登陆注册
10443600000009

第9章

It was edging into May, the weather was that perpetual rain-shine, rain-shine that made the outdoor courts steam, and Summer and I had now been friends for well over a month. People's jealousy followed us around the school corridors like a bad smell, and I was getting more unsubtle attention than I could stand. It turned out that being under the wing of a Grace still didn't make you invulnerable.

It started in homeroom, while the teacher, Miss Franks, called attendance. She said my name. Before I could reply, Niral stuck her hand up.

"Miss," she said. "She's not here."

Miss Franks peered at me, trying to work out the game.

"She's right in front of me, Niral. I can see her."

I was mute. I should have just come out with something quick and slick and wry, and it would have broken Niral's attack before it could really begin. But my throat closed up on me, betraying my body's fundamental cowardice, its life mantra: better to be silent than stupid.

Niral's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Oh," she said. "You mean River?"

She looked at me.

The whole class was silent, soaking it up.

Miss Franks waited for me to say something, then cleared her throat. "Her name is not River, Niral."

"Well, that's not what I've been told. I think she's changed it."

She. Her. They were talking about me and I still couldn't speak.

Silence.

Everyone waited for me to defend myself. But I knew if I opened my mouth, it would all come out wrong, or not at all.

Summer would have sighed, lounging on her chair. "You're just jealous, sweetheart," she would have said. "I mean, your name means 'calm' and you're, like, a screaming clown. Your whole existence is one big irony."

Laughter. Niral somehow smaller than before.

This scenario ran through my head while the room stared at me. I ducked my head down.

Miss Franks sighed. "Well, thank you for your delightful input, Niral, but I think I'll stick with her given name."

She moved on down the list.

I heard giggling.

I heard someone whisper "pretentious bitch."

I sat outside in the last dregs of the afternoon light and read through the instructions again.

The chant was stupid. I'd flicked through my books for help, but I couldn't find anything that wouldn't make me feel like an idiot saying it out loud. One book said you could make up your own chant, which fit in with what Summer had said about magic—it wasn't the words, it was the intent. The words just helped you form your intent. So I'd written my own, and in the dark of my bedroom at three in the morning, it had sounded shivery good. In daylight it was all wrong.

I picked through the objects I'd brought—a coil of black satin ribbon, a black clove-scented candle, and the picture of Niral I'd printed out from the array of photographs she had put online.

"Boo."

Startled, I dropped Niral's picture, and caught by the wind, it skipped across the ground. Summer's biker boot clamped it down with a jangle.

I clutched my stupid spell toys. Summer planted herself down beside me. She was dressed head to toe in black, and her legs looked endless in the skin-tight jeans she was wearing. I'd chosen a scrubby spot on the riverbank, a ten-minute walk from school. We were shielded by a few spindly trees, but right opposite was a supermarket parking lot, filled with people going to and fro with their shopping bags.

"Why'd you pick this spot?" said Summer.

"You need a river, to carry the ashes away from you. But this was the only part of the bank I could find that was easy to get to. It's stupid, isn't it? Someone's going to see."

"Even if they did, they wouldn't know what you're doing."

"Bet they would," I said. "This whole town is obsessed with witches."

With Graces, I wanted to say.

"Come on, then," said Summer. "Get on with it."

I frowned at her.

"Oh please, you can do it in front of me. Why did you even ask me to come down here?"

"So you could check I was doing it right. I don't want to mess it up."

Summer crossed her ankles, leaning back on her hands. Her hair was loose and the ends blew around her arms. "It doesn't matter how you do it, or what with. It's your will that drives it. Remember?"

"So if I used, like, a neon pink ribbon instead of a black one and vanilla instead of clove, it wouldn't make a difference?" I was trying to be sarcastic.

"It makes a difference in the beginning, I guess. Certain things amplify certain other things. And you make those associations in your mind, you know? So: Red for love. Black for restraint. First comes ritual magic, with specific objects and tools to help you focus. Then channel magic, where you don't use anything except one object to channel your will through. Then thought magic. Thought magic is just you. You change things with just yourself, your presence in the universe like a weight on a piece of string, bending it to your will."

My heart began to thrum painfully in my chest.

This was the kind of knowledge I needed. How it worked. How to control it. How to actually do it. She spoke the language of the possible and it gave me hope.

"So now I get why you wouldn't tell me who the binding spell was actually for. It's not polite to cast spells on your friends, you know," Summer remarked.

I looked down at the printout of Niral.

"Are you joking?" I said, coldly. "We're not friends. She hates me."

"She's just jealous. She doesn't hate you."

"What could she possibly have to be jealous about?"

