Matt Archer: Blade's Edge (9 page)

Chapter Nine

O
n Sunday morning, the smell
of homemade chicken stew, rich with sage, lured me toward the stove before I even bothered to get dressed. Based on the size of the stock pot, Mom must’ve thought she’d have enough for leftovers. Not a chance. I was hungry enough to knock down two-thirds of it right now. I looked over my shoulder. No one was in the kitchen…maybe I could try a little. For quality control.

I’d gotten out a spoon and was hunched over the stove, sniffing at the stew like a starved wolf-pup when Mom appeared in the doorway to the mudroom. “Oh, no you don’t. It’s for dinner, not brunch.”

My stomach disagreed, growling loudly enough to shake the windows. “Not sure I can make it that long.”

“Well, we do have peanut butter,” Mom said, shaking her head.

Even though Brent had gone off to college, the Archer “snack law” was alive and kicking. Peanut butter sandwiches between meals, nothing else. I wrinkled my nose. “Nah, I’ll make some eggs or something.”

After brunch, I started upstairs for a shower, but as soon as I hit the landing, Mamie rounded the corner, glasses askew and her brown pigtails flying behind her. It didn’t matter that she was a junior in high school—she’d worn pigtails every day since first grade, and that was the end of the discussion. She was a creature of habit, in addition to being brilliant. One of her more endearing qualities.

Her eyes scanned me with the precision of an MRI machine and landed on the bandage just visible under the sleeve of my t-shirt. She frowned. “You didn’t tell us you got hurt on the trip.”

“We were a little preoccupied when I got home,” I said. “Don’t worry. It’s just a scratch.”

“I’m glad it’s nothing too serious.” She adjusted her glasses. “How’s the rest of the team?”

“Few minor injuries. Johnson got his nose broken.”

“Poor Wendell,” Mamie said. “Tell him to get well soon for me, okay?”

Only she could get away with calling Lieutenant Johnson by his first name. I grunted out a laugh. Mamie could probably get Schmitz to tell her his first name, too. “Will do.”

“Hey, Library Girl, quit blocking the hall. I have a plane to catch.”

Brent stood behind us, arms crossed over his wide chest. A wisp of the knife-spirit’s displeasure wound through my mind and I suddenly felt the urge to beat the crap out of my brother.

Uneasy the spirit might start something, I whispered, “Stop it!”

“Stop what?” Brent asked. “It’s not
your
hall. Move aside. Mom’s waiting downstairs to take me to the airport.”

He made to shove past us, and I flung out my arm to block the way. Or, more accurately, the
knife-spirit
flung out my arm. “Apologize to Mamie for calling her names,” I growled, then blinked because I hadn’t planned on saying anything. Did the knife-spirit spit those words out of my mouth? Oh, God, this was bad.

Brent’s eyebrows shot up so far I thought they might launch off his face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m not getting into this now.” He looked at Mamie over my shoulder. “Darling sister, I’m so sorry for being a jerk and calling you Library Girl. Now, a little help with…,” he gestured at me, “whatever this is?”

“Matt?” Mamie asked. “What’s going on?”

The knife-spirit released my arm and I pressed my back against the wall, hoping it wouldn’t do anything else to make me look crazy this morning. “Uh, just feeling a little overprotective of my sister, I guess.”

Brent grunted. “Get in line.” He nodded to Mamie. “I told her if any frat guys make a move on her next year, I’m coming down to Missoula to bust heads. You’re welcome to join me. We’re both big enough to make an impression they won’t forget.”

“Frat guys?” I asked, looking between them. “What frat guys?”

“You didn’t know?” Brent rolled his eyes. “Well, if you’d been home instead of gallivanting around the world with your little knife, you would’ve heard the news.” He shoved past me and clomped down the stairs, muttering, “And they think
I’m
a jerk?”

I thought briefly about chasing him into the backyard for a throw-down, but the mystery of Mamie’s “news” got the better of me. “What’s he talking about? Why’d he mention Missoula?”

