What Gifts She Carried Page 14

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Any luck with psycho Tree Ica?”

  I shook my head.

  Mrs. Monroe bustled into the kitchen, a curvy woman with Jo’s expressive eyes and Callum’s warm grin. She held her arms out and smashed me to her before I could react.

  “How are you, Leigh?” she asked.

  “Umm.” Being in her motherly arms reminded me of Mom’s hugs, so protective and giving. I bit down hard on my tongue to distract me from the suffocating pain that twisted through my chest. “I’m fine.”

  She grasped my shoulders to pull me away and could probably read the lie all over my face. Like mother, like daughter. “You look so pale and tired and...” She scanned me up and down. “Holey.”

  Jo spewed pop in a fine mist all over the refrigerator door. “No, she doesn’t, Mom. She wasn’t resurrected.” A note of hysteria lifted her voice an octave higher than it should be.

  “What? No.” Mrs. Monroe waved at the bottom hem of my shirt. “Not holy. Holey, as in with holes.”

  Jo puckered her forehead and blinked down at the droplets of pop spotting the floor. I handed her a napkin and nodded at the ketchup on her finger, but really I wished she could wipe the memories that slouched her shoulders clean.

  “It’s probably time for a new shirt,” I said to Mrs. Monroe with an awkward smile.

  Callum strolled into the kitchen then. “Is someone taking pictures of all this?” he asked around a mouthful of chips. His gaze slid right past me. The lack of any kind of acknowledgement fisted my hands.

  “I asked you to do it, Josefina,” Mrs. Monroe said. “After you clean up your rain of pop all over my kitchen.”

  Jo’s face ignited red at the use of her full name. She snatched the camera from the counter and snapped the button in Callum’s general direction. “There. Happy, dearest brother?”

  Callum sighed. “Whatever, Weed.”

  Mrs. Monroe grabbed a couple bags of hot dog buns and hit him over the head with them on her way out. “What did I tell you about calling your sister that?”

  He shot her a mischievous grin, but it lingered on me after she left. I faked boredom while I watched Jo clean the refrigerator and floor, but really my heart slammed echoes into my ears. What could he be thinking? Why had his grin just faded to a blank stare the longer he kept his gaze on me? And why did I care so much anyway? He was leaving tomorrow. Period.

  He turned and stepped toward the stairs. The wooden posts on the banister barred through his head on his way down. Where was he going? To see if he was prepared for a night with Megan? My stomach sloshed over the tiny sip of carbonation I’d taken.

  I had to know. I had to say something. So I stormed past Elf, who sat growling at the front door and whipping his bushy tale around, and went downstairs.

  Anxiety ate through my gut at the sound of drawers opening and closing. I tiptoed to Callum’s bedroom and stood in the doorway while heat rushed to my face. What was I supposed to say to him that wouldn’t make me sound like a lost little girl? Because that was exactly how I felt.

  He had his back to me as he searched through the duffel bags lining the far wall. With a sigh, he sat back on his heels. “What are you doing?”

  At first, I wasn’t completely sure he was speaking to me or if he was asking his duffel bag a rhetorical question. His voice sounded so soft, he might’ve been asking himself that. He stood, turned, and regarded me with the same question in his eyes.

  “I...” How to answer that? My gaze landed on his bed, and I winced. He didn’t plan on doing it in here, did he? With his parents upstairs? Then I somehow remembered my backpack slung over my shoulder. “I was going to find some place to read.”

  “You came to my party to read?”

  “I’m surprised everyone didn’t bring a book. This party sucks.”

  “Right,” he said, shrugging. “I meant what are you doing here. At my party. Shouldn’t you be with your Tree Boy and saving the world from the dead people who keep coming back?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

  He took steps toward me. “Then why aren’t you?”

  I looked at the blue lava lamp on his dresser, which was switched off, anywhere but at him. He must not want to take it with him to college since it wasn’t packed. If not, I might steal it.

  “Leigh,” he said and reached out to trace my cheek. “Why aren’t you?”

