Circle of Arms (The Shades of Northwood 2)

THE SHADES OF NORTHWOOD 2:

  CIRCLE OF ARMS

  Wendy Maddocks

  ©2011 by Wendy Maddocks

  Other works by Wendy Maddocks

  Stand alone novels

  Twisted evil

  Into the darkness

  Short story collections

  The thrill of the Chase

  A Shade too young

  The Shades of Northwood series

  Running shoes

  Circle of arms

  Unfinished business

  Kiss at midnight

  Circle of the Fallen series

  Angels of America

  Poetry collections

  When I was young

  Before the dawn

  Screenplays

  RISK

  Non-fiction

  Student: dazed and confused

  Where we left…

  “Give ’em hell, honey!”

  Katie waved to her father from the start line. The half of the town that wasn’t’ running in the race had turned out to watch and were chucking loose change into buckets on street corners for the parent and toddler group.

  “Such a healthy, trusting place,” Mom had cooed first thing that morning. “What a lovely town to live in.”

  “Yeah, it’s great.” Katie made herself smile way the tiredness inside. The week had been exhausting but a day of undisturbed sleep yesterday had cured most of her aches and pains; a six o’clock wake up at the weekend was just too much. Things would shake out once that old adrenaline started flowing. “My friends are all lovely and the academy – I haven’t been in yet, classes start Monday – but it looks so nice.”

  “I’m so glad you’re happy, Katie. You are happy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Mom. I’m happier than I’ve been in ages.” And, surprisingly, that wasn’t a lie. Even being so close to death all the time didn’t seem so bad. I think I needed the fresh start.”

  “You will come back home won’t you? Dan wanted to come but she has that sicky bug going round but she’d love to see you when she’s well.”

  “I’ll call her soon,” she said, dodging the first question. And tell her she can have my room. “Oh, there’s Marcie. We’re running together.”

  “But-“

  An official looking man blew a whistle and Katie lost herself in the ranks. Some-one shouted out, “I’ll see you at the finish line!”

  Chapter one

  “I’m so proud of you, Katie.”

  Mr Cartwright stood in the corner of the open car door and held his arms out for a hug. Katie only hesitated for a moment before going to him, knowing her friends were crowding the front window and watching her. It didn’t matter though, Katie loved her parents and she wasn’t planning to cover it up to save face.

  “It can’t have been easy to race when you hardly know the place and we didn’t mean to come and put more pressure on you.”

  “Dad, you couldn’t.”

  “We were trying to be supportive,” Mom defended from the passenger seat of their Fiesta. “We tried to call but when we couldn’t get through…”

  “Flat battery,” she explained quickly. Lainy had fielded a call on the house phone and told them to come up. “I’ve loved having you up here today. I just wish you didn’t have to go so soon.” There must be a guesthouse or something around here somewhere.

  “We should really start getting back for Dan. Mrs Ricci won’t have her forever.”

  Katie rolled her eyes. Even she used to get sick of her little sister after a couple of hours and looking after her when she was ill… her former neighbour deserved a medal. “It’s a long drive. Make sure you stop for a rest.”

  “When is the daughter supposed to take care of the parents?”

  “Dad, I mean it. It’s getting dark and the lights aren’t that great around her.” She had actually surprised herself by telling her own parents to take care. It had been just under two weeks ago when they had said that to her before leaving her in this old house and driving off. Taking care of herself had become natural over recent times so it wasn’t too much of a leap to extend that to the people she cared about. Moving/ to a new town to share a house with a bunch of strangers had been a huge step and one none of them had expected Katie to take for at least two more years. But take it she had and her housemates had hardly stopped gushing about how well she was getting on.

  “Honey, you’re coping okay aren’t you?” asked Mom. It was a mother’s job to worry about her children and even leaving home couldn’t erase that instinct. It made it worse because Katie was no longer under her watchful eye. “Because there’s still time to come home.”

  I am home. This was the only place she had felt like she belonged for months. A few months ago, something had happened to her old city and she no longer felt safe walking the streets she had learnt to ride a bike down, sleeping in the room she’d been born in, even reading in the library before it closed. Too many dark places, too many corners bad people could hide behind. It had stopped feeling like home. “I’m fine,” she didn’t quite lie. “I told you, this was the fresh start I needed.”

