Bailey Morgan [2] Fate (5 page)

“Not exactly what I had in mind …” Delia mused.

“What do they do?” Zo phrased the question bluntly. “Because if these things do something, I want the one that does something cool.”

Two years post-tattoos, Zo was still complaining about how everyone else had gotten a cool power, while she'd been stuck with something as passive as premonition.

“Bailey.” Annabelle said my name. “She's waiting for you to take them.”

Part of me wanted to say no to the gift. The other part of me realized that was stupid. If it hadn't been for Morgan and the tattoos, Alecca would have destroyed the world, and we wouldn't have been able to stop her. As far as fairy godmother types went, Morgan had already proven her bibbidi-bobbidi-boo chops. At the same time, taking the necklaces felt like saying yes to something, like if I took them, I was giving the world/my destiny/whatever permission to change.

You don't have to take them if you don't want to.

Zo's thoughts penetrated my shields. I could keep the rest of the world out, but my friends' thoughts had a way of sneaking past the barriers, even when I wasn't listening for them. Something about Zo telling me that it was okay to say no to Morgan's offer gave me the last push I needed to say yes. Things were changing, and this time, I was going to be ready.

I expected images to flash through my mind when my hand closed around the chains, but instead I was rewarded with a single moment of pure, peaceful nothingness. No worries. No thoughts. Silence.

“Wear them,” Morgan said, her musical tone never changing. “Always.”

With shaky hands, I turned to the others and held out the necklaces. One by one, my friends took them until each of us was holding one. Silently, we undid the clasps, and then we stood there, staring at one another. Their thoughts came into my mind without words, and
as I clasped the necklace firmly around my neck, I knew that whatever happened, there wasn't a force in either realm that could tear my friends from my side. They put on their necklaces, willingly accepting whatever risk came along with entering the magical world once more.

As we stood there, Delia verbalized what we were all thinking, in her own uniquely Delia way. “One for all, and all for accessories.”

Zo snorted.

Annabelle smirked.

I smiled.

And Morgan disappeared.

“I can't believe she just disappeared,” I grumbled as the four of us headed back to the food court en route to my car. “I mean, who does that? Seriously, who lays in wait for someone at the mall, tells them stuff that makes absolutely no sense, thrusts jewelry into their hands, and then disappears?”

“I like her,” Delia said decisively. “And if you're actually complaining about free jewelry, I may have to disown you as a friend. At the very least, there's going to be some kind of intervention.”

Zo shuddered. As the recipient of more than one fashion intervention over the past few years, she recognized the validity of Delia's threat.

“It's not that I mind the necklaces,” I amended quickly. “It's just …”

That I didn't like what these gifts represented? That I hated that Morgan had come right out and told me things were changing and there was nothing I could do to stop it? That I was starting to suspect that the chance of death involved with being Reckoned might actually be a nonzero number?

“It's unsettling,” Annabelle said, vocalizing what I could not. “Not the jewelry per se,” she amended quickly, lest she incur Delia's wrath, “but that the very idea of Bailey meeting the other Sidhe seems to have provoked a visit from Morgan.”

“What about the fact that we have no idea what these suckers do?” Zo offered, hooking her pinkie through the chain around her neck. “If that isn't disturbing, I don't know what is.”

“Argyle socks with plaid minis?” Delia suggested, straightening her own necklace so that the pendant was dead center, just above the neckline of her low-cut top.

The conversation continued as we walked toward the food court, but I found myself falling uncharacteristically quiet. We'd all spent so much time together over the past few years—heck, over the course of our lifetimes—that my friends were very good at reading me, but somehow none of them had caught on to what bothered me the most about Morgan's words, and these gifts.

It wasn't the nonzero chance of death.

It wasn't the fact that
cryptic
and
Sidhe
were practically synonymous.

It wasn't even that Morgan had very conveniently
neglected to give us so much as a smidgen of an idea about what the necklaces were for and why we would need them.

The thing I just couldn't get past was that Morgan had looked me in the eye and confirmed the fear that had been nibbling away at me since the last day of junior year. Things were changing, whether I wanted them to or not. And as Delia, Annabelle, and Zo discussed the myriad of potentially disconcerting aspects of our encounter with “the other side,” I just kept thinking that the next time something like this happened—if there was a next time—there might not be four necklaces or four tattoos or—I don't know—four enchanted nose rings. If Morgan came back a year from now or two or five, she might come bearing one gift. Just one.

“We'll figure the necklaces out,” I said, confident of that, if nothing else. “That's what we do. We figure things out.”

Delia beamed. “One for all, and all for—”

“Milkshakes!” Zo interrupted Delia's proclamation, and when Annabelle started snickering, I let myself join her and forced the paranoid depresso-Bailey part of my brain back into hibernation. Yes, we were seniors. Yes, we'd be going out into the big bad world soon. No, I didn't even want to think about what it would be like to get a one-on-one visit from Morgan, and no, I wasn't going to pay any attention to her “things are changing” speech.

Instead, I turned my attention to Zo's request for a milkshake. “Sorry,” I told her, “but we don't have time. As it is, we'll probably be late getting back to school.”

“Unless, of course, these necklaces hold the secret to time travel,” Zo said, wiggling her eyebrows and making dramatic
dum dum DUM
sounds under her breath. Beside me, Annabelle seemed to be seriously considering Zo's tongue-in-cheek suggestion about time travel, but Delia waved it away with a flick of one hand. “If there were time travel involved, Morgan would have given us watches.”

