Cursefell Page 4

"You okay?" she asked, her gentle hand falling over my shoulder.

  "Yeah. My leg is just hurting again."

  "You need to get that looked at, Thera." I made a face to show her what I thought of that idea. That impish grin shuffled to the top, her pixie face now fully playful. "Speaking of checking out..."

  Following her nod, I saw Galead lurking in the stairwell across the hall. The light flickered behind him, drawing his form in and out of shadow. There was no doubt he stared intently at us. At me.

  My breathing became laborious again. A constrictive weight, that had nothing to do with the pain in my leg, settled heavily atop my lungs. It had everything to do with the cold trill playing up and down my spinal cord. I couldn't tear my eyes from him. I did not want to look away. Maybe it was recalling that final moment in the nightmare, but there was something different this time. A cold, hard look that cut out all the humanity from his eyes. That was the best way I could put it, for I saw it clearly in those familiar blues.

  Turning his back after another final fatal flicker from the light above, Galead faded down the stairs, letting darkness devour him.

  "Jeez, get a room already," Lily teased.

  I started, forgetting Lily stood right beside me, realizing my eyes had not left the spot where Galead had stood for more than a few long heartbeats. Lily cracked a little wicked grin from behind her phone. The little imp had even taken a picture.

  "That's going online for sure," she laughed.

  *

  The girls ushered me over to a table in the corner. Food was sitting by and large untouched in their metal containers along the nearly empty cafeteria line. Anna, Evony, and Lily wanted a good view of the new girl who was causing rumors to be whispered down the hallways.

  "Anybody know who she is?" I asked, trying to ignore the itch that had returned to spread out from the week old scratches clear down my leg.

  Once again Walt and the mystery girl were the subject of subtle and not so subtle attention. We fell into the subtle category, except for Evony. She was blatantly staring.

  "Well," Anna leaned forward, drawing the rest of us in like some conspiratorial coven. "I heard she will be the newest student starting after Christmas."

  "Really? Then what is she doing here now?" Lily asked. She didn't like her if her tone was telling us true.

  "Looking around. Checking out the school I guess."

  As if on cue, we all cast hooded looks at the girl and then came back to leaning our heads halfway over the table, almost touching foreheads together. It would have been comical if anyone had been paying attention.

  "What's her name?" I asked them with a whisper.

  "Isabel. She seems nice," Evony mumbled, once again gazing the newcomer's way.

  "You talked to her?"

  Evony nodded. Her eyes had a glazed look that had me worried. Focusing on her I realized she smelled like the salted sea. No, smell was wrong. I could taste it on my tongue as if it were a perfume that had been sprayed in a large clogging cloud and I had walked into it with my mouth gaping open. I was reminded of the fumes inspiring the phantom taste of food I had experienced in last night's dream, and the similarity was uncomfortably close.

  "You met her, Evony?" Anna prodded our friend.

  "Yes. Walt introduced us." Her eyes had become fixed on Isabel. Something very odd was happening with her. And with my ex I thought.

  "What is Walt doing with her?" I mused to no one in particular.

  "Jealous?" Anna teased, although she knew I wasn't. Mostly. I stuck my tongue out at her. Big mistake. The taste of sea water overwhelmed me and I had to fight the impulse to gag in front of everyone. It stayed in my mouth as I desperately wished for a soda to wash the taste away.

  "Not Thera. She's already got herself a new boyfriend," Lily stated.

  "What?" Anna and I said in unison, loudly enough to draw some momentary attention away from Isabel.

  "Spill," Anna demanded.

  "Well, our friend here was making pie eyes at Ryan Galead."

  "Lily! I was not. I have never made pie eyes at anyone. No, Anna, we are not dating. We have barely spoken."

  "Even though he saved your life?"

  "Even though."

  "Too bad. He's a hottie." Anna twirled a finger in her thick hair as a playful smile split her lips. "So he's available then?"

  We all laughed.

  "Don't tell me you two weren't staring at each other this morning. And you weren't just staring and neither was he. It was like a scene from Romeo and Juliet. Or one of those romance books you read. I'm surprised he didn't run right over and plant a big sloppy kiss right here." Lily pressed a finger to my lips. "It looked like you were going to faint, not that I blame you. I would have if someone was looking at me the way he looks at you."

