“
No,” came his voice. “But the secret’s out now…” Then I heard him chuckle.
Reflex made me draw in a quick breath, offended at his teasing, causing Janice Beltro in front of us to glance over her shoulder. But Jameson swiftly dropped his hand before her head made it all the way around.
Ms. Wizner didn’t notice and continued on with her lecture, which we listened to for a few minutes. But I couldn’t resist for too long and soon held my hand out, dropping it down beside my desk in a gesture that asked Jameson to take it.
As his fingers brushed against my palm and slipped between mine, intertwining, I struggled to inhale steadily.
“
Yes?” he asked and I could hear the smile in his voice without looking at him.
“
This was how you knew what I was like in Olivia’s shop the first time we met - when the things began flying off the shelves. You channeled me then, didn’t you?”
He didn’t immediately respond and I got the sense that I was correct and he was embarrassed by it.
“
Didn’t you?” I persisted, unwilling to let him off the hook.
“
Yes, sorry…”
“
And the candle you gave me that same day - which you sent my birthday gift through. That was you channeling your message through the smoke, wasn’t it?”
“
Yes.”
“
And when I’m healing others - and you’re holding my hand - you’re reading my thoughts then too?”
“
No,” he stated so quickly that I believed him. “I only feel your ability then. I think it overpowers whatever is going through your mind.”
“
So what have you figured out about me during the times you have channeled my thoughts?” I asked, knowing the anger came through in my tone even without speaking the words.
I’d been looking for confirmation on what I’d said but he didn’t offer it. Instead, he returned the favor I’d given him on the first day I’d found out that he was a Caldwell. He assessed me as I’d done him.
“
You surprised me. You aren’t what I expected a Weatherford to be. You’re kind and you have a strength and courage that you tap when dealing with others. You don’t take on others’ beliefs as your own but choose to make the decision yourself. And you don’t like authority. You don’t like to be told what to do. And you’re irresistibly gorgeous.”
Despite my best efforts, my heart warmed to him again and my anger melted away. Then he ruined all that built-up collateral.
“
But you lack patience, Jocelyn, and you don’t trust easily; which, granted, may or may not be such a bad thing.”
He heard, or saw, my responding sigh of irritation.
“
I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that,” he said, his tone guilty.
“
The skepticism is something that I’ve been taught,” I replied, thinking of my mother and her insistence that I question everything.
“
And being a Weatherford, I don’t blame you.”
“
Speaking of trust, there’s something I need to tell you,” I said, again feeling my muscles stiffen.
“
What?” he asked, nervously, sensing my reaction.
“
Alison needs to be warned, your whole family does, they can’t cast against me or anyone else in my family again.”
“
I’ve been working on that-”
“
Tell them the Vires visited Ms. Veilleux. Maybe that will help.”
He didn’t reply for what felt like a very long time. I tried to sense, to capture whatever it was he was thinking but, unlike him, I didn’t have the ability to read someone else’s mind. He had to channel his thoughts and he wasn’t doing it now.
Finally, he sighed, something I would have noticed even if we hadn’t been holding hands. Then his head dropped and he closed his eyes briefly clearing his thoughts.
“
They didn’t visit her for the reasons you’re thinking. The Vires were here because of us, because we cured the village and they’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“
I don’t understand…”
When he spoke he didn’t try to hide his despair. “They found out, somehow…probably through their emissaries…that an entire village was healed overnight. That’s unheard of in our world…in anyone’s world for that matter. And it means that someone got around their cast, that someone was able to help those they punished.” Jameson sighed and his jaw clenched down in anger. “I’m so sorry, Jocelyn. I think…” He drew in struggled breath. “I think I’ve put you in danger.”
For the first time since our conversation began, Jameson looked at me, his eyes filled with remorse. And I wanted so desperately to reach across the aisle and comfort him.
Still holding my hand, he sensed this, or saw my thoughts in his mind. And in reaction he blinked, distracted from the guilt running through him and replacing it with inhibited shock. Then a hesitant grin rose up.
He knew I wanted to kiss him. That much I was certain of.
Given our surroundings, I settled for a much less satisfying squeeze of his hand and a message that I hoped would pacify him. “It’s not your fault. I chose to go. And before you make the argument that I didn’t know it would be dangerous, you need to know that I thought we were visiting convicts - which is never safe. I went in to danger with my eyes open.”
He laughed under his breath and then shook his head. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“
Next time, we’ll just make sure to pace ourselves so not everyone is healed at once. Maybe take the worst patients first…” I suggested and his eyes widened in frustration.
“
You don’t think I’d agree with you going again?” he asked in disbelief.
“
You can’t stop me, Jameson. I already know where to find them and if they need my help I’m going.”
His jaw shifted in disapproval as he returned his attention to Ms. Wizner, or so it seemed. By continuing to hold my hand, our connection to each other, he told me that he wasn’t ending our conversation but calming his anger before continuing.
Or maybe he was waiting for me to back down. If so, he’d be waiting a while. I’d coursed through my life until this point, teasing those who had authority over me, denying my gift, never truly considering anyone else’s needs, sneaking out to look for trouble and if I didn’t find it then starting it. Those were the actions of a little girl, an immature and insignificant child. But I was no longer that child. The night in the backyard when I’d accepted my fate, my heritage, I’d accepted something else - I had a responsibility now. For the first time in my life, I had a reason for being, a goal, a hunger that didn’t seem capable of being fulfilled. I was now here to help others and I would do it to the best of my ability.