  “But-“

  “Mom, I can’t come back with you. College starts Monday and I’m really looking forward to it. I have friends, I’m not starving and I’m wearing clean clothes. The survival of the family name is assured.”

  Her father lifted his eyebrows so high they almost flew off his face. Uh-oh. Katie had not meant to say that.

  “Not like that!” she promised her father, counting herself as the luckiest girl alive that the comment had completely blown over her mom. “Just ‘cos I can look after myself now doesn’t mean I can do it for a little living thing too. Remember the flour baby thing at school?” Not something anyone was likely to forget. The cookies had been delicious though.

  “I’ll cancel the Christmas puppy then,” he grinned and gave her one final squeeze before getting into the car and giving the ignition a few violent twists. It choked a couple of times and then turned over, not sounding very happy about it. “We should get going.”

  “Oh, honey,” her Mom piped up, looking up from the street map on the new satnav. “We meant to ask. The letter from the police… anything we need to worry about?”

  It took a few moments to remember exactly what letter she was talking about. Katie could imagine the blank look she was wearing but she honestly couldn’t – oh Christ, how had she forgotten about that?

  “No, nothing. Just wanted the new address.”

  “It’s the worst thing in the world to have happened, Katie. Please tell us if anything changes.”

  “I will. But I’m fine. Honestly.” Katie tacked a smile onto the end and hoped her mother believed it more than she did. But her parents wanted to rush home to look after the sick daughter they still had at home. “I just want to look forward. Which-“ she glanced pointedly at her watch and tapped the luminous dial at her father. “You need to be doing now. Thanks for a great day. Now, go!” And it had been a good day. Well, if great meant exhausting in this universe. She’d come 12th in her race this morning and second in the Under 18 group – which was amazing in itself, considering just getting to the start line had been only a distant possibility – then her parents had taken her to the shopping centre to buy a new laptop and then a greasy chemical takeaway. Back home to meet her friends, set up the new computer and then eat a huge house meal before hanging her old cloudburst curtains and then saying goodbye. Katie wondered if she might not fall asleep standing up.

  “Love you, honey!”

  “Ditto, kiddo.”

  “You’re
really gonna make me say it.”

  “Not leaving until you do!” Only the car was already halfway down the road, coughing and growling like all motor vehicles seemed to do in Northwood. The few that made it in town anyway.

  “I love you!” she called after them, hoping that they were too far away to hear and close enough to do so. Teens never liked to tell their parents they loved them but somehow Katie didn’t feel like the average teenager any more.

  “Be good!” one of them shouted. Mom, probably.

  Behind her, Katie heard the front door open and heavy soles stomped out to stop next to her. A hand extended itself and she grabbed for it, twisting her fingers in. Not a word passed between them but Katie closed her eyes, breathing deep of this familiar smell – old leather and straw and something she had decided was the stench of death – turning her head to one side and resting her cheek on his shoulder, watching her family leave once more and imagining the look on Dad’s face. Mom was probably trying to calm him down right now, and convince him not to turn the car around and save his baby girl from this… this man. She grinned and let herself relax against this hard body beside her. Even though she had not looked around once, Katie knew who she was leaning on. Jack. He was the only person who could make her feel this safe – safe enough to let her guard down.

  “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  When the car was out of sight, Jack curled his arm around her face and stroked her cheeks. “Keep smiling.”

  She straightened and looked him straight in the eyes. “Do I look like I’m smiling?”

  It depended which part of Katie you looked at. Her mouth was smiling but it didn’t touch her eyes. In fact, if you looked closely there were tears glistening in the corners of her brown eyes. “You look happy and sad all at the same time.”

  “That’s actually not a bad description. Is confused available?”

  “I’m confused if it helps.”

  Katie shook her head and went to sit on the low wall that edged the front garden. Or the three square feet of gravel and grass she liked to call it. “You’re the reason I’m confused, Jack. I mean, how can you be here? Last time I saw you, you were dying. Scrap that – you were dead. I cried over your body and you were dead.”

  “You can’t kill a ghost. Well, I guess you can but we come right on back.”

  “I watched that man flay you alive!”

  “I started healing the minute you got him away from me, Lady Katie.”