  His buzz touch skidded electricity across my skin. I leaned into it and closed my eyes. Words that might’ve been part of an explanation climbed into my mouth, but all of them filled me with unease. What if he didn’t feel the same way anymore? What if he changed his mind since his declaration in the graveyard? My heart had been trampled on enough lately, and after everything I’d been through, I didn’t think I could handle much more of anything. Yeah, it made me feel like a weak coward to even think that, but it was the truth. Besides, he was leaving tomorrow. Nothing I could say or do would stop him from doing what he’d always wanted.

  “Callum, I...” I patted my pocket to make sure the lilac ring was still where I always kept it, dug it out, and held it out to him. “You should give this to Megan.”

  He took his finger from my face, and I wanted it back the instant he did. The flicker of pain in his eyes cut through my heart. “You don’t want it?”

  I stared at the ring in my palm rather than at him. The overhead light caught on the silver and deepened the delicate lilac engravings. I would miss calling it mine.

  “I don’t.” The words held a sharp edge that mismatched the dull ache in my chest.

  “Fine.” He snatched the ring away and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. His dark gaze flashed over my face, his jaw tight.

  “You can give that to her instead of the other thing you were going to give to her,” I blurted. As soon as the words fell out of my mouth, I wanted to swallow back every single one of them. Heat climbed up my neck and settled all over my face. I turned to the door. “I have to go.”

  On swift legs, suitable for base-stealing or whatever, Callum beat me to the door and closed me in his bedroom. He stood so close I could smell his salty potato chip breath. “I saw you outside, Leigh. And I know what you think you saw, but Megan’s been throwing herself at me all night. Ask anyone.”

  I shook my head because I didn’t want to care enough to do that. He was just feeding me his pretty words like he always did.

  “What other thing was I going to give her?” he asked.

  I inhaled his salty taste and let it burn all the way down while I focused on the rip in the fabric at his neck. “You,” I whispered. “You were going to give her you.”

  Everything about him softened after I said it—the muscles in his jaw, the rigid bunch of his shoulders, almost like he gave a sigh of relief. But I didn’t hear a thing because I shoved him out of my way and rocketed upstairs.

  Afraid he might try to find me, I hurried through the house to the sliding glass door to try to blend in with the crowd and vanish, though I’d never been any good at blending. Everyone seemed to be outside. Everyone except Lily.

  She knelt next to one of the many dead plants bordering the door with her eyes closed, chanting in a whisper. One hand touched the dirt in the pot while the other glided up over the wilted leaves. They awakened bright green as her hand uncurled over them, like there were strings attached to her fingers guiding them to life.

  I grabbed the stair banister to steady myself. Lily the cheerleader. Lily, Sarah’s old friend. She was bringing things back from the dead? Had she brought Ica’s tree back and Mr. Benjamin, too?

  Hands tucked into fists, I charged at her.

  Her whispered words took shape: “Break the ties that bind you to death.” She didn’t even turn her head until I grabbed her by the throat and dragged her to her feet. Her mouth popped open. The whites of her eyes circled a wide path around her green irises.

  I pushed her into the bathroom and kicked the door closed behind me. “Start talkin
g.”

  Chapter 13

  “Wh-what?” Lily choked.

  My hand still squeezed the cheerleader’s throat, but too bad. “You brought that plant back to life. Are you bringing everything else back, too?”

  She shook her head hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I opened my mouth and hissed. The light blinked on and off with the speed of a strobe light. Lily’s blonde curls gusted out behind her and sent the pink lily tucked behind her ear spiraling into the bathtub. As soon as I ran out of air and inhaled, the lights returned with an unsteady buzzing. That was suppressed Sorceress power? But I barely noticed any of it except the rage curling my fingers deeper into her neck.

  “Please,” she gasped. Tears streaked her face in mascara-tinted rivers. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  My grip loosened. The confused crease between my eyebrows cut deep. I was primed to crush answers out of her, but she was more concerned with me not telling anyone? I took my hand from her throat with narrowed eyes.

