“What’s with her?” Neely asked. “She must be a mount. They’re all biggies. She’s got nice legs but that rear end is a little too much for those boy shorts, huh?”
“Neely, she’s sensitive about that,” Merry said softly. “And it’s not just that. Her brother just died. You should take it easy. Since then, she hasn’t come out with us much.”
“I’m sorry,” Neely said. “She’s always giving me the evil eye.”
“Maybe she’s jealous that you fit in and she . . . doesn’t,” Merry said, realizing at this moment that what she said was true and it was as much her fault as anyone’s. She hadn’t called Kim in months. Why didn’t she go after Kim now? Kim had come only because of Merry. Why didn’t she get her butt over and talk to Kim and lead her back? It was because Kim was . . . strange now. Kim was loud and too sexy and weird, and Meredith didn’t really want to be seen with her. Truth was, she was ashamed of her old friend and how she was practically Velcro’ed to Dane. To cover her own unkindness, Merry said, “Kim’s probably lonely now. We should all be nice to her. And Neely, you’re like two people. You’re nice when it’s just you, but in front of a bunch of people, it’s like you change.”
“Speaking of cheerleading,” Neely said, interrupting Merry, “we could do things with that twin business you guys have going on. Did you ever consider cheering, Mallory?”
“I have, but I decided I’d rather be boiled,” Mallory said.
The other girls looked from one to the other. They knew the person speaking had to be Mallory, or were the twins goofing around? The girls had removed the single garnet Merry wore in her right ear and Mally in her left that had been placed there the day after they were born, so that their parents could tell them apart.
Just then Drew ambled by.
“Brynn, which one of you is you?” he asked.
“Me,” Merry said, laughing.
“No, come on! You can’t be Mallory. You’re in too good a mood,” Drew said.
“I really am Mallory, Drewsky,” Merry teased him.
“And hey, I’m in a good mood,” Neely offered, taking Drew’s arm. Drew looked at her as though she had some kind of rash and politely patted her hand as he removed it. Neely shrugged. “Your loss! Anyhow, I was thinking, my mom could help. She still has the style and the moves. No offense to your coach but she’s kind of old school. Or anyway, old. Anyhow. My mom is only thirty-six. She started cheering for the Rams in college, and then she got an MBA in marketing and she runs her own business with cruelty-free beauty products, vegan hats, and jewelry.”
“VEGAN hats?” Drew asked. “You mean, like a lettuce ball cap? Or a mushroom fedora? And your mom was . . . what?”
“Silly,” Neely said, obviously flirting. “She was a professional cheerleader. An Embraceable Ewe.”
“A what? A You?”
“A Ewe, a St. Louis Rams cheerleader. Years ago. But the hats. They’re called vegan because they’re not made with any leather. They’re natural products.”
“You’ve obviously never heard a carrot scream,” Drew said.
“Stop!” Neely went on, laughing. “She runs the business out of the house. You could see her on the shopping channel if you wanted. What I mean is, she has her own schedule. She could help out, give us that snap we really need.”
“I’d watch the shopping channel,” Mally said, “if I lost half my brain.”
“Brynn, now I know that’s you,” Drew said.
“And why do we need snap?” Caitlin asked. “Neely, you aren’t even on the team yet.”
“Not until Monday,” Neely said.
“Or ever,” Mallory added.
“How can you be Merry’s identical twin?” Neely asked. “She was so nice at my house, even when she had the nightmare.”
“Don’t pay any attention to Mallory,” Merry said. “She really has lost half her brain. She’s a soap opera addict.”
“Wait! I love soap operas. I never miss
General Hospital.
I record it,” Neely said.
“See? You’re soul sisters,” Merry told her twin.
“I’m sorry, Neely. Anyone who loves Erica Kane can’t be all bad,” Mallory said. “In fact, you remind me of her. Did you say nightmare? What nightmare was this?”
“Never mind,” Merry said.
“I don’t mind. You can have all the nightmares you want. But I have a strange feeling about this one.”
“You’re being paranoid,” Merry told Mally.
“She’s just defensive. Lots of fringe-y girls get defensive,” Neely put in, with a huge dramatic sigh. Drew turned away in disgust.
“Fringe-y? What do you mean by that?” Mallory asked.
