The Oracle's Locket Read online

  I fell down with her immediately. I knew that it had been my mind that had thrust the plate into her head; it had come from the powers that I still didn’t have full control over. I couldn’t touch her; I knew that but I studied her face—her eyes still closed, and her lashes cast over her cheeks.

  Zoey whirled around the counter and dropped on the other side of Aunt Maria. She squeezed her shoulder and whispered, “Maria? Maria, are you all right?”

  What had I done? I moved away from her, my hands at my sides, and blinked toward Celeste. Celeste remained unmoving next to the counter, her fork poised over her pumpkin pie. Tears welled in my eyes. I had never wanted to hurt anyone; it had never been a single thought in my head. Aunt Maria let out a low groan, a sound so animal-like and menacing that I became terribly frightened. I lurched back toward the front door, my hands shaking. I grabbed my bags and fled, rushing toward the car. Celeste called my name, but I didn’t wait for her. I hovered next to the car, gasping for air.

  Aunt Maria had been right. I couldn’t control my powers. I knew nothing. I wasn’t safe there, and neither was anyone else. I’d been selfish to come home—and with every second that I remained there, I put everyone else in grave danger.

  Celeste appeared in the doorway. Her shadow was long and thin across the driveway. She swept toward me, the keys dangling in her hand, and then she brought her arms around me and held me like that for a long time. Noticeably, she was careful only to touch me where my clothes did—not on the skin itself.

  I was a fucking monster.

  When she drew back, both of us were crying. She snapped her thumb over the unlock button, and we both cranked into the back seat and stared ahead in the dark.

  “She got up,” Celeste finally murmured. “She’s going to be okay. It was just a surprise, I think.”

  “For me, too,” I whispered.

  Celeste bucked up a little, as though she wanted to give some kind of speech. “Your aunt knows that you wouldn’t have done that on purpose. She knows you better than anyone.”

  “But I don’t even know myself anymore,” I shot back. “How could she possibly know me?”

  Celeste dropped back on the seat cushion, her eyes cast toward her knees. Neither of us spoke for a long moment. The silence felt deafening.

  “You don’t have to come back with me,” I told her. My words were hard-edged. In some ways, I wanted to shove everyone so far out of my life. If I couldn’t have the life I wanted, the one I’d always known, then why should I taint anyone else?

  “I want to come with you,” Celeste finally whispered, although she sounded doubtful.

  “No, you don’t. You want to spend time with your dad. You want to have Thanksgiving dinner. You...”

  “Just shut up already,” she returned. “I want to spend the holidays with you. You’re my family, Ivy. Don’t be a brat and just let me come.”

  Zoey appeared in the doorway after that. She looked a little stooped, her shoulders cast forward. She closed the door behind her and walked to the car. When she sat in the front seat, she heaved a long sigh and placed her hands around the steering wheel. It was now 2:45 in the morning. I wished there was another way that I could take a bus off to school. But the spells around it didn’t allow anyone who didn’t know where it was to find it.

  “Let’s get you girls back to school,” Zoey finally sighed. She turned the key and the motor sputtered and coughed out as we eased the butt of the vehicle into the road.

  We drove silently for a while. I shifted, my heart pumping a little too fast. Finally, I asked, “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine,” Zoey said, a bit too quickly. “I helped her clean up the wound and lay up in bed. I told her not to sleep for a while, just in case she has some kind of concussion. I don’t think it is, but I want to be on the safe side.”

  I squeezed my knees and stared out at the impossibly dark night. The rain cranked up again and splattered itself across the windows and drew long streaks. Celeste yawned loudly, a sound that was so comical that Zoey actually laughed and then reached for the radio. There was a talk show on one of Celeste’s and I’s favorites, where people called in about their relationship and marriage problems.

  “Alaina, you’re telling me you caught your husband cheating with your cousin,” the soothing voice said. “And you’re not sure you want to leave him.”

