Wicked Cool (The Spellspinners) Read online

  It did not make me feel noticeably better.

  “Was I a newborn?”

  “Well, no. Not quite. That’s why we had to take a guess at your birthday. I thought you were about ten days old, but ...” She cleared her throat. After a pause, she went on. “It’s easy to tell the age when a baby is just born, but as time goes on, it gets more difficult.”

  Somehow, that made it worse. I can imagine some poor girl, scared to death, taking her newborn baby to a place where no questions will be asked. But my mother, whoever she was, gave birth to me ... then kept me for a few days ... and then dumped me.

  Talk about depressing.

  I was afraid that, at any moment, it would occur to Nonny to ask me why I was asking. Today, of all days. And I really didn’t want to tell her. Well, Nonny, I happen to know that today is my birthday. She’d want to know how I knew, and I just didn’t want to go down that road. So I steered her in a different direction.

  “Were there any clues? Any idea where I came from?”

  She shook her head. “You were wrapped in a white blanket. Someone—your mother, I suppose—set you down at the commune gates and rang the bell.” She set the cups and saucers on the table and sat across from me. Behind her, on the other side of the screen door, rays of sunset lay in apricot-colored bars. The light haloed Nonny’s graying hair with reds and golds that it normally doesn’t have. She leaned across the table and placed her warm, work-roughened hand over my cool, pale one. “Zara,” she said gently. “Don’t look like that. You were loved, honey. You were loved.”

  Until she said that, I hadn’t realized how hard I was taking this. And of course, her saying comforting things made me feel even worse. My throat tightened painfully.

  “Somebody had taken the time to embroider ‘Zara’ on the blanket. That’s how we knew what to name you.” Her voice was soft. “I still have the blanket. It’s very pretty.” She paused. “Would you like to see it?”

  I shook my head. “Some other time,” I managed to say.

  She nodded. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  That’s for sure.

  So I was left at the commune gates, wrapped in a white blanket. And childless, middle-aged Helga Norland fell in love with baby me. And her little sister Jenny had, in fact, died in a motorcycle accident that summer. So the woman just kept me, as if I had been a kitten or something. She was grieving, and not thinking clearly, and I seemed to be some sort of gift from the gods. Her custom-made Jenny replacement.

  The fundamental facts I have always believed about myself are a complete fantasy. The missing mother I have always pictured was wearing Jenny’s face. The reality? I have no clue what my mother looked like. Or what her personality was like. Whoever she was, she wasn’t Jenny.

  And Nonny and I are nothing to each other. No blood ties at all.

  It gets worse: we have no legal ties, either. My existence was never reported to the authorities.

  So now, for the first time, I get why Nonny panics at the sight of a uniform. She’s afraid of cops. She’s afraid of soldiers. She doesn’t even trust guys in suits. I thought it was just part of her hippie thing. Turns out it’s a little more complicated than that.

  The woman has devoted her life to me. And she lives in fear of somebody, someday, showing up on our doorstep with a badge and taking me away.

  I remember how nervous she was about enrolling me in school. No wonder! How did she pull it off? She must have had no birth certificate, no adoption papers, nothing that gave her guardianship over me.

  And what, pray tell, are we going to do when it’s time for me to get my driver’s license?! Oh WELL.

  Our conversation about my origins was so long overdue, Nonny never did ask me why I asked her about it tonight, of all nights. She just seemed relieved to have it out in the open.

  Out in the open. Yeah, right.

  See, we still didn’t talk about the elephant in the room. (Isn’t that a great expression? I just learned it the other day. It means the enormous, unavoidable Thing at the heart of a family—like the fact that one of you is an alcoholic, or, in my case, a witch or something—that everybody worries about and nobody will mention.)

  We didn’t talk about it even though, now, it seems crystal clear that whatever I am is probably imprinted in my genes. My unknown, utterly alien genes.

  Any other day, this conversation would have totally traumatized me. Today? Bad as it was, I knew ... even as it was happening ... that it wasn’t the biggest thing that would happen to me tonight.

