Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

Page 6

James moaned. “Oh, it pushes me over the edge, baby.”
Some people can do anything. Come here, clover.
The clover fluttered in an invisible wind. Then, leaves billowing out like a miniature ship, it scuttled across the desk into my palm.
Oh crap.
“What, not even a laugh for that? Wow, you’re never allowed to sleep late again. You’re crankier than a fat guy in stilettos.”
James voice brought me back to reality. It made me realize that the air-conditioning vents in the room were roaring; the central air had just kicked in. The blast from the vent had sent the clover rushing into my hand. Nothing more.
I was oddly relieved.
“Dee?”
“What—yeah—no—sorry.” Movement caught my eye from my window. Down below, an unfamiliar car was pulling into the driveway. “I’m really sorry, James, but I’m totally crazy right now. I think I need breakfast or caffeine or something. Can I call you back?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ve got practice today, but I’ll be around this afternoon.” His voice was concerned. “Are you okay?”
I bit my lip. I had never kept anything from him before. Duh, you’re not keeping anything from him now, either. There’s nothing to keep. “I’m okay. I’m just like you said: all introverted and worn out.”
His tone warmed slightly. “Poor Dee. Go get victuals. I’ll be ’round when you need me.” The phone clicked and I went closer to the window, pulling the curtain to the side to see who it was. I jumped slightly as I realized the driver of the car was looking up at me, craning his head out the window. Luke. How the hell did he know where I lived? Did I care?
I scurried away from the window and tore off my T-shirt. A quick and untidy dig through my closet netted a better shirt. I’d keep the jeans. They made my butt look awesome. I put the clover back in my pocket and tore down the stairs, where I encountered the first defensive lineman: Delia.
“That flute player is here. Who is he, anyway?”
Good question.
“Luke Dillon,” I said. I tried to edge past her into the kitchen but she followed, coffee cup in hand. Caffeine was her secret weapon. To foil Delia was to separate her from her coffee. It wasn’t going to happen in time to save me this morning.
“Does he go to your school?”
My lie wouldn’t have convinced Mom, but it worked for Delia. “He has friends there.”
“He was quite good-looking.”
True enough.
Mom’s voice sounded from the kitchen—more defenders, not good—and Delia shuttled me in to be finished off for good. “Who’s good-looking?” Mom was holding the coffeepot; she refilled Delia’s cup, not realizing that she was topping off Delia’s head-demoness powers by doing so. I tried to see out, past the yellow-checked curtains above the sink.
“The flute player who just pulled into the driveway,” Delia replied.
Mom spun toward the window. “I didn’t see anyone come up! He hasn’t knocked, has he?”
I said firmly, “I’m going outside.”
Mom pointed to the counter as I was leaving. “Did you want to keep that? Dad found it on your harp case last night when he was bringing it in from the car.”
It was a four-leaf clover, sitting on the counter next to the toaster. Like the other two I’d found, it was perfect—all leaves symmetrical—and completely unwilted despite its overnight stay in the car.
“It’s not a hard question, Deirdre.” Mom pulled her standing mixer out of the cabinet and set it on the counter, no doubt preparing for my birthday cake. “You could press it in a book if you want it to stay nice.”
I didn’t know if I wanted it to stay nice but I took it anyway, twirling the stem between my fingers. I had a prickling sensation in my stomach but I couldn’t tell what it was. Excitement? Fear? Hunger?
“Yeah, maybe.” I went outside to meet Luke.
He was crouching by the door of his car, eyes squinted in the white-hot sun, looking at my dog, Rye. Despite Rye’s unusual color—chalky white body and crimson red ears—he’s a typical hound dog: loyal, loving, and friendly to everyone in the world.
Which is why his raised hackles stopped me in my tracks. Lying in the front yard, his head so low that it barely cleared the grass, Rye was staring at Luke, his lips raised almost into a snarl. Luke was calling to him in a soft voice, the pattern of it hypnotic and lulling. I guess his words could have been in a lot of different languages—but English wasn’t one of them.
Luke saw my approach and straightened. He was wearing the same jeans as before, but his shirt today was a dark V-neck that accentuated the paleness of his hair and eyes. “Hello, lovely. You’re pretty as pretty today.”
My cheeks warmed. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged with a smile. “Satisfying my curiosity.” His pale blue eyes dropped to the clover still in my fingers, and somehow he lost his smile. “Where did you get that?”
“My mom found it. Aren’t they supposed to bring good luck?”
“And other things.” Luke gestured at Rye. “This beast yours?”
His tone was affectionate, though Rye gave him no reason to be—he was still crouched in the grass, hair spiked stiffly on his shoulders.
“Rye. Yeah. He’s ancient. We’ve had him as long as I can remember, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this.”