None of us dared to challenge Delia's logic on that one, so we opted for hurrying through the food court and out to the parking lot as quickly as we could. We'd have to hit every light on the way back to avoid being late, and sadly, most of our teachers didn't see seniority (or conversations with ancient beings of power) as an excuse for tardiness. Go figure.

As the car came into sight, I began digging for my keys. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Delia slide her sunglasses from the top of her head to the bridge of her nose, and my brain latched onto her movement, processing in slow motion as the glasses cast a fleeting shadow that slithered across her face and disappeared into her smooth skin a moment later.

I turned to look more closely at Delia's face, but in doing so, I stopped watching where I was going. When you're as much of a walking disaster as I am, that is never, ever a good thing.

“Oamphl”

Annabelle may have been the linguistic prodigy, but I was without question the one who excelled at making up nonsense words and sound effects to punctuate my dismay at—for instance—falling over a giant pile of
gravel that came out of nowhere for the sole purpose of tripping me. I hurtled face-first toward the ground, but Zo—her reflexes fueled by the vast number of calories she'd just consumed—managed to catch me before I went completely splat.

“Thanks,” I said.

Zo shrugged. “No problemo.”

I was overcome with a sense of déjà vu, because the two of us had definitely had this exact exchange on multiple previous occurrences. Trying and failing miserably to look inconspicuous, I took a deep breath and concentrated on getting the instinctual postfall embarrassment under control. Being a fire starter meant that burning cheeks had the potential to lead to actual spark-age, and the last thing I wanted was to draw any more attention to my tragic lack of grace.

Unfortunately, even as I managed to clamp down on my pyrokinesis, I couldn't shake the feeling that my little performance hadn't gone unnoticed. Someone was watching me. I was sure of it. A wave of mortification at being gawked at by the entire senior class washed over my body, until I had convinced myself that there really wasn't anyone in this town who
hadn't
seen me flailing around like an infant octopus with too much energy and not nearly enough coordination. I worked up the courage to glance around, but found that aside from the four of us, the parking lot was eerily empty.

Mark the calendars,
I thought.
This may be the first time I've made a fool of myself and not run into the Ex-Boyfriend Who Shall Not Be Named immediately
thereafter.
Still, I couldn't shake the sense that someone, somewhere was watching.

Not quite trusting my senses, I spared a single glare for the gravel I'd tripped over, but didn't dwell on it or the imaginary heat of someone else's eyes on my body. Instead, I went back to looking for my keys and resolved to keep my paranoia to myself.

“Found them!” I punctuated my words by jingling the keys.

“If you'd carry that Kate Spade tote I got you, you wouldn't have to dig for them,” Delia scolded. “There's a side pocket, perfect for keys, compacts, and—”

I climbed into the driver's seat and didn't get to hear the rest of Delia's lecture, but whatever she said, it must have started with a
c
sound, because the first thing Annabelle said as she buckled herself into the backseat was, “Impressive alliteration.”

Delia unceremoniously claimed shotgun for herself and then turned to smile at A-belle. “I try.”

“Well, Queenie, got any alliterative ideas about what these necklaces do?” Zo asked. Of all my friends, Zo could be the most single-minded, which, given Delia's consistently one-track mind, was really saying something. Once Zo got the bit in her mouth on something, she didn't let go until the answer was found and the problem solved. Zo didn't like mysteries, which made me wonder why exactly she hadn't set her mind to solving the Big Problem (also known as “graduation,” “college,” and “future, the”).

“These pieces are simple, but definitely funkier than
anything Morgan gave us before,” Delia mused. “Circular, which is totally classic, but the mirror adds a touch of self-reflection, for that postmodern you-are-what-you-wear kind of feel.”

“Forget I asked,” Zo said, having neglected to abide by her own cardinal rule: never get Delia started talking about clothes, pudding, or boys.

“The four necklaces are identical,” Annabelle added, curtailing Delia's dissertation on the stylistic attributes of our newest possessions. “Maybe they connect us to each other somehow?”

“Little round walkie-talkies?” Zo asked.

“Seriously, Zo, what is with you and walkie-talkies?” Delia rolled her eyes. “You're obsessed with them!”

Zo immediately shot back, “First of all, that was before we had cell phones, and second, we were seven.”

Annabelle—who had no idea what the two of them were referring to, since she'd been living abroad at the time—continued musing aloud about the possibilities the four of us were currently wearing around our necks. “I was thinking more along the lines of a psychic connection,” she said.

Been there.
I broadcast the thought to all three of my friends.
Done that.

“But they could connect us in some other way,” Delia said. “I mean, maybe they meld our emotions together or something. Or oooohhhhhh, maybe these things will let us go with Bailey to do her fancy Nexus whatsits.”

That was a thought. A surprisingly good one, actually.

Meeting the other Sidhe would be a lot less intimidating with my friends to back me up. What if these necklaces would bring their spirits to the Nexus along with mine? What if I didn't have to face the Reckoning alone?

What if splitting up didn't really have to mean splitting up?

The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it, but at the same time, part of me couldn't imagine Morgan telling me I couldn't stop things from changing and then giving me a magic necklace that helped me keep the important things exactly the same. Maybe it was because she was an adult and I'd gotten into the habit of thinking of them as the enemy in the Bailey Versus the Future campaign, but …

I groaned—loudly and for a long time—as I remembered something that I'd managed to put out of my mind all morning.

“What?” the other three asked at once.

“I have a meeting,” I said. “Right after lunch, with Mr. McMann.”

“Told you we should have stopped for milkshakes.” Zo reached over from the backseat to poke me triumphantly in the shoulder.

I half-expected Delia to repeat her request for me to ask Mr. McMann what his opinion was on layering my hair, but she proved to be otherwise occupied.