“On the fringe,” Neely said. “Of things.”
“I’m not . . .” Mallory began and then noticed that her sister was trying to slip away with Alli. She turned her big cardboard Ace sideways to block Merry. “What nightmare? Was it scary? Like . . . that?”
“It wasn’t. Or I would have told you. Just weird,” Meredith whispered.
“What was it about?”
“It was about the lion.”
“About the lion? Merry! And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wasn’t scared. How could it
hurt anyone
if it’s a symbol?” Merry was impatient. “We agreed it wasn’t a real lion.”
“What was it doing?”
“Well, you were running and it was following you, up on the ridge trail by our camp. And the strange part was, it was summer. At first, I thought it was hunting you, until I had this bizarre feeling.”
Mallory felt her eyes brim. Last summer. Eden would have been watching out for her, making sure no one else hurt her. Eden, her guardian.
“It wasn’t hunting me,” she told Merry softly.
“The feeling I had was . . . well . . . I couldn’t really describe it until now.”
“What?” Mallory asked.
“I felt that I knew the lion. Personally. Like you said.”
Mallory said, “You do.”
“And then I saw it stop and lie down. It was looking down on a campsite. There was a guy with a red sleeping bag and a BoSox cap. It just watched him.” Mallory sighed and then nodded as Merry went on, “I’m sure there’s an explanation. But I have to hear about this right now?”
“No. Not tonight. Tonight, we’ll just be regular kids,” Mally said.
Merry answered, “As if.”
THE EVIDENCE
B
y Monday morning, despite a long shampoo, Mallory still had glitter in her hair. As she brushed through her hair before school, she remembered how invisible hands had released a shower of stars from the trees at Neely’s house at 10:30 P.M., signaling to everyone, including the few couples cuddling up in the rock garden (Kim and Dane among them), it was time to go home.
The party hadn’t been much fun.
But the long evening with Neely at her mini-mansion was enough to convince Mally: The tape came from her fancy stuck-up little paws.
Neely was a spoiled little brat, despite her weakness for
General Hospital
. She would do anything to bring a little pizzazz to the poor Ridgeline line—including enlisting her mom—and she talked like making one of the two varsity spots was a foregone conclusion. She was surer of herself than Mallory’s own conceited older sister (well, Merry was older, by two minutes!). Neely was planning the same thing—or something like it—for the tryouts today. She had to be. Merry had seen the beringed hands in her dream. Who else would have them?
A note would prompt Coach Everson to sit the girls down and question them, in that way adults had of breaking kids down. Confession. Suspension. Expulsion.
Relaxation.
A vision with an easy fix!
Neely would go to the Catholic school that billed itself as the area’s only “genuine prep school.” All rich delinquents went there. It would serve her right—the little ewe.
Merry had finally promised to deliver the note, even though she was worried about everything from hidden cameras to fingerprints.
So, happily, Mallory set out for her jog, wondering if a lean pale shape would slip along beside her among the scrub trees as she trod the path up the ridge. Cooper had flown back to Boston. But Mallory had woken sure that she could save Eden—even from herself. Her heart pounded, and she felt its strength blooming, a warmth throughout her. She and Cooper, in on this together, would stop Eden from her plan to give up her destiny. And then she and Eden, together, would find their way out of her destined prison.
Edie would have a normal life. One of the two of them would have that. There had to be a way.
She would make this gift of hers do some work
for
her.
Mallory picked up her stride.
Back at home, Merry nestled down into her quilts. The morning was chilly and she needed all her rest for tryouts. Tryouts were today. . . . She wasn’t even tense. There was no reason to get up early. Merry’s bed was angled toward the door so that she could survey the array of outfits she’d laid out the night before, to choose from in the morning, without even getting up. She planned on the luxury of another half hour of drowsing.
Then Merry sat up and whammed her head so hard she saw double. Reaching up, she felt for blood. How? She looked down at her comforters, in a tangle around her feet. She’d clearly scrooched herself around in bed until her head was facing the footboard, the way she used to do when she’d sneak into bed with Mallory! But she hadn’t done that for years.
Why now?
Then she heard the voices downstairs. Way downstairs, on the first floor. These were what had wakened her. They were familiar—they were her parents. They were having a fight, and making no effort to cover it up.
This was interesting, in a creepy way.
