean, your birthday is actually Saturday right?”

She shook her head. “No, technically it's Sunday, but who wants to have a blow-out party on a Sunday night, then have to go to school the next morning? The party would be over by nine. I figured it would be a lot more fun to do it Saturday when people have late curfews. There's going to be a special surprise at midnight.”

“That sounds great,” I said. “Do you really have a band there for the whole night?”“Booked 'em till 2 am this year,” she said. “My parents went through the roof at the cost, but who cares? It's not like they can't afford it.”

Yeah, her birthday party band probably cost more than Ms. Shadowford spent on all three of the girls living at Shadowford in a year.

“So the ritual happens Sunday?”

She shifted in her seat. “I'm really not allowed to talk about it.”

I studied her face as she concentrated on the notebook and pen in front of her. She looked nervous. Mrs. King made it seem like the Order was full of amazing women who did so much to help this community. So what was with all the secrecy? I had no idea what the Order had planned for Brooke this weekend, but all of a sudden, I was determined to find a way to attend her initiation ceremony.