  “That’s right,” a southern woman’s voice drawled. “He and my cousin Janice were always close, but I didn’t know it would ever come to this. But I love my husband, Marge, and maybe this is just one of those family dilemmas that go away after a while. One that you forget about over the years because it never mattered in the first place.”

  “Gosh, to have it as easy as Alaina,” I said, laughing lightly.

  “She and Janice are going to have a brawl in the parking lot. I can feel it,” Celeste said.

  “Oh yeah. Hair is going to be pulled. Perfectly manicured nails are going to be drawn. Who knows what will happen at the next family reunion?” I said.

  “Maybe Janice even got pregnant!” Celeste said.

  I chuckled and dropped my head back and, for a moment, and remembered what it had been like to be a normal, everyday teenage girl. But already, I could sense it: we were nearing Origins Supernatural Academy. The wild Oracle had returned.

  At least we would mostly have the campus to ourselves. No Margot to worry about. Just time to rest, to think, to put things together.

  Chapter Three

  We entered the girls’ dormitory and pounded up the stairs to find our living area empty, cleaned and sparkling—the couches wide open and the refrigerator mostly empty. It was strange not to hear the normal echoing voices of the other girls, calling each other’s names and asking to borrow makeup and gossiping seemingly non-stop.

  We dropped our bags near the fireplace, and Celeste shoved her shoulders back and shot her fingers toward the logs. A fire erupted across the wood, and I whistled, impressed. Celeste looked both proud and surprised, as though she hadn’t suspected it would actually work. But the fire crackled and grew tall and orange. Together, Celeste and I cozied next to it and stared into it for a while, not speaking. When I glanced up at the clock, it read 4:50.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened tonight?” Celeste finally asked. Her eyes remained toward the fire, and the light reflected across the glass across her irises.

  “It’s difficult to explain,” I said.

  Celeste bit hard on her lower lip, but still didn’t look at me. It wasn’t like us to avoid topics like this. I swallowed, my heart thudding, and added, “Celeste, there are people after me. And they almost got me tonight.”

  “It just doesn’t make much sense to me,” Celeste said. “I’ve known you my entire life. You’ve been nothing but normal. And now, we have to hide out here. I’m terrified for you. And what happened with the tray back at your aunt’s place?”

  “I know.” I burrowed my face into my palms and let out a long sigh. “I’ll be safe here. And Celeste, I’ll try to make sure you have the easiest, simplest time of being my friend. I’ll be as normal as I possibly can be. It’s all I want, anyway.”

  “I guess normal doesn’t really fit with Origins Supernatural Academy,” Celeste said. She shot to her feet and then splayed her hand out in front of the fire, an attempt to put it out. She closed her eyes, concentrated, but still, nothing happened. “Dammit. I’m so tired.”

  It didn’t matter. I grabbed a large cup of water from the kitchenette and poured several rounds into the simmering flames. Soon, the fire was out.

  “Good thing you haven’t forgotten your mortal capabilities,” Celeste said.

  It was late. The day had been absolutely horrible. I said goodnight to Celeste, who gave me a strange, big-eyed look.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just thought we would sleep together,” she said. She sounded sheepish and very embarrassed.

  But I shook my head. “I need to be alone for a while. I’m
sorry.”

  Celeste nodded thoughtfully. Finally, she said, “I think that might be the first time you’ve ever said that. Guess it means we’re growing up. For better or worse.”

  Celeste’s words followed me into my bedroom. It was strange: I’d left the room not even 24 hours before, but it felt like it belonged to someone else. I didn’t bother with the lights and fell back, making the mattress shake beneath me. Outside, a moon continued to glow, even as the first of the sunrise glimmered over the horizon. It was the strangest Thanksgiving of my life. And given the circumstances, I had no fucking clue if I would see another one.

  So much of the supernatural world wanted me dead.

