Witch Ball - BK 3 (14 page)

Horrible ... but not untrue.

"You can't mean ... you couldn't!" I stopped,
unable to finish.

Opal had been my closest friend, my companion since I was a little girl. She never spoke of
her past, and when I asked she said that watching
over me was all that mattered. I didn't care what happened in her past. I just loved having her with
me always, my best friend forever.

What I did while on earth has nothing to do
with you, she said softly. The unfortunate details of
my earth life are long buried.

"So how did Hortense find out?"

That is something I do not know, but I shall look
into this situation. I clearly underestimated her, and
realize now she is a great danger. I never thought it
possible to feel anything but peace here, but for the
first time I feel fear for you. Dearest Sabine, be safe
until I return.

Then she was gone and I was alone-with the
witch ball.

How could a bunch of glass look so pretty yet be
so dangerous? It was hard to believe it was connected to evil-but I had no doubt of this and
made sure the ball was locked securely in the chest
before leaving the shed.

When I stepped outside, the clouds had passed
and sunny rays shone down like a golden mist. I
heard a squawk and saw Dagger circling overhead
as Dominic strode over.

"What's going on?" Dominic furrowed his
brow as he gestured to the building. "Were you in
there?"

I nodded, guessing that Dagger squealed on me.

"You're shaking. You okay?"

"Define okay," I said with an attempt at a joke.
But he didn't laugh, and gave me a deep look.

"We better talk," he said.

"I don't know ... it's all really confusing."

"No rush. I've got to check the fence line for
breaks. Walk with me."

"Well ... all right." I wasn't sure why I went
with him. Somehow it felt disloyal to Josh. All Dominic and I had in common was our desire to help
Nona. So what if he had muscular shoulders, wavy
hair that smelled fresh like woods, and amazingly
gentle blue eyes? He wasn't a bad kisser either ...

We walked along the edges of the pasture, and
the silence stretched longer than the fence line.
Without planning to, I found myself telling Dominic about my ghostly encounter in the shed. He
never interrupted and I could tell he believed me.
It felt good to share the weird part of my life with
someone who understood. If only I could be as
honest with josh ...

Conversation shifted to Nona and the missing
remedy book. Dominic had a new lead on one of
the names we'd gotten from Eleanor Baskets. He'd
located a man from Arizona who might be a direct
descendent of one of the sisters who had owned
the charms.

"I might extend my trip to Nevada and check
this guy out. I've left a message and should hear back
in a few days," he added, bending over to tighten a
loose strand of barbed wire on the fence.

A few days. A casual phrase that made my pulse
quicken. Would I still be around in a few days?

I hid my uneasiness and complimented Dominic on finding more information. "It'll be great
when we have all four charms," I added, breaking
off a long piece of grass and twirling it around my
finger. "Thanks for working on this."

"That's what I was hired to do."

"But you do it because you care about Nona."

"Sure, I do." He leaned close and gave me an
intense look that hinted he cared about more than
just my grandmother. My heart fluttered, and I
told myself I was just imagining things. I mean,
Dominic couldn't be flirting with me, that would
just be too weird.

"Uh . . . thanks for all you've done to help
Nona."

"I'll stay here long enough to make sure she's
well."

"And then what?" I asked.

"I'll move on." There was something final in
his tone that bothered me. It had never occurred to
me that he would want to leave. He'd become such
a part of our farm. Just seeing him around, working or hanging with the animals seemed natural;
like he belonged here.

"A farm this size takes a lot of work," I told
him. "Nona needs you around and won't want you
to move away."

"I've never stayed anywhere long."

"Why not?"

"That's just how things are." He leaned against
a fence post, his gaze drifting up to follow the falcon flying into the woods.

"So where will you go?"

"Wherever work takes me. I've been taking
classes to be a farrier."

"A what?"

"Farrier-someone who shoes horses."

"I hope it works out for you." I twisted the
piece of grass into a knot.

"You, too." He looked deeply into my face.
"You don't have to worry about that witch ball. I've
got the animals watching and nothing bad will
happen."

He sounded confident, but I had my doubtsabout a lot of things.

Wednesday dawned with bright skies and calm
breezes. Not bad for what might be the second last
day of my life, I thought morbidly.

I decided to have a positive attitude and make
today the best ever.

I wore my best pair of embroidered jeans, a
pink shirt Amy had given me for Christmas, and a
dangly chain necklace I'd found at a flea market. I
brushed my blond hair and fastened one side with
a half-moon-shaped clip. Then I hurried downstairs to surprise Nona with a delicious breakfast of
blueberry waffles, scrambled eggs, and orange juice.

Nona was surprised and grateful. Afterwards,
she offered to do the dishes and told me to go ahead
to school. So I left for school earlier than usual. I
didn't really expect josh to be at my locker yet. But
I didn't expect to find someone else there waiting for me-Evan. He smiled in this smug, sly way, like a
predator spying his victim.

