But for now, I didn’t care; I needed to get out of here.
“Seriously,” I told them as I turned to hurry back down the hall. “It’s fine. So super fine.”
Luckily, neither of them followed, and I managed to get to the dressing room, shucking off my leotard like it was on fire. I threw my clothes back on, and hurried out the back door of the rec center before anyone could see me. I’d e-mail Sara and tell her I’d gotten sick or something.
Getting into my car, I pushed my hair back with hands that were still trembling. I needed to talk to someone, but I sat there in the driver’s side, the air-conditioning raising goose bumps on my skin, and racked my brain for someone I could talk to. Not David; things were still tense with us, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to explain why Bee and Ryan were weirding me out so much without him thinking it was a jealousy thing. But if I couldn’t talk to David, and I couldn’t talk to Bee, who could I talk to?
When the answer came, I felt a wave of relief wash over me.
It only took a few minutes to drive to Aunt Jewel’s, and when I got there, she was outside watering her roses, dressed in a pretty light green top that seemed to have some kind of bird on it, and matching polyester slacks. As soon as I pulled up, she turned the hose off and waved me inside.
“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise?” Aunt Jewel led me into the living room, and I flopped on the flowered sofa while she went into the kitchen to get us something to drink.
I fiddled with the hem of my dress, and when Aunt Jewel came back in, I blurted out, “I have something to tell you.”
Aunt Jewel had leaned down to hand me a glass of iced tea, and she froze in place, the glass halfway to me. “Oh, Harper Jane,” she said on a sigh. “You’re not in trouble, are you?”
I was, of course. In lots of trouble, and I almost said answered yes. But then I realized Aunt Jewel thought I was in that kind of trouble.
“No,” I said quickly, taking the tea before she spilled it. “No, no, no. Not even a little bit.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Aunt Jewel pressed her hand to her chest, right over the painted hummingbird on her sweater. “Well, thank heaven for that at least.” She squinted at me, leaning a little closer, and I picked up the scent of Estée Lauder perfume and the slightest hint of baby powder. “But if you’re not in the family way, why do you look so sick?”
I didn’t know I did look sick, and when I pressed both hands to my cheeks, Aunt Jewel clucked, sitting next to me on the couch. “I’ve thought you looked peaked for a few weeks at least. You aren’t doing too much at school, are you?”
The tea was cold and sweet, and I gulped nearly half of the glass before setting it back on its coaster. “It’s not school, Aunt Jewel. Or it is, but not the way you’re thinking. Last year, during the fall, something . . . something happened to me.”
She was squinting at me now, reaching down to pick up the glasses suspended on a glittery chain around her neck. Once they were on her nose, she settled deeper into the sofa and said, “What, exactly?”
It all spilled out then. All of it. The night of the Homecoming dance, Mr. Hall, killing Dr. DuPont, learning what a Paladin was, David being an Oracle, all the training with Saylor, Blythe, how there hadn’t been an earthquake the night of Cotillion. How that had been me. How Ryan could do magic, and I’d made him do a spell that had wiped everyone’s memory.
When I was done, the living room was very quiet. I’d drained my tea during my confession, but Aunt Jewel hadn’t touched hers. The ice was melting in it now, leaving a dark ring on the coaster in front of her. I could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the main hallway, but that was the only sound.
Aunt Jewel heaved a sigh, and I waited for her to tell me I was insane or to say she was calling my mom.
Instead, she got up and patted my knee. “Come on, baby girl. We’ve got somewhere to go.”
Chapter 26
I FIGURED AUNT JEWEL was taking me home. Or maybe driving me all the way up to the psychiatric hospital in Tuscaloosa.
So when she pulled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, I was both relieved and confused.
“The grocery store?” I asked as Aunt Jewel attempted to squeeze her massive Cadillac into a teensy parking space.
I winced as one of the side-view mirrors clipped the car next to us, but Aunt Jewel didn’t seem too concerned.
“I think better when I’m shopping, and you have given me a lot to think about.”