Summer grinned at me, but it was all jagged at the edges with apology. "I guess because we're friends now."

"She didn't like me before that, either." I held the picture up, rolled it into a scroll and started to wind the black ribbon around it with deliberate slowness, making sure each strip was touching the one before. No gaps. Screw the chant—I didn't need it, did I? As I wound the ribbon, I silently asked the universe to shut Niral up so she couldn't say one more nasty word about me.

Careful, said a voice in me. Just be careful. What if something really does happen to her?

Go away, I told the voice. She deserves it.

When the ribbon was knotted and secure, I placed the clove candle in front of me. A lighter appeared before my hand.

"Thanks," I muttered. I lit the candle and held the dangling end of the ribbon over the flame until it caught. I let go of the whole thing, dropping it into the tin can balanced on the ground before me, watching the ribbon burn and fizzle, the paper curl to ashes.

When it was burned through, I took the tin can, slid down the incline of the riverbank, and crouched precariously, stretching out one hand to tip the ashes into the water. I would not look up. I would not see the puzzled open mouths of the shoppers opposite as they wondered what on earth I was doing.

"Do you even know why Niral goes after you like that?" Summer said from behind me. She hadn't moved.

The spell done, I pulled myself back from the bank and sat, copying her pose. "Who knows?"

"Because you're all impervious. You have this shell around you like no one can touch you. Like no one is as good as you." Summer saw my face and held her hands up. "I know, I know. But until people get to know you, you can seem a bit like that. And to someone like Niral, it just feels like a 'screw you,' you know?"

"It's not a screw you. I don't even want her to notice me. That's why the shell."

"Don't be angry, I totally get it. But Niral doesn't because she's all surface. She only sees that far."

I sighed. "Logic or whatever."

"The truth hurts."

I felt a splat on my neck. And then another.

"Crap, it's raining," I said. "We'd better go."

But Summer's hand was on my arm. Her slender black nails.

"Wait," she said. Her face was suddenly animated, alive in that changeable way she had, flitting from emotion to emotion. "Wait."

"We'll get soaked."

She grinned. "So let's. Stay here with me."

I couldn't say no. I was beginning to wonder if I could ever say no to anything she wanted. She didn't have to come here. I was spelling one of her friends, and she didn't have to be okay with that. She didn't have to spend her time with me at all. But she did.

The rain poured down on us. All of a sudden it got violent, buckets tipping from the sky, drumming down so hard I couldn't catch my breath. I watched her kneel on the ground, her legs soaking up the wet. She still had my arm, and she shriek-laughed, and I wanted so much to be that carefree. Her face turned toward mine, and her hair was stuck to her cheeks. I was laughing, too, uneven gulps that sounded more like choking.

The rain eased.

"Hot chocolate at my house?" she gasped out, water running over her lips in rivulets.

同类推荐
  • 不可不知的美国100所名校

    不可不知的美国100所名校

    本书从历史等其他角度发掘每一所名校的创立,同时传播了这些一流大学的教育精神。通过图片和文字结合来介绍名校的各自特色,让广大读者了解美国名校的情况,让国内的大学可以吸收经验,同时为学生出国留学铺一条捷径。
  • Inspiration
  • Maresi

    Maresi

    Only women and girls are allowed in the Red Abbey, a haven from abuse and oppression. Maresi, a thirteen-year-old novice there, arrived in the hunger winter and now lives a happy life in the Abbey, protected by the Mother and reveling in the vast library in the House of Knowledge, her favorite place. Into this idyllic existence comes Jai, a girl with a dark past. She has escaped her home after witnessing the killing of her beloved sister. Soon the dangers of the outside world follow Jai into the sacred space of the Abbey, and Maresi can no longer hide in books and words but must become one who acts. Bound for international success, Maresi will be published in 15 territories around the world!
  • The Ginger Man

    The Ginger Man

    First published in Paris in 1955, and originally banned in the United States, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. He barely has time for his studies and avoids bill collectors, makes love to almost anything in a skirt, and tries to survive without having to descend into the bottomless pit of steady work. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiableand he satisfies it with endless charm.
  • Darkthaw

    Darkthaw

    For as long as Emmeline can remember, she's longed to leave the isolated world of the settlement and explore the wilderness that calls to her in her dreams. And now that the Council has fallen, she will finally, finally get that chance. With First Peoples guide Matisa at her side, Emmeline rallies a brave group to join her on her quest into the unknown, including her beloved Kane and his two younger brothers. But the journey soon proves far more dangerous than Emmeline anticipated—with warring clans, slavers, colonists, disease, and natural disasters seemingly at every turn. After putting so many lives in danger, she starts to doubt everything she once knew. Did she make the right choice to leave the settlement—and can her relationship with Kane survive the ordeal? Matisa insists that to set things right and to fight the evil that is bringing all this danger and turmoil to the forest, Emmeline must journey to Matisa's people—even if that means leaving Kane behind.
热门推荐
  • 异世界的植物英雄