  "A, those are not romance novels. They are Fantasy books. And B, what do you mean the way he looks at me?"

  Anna jumped in as our resident socialite. She was also our self proclaimed romantic expert too. She was really relishing this. I wasn't.

  "Even before the field trip, Thera, he has been watching you. Why do you think he sits behind you in Bio? Why does he take a seat in here at lunch where we can see him and he can watch you? We've all seen him look your way, right ladies?"

  Lily and even Evony nodded their heads, but Evony's response was mechanical I noted. She was hearing us, but not listening really.

  "Sometimes it's just a glance. Sometimes I see him staring like he's in a daydream."

  "Or a psycho," Evony spoke up, momentarily refocused.

  "We've noticed he watches you pretty often."

  "That is crazy, Anna. I have never seen him looking at me. Like I said, we had barely spoken before this week."

  Ryan Galead kept to himself most of the time. He would talk if someone initiated the conversation of if there was a sports competition he was participating in, but he didn't go out of his way to make friends or stand out like some star quarterback. We spotted him around town sometimes. Most of the time he was headed to the docks or sitting at Leary's. He never attended school events that I had seen, not that I had gone to more than a play or two really. Actually, that sounded a lot like me since we had moved here.

  It was creepy. Why would he watch me? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't know anything about him. That had to change if I wanted to make sense of this. A plan began to form in my mind. That didn't mean I bought into the love sick boy watching from afar theory that my circle of friends apparently believed. Still...

  "Lily, how do you feel about doing a little detective work and finding out a little more about Galead?"

  My friend's eyes narrowed to small slits twinkling with mischief.

  "You bet."

  CURSEFELL

  CHAPTER SIX

  Homes were lit by strings of flashing lights twinkling red, purple, yellow, and green. The historical gas lamps lining Main Street in Stonecrest, retrofitted years ago with electricity, sat atop coal black poles wrapped around in candy cane patterned decoration. Their lights imitated the flickering flame they had housed at the turn of the century. It was all very quaint. A real postcard perfect scene. It was all an illusion.

  Anna took my hand in hers. We had come downtown to find Anna's mom a gift for Christmas. Lily and Evony joined us to get holiday shopping done too. I had some molding clay I needed to finish the sculpted bust that I had been crafting for the Art final. It was also a good excuse to try and pull myself away from the melancholy mood this year's holiday had put me in. So far I was failing miserably.

  I was tugged across the street by Anna, barely dodging a small white import that drove way too fast through our little town. She birded the driver well after he had passed and I couldn't help burst out laughing. My friend could be feisty when she wanted to be, especially if it involved one of her friends. Most people, I think, looked at her as the typical teen. She liked to talk about anything but school. Ask her about the future and she would tell you all about her dream of be
ing the next big fashion designer. Bring up college and she was evasive. But what all those people forget is that they were young adults too. No doubt they gave similar answers. They had dreamed as big, planned as little, and felt the rays of adulthood waking them to a world as bright and large as they dared themselves to make it. Anna was no different than they had been,, none of us were, only they were now cool and rusted with age and experience and abandoned hopes while we still glowed with the unfinished forging of youthful bliss in the kiln of time. If only we could stay so forever.

  Of course that also meant we would stop at Stonecrest's newest store first. Crystals had a sectional big front window to display its best off brand clothing, a mix including European inspired knock offs at outlet pricing. The owner, Crystal Workman, was a young twenty-six year old self made woman. She easily talked all about her time learning fashion in the garment districts in Paris and Los Angeles if given half a chance. She even attended Harvard to learn the business side the industry required, if online extension courses could be viewed as attending an Ivy League. Not that Crystal cared what anyone said about it. She only seemed to care about who she was, not what anyone else said she was. I wondered if that was why she had foregone the parties and drama, if you believed her story, to embrace that passion for fashion. I'm sure she was one of Anna's current inspirations. My friend could do much worse, even if Crystal did think a bit much of herself as the garish neon sign above the window displaying her name would attest.

