The Oracle's Locket Page 7

  We want to protect you. Let us protect you.

  But why? Why did they want that?

  Celeste balked. Across from me, she furrowed her brow and shook her head and seemed on the verge of some kind of verbal attack. I could feel the words humming around behind her eyes. What the fuck do they think they’re doing? Why are they here? Should I tell them to leave?

  But I shook my head, trying to translate the only words I could possibly muster: Play. It. Cool.

  I turned to the left to spot Margot, a few tables down, seated with Riley and Zelda. It seemed like years ago, now, that she’d put that turkey carcass beneath my bed. My life had upgraded to venomous snakes and fucking in libraries and sneaking dragon-boys to my bed. Margot shot dagger-eyes toward me as she snuck her fork through her biscuits and gravy, her nostrils flared.

  I turned back, and the boys responded in kind—so that our heads were close together, conspiratorial.

  “Do you think it’s possible that Margot did the snake stunt?” I asked.

  The boys considered this. Raphael shook his head slightly. Ezra, who couldn't eat a single thing, placed his hands on the table and said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think even she would go that far. The snake; it was taken from outside the grounds, right?”

  I nodded. “Yes. That’s what the professor said.”

  “Margot was busy making herself as beautiful as possible for the dance last night,” Celeste interjected. “I don’t think she would have had time. She hates you, sure—but she’s even more vain about herself.”

  I studied my half-eaten biscuit, my brows furrowed. “Who could have done this, then?” I whispered.

  Quintin’s hand found my shoulder. He rubbed at it, filling me with the memory of what we’d done to each other’s bodies, both in the library and in my bed at night. I cast my eyes toward him, overwhelmed with their warmth, their protection.

  “I don’t know. But we’re going to figure it out,” Ezra said.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next afternoon, most of the students had already left. I’d watched them pack up their bags and hug their friend's goodbye and then board their parents BMWs and Porsches and other sporty-looking vehicles and whip out and away from our beautiful moss-covered campus, back to the lives they’d left behind. Celeste had seemed a little quiet during that process. You could see it in her eyes: she kind of wished she was headed off with her mom, too. The guilt of it brewed in my gut, and I collected myself in my bedroom with the door closed, gazing out the window. The clouds crafted a thick grey blanket over everything, casting the entire campus in shadow. The grassy area between all the old buildings was completely abandoned, without the familiar traffic of students, off to one class or another. From my window, I could see the ballroom, where the large Christmas tree from the dance still stood, glinting through the window.

  God. Everything in my life felt so foreign and alone.

  My thoughts raced.

  Was it possible that I could really trust Quintin, Raphael, and Ezra? I was still hesitant. Yes, the sex with Quintin had been literally mind-blowing, and he’d seemed so firm about his decision to “take care” of me, to protect me. But at this point in my life, with everything that had happened so far, it was clear that I had to be careful about where I put my trust.

  Professor Binion had been right, though. Despite all the resentment I felt toward Aunt Maria for forcing me to remain on campus through the holidays, I knew that Aunt Maria had done everything in her power literally to ensure that I was safe. I owed it to her to stay at Origins, to keep my head down, to keep learning.

  But I still stirred with sadness and longing. I wanted to sit with her and eat Christmas cookies. I wanted to gossip with her about things that had happened in Hillside Falls (without mentioning the bounty hunter murders). I wanted normality and I wanted my own bedroom and I wanted a walk through the woods outside Aunt Maria and I’s house and...

  God. The list of things I wanted was a mile long and growing longer by the second.

  But with each thought of Aunt Maria I had, I felt a stab of guilt and sadness. When she’d cowered there on the floor after the platter had smacked her, I could still see the blood that had poured from her head.

  I was a monster.

  And now, she wouldn’t even talk to me.

  I was afraid it would never be the same—that we would live out the rest of our lives, come what may, and never find the solace and peace and love we’d had with one another.

  Maybe someday, in the midst of all the chaotic supernatural bullshit I had to put up with, I would look at Aunt Maria and see nothing but a stranger.

  I poured my head into my hands and spent a good many minutes like that, feeling on the verge of some kind of collapse—wondering if I’d ever feel all right again.

  When I lifted my head again, there was a little blackbird circling outside the window. I’d spotted it a few minutes before, hovering about, flitting around in the wind. It seemed to swoop closer and closer, its movements very precise. And as it swept past my window again, its eyes seemed to glint in my direction.

  “What do you want, little bird?” I whispered. I leaned forward, tapping my finger against the glass. Suddenly, rain spewed up, flashing itself against the window. The bird flew more frantically, suddenly landing directly at my window pane.

  A feeling of peace came over me. I couldn’t explain it. I stood and unlatched the window. It all felt dreamlike and outside of time. The bird erupted its little black wings and flew directly inside, then, in mid-air, there in the center of my bedroom, the bird transformed—the little feet erupting down into legs, the black feathers flowing out into beautiful grey and white hair. Suddenly, Aunt Maria stood before me, wearing a long black dress, her eyes glittering with intrigue and humor, and her hands on her hips. She looked at me the way she always had before: with love and curiosity, as though she was on the verge of telling some kind of joke.