So was her head!
The first tryout she’d had to go to school looking like a refugee from the burn ward, and now she’d have a lump on her head the size of a fist! Great! How could this happen in her one life?
“You’re scaring them with the way you’re acting,” Tim said, in a voice so harsh Merry could hardly recognize it. Normally, the Brynns (quite proudly) explained that, despite their low-level sarcasm and minor bickering, if one of them was really mad, the angry one had to go outside and walk it off. But no one was walking it off now. “You’re acting weird and it’s time you told them why, Campbell.”
“Tim, you know they’ll hate me for it,” their mother said.
“You should have thought of that back in July when you decided!”
“When I decided! I wasn’t the only one, as I recall!” Campbell said. “I think both of us agreed that night up at the camp!”
“I didn’t think you’d moan and complain and snipe at everyone every day because of it. I thought this was what you wanted.”
Campbell said, “I’m sorry, Tim. I’d love to go on talking nonsense with you but I have to go try to keep some people from dying.”
“Right. We lowly merchants stand in awe of you professional folks,” Merry’s father said.
Merry came around the corner of the landing and saw Tim and Campbell, face-to-face in the kitchen. Tim was looking down at her mother as if he really wanted to get in her face, and Campbell, fierce as a terrier, wasn’t about to back off. As Tim turned to stomp away, he saw Merry.
Merry smiled at her father.
“I hit my head,” Merry said.
“You hit your
head
?” Campbell asked. “How did you do that?”
“I hit it on the ceiling. I turned around so my head was at the bottom of the bed, by the window.”
“Just like you used to do when you were little,” Tim said. He pulled Meredith up into a hug but she stiffened in his arms. “Listen, Merry Heart, you overheard your mom and me . . .”
“I don’t want to know!” Merry said, struggling. “I don’t want to know about you guys’ stuff.”
“Well, we were just being jerks,” Campbell told her. “It’s no big deal.”
“Are you getting a divorce?”
“Getting a divorce?” Tim was flabbergasted. “No one’s getting a divorce.”
“Well, you were so absorbed in fighting you didn’t even hear me yell! I practically got knocked out!” said Merry. “Before, I had the flaky skin. Now I’m going to have a huge bruise!”
“Do you have more of that makeup?” Campbell asked, pressing an ice pack to Merry’s head.
“Yes.”
“If you get a bruise, that should cover it up. No one will see it on the stage. Are you dizzy? Do you think you have a concussion?”
Merry said, “MOM.”
“Well, take some ibuprofen for the swelling,” Campbell told her. “And keep that ice on.”
“Okay,” Merry said. Slowly, she went back up to her room. Just then, Mallory banged in the door and rushed up the stairs, two at a time. She stopped in the door frame of their room. “What’s wrong? You usually have four outfits out by now.”
“Mom and Dad had this huge fight.”
“Merry, what’s that on your head? You’re not saying that they hit you?”
“As a matter of fact, I hit my head.”
“How?”
“I turned around in my bed.”
“Like I did that other time?”
“Like that exactly.”
“That’s so weird.”
“But it wasn’t because of a dream. It must have been because I heard them fighting . . . subconsciously.”
“Well, I’m sorry you got that . . . Wow, that’s some egg, Merry!”
“Thanks, Mal!”
“But that explains it. You’ve got a concussion. Mom and Dad would never get divorced.”
“You didn’t hear them,” Merry wailed.
“They’re not the divorce type,” said Mallory. “Don’t you want to do some splits or something? Warm up? Change the subject?”
“You didn’t hear them!”
“Are you nuts?” Mallory asked Merry. “Don’t answer. You are nuts. They so wouldn’t get a divorce.”
“How do you know? How do you really know about anything? Did you think David Jellico was a killer?”
“Yes, I did, in fact. It was you who wanted to marry him.” Mallory added, “Merry, take it easy. It’s because Mom is a boss now like Dad, and they have nervous tension times two. Mom doesn’t like being an administrator. I wish she’d go back to her old job. You know, there is something going on. Maybe Mom is sick. She’s being too nice one minute and too crabby the next minute. She’s yelling at us to pick up lint on the carpet at night and the next day, she walks right past the room without yelling at us to make the beds. Maybe Dad, like, gambled a bunch of money away or something.”