“But… then, what are we going to do?” Bonnie asked.
“I don’t know.” With sick dismay this realization finally came home to Elena. “I don’t know!”
“We can still watch her. Maybe she’ll take the bag off at lunch or something…” But Meredith’s voice rang hollow. They all knew the truth, Elena thought, and the truth was that it was hopeless. They’d lost.
Bonnie glanced in the rearview mirror, then twisted in her seat. “It’s your ride.”
Elena looked. Two white horses were drawing a smartly renovated buggy down the street. Crepe paper was threaded through the buggy’s wheels, ferns decorated its seats, and a large banner on the side proclaimed, The Spirit of Fell’s Church.
Elena had time for only one desperate message. “Watch her,” she said. “And if there’s ever a moment when she’s alone…” Then she had to go.
But all through that long, terrible morning, there was never a moment when Caroline was alone. She was surrounded by a crowd of spectators.
For Elena, the parade was pure torture. She sat in the buggy beside the mayor and his wife, trying to smile, trying to look normal. But the sick dread was like a crushing weight on her chest.
Somewhere in front of her, among the marching bands and drill teams and open convertibles, was Caroline. Elena had forgotten to find out which float she was on. The first schoolhouse float, perhaps; a lot of the younger children in costume would be on that.
It didn’t matter. Wherever Caroline was, she was in full view of half the town.
The luncheon that followed the parade was held in the high school cafeteria. Elena was trapped at a table with Mayor Dawley and his wife. Caroline was at a nearby table; Elena could see the shining back of her auburn head. And sitting beside her, often leaning possessively over her, was Tyler Smallwood.
Elena was in a perfect position to view the little drama that occurred about halfway through lunch. Her heart leaped into her throat when she saw Stefan, looking casual, stroll by Caroline’s table.
He spoke to Caroline. Elena watched, forgetting even to play with the untouched food on her plate. But what she saw next made her heart plummet. Caroline tossed her head and replied to him briefly, and then turned back to her meal. And Tyler lumbered to his feet, his face reddening as he made an angry gesture. He didn’t sit down again until Stefan turned away.
Stefan looked toward Elena as he left, and for a moment their eyes met in wordless communion.
There was nothing he could do, then. Even if his Powers had returned, Tyler was going to keep him away from Caroline. The crushing weight squeezed Elena’s lungs so that she could scarcely breathe.
After that she simply sat in a daze of misery and despair until someone nudged her and told her it was time to go backstage.
She listened almost indifferently to Mayor Dawley’s speech of welcome. He spoke about the “trying time” Fell’s Church had faced recently, and about the community spirit that had sustained them these past months. Then awards were given out, for scholarship, for athletics, for community service. Matt came up to receive Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year, and Elena saw him look at her curiously.
Then came the pageant. The elementary school children giggled and tripped and forgot their lines as they portrayed scenes from the founding of Fell’s Church through the Civil War. Elena watched them without taking any of it in. Ever since last night she’d been slightly dizzy and shaky, and now she felt as if she were coming down with the flu. Her brain, usually so full of schemes and calculations, was empty. She couldn’t think anymore. She almost couldn’t care.
The pageant ended to popping flashbulbs and tumultuous applause. When the last little Confederate soldier was off the stage, Mayor Dawley called for silence.
“And now,” he said, “for the students who will perform the closing ceremonies. Please show your appreciation for the Spirit of Independence, the Spirit of Fidelity, and the Spirit of Fell’s Church!”
The applause was even more thunderous. Elena stood beside John Clifford, the brainy senior who’d been chosen to represent the Spirit of Independence. On the other side of John was Caroline. In a detached, nearly apathetic way Elena noticed that Caroline looked magnificent: her head tilted back, her eyes blazing, her cheeks flushed with color.
John went first, adjusting his glasses and the microphone before he read from the heavy brown book on the lectern. Officially, the seniors were free to choose their own selections; in practice they almost always read from the works of M. C. Marsh, the only poet Fell’s Church had ever produced.
All during John’s reading, Caroline was upstaging him. She smiled at the audience; she shook out her hair; she weighed the reticule hanging from her waist. Her fingers stroked the drawstring bag lovingly, and Elena found herself staring at it, hypnotized, memorizing every bead.
John took a bow and resumed his place by Elena. Caroline threw her shoulders back and did a model’s walk to the lectern.
This time the applause was mixed with whistles. But Caroline didn’t smile; she had assumed an air of tragic responsibility. With exquisite timing she waited until the cafetorium was perfectly quiet to speak.
“I was planning to read a poem by M. C. Marsh today,” she said, then, into the attentive stillness, “but I’m not going to. Why read from this—” She held up the nineteenth century volume of poetry. “—when there is something much more… relevant… in a book I happened to find?”
Happened to steal, you mean, thought Elena. Her eyes sought among the faces in the crowd, and she located Stefan. He was standing toward the back, with Bonnie and Meredith stationed on either side as if protecting him. Then Elena noticed something else. Tyler, with Dick and several other guys, was standing just a few yards behind. The guys were older than high school age, and they looked tough, and there were five of them. Go, thought Elena, finding Stefan’s eyes again. She willed him to understand what she was saying. Go, Stefan; please leave before it happens. Go now.
Very slightly, almost imperceptibly, Stefan shook his head.
Caroline’s fingers were dipping into the bag as if she just couldn’t wait. “What I’m going to read is about Fell’s Church today, not a hundred or two hundred years ago,” she was saying, working herself up into a sort of exultant fever. “It’s important now, because it’s about somebody who’s living in town with us. In fact he’s right here in this room.”
Tyler must have written the speech for her, Elena decided. Last month, in the gym, he’d shown quite a gift for that kind of thing. Oh, Stefan, oh, Stefan, I’m scared… Her thoughts jumbled into incoherence as Caroline plunged her hand into the bag.
“I think you’ll understand what I mean when you hear it,” Caroline said, and with a quick motion she pulled a velvet-covered book from the reticule and held it up dramatically. “I think it will explain a lot of what’s been going on in Fell’s Church recently.” Breathing quickly and lightly, she looked from the spellbound audience to the book in her hand.
Elena had almost lost consciousness when Caroline jerked the diary out. Bright sparkles ran along the edges of her vision. The dizziness roared up, ready to overwhelm Elena, and then she noticed something.
It must be her eyes. The stage lights and flashbulbs must have dazzled them. She certainly felt ready to faint any minute; it was hardly surprising that she couldn’t see properly.
The book in Caroline’s hands looked green, not blue.
I must be going crazy… or this is a dream… or maybe it’s a trick of the lighting. But look at Caroline’s face!