“Okay, here it is. I went to visit Jim Bryce this morning — you remember him?”
“Sure. I went out with him. Captain of the basketball team. Nice guy. A little bit young, but…” Meredith shrugged.
“Jim’s okay.” Matt swallowed. “Well, it’s just — I don’t want to gossip or anything, but—”
“Gossip!” the three girls commanded him in unison, like a Greek chorus.
Matt quailed. “Okay, okay! Well — I was supposed to be over there at ten o’clock, but I got there a little early, and — well, Caroline was there. She was leaving.”
There were three little shocked gasps and a sharp look from Stefan.
“You mean you think she spent the night with him?”
“Stefan!” Bonnie began. “This isn’t how proper gossip goes. You never just outright say what you think —”
“No,” Elena said evenly. “Let Matt answer. I can remember enough from before I could talk to be worried about Caroline.”
“More than worried,” Stefan said.
Meredith nodded. “It’s not gossip; it’s necessary information,” she said.
“Okay, then.” Matt gulped. “Well, yeah, that was what I thought. He said she’d come early to see his little sister, but Tamra is only about fifteen. And he turned bright red when he said it.”
There were sober glances between the others.
“Caroline’s always been…well, sleazy…” began Bonnie.
“But I’ve never heard that she even gave Jim a second glance,” finished Meredith.
They looked to Elena for an answer. Elena slowly shook her head. “I certainly can’t see any earthly reason for her visiting Tamra. And besides”—she looked up quickly at Matt—“you’re holding out on us somehow. What else happened?”
“Something more happened? Did Caroline flash her lingerie?” Bonnie was laughing until she saw Matt’s red face. “Hey — c’mon, Matt. This is us. You can tell us anything.”
Matt drew in a deep breath and shut his eyes.
“Okay, well — as she was going out, I think — I think Caroline…propositioned me.”
“She did what?”
“She would never —”
“How, Matt?” Elena asked.
“Well — Jim thought she’d left, and he went to the garage to get his basketball, and I turned around and suddenly Caroline was back again, and she said — well, it doesn’t matter what she said. But it was about her liking football better than basketball and did I want to be a sport.”
“And what did you say?” Bonnie breathed, fascinated.
“I didn’t say anything. I just stared at her.”
“And then Jim came back?” Meredith suggested.
“No! And then Caroline left — she gave me this look, you know, that made things pretty clear as to what she meant — and then Tami came in.” Matt’s honest face was flaming by now. “And then — I don’t know how to say it. Maybe Caroline said something about me to make her do it to me, because she — she…”
“Matt.” Stefan had scarcely spoken until this point; now he leaned forward and spoke quietly. “We’re not asking just because we want to gossip. We’re trying to find out if there’s something seriously wrong happening in Fell’s Church. So — please — just tell us what happened.”
Matt nodded, but he was blushing to the fair roots of his hair. “Tami…pressed herself against me.”
There was a long pause.
Meredith said levelly, “Matt, do you mean she hugged you? Like a biiiiiig hug? Or that she…” She stopped, because Matt was already shaking his head vehemently.
“It was no innocent biiiiiig hug. We were alone, in the doorway there, and she just…well, I couldn’t believe it. She’s only fifteen, but she acted like an adult woman. I mean…not that I’ve ever had an adult woman do that to me.”
Looking embarrassed but relieved at having got this off his chest, Matt’s gaze went from face to face. “So what do you think? Was it just a coincidence that Caroline was there? Or did she…say something to Tamra?”
“No coincidence,” Elena said simply. “It’d be too much of a coincidence: Caroline coming on to you and then Tamra acting like that. I know — I used to know Tami Bryce. She’s a nice little girl — or she used to be.”
“She still is,” Meredith said. “I told you, I went out with Jim a few times. She’s a very nice girl, and not at all mature for her age. I don’t think she would normally do anything inappropriate, unless…” She stopped, looking into the middle distance, and then shrugged without finishing her sentence.
Bonnie looked serious now. “But we have to stop this,” she said. “What if she does that to some guy who’s not nice and shy like Matt? She’s going to get herself assaulted!”
“That’s the whole problem,” Matt said, turning red again. “I mean, it’s pretty difficult…. If she had been some other girl, that I was going on a date with — not that I go out with other girls on dates…” he added hastily, glancing at Elena.
“But you should be going out on dates,” Elena said firmly. “Matt, I don’t want eternal fidelity from you — there’s nothing I’d like better than to see you dating a nice girl.” As if by accident, her gaze wandered over to Bonnie, who was now trying to crunch celery very quietly and neatly.
“Stefan, you’re the only one who can tell us what to do,” Elena said, turning to him.
Stefan was frowning. “I don’t know. With only two girls, it’s pretty hard to draw any conclusions.”
“So we’re going to wait and see what Caroline — or Tami — does next?” Meredith asked.
“Not just wait,” Stefan said. “We’ve got to find out more about it. You guys can keep an eye on Caroline and Tamra Bryce, and I can do some research on it.”
“Damn!” Elena said, hitting the ground with one fist. “I can almost—” She stopped suddenly and looked at her friends. Bonnie had dropped her celery, gasping, and Matt had choked on his Coke, going into a coughing fit. Even Meredith and Stefan were staring at her. “What?” she said blankly.
Meredith recovered first. “It’s just that yesterday you were — well, very young angels don’t swear.”
“Just because I died a couple of times, it means I have to say ‘darn’ for the rest of my life?” Elena shook her head. “Not. I’m me and I’m going to stay me — whoever I am.”
“Good,” said Stefan, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. Matt looked away and Elena gave Stefan an almost dismissive pat, but thinking,I love you forever, and knowing that he would pick it up even if she couldn’t hear his thought in return. In fact she found she could pick up his general response to it, a warm rose color seemed to hang around him.
Was this what Bonnie saw and called an aura? She realized that most of the day she’d seen him with a light, cool, emerald sort of shadowing around him — if shadows could be light. And the green was returning now as the pink faded away.
Immediately she glanced over the rest of the picnickers. Bonnie was surrounded by a roselike color, shading to the palest of pinks. Meredith was a deep and profound violet. Matt was a strong clear blue.
It reminded her that up until yesterday — only yesterday? — she’d seen so many things that no one else could see. Including something that had scared her silly.
What had it been? She was getting flashes of images — little details that were scary enough by themselves. It could be as small as a fingernail or as large as an arm. Bark-like texture, at least on the body. Insect-like antennae, but far too many of them, and moving like whips, faster than any insect ever moved them. She had the general crawly feeling she got whenever she thought about insects. It was a bug, then. But a bug built on a different body plan than any insect she knew of. It was more like a leech in that respect, or a squid. It had a completely circular mouth, with sharp teeth all around, and far too many tentacles that looked like thick vines whipping around in back.
It could attach itself to a person, she thought. But she had a terrible feeling that it could do more.
It could turn transparent and pull itself inside you and you would feel no more than a pinprick.
And then what would happen?
