Wraithsong

  Chapter 1

  The day is sunny and ridiculously humid, even for Florida. We get into the SUV and my mom secures her seat belt, turns the engine on, lowers the volume of Mr. Tchaikovsky—her favorite—and faces me.

  “You have to be more careful, Sonia,” she says with a look of utter disappointment if I’ve ever seen one: teeth clenched, glaring eyes, head cocked to one side, right eyebrow raised. It’s a look I hate and will do almost anything in the world to avoid.

  We just left the principle’s office and it went a little something like this: I was blamed for the fight with Savannah even though she’s the one who’s been bullying me all year. Savannah didn’t get any punishment at all—I think Principal Jenkins has a thing for her—even though I was the one who ended up with a bloody nose and the only thing I did was spit in her face. Anyway, so I was sentenced to ten hours of weeding the school’s premises with a guy named Anthony (probably some plant geek), starting Monday. Not looking forward to it.

  “I’ve already spoken to you about not letting your saliva come in contact with anyone else,” my mom says angrily.

  And she has. One day at lunch, I asked Lisa, a friend I had in third grade, if she’d share her brownie with me. She said no, but let me take a sip of her juice instead. After that, she gave me the brownie, and every day until she moved away two years later, she would bring me some kind of sweet treat to school. Finding it strange, I told my mom about it and she said I ‘must never share my drinks with anyone’ (same angry tone). That was also the week I got the no-kissing-until-I-turn-eighteen lecture from both of my parents.

  Apparently, when my saliva comes in contact with a person, they’ll do whatever I want them to—or something like that. My mom has the same ability as me, but she refuses to tell me exactly what it is or where the ability comes from. I’m starting to think we’re just freaks of nature—unnatural and potentially dangerous misfits. And what’s worse, lately, I find myself obsessing about how I can make others do what I want, even though I know deep inside that it’s not the right thing to do. I wish these urges would just go away or I wish my mom would tell me why I’ve recently developed such strong urges, and how to get rid of them.

  “I know, but Savannah’s been bullying me all year and I just couldn’t take it anymore!” I say in my defense.

  Savannah’s one of the meanest girls at our school, and recently I’ve been the target of all her attacks. Her actions against me started off small—petty pranks that were quite easy to disregard, like the tacks she put on my chair and the garlic she smeared in my locker. It was a while ago, but my locker still smells, and I'm careful now to always check my seat before I sit down. I can’t prove that it was her that did this to me, but every time I check my chair for tacks in algebra class, I see her smug little smile in the back of the room. Lately, her attacks have escalated. Every night for a week, she called my house and left a message on the voicemail, saying that she had seen my dad at the mall making out with another woman. My dad died eighteen months ago and she knows it. I can't fathom why anyone would be so cruel.

  All year, my best friend Ashley said I should go to Principal Jenkins and tell him about what Savannah’s doing. She’s always encouraging me to fight back, ‘for the sake of bullied kids everywhere,’ as she puts it. Ashley has been my number one supporter when it comes to hating Savannah, and I’m really grateful for her. The reason Ashley is so tough is that another girl bullied her mercilessly, and she quickly learned to stand up for herself—and others—almost a little too much. Ashley can be as sweet as an angel, but will rapidly turn into a demon if anyone mistreats those she cares about. Last time Savannah pulled my hair, Ashley snuck behind her in the lunch line and cut a chunk out of Savannah’s hair. Ashley proceeded to warn Savannah that if she ever touched my hair again, she’d follow her to her house and shave the rest of her hair off while she was sleeping. I laughed when I heard that, but then I got a little worried on Savannah’s behalf, thinking that Ashley actually might do it.

  Like Ashley, I’m convinced that Savannah’s cruelty toward me has to do with her ex-boyfriend asking me out. Tyson has asked me out a few times, but I always decline. I don’t want to date him, since he’s made out with nearly half the girls in our school, girls just like Savannah. Status seems important to Savannah, and she certainly had that when she dated Tyson, the quarterback of our football team. Savannah probably thought she could wrap him around her little finger and have him swear fidelity to her, but he quickly lost interest and moved on, asking me—a complete nobody—out instead.

  Right before the fight, Tyson approached me in the hallway and I think he was going to ask me to the prom. I cut him off and fled as fast as I could because 1. I absolutely don’t want to go with him and 2. I was afraid Savannah would see us talking. Unfortunately she saw us and started harassing me the second Tyson left. That’s when I lost it and now I’m here trying to explain everything to my mom.

  “So I suppose tomorrow you’ll have a new best friend?” My mom gets a look of pure amusement in her eyes.

  I thought she’d be yelling at me, but somehow, her amusement and subdued tone frightens me more. “Is that what will happen?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

  I groan. I don’t want to be friends with or even associate with that crazy girl. I was trying to get rid of her!