  The shock lasted only a few seconds. I flung myself toward her and wrapped my arms around her (again, careful not to touch her skin with my fingers), and held her like that for a long, long time. My entire body shook.

  “Shhh. It’s okay, darling,” she murmured. “It’s really okay.”

  “Aunt Maria...” I drew back, wiping away the tears that had traced down my cheek. “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you’re...”

  “I know, honey. It’s been way too long.”

  “I’ve never seen you do anything like that before,” I said, giving a wry laugh.

  “The transformation? Oh, yes. Well. It used to be an everyday feature of my life. I must say it wears me out a little bit now.” She cranked her head to the side to stretch out her neck.

  Even so, she seemed the most beautiful creature I’d seen in my life. She chuckled again and mentioned that I still looked mesmerized like she was some kind of ghost. I dropped to the side of my bed, and she followed suit, and we kind of looked at one another for a while, really looked, the way you do at a painting you never want to forget.

  “I could feel you, Ivy,” Aunt Maria finally said. Her voice was low, gentle, but her eyes told me just how worried she was. “I’ve tried to guard myself against your thoughts throughout the previous few weeks. It was so painful for me to tell you to leave at Thanksgiving. It nearly destroyed me. And I know it’s been a struggle for you here. I know you know how safe you are. But I also know how little you sometimes care about your own safety.”

  This couldn’t have been more true.

  “But this afternoon, I felt you much more than normal. A darkness to your thoughts that I couldn’t ignore. I came as quickly as I could,” she continued. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I didn’t want to wait.”

  I blinked back tears. Finally, I had my aunt here. Finally, I didn’t feel like such an outcast in my own, ever-changing body; I had this lasting love, this friendship, even if, with every moment that passed, I knew she would soon have to leave. This wasn’t her home. For all
I knew, traveling here the way she had exhausted her in a way she would never tell me. I thought maybe I could see it behind her eyes, a glint of fatigue.

  “Tell me. Tell me things,” I tried, my voice breaking a little. “Tell me how you’ve been. How Hillside Falls is...”

  I trailed off, even as she shook her head delicately.

  “There’s not much time, darling. And really, hardly any gossip to share. The only human I’ve seen much of is Zoey. She’s been worried about me, poor thing. We drink wine and we chat and we try to stay off of the big, horrible topics—like how much we miss you girls. I don’t know what I would do without her.”

  I cast my eyes toward the rug. There was a chill to the air in the bedroom, since I’d left the window open after Aunt Maria’s arrival. Aunt Maria shot her fingers toward the fireplace, and it suddenly erupted, then settled into a low glow over the logs.

  “The students have kind of turned on me,” I said, my voice low, crackly.

  Aunt Maria nodded. “I’ve heard this from Professor Binion.”

  “I didn’t know he updated you about anything,” I said.

  “Oh, yes. We have a pretty steady stream of correspondence.”

  Then why have I only heard from you once since Thanksgiving? I wanted to demand.

  But I kept my lips shut tight.

  “It’s obvious that you can’t trust anyone. Not even here,” Aunt Maria said. She studied the fire as it grew and waned, seemingly outside the bounds of science or what fire was meant to do as it burned. “During Thanksgiving break, something might have happened. Who knows? One of the first years could have even been convinced to hurt you. You must watch your back.”

  I clucked my tongue. “I take it you’ve heard about the snake incident?”

  “Professor Binion told me about it the very night it happened,” Aunt Maria whispered.

  “It was terrifying.”

  “I can’t imagine. But you’re learning all the time, now. You won’t make such a choice to head out into the night alone again,” Aunt Maria said.

  We sat in silence for a few moments. My head raced for the right thing to say.

  “You’re in danger, too,” I murmured.

  “And the danger is only ramping up,” Aunt Maria said. Her eyes cut back toward the window. She didn’t breathe for a moment, as though she was craning her ears to listen.

  I tried to listen, too, but I couldn’t hear anything.

  “I’m going to lay even lower throughout the next months. I am afraid this will be our last meeting for quite some time,” she continued.

  It felt like someone had shoved their entire fist through my chest to squeeze my heart.

  “If anything happens—or if I need to contact you in any way—I’ll tell Zoey, who will pass the message on to Celeste. Okay?” she said. This time, she looked on the verge of tears.

  I knew my face echoed back her feelings. After a long, horrible pause, I finally said the thing I’d sworn not to say.

  “What am I going to do without you for Christmas?”

  “You’ll be fine,” Aunt Maria murmured. “I’ll send your Christmas presents. And you’ll have time to do all the things you like.”

  “But I like being with you,” I whispered.

  God, I felt so broken.

  Aunt Maria couldn’t look at me any longer. She rose from my bed and tapped toward the window. The rain had picked up and begun to skate across the floorboards. Her white hair whipped out behind her like a sheet. She looked formidable and beautiful and altogether strange, as she turned back a final time to look at me, with eyes that were once so familiar and now seemed so strange.

  “I love you, Ivy. I’ve loved you since even before you were born when all this began. And I’ll love you still, for the rest of my life and beyond.”

  “I love you, too,” I stuttered.