Mamie sighed quietly. “So you know I’ve been taking extra classes.”

I nodded. My sister actually took summer school for fun. Freaky, but she did.

“Okay,” she said, then took a deep breath. “I’m going to graduate early. This spring.”

I was about to say how great that was when I realized what she meant. “Wait…you’re leaving for college next fall? But you’re only a junior.”

“Technically I’m a senior now. If I take an extra class in the spring, I’ll have the credits I need to graduate. And there’s more.” She smiled sadly. “My test scores are high enough that the University of Montana has offered me a full scholarship.”

“Wow,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. First Dad left, then Mike and Brent, and now Mamie? This was the worst one yet. Missoula was more than three hundred miles from Billings, so she wouldn’t be able to come home very often. What would I do without her? “That’s…great. I’m really proud of you. I, uh, I mean it.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. “I know it’s a long way away, but we can still talk. I’m sure I’ll have time to do research for you, too.”

“Yeah…of course.” I took a step back, feeling like I’d been punched in the gut. “Um, I’m still a little tired from my trip. Maybe I should rest up some before school tomorrow.”

Before she could protest, I fled to my room and shut the door behind me. It looked the same as always. Bed in the corner directly across from the door, closet on my right, posters of classic cars and military aircraft on the walls, my computer table along the far wall and, on my nightstand, a framed picture of Ella. I’d taken it during one of our hiking trips and I loved how it turned out—the sun shone through the trees behind her, turning her auburn hair a fiery red against all the browns and greens of the woods.

But now, even surrounded by familiar things, the room felt foreign, different. Like home would never be the same again, because Mamie and Brent wouldn’t be just down the hall giving me crap about this or that. Soon, I’d be the only person living upstairs. I should’ve been stoked to have my very own floor.

I wasn’t.

As sisters went, Mamie was the best kind. Last year when I’d sneak in through the mudroom window in the middle of the night, cold, tired and bleeding, I’d find her waiting with hot chocolate and the first aid kit. Next year, she wouldn’t be around to welcome me home at all. How would I make it without her?

From its box in the closet, my knife gave a sympathetic sounding buzz and a brief feeling of soothing calm washed over me. It wasn’t quite enough to pull me out of my funk, though, and I sank down on my bed. Soon after, the garage door slammed shut, announcing Brent’s departure for the airport. I closed my eyes, feeling entirely alone.

A shriek, followed by a crash, brought me to my feet and I bolted across the hall to Mamie’s room. It looked like a library had exploded. Her bookcase lay on its side in the middle of the floor and Mamie had fallen onto her bed, surrounded by piles of books.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Mamie struggled to sit up, rubbing the side of her head. “I reached for a book on the top shelf and the whole case tipped over. I barely got of its way, but a bunch of books fell on me.”

I bent to examine the bookcase and the wall, but didn’t see anything buckled or cracked. “Are you sure you didn’t rest your weight on it?”

Mamie gave me her best glare. “Do I look big enough to tip it over by myself?”

“No,” I murmured, staring at the heavy books scattered across the room.

She must take care
, the knife-spirits whispered out of nowhere.
Accidents…can be hereditary.

I drew in a shocked breath. “Accidents?”

Mamie cocked her head. “That’s what it must be, right?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Stay here. I’m going to get you some ice for your head.”

I left her to lament the destruction of her perfectly organized book-filing system and trotted downstairs. “What did you mean, hereditary?”

Just that she must be on her guard, as you should be.

After that, the spirit clammed up. First my parachute problem, now this…was it saying that these weren’t accidents at all? And that my family might have them, too?

Not good. Not good at all.

I grabbed my cell phone from the kitchen and called Brent on my way back upstairs.

“What?” he said, sounding annoyed.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He huffed a breath. “Look, I’m in line for security. What do you need?”