  “Savannah will come to you tomorrow, at the very least, and apologize for what she did. She’ll also feel compelled to make it up to you and will try to become your best friend by doing anything you ask of her for the rest of her life.”

  “What?” My stomach drops like I just swallowed three gallons of sand.

  My mom nods. “She’ll become obsessed with you, stalking you day and night. I’ve warned you to be careful and this is why. The closer you are to your eighteenth birthday, the stronger the effect of your saliva will have on humans.”

  Crap! “Why?” This sounds way worse than her bullying me because I can’t think of anyone I hate more than Savannah. “I did this because I had just wanted her to leave me alone.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s part of what’s called your flair. If one isn’t careful and hasn’t been trained how to use it properly, it will backfire.” She smiles like she’s relishing in my pain.

  “Flair?” That’s the first time I’ve heard my mom use that word.

  “I’ll tell you about it when you turn eighteen,” she says. That’s what she always says, and it drives me completely and totally insane.

  “Why not now?”

  “Not today.” She presses her lips firmly together for a moment and then she says, “In life, the test comes first, the lesson later.”

  I swear it’s her favorite line. But she’s not going to budge; my mom is as tight-lipped as they come. Clearly, I hadn’t thought this Savannah thing through. “You knew what I was doing, didn’t you?”

  My mom’s eyebrows round upwards. “Of course I knew what you were doing. I’ve been playing this game since the days of Adam and Eve.” She reaches her arm behind my seat, glances back, and gracefully backs out of the school parking spot.

  “Ha, ha,” I laugh sarcastically.

  She turns serious. “It will do you no good to disobey my rules, and I’m warning you, if you do, your disobedience will have dire consequences.”

  “If you would just tell me why I am the way I am, and how I can control myself, then I’d be happy to obey,” I say.

  “I already told you, all this will be explained to you when you turn eighteen.” Her voice is stern.

  I drop my hands into my lap. “Sorry,” I say under my breath.

  “What was that?”

  “Sorry,” I say a little louder.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie, you’ll learn in time.” She grows silent for a moment. “I wanted to talk to you about this after graduation, but I think now is a better time.” She pats me on the knee.

  “Yes?” I say.

  “It’s about your graduation
present.”

  “Yes...?” My mom has been planning my graduation present for some time. I have seen open tour catalogs lying around the house and tourism websites left open on her laptop, and I figure from those clues that my graduation gift has something to do with traveling.

  She splashes the windshield with cleaner and turns the wipers on, causing the splattered love-bugs to smear across the glass. Scoffing, she says, “Stupid little things. Anyway, we’re going to Minnesota together.” Her eyes beam with excitement.

  “Oh.” I feel a huge scowl coming on. Somehow the thought of going to Minnesota doesn’t excite me. At all. “Why Minnesota?” I’d rather stay here all summer and relax on the beach, well, if she’d actually let me do that.

  “There are things I’d like you to see and people I’d like you to meet in Minnesota,” she says.

  “Where—in—Minnesota—exactly?” I try not to sound too upset. Things have been very emotional since my dad passed away in a car accident, and the last thing my mom needs is an ungrateful daughter. I have enough sense to at least be sensitive to that, though the loss hasn’t been any easier on me either. Still, I have a hard time hiding the fact that I feel cheated—way cheated. Seriously. What could be more boring than a graduation trip to Minnesota? My best friend Ashley’s going to Australia, and even the girl across the street, who never has any fun, gets to spend her summer in Hawaii.

  “A small town called Kensington.” She turns on the blinker and takes a left at Bee Ridge Road.

  I haven’t even heard of Kensington, but immediately think that its name reeks of a farm country where cows and goats outnumber the human population for sure. Any place on earth sounds more exciting. Paris, Rome, even Oslo or Orlando!

  “There, you’ll meet my sisters and you’ll officially be accepted into the Dynasty.” Excitement bounces inside the curve of her lips and the center of her eyes.

  I shouldn’t say anything, but the words just come out all by themselves. “Accepted into the…Dynasty?” That’s another new word I haven’t heard before. “Sounds—weird, like there are a lot of religious rituals or something.” My mom hasn’t really prepared me for those types of eccentricities. I wonder if being accepted into the Dynasty has anything to do with our unusual abilities. It must.

  “There you’ll learn how to appropriate what you want from humans,” she says.

  “What do you mean by appropriate from humans?” A mild panic attack looms inside, winding my emotions into a bundle of nervous energy.

  “Let’s change the subject. I can’t talk to you about it, sweetie, sorry.”

