I texted Carley, "Where are you?" but again got no answer. I wandered down the beach, looking for any sign of her or Nick.
A little way down I saw a head of familiar blond hair. I smiled, but when the head turned towards me I realized my mistake. It wasn"t Holt sitting on the sand with his friends. It was Logan.
He waved me over and I went to say hi. I actually felt a little relieved. It probably wasn"t the best idea for me to be this close to the water without knowing that Holt or Samuel was close by, but I wanted to find Carley.
"Hi, Logan," I said.
"Hey, Autumn. What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at me closely.
I chewed my lip and tried to think of a good excuse. Logan knew I wasn"t supposed to be there.
"Carley texted me," I said. "We had a fight earlier, so I wanted to make sure she was alright. Have you seen her or Nick around?"
"Nope," said Logan, "but I haven"t been looking either."
I wished now more than ever that I had some sort of Fairy power that I could use to ask the plants a or something a where Carley was. This was annoying. Maybe she was just doing it to mess with me because she was still mad, but if she was going to text me and invite me somewhere she should keep hold of her phone and not walk off and leave it somewhere so that I couldn"t find her.
"Thanks," I said. "I"m going to keep looking for her."
"Want to join us?" invited Logan. I now realized that he was sitting with two very pretty girls. One had straight red hair, and her blue bathing suit fit perfectly over her very curvy body. She wasn"t pretty like Susan was pretty, but she was definitely attractive. The other was a giggling brunette, who seemed to think that everything Logan said was the cutest thing in the world, and would emphasize that by covering her mouth and making some sort of twittering sound.
"No thanks," I said. "I should really find my friends."
"Why don"t I go look for them and you can just hang out here? It"s really hot out," Logan offered.
"That"s really nice," I said. I was surprised he"d offered. When he"d found me in his brother"s room he"d seemed a little weird, but I guess he was making up for it now. "But I really should just go find them."
"I"ll go with you then." And he sprang to his feet.
Giggly Girl Number Two looked disappointed and showed it by tossing her hair and glaring at me.
"Can we come too?" she asked.
"I won"t be long. Just have to help my brother"s girlfriend," he replied.
Giggly Girls One and Two looked happier now that he"d called me Holt"s girlfriend, as if they felt confident that I would never switch brothers, and therefore they had nothing to worry about.
Logan and I started walking. I"d been avoiding him, but after a couple of minutes I realized that I didn"t have to. He was really nice. He cracked jokes about the Cheshires, particularly Lydia and Leslie, whom he knew I couldn"t stand.
After walking along the beach for a while and seeing no sign of Carley and Nick, I decided to ask Logan what I"d been wondering ever since I had seen him. I could have asked Holt, but it always felt too awkward to bring Samuel up to Holt. Logan was a different story; I was pretty sure that Logan wouldn"t say anything to Holt about my asking.
"So, I saw Lydia earlier," I started. I was never very good with subtlety.
"How is she? Evil as usual?"
"Pretty much," I said. "But she said something interesting...."
"Oh? Was it the fastest way to freeze a person to death in temperatures of ninety or above?"
"What? No," I answered. "It"s about Susan and Samuel."
"Ha," said Logan. "You"re just noticing about them?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Susan"s been in love with Samuel for years," he answered. "Totally head over heels. I think she always held out hope that she"d end up with him, maybe if it was only that he would choose a Queen he didn"t really like and keep her on the side. Sometimes princes do that. I have no idea, because she"s too good for that sort of c.r.a.p, but you never know."
"Wait, but Samuel doesn"t feel the same way, does he?" I asked. The thought of him with someone else upset me. Maybe it was that whole destiny thing. Then I had an even more unsettling thought. Maybe Carley was right. Maybe I just flitted around from man to man.
"What?" asked Logan. "You look queasy."
I glared at him.
"So, they"re together?" I asked. I could barely get the words out, but I had to know the truth.
"No idea," said Logan, shaking his head. "Never been sure how Samuel felt about her and he always keeps to himself. But you came along this summer, which I think screwed some s.h.i.t up for us."
He said it while he smiled, but the smile wasn"t friendly.
Not wanting to talk about this any more, because Logan was making me feel like Susan"s predicament was my fault, I said, "No sign of Carley?"
"No," said Logan.
I stopped dead in the sand and looked at my phone. There were still no texts from her, which wasn"t like her at all. The only time she didn"t reply to a text within five minutes was when she was working, and I knew for a fact that she wasn"t working today. She"d once said to me that she was worried about dying, mostly because no one would be there to reply to the text messages she got.
I grabbed Logan"s arm. "Run for help," I cried.
