Josh’s fight with Eric must have boosted his confidence. Instead of sitting on his bike and watching Channie ride away after school—he followed her.
She’d fantasized about talking to Josh for days, but maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Even though he’d defended her at the time, he knew she’d zapped Eric. He was bound to ask questions she wasn’t supposed to answer. If he lasered her with those deep blue eyes of his, she was afraid she’d tell him the truth.
Channie pedaled as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Her legs were on fire and she had a stitch in her side when Josh caught up with her on his child-sized-junk-yard bicycle. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“Hey, Channie. Did you read my note?”
She stopped pedaling and let the bicycle coast. There was no point killing herself trying to outrun him since it was obviously impossible. Still gasping for breath, she nodded her head.
Josh pressed his mouth into a thin, hard line and said, “Oh. Okay, then.” He nodded his head once and took off, jumping ahead of her as if she’d been standing still.
Channie knew she should just let him go, but the way his body slumped with disappointment tugged at her heart. “Josh, wait a minute. I want to talk to you.”
He veered off the path and wheeled his bike around. Channie thought he was going to shoot right past her. But at the last minute, he hit the front brake. Hard. Gravel scattered across the path as the back end of his bike popped up off the ground.
Channie gasped, but instead of tumbling over the handlebars, Josh caught the front tire with one foot and kicked the back end of his bicycle around with the other. He bounced his way back onto the concrete path without touching his feet to the ground.
Channie sniffed the air but didn’t detect even a trace of magic. Josh did all that trickery without a balance spell. “How’d you do that?”
Josh grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I just like goofing off.” He bit his lower lip then pulled it through his teeth again. It was obviously a nervous habit, but it brought back the memory of kissing him. Channie’s cheeks flushed hot when she realized she was licking her lips as she stared at his.
He bounced in place on his bike as if it were a pogo stick. “So...Why didn’t you call me?” He stopped bouncing, but kept his feet on the pedals, perfectly balanced.
“We don’t have a phone.”
His eyebrows shot up and disappeared under the curls that fringed the edges of his bike helmet. “You don’t have a phone?”
“Didn’t I just say that?” Channie didn’t mean to be so snippy, but this high-altitude was killing her. She pushed her hand against the stitch in her side and took a deep breath. “Momma and Daddy are still fighting over whether or not to spend money on a telephone. So no, we don't have one. But even if we did. I couldn’t call you.”
Josh’s Adam’s apple bobbed twice before he spoke. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“Huh?”
“Is there some reason you can’t call me? Even if you had a phone?”
“Yeah. My daddy would kill you.”
He blinked and jerked his head back, ducking his chin. “Why?”
“He doesn’t want me to have a boyfriend.”
“I don’t want to be your boyfriend! Unless you want me...I mean...I just want to be your friend.”
“I’d love to be your friend, but Daddy doesn’t know the difference between a boy that’s a friend and a boyfriend.”
“I’d be happy to explain it to him.”
“Look, Josh, it was nice talking to you, but I gotta go. If I’m late getting home, Momma and Daddy will lay into me.”
“You live close to Heritage Park, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll ride with you to the park and we can talk on the way.”
“Okay, but if I tell you to leave, you have to do it immediately. I don’t want Momma or Daddy to see us together.”
“Can I give you some friendly advice? You know, since we’re friends now.”
Channie lifted her eyebrows.
“Other kids might tease you if they hear you call your parents Momma and Daddy.”
“Well, they can just kiss my lily white ass. I don’t care what they think.” The sudden tightness in her chest and flush of heat creeping up her neck did not support her vehement declaration.
“Good for you.” Josh yanked the front wheel of his bicycle off the ground and grinned at Channie as he rode beside her. “I think we’re going to be great friends.”
Channie thought so too. She couldn’t keep from grinning back at him. “Now, can I ask you something? You know, since we’re friends.”
Josh laughed and nodded his head. “Sure, ask me anything.”
“Why are you friends with Eric?”
“I’ve known Eric Rickmond since grade school. We’re more friends out of habit than any thing else. He’s a jock and I’m...not. ”
Josh slammed the front tire of his bicycle back down onto the concrete path. “BMX racing may be an Olympic event, but it doesn’t count as a sport at Monarch. I can’t even get P.E. Credit for it...so racers aren’t jocks.” Josh laughed, but without humor. “Not even if you’re nationally ranked and sponsored.”
Channie had no idea what BMX racing was, but she wasn’t about to ask the only kid at school that didn’t already think she was nothing but a stupid, inbred hillbilly to explain it.
“Eric and I only hang out together as a last resort. When there’s no one else available. Now, can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“Why did your parents name you Chastity?”
Channie’s heart skipped a beat, then jumped into double time. Telling an Empty about magic was an unforgivable sin. But so was changing her name. She was tired of feeling isolated and unloveable. She and Josh would never be more than casual acquaintances if he didn’t know who and what she really was. Even if they never progressed past friendship, she didn’t want to hide behind a lie. She took a deep breath and said, “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. You can’t tell a single soul.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Channie gasped before she remembered that Josh didn’t have the ability bind himself with a death-pledge. She looked around to be sure no one could overhear her confession. They were completely alone, but she lowered her voice anyway.