  I squeeze my lips together. Is there something magical about turning eighteen? It’s not like I’m going to be a different person a few weeks from now. “Can you at least tell me how many sisters you have?”

  “I suppose that can’t hurt. I have three sisters.”

  I have often wondered why I never met them. It’s as though my mom has kept them from me, or me from them. I can’t tell which one. “Cool.”

  “We’ll be staying with them in Minnesota, and after we’ve been there for four weeks—” my mom says.

  “Four weeks! What could we possibly be doing there for four weeks?” My summer is officially ruined.

  “Shh…just listen, please. After four weeks, we’ll be traveling to an invisible island just off the New Hampshire coast.” My mom pulls into our double garage and turns the engine off. “It’s called Wraithsong Island.”

  “Seriously? Invisible?” I say sarcastically and laugh, but soon stop when I can tell she’s just about had it with me. Maybe I should try to not sound so disappointed. Everything will work out, besides, there are many more summers ahead that will be normal—I hope. Even that’s questionable now. What will happen after my eighteenth birthday? Now I’m starting to dread something I should be looking forward to. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I’m telling you now.” She glides out of the SUV and crosses our lawn to the mailbox.

  I suppose I can wait a few weeks for all this to be clarified. Not like I have a choice. “Anything for me?” I ask, seeing that she has a pile of mail in her hands.

  My mom looks like she’s still in her mid-twenties. ‘Scandinavian genes’, she always says when people ask her about her age, but I know it’s something else. Her blonde hair reflects the sun, and her bright red lipstick, though faded since this morning, is still striking. I pull my heavy backpack out of the SUV.

  “Yes—looks like there’s an early birthday card here for you.” She holds the black envelope up and waves it.

  Black? That’s a strange color for a birthday card.

  We enter our house through the garage and go through the cozy, yellow laundry room to get to the kitchen. Shortly after moving in, my dad created my mom’s dream kitchen—the last thing he did before he died. He installed white and gray marble counter tops, white custom made cupboards, and all new stainless-steel appliances.

  The kitchen still brings back so many memories of me working with my dad. He showed me how to hammer in a nail, how to caulk and even how to connect the plumbing. I have dreams of my dad at night, and still wake up crying because I miss him so much. He was my best friend, always there, patient and loving, not yelling or threatening me to do something he wanted, but waiting for me to make my own decisions. He would even respect my choice if I made the wrong one. Well, as long as it didn’t harm anyone else, of course. My mom said that Dad was the first man she had fallen in love with. “No one had ever been right for me before your father,” she always said. Every day I see the ever-lingering grief in her eyes. Her despondent look appeared the day my dad’s life was taken from her.

  “Can I fix you a snack?” She opens the cabinet containing the crackers and cereal boxes.

  “Mom, I’m almost eighteen. I can fix my own snack.” Since I’m an only child, I think she overdoes it and pampers me too much.

  “But I like doing it for you,” she says softly. I wonder how she manages to give so much, when death robbed her of one of the most important things in her life.

  I study the front of my black birthday envelope. There’s no return address—only a small, hand-drawn, silver-metallic balloon on the front next to my name and address. The handwriting looks like printed calligraphy and I see that the envelope came from New York City. I start opening it.

  “No, no.” She grabs it from me. “Not until your birthday.”

  “But that’s not for another two weeks!” I say.

  “It’s bad luck to open any presents before your birthday, and that includes cards.” She stuffs the envelope in the kitchen island drawer. “I’ll make you a turkey sandwich, how does that sound?”

  A smile tugs at my lips. “Sounds delicious. I’m just going to put my stuff in my room.” I scamper through the kitchen, take a left into the hallway with our lives pretty much plastered onto the wall with pictures, “the hallway of memories,” as my mom calls it, pass the Jack and Jill bathroom on my right and take a right into the small hallway that leads to my bedroom. It is impeccable as usual: my dark cherry furniture is brightened by red and yellow accents throughout. I pride myself in keeping my room clean, but I do have one weakness when it comes to cleanliness: I absolutely hate making my bed.

  The only time I make it is when I know company is coming, which isn’t often. I usually spend most of my time on my bed when I’m in my room—when I sleep, when I study, when I chat on the phone with my best friend Ashley and when I immerse myself in reading my favorite new book series—a Viking Blood Saga.

  I toss my backpack on to the bed and head to the bathroom. My golden brown hair, or Goldilocks hair as my dad always called it, looks tousled, like it’s been through a tornado. I remember Savannah ruffling my hair before she threw her algebra binder in my face. Stupid Savannah, but I can’t help but smile a little because even though I’m not looking forward to meeting this new stalker-Savannah, I’m thrilled that the harassment will finally stop. I undo my rowdy ponytail and
my hair cascades down my back. I run a brush through it a couple of dozen times and pile it on top of my head into a messy up-do.

