Awakened

waved one long, gold-fingernailed hand vaguely at the trees that ringed the House of Night campus—“and do that communing-with-the-earth-green-glowy-thing you do. Again.”

“Kramisha, I don’t have time to do that.”

“I ain’t done yet. You need to recharge your business before all hell breaks loose. See, I’m not real sure Zoey is gonna be up for what might be happenin’ tonight.”

Instead of brushing Kramisha and her bossy self aside, Stevie Rae hesitated and thought about what she was saying. “You could be right,” she said slowly.

“She don’t want to come back. You know that, right?” Kramisha said.

Stevie Rae hitched her shoulders. “Well, would you? She’s been through a lot.”

“I don’t think I would, that’s why I’m sayin’ this to you, ’cause I do understand. But Zoey ain’t the only one of us who’s been through a lot lately. Some of us is still goin’ through a lot. We all have to learn to take care of our business and deal.”

“Hey, she’s comin’ back—she is dealing,” Stevie Rae said.

“I ain’t just talkin’ ’bout Zoey.” Kramisha folded the purple piece of notebook paper in half and handed it to Stevie Rae, who took it reluctantly; when she sighed and started to unfold it, Kramisha shook her head. “You don’t need to read it in front a’ me.” Stevie Rae looked up at the Poet Laureate with a question mark on her face. “Look, right now I’m gonna talk to you like a Poet Laureate to her High Priestess, so you need to listen up. Take this poem and go out to the trees. Read it there. Think about it real good. Whatever it is you have goin’ on, you need to make a change. This is the third serious warnin’ I’ve got ’bout you. Stop ignorin’ the truth, Stevie Rae, ’cause what you do don’t just affect yourself. Are you hearin’ me?”

Stevie Rae drew in a deep breath. “I’m hearing you.”

“Good. Go on now.” Kramisha started to walk into the dorm.

“Hey, would you explain to Aphrodite that I had somethin’ to do, so I’m not comin’ in?”

Kramisha looked over her shoulder at Stevie Rae. “Yeah, but you’ll owe me dinner at Red Lobster.”

“Yeah, okay. I like the Loobster,” Stevie Rae said.

“I’m gonna order anything I want.”

“Of course you will,” Stevie Rae muttered, sighed again, and headed for the trees.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Stevie Rae

Stevie Rae wasn’t entirely sure what the poem meant, but she was sure Kramisha was right—she needed to stop ignoring the truth and make a change. The hard part was, she wasn’t sure she could find the truth anymore, let alone know how to change stuff. She looked down at the poem. Her night vision was so good she didn’t even have to move out from under the shadows beneath the old pin oaks that framed the Utica Street side of the campus and the side road that led to the entrance of the school.

“Haiku is always so dang confusin’,” she muttered as she reread the three-line poem again:

You must tell your heart

The cloak of secrets smothers

Freedom: his to choose

It was about Rephaim. And her. Again. Stevie Rae plopped her butt down at the base of the big tree and let her back rest against its rough bark, taking comfort from the sense of strength the oak exuded. I’m supposed to tell my heart, but what do I tell it? And I know keeping this secret is smothering me, but there’s no one I can tell about Rephaim. Freedom is his to choose? Hell yeah, it is, but his daddy has such a hard grip on him that he can’t see that.

Stevie Rae thought how ironic it was that an ancient immortal and his half-bird, half-immortal son had what was basically an old-school version of the same abusive daddy/son relationship a zillion other kids she knew had with their jerk daddies. Kalona had been treating him like a slave and making him believe messed-up stuff about himself for so long that Rephaim didn’t even realize how wrong it was.

Then of course it was equally messed up that she was where she was with Rephaim—Imprinted and bound to him because of a debt she promised the black bull of Light.

“Well, not really just ’cause of a debt,” Stevie Rae whispered to herself. She’d been drawn to him way before that. “I l-like him.” She stumbled over the words, even though the night was silent and only the listening trees were present. “I wish I knew if that’s ’cause of our Imprint or ’cause there really is something, someone inside him worth liking.”

She sat there, staring up at the spiderweb of winter-bare boughs over her head. And then, because she was spilling her guts to the trees, she added, “The truth is I shouldn’t ever see him again.” Just imagining Dragon finding out that she’d saved and Imprinted with the creature who had killed Anastasia made her feel like she wanted to puke. “Maybe the freedom part of the poem means that if I stop seein’ him, Rephaim will choose to leave. Maybe our Imprint will fade away if we stay apart.” Just the thought of that made her want to puke, too. “I really wish someone would tell me what to do,” she said morosely, resting her chin on her hands.

As if in answer to her, the night breeze brought her the sound of someone sobbing. Frowning, Stevie Rae stood up, cocked her head, and listened. Yep, someone was definitely bawling their eyes out. She didn’t really want to follow the sound. The truth was, she’d had more than enough bawling lately to last for quite some time, but the cries were so heartbreaking, so deeply sad, that she couldn’t just ignore it—that wouldn’t be right. So Stevie Rae let the crying lead her up the little road that ended at the big, black iron gate that was the main entrance to the school.

At first she didn’t understand what it was she was seeing. Yeah, she could tell the crying person was a woman, and she was outside the House of Night gate. As Stevie Rae got closer she could see that the woman was kneeling in front of the gate, just off to the right side of it. She’d leaned what looked like a big funeral wreath made of plastic pink carnations and green stuff against the stone pillar. In front of that she’d lit a green candle and, as she continued to cry, she was pulling a picture out of her purse. It was when the woman brought the picture to her lips to kiss it that Stevie Rae’s eyes found her face.

“Mama!”

She’d barely whispered the word, but her mom’s head came up and her eyes instantly found Stevie Rae.

“Stevie Rae? Baby?”

At the sound of her mama’s voice, the knot that had been building inside Stevie Rae’s stomach suddenly dissolved, and she ran to the gate. With no other thought except getting to her mama, Stevie Rae scaled the stone wall easily, landing on the other side.

“Stevie Rae?” she repeated, this time in a questioning whisper.

Finding it impossible to speak, Stevie Rae just nodded, making the tears that had started to pool in her eyes slosh over and spill down her face.

“Oh, baby, I’m so glad I got to see you one more time.” Her mom dabbed at her face with the old-fashioned cloth handkerchief she was clutching in one hand, making an obvious effort to stop crying. “Sweetheart, are you happy wherever you are?” Not pausing for an answer, she kept talking, staring at Stevie Rae’s face as if she was trying to memorize it. “I miss you so much. I wanted to come before and leave this wreath for you, and the candle and this real cute eighth-grade picture, but I couldn’t get here because of the storm. Then when the roads was opened I couldn’t make myself, ’cause visitin’ here and leavin’ all this for you would make it final. You’d really be dead.” She mouthed the word, not able to speak it.

“Oh, Mama! I’ve missed you so much, too!” Stevie Rae hurled herself into her arms, buried her face in her mama’s poofy blue coat, and breathing in the scent of home, sobbed her heart out.

“There, there, sweetheart. It’s gonna be fine. You’ll see. Everything’ll be okay.” She soothed and patted Stevie Rae’s back and hugged her fiercely.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Stevie Rae was able to look up at her mom. Virginia “Ginny” Johnson smiled through her tears and kissed her daughter, first on her forehead and then gently on her lips. Then she reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a second handkerchief, this one still neatly folded. “Good thing I brought more than one.”