  “You heal fast then. There’s not a mark on you.”

  Well, nothing that wasn’t there before. But she didn’t need to know about any of that yet. “We all do. It takes energy for us to stay in human form – to stay solid I mean – and keepin’ all these cuts would be even harder. You remember when I punched the seats down at the stadium to prove I was real.”

  “Not really,” Katie admitted. Most things to do with Jack in their first week of knowing each other were all fuzzy. She knew something had happened but only because there was a gaping black hole where those memories should be. It was one of those paradox thingies the scientists were always going on about. “But I kind of remember seeing you in the hospital and thinking there was something wrong with your hand.”

  “Well, it was too hard to keep up that image. So I just took a little more energy than usual from Adam and made it go away. You thought my unbroken skin felt wrong ‘cos your brain somehow remembered me hurting myself.”

  “Why? You took all my memories away, didn’t you?”

  “Your memories, yeah. But I can’t do nothin’ about your senses or feelings.” And that was one of the few things he was grateful for.

  Katie was glad too. She didn’t quite know how she felt about Jack but she was pretty sure she might start to hate him if he ever tried to manipulate her emotions. She wanted to work out how she felt on her own and in her own time. God only knew what was rushing through her body right now but she was content to just ride this wave of feeling comfortable with him. “You can’t just play with my head, Jack. If I forget you again… if you take away any of the seconds I get with you…”

  “Katie, I only did what I did to protect you.”

  “I don’t need protecting. I need to remember the good times, the bad times, I need to know you. I need to… Jack, I just want to be in charge of my own mind.”

  “And I never wanna take that away from you.” He fell silent then and just held Katie the way she liked to be held and wished with all his heart he could kiss away all those tears and fears. It would do more harm than good. But she leant into him and closed her eyes. Just a minute to think of nothing. No-one had ever warned her that thinking all the time was so exhausting. The silence was absolute, just the stirring of the autumn breeze disturbed the peace. There was a flat surface below her – namely, the ground – and a lifesize teddy bear by the name of Jack to provide comfort. What was to stop her just sinking to the floor and sleeping here? Definitely tired enough. Bed was so far away.

  Then it hit her. For a couple of days there had been this odd feeling inside and she couldn’t remember why she had it. But now… now it came back like a brick dropped from heaven. Katie lifted herself away from Jack, squeezing his hand hard enough to grind bones in anyone else, and took herself off into the old house, unsure whether she wanted him to follow or not.

  Turning right beyond the front door, Katie slid her trainers off and kicked them into the pile, found her bunny slippers from another heap and walked past the kitchen where three of her housemates were pretending not to have been watching the action from the window. The person she was looking for wasn’t among them. That person was in the front room, flicking through a sports science textbook to fast to be reading it. Katie walked a little closer and saw the familiar white wires of earphones trailing the arms of the settee. Whether anything was playing through them was another matter – certainly there was none of that tinny beat overflow that drove her parents mad. She yanked the earphones away, kissed the top of the studiers head and tried to vault over the back of the settee and land on the empty seat like on TV. It ended badly.

  “Hey Jaye!” she squealed down the tiny girls ears. They had seen each other just a few minutes earlier but they hadn’t really spoken in a couple of days. There had been this huge distance between them, it seemed.

  “Ow! I hope you’re happy about making my ears bleed.”

  “Umm…” Katie pretended to think the question over. “Yeah, I think I’m okay with it.”

  “So glad to hear it.” Jaye snapped her book shut and tossed it to the floor. “Think I’ve read the same sentence a hundred times. Your parents seemed nice?”

  “You’d love my sister. She’s as hyper as you.” Katie dodged the implied question. Her family were just that – family. Blood and name. No need to discuss how she felt about them. That was a minefield she had no desire to wade through just yet.

  “How was it?”

  “Too short.”

  “Always is.”

  “Do you ever see your family?”

  Shadows flicked over Jaye’s delicate face. The look was instantly recognisable to Katie – which was disturbing on levels she hadn’t even known about. It was something all the Shades she knew did when there was something they didn’t want to talk or think about.