  It was twilight by the time we were done talking and drinking tea and cleaning the kitchen. The sun had set, but there was still light in the sky; my favorite part of a summer evening. The twilight was calling me, tugging gently at my sleeve. Come on, Zara. Step outside.

  Oh, yes. My night was just beginning.

  Nonny gave me one last pat, then headed to the parlor to do some needlework before bed. She’s forever doing needlework— embroidery and cross-stitch and needlepoint and crocheting; you name it, she loves it. She tried to teach me how to crochet, once, but honestly, I couldn’t stand it. Yet another way in which we are different: I don’t have the needlework gene.

  I wandered out into the back stoop. The kitchen screen door squeaked shut behind me and I was alone in the summer dusk. The scent of damp grass mingled pleasantly with the fragrance of gardenias and star jasmine in the flowerbeds; a heavenly, summery smell. The light was a soft mauve at the end of the day. It was a magical time of night at a magical time of year.

  At a magical time of life, come to think of it. Sixteen. I am sixteen today.

  I knew what I had sensed, calling me into the night. He had come for me. He was waiting. And he was the reason why it didn’t bother me as much as it should have, that Nonny didn’t know who I was. Answers to all my questions were out there, somewhere in the twilight.

  The sense of anticipation was growing stronger by the minute. It pulsed in my veins like a drug. I felt poised between delight and terror ... I didn’t know what, or who, was waiting for me. But I knew I would know soon.

  I felt my life turn another corner. How many corners had I turned today? I stood on our back porch in the last light of my sixteenth birthday and closed my eyes. Behind me, in the house, the homey scents of tea and lemon in Nonny’s tidy, gleaming kitchen. Ahead of me, gathering darkness and whispering breezes ... out where the wild things are.

  I stepped off the porch and into the wild.

  5

  Instinct drove me away from the house. I struck out across the lawn and downhill into the meadow. Wherever I went, I knew he would find me. I wanted to meet him at a place of my choosing. In private.

  I wanted to be out of view of the windows. And somehow, for some reason, I didn’t want him too near my home.

  That’s odd, isn’t it? Looking back on that feeling, the feeling that drove me to the edge of the woods, I think part of it was a sense that I had to keep him away from Nonny. From our house. From anything or anyone I love.

  Strange.

  Some part of me must still have been thinking of those monster movies. The ones where people walk straight into danger, never dreaming that ahead of them is something that will trample and pillage and destroy.

  I headed down the path toward the woods that line the creek. The meadow grasses and wildflowers were nearly waist-high all around me. The night air felt soft to the touch and smelled as sweet as hay. Now that my eyes had adjusted, the meadow seemed bathed in a light the same color as my eyes. I was nearing the woods when I felt, rather than saw, him among the trees ahead. My pulse kicked into high gear. Was it excitement, or fear, that I felt?

  Excitement.

  I think.

  I stopped in my tracks and strained to peer through the purple gloom.

  A voice whispered, “Zara.” It seemed directionless; it came from nowhere. From everywhere. The whisper sounded all around me. And this time, I wasn’t imagining it. My name was shimmering in the air.

  I
didn’t speak. I was afraid to move. The grass around me swayed and rustled in the breeze.

  “Zara,” he said again. And I saw him now, standing at the edge of the thicket. He was leaning on a tree, as if he’d been waiting a long time. But he smiled and straightened when my eyes met his at last.

  He was tall. And young; probably not much older than I am. That surprised me.

  He moved toward me and his movements were fluid, like a dancer’s. Dark hair. Light skin. I knew the moment I saw him: he is like me. He is what I am.

  I don’t know how to express how that made me feel. I thought my heart would bound right out of my chest.

  How does it feel, to be other your whole life long, and finally, finally, to meet someone like yourself? To never belong, to never fit in, not even with the people you love best—and then to meet someone with whom you feel an instant kinship? Having just learned that my family is not even my family, and feeling even more alone than before, the impact was ... indescribable.

  I wanted to throw my arms around him and burst into tears. I wanted to grab him and never let go.