  But before I could even finish the words, Aunt Maria whipped herself back into the form of a tiny bird. It all happened in the blink of an eye. She directed her tender beak toward the wild winds of a southern storm and then whipped out across the campus and toward the boundary line. I ran to the window and watched her as long as I could as she crested over the top of the ballroom and then disappeared.

  “No. No. No,” I muttered to myself, realizing that that had been our last contact. I hadn’t said everything that I’d wanted to say. I hadn’t gotten all the information I’d needed. Hell—there just hadn’t been enough time. All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her for hours and hours, and cry and cry.

  But the time for all that was over.

  Aunt Maria was right. I had to take responsibility for myself, for my life, for the task I’d been given.

  Slowly, I returned to the rug near the fire, sat cross-legged, and gazed into the flame. Someday soon, this day would be a distant memory. I had to believe that.

  Chapter Twelve

  The first few days of Christmas break, Celeste and I spent mostly together, both of us trying to pretend that things were the same as they’d always been. We gossiped and looked at old magazines and did our nails. Celeste told me about her recent provocative encounters with Peter.

  “Do you think you’ll fall in love with him?” I asked a heavier question, one that didn’t seem to suit the mood of the rest of it.

  Celeste’s eyes flashed up. She placed the little nail paintbrush back in its container and blew on her nails for a second. “You know, I don’t know. I’ve always been such a single person.”

  “I know.” Celeste had always been boy-crazy, never one to settle.

  “I just haven’t decided if he’s the one, you know? The one I’m supposed to stick around with. The one who...” She shrugged and flashed a big smile. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Because I have pretty big news.”

  I arched my brow. “What?”

  “I saw them today. On-campus. You must have known they were here.”

  “Celeste, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  But of course, I did. I hadn’t seen them yet since it seemed like we took our meals at different times—but Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra had all remained on campus. There was this extra level of comfort surrounding this idea for me, this understanding that, if anything went wrong, they’d have my back. Aunt Maria had said the danger ramped up continually, that we were on the verge of facing some of the most horrendous days of my life.

  Celeste bounced up and beamed at me. “Yeah, right. We haven’t talked about it, but that morning they sat next to us at the breakfast table last week? You could see how much they all wanted you. It’s been the talk of the school, too.”

  Celeste poised at the exit of my bedroom. She opened the door slowly and peered out at the empty dormitory, with its more ornate fireplace, its wide and comfortable sofas. “Why haven’t we sat out here yet? Nobody’s around. We should use the whole place for ourselves.”

  I laughed and agreed, grateful that she’d given me a way out of the conversation. We collected our snacks and the bottle of wine we were inching through and rushed into the larger living area. With a wave of Celeste’s hand, she was able to generate a movie from her computer up onto the blank white wall, as a kind of projector. We sat together on the largest couch, our feet up on the footstool, and ate through Twizzlers and popcorn and little chocolate bars while drinking wine and continuing our gossip trek. Again, for a moment, it all felt so normal. But then, Celeste broke the news to me—something I couldn't refuse her.

  She wanted to go home on Christmas day, stay until the afternoon of the 28th, then come back.

  I sighed, feeling jealousy rise up in me like a wave.

  “I won’t do it if it really bugs you,” Celeste said hurriedly. She held a Twizzler aloft as it shook back and forth in the air above her hand.

  “No. Seriously. It’s a good thing for you to go back,” I said, hating how doubtful I felt. “I wouldn’t want you to totally miss out on seeing your mom. I care about you both way too much for that not to happen.”

/>   Of course, on the morning of Christmas, when Zoey arrived to pick her up, I felt a bit differently. A dark cloud descended over my heart, and I spent a good deal of the morning in bed, feeling sorry for myself.

  It was around noon when I heard the clink at the window. I lurched up, hopeful that Aunt Maria had found a way to return in bird-form and sit with me on Christmas Day. But when I reached the window, I peered down to see Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra, standing there below, their heads tilted up. Another rock flew up and ricocheted off the glass, then hobbled back to the ground.

  God, they looked good. All of them wore black jackets, their hands stuffed in the pockets. Raphael had grown more of a beard since before Christmas break had begun, and his shaggy mane hung loosely around his ears. Ezra looked sleek, domineering, his cheekbones high, and Quintin was more powerful-looking than ever, his muscles thicker than the other twos by inches.

  I was one of only three girls who remained in the girl's dormitory overall, and the only girl throughout Celeste and I’s area. I tip-toed down the stairs and let the boys in through the foyer. Without speaking, I led them back up the staircase and then brought them safely into the living area. I fumbled with a match to light the fire, a task I assumed none of us could master. Without speaking, however, Quintin dropped to his knees, wrapped his hands around his mouth, and then coughed toward the logs. Suddenly, a fire erupted from between his hands, coming through his mouth. The logs were enflamed immediately.

  With the fire roaring, I stood off to the side, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. Raphael, Quintin, and Ezra remained standing. Their eyes were possessive, volatile, reflecting the light.

  Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  But already, I knew what they would say.

  “We told you. We’re here to protect you,” Quintin said. He cut toward me, his hand extended. I knew he wanted to place it at my lower back, to bring me against him.