“I’m a mage.”
“A mage? Like in World of Warcraft?”
“Like a witch, but we prefer the term ‘mage,’ it’s less offensive.”
Josh snickered and rolled his eyes. “I suppose you transferred here from Hogwarts.”
“I transferred here from Arkansas. My name used to be Enchantment, but Daddy caught me talking to some easily influenced, magically disabled boys the day before school started and decided my virtue was in danger. He and Momma changed my name to Chastity. It’s a curse. If I get too close to a boy that’s thinking impure thoughts, I can’t help it, I zap him.”
Josh laughed. “You should be in my creative writing class. With an imagination like that, it’d be an easy A.”
Channie glared at him and said, “I am not making this up.”
“Come on, Channie. You don’t expect me to believe that.”
“I most certainly do!”
Josh’s smile disappeared.
Channie said, “You remember when you kissed me?”
Josh bit his lip and nodded.
“In your note, you said that you didn’t know what came over you. Well, I do. You kissed me because I wanted you to. I cast a come-hither spell on you and it wouldn’t have mattered if I were the ugliest girl in the world. You would have kissed me anyway.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “You wanted me to kiss you?”
Channie had just confessed to using illegal magic on him and all Josh got out of it was that she’d wanted him to kiss her. This was so frustrating. “It was a test. I needed to activate Chastity’s power and see what wou
ld happen before I started school.”
Josh looked at his feet and nudged a pebble off the concrete path with the side of his shoe. “Yeah, right. Whatever. If you want to blow me off, just say so. I’ll leave you alone.”
“I’m not blowing you off. My parents changed my name to Chastity so I couldn’t...you know...mess around with boys.”
Josh’s smile crept back into place. He leaned over his handle bars and inched forward, mischief sparkling in his eyes. Channie knew she was staring again, but she couldn’t help it.
“So. How close can I get?” The flirtatious tone of Josh’s voice snapped Channie out of her trance.
She laughed and said, “It depends. How dirty are your thoughts?”
Josh stopped and jerked his shoulders back, locking his elbows. “My thoughts are not dirty!”
The crimson blush on his cheeks and ears indicated otherwise, but it was the prickly rush of magic under Channie’s skin that proved he was lying and warned her to back off. She wanted him to believe her, but she didn’t want to convince him by cursing him.
“It’s getting late. I gotta go. I’ll see you at school, tomorrow.” She kicked off and headed for the house with Josh’s gaze boring into her back, right between her shoulder blades.
~***~
Channie opened the front door and dropped her backpack on the linoleum floor in the entryway. Momma and Daddy must have hit the flea-market—or the local junkyard—while she was at school. The ratty old sofa they’d brought from home was the nicest thing in the room. Momma’s homemade incense, smoldering in every corner of the parlor could not mask the foreign smell of other people’s lives.
Channie gripped the wall and leaned around the corner to get a peek at the dining room and cringed. Centered under the crystal chandelier that came with the house was a picnic table, just like the ones at Heritage Park next door. She’d been so distracted by Josh that she wouldn’t have noticed whether or not one was missing.
Momma fanned smoke out the window while Daddy sat behind a stained formica table on a decrepit old chair with bent chrome legs. Tufts of off-white batting peeked out along the edges of the cracked vinyl. He was busy fiddling with some sort of electronic gadgetry and didn’t even look up when Channie pulled out a chair and sat down beside him.
“Hey baby girl, how was school?”
“Fine. Where’d the new dining room table come from?”
Daddy didn’t answer, but Channie hadn’t really expected him to admit he’d stolen it. He held the gadget up and lifted his gaze to Channie’s face. “You didn’t happen to learn anything about these little thing-a-m’bobs at that fancy-pants school of yours, did you?”
Channie sighed. Daddy had never gone to a regular school. Everything he knew, he'd either learned on his own, or picked up from other mages. He didn’t have much use for schools. She said, “If you want, I can take it with me tomorrow and ask one of my teachers. I’m sure at least one of them will know what it is and how to fix it.”
“Nah, that’s okay. I’ll get ‘er figured out—one way or another.”
Momma snorted and quit fanning the smoke long enough to turn around and yell at Daddy. “Next time maybe you’ll stop and think before you go and yank something plum out of the ceiling before you even know what it is.”
“Well, if you’d pay attention to what you’re doing, maybe you wouldn’t set the kitchen on fire every blamed time you turn on the stove.”
Abby leaned over the railing and shouted, “Can y’all keep it down? We’re trying to sleep up here!”
Momma and Daddy kept arguing, but they dropped their voices to a whisper. Channie decided to leave before Momma and Daddy started throwing curses at each other. She slipped out of the kitchen, grabbed her backpack off the entryway floor and crept upstairs.
As soon as she opened the door to her room, Channie’s heart sank. Her bedroom furniture all matched—which was a miracle—but it was hideous. She might have liked the ornately carved white furniture with its metallic gold trim five years ago. But even then, she would have hated the frilly pink canopy over the bed. She’d never been a lace and ruffles sort of girl.