  “Yes, okay? I brought that plant back,” she said and backed into the far wall next to the toilet, rubbing the red handprint on her neck. “Just like I brought back everything in your yard and Sarah’s yard and as much as I could in the graveyard.” She shuddered and then held up a finger in front of her face. “But not the dead guy or Ica’s tree.”

  Hearing that name come out of Lily’s mouth shocked the air from my lungs. “You know Ica? How?”

  She looked up at me as if I had just sprouted antennae, which I imagined was the same way I looked at her. “Well, I don’t want to know her, but she’s kind of hard to ignore. She has so much Sorceress power, the school’s walls practically shook with it when she was there, and she doesn’t try to hide it, either.”

  I rubbed the confused spot between my eyebrows, hoping that would help things make more sense. “So you just bring back plants and stuff. That’s it?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Are you crazy? Never mind. I already know the answer. But I would never bring Ica’s tree back, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even though you think I am, I’m not stupid.”

  I held my hand out, palm up, so she might put some answers in it. “Then what are you?”

  She looked me in the eye as she chewed her lip, as though she was trying to decide if I would laugh at her if I knew. “A Sorceress,” she finally blurted. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “Why would I, Lily? I’m one, too.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re a Trammeler Sorceress and way more powerful than me. But how are you even alive after going up against One and Two?”

  That was too much of a loaded question to answer. “My turn to ask the questions,” I said. “So you were helping me and Sarah. Why?”

  Lily glanced into the bathtub at her broken pink lily with a grimace so wobbly, I thought she might break down in tears. “I owed it to her. I could’ve helped her if she’d let me. I tried to tell her parents not to bury her in the middle of a Trinity, but...they were devastated. I didn’t want to add to their pain. Bringing her yard back, it’s a small thing to do, to keep doing, but I...I had to do something.”

  This was not the Lily I thought I knew. The pale yellow of the wall behind her and the flickering glow above threw a different kind of light onto her. One that was less bouncy and bitchy, but gentler, especially as she knelt to caress the petals of the pink lily in the bathtub.

  “And my yard?” I asked.

  “Break the ties that bind you to death,” she whispered. The bent petals straightened in the palm of her hand and brightened in color. She wedged it back into its place behind her ear and stood to face me, head tilted to the side as though she was listening with the flower instead of her ear. “I didn’t want to add to your pain, either.”

  “Oh.” I blinked down at the mustard still on my boot. Just when you thought you knew someone, they flipped themselves over and showed a side you never saw before. It took a second for this new Lily to take the other one’s place. The new Lily who brought Mom’s lilacs back had helped me heal some, both from Mom’s death and that night in the graveyard. Not a lot, but some. It gave me hope. Lily gave me hope. What was I supposed to say to that? I started with “Thanks” but that didn’t seem like enough.

  She shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

  We stood in awkward silence, now both of us staring at the mustard on my boot.

  “I don’t know who’s bringing Ica’s tree back to life or who brought back Mr. Benjamin. I only went to the graveyard that one time to heal after I heard you survived since I figured you’d killed everything there.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. Was there really no other word in the entire English language I could use? Why was expressing my feelings, no matter what kind they were, so hard? Biting back a groan, I reached for a wad of toilet paper to dab at the mustard. That was as good an excuse as any to avoid looking her in the eye at my next question. “Doesn’t it bother you that it’s dark magic you’re using?”

  “It’s only dark if you bring things back that aren’t supposed to come back.”

  “Like people?”

  “Like people.”

  “And animals?”

  When she nodded, I swallowed back the icy metal taste that climbed into my mouth. I already knew my sister had worked dark magic up in the attic, but to hear it confirmed by Lily, the resurrection expert, chased a shudder up my back. No, not just a shudder. A bone deep chill. I was freezing.

  The overhead light sputtered.

  “Leigh?”

