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“I CAN’T GO TO SCHOOL. I’M SICK.”
For a moment I thought Samantha was talking to me. She was looking right at me, and since I had just come through the door, there was no way she could be speaking to someone behind me.
“What?” I said. She did not respond and I heard then a second voice. Impossibly, it was behind me. I spun and saw that the kitchen, the one I had just been in, was gone, as was the house. As well as the peach that had been in my hand.
Instead we were in a driveway. A Ford SUV was warming up, tailpipe purring smoke and steam, a man in the driver’s seat, a chubby man with pleasant features, a receding hairline, a blue-striped dress shirt and loose tie. He had a travel mug of coffee in his hand.
“Oh, come on, Sammie, you’ve skipped the last two days. This is going to start affecting your grades.”
Self-conscious, I moved to get out from between the two of them, though of course I was invisible to them.
“Dad, I really don’t feel . . . It’s my time of month. I have cramps.”
The father looked as uncomfortable as fathers will when such things are discussed, but he shook his head and said, “Come on, Sam, grab your backpack and let’s go. I have a staff meeting first thing and there’s construction on the 101.”
The 101? That phrase struck a chord with me, but no doubt that road went all over the country and—
“Will she go to school, won’t she go to school—the suspense is killing me.” The intimacy of the voice combined with the highly charged sensuality that somehow permeated the flippant tone told me instantly that Oriax was with me. I turned eagerly to see her.
She was dressed differently this time, still exotic, still sporting the sort of leather outfit that would not have been out of place on a female superhero, but less black and more green. And an amulet had been added to a green ribbon choker around her throat. It was a jewel, as big as a cherry tomato, but of a rich green color that held sparkling starlight within.
She saw me staring at the jewel—the emerald, I supposed it was—though if it was real, it would cost Samantha’s father’s yearly salary. “You like?” Oriax asked me.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“You should get one,” she said. I thought she was preparing to remove it and hand it to me, but then her eyes flicked to my right and she lowered her hands. “There you are, Messenger. I was wondering why you’d leave poor . . . what’s your name again?”
“Mara,” I said.
“Messenger-in-waiting,” Oriax said. It was a sneer, but as she said it, she winked at me so I didn’t take it amiss. “Has he told you the big reveal yet?”
“The big what?” I asked. I felt rather dull, but then I was destined to feel rather dull in her company.
“Leave us, Oriax,” Messenger said.
“Not just yet, Messenger,” she said. She turned languidly away from me as Messenger moved closer. “It’s not a done deal, Messenger, and you know it. She may still choose to come with me, to follow the path of . . .” She pouted, thinking of just the right word before finishing with, “Excitement.”
“She’s not for you, Oriax, or for your mistress. She’s chosen her path. She will stay on it.”
Were they discussing me? As if I was some object to be bartered or sold? Hadn’t she just mentioned a choice? Did I have a choice? What was the nature of that choice?
“I think you’re wrong, Messenger,” Oriax said, and there was an edge to her voice now. “I think she’s demonstrated that she could be very useful to us. Very happy with us. You forget: I know all that she does not.”
I don’t know why I reacted so strongly to that. Maybe it was just the idea that Oriax knew me, that she knew who I was, all of what I was, or at least more than I knew. I reached out instinctively and touched her arm.
When I had touched Messenger, I had been deluged by terrifying images of pain, fear, loathing, and despair. In touching Oriax, I unleashed a similarly intense flood of imagery, but . . . oh, the intensity and the suddenness was all the two experiences had in common. For these were not images of pain but of pleasure.
What a pale word. Pleasure. What a vanilla word, for the overpowering flood of sweating, grunting, delirious physical sensuality. My mouth hung open in shock. I did not like to think that I was naive, but whatever I had guessed or intuited of the body’s capacity for raw experience, it was nothing that began to approximate what Oriax’s touch had revealed.
I was embarrassed and overwhelmed. I was repelled and yet . . . not just repelled. My mouth was dry, my eyes wide, my heart pounding, and other sensations, sensations that I had never before felt but which nevertheless touched some chord in me.
“Oh!” I said.
“Do you see, Messenger? She said, ‘Oh!’ Don’t you want to savor the sweet innocence in that single syllable? ‘Oh!’” Oriax laughed. It was not a good laugh. Yes, it was musical, yes, it was delightfully rich and deep, but it struck some discordant note, too.
I drew back a step, and I could see that this unconscious reaction irritated Oriax. Her eyes snapped to Messenger, an oddly reptilian movement, too quick to be hu
man. A predator’s eyes.