Momma and Daddy were still whisper-yelling at each other when Channie snuck back downstairs to get a screwdriver out of Daddy’s tool chest in the garage.
It took her less than fifteen minutes to remove and disassemble the wire frame that held the canopy. She piled everything in the back of her closet and shut the door. The whole room looked better. Maybe she could talk Momma into buying a small can of blue paint with some of her grocery money. If Channie could paint over the gold trim with a nice dark blue, she’d actually like her new furniture. Her favorite color was red, why did she want blue paint? Channie tried, and failed, to convince herself it had nothing to do with the color of Joshua Abrim's eyes.
~***~
A little past midnight, the sound of weeping woke Channie from a deep sleep.
She crept downstairs and found everyone—except Abby—gathered in the parlor. And everyone—except Courage—in tears.
Daddy sat in the green wingback chair between the front windows. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy.
Momma was on the sofa with Savvy and Zeal clinging to her neck and wailing at the top of their lungs. Momma’s sobs were almost as loud as the boys’.
Courage stood in the middle of the room by himself with his spine ram-rod straight and his shoulders pulled back like a little soldier. He was definitely the calmest person in the room and the one most likely to tell her what was going on.
“CoCo, what happened?”
“Savvy had a bad dream. He went to crawl in bed with Momma, but she was gone.” As soon as the words left his mouth, his whole body trembled, but he did not cry. Courage never cried.
“But, she’ll be back soon, right?” Channie already knew in her heart that Abby was gone for good. She also knew exactly where she’d gone. And who she was with...Diego.
Daddy shoved a wrinkled piece of paper at Channie and said. “That thieving little whore ain’t welcome in this house. And she sure as hell ain’t getting these boys.”
Channie read the letter silently …
Dear Momma and Daddy,
First of all, I ain’t mad at neither one of you, but I can’t stay here no more. I borrowed some money outta Daddy’s chest. I’ll pay it back as soon as I can. I am going to make a home for myself and the boys and once I get settled in I’m coming back for my babies. Tell them I love them and that I already miss them and I wish I could have taken them with me. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will come for them someday.
Tell Channie I’m sorry and to remember everything we talked about.
Love,
Abundance
Chapter Three
FRIENDS
Momma and Daddy put a be-calm spell on the boys and each other then went to bed. Channie declined their offer to do the same for her. She had school tomorrow and didn’t want to be drowsy all day. After tossing and turning for forty-five minutes, she regretted her decision, but it was too late to change her mind. Momma and Daddy were already asleep.
She could put a be-calm spell on herself, but it wasn’t a good idea. Casting mood-altering spells on yourself was tricky and rarely worked the way you wanted.
Channie couldn’t bear the weight of her blankets and kicked them off, but the air in her room still felt thick and heavy. She got out of bed, raised her window and leaned outside. The air was cold but dry, so it wasn’t uncomfortable. The light of the waning moon fell softly across her head and shoulders, soothing her. Channie knew she’d never be able to fall back asleep so she got dressed and climbed out onto the roof. She sat there for about five minutes, then climbed down.
She was so absorbed in her own thoughts she was halfway to the pavilion in the park before she realized where she was going. The picnic table was hidden in the shadows so when a familiar voice quietly greeted her, she jumped.
“Josh! What are you doing out here?”
/>
“Stalking you.”
“Really?” Channie knew she should be concerned, but she was more flattered than anything.
“No, not really.”
Josh leaned forward into a silver-blue pool of moonlight. His mouth quirked sideways into a crooked grin and his eyes sparkled with mischief. He was flirting with her. Channie wasn’t in the mood for playful banter, but she was glad Josh was here. She didn’t want to be alone.
He said, “I’m a chronic insomniac and I hate taking sleeping pills. Riding my bike helps me relax and Heritage Park is one of my favorite places to hang out so I’m not really stalking you, it just looks that way.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Ouch.”
“Sorry.”
“At least you didn’t run away screaming.”
“I’m not the screaming type.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. But finding you outside on a school night at three o’clock in the morning does. What’s up with that?”
“I couldn’t sleep either. My sister ...” To Channie’s utter and complete humiliation, all the emotion she’d kept bottled up inside burst free in a single but desperate sob.
Josh flew off the picnic table and wrapped his arms around Channie so fast she didn’t have a chance to warn him, much less stop him.
The first thing she felt was a warm, gentle pulse of energy. It was identical to the energy she’d stolen from Josh after his fight with Eric, only more potent. It flowed into Channie and filled her heart-of-hearts till it overflowed. Enchantment was fully charged for the first time since her name change.
Unfortunately, even fully charged, Enchantment’s magic was no match for Chastity’s curse. The strength of Josh’s arms surprised her. But it was his scent—a subtle mixture of sandalwood and lemons—that caught her off guard.
Chastity’s prickly magic sprang to life. Channie stiffened—inadvertently pulling Josh closer—as she tried to control the negative energy that wanted to attack him.
Josh was radiating nothing but pure compassion. What was generating so much lust? Channie’s face burned when she realized it was coming from her. She had to get away from Josh before she cursed him.
He let go the instant she began to struggle and stepped back—holding his hands away from his body, palms out.