Wicked Sense (13 page)

“
I get it,” Sean says. “But come on,
D-
man, we’ve got a party
tomorrow
!”

“Hunting trip!” Boulder yells and high-fives Sean.

“I’m not going,” I say. Their enthusiasm bothers me.

Boulder stops and looks at me. “No, no. What you’re saying is you don’t
want
to go. But you
are
going.” When I open my mouth to pr
otest, he pokes me in the chest.
“You are
,
”
he says.

I hate hospitals. However, in one week, I’ve been to two hospital
s
in two different
continents. Mum
is in her bed, looking surprisingly good for someone who had a heart attack
the day before
. Maybe her Allure is working overtime.

Aunt Gemma and Judi are in a corner of the room, silent.

I’m relieved
Mum’s
doing so well, considering. Maybe
joie de vivre
isn’t just an abstract concept; maybe hers
helped her turn this around. The concern remains, but most of the grim thoughts are
in the back of my mind now.

“You didn
’t need to come back, darling,”
Mum
says, her voice betra
ying some weakness. Her hand clutches
mine.

“Of course I needed
to be here
, Mum,” I
protest
.

“I’m glad you did
, though
.” S
he taps my arm with her other hand. Age is catching up to her. Slowly, because of her Allure, but nobody can stop time. Not even
us
. Her eyes still shine with youth, though, even after the scare. She takes a deep breath
.
“But your mission is important; you must go back.”

“What?” What’s going on? I voice the same concerns I h
ad before going to Seattle. “Why
? We’ve been searching for almost two years now, and I’m just one of the
Sisters
planted in high schools
over
there. How can
I
make a difference?”

The answer I received the first time
was
: we all need to do our part.
Mum
looks at Judi, who’s been by
Mum’s
side since she came to the hospital.

Judi says, “We’re running out of time, dear.”

“But I—
”

“Bu
t
you
, Skye,” Judi interrupts me, “are
a great asset.
True Sight is rare, and yours is powerful. We put you in one of the most likely places
—
where you can get a whiff of energy to put us on the right path.”

“But now is not the time,” I say, pointing to my mother.

“Don’t you worry about me,” Mum says. “I have the best
medical support money can buy. Also,
I have the best alternative medicine available.” She winks.

“
Our coven is having a
circle of prayer
tonight for your
mother
. And
I won’t leave her side,” Judi assures me.

It’s hard to think clearly when the magical signature
s
Judi and Mum release
are
so intense. In closed quarters, the combined energy of
the
two Sisters is overwhelming.

I shake my head. “Mum, I want to be here. You just had a big scare; you’re weak and alone. You need me.”

“Alone? I have my Sisters and a
house full
of servants. I’m back home tomorrow,” she says.

“I can’t leave.
You
just had a heart attack
,
and you’re asking me to leave?
It’s not normal.”

Mom shakes her head, a weak smile on her face. “And when did we have a normal life, darling?”

***

I’m exhausted. Unlike Aunt Gemma, who slept through the whole
nine-hour nonstop
flight, I never closed my eyes. We went from Heathrow to the hospital, and now
the
sleeplessness
is
catching up to me.

A cab takes Aunt Gemma and me to my
mother’s house. I mumble hello
s to the servants, who all express their concern about my
mother. My old room awaits me. It feels familiar and strange at the same time. Mum and I
were always
on the road, in hotel rooms, in trailers
.
We rarely came back to the house. When she had time between projects, we went on vacations
. T
o more hotel rooms. Nice ones, some close to beaches, some close to ski slopes,
but soulless hotel rooms anyway
. We always had this house, but we never had a true home. 

I see the flowers people sent her. It must be nice being beloved: friends, actors, directors, agents, studio executives, crew unions(!), and, of course, fans sent all kinds of mementos. Get-well cards, stuffed animals, pictures. Even the not so thoughtful ones
—
a recent heart attack victim certainly doesn’t need boxes of chocolates or bottles of scotch
—
have a
certain
sweetness to
them
.
The flower arrangement
Connor
sent towers above all of them.

Is it wrong that I resent it? That
Connor
cared much more for my mother than
he did
for me? I shake my head, feeling selfish and small.

I
go to my room,
lie
down
,
and close my eyes.

N
ight
comes
, and of course
my previous resolution is shot down
.
Boulder and Sean drop by to
drag me
to the party at Priscilla’s.
It’s early,
and we just hang out for a while.
They tell me
to follow them; no way they will climb aboard the Volvo.