"Hey, Sabine," he said casually as if we were
friends.

I refused to reply. Lifting my head defiantly, I
tried to walk around him to reach my locker. But he
moved directly in front of me, one of those blocking
moves his football fans admired.

"Did you like my card with the newspaper article?" he asked with a malicious glint in his eyes.

"Like isn't the word."

"You should thank me."

"Yeah, right," I said, glaring. "Thanks for being
an asshole."

"Such harsh language! Josh would be shocked."

"You deserve worse. And leave josh out of this."

"I've had plenty of chances to tell josh about
your witchy past."

"So why didn't you?"

He shrugged. "Didn't feel like it."

"And when will you feel like it?"

"Can't say. Why don't you tell me-you're the
psychic."

"Move!" I dodged around him, but in a flash
he was in front of me again.

"I can make a lot of trouble for you."

"Like you haven't already?"

"I haven't even started. You'd be smart to play
nice."

Glaring, I retorted with the opposite of "nice."
I mouthed off some fitting words I remembered
reading on the bathroom wall.

"Is that the worst you can do?" he sneered.

"Give me time," I said with dark threat.

"Time is up." He gave a nasty laugh. "You need
to be taught a lesson, so I've just decided that tonight
I'm going to tell Josh. Everything." He leaned so
close I could taste his hot breath. "And then I'll announce it to the whole school."

He laughed and turned away. As he strode off, I
had vivid flash of him in a previous life. He was
wearing a metal helmet, armed with sharp weapons,
and riding on a ship in foggy waters, on a quest to
pillage villages and torture innocent people. Hundreds of years hadn't improved his personality. And
not-so-lucky-me was his latest victim. Only now his
sharpest weapon was his mouth.

I hated how he played me. All that time he
hung out with josh, knowing I'd imagine the worst.
He hoped I'd squirm and bleed like a worm stabbed on a hook. He was clever, I'll give him credit for
that. By saying nothing to josh, he'd prolonged my
anxiety. He probably let his boat drift away on purpose. I'll bet Evan had the ignition keys on him the
whole time. He'd been toying with me, but now he
meant business, and he would tell josh tonight.

Unless I beat him to it.

During lunch, josh wanted to sit with Evan and
some other friends. I'd rather sit with Penny-Love
and the cheerleaders. We compromised and sat at
a table between the two groups, far enough to shut
Evan out of our conversation, but too close to discuss anything private. I caught Evan smirking at
me, and shot him a defiant glare.

So I invited josh to come to my house after
school and stay for dinner. I'd always tried to keep my school and home separate, so this was the first
time I'd ever invited him and he eagerly accepted.

Take that, Evan! I thought in triumph.

I called Nona to let her know about dinner.
She was a thousand percent behind me and even
offered to spend the evening with her poker pal
Grady so josh and I could be alone.

When I walked into my last-period class,
Manny rushed over excitedly. "Guess what?" he
asked, his dark eyes shining. "I saw him. "

"Him?" I blinked.

K.C.!

"No way! Are you serious?"

Manny's black dreads swayed as he nodded.
"He must have slipped into my class when I wasn't
looking. When the bell rang, I stood to grab my
stuff and there he was! Sitting in the back behind
this hulking dude from the wrestling team."

"How could you be sure he was K.C.?"

"Because he looked so ... so ordinary-average
height, average face, average hair. I can't even describe him. I still don't remember him from the festival, but he seemed to recognize me. When he
caught me looking, he took off. I went after him,
only he was too fast. I remembered his schedule and checked his next class before I came here, but no
K.C."

"Why is he so scared?" I wondered. "His aunt
acted afraid, too."

"Don't know, but I'm going to find out,"
Manny said with determination.

I trusted Manny and knew he'd succeed. I just
hoped it happened before tomorrow.

Manny went over to his desk and I sat down
at my usual computer. This week's Sheridan ShoutOut had just come out and already I was swamped
with articles to edit for next week's issue. There
was my other secret work, too-the predictions I
gave Manny for his column. Of course, the last
thing I felt like doing now was coming up with
predictions.

After editing a few articles, I opened up a notebook and started planning my menu for tonightand my talk with josh. It would be best to present
things in a scientific manner. I'd go online and
print out lots of psychic facts-not the skeptical
stuff, but the factual research. There are many paranormal research foundations, and countries like
Russia have long respected psychics. When you
considered all the unexplained things in this world, it made more sense to accept the existence of the
other side. I could even show josh statistics that
proved aliens were real ... but I didn't want to push
my luck.

When the last bell rang, I gathered my papers
and shoved them into my backpack. Then I joined
the throng of kids heading for the door. Josh and I
had agreed to meet by my locker, and I wanted to
get there first.