    异世界的植物英雄

    一个长着小丑脑袋的抽奖机,一个摆摊买水果的小商贩。“wtf”,向日葵怎么成精了,变成一个可爱萝莉;“纳尼?”豌豆射手也成精了,变成一个头戴钢盔的士兵。更多精彩内容,尽在《异世界植物英雄》,等你来看。
  • 霸妾横行王爷莫怕

    霸妾横行王爷莫怕

    掉个海都能穿越我也是醉了,老娘我招谁惹谁了,你说穿越我没意见,人家穿越不是王妃小姐就是丫鬟,而我穿过去就是个死人,死人老娘也就忍了,还是个被埋一半土的死人,要不是老娘醒的及时,估计就是不死也得被活埋,还有谁能告诉告诉我,我是什么时候嫁人的,这一身红谁来给我解释解释,嫁人也就算了,我也不图嫁个达官贵人皇亲国戚,嫁个普通人就行,这王爷的第十八个小妾是闹哪一出,这个王爷长的倒是人模人样的,实质就是个恶魔,我能说我可不可以不嫁,宝宝不开心,宝宝不玩了,宝宝要回家,谁把这个“衣冠禽兽”给我带走,看本小姐怎么智斗恶女,气死王爷,玩转古代。
  • 快穿重生系统:男神太宠溺

    快穿重生系统:男神太宠溺

    【男强女腹黑呆萌凉薄,双处,甜宠一对一】。。流砂有幸得到一个机会,不仅可以活下去还能救回她的母亲………于是流砂踏上了一条名为拯救母上的不归路……可是,经历了几个世界以后流砂发现,她被套路了,可任务已经接下,不完成就要狗带……可爱如斯的他抱紧流砂:姐姐,我们去那个床上,床上舒服……/邪肆的他勾起流砂一缕青黛:我虽然都可以接受,但在床上未免你太无聊,我看这椅子不错,不如……/斯文败类的他抓紧流砂:荒郊野外椅子也不好找,我看那个小树林不错……/流砂:求求你们放过我,我完成任务就走好吗---女主可人可妖可幼儿,男主身份不一:腹黑医生。霸道总裁,神秘影帝,高冷校草,憨直军帝,表面温和的老师……
  • 太后有疾

    太后有疾

    天降大任必先苦心志,可是洞房没入,皇帝老夫君死了怎么破;俗话还说:母慈子孝,哀家这么和善,怎么就招来披着羊皮的小皇帝一只;俗话又说:披着羊皮的不仅是狼,还可能是狐狸,于是哀家就这么被坑了;总结,且看黑心帝王与被坑小后娘互捅刀子的欢脱故事。
  • 雨华盦词话

    雨华盦词话

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 杜工部年谱

    杜工部年谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 眺望柔软的玫瑰园

    眺望柔软的玫瑰园

    其实,你是价值连城的钻石,切莫把自己当成鹅卵石一样随意丢弃。慢慢地寻找吧,去发现和你相匹配的宝贝。
  • 三垣笔记

    三垣笔记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 吹满风的山谷

    吹满风的山谷

    北京实力派作家作品精选丛书。著名军事小说作家衣向东,曾著有《我是一个兵》、《一路兵歌》,而为读者广为熟知。本书是他近两年来创作的中短篇小说,又向我们吹来一股浓浓军队风情,兵的喜怒哀乐,辛酸荣誉又跃然纸上。
  • 重生:夫人至尊

    重生:夫人至尊

    上一世,她是尚书千金,才倾天下。父亲骄纵,庶母温厚,长姐婉约,长兄呵护。她以为自己就是那天上月,人中凤。一场论辩,她选中了他做夫君。从此吟诗作对,如胶似漆。直到她临产,最爱的他八抬大轿娶妻,眼睁睁看着她被灌堕胎药。产下足月死婴,浑身是血的她被庶母拒之门外,长兄为她请了大夫,哄她喝下毒药。临死前,长姐狞笑着踩着她残破的身体。她才明白恩爱无双不过是彻头彻尾的一场笑话,家人的宠爱不过是逢场作戏。她的死,完全是蓄谋已久的一场阴谋。一朝重生,重回十岁。小小年纪,心怀诡谲,步步为营。她发誓要那些利用她欺骗她的人,挫骨扬灰。仇恨的火焰吞噬下,一切成为焦土……