"What are you talking about?" asked Logan. "Run for whose help?"
I stared at my phone and started to frantically text Holt. He had to get here. Now. Carley had gone to the water. She"d been mad at me and gone to the water and now she was gone. I don"t know if she"d texted me beforehand or not, but what I did know was that the Water Sprite must have her and for all I knew the Sprite could have killed her by now.
I started to race towards the water, ignoring Logan"s cries for me to stop. I just hoped it wasn"t too late.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
I ran into the ice cold waves. I had no plan. I knew very well that I wouldn"t be able to stay underwater for more than twenty seconds or so without being forced to the surface. I wasn"t even sure about that, because it wasn"t as if I had made a practice of seeing how long I could hold my breath. The talents we don"t know we need until it"s too late, I thought.
I was waist deep when I turned around to make sure Logan had gone for help. He was nowhere to be seen.
I knew I had to dive under, to completely submerge myself in the water. I had to let the Sprite know I was there. So I dropped under the waves, pushing my breath out as I went. I didn"t dare to open my eyes because every time I had ever tried it, my vision had ended up painful and blurry.
I came up for air, then dove under again. All I could think about was Carley. I couldn"t believe I"d gotten my friend into this. She didn"t deserve it, no one did, and now she was lost at sea. I wanted to cry, but I was already too cold.
I came up for a second time, taking in one great big gulp of air.
That"s when I felt something slimy encircle my foot. I fought not to flinch, even though terror gripped me. Gritting my teeth, I lashed out with my free leg, trying to hit whatever it was that was grabbing me.
"Give me Carley back," I screamed. "She doesn"t have anything to do with this!"
She is mine now. As you will be soon, little princess.
The voice sent shivers into my bones.
Panic rose up in my chest as I felt myself being tugged under, but this time I wasn"t caught off guard. Instead of going along and letting myself be pulled out to sea, I firmly planted my free leg and pushed as hard as I could backwards, trying to pull the thing towards the sh.o.r.e.
Instead of going along nicely, it tightened its grip. What felt like sharp nails stuck into my skin and I gave a small cry of pain. Looking through the water, I could see something short and a metallic green. I knew Water Sprites weren"t large, but I hadn"t expected them to be so small, either.
"Autumn!" I heard a yell from the sh.o.r.e. I turned my head and saw Samuel running towards the water, just as whatever was holding my leg gave a great yank.
I screamed as I was jerked under the surface. I had no time to take a breath and my mouth filled immediately with salt water.
Frantically, I spun around. The Sprite couldn"t pull me away as easily as before, because I dug my hands as hard as I could into the sand and was again trying to kick back at its small form. I could see its luminous eyes and a trail of long black hair flowing out behind it, and its pale skin (well, of course it was pale; it wasn"t exactly something that would tan) almost glowing. I felt the sand underneath my hands shift. My grip was slipping.
Luckily, Samuel wasn"t far away, and Lydia and Leslie had come with him.
I had thought the water was cold when I went in, but suddenly it was freezing. If I hadn"t known better I would have said that it was about to become a block of ice. I could see the Water Sprite"s movements slowing. Shock and the drop in temperature seemed to be confusing it.
Your friends won"t be able to save you, little princess. Your princes won"t be able to save you. They will mourn for you.
The voice inside my head felt like a pounding hammer with an endless supply of nails. Inside my pounding head, I cringed.
But already, the eerie voice sounded less threatening as the Sprite"s speech slurred with the cold. I felt him trying to fight it and me at the same time, but even though I wanted to be hopeful because I knew that the cold could only be coming from the Cheshires, I was about to run out of air.
Facing the ocean bottom, I tried to hold on. Finally, a pair of pale feet came into view, and strong arms gripped me and pulled me upwards.
I burst out of the water in a spray of droplets and looked up into Holt"s grim eyes.
"Miss me?" I tried to say, but all that came out of my mouth was water.
Gross.
I saw Holt"s faint smile as he took me up onto the sh.o.r.e, but it didn"t come easily. He looked pained. It took me a moment to realize that it was because he was in the water too, and it was most emphatically not his element.
As I came ash.o.r.e I saw that Lydia, Leslie, and Samuel all had their hands stuck into the ocean. To the extent that I could see anything around the beach it was faded and blurry, as if it was only half there. One of the Fairies must be Glamouring everything, I thought; it wouldn"t do for all the residents of Castleton to think that the Cheshires and the Roths were crazy.
Everything happened quickly after that. The Water Sprite had no chance, not against so many Fairies. And I was glad. At first a part of me had felt bad for the thing, which was surely lonely, but not after it killed a girl and tried to kill me. There was no going back after that. I was proud of my friends. I was proud of my own resistance at the end. Most importantly, no one was going to be hurt by a crazy Water Sprite any more.