“Tell you what
:
you can drive us back. You’ll be ou
r designated driver,” Sean says, sitting on the hood of my ride.

“But then you’ll probably be passed out,” I point out.

“Of course, Drake. No one
would ride
in
this consciously,” Boul
der says, tapping my car’s hood. He circle
s
my
car
to have a better look
.
“What is that?”
he
asks, pointing to
its
lower side.

“This is called faux-wood
,” I say.

He
slides his finger on the side of the car, as if making sure the wood is really
faux
. He reaches the cargo area door and peeks inside.
“A wagon, D-Man? It looks like a hearse.”

“Well, when you’r
e passed out, you can lie down i
n the back,” I say.

Boulder says, “It’s brown
…
O
r caramel
?
I don’t even know what this color is called—with wood paneling or whatever? Does your father hate you?”

My oversized friend
arrives at the front again and
sits beside
Sean
on the hood
. The Volvo’s front drops half a foot.

“Dad wanted me to have a safe car,” I say. “It does have airbags and ABS, you know?”

Sean says, “It’s not about safety, it’s about style, D-Man. And a car this old can’t be safe.
H
ow long
have
these airbags
been sitting there?
If they deploy, you’ll probably die of mold poisoning anyway
.
”

I try to defend my
wheeled friend
. “This baby
goes from zero to sixty in nine
seconds.”

Sean giggles.
“Sure. On free fall.”

“Even if it made it in nine
, that’s not impressive
at all
, Drake,” Boulder says, shaking his head. I have no idea
;
it’s just a stat I read on
line
.

We kill some more time, and then drive
in a convoy
to Priscilla’s. I follow Boulder’s slick yellow Mustang. Night is falling.

Priscilla’s house is bigger than I thought.
I wonder why she doesn’t go to a private school.
We ring
,
and Priscilla answers. “You’re early,” she tells us.

“We wan
ted a head start,” Boulder says
while going inside.

“I thought you weren’t coming,
”
Priscilla says
to me
.
Boulder and Sean
ignore us. They make
themselves comfortable, opening the fridge
and
check
ing
the food and the beverages.

“I thought so, too,
”
I say, nodding in Boulder’s direction.

“You have good friends,” she says.
“
Kind of pigs
, but good friends.”

I shrug, my hands i
n my pants’ pockets.

She says, “How are you holding up?”

“Haven’t thought of her until you brought it up,” I say.

“
Right
,” she says, seeing through my lie. “Remember what I told you: have fun.” She gives me an odd look. We hear a crashing sound coming from the kitchen and she leaves me to attend to it. She yells, “Can
’t
you guys wait until the party starts to
t
rash
my house?”

Priscilla is
acting weird, and for a moment I
wonder
if she’s hitting on me. Having had no previous experience, I’m unsure. Maybe she has a collection thing going on, and I’m one of the
few
, if not
the
only,
Greenwood
guy missing from her list.

I thought Skye and
Priscilla
were friends. On the other hand, nobody
earns The Predator title
for
no reason.

No, I’m
probably
just imagining things.

***

Soon t
he party
begin
s for real.
A swarm
of guys and girls pumped up by energy drinks arrive
,
and not only
Greenwood
students. Even a few college guys show up, including Priscilla’s latest fling, which
puts to rest
any
suspicions
of mine that she might be interested in me.

Some of the
newcomers sneak
beer into the house. I don’t care; I don’t drink. After you
set fire to
your house because of a cigarette, you get a
Pavlovian
response to alcohol, tobacco,
drugs,
gambling…

Boulder, unbur
de
ned by such
concerns
, already did Boulder things.
He drank, barfed in the pool, forgot about it, and then
cannonballed
into the
water
. In a testament to his
intimidating
nature, nobody said a peep. He just sauntered into
the house
’s master bathroom, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and got back to chatting the girls up. It’s telling that he
carries
a change of clothes in the trunk of his Mustang.

Boulder makes swaggering an art form. He
saunters
as if he owns the place and has a gamble credit and/or a secret file with indiscretions from everybody in the room. He nods to strangers, and they feel compelled to nod back. The day he got his tempora
ry license, he
strolled
into an Audi
dealership
—
wearing flip-flops
—
and
test-drove the hell out of an
A
5.