I remembered watching them, mesmerized, not only by their tricks but also by how they interacted. There was something about the way they laughed and slapped each other on the backs, like they were more than just friends. It was almost like they were a family. And I don’t know why, but I wanted to belong too. Because, even at eight, I knew I was different from the girls gathered around me. Princesses and tea parties? They just didn’t do it for me.
So I ditched my dolls for a skateboard and traded dance recitals for road rash. It took several years, but I managed to prove myself as a skater. I had friends. I had respect. I had exactly what I’d wanted all those years ago.
Or at least I did before the voice showed up.
I turned the TV off and leaned my head back against the couch, content to sit alone in the darkness. Although I wasn’t
really
alone—I’d proved that with my little biker-bar adventure. And if Kim was right, I wouldn’t be alone ever again. If only I knew why. Of all the girls in the world, why possess me? If I could figure that out, maybe I could figure out how to get rid of it.
“What do you want?” I asked the shadows on the ceiling.
As if in answer, my hair fluttered around my face, stirred by a breeze that shouldn’t exist in a room with closed windows.
18
Japan, 1493
S
enshi spotted several fallen ninja scattered among the bodies of dead servants and samurai. She should have known the dishonorable assassins-for-hire had a part in this. Now the real question surfaced: Who was the benefactor? She upped her pace to a jog as she mulled it over. It didn’t really matter. Whoever he was, his head would come off as easily as anyone else’s.
Senshi darted around a corner and came to an abrupt halt in front of the door leading out into the gardens. Outside, from within a black cloud of ninja smoke magic, she could hear men shouting and the clashes of metal on metal. Smoke entered the hallway through the door, reaching for her like tentacles.
The smoke didn’t concern her. When she had been accepted into Toyotomi’s household, he had recognized her rare ability to manipulate ki energy and worked with her to master the gift. It was one of the reasons Toyotomi insisted that she train as a samurai, despite the outrage over her gender.
She drew her energy inward in calm focus, holding her katana in front of her as she stepped out into the gardens. Senshi’s skin prickled as the energy built to painful levels within her. Something was different. She was unable to filter her grief from her concentration. For the first time, her power took on an edge of instability as it mixed with her emotional pain. She gasped, fighting to hold on to the little control her emotions left her. Then she let go.
Senshi’s power exploded from her body with tornado-like force. She could hear the muffled screams of men from within the spinning curtain of smoke, but the winds picked up as more of her spiritual energy left her body. Soon she could hear nothing but the roar of power beating against her ears. Squinting her eyes against the sting of the wind and her own whipping hair, she could barely see the blurred figures of ninja as they fell over and ran for cover.
One ninja held his ground, moving slowly forward one step at a time with his sword held out. Sensing his approach, Senshi turned her attention to him and the wind pulsing from her quickly subdued him. He toppled over and went scrambling away on his hands and knees, abandoning his weapon among the dead samurai littering the ground.
When Senshi succeeded in ridding the yard of the last of the smoke magic, she faced the difficult task of harnessing her power. Screaming, she threw her arms wide, swallowing the whirlwind down. It fought against being contained like a swarm of bees in a jar too small to hold them. When she succeeded in closing the ki off, she crumpled to her knees. There was no sound. For one terrifying moment she thought the roaring winds had left her deaf. Then she heard one set of hands clapping together. Looking up, she saw the man who had betrayed Lord Toyotomi and the entire village.
He was a brother samurai.
19
T
he soft shuffling of footsteps pulled me from my dream with a gasp. The voice in my head wasn’t far behind.
INTRUDER!
I sat up in my bed and looked around my bedroom. The pale-blue glow of the moon filtering through my window provided me just enough light to see. I was alone.
I relaxed back against my pillow as the icy grip of fear relaxed its hold on my chest. “Stupid Rileigh,” I grumbled. I was allowing my paranoia to get the better of me. The night’s events had freaked me out to the point that I was imagining things. Of course there was no intruder. The voice I’d heard was probably leftover from a nightmare.
I pulled the blanket tighter but continued to shiver. With a sigh, I pushed the covers back and crossed my room to close the window, stopping short before I reached it. The pane, which I liked to keep cracked a couple of inches while I slept, was wide open.
My heart beat in a frantic rhythm. Did I leave my window open? I’d been so freaked out after the incident in the living room, maybe I forgot to close it …
The sound of a twig snapping outside pulled me from my thoughts. I rushed to the window and leaned my head out, looking in both directions. Nothing moved and the only noise came from the chirping cicadas. I laughed quietly and slid the window down. Inches before the pane met the sill, I heard another snap and saw a shadow slip around the front of the house.
Panic bubbled like a fountain through my body.
Remain calm.
I shook my head and took a step back. “Easy for you to say.” The words came out a whimper.
“Rileigh?”
I spun so fast toward my door that I tripped over my feet and landed in a heap on the floor.
Debbie stood in my doorway, clutching her silk robe closed at the neck. Lines of concern pressed into her brow. “What are you doing? All your moving around woke me up.”
“Mom!” I scrambled to my feet and rushed over to her, gripping her shoulders. “Call 9-1-1!”
Debbie’s eyes widened and she dropped her hand to her side. “What?”
I took a deep breath and tried again. “Someone’s sneaking around our house. You need to call the police.”
Her mouth gaped open. Debbie could eat a casting director for breakfast. She could handle contract negotiations in her sleep. But now, for the first time in my memory, she looked like a frightened child.
“Mom!” I shook her. “Go!”
“I … uh … okay.” She continued to nod as I followed her down the hall and into the living room. She grabbed her purse from the coffee table and rummaged through it with shaking hands.
While she searched, I looked out each window. The front yard stood vacant and well-lit, thanks to the streetlamps. I studied the unchanging scene for several minutes. Not a single car drove by.
