In any case, she couldn’t fool me. Mia Bardot was a little beast. And had been since birth.
I grinned back, shaking my head.
“No, really. She always curses when you’re around. I can hear it all the way up to my room.”
“She’s a witch.”
“She likes me, though,” Mia explained, as if this were a contest.
“Because you suck up to her.”
“She doesn’t know about us, you nut, which definitely means it’s because of your personality and not our powers.”
I looked over at the house where Bay had appeared in the doorway. She was standing there in a brown, rather comfortable-looking knit sweater, black trousers, and a leather backpack over one shoulder, talking to her mother.
“You’ll be fine, honey. I can drive you next week, okay?”
“Are you sure she’s one of them? She smells different somehow.”
Mia’s words snapped me out of my stupor and I looked straight ahead to where a mother was crossing the street with a stroller.
“Do you think so?” I asked because I was aware that she smelled different, but until now, I had thought it was because of me.
“Yes. Whatever it is, it smells different.... Neither unpleasant nor pleasant, you know what I mean?”
Basically, all witches smelled the same. The strong and pure-blooded among them usually had a more penetrating scent than their kind. But Bayla Adams smelled like nothing. Whatever Mia was smelling, I never even started to smell it.
“It’s quite possible that she might not have any powers. After all, Ms. Adams didn’t tell her. Surely you also know about there being Quatura who are so weak they can’t work magic.”
No, I actually didn’t know that.
Witches were usually vain, prudish, and very arrogant when it came to their territory and affairs. That was all I knew.
I looked back over at the Adams. Ms. Adams waved, and I instinctively smiled back. But I noticed that Bay was no longer standing with her.
A clack made me wince, and I looked through the rearview mirror to the back seat, where Bay was tending to her suitcase.
“Do you need help?” asked Mia kindly to the side, knowing full well that this phrase meant as much as Julian, now give her a hand.
But I didn’t even have to get out of the car because from behind came a quick, strained, “No.... I’m fine.” The car door dropped with a loud crash, and this time it was Mia who flinched.
Bay hadn’t exchanged a word with me the entire ride. Not even when Mia had gotten out at Blairville High and wished us a nice first day. She just sat there staring at the passing houses as if I didn’t even exist.
Admittedly, I was a touch interested in what others thought of me. Especially the opinion of some Blairs and their followers could stay away from me. But Bay didn’t even know who she really was, or that she was one of them.
Somehow, I envied this girl for her lack of knowledge and the life she had led there in the States. No rival clans as concentrated as here, a carefree student life, no annoying obligations, not even powers with which anything could go wrong.
If she knew where her mother had brought her here... I wonder how she would react?
California to British Columbia. Those had to be two different worlds.
“How was California?”
“Don’t even try,” she hissed back, not taking her eyes off the window.
By now, we were far from the center of the city in a greener part of town. A street scattered with isolated houses and trees, and I hated this place. Because only a few hundred more meters, and we would be in the pack’s territory.
Their territory was the most extensive, but they didn’t own much that had influence on the city, except for the university. Two more reasons to expand the pack.
I wanted to distract myself, so I tried again.
“I would miss it if I were you. The sun, the beach, and most of all, that carefreeness.”
This time she glanced at me with a look that for a moment showed longing, but then it turned into one that suggested that one more word would make her explode. I noticed that she was pulling her sleeves down further. Was she cold, perhaps?
She must have noticed my searching gaze because, finally, she folded her arms and looked back at the street.
How did she see me? Maybe the way I really was? A clumsy jerk who didn’t know how to behave?
A sobering thought occurred to me.
What if she saw me as I really was?
“I’m sorry,” I sighed, wondering to myself what had just slipped out of my lips. Yet I didn’t even know exactly what I was apologizing for. It was almost as if I had apologized for my past. A past that, to this day, had far-reaching consequences.
I shook my head.
No. Not here. I was on the road with a passenger. Not a good place for such thoughts.