Satisfied, I drew in a deep breath and found Ms. Wizner discussing 18
th
century novelists, the same lecture Professor Clements had been giving the day my life had suddenly and drastically changed. So much had happened since then…I mused. And whatever kind of danger I might be in now, I was happy with my new, altered life’s direction.
Then Jameson’s voice ran through my mind again. “Umm, I heard all that…” he admitted sheepishly.
“
Everything?”
He tilted his head to the side and gave me a look that meant…yes. “Thought you should know. I wasn’t trying to violate your private dialogue, I just…I couldn’t avoid it. Your voice gets louder when you’re…determined.”
“
Well, I meant what I said…thought,” I corrected myself. “I’m not backing down.”
He didn’t agree with my decision, which was clear by the expression in his face. Figuring there was no possible way he would win this argument, he changed the subject. “In case you don’t have enough danger in your life…there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.” He paused and looked directly at me, his hand flinching as the nervousness coursed through him. “Will you go out with me this Saturday?”
My obstinacy fell away and I was overtaken by flattery.
“
What did you have in mind? Planning to pick me up at my house?” I asked playfully.
“
Not sure I’d make it passed the driveway,” he said through a laugh. “No, I had something else in mind.”
Then he laid out his plan and by the end of it I was having trouble containing the excitement surging through me.
With a content grin, he released my hand and I sat in a surreal state, realizing we’d just held an entire conversation, had agreed to a secret date, all without anyone hearing us or the need to open our mouths.
It dawned on me that since I’d met Jameson we’d managed to keep the true nature of our relationship a secret, limited to platonic, even if contested, interactions in evening classes once a week. No one knew of our private conversations or secret rendezvous’ and it made me feel as if we were getting away with something.
I had no idea, no premonition at all, that everything was about to change.
14 DATE
Halloween was treated entirely different in New Orleans than it was at Wentworth Preparatory Academy in New York. There, we were given juice and an extra cookie for dessert while treated to an obligatory talent contest in order to satisfy the need for costumes. New Orleans, on the other hand, exploded in to a visual parade of colors and disguises. Houses hosted sophisticated galas and Frenchmen Street prepared for thousands of people to descend on it during its annual, elaborate parade of frighteningly detailed floats. Local bars boasted contests while stores throughout The Quarter sold costumes ranging from fancy to startling. It felt as if electricity buzzed in the air as the city transformed itself.
Then, of course, there were the clandestine preparations made within our world to which few were privy. Specialty candles and exotic scents were bought in mass quantity from stores hidden to the regular public. Decorations of a different kind were taken down from the rafters. Rather than witches with broomsticks there were wreaths of dried herbs hanging at the door. Instead of ghosts and tombstones propped in the front yard, there were books of messages and family keepsakes left for dead relatives in case they decided to stop by.
As signs of Halloween crept up around New Orleans, Jameson and I continued meeting at the back of the gym after school for our unusual tryst to find people to heal. Wednesday was included because Ms. Veilleux’s school needed it to prepare for their own Samhain celebration, giving Jameson and me an extra day together. Against his preference, I accompanied him to the village and helped deliver supplies. There and on the way back, our hands found each other across the car’s console and remained entwined for the duration we were driving. There were no more instances of La Terreur so we saw Isadora briefly, where she again wrapped my family stone in a red cloth.
The rest of my free time that week was spent preparing for Saturday, either deciding on a costume for myself or helping my cousins select theirs.
Then Saturday arrived and all I could think about was my date with Jameson.
“
Can you help me?” was the first time I really heard anyone speak that day. It came from Estelle sometime around five o’clock in the evening when the sun was just about to drop below the horizon.
“
Sure,” I said, glancing up from a book I’d found in Aunt Lizzy’s library on medicinal herbs. While it captured my attention for the first five minutes, the last two hours had been spent gazing impassively at the words on the page and wondering how tonight would evolve with Jameson.
“
I just need you to thip me up.” Estelle had chosen to be a fairy with fangs, which made it difficult for her to speak.
I stifled a giggle at her expense and secured the back of her deep purple layered chiffon dress. She looked exquisite.
“
We leafff in thirty minutes,” she said with a clap of her hands. “Do you need helf getting ready?”
“
No, Miss Mabelle found something for me to wear.”
I didn’t mention how oddly appropriate her selection was either. Part of Jameson’s plan to escape the prying eyes of our relatives was to dress in masquerade and the outfit Miss Mabelle left in my closet without my having to ask, fit the occasion perfectly.
Taken directly out of a fairy tale, the dress was entirely white, sleeveless and narrowed at the waist to flare out until reaching my feet. It came with a white chocker and a mask that looked as if it had been dipped in diamonds. And, what stood out the most was that it seemed to be custom-tailored to my tall height. With my hair coiled and loosely pinned up, the ensemble fit me perfectly.
I heard gasps as I came down the stairs, confirming it.
Having no interest in being the center of my cousins’ doting attention, when they looked stunning themselves, I asked before anyone could comment, “Ready?”
“
Abtholutely!” exclaimed Estelle.
Then we left, with me trailing behind Oscar as a mobster, Nolan as a barbarian, Spencer as a mad scientist, Estelle in her wicked fairy outfit, and Vinnia as a traditional witch. Each of their costumes fit them perfectly in size and personality and I knew before they mentioned it that they’d found the outfit hung in their closet by Miss Mabelle, too.
The rest of the students showed no shortage of creativity. With ten-foot tall wings, a Pinocchio nose two feet long, and Pippi Longstocking braids extending out arms length on both sides it was intriguing to walk into the courtyard.