What Gifts She Carried Page 12

  Her whole being seemed to deflate right there on the bed with her sagging shoulders and the hopeless look on her face. “Are you going to tell Dad?”

  Of all the things to be worried about. “No, I won’t tell him. Just take care of it.”

  She nodded and swiped at her tear-streaked cheeks. “I’ll go set the table.”

  I stared after her and sighed. Unease wriggled through my insides at the thought of her messing with dark magic. How could she do such a thing? She was only nine, and for something so morbid to pique her curiosity creeped me out. So did the half-alive dead dog in the attic. A shudder shook through my bones. She better get rid of it soon.

  With both of them distracted, I had a few minutes to wander into Mom and Dad’s bedroom to look for my baby book. The closet doors screeched open on noisy hinges, and Mom’s perfume wafted out. I breathed it in, letting its flowery scent sooth the ache in my chest and the worry in my fists, until I finally had to exhale.

  How could Dad stand it? Every time he opened the closet, didn’t her scented reminder knock him flat with her memory?

  Her clothes still hung on one side, with pants and skirts neatly folded over hangers and shirts that had never seen a wrinkle since she’d touched them.

  Their colors, their shape, and of course their smell all belonged to her, but now they just hung here. I touched the sleeve of a soft, black t-shirt and the button on another one. Her fingers had touched these things, too. Like mother, like daughter, in so many more ways than I’d ever known.

  I spread my arms out to bundle all her clothes in the closest thing to a hug as I could get from her. It couldn’t compare to the real thing, but it would have to do. The soft, black t-shirt with a picture of the Ramones on the front and concert dates on the back rested against my cheek. I slid it off its hanger and threw it over my ripped-to-bits shirt. Now I could walk around with her hug forever.

  If only she was here to talk some sense into Darby, to make Dad happy again, to help me understand who I was, life would be so much easier.

  With a deep sigh, I reached for my baby book on the top shelf of the closet. Mom and Dad probably didn’t know that I would grow up to hate the color pink when they’d bought it, but I could forgive them for that, I supposed.

  The book cracked open, as though it hadn’t been touched in a long time. Mom’s handwriting listed my birthday, weight, and hair and eye color on the first page. Being dead must rush her hand since the notes from her grave were scrawled. Pictures of me as a baby hid underneath thin pieces of plastic with various captions on the rest of the pages. But I’d seen all this before. Looking at myself as a cute baby couldn’t help me.

  But I flipped through more pages, anyway. A baby who was definitely not me stared back from around the middle of the book. It had bright eyes and blondish hair but the shape of its head didn’t match every other picture. The top and right edges had been ripped, tearing jagged gaps across the dark blue background.

  “Leigh.”

  At Dad’s voice, I jumped, and my baby book leaped into the air. I caught it with shaking hands.

  “Sorry,” he said, his face still locked in stunned sadness. “There’s food if you’re hungry.”

  I stuck the book under his nose. “That’s not me, is it?”

  He blinked at the picture for a long moment. “No, that’s not you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  A hint of a smile lifted his mouth. “I memorized everything about you from day one. I knew every curve of your cheek and every ridge on your knuckles, so yes, I’m sure.”

  His words pulled at my heart until I stood right next to him and could wrap my arms around him. “How do you do it, Dad?”

  “Do what?” he asked, folding me into him and his sweaty t-shirt.

  “Live inside this room with her smell and her clothes and...her.”

  “I just take things minute by minute and try to feed my daughters when they refuse to eat and try to keep them from reading inappropriate books when I leave them lying around in trash cans.” He ran his fingers over the back of Mom’s Ramones shirt and shrugged. “I’m not doing a very good job, but that’s all I can do.”

  I nodded, wishing I could somehow make things easier for him. But Darby wasn’t the only one making stupid decisions. I’d made about a thousand over the last week.

  “Darby’s curiosity isn’t your fault,” I said.

  He shook his head, and I didn’t think he believed me. “Well, I’ll throw that book out later. For good.”