I was fairly certain my mouth was hanging open, and I imagined my eyes popping out like something in a cartoon. “Aunt Jewel, I just told you that I have superpowers. That my current boyfriend is an Oracle, and my ex-boyfriend is more or less a wizard. And you want to do a little shopping? I’d hoped you wouldn’t freak out, don’t get me wrong, but I expected some freaking out.”
Heaving a sigh, Aunt Jewel gathered her pocketbook in her arms and faced me. “Harper Jane, I am nearly eighty years old. I have lived through a world war, buried two husbands, and when I was eighteen, I told my parents I was going to a church revival, but I actually spent a weekend in Biloxi with a traveling salesman. In other words, young lady, I understand that weird crap—Lord forgive me—happens. Now get out of the car and stop overthinking things.”
So a few minutes later, I found myself stepping into the overly air-conditioned, overly Muzaked store, trailing behind my aunt.
I pushed the buggy for Aunt Jewel while she scanned the shelves of the Piggly Wiggly, occasionally squinting at the yellow legal pad she’d pulled out of her purse. She had just put a bunch of bananas in a little plastic baggie and laid it in the buggy when she said, “So David can see the future.”
“Shh!” I hissed, glancing around us. This time of day, the Pig was mostly deserted, but I still couldn’t be too careful. “Aunt Jewel, that is a private topic.”
But she tsked at me and lifted her glasses to her nose, the sparkly chain winking in the fluorescent lights. Over the sound system, Whitney Houston wailed about finding the greatest love of all inside herself.
I trailed Aunt Jewel into the coffee and cereal aisle. “Yes,” I said as quietly as I could.
“Hmm.” Aunt Jewel picked up a can of Cream of Wheat. “How far into the future?”
I stopped, startled. Weirdly, I’d never thought of that before. It wasn’t like David was seeing spaceships or intergalactic wars. “I don’t know,” I told her. “We never tried that much, I guess.”
Aunt Jewel took that in with a little nod before adding a package of coffee to her groceries, along with some nondairy creamer. “Okay. Well, how often does he see the future? And is it only his future, or yours, or everyone in the whole wide world’s? Because it seems to me that that would be a lot going on in one brain. I know that Stark boy is bright, but I’m not sure anyone’s mind could handle all that information.”
“That’s exactly what I thought!” I exclaimed, our buggy squeaking to a halt. “But apparently me trying to keep him from seeing too much means that I’m controlling or whatever, and—”
I broke off, aware that Aunt Jewel was watching me. “Oh yeah,” I added, a little sheepishly. “I, uh, I may have done some things to be sure he couldn’t have very strong visions. But it’s only because I was trying to keep him safe, which is supposed to be the whole point of this thing.”
Sighing, Aunt Jewel wrapped her fingers around the edge of the buggy and tugged it out of my grip, wheeling it in front of her. As she took the handle and steered us down the Asian and ethnic food aisle (which contained some ramen and spaghetti sauce), she glanced over at me. “Don’t fret, honey. It seems like you and David have taken on more responsibility than most children should.”
“We’re not children,” I insisted, but Aunt Jewel only laughed.
“Of course you are. You’re barely seventeen, and you still have a whole other year of school to get through. That makes you a child as far as I’m concerned.”
When she turned back to me, her blue eyes were
soft and she smiled. “But then you’ll always be my baby, even when you’re forty years old with babies of your own.”
It was a sweet thing to say, but it still hit me squarely in the chest. Aunt Jewel must’ve seen it, because her smile faded. “Oh. Except you can’t have babies, can you? Not if you have to run around protecting David. Doesn’t exactly seem like a child-friendly environment.”
I shook my head, but it wasn’t like I’d thought much about all of that. I’d thought about college, sure, but that was as far as I’d let myself go. Thinking about all the other stuff—marriage, kids, a career—had been too hard. Too scary, too much. I wasn’t proud of the whole head-in-the-sand thing I’d been doing, but I hadn’t known what else to do.
When the buggy stopped this time, it was Aunt Jewel’s fault. She stopped there in front of a row of Chef Boyardee, frowning. “And David is your boyfriend now, but what if you break up? Or find someone else?”
