Chapter Seven

Monday morning as I walk into history, I have mixed emotions when I spot Bas already in place behind my usual spot. He didn’t text me again all weekend. I saw him briefly at the diner when Tanner and I went to lunch Saturday afternoon, but aside from a wave at the pair of us on his way out, we haven’t spoken. I walk over to my seat with one eye on him, not sure what to expect. I barely sit down when Bas opens his mouth.

“Well, Frankenstein, your face looks way better than it did Friday night.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say without turning around.

That is the whole of our interaction all class. He doesn’t follow me to my locker, either. When I make it to chemistry, though, he is already planted in his seat next to Tanner, with Sibeal in front of him.

I give Tanner a kiss before settling into my seat. Aside from a few jokes about what a pity it was that Sibeal didn’t get a picture of me slipping in the lemonade for the yearbook, Bas behaves himself. That’s not too surprising, though. He always behaves himself in front of Tanner. I don’t know if he is trying to make me look like a whiney princess when I complain to Tanner, or if he just wants to avoid looking like a jerk in front of his friend. Either way, I try not to pay him any attention just to be safe.

The four of us are on our way to the cafeteria when Bas says, “So, Tanner, when are we going to get our archery sessions back into swing. The party was fun, but it’ll be nice to get out with just the guys.”

I’m surprised when I notice Tanner’s ears turning red. Then I realize why. One of Bas’s infamous grins spreads across my lips. When I turn to look at Bas, I find him already staring at us.

“What?” he asks.

As Tanner seems less than enthusiastic about breaking the news, I step in and do it for him. “So sorry to ruin your guy time,” I say openly teasing, “but your archery group is a bit more co-ed than it used to be.”

“What? You?” Bas says, clearly surprised.

I am actually pretty annoyed by his doubt. “Yes, me. Why is that so shocking?”

Bas stares, his brain trying to come up with something to say. “But, you’re from New York. Where on earth did you learn to shoot a bow?”

“Tanner taught me. And I’m pretty good, thank you very much.”

Bas scoffs. He turns to Tanner for some kind hint that I’m playing a joke on him. Tanner shrugs, still a bit red. “She’s actually picked it up pretty fast,” he mumbles.

“And you’re letting her stay in the group?” Bas demands. “Who says you’re the one who gets to decide?”

“Bas, come on,” Tanner begs. “No one’s decided anything. Arra wanted to learn, so I taught her.”

The way Bas folds his arms over his chest is incredibly intimidating. I have to force myself not to take a step back. Tanner tries to stand up to him, but he acts ashamed, which I don’t understand at all. People in the halls are starting to stare. Weirdly enough, they all seem to be glaring at Tanner. I know everyone loves Bas, but this is pretty ridiculous.

Deciding to put an end to this pissing contest before someone starts throwing punches, I step up to Bas. “What is wrong with you? Do you have some kind of problem with a girl learning how to shoot a bow? This may be Mayberry, but it’s not 1950.”

“It has nothing to do with you being a girl,” Bas snaps.

“Then what? Are you really that afraid of me intruding on your friendship?” I ask seriously. “I know we don’t always get along, but I would never come between you and Tanner. I know how much you mean to him.”

Some of Bas’s anger seems to deflate after that statement, but not all of it. “Look, it’s not about you being a girl or friends or anything like that. There are only so many spots on the archery team. Everyone has to try out. Just because Tanner is the team captain doesn’t mean …”

“Wait, what?” I interrupt. “Who said anything about a team? I thought you guys just did this for fun.”

For once, it’s Bas’s turn to look embarrassed. “You didn’t know about the team and the competitions?”

I close my eyes and shake my head at him. “I just wanted something interesting to do over the summer. And I’m pretty sure Tanner was just trying to find opportunities to flirt with me.”

Tanner, and a few others around us who are clearly eavesdropping, all laugh. Everyone knows it’s true. I take a quick second to smile at Tanner so he knows I’m not trying to be mean. He kisses me on the cheek and slings his arm around my shoulder. Bas, on the other hand still looks pretty irritated. So am I.

“Next time, before you let your Robin Hood complex take over your mouth, how about you just ask me what’s really going on, okay?” I snap.

I am done listening to him blame Tanner for something that never even happened. I take a step toward the cafeteria, but of course Bas has to get in the last word.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Tanner did something like that.”

