~~~~~
I was walking on air all the way through Monday afternoon, despite how coldly Dani treated me and the fact that Jack didn't show up again. During dance I had more enthusiasm for the routines than I had ever had before, and was actually considering changing my mind about performing at the winter show.
Practice ended and Dane announced, "For anyone that's interested and able to stay a few extra minutes, Kenna has a new kind of dance to show us." Almost everyone stayed, and suddenly I was nervous. Was I really ready to share this with anyone else?
The music started, and I had a hard time getting lost in the dance, sticking instead to dance moves I was used to. I was nervous that they would judge me, that Dane was just flattering me because he liked me, and that the others would see the flames in the mirror that I had seen that first day by myself. I closed my eyes and reached out for the girl dressed in the flame dress. Am I going to be okay? I asked.
Yes, she said. Would you like me to help you?
Yes.
She took over. I slipped into the music and danced my fire dance. It was only half the song by that point, and Dane stopped the CD before it rolled into the next song. I opened my eyes and looked at the group that had been watching. Some of them were smiling; some of them had their mouth open in shock. Someone started clapping, and soon everyone was applauding my performance.
Dane walked over to my side and faced the group. "Now, you all are more than welcome to say no, but I look at this dance and think it would be an excellent addition to our winter show. How would you feel if we had a routine or two featuring Kenna?"
No one answered at first, then slowly everyone started chiming in. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with the exception of Dani, whose face was quickly turning red. She quickly picked up her bag and walked out the door.
"Great!" Dane said, apparently not noticing Dani leaving. "Now, I don't know how many of us can learn to dance quite the way she can, but I bet Kenna can teach us some moves that come close enough to provide some decent backup dancing. Would you be willing to do that, Kenna?"
"Umm... wow. Are you going to let me say no to the routine?" Dane and about half the people in the club said no almost simultaneously. "Well, I guess I'll have to then, won't I?" I tried to front nervousness, but secretly I was thrilled. We worked out as a group who would be in my routines and when we would start practicing them. It would only be once a week, but Thursday would become a new "official" practice day for the routines.
As we dispersed I caught up with one of my dance mates, Sonia, as she walked to the parking lot. From what I could tell, she was a pretty close friend to Dani. "Hey, can I ask you an awkward question?"
"Sure, shoot."
"Dani's been pretty distant to me lately and she seemed really upset just now. Do you know what's wrong?"
Sonia gave me this pitying look. "Listen, I'm Dani's friend. I'm not going to blab her secrets to you if she doesn't want you to know them. You should ask her yourself."
"I want to, and I've been trying, but she's been ignoring me and trying to run away from me. I just want to understand what it is I did so I can apologize."
"You really can't figure it out?"
"No! If I could figure it out, I wouldn't be asking you for help!"
She sighed. "Fine. I don't want to give away too many specifics, though, and you didn't hear this from me, okay?" I nodded. "Dani has a huge crush on Dane, and she's been working to get her own routine for a performance ever since she helped form the group freshman year. Since Dane’s a year older, when he joined he just fell into the role of leader and never gave her to opportunity to have a solo. Didn’t make her like him any less, though."
"Well, I don't need to have my own performance. I'd be more than happy to give that opportunity to her."
"In my own opinion, our show needs you. But I can see how some people would think that you're only getting it because you and Dane are going out."
"I... we... I wouldn't say THAT, necessarily..." I stuttered.
"Oh, please. First of all, everyone knows you went out with him this weekend. Second of all, it's so obvious that Dane has had a crush on you almost since you joined the club. The only reason he didn't ask you out sooner is because you were spending all your time with that Jack guy."
Ouch. I sighed despondently. "Okay. Well, thanks."
"Yeah. And remember, you didn't hear any of this from me." We had reached her car. As she was about to get in she added, "By the way, I meant what I said. Your dance was really awesome and I think you should definitely have your own routine at the winter performance."
Dane was waiting for me back at the bike rack. "Do you want a ride home?" He asked.
"Thanks, but I think I wanna just ride my bike home today."