  But part of me wanted to run from him, to run as fast as I could and never look back. Because I knew that whatever he was ... and whatever I was ... once I connected with him my life would change.

  And the bottom line is, my life is pretty darn good. I’m not so sure I want anything to change.

  If being other is the price I pay for living with Nonny—family or not—and hanging out with Meg, and waking up to the Chapmans’s rooster every morning, and having Tres carve little rhinos for me … well, maybe it’s a price worth paying.

  All these thoughts flashed through my mind as he came toward me. Chaotic thoughts, conflicting impulses—and, for the first time in my life, overwhelming attraction. Look how grownup that sounds! Overwhelming attraction. That’s what I felt. This guy was drop-dead gorgeous. Plus, there was just … something … about him.

  The words Meg uses to describe boys didn’t apply. He wasn’t hot-looking, for example. If anything, his look was cooler than cool. His skin was so pale it was almost luminous in the near-darkness—the same as mine must be, I realized. Which was kind of thrilling. The whole you are like me vibe was awesome.

  Come to think of it, he looked like a vampire. Sleek and handsome and dangerous. A creature of the night. Which is strange, because I don’t think I look like a creature of the night.

  Or do I? Is that how I look to other people??

  Again, all these crazy thoughts are flashing through my brain. And at this point, I have neither spoken nor moved. Just stood in the grass and watched him, as he emerged from the woods and walked toward me.

  When he got close enough, I spoke. “You know my name,” I said. Commenting on the obvious, since he had already said it twice.

  “Of course I do.”

  His voice was sexy. No other word for it. Sexy. I felt a shiver run down my spine. The way he looked at me was sexy, too. His eyes were green in the dying light—not a normal green like a regular person’s eyes. They were peridot green. Cooler than cool. Hotter than hot.

  Wicked cool.

  I was so not ready for this. It kinda spooked me.

  Besides, what’s that supposed to mean? Of course, he says, as if my name were common knowledge.

  I frowned at him. “So who are you?” It probably sounded rude.

  He just smiled his soft, sexy smile. You already know who I am. The words pulsed in the air around me. I heard them in my mind. His lips hadn’t moved.

  This sounds crazy, but I swear it’s true. And it scared the bejeepers out of me. Was I reading his thoughts?? I had never done such a thing in my life.

  Worse—was he reading mine?????

  I hated this a lot!!!!

  I hope to high heaven I imagined all this. After all, I was pretty keyed up. Maybe I did imagine it.

  But I’m pretty sure I didn’t.

  Before I had time to panic, he opened his mouth and spoke in the regular way, answering my question as if we were normal people. Normal people, who like to know each other’s names. And need to hear them spoken aloud.

  “My name is Lance Donovan,” he said. “And I’m a spellspinner.”

  A spellspinner. I have to admit, this was a new one to me. I kind of cocked my head, studying his face. Was he serious?

  Yes, he was.

  Okay, I thought. I’ll bite. “What’s a spellspinner?”

  His smile flashed in the near-darkness. His teeth were very white and even, but not, I noticed, pointy or anything. Thank goodness. Whatever a spellspinner is, it isn’t a vampire.

  “In twenty-five words or less, right?”

  “That’d be nice.”

  I had the oddest feeling ... that he was trying to reach my mind with his. Not to communicate, but to observe. Like he was trying to figure out what I knew ... so he could decide where to start when he answered my questions.

  Maybe he was just studying my face very intently.

  Maybe. Whatever. I didn’t like it.

  I took a step backward. “Well? What’s a spellspinner?”

  “That’s what I’ve come to show you, Zara. I’ve come to teach you what a spellspinner is.”

  “And ...” Suddenly it was hard to breathe. I swallowed hard. “And how to be one?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  I had dreamed of this moment, hadn’t I? I had longed for it. I had thought it would never happen, but I had wished for it all the same: someone, or something, to explain me to myself. After that conversation with Nonny, I needed it more than ever.

  And now it was happening.

  And I was scared to death.