  “Your sandwich is ready!” my mom hollers from the kitchen.

  “Be right there!”

  Arriving in the kitchen, I sit down at our kitchen table. I take a bite of my sandwich and it tastes delicious, as always. My mom sits down next to me, handing me a tall glass of ice water. Beads of condensation trickle down the sides and it makes my mouth water.

  “So tell me about this flair,” I say casually.

  “Not talking about it. Just trust me, Sonia, will you?” Her face is harsh.

  I’m sick of her treating me like I can’t be trusted. “You know what? Forget I ever brought it up. I think I’ll just go and do my homework in my room.” I grab my sandwich and leave.

  Once in my room, I pull my algebra out first and when I’m done with that, I start on history. There’s a subtle knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  My mom opens the door and leans against the doorframe. “I’m sorry, Sonia. I just wish you’d trust me a little more. You’ll understand so much more after you go to the Academy.”

  “Wait, I have to go to school?” My eyebrows gather tightly above my eyes.

  “Yes. You have to learn about all of this from somewhere,” she says.

  “About what, Mom? You won’t even tell me. This is going to be the worst summer ever! I’m not going.” Fury wells up inside when I think about how my mom has kept all this information from me my whole life. I feel lied to.

  “Sonia, I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not you want to go. I’m not going to force you, but if you turn nineteen and decide not to enter the Dynasty, you’ll be on your own.” She sounds very frustrated.

  “Why did you wait so long to tell me about all this?” I try to sound reasonable, but instead, there’s a whiney tone in my voice.

  My mom takes a deep breath and then exhales. “Sonia, you’re acting like a five-year-old, and I expect more from you. Besides, some things aren’t up to me. The rule is that I’m not supposed to tell you anything until you turn eighteen, and then you have a year to decide whether you want to go to the Academy or not. I’ve already given you a head start.”

  I glance at her and then back down at my homework. “I know I’m acting—not myself, sorry.” Usually I’m much better at controlling my emotions, but lately, my emotions have the upper hand.

  She sits down on my bed next to me and takes my hand. “You don’t have to decide right this moment. Sleep on it, and we’ll talk about it in a few days, all right?”

  I puff. In reality, I’m afraid of the future because I have so many questions, yet so few answers and I feel like the decisions I make over the next few months will alter my life forever. “I just—”

  Suddenly, my mom’s phone rings from the kitchen. “Hold that thought.” She runs out to the kitchen and I soon hear her talking on the phone to whoever is on the other end of the line.

  Sitting alone, I wonder why there are so many secrets. My friends don’t seem to have these types of secrets in their families. They all know their extended families and live normal lives, or at least that’s how it seems. “Kensington,” I say out loud as I try to imagine how my trip to the tiny town might be. Then I think of Wraithsong Island off the coast of New Hampshire and figure that my life will never be the same again.

  “Who was it?” I ask when my mom returns.

  Her face is a pale gray. “It was my eldest sister,” she says. “Something has happened to one of my other sisters.”

  “What?” I say.

  She says tearfully, “She’s vanished.”

  “How?” Having never met my aunts, I have no real connection with them, but I can’t ignore her pained expression.

  “It’s uncertain at this point, but the police have been notified.”

  “Maybe she just—ran away,” I say.

  “No, my sister would never run away, especially not when it’s so close to—” she lets her voice trail off.

  “Do you need to go visit your family? I’ll be fine for a few days.”

  She rests her chin on her clenched fist. “I’ll need to think about it.”

  “If you’re worried about leaving me—” I say.

  “No, it’s not that. If there were any sign of foul play involved, I would be worried about leaving you, but there isn’t.”

  “Even if there were, they’re thousands of miles away,” I say.

  “I know, but you never know.” Her eyes get a worried look.

  “If you need to leave, I’ll be fine. I can have Ashley stay with me for a few days.”

  “I’ll think about it.” She stands up, her expression extremely worried. “I need to run an errand right now, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay, I’ll just finish my homework. Will you be all right?” I place my hand on her shoulder.

  “I don’t know, but this might change everything.” She walks out of my room before I’m able to ask another question.

  After my mom leaves, I think about what she said earlier. I have something called flair, and that has something to do with my ability to control people. After today, I’m certain that if used inappropriately, this ability can cause a lot of damage to others and myself, and though I want to understand it, my mom’s definitely not going to tell me. I’ll just have to be more careful while I wait.

  My summer looks a bit bleak, and just to make my last few weeks of school miserable, I’ll be pulling up weeds with a complete stranger. Anthony’s probably a mean old guy who has green thumbs and fingers and toes, and spends all his free time conversing with shrubbery.