Shadow Hills (15 page)

And then my frantically pawing fingers touched something solid. I grasped and pulled with all my might. Slowly it came free of the earth. The thing was thin and cylindrical and brown.
Was I holding an ancient bone?
Filled with revulsion, I almost dropped it, but then I realized that it was made of wood. A cane. My hand trembled as I turned it right side up so that the wooden knob on the end was facing me. I knew what was on it before I looked. Carved into the top of the cane was the same circular mark I had on my hip.

A banging noise was coming from somewhere, and I could hear a voice as well, but it was distant and tinny, like I was listening to it through a can on a string. I tried to open my eyelids, but they felt like they were made out of lead.

“Are you dressed?” It was Zach.

“Yeah …,” I answered sluggishly.

“I’m coming in,” he warned. I smelled the comforting woodsy scent of Zach as he pulled me up off the floor. I was like a rag doll in his arms.

“Persephone? Phe?” He swept a lock of hair back from my face and my skin tingled where he had touched me.
“Phe.”
He was more insistent now. “Phe. Look at me.” I opened my eyes finally, and Zach’s face swam into view. “Are you okay?”

“Kinda groggy.”

“What happened?” He watched me with concern.

“I don’t know.” I shook my head and a ripple of nausea hit me.
Not a good idea
. “I was showering … and maybe I was dehydrated or something. I started feeling really tired so I lay down on the bench for a second and I must have fallen asleep. Then I guess I rolled off onto the floor.”

“You decided to take a nap on the locker-room bench?” Zach looked at me like I was crazy.

“Yeah,” I answered. “Um, I’m feeling better now.” I shot a pointed look at Zach, who was still holding me. Not that I really wanted him to let me go, but it was hard to think with my body pressed against his.

“Oh … Yeah.” Zach set my feet down on the floor but held my shoulders for a second to see if I was steady enough to stand on my own. Apparently I passed the test. He released me and stepped back a pace.

“We should get you to the infirmary.” Zach’s expression was unyielding. “Passing out isn’t normal.”

None of this was normal. The dreams had been bad enough, but now I was having … visions.

“I’m all right now,” I hastened to assure him. “Really.”

He looked doubtful.

“I don’t have a headache or anything.” I felt my own forehead. “No fever. I feel perfectly fine.”

Well, that wasn’t quite true. I was completely freaking out. But I knew who I had to talk to, the only person who could tell me what the mark was. Sarah. The strange old woman I had met on Sunday. She had called me by the name that had been on a gravestone in two of my dreams now, and there was no doubt in my mind that the cane I had pulled from that wall of dirt was identical to hers. I hadn’t seen the carved symbol on it before, but my instincts told me that it was there.

“Is there a bus that goes into town?” I asked.

It took Zach a second to register my abrupt change in topic.

“Yeah.” He looked at me quizzically. “There’s one that leaves right after athletics, but that was about forty-five minutes ago.”

“Shit,” I muttered as I chewed on my thumbnail.

“I’m taking Corinne’s car over to our dad’s shop to pick up a book,” Zach said. “I was actually about to leave when I heard the thump in here.” He glanced over at the bench I had fallen off, and I fought down the blush that was rising up my neck.

“Are you coming back to the school later?” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah. I’ve got to pick up Corinne when she gets out of …” Zach frowned in contemplation. “I don’t know—whichever one of the after-school clubs she has on Thursdays.”

“She’s into the extracurricular activities, I guess?”

“All of them except the social ones.” Zach smirked. “I can get you back here in an hour if you want to ride into town with me.”

“That would be perfect.” I bit my bottom lip, trying to pin
down the wide smile that wanted to spread across my whole face.

Zach had changed into his regular clothes while I’d been having my weird episode, and he was gorgeous in his plain white T-shirt and dark-washed jeans. The ordinariness of the outfit emphasized just how un-ordinary Zach was, with his striking bone structure, his hypnotic eyes, and his commanding stature.

As we walked out to the car, I noticed that everything was more still and yet somehow more alive than ever before. The crunching of fallen leaves beneath my feet sounded clearer, louder. The brilliant green of the grass was heightened. The rays of light falling on my skin were brighter, but somehow softer. Now that I was with Zach, the terror that had gripped me in the locker room was rapidly fading. But I needed to know what that dream had meant. I had to talk to Sarah.