  “Okay.”

  “I bought this shirt for your mom after our first date, you know.” He rolled the fabric of one of my sleeves between his fingers with a deep sigh as if the feel of the shirt held memories for him, too. “She always said that it was the best first date ever, but it was this t-shirt that clinched our relationship for her.”

  His voice weaved happiness through the strain in his throat whenever he talked about her, but I liked hearing him talk about her. In fact, I wanted to hear much, much more.

  “Do you know what a Trammler is?” I blurted.

  “A what?”

  “I ate all the egg rolls,” Darby said from behind us in the doorway, her face still splotched red and tear-streaked. “What are you guys doing in here?”

  “Just reminiscing.” Dad unwound himself from me to give Darby’s ponytail a light tug. “Leigh, are you coming?”

  “Yeah.” But I was already flipping through the rest of my baby book, looking for more answers. So, Dad didn’t know what a Trammeler was, which meant that Mom had kept it from him, too. Surely Dad could clue me in to some things, though.

  Just not these random pictures of babies who weren’t me stuck inside my baby book. Another one stared back at me. A few pages later, another one. Three babies, all of them not me, each torn apart from the one next to it.

  The Trinity babies. Gretchen’s gifts. I would bet a few toes that I was right. But why were the babies of the darkest Sorceress who ever lived inside my baby book?

  I pieced the pictures together on the floor, and they fit together perfectly. If I got Gretchen’s picture I’d stolen from Whaty-Whats, I was sure it would fit on top. The three babies were what she was smiling down at.

  How would this help me, though? The Counselor stole the Trinity babies and put them inside the Core, I guessed because he really wanted to win the worst father of the year award. It made no sense. But what did Mom mean on her note when she’d said she’d switched two of them? She switched two babies? What did that even mean?

  I stuck the pictures in one of the zipper pockets of my bondage pants. Maybe Tram knew something more about the Trinity babies. I would have to remember to ask him during our training tonight.

  Shadows darkened the room with the last shreds of sunlight coming through the window. I rushed to the end of my baby book, hoping for more hints. A small sealed envelope had been tucked behind the last page. I brushed my fingers over the flap, hesitating for only a second. Then I ripped it open.

  Thin silver chains were inside, knotted together, and dangling from the ends were two metallic leaves, one green and one pink, about the size of half a finger. They swung in unison and turned so I could read the backs. You set free my strongest gift was etched into both of them.

  A jolt went through my body. Tokens. Adeline had said the same words in The Sorceress’s Trinity. These necklaces held Sorceress power inside, hidden away in my baby book so no one but Mom could find them. Did they belong to me and Darby so we could hide our Sorceressi gifts from everyone?

  If so, then maybe tonight I would get to show Tram my shiny new Sorceress skills.

  “AGAIN,” TRAM ORDERED.

  I clenched my teeth over the razor-sharp frustration that sawed my gut in two. The moon glowed bright around the branches of the trees he’d told me to “talk” to. So far, the only thing I’d communicated with was the Trinity oak’s trunk; actually, it was my boot doing the communicating with every fierce kick I gave the tree. It was immortal,
and Tram couldn’t feel my touch, anyway, so it wasn’t like I was hurting anything.

  “That’s not going to make the trees listen to you,” Tram said, his voice sharp. “Talk to all of the Trinity trees, and whichever is strongest inside you, it will answer.”

  “I’m trying, okay?” I spat.

  “You’re distracted.” He stepped toward me with his hands out like I might kick him, too.

  A light breeze played with his curls as he came closer. His nearness softened the dig of my fingernails in my palms. He brushed his fingers over my neck, which sent a thrill to my heart, then slid his thumb down, over the curve of my upturned throat, until he stopped at my chest. He splayed his fingers and caught the jump of every beat that pulsed through my body.

  “Talk to them in here,” he whispered. “They’ll hear you. Just relax.”