“He looks like a good dog.” Luke’s face was turned from me as he said it, but his voice sounded wistful. “Like a clever dog.”
“He is.”
We both started at the sound of the kitchen door opening. Delia called out, “Why don’t you both come inside? It’s hot out there!” An interrogation session was clearly in the making.
Before I could reply, Luke shouted, “Back in an hour! We’re getting ice cream!”
I looked at him intently.
“You wanted saving, didn’t you?” he said.
I didn’t know how to reply. I’d never had any real experience with boys in high school, and I had a feeling that even if I’d had, none of it would have applied to Luke Dillon.
Luke took out his keys—no key fob, I noticed, but plenty of keys. Fifteen or twenty of them. My own key ring had two keys and a fob shaped like a fish. I wondered if your key ring said something about you.
“Let me go get my money,” I said finally.
Luke opened the passenger side door for me. “I’m buying. Sorry about the car. It looks bad, but the fumes usually stay on the outside.”
I hesitated for just a minute before getting into the old Audi. Inside the car it was hot and airless, despite the fact that Luke had only just gotten out of it, and the seats were of the soft, blue, fuzzy variety that I remembered from all of my grandmother’s cars. It smelled like Luke inside; the same smell I remembered when he leaned close yesterday. The memory sent another prickling through my stomach.
Luke climbed into the other side of the car and turned knobs and hit buttons as deftly as he’d played the flute; soon, cool air was wafting from the vents. It reminded me of the four-leaf clover, fluttering into my hand earlier. I shivered.
“Too cold?” He turned it down and, as if reading my thoughts, looked at the four-leaf clover I still held. “You don’t need that.”
As he backed out of the driveway, I set the clover on the dash and looked at it. “Everyone needs good luck.”
“Not you, Dee. You manage it all by yourself. Quite impressively.” He paused at the end of the driveway, rolled down the window, and flung the clover into the road. “Where’s a good place to get ice cream?”
“You’re chucking my luck,” I said. “And actually, I work at an ice cream shop.”
“Sweet!” Luke paused. “Too cheesy?”
I laughed, too late. “I didn’t realize you were trying to be funny.”
Luke groaned as he turned right out of the driveway. “You wound me deeply with your careless words: ‘Trying to be.’”
I grinned at him. “You’ll just have to try harder.”
“Duly noted. Now, how do I get to this place?”
“You’re heading the right way already. It’s about a mile up here, on the left. Dave’s Ice.” But you knew that already, didn’t you? I looked hard at him, and he looked back at me with an equally intent look before turning his eyes to the road.
“I thought I remembered seeing it when I came in,” he said. “I remember thinking it was an ice cream day.”
Of course it was an ice cream day. Why shouldn’t it be? It struck me that we’d come to a strange unspoken agreement. He pretended to be normal, and I pretended I believed him. I wanted to believe him. But I couldn’t. What brand of abnormal, I wasn’t sure yet. I just hoped it didn’t involve axes, gags, and the trunk of a car.
Outside, the air looked wavy and greasy as it came up from the asphalt. The heat hung heavy in the tree tops, weighing down the leaves so that the only movement was that of automobiles, roaring slowly past them on the two-lane road. It was a day to do nothing practical, summer at its most stifling.
“Here,” I said unnecessarily, and Luke turned into the parking lot of Dave’s Ice. It felt like I’d pulled into the lot a million times before. In a lot of ways, I’d learned more here than I had at school.
Luke looked at the squat, concrete-block building and parked in one of the shaded spots at the back of the lot. “Why is it called Dave’s Ice?”
“Well, they used to sell just ice to people, way back in the old days, before fridges, I guess. Then, ice, now, ice cream. Makes sense, doesn’t it? A sort of logical leap?”
“Do you like it?”
I was taken aback by the question. I didn’t remember anyone ever asking me that question about anything before. “I do. This’ll sound dumb, but I love making all the scoops perfect. You know, center the hot fudge, just the right number of swirls to the whipped cream, sprinkles go on in the right order so they stick perfectly …” I stopped, because he was laughing. “What?”
“So you’re saying you’ve been a perfectionist for quite a while, then.”
“Oh, shut up,” I told him crossly. “Are we getting ice cream or not?”
He turned off the car, seemingly unfazed by my tone. “I’ve never seen anyone get angry as quickly as you. Come along, my frosty queen.”
“I’m not frosty,” I protested, but I got out and followed him across the parking lot. The heat rose off the blacktop, burning my feet through the soles of my shoes. “I am curious, though.”
Luke’s face was inscrutable. He stepped onto one of the painted lines in the lot, carefully moving along it. I stepped onto it after him, my steps as measured as a gymnast’s, as if it were a balance beam and I might fall to my death.
“Curious about four-leaf clovers,” I persisted. “About them being good luck. And other things, you said. What other things are they good for?”