“This is it.” Zach rubbed the back of his neck as we approached the black Jaguar. I had noticed him rubbing his neck like that before when he was nervous. It was like Zach didn’t want to draw attention to himself with anything as showy as Corinne’s car.

He unlocked my door and opened it before going around to the driver’s side.
That’s definitely a first
, I thought to myself as he started the engine. Zach had this old-school gentlemanly quality that I’d never encountered before. If any other guy did that kind of thing, it would be stupid or fake, but with Zach it seemed natural.

It occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to ask
him about the stuff that I’d found out in the library. I’d been wanting to run some of my theories by him, but it was hardly the kind of thing we could discuss in photography class.

The car started up with a rich purr, and the radio came on at the same time. I couldn’t help but laugh as Vanessa Carlton’s voice came blasting out of the speakers.

“Interesting music choice,” I teased.

“It’s my sister’s CD. Thankfully, she lets me borrow it on occasion.” Zach gave me a sly grin to let me know he was kidding, then ejected the CD and put in a Les Savy Fav disc.

“Pretty sophisticated taste for a small-town boy,” I said flirtatiously. Inside, I was working to keep my cool. He was beyond gorgeous, but not in a studied way like Trent. And even if Zach didn’t seem to know how hot he was, I certainly had noticed.

“Well, we small-town folks do what we can to find out about new bands. But it’s hard when all the radio stations in Shadow Hills only play Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday.”

“Point taken,” I laughed.

“So how are you enjoying our tiny backward village?” Zach asked.

“It’s okay,” I allowed. “Once they get those outhouses put up, we’ll really be living the life.”

“Indoor plumbing’s just a bit too advanced for us, I guess.”

We joked back and forth, making small talk—that was a lot more fun than small talk is ever supposed to be—until Zach pulled the car into a space in front of the Book Stop. I still hadn’t
asked him anything that I’d meant to, but the conversation had been flowing so well that I hadn’t wanted to interrupt it.
I’ll be more focused on the way back
.

“I’m only going to be a few minutes,” Zach said as we got out of the car. “Where do you want me to meet you?”

“I’m going over there.” I pointed at the sign for Sarah’s Boutique.

“Okay. See you in a bit.”

As I started toward the store, the cold fear I had felt in my dream gripped me again. I steeled myself and entered the dimly lit shop. Sarah looked up.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come again.” Her eyes were sharp and bright, peering out of her worn face.

“You have?”

Why was some old lady waiting for me, a total stranger, to show up? Why was she acting like she knew me?

“How could you possibly know I would be back?” I demanded.

“It was foretold to me long ago,” she answered sagely.

“What do you think this is? The second coming of Christ?” I couldn’t control the rising tenor of my voice. “I’m just a girl from the boarding school.”

Sarah took a deep breath, then stood up from her chair. Walking haltingly on her cane, she made her way around the front desk to where I stood. Every grain of wood in her cane—every bend and knot—was exactly as I had seen it in my dream, but her hand was covering the top. Still, I knew what symbol was underneath.

“If you are just some girl …” She blinked at me and cocked her head to the side, reminding me of a crow. “If you haven’t experienced anything unusual … why are you back here? Looking for answers?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Now that I was here, I didn’t know what to say. I was operating on the idea that my dreams were somehow prophetic. Were they really? There was only one way to find out.

I unzipped the side zipper on my skirt. I felt horribly strange and embarrassed. Exposed. Sarah’s hand flew to her mouth as the mark on my hip came into full view. Quickly, I yanked the zipper back up.

“What is it?” I tried to keep my words steady, but my whole body was shaking.

“You are the one.” She made her way back to her chair and sank into it. Her smile was wobbly, her eyes shiny and wet. Sarah laid her walking stick across the desk, and gingerly I picked it up. It was made out of a single piece of wood and carved into the top was the symbol. My symbol.

An image flashed in my mind: the pendant necklace and the woman who’d worn it in my dream.

