Don't Rhine on My Parade

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I don’t know how I got out of the house, or what I said to Mark to convince him that I wasn’t going crazy. All I know is that I was in the car and on the way over to my parents’ house within five minutes of my epiphany.

  What in the world would I say to her? Did she know that she had a special ability? Was she using it on purpose? Would she believe me when I tried to explain that the fate of mankind depended on her and me? Did she really even have an ability or was I just making this up because I wanted it to be true so badly? I would find out soon enough.

  My heart was in my throat as I knocked on the front door. Be home, be home, be home, I chanted silently. The door opened.

  “Piper,” Sarah said flatly. Come to think of it, we hadn’t been on great terms lately. Maybe I should have spent more time worrying about whether she hated me still and less about her abilities.

  “Sarah,” I said cautiously. “We need to talk.”

  She blocked the door by leaning casually against the doorframe. “We need to talk? I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

  “Come on, Sarah,” I begged, “Let me in. This is important.”

  “Important, like embarrassing me in front of my friends and tattling on me to Mom and Dad?”

  I winced, “Look Sarah, I’m sorry about all that. But I really do need to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  She frowned but stepped back and stalked into the living room. She flopped angrily on the loveseat and glared at me. I closed the door behind me and chose a seat facing her. “I don’t know how to begin,” I said lamely.

  Sarah yawned and studied her fingernails. “Is this going to take long? I was going to meet some friends at the movies in a bit.”

  I felt my anger flare up and tried to stuff it back down. “Yeah, this is going to take some time. You might want to cancel that movie.”

  She raised one eyebrow at me, “And just why would I want to cancel a movie for you?”

  Okay. Not going so great. Guess Mark was right all those times he told me I needed to work on my relationship with her. I decided to skip the small talk and dive in. Problem was, I wasn’t entirely sure that I was right. Was it fair to tell her about all the scary things out there if she didn’t have an ability and didn’t need to know? On the other hand, if humans started to be the menu item of choice, she’d find out soon enough.

  I decided to ease my way in after all, “I was talking to Mark tonight,” I started.

  “Oh joy,” she deadpanned.

  I plowed on, trying to ignore the impulse to smack her upside the head. “He didn’t remember seeing you at the coffee shop the other night.”

  If I hadn’t been watching closely I wouldn’t have seen the almost imperceptible tensing of her body. “What coffee shop?” she asked.

  I grinned, relief flooding through me. She might as well have tacked a neon sign to her head that said “Guilty, guilty, guilty.” As a mother I was good at detecting guilt symptoms, and she was broadcasting loud and clear.

  “It doesn’t work on me, Sarah,” I smiled. “Just like I doubt my power works on you.”

  She just stared. I couldn’t help smiling. “Man, Sarah! Why didn’t you tell me?” I saw her face change and answered my own stupid question, “Okay. I know why you didn’t tell me. I’ve not been the greatest big sister in the world. In fact, I’ve been a real pain in the butt. I’ve been bossy, and overbearing, and judgmental, and I am so sorry! If I had been a little nicer maybe you could have told me what you were going through.”

  She sat up straight and said cautiously, “What do you think I’m going through?”

  I moved over to join her on the couch. She let me take her hand so maybe things weren’t as bad between us as I thought. “You have some sort of mind control, don’t you?”

  She looked torn between pretending that I was crazy and laughing at me, and really wanting to know how I knew. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look,” I said earnestly, “I do too.”

  “You do what?”

  “I can control people with my Voice. If I command someone to do something, they have to do it. I think yours must be a little different. How does it work?”

  She looked at the ground and seemed to be struggling with a decision. “Why should I talk to you about any of this? Even if any of it is true, which I’m not saying it is.”

  I squeezed her hand, “Because, I’m your sister, and I love you, and these last few days I’ve discovered things about our world that I never knew were there, and you need to know them too. I need you, Sarah. I was more hoping that you had ability than sure of it. I need your help, badly.”

  She looked at me for the first time in ages without a sneer on her face. “You need my help?”

  “Yeah, you have no idea. And I am so sorry to mix you up in all of this, but I have to, and I know that you are strong enough to deal with it.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Can you just tell me about your ability first? And when you found out about it? I really want to know. And then I will tell you everything.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “I can control people’s memories. I just tweak the part I need to change and leave the rest of it alone. I found out a couple of years ago. Dad caught me sneaking out of the house one night and he said it was too late to yell about it so he would talk to me in the morning. I wanted so badly for him to forget it ever happened, and the next morning he had totally forgotten all about it. I thought it was a fluke, but I tried again, and it worked again.”

  She looked at me and made an apologetic grimace, “Mrs. Starr really did see me drinking and driving the other night.”

  “Oh, Sarah,” I gave her hug, “it’s okay. I mean, it’s not ok that you’re drinking and driving, or even drinking at all, I want you to be safe, but it’s okay to tell me things. I promise that I will do my best to stop acting like your mother and start acting like your sister instead.”

  “Well, you do make a better sister than mother,” she grinned.

  “Humph,” I grunted, “I hope Megan and Cassidy don’t agree with you.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you’re a good mother to them. I just mean, I like you better as a sister than a mother.”

  “I like you as a sister too,” I said.

  “So, what did you need me for?”

  I made a face, “This is going to be so hard to explain. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Start at the beginning and work your way through to the end. That’s how I usually do it,” my smart-aleck sister said.

  “Well,” I thought for a moment, “Let me make a phone call first. There’s somebody who can explain things a little better than me.”

  I dialed Cecily’s number and was not too horribly surprised when I heard the sound of a phone ringing outside the living room window.

  “Hello?” Cecily said quietly.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “You might want to put your phone on silent when you’re spying on someone.”

  “Oh give me a break!” she exclaimed, “four years on Observer Duty and I make one little mistake and get criticized for it!”

  “Yeah. Whatever. So, what did you hear?”

  “Nothing, I was just getting in a good position. What’s going on? More Sarah trouble?”

  “You might say that,” I looked over at Sarah and winked at her, “Sarah is uniquely gifted and can help in our present difficulty.”

  “Oh,” said Cecily, “Oh! Ok then. I’ll be right in.”

  There was a knock at the door. Once again I was amazed at how fast she got from the backyard to the front. Sarah looked confused but followed me to the door.

  “Hey, Cecily,” I greeted her. “Come on in.”

  She took a step forward and stopped at the threshold.

  “Not your house, Piper,” she said.

  I turned to Sarah, “You have to invite her in.”

  “Why?” Sarah was completely lost at this point.

 
I took a big breath, “Because she’s a vampire and they can’t enter a home without being invited first.”

  “Yeah right.” Sarah was clearly skeptical.

  Cecily smiled a shark eating grin with elongated canines and huge dark pupils that made the whites of her eyes disappear. Sarah stumbled back in shock.

  “It’s okay,” I tried to reassure her. “Cecily’s a friend. Invite her in.”

  “Vampires, Piper!?” Sarah shrieked.

  “I know. It’s a lot to take in. But there’s way more and if we don’t get started it’s going to take me all night to explain and I need to get back before Mark wonders what happened to me.”

  “He knows about all this?”

  I looked down, embarrassed, “No. I haven’t told him,” I added a “yet,” on the end but I didn’t really believe it.

  Sarah took a shaky breath. “Ok, but I hope you know what you are doing.” She turned back to the door where Cecily was patiently waiting. “Please come in.”