He was obviously disappointed. "Are you sure? It's not a problem, you know."
"Yeah, I'm positive. I'll see you tomorrow."
When I got home I ran straight up to my room and called Dani right away. It went to voicemail. I hung up called her again, and when it went to voicemail again I realized that she was probably screening her calls. I left a message.
"Dani, it's Kenna. I just wanted to say I figured out why you're upset and I wanted to apologize. Call me back when you get this."
Dani called back within five minutes. She didn't even say hello and went straight to, "Do you really think you know why I'm upset?"
"I'm pretty sure. I didn't realize that you wanted your own dance routine, and I'm sorry I was so dense that I didn't see you liked Dane. I can try to convince him to give you the routines instead. I don't want them if it's going to upset you." She was quiet for long enough that I had to check my phone to make sure I hadn't accidentally hung up. "Dani?"
She sighed a deep, long sigh. "You deserve the routine."
"It means a lot to me to hear you say that" I replied. "And... I'm sorry about Dane. I didn't realize that you liked him."
"That's okay. I'm sure that the date was just a one-time thing, right?"
"Well... he actually asked me out again when he dropped me off from our first date."
"Did you say yes?"
"Yeah." Dani was quiet again. "Listen, Dani, this was before I knew that– "
She didn't let me finish, instead hanging up before I could get another word in.
I laid back and just stared at the ceiling for a while. I felt bad that I hurt her, but at the same time I didn't really feel like she should be quite so angry. It wasn't like I made Dane ask me out. And Dane and I got along so well. She should be happy for me that I found someone that makes me happy. I shouldn't have any sort of obligation to shut Dane out just so that Dani could feel better.
I got up off the bed to go do something before I could make myself needlessly angry at Dani. I headed to the kitchen to get a snack, but heard an unfamiliar voice coming from the living room as I walked down the stairs. I quietly walked back to the top of the stairs and listened to the conversation going on.
"-there anything you can do?" My dad’s voice drifted up the stairs.
"Listen, the most you can do - the most we can ALL do - is wait and hope for the best. Are you sure you don't want the help of one of my students?" The other man's voice was deep and rough. I didn't like it at all.
"I can do this. Really. I just need to figure out how to do it without hurting anyone..."
"If you over think it you could cause even more harm than intended. Don't look at me like that - I'm just telling you the truth. Honestly, even an idiot could take one look at you and tell that something's not right."
"I'm being careful. All I need to do is get through this as quickly as possible so Lucie can come home. Once she's back I'll be fine again."
The stranger sighed a deep, exasperated sigh. "I don't like this. I'm only helping you out of respect, you know. Here are the materials you wanted. You should come back to the school once
in a while, I think it would help. And I'm serious - I really think you should have one of the students helping you out. I don't believe in 'balance' or whatnot the way you do, but you obviously take it very seriously. I'll see you later, Geth."
I moved to sneak back to my room, but Dad had gone straight to the base of the stairs and noticed me. "Kenna! Were you listening in on my conversation?" He snapped.
"Just the last part about you going to the school! I wanted to get a snack but I heard you talking to someone and wasn't sure if it would be rude to interrupt..."
Dad looked straight into my eyes as though to see if I was hiding anything. His face softened after a few seconds and he said, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I just didn't hear you come in from school and was surprised to see you there."
"It's okay. Can I ask who that was?"
"That was Calvin Briggs, the man I told you about that runs the wardcarving school. He was bringing by some materials for me to work on since I'm doing so much from home now."
"You know, if you need help around the house you can just ask me and Arvin. I know he's not here often and I stay at school for a little bit every day, but I think that being here all the time is causing you too much stress. You constantly look really tired all the time now."
He shook his head. "No, I need to be working by myself right now. But thanks for being concerned about your dear ol' dad."
I walked down the stairway and gave him a hug. "No problem."