Bas brushes past me to the cafeteria, leaving behind a very red Tanner. Curiosity is buzzing around in my head like a swarm of bees, but I’m sure me asking Tanner about his comment and embarrassing him even more was exactly what Bas was hoping for. I ignore the pulsing desire to know and take Tanner’s hand in mine.

“Can we get some lunch now?”

“Sure, let’s go,” Tanner says with a forced smile.

Bas doesn’t make another appearance at lunch, which is a relief. Thankfully, my next class contains Tanner and a distinct lack of Bas. There is no Sibeal either, which takes the tension down a bit as well. She has never said anything to Tanner about his outburst, but she rarely speaks to him, and he is just as awkward around her. This school seems to be turning into a minefield of embarrassing spectacles.

Dani slips into the desk next to me. I can see the conspiratorial glint in her eyes before she starts to lean toward me. “What happened at lunch with Tanner and Bas?” she whispers.

I shake my head. “Nothing. Bas jumped down Tanner’s throat about me doing archery, but he didn’t even know what was going on. I don’t know what his problem was.”

The knowing look on Dani’s face is aggravating, because she simply turns away and doesn’t comment. Why is everyone being so weird? I frown, and wonder why everyone was so quick to turn against Tanner and believe Bas was right?

Dani seems to move on a moment later and switches topics. “Hey, so what’s the deal with that Sibeal chick? Is she weird, or what?”

“What do you mean?” I ask. I mean, I pretty much agree that something strange is going on with Sibeal, but I have my own reasons for thinking that. I want to know what has Dani checking over her shoulder.

“She totally creeps me out,” Dani says. “I stopped by the bathroom after lunch and when I came out to wash my hands, she was standing at the mirror just staring at her reflection. She didn’t even seem to notice me. At one point she even reached up and touched the mirror. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen her doing that. She did the same thing last Thursday, but she was looking at her reflection in a window. I’d say she was really stuck on herself, but she isn’t like checking her hair or teeth. She just stands there staring at herself. Totally weird.”

“Uh, yeah. That is pretty weird,” I agree. “She definitely seems a little different, but she’s nice enough.”

Dani shakes her head. “Well, I’m keeping my distance.”

The teacher steps up to the board then, but Tanner leans forward and says, “Sounds like good advice.”

I turn back and shush him. The look I give him begs him to keep his opinions to himself for now. His answering look says we will be talking about this later. I know he’s right, but I still roll my eyes and turn back to the board.

As I take notes about The Crucible, my mind stays firmly stuck on Sibeal’s fascination with her reflection. The first dream I had was completely focused on the reflection and the rain. The strangeness of the reflection not moving at the end of the dream probably means something, but I can’t figure out what. I’ve never been one to pick out symbolism in literature or weird dreams.

Given the lack of mystics in Grainer, it probably means that we’ll have to turn to the infinite knowledge of the internet for answers. At least it gives me a valid reason for Tanner to spend the afternoon at my house, so long as we pass off our research as a school project. I’d rather do homework at Tanner’s house, but since Dad knows Tanner’s mom is working at her ice cream store until five o’clock when a couple of local teens take over for the evening, study dates at his house are strictly off the table.

The clock crawls by, not only because Ms. Avery is completely monotone when she talks, but because Bas is in my next class and Tanner isn’t. When the bell finally rings, I snap my notebook closed, thrilled for this class to be over, but I gather my belongings slowly.

“Meet you at your locker after school?” Tanner asks.

“Of course.” I look around to make sure Dani has already taken off before continuing. “I think we should look into the reflection thing. Stories, legends, I don’t know. Something has to explain it. Maybe the power Kivera told me about has to do with the reflection.”

“It’s something to start with,” Tanner says.

I expect him to take off to his next class, but Tanner instead walks closer to me. His head hangs as he approaches. “Arra, about what Bas said today at lunch.”

“Tanner, I don’t care about what Bas said. He was wrong.”

“No, he was right about this. I understand why he was mad.”

I try to tell him that it’s not important, but Tanner is insistent. The clock is ticking for us to get to our next class, but I sit down on the top of my desk and wait patiently.