I put a couple of jars of spaghetti sauce into the buggy. “We already broke up,” I told her. “But bringing someone else into this would be a disaster. It was hard enough dealing with Ryan and Mary Beth.” I thought again about Bee locked in Ryan’s arms in the closet, her lip gloss smeared on Ryan’s face. “Not that they’re an issue anymore, I guess.”
I’d told Aunt Jewel about Ryan’s powers, but I’d left out the part with him and Bee. I wasn’t quite ready to get into that just yet.
But now Aunt Jewel was frowning at me, her eyes bright over the tops of her glasses. “How did Ryan even get involved in all this?” she asked. “How did he get . . . powers or magic or whatever you want to call it?”
“Saylor passed them on to him after Brandon stabbed her,” I answered without thinking.
The box of pasta in Aunt Jewel’s hand tumbled to the floor, the container breaking open and penne spilling everywhere. But she didn’t even seem to see it. “Saylor Stark was murdered?”
Oh. Right.
A stock boy rounded the corner and, seeing the mess, jogged off, probably to get a broom. I scooped Aunt Jewel’s purse up out of the buggy and took her gently by the elbow.
“Maybe we should shop later.”
“Yes,” she said faintly, giving a nod. “M-maybe that’s for the best.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were at Miss Annemarie’s Tearoom, huddled in one of the corner tables and drinking chamomile. Aunt Jewel’s pot of tea was half empty by the time she took a shuddery breath and said, “All right, Miss Harper Jane. I take it back. You are not overthinking this. I don’t think anyone could overthink such a thing—goodness.”
Pressing a shaking hand to her lips, Aunt Jewel shook her head. “And you’ve been dealing with this all alone.”
“Not alone,” I told her as I poured us both another cup. “I have David and Ryan. And Bee. Bee knows.” I left it at that, rather than explaining Bee’s new Paladin powers and her kidnapping and sudden reappearance. Aunt Jewel had had enough shocks for one day. We could always get into that later if needed.
“But no adults,” she said, dumping a few sugar cubes into her cup. “And all of you running around, breaking up with each other, getting together, breaking up again, getting together with different people.”
I thought about telling her about Alexander, but since I still hadn’t made up my mind how to feel about that, I decided I could skip it for now. “I know, things are complicated, and the dating stuff probably doesn’t help.”
But Aunt Jewel only shook her head, the cubic zirconias in her ears winking. “You’re children,” she said again. “That’s what children do, make things messier than they have to be.”
I thought of Ryan and Bee in the closet, her lipstick on his face, his eyes daring me to say I didn’t want them to be together.
Yeah, things were messy, all right.
Miss Annemarie stopped by the table, smiling down at the two of us. “Harper! I’ve seen your mama and your aunts in here, but I haven’t seen you in forever!”
“I’ve been busy with school,” I said, not adding that I’d been avoiding her since we’d tried to kill each other at Cotillion. It was still bizarre to look into her face and remember her coming after me with a knife.
After Miss Annemarie had gone back to the kitchen, promising to make some of her crab bisque, Aunt Jewel turned back to me, her eyes rheumy but sharp behind her glasses.
“Sweetheart, if anyone can handle all these responsibilities, it’s you. I’ve never known such a determined little thing in all my life. Did you know, when you were about two, your daddy built you and Leigh-Anne a sandbox. And every day, you’d toddle out there and try to build you a castle, and every day, your sister would knock it down.”
Clucking her tongue, she took her glasses off, letting them dangle down the front of her shirt. “I loved that little girl, but Lord, what a pill she could be. Anyway, all those times she knocked down your castle, you never once cried. Never complained. You jutted that bottom lip out and got back to work. You never quit, even when that would have been the smartest thing to do.”
Somehow, I didn’t think that was supposed to be a compliment. But I was still about to thank her when Aunt Jewel reached across the table and took my hand. “You are trying to be too many things to too many people, Harper Jane.”