  “Why now?” My voice was high-pitched and breathless. “All these years, I’ve been alone. With no answers. Why come to me now?”

  “I couldn’t come before. We didn’t know where you were.” His smile flickered again. “Once we found you, I thought it’d make a nice birthday present.”

  I took another step backward. “You knew it was my birthday today?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” I repeated, dazed.

  “Though I don’t know exactly how old you are. Which birthday is it?”

  I blinked at him. “You know it’s my birthday, but you don’t know which one??”

  He shrugged. Some people look sullen when they shrug. Lance looked charming.

  “I’m sixteen,” I told him.

  “Sixteen,” he murmured. Something in his voice made me shiver. “Sweet.”

  And the way he said it ... sweeeet ... you know, I wasn’t sure if he meant it, like, cool, or if he meant it some other way. Because the way he said it made me instantly think of, well, what else? Sweet sixteen.

  And I was suddenly ACUTELY aware that I was out in the night, alone, with an incredibly attractive member of the opposite sex. For the first time, needless to say.

  And that Lance Donovan might be the logical person to put an end to that never-been-kissed thing.

  And that my sixteenth birthday might appear, to some, to be the perfect opportunity. Almost a perfect excuse, in fact.

  And as these thoughts and impressions were racing through my brain, I had the distinct impression that Lance and I were thinking the same thing.

  How embarrassing.

  Except ... wait a minute. Which thoughts were coming from my brain, and which thoughts were coming from his? Because I had the weirdest sense that somehow ...

  Nah. That’s crazy.

  I’m not a person who blushes easily, but I’ll tell you what. I’m glad it was dark. Because I’m pretty sure I was blushing.

  I gathered my scattered wits and tried to bring the conversation back to the point. “So, um, you’ve come to teach me how to cast spells.”

  He frowned. I swear he looked insulted. “Not hardly. Spellspinners don’t cast spells.” Then he leaned forward slightly, the better to peer into my face. “Hey. Seriously. Don’t you know anything about yourself?”

  “
Not much.”

  “Well, what do you know?”

  Silence fell. I struggled with how to answer him. The conversation with Nonny was raw and fresh in my mind. “Not much,” I repeated. And the things I thought I knew? Evidently they were all a pack of lies.

  I heard the intake of his breath, as if that caught his attention. His eyes widened briefly.

  But I hadn’t said it out loud.

  It definitely felt like he was reading my mind.

  And what with that, and the kinship vibe, and all my emotions being so close to the surface … well, I hate to admit it, but I'm afraid I poured my heart out. To this complete and utter stranger. This stranger that I didn’t even trust.

  There’s no excuse for it. Except, I guess, that I was in this totally vulnerable place, mentally. I told him how I'd lived with my aunt all my life, and just found out she wasn’t my aunt at all. That I'd been told all these stories about my mother, and had her picture up in my room and everything, and she wasn’t my mother at all. That I had no idea who I was or where I came from. And Lance just stood there and took it all in, and never made a sign.

  I finally shut up, terrified that I was about to start blubbering. It’s a good thing the tears threatened, or who knows how much more I might have blurted out?

  His expression was perfectly neutral. “Well,” he said at last. “Looks like I got here just in time.”

  I didn’t reply. I was too busy clenching my jaw to keep from saying anything more.

  “I can help you, Zara. I can take you home.”

  “Home?” I stared at him. “I am home. This is my home.”

  “You don’t belong to this …” He gestured toward the house. “Nonny person.”

  “Her name is Helga Norland,” I said. My voice shook a little. “And you’re wrong. I do belong to her.”

  I knew I wasn’t making sense, but I was too emotional to care. I could feel him pick up on that, and switch gears. “Okay,” he said. “This is home to you. But Zara … your world is much bigger than this.” His voice grew softer. “Come on. You must have figured that out by now.”

  I opened my mouth and shut it again. The taboos run so deep ... I couldn’t, I just couldn’t acknowledge what he was saying. I don’t talk about the Power. And of course that’s what he was insinuating. That during the past sixteen years, I must have noticed there was something majorly different about me.