  It was some kind of miracle that I slept at all. When I opened my eyes, the sunlight had flung itself through the windowpane, glossing over the antique wardrobe and rub and making the white walls shine. It was almost painful to look at. When I dropped my feet to the ground, a memory of the previous day shot through me, and I longed to stretch back beneath the covers and give up.

  The clock read 11:30—nearly lunchtime on Thanksgiving Day. Normally, we ate around 1:30, with plenty of snacks before then. Now, my stomach felt echo-y, empty.

  I dressed in a dress and a light jacket, drew a brush through my hair, and went into the living area. Celeste’s door remained closed, and something told me to let her sleep a bit longer. We would celebrate Thanksgiving later, with whatever we could scrounge up.

  I’d heard that some students did remain on at Origins Supernatural Academy over the holidays. Namely, students who came in from other countries didn’t see any point returning, especially since they didn’t care much about Thanksgiving anyway. No girls from our particular dormitory remained, but as I tapped down the stairs, I ran into Piper from Toronto, who a few years older than me, and a witch, I was pretty sure. She looked tired as she wrapped her hair into a ponytail and then let it fall.

  “Ivy, right?” she said, as though I wasn’t the oddball everyone talked about these days.

  “Yeah. And you’re Piper?”

  “Yep. I’m surprised you’re here. I thought you’d go home. Unless you’re also Canadian?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Missing Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “Shit,” she said, sensing that I didn’t want to be asked about it. “I was just headed over to meet a few friends at the dining hall for lunch if you want to join?”

  “I’ll walk over with you,” I said. “But, I have to get back soon.”

  We padded into the grassy arena between all the old-world buildings. The morning really was extraordinary, with a blissful blue sky overhead. Piper mentioned that she’d never seen such a stupendous day on Thanksgiving. “I’ve spent the past several holidays here at Origins, and I swear, it’s normally always raining.”

  The friends she’d mentioned sat toward the far window in the dining hall. I said goodbye and headed up to the banquet table to check out the selection, so I could report back to Celeste. I felt kind of at-ease, standing up there, analyzing the buttered rolls and the creamy-looking green beans with fried onions on top, the slabs of turkey and the apple and pumpkin and pecan pies. I had no one after me, not now. Even Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra were gone. I could breathe.

  I gave a final wave to Piper as I cut back into the bright light of the arboretum. As I bounded down the steps, something caught my eye near the far edge of the forest, where the trail slipped through the trees and crept down toward the water. Something made me stop short, and I turned toward the vision—all three of the boys, there hunkered near the trees, talking together conspiratorially.

  What the hell were they doing here?

  Before I knew what I was doing, I headed toward them, my heart pumping. As I approached, all of them turned their faces toward me and straightened up. Not a single one of them smiled. In fact, they seemed almost as shocked to me as I was to see them. Ezra’s blue eyes sparkled, and his typical tight-fitting black t-shirt showed part of his sleeve tattoo across his large left bicep. Raphael crossed his thick arms over his chest, watching my every move, and Quintin glowered at me hungrily. Their eyes told me everything I needed to know. Even though I was an Oracle, even though I was this other type of being, they couldn’t really understand—they wanted to own me. Their eyes skated across the swells of my breasts, down the cinch of my waist, across the flutter of my dress across my thighs. I stopped short, just a few feet away from them, and inhaled the smell of the salty Gulf, mixed with the woods and something else, their cologne, sandalwood and sweat and something urgent and animal. I swallowed and held court in front of them.

  Could they feel the adrenaline I felt? On my 17th birthday, I’d come into my powers, just as Ezra’s cock had thrust inside me. I’d surged forward into whatever future this was—and I’d brought them along with me.

  “What are you doing here?” I finally asked.

  They exchanged glances.

  “I suppose we could ask you the same thing,” Raphael cut out.

  “We watched you load up into Celeste’s mom’s car only yesterday,” Ezra continued.

  I glowered at them. “There was a change of plans.”

  Quintin shrugged. “For us, too.”