I later woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible realization. It had been way too easy for me to lie to Dad about how much of the conversation I overheard, and I didn't just mean in the way that most teens lie to their parents to stay out of trouble. I remembered how difficult it was for me to tell my parents a harmless, made up tale that day they told me the truth about being wardcarvers, and it occurred to me that I felt no sort of resistance like that while lying to my dad. I grabbed my cell phone to use as a flashlight and headed to the top of the stairs. I inspected the banister closely, where Dad had started carving the wooden posts holding up the banister after mom left. They had every design I had seen carved into the wood items in our home, but there was no order to them, and each design was carved in a different style than they had been carved in to all the other furniture in our home. They looked spikier, more stretched out, and much more elaborate than the others. I was no wardcarver, so I didn't want to come to any definitive conclusions, but I got the distinct vibe that these were meant to perform the functions that the rest of the wards in our house were supposed to, but they were just... off. Like they were given a set of instructions written in a language they only half understood.
I looked for my parents' seal, hoping that there was no way these wards would be sealed in the way they looked now. It took the better part of a half hour, but I found it at the base of only one post near the top of the staircase. I could see that my dad had carved in their seal, but it was wavy looking and there were shallow scratches that indicated someone - possibly my dad? - was frustrated with it and didn't want it to be there anymore.
I reached out to touch the seal and whispered, "What's going on?" As soon as my fingertip touched the carving, I felt a jolt of energy rush through my body and felt this overwhelming sense of sadness and loss. I pulled my hand back and those feelings disappeared.
I was confused and, admittedly, rather afraid. I went back to my room and sat at my desk to start drawing on origami paper.
I started on the edges with round thick lines. What was going on with dad?
I drew medium-sized branches coming off the first lines. From what I could piece together, dad was in trouble and it had to do with mom being gone.
With a thin, ballpoint pen, rounded leaves unfurled from the branches. Mom was not gone on a research trip to Germany, of that I was ninety percent certain. She must be detained somewhere, judging from Dad's statement about his needing to get a job done so she could come home.
More thick lines, curved and tangled, closer to the center but still leaving a blank hole in the middle. Was dad working on carving wards on his own? He must be, and that must be why Calvin Briggs told him to take on a student to help him out. The banister was the first thing Dad started working on after Mom left, but I had assumed that he was carving wards he and mom had already established as “safe” wards. It was possible that he was trying to modify the wards so they had a different effect than the other ones.
Tiny, delicate ovals in the center of the sheet. Mom and dad talked about how trying to carve wards for an impure purpose caused corruption. I doubted that dad was purposely carving impure wards, but it was possible that he was unintentionally corrupting the wards by over thinking them. Did corruption change the physical appearance of a person? If so, that could be why Dad was looking so dark around the edges.
I finished the drawing. As a whole, it looked like some modern-deco stamp of birds' eggs in a nest sitting in a tree. A hummingbird seemed like an appropriate fold.
Fold the sheet side to side, corner to corner. Who was holding mom hostage and forcing dad to make something for them? This wasn't the first time mom and dad had been targeted for their abilities, but it was the first where they weren't able to get away. It had to be someone who knew how to get around the wards protecting them and past the people who were keeping an eye on them. It was probably the people that had sent the vampires after me, as the vampires had anti-wards on them. Mina made the vampires, I was positive of that. But she didn't have any anti-wards on her, or at least none that I could see and none that Jack was aware of. I didn't know her too well, but my impression of her was that she wasn't the mastermind type. She relished chaos, not order. It was probably someone else.
The bird was finished. I had gotten all my thoughts in order, but I was unsatisfied with how little I had pieced together. It was like I got the edges of a thousand piece puzzle done, and all the pieces that looked like they were part of the same part of the picture separated, but I had no actual picture to reference. I hung up the bird and wondered how I could possibly help. I wasn't going to ask dad. While I felt like I could handle the truth, he probably was just trying to protect me. I was afraid that involving myself would just get him in more trouble.
I had been trying to keep Jack off my mind as much as possible, but I really, really wished he was there to tell me what to do, or maybe find my mother for us. I also wished that he could just be there for me as my best friend.
I sat at my window to see what was going on in the graveyard that night. Nothing too exciting happened, just a few ghosts talking to each other. I fell asleep at the window and slept fitfully until morning.
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