  I covered his hand with my own, watching the moonlight flicker worry in his eyes. If I didn’t learn to do this, then I couldn’t take down Ica’s tree with my roots. Tram already tried. He’d also attempted to hack her up with my ax. Nothing worked, and we were quickly running out of options. And time. Already, more green fluttered from her branches.

  I allowed myself a single glance in the direction of Mom’s grave. If I didn’t look around too much, I could pretend I stood in a park at night somewhere with a lot of trees instead of the graveyard. Every insect buzz, every footstep in the soft grass, slinked hidden nightmares over my flesh, especially since it was night. Staring at Tram helped, but gravestones and moving shadows hovered in the corners of my eyes. The only way to fade those horrors was to remind myself that she was in the ground where she belonged.

  Since my one-sided psychic conversations with her at her grave had started in my heart, maybe speaking to trees wasn’t all that different. Besides, she was part Trammeler, and therefore part tree.

  Mom? Any words of advice? I’m kind of stuck here.

  Tram stepped away while I closed my eyes. I concentrated on her face, her smile, her voice, and I reached out to her with everything I had so she would listen.

  I found the necklaces in my baby book, and I’m wearing them, but I don’t know what to do with them.

  A warm gust of wind wrapped around my arms with a flowery scent that reminded me of her hugs. They were never one-armed or half-assed; she always hugged with major force.

  I just want to finish what you started and make you proud of me.

  The ground gave a soft shudder. I snapped my eyes open just in time to see a crack forming in the ground at my feet.

  “Did I just do that?” I whispered, afraid I was hallucinating again.

  The moon lit up Tram’s excited grin. “It’s coming from the ash tree.”

  “Really? Which tree is the strongest inside you?”

  “The oak, but I can use the powers of all three Trinity trees since I’m an official Trammeler.”

  “Does...does the hawthorn, the Counselor’s tree, ever answer anyone?”

  “Only if the Trammeler has a dark enough nature,” he said in a rush. “Come on. Keep going.”

  You heard the man.

  I imagined linking myself to every part of the Trinity’s ash tree and all the other ashes in the graveyard—except Ica’s—to an invisible string in my heart. Then I curled my finger at the ground like I’d seen Tram do a couple times.

  Roots exploded through the crack. I leaped out of the way with a giggle bubbling up my throat. Dirt splattered over my front but completely missed Tram somehow. I smiled through a mouthful of grit anyway, watching the roots twist through the night. They rocked back and forth as if they were waiting for something to do.

  Ica’s tree, I ESP’d to them. Take it down.

  They plunged back into the ground with enough force to pitch me backward on my butt. Overeager much? But I couldn’t keep the smile from my face as they plowed a zigzag around headstones just under the surface of the earth toward Tree Ica.

  “They can be hard to control at first, but they’ll get used to you and listen better,” Tram shouted over the sound of spraying dirt. He took my hand and squeezed. “Nice job.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet,” I reminded him. Despite the coolness factor of communicating with trees, I wouldn’t consider this a success until Ica had been ripped to shreds.

  My roots punched through the ground at the base of her tree and creaked and groaned a path to the tips of her branches. They kept stretching up to the bottom rim of the moon in the distance, then like a giant hand made of roots, they all came crashing down on top of Ica.

  A sudden burst of wind screamed through her branches at the same time wood slammed against wood. Loud cracks filled the night.

  Puffs of black smoke clouded the space above her branches and my roots. It grew thicker, heavier, almost blotting out the entire tree. I could sense rather than see my roots struggle under the weight of it.

  Tram stepped closer, his hands forming fists at his side, readying himself in case she came rushing out to escape. His roots blasted out of the ground and wound around mine to help crush her.

  I was about to mentally ask the branches of another tree for help, when my roots squished his into matchsticks and they fell to the ground in splinters.

  He whipped around, an odd expression on his face.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  But he just stared at me, frozen in place.

  “Tram?” I said, and then my roots crumbled to the ground too, my concentration lost.

  Rotten toilet meat filled the night air. I stumbled backward with a gasp. “What...?” But that’s all that could come out. They were waking up again. All of them.