“I…” I wasn’t sure what I needed. Some assurance that he hadn’t had an accident, too? “Nothing, just wanted to say safe flight.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, bro. Uh…take care.”

He hung up on me. I could see him, standing in the security line, staring at his phone with his mouth open. I bet he thought I’d gone nuts, but I was too worried to care.

I kept a close watch on Mamie all day, helping her reorganize her books, but nothing else weird happened. Sleep came hard that night, though, and at the price of ugly dreams.

A black shadow, smudged and formless, chases me across a desolate wasteland. Something about it scares me and it laughs as I dodge around rocks. Tendrils of the shadow, like snakes made of smoke, lick at my back, my neck, my legs. I run and run and run, but it just stretches itself thinner to catch me.

“Where’s your weapon now?” the thing hisses in the back of my mind. “In the end, it will leave you alone in the dark, and you’ll be mine.”

My knife is lying on a rock up ahead. I sprint as hard as I can but when I get there, it disappears. I pound my hands against the stone as the shadow wraps itself around my waist…

I jerked awake to someone knocking on my bedroom door. My pjs were soaked with sweat. It wasn’t the first time a dream had worked me over, but this nightmare left me with the feeling something was watching me. Not a fun thought.

Mom cracked my bedroom door open. “Matt?”

“Yeah?”

“You need to leave for school in fifteen minutes,” she said. “I have breakfast downstairs.”

I looked at my nightstand. The alarm icon was blinking, which meant I’d hit snooze at least once, but probably more like four times. Crap. I sat up slowly, feeling every muscle and joint ache. The waistband of my pj pants had dug a trench in my side, too. Not to mention another headache and a merciless need to pee. Despite the dream, I’d slept like I’d been drugged.

When I arrived in the kitchen after throwing on the first pair of jeans and shirt I could reach in my closet, I found Mamie reading at the kitchen table. The ribbons on the ends of her pigtails were white today, and the part in her hair was ruler-straight. I could frame her picture and call it, “Portrait of the straight-A student in her natural habitat.”

Then I realized that I’d never congratulated her on being accepted into college and felt like a complete jerk. “Um, so…you’re a genius, huh?”

Way to go, idiot.

Mamie laughed. “You knew that already.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, I’m sorry for being…stupid about you going to school.”

She smiled, and her eyes glittered behind the lenses of her glasses. “You aren’t being stupid.” Then she craned her head around, checking to see if we were alone. Mom was in the mudroom, cursing at the washing machine. Mamie leaned close. “I hate leaving you here to face everything without me.”

“You should go. You deserve it.” I bumped her shoulder with mine. “And that way, I’ll get to use your room.”

She leaned back and crossed her arms. “For what?”

I shrugged. “Home gym?”

“Ha, no way. I’m going to make Mom turn it into a shrine. Velvet ropes across the door and all that. You’ll have to pay admission to go inside.”

“Shrine d’Mamie? Nice,” I said. “The only reason I haven’t claimed Brent’s room is that I’m scared of what might be living under his bed.”

“He is a pig, isn’t he?” Mamie’s smile faded. “I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. You need me. Maybe I should—”

“No.” I shook my head, as if that would convince her. “I’ll figure this stuff out. And no matter what, I’m really proud of you.” But instead of looking pleased by the compliment, Mamie’s shoulders drooped and I could tell she was about to cry. I hated seeing my sister cry. “Look, Will’s here; Ella is, too. I’ll be okay. At some point you need to do something for yourself. You’ve taken care of me long enough. It’s your turn.”

“If that’s how you feel, I’ll go,” Mamie said, wiping her eyes. “But you have to promise to send me updates before and after every mission. Oh, and keep me posted on anything new you find out about the dark war and the knives. And—”

I patted her arm. “You’ll be the first to know. I promise.”

She nodded, her brisk attitude returning in a heartbeat. “Well, hurry up and eat, then. Tardiness is next to lawlessness in my handbook. If you want a ride to school, we’re leaving in five.”