Carley was also fine. Once she was out of the water she had no idea what had happened, beyond that she had almost drowned again. To deal with her stress and panic she started making out with Nick.
"We have a problem," said Samuel, coming up to Holt and me where we sat on the beach. I was pitched out of my rosy outlook when I saw the worry all over his face. "Are you okay?" he asked me before he continued.
I nodded. Moving my head made my throat hurt.
"What is it?" asked Holt. He was sitting next to me on the sand.
"Water Sprites can"t do this much damage on their own," said Samuel. "I mean, they can do random damage. But this Water Sprite always knew where Autumn was. How could he know? Why was he always close by?"
Holt was nodding. "We talked about that, I know. But how are we supposed to find out who it was? They must already know that the Water Sprite was defeated."
I felt cold all over even though the day was warm. If what Holt and Samuel were saying was true, that the Water Sprite was just a p.a.w.n, there was a mastermind out there who still had it in for me.
I tugged on Holt"s arm. "Can"t we just leave it alone? If the Water Sprite is gone then I"m not going to get hurt. Am I?"
Holt"s face was tight. "We don"t know why you are being targeted."
He let that sink in. What he meant was, "We think you are being targeted because of us."
I took a deep breath. "So, you don"t think I"ll be safe until this person is caught?" I asked. I had a flashback to the night when Samuel came to find me alone on the beach, when I had felt the pull of the Water Sprite so strongly. I had seen someone walking along the sand that night, and now I wondered if that had been my true attacker. I wondered how close I had come to getting hurt, or worse. And I had been mad at Samuel for interrupting, I thought ruefully.
"Do you think it"s your mother?" I asked Samuel. This was no time to tiptoe around issues.
Samuel shook her head. "First, she"s not anywhere near here. Second, it"s not her style. She likes to make people miserable herself, not have others do it for her." I almost grinned. That was a perfect description of his mother. But she wasn"t the only Cheshire who disliked me.
"And don"t even start on Lydia or Leslie," said Samuel. "They"ve done nothing but try to help against the Water Sprite. Like just now."
I looked at Holt. He was nodding as if he agreed with Samuel, but if the Cheshires weren"t out to get me then who could it be? Who else could possibly have a problem with what was happening with Holt and Samuel?
"Let"s not worry about it tonight," said Holt. "Let"s just relax. She needs to rest." He pointed down at me, and I nodded. I didn"t realize until he said it, but I was exhausted. I nodded again.
"Everyone should come to our house tonight," said Samuel. "We"ll relax and maybe talk about what to do. But we won"t do anything else today. We are going to find out who is behind this, though."
Now it was Holt"s turn to nod. After Samuel walked away I asked, "Why aren"t we going to your house?" I liked the Roths" house better. There was no risk of running into Mrs. Cheshire.
"The Cheshires aren"t really welcome at our house at the moment," said Holt, so close to my ear that I felt his breath on my cold skin. I shivered again. He thought it was from cold, so he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
"We"ll have a nice, relaxing evening. And tomorrow we"ll figure everything out." I put my head against his shoulder. Tomorrow we would figure everything out.
After I talked to Samuel and Holt, Nick insisted on driving Carley and me home and taking care of us. Carley made some comment about his not being the best choice in nursemaids, but he ignored her. Before we left the beach Holt gave us each a flower. Mine sparkled. At first I hesitated to take it because I wasn"t sure what it meant. But when he produced an identical one for Carley I stopped worrying. I wasn"t sure what kind of flower it was, but it had brilliant purple petals and a small brown center. The petals almost glowed. As Leslie walked past I thought she might have muttered, "Show off."
As I expected, Carley perked up when she touched the flower"s stem. I smiled. I was glad that Holt was looking out for my friends. She perked up even more when she heard we were all going to the Cheshires" that night. She hadn"t stopped talking about Samuel"s house since we had been there the last time.
"A shower will revive me," she said. "I can"t believe I slipped in the water."
"You aren"t usually clumsy," said Nick, shaking his head.
Carley blushed and looked down. Nick had gone to get his car, commenting that we could both use the rest. I didn"t even have the energy to protest. I was dead on my feet.
"I"ll need a nap before tonight," I said as we waited for Nick to come back.
Holt, Lydia, Leslie, and Samuel had all left. Logan had shown up to take Holt home, but not before they made sure I was okay. Lydia and Leslie were even civil, but my suspicious nature just a.s.sumed it was because Samuel was there and had threatened to send them to Florida for the winter.