“When we were thirteen, I really wanted to impress this girl that was here for the summer. We were all going out on the boat with Jackson’s parents. It was supposed to be me and Bas on the water skis. We’d done it before, and knew what we were doing. Jackson’s dad was really strict about who he let on the water skis. He would have stopped and taught Emily how to do it right, but it was getting late and I really wanted to get Emily out on the water with me. So I talked her into it, and told the others she had done it before. I thought she’d be fine.”

When Tanner lifts his head, finally, I see the pain and guilt he is still carrying around. Part of me worries that maybe Bas had a good reason for his display earlier, but I know Tanner well enough not to let that thought stick around. “What happened?” I ask.

Tanner hesitates, fear of what I will think of him tightening his muscles. “She had a hard time keeping the skis straight and she panicked. She started yelling that she wanted to stop, and when Jackson’s dad started to slow down she gave the line to much slack and it got sucked up. She had somehow gotten her hand tangled in the line and she got pulled under the water.

“Everyone freaked. I tried to get to her as fast as I could, but the skis slowed me down. By the time we pulled her up she wasn’t breathing. Jackson’s dad gave her mouth to mouth and she was okay, but she could have died, Arra. Most everyone thought it was just an accident, but Bas blamed me for what happened. And he was right.”

A little stunned by his story, it takes me a moment to respond. “Tanner, it was an accident. Yeah, it wasn’t the best idea, but Emily decided to get on the skis, too. She must have thought she could handle it. You had no way of knowing what would happen. I’m sure it was incredibly scary, but she was okay. It was just an accident.”

“Yeah, but …”

I shake my head. “Tanner. We can talk about this later if you want, but we both have to get to class. Just know that this doesn’t change how I feel about you, okay?”

Tanner looks far from convinced, but he nods and we walk out of the classroom. I start to pull away in the direction of my last class of the day. Tanner pulls me back to him. His lips press against mine softly. I can feel his need to be sure that his story hasn’t come between us. As his fingers slide back to my hair, my hands slowly travel up his chest. The fabric of his shirt twists under my fingers as I pull him closer.

I can feel Tanner’s heart racing as he breaks the kiss, yet he hesitates to continue. His fingers tighten as they tangle in my hair. He holds me, but doesn’t press the space remaining between us. The way his eyes scour mine for any hint of doubt breaks my heart. Why does he think one mistake would change my mind about how wonderful he is?

Sliding my hands to rest behind Tanner’s neck, I smile warmly at him with as much reassurance as I can manage. “Tanner, you are the sweetest, most caring person I know. One moment of bad judgment doesn’t define you. The care you show for others, your determination to protect me, the way you treat everyone, that is the guy I know and care about.”

This time I am the one to kiss him. I have to reach up on my tiptoes to make it happen, but the eager response I get is totally worth it. I don’t think anything would have broken us apart if Evan hadn’t happily knocked into Tanner with a reminder that we are both about to be late for class. Tanner stumbles away after Evan, his eyes lingering on me hungrily.

I am hardly better off. Trying to get my heart to calm back down enough to stop breathing like I just ran a marathon is quite the chore. When I hurry into class and find Bas’s eyes locked onto me with a disapproving expression, the smile left on my lips disappears entirely. I’m not quite sure why. Something in Bas’s expression stings me and I slide into my seat with my head down.

The ninety minutes passes slowly. I have never been great with languages, but since the high school here requires two years of a foreign language to graduate, I forced myself to take a second year of Spanish. I close my notebook at the end of class feeling supremely grateful that English doesn’t require me to conjugate verbs. I think I would have given up speaking early on if it did.

My quick exit avoids any encounters with Bas, and skipping a trip to my locker gets me out to meet Tanner faster than usual. As I wait for him to appear, my mind is drawn back to Dani’s story of Sibeal staring at herself in the mirror. I feel confident that there is something important hiding in that story, something that will give the dreams meaning. Short of Sibeal being the Wicked Queen from Snow White, I just can’t figure it out.

I am so lost in my thoughts, Tanner slips up beside me without my even noticing him. I jump at his sudden appearance and we both laugh.

“Well, are you ready to find out why someone is trying to warn you about Sibeal?” Tanner asks.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

In reality, I’m not sure if I am or not, but I know this isn’t going away any time soon. The source of the dreams is a mystery, but I fear that if I don’t figure it out in time, they will have the same result the dreams of Kivera promised. Death.