“Who is Rebekah Sampson?” I asked Sarah.

“She was a very dear friend of mine. She was the one who told me that someday you would come.”

“Can I speak to her?” I set the cane back down on the desk like a peace offering to Sarah. I wanted so badly to talk to this woman, the one who might have the answers I was searching for. Answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask.

“She has been gone for a very long time now.” Sarah slid open a drawer on the desk and pulled out a heavy book. She placed it in my hands. “But she wanted you to have this.”

I wondered if this was why Athena had been drawn to Devenish Prep. Maybe she was the one this woman was expecting. Maybe it wasn’t me at all.

The ancient book had a wraparound cover that looked like a large leather envelope with a tie closure. The brown leather was thick and mottled with age. I traced my finger over the emblem that had been carved into the cover. It was the same mark I had on my body. Excitement began to rise in me. Could the answers to my questions all be in this old book?

“Rebekah always told me it was meant to be with you.” Sarah nodded at the book. “You belong to it, and it to you.”

“The symbol?” I let my unfinished question hang in the air.

“It is Hekate’s Wheel.”

“Hekate’s Wheel.” I repeated her words under my breath. It felt as if they’d rolled off my tongue many times before. “But I don’t understand. What does it mean? Why did you say that I was ‘the one’? The one for what? And why—”

Sarah held up her hand, smiling kindly. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place. You must be patient. It will all be revealed to you eventually.”

“But—” I began in frustration.

The sound of the front door swinging open startled me, and the shaft of outside light that now fell across the room was blinding. I shifted the large book to one arm so I could shade my eyes with the other hand.

“Hey.” Zach was looking in, smiling at me expectantly. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” It was obvious that I wasn’t going to get anything else out of Sarah. But at least I had the book. I shoved it into my backpack and started toward the door, then turned back. “Thanks.”

She gave me a nod, and I walked out of the store.

“Did you get what you needed?” Zach asked.

“Yeah. I think so,” I assured him with a smile.

“Do you mind if we make another stop before we go back to Devenish? My dad wanted me to check on my grandfather.”

“Sure.”

Zach drove past the square and turned onto a road I hadn’t noticed before. We passed several large, dignified houses on expansive plots of land before turning onto a tree-lined drive. Though Zach drove slowly over the loose gravel road, the ride was still rather bumpy. Once it jostled me so much that my shoulder came into contact with Zach’s. It felt very intimate, even through our clothes, and I turned to look out my window so he wouldn’t see me blush.

The building at the end of the drive had a circular central hub with three wings coming off it, and though it was in the same dark brick as much of the rest of Shadow Hills, it reminded me strongly of the nursing homes I’d seen in Los Angeles. As Zach pulled into the unpaved parking area on the right, I glanced at the sign next to the front entrance.
OAKHAVEN ADVANCED CARE FACILITY
.

How old was Zach’s grandfather, anyway? His dad had looked pretty young to me—certainly younger than mine. I would have
figured that Zach’s grandfather would be in his early sixties—not exactly “advanced care facility” age.

Zach got out of the car, then stopped and looked at me. I’d already grabbed my purse, getting ready to go in with him, when it dawned on me that maybe he was expecting me to wait here.

“You don’t have to come in if you don’t want.” Zach echoed my concerns.

“I don’t mind.” I was stuck awkwardly standing with one foot out of the car. “I mean … unless you don’t want me to.”

“I didn’t mean that.” He smiled.

We were halfway to the entrance when the front door of the building opened and two men and a woman emerged. Zach stiffened beside me. Curiously, I glanced from him to the group outside the nursing home.

One of the men looked over. Upon seeing us he hesitated, then said something to his companions. The woman nodded and slipped her hand through the second man’s arm, leading him away toward the cars on the far side of the lot.

The man who was now coming over to us seemed strangely familiar.

“Zach. Good to see you.”

“Hello.” Zach’s tone was just short of rude, which made me wonder even more who this was.

He looked to me to be in his thirties. An elegant gray suit draped perfectly over his trim frame. With dark blond hair and refined features, he was handsome in an uninteresting sort of way. He shook Zach’s hand briskly, then turned to me.