  Something stirred at the base of my belly. I pressed my hand against it, remembering the mark that had formed and burned on the night of my birthday. It felt warm now. I could feel the boys’ eyes on my hand and knew they could still visualize it. Nobody spoke. The air between us felt taut and strange, almost difficult to breathe.

  Suddenly, I felt something behind me, a kind of presence. I turned swiftly to find Celeste in the center of the arboretum, watching me. Her face reflected back everything I felt: like we were lost in this strange timeline, here at the school on Thanksgiving break when we should have been miles away. I turned back for a moment to nod at the boys and then I rushed off, back to her. When I reached her, she was shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. My first instinct was to touch her, take her arm, but I remembered just in the nick of time.

  “You weren’t in your room,” she mumbled, her nostrils flared. “I thought something had happened. I thought...”

  She trailed off, and her beautiful eyes danced to the floor. I swam in rage at myself.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to go for a walk,” I said.

  She told me it was all right, although her words were guarded. I balked, wishing I could say the right thing—wishing I could take all this panic out of our newfound life.

  “Are you hungry at all?” I finally asked. “There’s a banquet in the dining hall.”

  Celeste and I walked wordlessly back toward the dining hall. Once there, we loaded up platters with turkey, with pie, with stuffing and green beans and sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows on top—a dish I’d always loved, even though Celeste thought it was really weird. When we turned back to the mostly-empty dining room, Celeste suggested that we take our food-to-go and watch movies back in the dorm.

  The day was fine, maybe even better than fine. We stretched out on my bed and played old DVDs that Celeste had brought with her from home—chick flicks and made-up witch stories that Celeste liked to make fun of since they were largely completely wrong. She also changed water to white wine, which tasted half-decent, and we drank slowly and fell into a kind of haze. Mid-way through the third film of the afternoon, she asked, “Why are Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra here, anyway?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “They’re really evasive.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said, adjusting so that my mattress shook slightly. “They all have families to get back to.”

  I didn’t say anything. In the silence, she added, “I feel like they’re up to something. I don’t know why. I can’t trust them.”

  MY ANSWER CAME THE next day.

  Celeste was on the phone with Peter in her bedroom. There was a strange uneasiness between us, and I was suspicious that Celeste was talking to Peter about me—turning the tables a little bit, putting her
trust in her boyfriend instead of her best friend. My stomach crunched at the thought.

  Instead of waste away the afternoon, I headed to the library. There was a grey haze to the air, the clouds were thick with potential rain, and I swept into the majestic library doors the second rain splattered across the mighty staircase. When I stepped inside the dust-filled air and took in the first sight of the many bookshelves, the stacks and stacks of books, the old-world paintings, and the beautiful, rainy light that flooded in from the long windows, I sighed deeply. For the first time since our arrival back from Hillside Falls, I felt at ease.

  I loved investigating the many different areas of the Origins Supernatural Academy library. There were so many books about dragons, warlocks, and mermaids—about vampire lineages, spells and potions; books about long-forgotten future-seers and even notable humans involved in the supernatural world. I placed a finger on the thick spine of several of them and then brought my finger down the long, long line of the bookshelf. When I reached the end, I spotted the librarian, bent over a thick text. She muttered at it and spread her fingers across what looked like the torn edge of the spine, as though the only good use for her magic was to make sure the books remained intact.

  She seemed too overwhelmed with her work to notice me. Out of interest, I grabbed a book of vampire lineages and walked up the steps to the second floor, where a cozy nook looked out over the arboretum. But when I reached the top of the steps, I found myself face-to-face with Quintin, who had already taken my spot.

  We stared at one another for a long time. My heart thudded in my throat. It was rare to find the boys apart from each other. Plus, the last time I’d thought I’d found Quintin in the library alone, it had been a set-up for Ezra to watch—and then join us. I shivered and placed my free hand over the opposite elbow, but stood my ground. Quintin’s eyes dove from mine, down my throat, across the soft tilt of my breasts.