Debbie threw her purse on the floor. “My phone’s not in there,” she whispered, her voice wavering. “Do you think it’s safe for me to go back to my bedroom and check my jeans?”
I sighed. “I’m pretty sure.”
After Debbie ran from the room, I walked over to the side window and surveyed the small path of grass separating our house from our neighbors. What if the police didn’t find anything? What if there was nothing to find? Maybe I was now hearing things outside of my head as well as in it. I pushed away from the window just as a knock sounded at the door.
Debbie shrieked from behind me and dug a handful of half-inch-long French-tip nails into my arm.
“Mom!” I turned to dislodge her hand and came face-to-face with a gleaming butcher knife. “Wha—” I ripped my arm from her grasp and rubbed the burning trail her nails left behind. “Are you crazy?”
She continued to shriek with her eyes closed, waving the knife blindly in front of her like a miniature flag on the Fourth of July. I had to duck to avoid the cleaver shaking in her hand.
“Oh for the love of … ” I ducked again. “Mom! Knock it off!” As she began a second circle rotation, I made a fist and hit the inside of her wrist as hard as I could. The knife flew across the room and sank into the front door.
“Ow!” Debbie frowned at me as she rubbed her wrist. “Why on earth would you do a thing like that?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Debbie? Rileigh?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Are you guys okay?”
Debbie pressed her hands against her heaving chest. “Oh, thank God!” She pushed past me and threw the door open. “Jason!”
As Debbie pulled Dr. Wendell inside our house, my skin prickled as if wanting to free itself from my bones. What was he doing here, and at such a late hour?
“What’s going on in here?” He looked younger out of his scrubs, in running pants and a T-shirt. “I heard screaming.” Debbie closed the door and his eyes widened at the cleaver piercing the wood. “Are you all right?”
“We are
now.”
Debbie combed her fingers through her hair. “Thank goodness you’re here.”
I took a step forward and narrowed my eyes. “But that’s the thing—why are you here? How do you even know where we live?”
“Rileigh!” Debbie scolded. “Don’t be rude.”
“Come on!” I thrust my hand toward the clock. “It’s two in the morning! He didn’t just happen to be in the neighborhood and decide that it would be a good time to check up on a patient.”
He looked appalled. “Of course not.”
“So what are you doing here?”
He retrieved Debbie’s purse from where she had thrown it on the floor. “My pager.” He stuck his hand in and pulled out the small black device. “Your mom and I went on a date tonight. While we were out I asked her to keep my pager in her purse and I forgot about it.”
“You’re dating?” I heard the words, spoke them out loud, but they still didn’t make sense. Debbie didn’t date—she didn’t have time for it. And if she needed an escort to a social event—Dr. Wendell was cute, but a far cry from the cologne models she usually draped across her arm like jewelry. “Since when?”
Debbie picked invisible lint off of her robe. “I asked Jason to be my guest at your cousin’s wedding. Then tonight I got caught up in audition schedules so Jason took me out for a quick bite.” She smiled at him. “Which was very sweet, by the way.”
Sweet?
An uneasy tremor crawled along my spine. I couldn’t remember the last time Debbie had spent two days in a row with me, let alone some guy she’d just met. Something didn’t feel right. I turned to Dr. Wendell. “Okay, so you and Mom got dinner and you forgot your pager. You couldn’t get it in the morning?”
Debbie stamped her foot. “Rileigh Hope, that’s enough. I won’t tolerate your attitude.”
“She’s fine.” Dr. Wendell held his arm out to silence her. “Rileigh has been through so much. Increased paranoia and distrust is to be expected, and completely normal. But this,” he glanced behind him at the butcher knife, “concerns me a bit.”
“Rileigh thought she heard someone sneaking around the house,” Debbie said.
Dr. Wendell turned to me. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming? There was no one snooping around while I was outside.”
I snorted. “How about we wait and let the police make that call.”
“The police aren’t coming,” Debbie said.
I looked at her, fighting to keep my face calm. “Why not?”
“I never went to get my phone,” she answered. “I thought it would be better if I got a weapon.”
I smacked my hand against my forehead. “Haven’t you ever watched a horror movie? Don’t you know what happens to the people who run to the kitchen for a knife instead of calling the police?”
Debbie rolled her eyes. “This is life, Rileigh, not a movie.” She leaned into Dr. Wendell and whispered, “She’s always been a little dramatic. I have no idea where she gets it.”
I almost choked.
Dr. Wendell walked to the couch and sat down, patting the cushion beside him. “Rileigh, why don’t you sit?”
I crossed my arms. “I’d rather not.”
Debbie skirted past me and took my rejected seat.
He shrugged. “Okay. I’m not going to make you.”
“I’d love to see you try,” I grumbled.
He leaned forward. “What was that?”
“I said, ‘I’m so tired I could die.’ Can the talk wait? I have to work tomorrow. I know my mom does, too.” I motioned to the front door with my eyes.
“I completely understand. But I would like to do something for you if you don’t mind—let me sleep on your couch.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Debbie shot me a warning glance that melted the words on my tongue.
“I’m sure Rileigh would love it if you stayed, Jason,” Debbie crooned, but her eyes continued to project daggers at me.
Dr. Wendell smiled. “Great. If someone is sneaking around, maybe they’ll think twice about bothering you if they know there’s a man in the house.”
“Jason, you are so sweet for worrying about us.” Debbie patted his knee before she stood up. “Let me get you some blankets from the linen closet.”
I watched open-mouthed as Debbie made her way past me. Never in my entire life had she ever invited a man to sleep over, and now the first guy she’d be smitten with was the one guy who gave me negative vibes? I knew if I had to stand in the presence of his smug smile for one more second I was going to lose it. After Debbie disappeared down the hall, I turned to make my getaway.