  Anna hooked her arm around mine as we looked over the display. She started clapping her hands and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in giddy excitement. I disentangled my arm before she could dislocate the elbow, wondering what had gotten her so excited.

  "Look Thera, they have snakeskin boots! And they're green!"

  She had a great eye for style usually. But green boots? The snakeskin wasn't even real. I knew that at a glance, although it was a good imitation. For some reason I couldn't understand the sight of those boots and Anna's enthusiasm raised my blood pressure.

  "Come on, Anna. We are supposed to find something for your mom, remember?" I said, clinching my fists without knowing why.

  "But they are perfect! I've never had anything like them." She was pulling me toward the door even as I pulled in the opposite direction. "I wish I had added them to my gift list. Maybe I can drop a hint to my dad. He might get them for Christmas."

  The pain those words caused me was nothing Anna, Lily, Evony, or anyone could appreciate. I flashed back to memories held in repression from that last Christmas with my family, when we were gathered complete and whole together.

  The holidays had changed for me. Christmas had always been a time for joy and the hope of what might be. Then that magical morning the reality of what was would come to pass. It was never all that I secretly wished for in my secret heart, but mostly more than I believed it would actually contain. Dad and Mom would surprise me with something unexpected, sometimes revealing it first, like when they gave me a frog statue complete with a lily pad held up like an umbrella, or sometimes last, as they did when they surprised me with my first bow and arrow set. It was the unexpected, I guess, that got me so excited. The exhilaration when taking that first step of discovery, a gift you can't figure out just by shaking what lies beneath the happy wrapping.

  We all know the rest. The intentional hesitant slow tear in the paper that offers just a glimpse of the mysterious something. The bigger, longer strip that follows before the final frenzied shredding. The final reveal. The gift itself. The surrogate personification of the giver's heart no matter the size, cost, or type.

  For the first time my father wouldn't be there. Mother would barely be present. It was a holiday broken for me. My family would always have a hole in it and no old man, no matter how jolly, could make it better. Not that I could see. No, this Christmas I knew what I would not be getting at least. My whole family would never again spend the holidays together.

  "They aren't even real. Lets go." My words sounded guttural, growling from somewhere deep inside and hissing through clenched teeth. I hoped Anna would get the hint.

  "Of course they aren't real snakeskin, silly! They wouldn't survive in this climate very well." Her words were only making me more infuriated. "Besides, that would be gross, all scaly and...Thera? Are you okay?"

  I had ceased hearing her. All I heard was a rush of thunder pounding up from the deep caverns of my chest. Tears began to well from the ducts of my eyes as sights were drowned in warm distorting ripples. I was dimly aware of Anna's gloved grip lying upon my shoulder. It was barely felt beneath the quickening hardness of muscles and veins growing thick, tense, and constricted, bunching to strike.

  My friend removed her touch, a look tinged with confusion and panic molded in skin. She did not understand what was happening or why I had become so clearly angry. I didn't either. Even as I tried to calm myself it was only a half hearted effort. This feeling suited me, it felt right in some ill placed way. The prickly charge creeping along my spine to race across my scalp. The acidic ache rimming the lids about my eyes. I detachedly imagined those sensations as the precursors to a lightning strike. It felt electrical. I was alive with its charge. And it felt wonderful.

  As these sensations neared what I knew would be their crest, stronger hands than Anna's fell over my shoulders. Dual flaming orbs, blue suns haloed in white, slid in to fill my sight. The hint of leather and moss permeated engorged pores, filling the sagging shell of my body with a calm in its storm. I came back to myself, reasserting reason over reaction. Warmth embraced me like a blanket, wrapping me within its radial beats.

  My breathing lost its laborious hiss, my eyes began to dry. The scene began to come back into normal focus as I blinked in rapid succession. Crystals' windows returned to normal with corners frosted the dirty white from artificial canned snow. The case's shag carpet holding up signs with discounted pricing and items readily displayed. All my friends gathered in a cluster of near frightened bodies pressed together. And a shock of dark flame tinged hair feathering a nape of skin of the person beside me.

  "Thera," a familiar voice softly whispered.

