He was evil. I knew it with everything inside of me. I’d witnessed a murder. One I could never prove. He never touched her, just like he never touched me. His menacing gaze was the last thing I saw of him before a crowd gathered and swallowed him up.
Only then did my legs obey. I backed away and ran. Faster, harder, farther than I had ever run before, with only one thought: I’m not safe. If someone can do that to people, kill with an invisible, evil hook of their aura into another’s, then none of us are safe.
Twenty-One
Erratic silver sparks flared from my body as I ran. I was a girl on fire and had to remind myself that no one could see the flames. Except perhaps him, the man whose aura flared pure white, who had the ability to drain people of their life’s essence, who affirmed that mine was different, and who would have killed me, too, if he could have. He had tried. I was lucky to get away.
As soon as I reached my bedroom, my energy plummeted to my ankles like wrinkled socks. He took from me! His body had lapped up my silver aura like a greedy cat. Why? I knew without a doubt that people gave and took energy from each other every day. I could see it. I could feel it, and anyone paying attention to how their body responded around certain people probably felt it, too. But this was different. My breath came out in ragged, shivery bursts.
This was death.
He knew what I was, confirmed it with his venomous whispers before he tried to rip me from my body. I looked in the mirror. I had to know if my aura was affected, diminished somehow. Would I be able to see if I had less of it? But I saw a petrified girl with dark curls stuck to her sweaty face, freaked green eyes, and the same vibrating band of silver around her body. Too wobbly to stand any longer, I sat on my bed.
My arms prickled with fear. Had he been trying to kill me that night in the hospital? And if so, why hadn’t he succeeded? I had been weak, defenseless. I remembered only the sensation of coming out of myself, of crossing my arms over my body, before he backed away and disappeared. Faye had talked about people taking energy from others, but nothing I’d read online or in her books mentioned people who killed doing it. Her ominous warning sailed like a banner across my brain: There are those who want nothing more than to find someone like you.
He’d said something like that: We can search for another like you.
Apparently, I had fallen asleep at some point, still dressed, shoes squeezing my feet too tightly. The pillow draped over my head, and I tossed it aside only to have it hit my dad sitting next to my bed in the moonlight. I peered at him from between the streamers of my curls and started to sit up, but he stopped me. “No, baby. Don’t get up.” Tenderly and slowly, like he might never get to do it again, he brushed my wild hair out of my face. Even in the dark, his parental love was a rope of light, reaching for me.
“I have a surprise for you.” The crack in his voice was thunder to my heart. “I’m sending you to Chile with Mari and Dun.”
I was wide-awake at that point. “Really?”
“Your grandmother, she’ll—she’ll take care of you while you’re there.” Dad bent over and hugged me. “I love you. I hope you know that, always.”
My mind was racing. “It’s a great surprise, Dad. Thank you. But you’re not coming, too?”
I really wanted to meet Mami Tulke. I wanted to look into her eyes and watch her aura when I asked her about the phone conversation with my dad. I wanted to find out what she knew about my mother. But this sudden trip was too uncharacteristic of my father. “I need you to be straight with me. Why are you suddenly agreeing to this, and why aren’t you coming?”
“I can’t. Not yet, anyway. Remember I told you in the hospital that I’m on a team studying some mysterious deaths? Well, they’re on the increase. And it’s not confined to one place. These deaths are happening all over the world, including here in Santa Cruz.”
Yes. I’ve seen people drop dead like that. It’s beyond terrifying.
“Unfortunately, I’m needed here,” he said, “for the time being. We hope to rule out a virus, but the clock is ticking. It’s only a matter of time before someone in the media connects the deaths, and that would cause widespread panic, especially when we don’t know what’s causing it.” He leveled a serious look at me. “I’m trusting you not to say anything. I’m telling you because you asked, but I don’t want you to think my work is more important than you. Nothing is. I’ll come to Chile as soon as I can.”
Despite the deep chill in my bones that wouldn’t leave me, I found myself getting excited when, two days later, my uncle Eduardo showed up with Mari and Dun to take us all to the airport. Janelle insisted on going to see us off.
The opportunity to get out of town was too good. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t be on guard in Chile, though. There were two fears I harbored: the killer with the white aura, and the fact that I had dug up a dangerous mystery in the forest. From the harrowing visions I saw in the key, death was the method most used to smother the truth.
The key nestled against my chest under my shirt. I didn’t know what the Light Key meant, but I wasn’t letting it out of my sight. My mother had held it and, somehow, it was like having her hand over my heart once again, like in the picture.
Grace was a constant presence in my thoughts. What happened to her? How would I ever find out? People who disappear do so forever, she had written. Who else was disappearing and who was responsible for the disappearances? Was it people like that man? It seemed to me, if I had the answer to that, I’d be one step closer to knowing her fate.
Uncle Eduardo parked at the drop-off curb at the airport. He gave Mari and me big, squeezy man-hugs and a hearty handshake to Dun.
“I’ll just go in with you,” Janelle said, absently twisting a button on her cardigan. “To see you safely to security.”
“Afraid I’ll sneak off to Ireland?” I asked without needing an answer. Janelle squeaked in surprise when I pulled her into a hug. “You don’t need to escort me to security. Just tell him you did.”
When I drew back, Janelle cupped my cheek and looked into my eyes, probably the most intimate gesture we’d ever shared. “I trust you, Cora.” Then her voice lowered. “But I’ve been in love, too. I can see you’ve been hurting pretty badly since Finn returned to Ireland. You’ve been so withdrawn, not yourself. Just don’t—” She stopped herself and smiled ruefully. “Well, like I said, I trust you.” To prove it, she hugged me again and slipped back into the car.
Mari breathed deeply as they drove away. “Smell that?” she asked. “That’s the unique and overpowering scent of freedom.” Looking pointedly at me, she raised her eyebrows. “Onward, travelers.” She tilted her rolling suitcase and strolled toward the doors of the airport like a movie star, leaving Dun and I to pad after her like adoring fans.
Inside the airport, I shifted from one foot to the other and scanned the crowd with a watchful eye. I was being paranoid, perhaps. But I shivered anew at the memory of my soul being yanked out of my own body. It was too easy for him.
I thought our souls were connected to us with stronger threads.
Through my T-shirt, I fingered the outline of the silver key. A tremor of violent energy rolled through me with the memory of the images I’d seen in the forest. Each image had seemed so random. Some were religious, but some weren’t. The only commonality was that many of the images were triplicates. Threes. What could that mean?