  “My parents…” Jaye began and stopped. “They’re staunch Catholics. You know, when you’re gone, you’re gone. They think that going to my funeral was their last chance to see me. Don’t answer the phone, letters get return-to-sendered. I was the oldest of eight, if you can believe that, and they mostly believed I was still around but my parents convinced them I was just in their heads.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Brings a whole new meaning to the words you’re dead to us.”

  “I can’t imagine my parents ever saying that to me.” Of course, she couldn’t predict their reaction when Katie died – which,
one day, would happen. Knowing what she knew – the idea didn’t really scare her the way it had done. “They’re just…” shrugged, unable to find the right words. They’re just Mom and Dad.

  “Just because I pretty much hate them now for that doesn’t mean I don’t still love them. Don’t look at me like that, I can’t explain it either. And stop feeling sorry for me.”

  The thing was, Katie didn’t feel pity for her friend. It was easy to assume everyone who knew your secrets was going to feel sorry for you – she knew that well enough and mostly because it was true. She was doing her damned best to feel some sort of empathy but there was nothing there. Giving up on any attempts to form words, Katie shifted in her seated and wrapped Jaye in a hug, wishing she could pour all of her emotions out of her arms and into her friend. After a minute, the smaller girl flapped her arms and slapped blind hands all around, trying to connect with flesh. Katie loosened her grip but didn’t let go, suddenly certain that if she let go then Jaye would fall away from her. She had to hold on. You must find a way.

  “Being dead doesn’t mean I don’t need to breathe,” Jaye gasped, finally realising she was short enough to just duck out of the circle of arms.

  “Seriously?”

  “Deadly. Wait. Seriously what?” Adam came onto the front room and started rummaging through the mess of board games on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

  “Seriously going to bed.”

  “Not joining us for-“ he grabbed a box and yanked out a classic. “Snakes and ladders? Okay, who brought this?”

  “Not unless you want to be carrying me up.”

  Adam looked her up and down and then shook his head, passing the game to Jaye to set up. “No offence but I don’t think my back’ll take it.”

  “No offence,” Katie shot back, “But I don’t think so either.”

  “Meaning?” Jaye leaned across and whispered something in his ear, grinning wickedly. Adam suddenly looked hurt. “Right, you two are heading for smacked bums.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Yeah, Ad, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  It was best to leave Jaye to the shameless flirting, especially since Lainy was clinking mugs outside the door. Katie held it open and tried to get past without knocking everything to the floor.

  “Night.”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  Upstairs, Katie grabbed a pair of clean pyjamas and headed for the bathroom. When the bath water had run hot and was inching up the side of the tub, Katie kicked her dirty clothes under the sink to deal with tomorrow and climbed into the bubbly water. The quick post-race shower had barely touched the soul-deep aches and pains. Not that many of them actually stemmed from the exertions of the morning. Most of the fatigue she was feeling came from nerves, not enough sleep and nearly dying far too many times lately. As she started washing herself, Katie reminded herself how lucky she was not to still have any of the scars and marks she should have. A few days ago, she had been covered in cuts that would have made her look like some kind of monster had they scarred. Explaining those away would not have been fun. Interesting, but not fun. What did it cost? Katie vaguely recalled the streams of dark energy, the overwhelming power, she had touched that night, and lay back, wondering. What if it changed me?

  But her brain wasn’t quite ready to process any of that just yet. Some kind of spongy wall had sprung up in her mind and all the sharp, fine details were kept safely behind it. How long would it hold back the flood?

  Katie stayed in the water until it began to cool, drained the tub and shivered into her PJs. She squeezed a ling stripe of toothpaste onto her clear brush and stared at herself in the tiny mirror on the sink. There was a large mirrored panel propped in the corner of the bathroom, ready for Adam to fix to the medicine cabinet next time he went on a DIY rampage, to replace the old shattered one. The girl in the reflection looked sleepy but fresh and bright. That cannot be Katie, who felt about as fresh as a month old banana. Bruised, wrinkled and way past its’ best.

  She jammed her feet back into bunny slippers and padded out. Voices were drifting up the stairs as Lainy, Adam and Jaye were squabbling over their game. A quiet beat sounded through the door next to her room. Not loud enough – the front row of an Aerosmith concert would not be loud enough – to disturb her sleep tonight.

  But Katie didn’t get her silent wish and she dreamed. But she dreamt of just five words –

  You must find a way.

  Chapter two