  “What?” But as soon as I said the word, I knew. Blood streamed over my lips from my nose and over the curve of my upper lip. I pointed at Lily, at the red now dribbling from hers. “Yours, too.”

  She brushed a hand under her nose, her eyes growing wider at the smear of blood on her pale skin. “What’s happening?”

  The light blinked on and off. With every split second it flicked on, Lily’s face grew paler and paler. Maybe all the partying outside was about to blow an electrical fuse. If only that simple explanation would ease the worry clawing at my gut.

  But it wasn’t just the blood and the blinking light that thumped my heartbeat faster. A drop of Lily’s blood landed on the tip of an upward turned wave of hair that hung over her shoulder. It swirled down the length of it, painting it a wet red, a color I’d seen before, and suddenly Lily’s face filled me with realization.

  I switched two of them.

  The force of the shock knocked me back a step. If only Lily hadn’t always hid in Megan’s shadow, if only I had looked, really looked at her, I would have seen the similarities. Frame her and hang her on a wall behind a checkout counter in a store that didn’t exist anymore, and she would be a younger version of Gretchen. Lily was Gretchen’s daughter.

  A flurry of bumps beat at the door and wall, like people were running away from the front of the house toward the back with elbows flailing. Someone screamed.

  My heartbeat pulsed at the back of my throat, catching on a question. I hovered a hand over the doorknob, but first I had to know. “Lily, did you know my mom?”

  “Y-yes. She was really good friends with my mom.” Lily’s gasps turned into panicked pants. “Why?”

  “Is your mom your real mom?”

  She shook her head. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” Answers hid everywhere, but I didn’t have any time to find them. Not right now, anyway. I threw open the door.

  Miguel saw me from his post next to Jo and Callum by the screen door and pointed. “There she is.”

  “Leigh.” The panic in Jo’s voice lifted the hair from my arms. She ran toward me, the two boys on her heels, and took my hand. “It’s Tram. He’s out front.”

  “Why?” I whispered.

  Callum took my other hand in a trembling one, his face twisted with fright. “Ica’s tree.”

  Lily stepped out from behind me and the flickering shadows in the bathroom. Her gaze swept over their faces and read fro
m their eyes what I refused to. “She escaped.”

  Chapter 14

  Lily ticked her gaze to Callum. “Didn’t she?”

  When he nodded, I felt myself tipping forward. Or maybe the earth grew lop-sided because it wanted us all to slide away from this impossible news. But I caught myself with Jo and Callum’s hands squeezed in mine.

  “Why are you both bleeding?” Jo asked.

  “Where is she?” Lily asked.

  “How do you know about Ica, Lily?” Callum asked.

  “No.” That was all I could say. Every other word, every thought, swam through my head in a confused rush. She couldn’t have escaped. Because the first thing she would do would be to find me. “No,” I said again, as if it could change anything.

  “What do you want us to do, Leigh?” Callum asked in a low voice.

  I didn’t know. I’d been so focused on keeping her from coming back, I’d never thought for one second what I would do if she did. Just like I’d been with Mom.

  “Leigh?” He gave my arm a shake, and I looked up into his dark eyes.

  I took a breath. Everyone had to get out of here because if Ica came to find me, then I needed to be far away from people. She would kill anyone who got in her way of becoming Three. I was sure of it. But I couldn’t leave here until I found out why people were running away from the front door.

  “Find my dad and Darby. Make sure they get home safe. Get everyone out of here.” I uncurled my fingers from Jo’s and Callum’s and stepped toward the front door.

  “Someone’s out there with Tram,” Jo said. “I couldn’t see who it was.”

  Was it Ica? Here already? My muscles stiffened. Then we had to hurry because she wouldn’t wait.

  “Go,” I said over my shoulder.

  Jo scrambled for the sliding glass door.

  Miguel followed her through. “Are you going to tell me what’s—”

  “Leigh.” Callum stared at me, his forehead creased with worry. My name hung between us, thick with some unspoken promise neither of us could figure out how to put into words. We didn’t have time anyway.