  Every inhale scraped through my constricting throat. I fumbled my fingers at the bottom of my shirt, Mom’s shirt, but stopped. Instead, I looked in the direction of her grave, prepared to make a run for it to flatten myself over the ground above her. I tried to listen for the sound of rusty moans or the squelchy noise of the dead rising, but I couldn’t hear anything over the blasts of blood between my ears.

  Tram said something, but I had no idea what. He raised a hand toward me, and then he was falling sideways. Roots had snaked up from the ground behind him, coiling around his feet and up to his face in seconds. They dragged him past me, one of his hands clawing at the earth to stop himself, in the direction of the hawthorn.

  “Tram!” It came out as a half-gag, half-shout. I sprinted after him, kicking up my roots as I went to rush them ahead of me. “Tram,” I yelled again, and that time his name tasted bloody. Something slick ran from my nose. I was bleeding again.

  I ran harder, my heavy pants mixing with a bird’s squawk and the flap of wings overhead.

  Trees and headstones threatened to slow me down, but I weaved around them, following the same path as the tangle of roots and a grasping, clawing green-sleeved arm, the only thing I could see of Tram.

  The roots wrenched him around the back of the hawthorn tree. My roots started to follow, but a large wave of writhing movement just to my left crashed over my boots. My concentration snapped when I realized what it was.

  Spiders. Hundreds of them. Crawling their thorny legs down off the tree and onto me. Up me. Thousands of tiny legs scuttling inside my boots, up my sleeves, over my neck to the blood dripping from my chin.

  I screamed and tried to shake as many as I could off, but they kept coming. One tracked just under my nose, blocking one of my only sources of air. Terror gripped my heart with icy fingers, chasing frozen spikes through my veins. They were going to suffocate me, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it because I was frozen solid with fear.

  I managed to drag in one whimpering breath before they scrambled into my mouth. I screwed my eyes shut to keep from seeing them, but I could still feel their creeping legs all over my body. It was like being buried alive all over again.

  I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Sirens went off in my head as loud as a tornado, and mixed through it was
the sound of my name.

  Something gripped my elbows and shook me. “Leigh!”

  I reeled back and tripped over my bootlaces. The ground shocked through my butt when I landed and clattered my teeth, but I hardly felt it. I ripped and clawed at my arms, at my face, at the hands that kept reaching for me. They held mine with a familiar warm strength.

  “They’re gone, Leigh,” Tram said.

  I blinked my eyes open to stare at him. Fresh cuts sliced from his temple over his upper lip and down his chin.

  “Where’d they go?” I whispered.

  “They vanished. The roots did too as soon as they dragged me behind the tree. Whoever it was got what they came for or gave up.”

  “Who? What did they want?”

  “A Trammeler, given that whoever it was dragged me away with roots,” he said and shook his head. “I don’t know what they wanted.”

  “A Trammeler Sorceress?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “But it was a dead Trammeler. Didn’t you smell them?”

  “Yes. Maybe it was two people, but I only sensed one.”

  “Maybe one of them was bit by a...” I scrubbed a hand over my mouth because it still felt like legs were tickling over my lips. Nothing was. I breathed a sigh of relief. “A spider.”

  “Maybe.”

  I stood on shaky legs with Tram’s help. “I think I’m done training for today.”

  He nodded while he watched the ends of a wadded up sheet of notebook paper flap around the edges of a gravestone. He bent to pick it up. Dirt and grass clung to its creases, and something dark bled through the other side.

  I snatched it from Tram and smoothed it open with fingers like blocks of ice. Mom. Standing next to her grave, covered in mud. It was Darby’s drawing with a smear of her blood in the corner.

  She’d been here to give gifts to the dead, too.

  Chapter 12

  Dad knocked twice on my bedroom doorframe. “I think you should go with us to Callum’s party,” he said. “The Monroes invited us to it and to graduation tomorrow, and God knows we need to get out of this house to have some fun.”