  Turning my head I felt as if I were still trying to wake from some hazy dream. I thought I glimpsed Isabel reflected in glass, hands on hips and scowling underneath the lamp light across the street, Walt in tow. It made no sense.

  "Thera."

  Continuing to turn in agonizing slowness, I ran right into the soft contour of his lips. They pressed gently over mine. Not even the petals of a flower would have been crushed in such restrained strength. I had a second where I scolded myself for skipping the lip gloss that morning, but the thought was fleeting and pushed to the side in favor of the sensations. His kiss was soft, reassuring. I forgot everything else in the momentary thrill of a shared sweetness lacking nothing save the awkward urgent fumbling many first kisses suffered. This kiss, those lips, the tickle of his skin as it pressed to mine, sent gleeful heat twisting along my lips, my jaw, and to the very pit of my belly. Even then, although I wanted to, I held myself together enough not to sigh.

  When he broke away it must have been barely three seconds. What the heck was that about? Did I have bad breath? Was I a bad kisser? Who did he think he was anyway!

  Galead stepped back, looking sheepishly at me, my friends, and anyone else waking along the street. A little mischievous too in the eyes. He rubbed a hand through his ruddy hair in several quick back and forth motions as if embarrassed as he looked to my friends. All three of them stood shocked, mouths hanging open or gloved hands hiding their expressions beneath wide bulging eyes. Galead chuckled, sliding a protective arm around me. I was still too shocked to protest.

  "Hello ladies."

  They continued to stare. At him. At me. At each other. Only Lily raised her hand in a reflexive greeting. I knew how they were feeling.

  "Sorry, Anna," he said, turning those warm eyes on hers. "We had an argument earlier and I guess she was still pretty mad at me.
So when she saw me coming..." He shrugged as if to explain.

  Anna nodded, hair bobbing up and down to show her understanding. A grin was starting to upturn the contours of her mouth.

  "What the hell was that?" Evony blurted. "So you guys are like together? A couple?"

  I wanted to say no, but my voice wouldn't come out. I willed my head to shake but it refused to move. The kiss had shocked me as much as it had my friends. Calmed me, yes. Confused me, certainly. It was wrapping my head in a confused state. I still couldn't think as clearly as I should. Short and sweet. So sweet my lips continued to tingle. So short that the sweetness did not burn away. Luckily Galead answered for the both of us.

  "Yes. Well, that is if you forgive me, Thera." I looked up at his face. I nodded. One quick, sharp movement. It was what he seemed to want, smiling down on me as he asked the question. At that moment I could deny him nothing. Those strong arms enveloped me still, gathering me in an embrace that held me swaddled in the warmth flowing out from his arms and chest. I wanted to stay there for a long, long time.

  What the hell was wrong with me? It was not like this was my first kiss with someone. No, that had been Tommy Carpenter. Dry and shy and tasting of garlic. This kiss was something else altogether. I wanted to slap him for his audacity, but I settled for nuzzling tighter against his chest.

  A polite cough behind us saved me from further self directed reprimands. Galead gently separated us. He embraced the two men that joined our widening circle on the sidewalk.

  "Thera. Everyone. These are my brothers. Wayne and Tristan."

  The one with the neatly trimmed goatee, Wayne, looked to be the eldest brother. I guessed around thirty, maybe a touch more. A twinkle full of humor and mirth touched his brown eyes as he greeted everyone, shaking hands one by one down the line. He stood easily, relaxed but alert was how I deemed it. Next to Galead they very nearly were as tall as each other. It contrasted well with the other brother.

  Tristan stood taller than both brothers. Easily over six feet tall, his muscular frame strained against the wool sweater he was wearing. Locks dipped in midnight fell from scalp to shoulder in thick, teasing waves. The dark stubble couldn't hide an ever present crooked smile tugging at the left side of his lips. His handsomeness, because he was indeed handsome, was rugged. Wild. He reminded me of sea sculpted stones along the shore, strong and dangerous if you do not watch your step. When he spoke, though, his voice carried poetry's heart within it. The lilting accent played just above the surface. Two, maybe three years Galead's senior, I guessed. No more than a recent graduate or perhaps college freshman, Tristan drew much of my friends' attention.