Spellcaster

Chapter 4

    ONE MINUTE. VERLAINE HAD BEEN HANGING OUT IN HER car, stretched out on the old-fashioned front seat, trying to work a tangle out of her hair and watching videos on her phone. She'd planned to stay late enough that Uncle Gary and Uncle Dave would think she had friends to spend time with; that way they wouldn't worry so much, or at least they'd stop nagging her about being alone so often. The next, the ground had swallowed her car. She'd been too startled even to scream.

  And that wasn't even the freakiest thing that had happened to her today- not compared to the part where her car flew out of the ditch again.

Or where that new girl was the one responsible.

She dropped her hand right away, like that would make Verlaine not suspect her. Maybe it was kind of crazy thing to suspect somebody of. But, hello, the car just flew, so welcome to Crazyville, and besides- She knew.

The new girl said, "Hey, are you all right?"

Verlaine had to swallow hard before she could speak. "How did you make the car fly?"

That first split second- that was the tell. Yeah, the new girl, Natalie or whatever her name was, she tried hard to cover. But her first reaction had been total guilt and horror, which made her awkward smile afterward that much more unconvincing. "Wow, you must have hit your head."

"I didn't hit my head."

"You must have! Because, you know, cars don't fly. Obviously."

Verlaine tried the door; it still worked, and she stepped out on shaky legs. "Then how did it get out of the ditch? Do you have a forklift or a crane or something hidden around here, Natalie?"

"It's Nadia. And of course i don't. Your car never went into the ditch."

"Um, yes, it definitely did."

"It only tilted to one side!" Nadia looked...weird. Like chugged-a-Butterfinger-Blizzard-in-ninety-seconds-and-got-on-the-Tilt-A-Whirl weird. But she was trying hard to sound reassuring. "Probably it felt like you went into the ditch, but you didn't. I'm sure it was crazy scary. Can't believe you didn't scream! I would definitely have thought anybody in the car would have screamed. Definitely. But you- didn't."

"If my car didn't fall in the ditch, why is there dirt in my hair?" Verlaine grabbed the ends of her nearly waist length hair; now there were twigs and leaves caught in it, too. "Why are there pine needles all over my backseat? And, oh yeah, why do I remember falling in the ditch?"

Nadia went on the offensive then: "Why are you pretending cars can fly? How would I even make that happen?"

Two very good questions. But Verlaine said only, "I know what I know."

"When you go home and think about it, and talk about it with your dads, you'll get it straightened out," Nadia replied, as if she very much wanted to believe it was true. "If you're okay, well, I'm going home."

In silence, Verlaine watched her go. Nadia never once glanced back. Wouldn't anyone normal glance back after something like that?

Verlaine considered whether this Nadia was in fact severely abnormal. She hadn't looked like a weirdo; Nadia was beautiful, even a little glamorous, with the kind of designer jeans and funky custom-made jewelry that didn't appear in the halls of Rodman High very often. But making cars levitate out of a ditch? Definitely not average.