Aunt Jewel’s fingers were cold, the skin papery, but she held me tight as she added, “And I think one day, one day soon, you’re gonna have to choose.”
Chapter 27
“YOUR LEOTARD is ugly.”
I looked down at the little girl standing next to me. She came up to right above my elbow, but I was pretty sure that a solid foot of that was hair. The rest of her was covered in a sea of pale blue ruffles, so I wasn’t sure how she had any room to talk about what was ugly.
Still, being mean to kids is never okay, so I made myself put on a smile. “That’s not very nice,” I told her, but the little girl shrugged.
“It’s very true.”
In front of us, another girl about the same age as this devil spawn standing next to me was practicing her “dance” on the stage. It mostly seemed to consist of some awkward shuffling and a few waves, and every now and again she’d glance down to where her mom was doing a much more enthusiastic version of the same dance in the front row.
I sighed and shifted my baton to my other hand. Normally the Little Miss Pine Grove portion of rehearsal was over by the time we got in, but Sara was running late today, so we were stuck waiting for the younger girls to finish. Which apparently also meant we were stuck getting harassed by second-graders.
“It’s the sleeves,” the girl next to me said, looking me up and down. There was something weird about the way she talked, and when she opened her mouth to yawn, I realized she was wearing those little fake teeth they use to cover a missing tooth or two.
Seriously, pageants were the weirdest.
“Well, I like the sleeves,” I told her, tugging at the material in question. I’d used Leigh-Anne’s old majorette uniform, a sparkly green number that was a little too big for me. Aunt Jewel had sewn on some sleeves for me to give it “a little flair.” Apparently, to Aunt Jewel, “a little flair” meant a metric ton of sequins and fake jewels, so every time I threw the baton, my arms clattered.
“You shouldn’t like them,” the little girl told me, “because they’re ugly.”
“Okay, thanks, got it,” I replied through clenched teeth.
“Get lost, Lullaby League,” Abi said, sauntering up, and the little girl stuck her tongue out at us before heading down the aisle toward the front of the stage.
Abi’s gaze slid over me. She was wearing a simple black dress, since her talent was playing the piano. Looking at her, I wished I hadn’t begged my mom to let me quit lessons when I was twelve, because piano seemed like a totally unembarrassing talent. A thin gold chain winked around her neck, and when Abi noticed me looking, she grinned, lifting the necklace up. “Isn’t it pretty? It’s from Spencer.”
That name made me want to shudder—a
reminder that we might have been wrong about David’s visions, that we couldn’t change the future. And if that was true, what was the point of all of this?
Abi misread my expression, clearly, because she scowled at me, letting the necklace drop back to her chest. “Okay, Harper, enough with the judge-y face. Just because you’re boyfriend-less for the first time in, like, ever, it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy for other people.”
“I am,” I said, and the words might have been convincing had I not seen Bee walk in. She was practically running—worrying about being late, I guess—and while it’s not like she was wearing a sign that said, “I was making out with Ryan!” I couldn’t help but remember them locked together in the closet. She looked . . . suspiciously glowy.
Abi glanced over at Bee, and when her gaze swung back to me, both eyebrows were lifted. “Where were you at lunch today?” she asked.
I’d hid out in the library like a weirdo because I hadn’t wanted to face Bee or Ryan yet. I’d thought about hiding in the temporary newspaper lab, but when I’d walked past, David had been in there with Chie and Michael. As I’d sat on the floor in the back stacks of the library, I’d reminded myself that a few months ago, I would’ve died before being one of those people who hid during lunch. Lunch was primo socializing time, after all, but with Bee and Ryan being . . . Bee and Ryan, and me and David being not Me and David, I hadn’t known what else to do.
It was an icky feeling.
Bee’s eyes met mine across the auditorium, and her smile faded. This was ridiculous, not talking to her in the middle of everything that was going on, but I . . . couldn’t. I still didn’t know what to say. I had no right to be jealous, not of Bee for being with Ryan, and not of Ryan for taking Bee away from me. Abi was right; just because I was alone, that didn’t mean everyone else had to be, too.