Spellcaster. Cara Shultz Lynn

pastrami sandwich.

       “Kristin.” I just had to growl the one word, and both Jenn and Cisco wore identical expressions of sympathy as I pulled my sandwich out of my bag.

       “If you make it through this year without punching that girl in the face, you owe me five bucks—or maybe even a pony,” Cisco said as I squirted a packet of mayo onto my turkey-and-cheese hero. I bit into the sandwich angrily, even though guilt, worry and plain old annoyance had vanquished my appetite.

       “It will never stop amazing me how Kristin was in a few commercials as a kid, so now she thinks she’s better than everyone.” Jenn frowned, glancing over to where Kristin was lounging on a bench with Kendall, who effortlessly looked glamorous. Hell, even Kristin managed to look effortlessly chic.

       “So, any word from Brendan?” Cisco asked, and I pulled my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket to check it for the billionth time that afternoon.

       “Nothing.” I shook my head bitterly as a fresh new wave of guilt slammed into me. “So, Jenn, what’s up with Austin? You guys haven’t seemed…friendly…lately,” I said, changing the subject without any tact or grace. But Jenn’s on-and-off romance with the very enthusiastic junior Student Council rep had always been a source of amusement for Cisco and me.

       “He kept trying to force me to try out for the spring choral performance,” she snorted, picking apart her BLT and flinging an anemic-looking T into a garbage can.

       “Do you even sing?” I asked, and she emphatically shook her head. Austin took his role in student government way too seriously. The guy lived and breathed for Vince A. He probably wept every time there was a snow day, drying his tears with the school handbook.

       “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Austin was going to get a tramp stamp of the school insignia,” Cisco cracked, and I nearly choked on my sandwich, laughing.

       “Oh, he’s talked about getting a tattoo of the school insignia. Over his heart. You guys don’t even know. Anyway, enough about Austin.” Jenn waved her hands impatiently. “There are plenty of cute guys at my sister’s dorm. You know, if you two weren’t so settled in relationships, you could come and wing me. Or you could come and pretend to be single and wing me. The dorm parties are awesome. Em, you could bring Ashley. And Cisco, I bet Gabe won’t mind.” She smiled, hoping to entice him with the offer, but Cisco shook his head.

       “I’m quite happy with Gabe, thank you very much.” Cisco smiled. He was out everywhere except Vince A, where people wore judgey pants as if they were part of the school uniform.

       “But speaking of Gabe—” Cisco paused, taking out his cell phone and showing me a bright orange flyer “—I’m sending you this even though I know you’re probably a lost cause. Gabe’s new band is playing the Battle of the Bands tomorrow night at Magel. They’re awesome. They used to be called Duck Duck Goose, but some band at Collegiate had that name. So now they’re Freeze Tag. Anyway, Em, it would be nice if you saw him actually sound good. They do punk covers of pop songs, it’s hysterical.”

       “His old band wasn’t that terrible,” I lied, and Cisco just raised his eyebrow at me. It was true—Cisco’s boyfriend, Gabe, played drums in one of the worst bands in history (with one of the worst names).

       “So, Broken Echo is no more…no more…no more… .” I called, letting my voice fade out like an echo as I pretended to wipe a tear from my eye.

       “Kenny decided he wanted to go solo as a rapper. You should hear him try to rap about life on the street. Like life on Central Park West is really hard. ‘Soy milk in my latte, who’s ready to par-tay.’” Cisco’s brown eyes twinkled devilishly as he mocked the band’s grandstanding guitarist.

       We busied ourselves coming up with some non-PG raps for Kenny as we finished our lunch. As we were trying to find something that rhymed with “foie gras,” Jenn jumped up, wiping the last of the bacon from her mouth. She hopped off the stone wall and skidded on the wet grass a little, grabbing the wall to steady herself.

       “I’m still hungry,” she announced. “Wanna come with me to the café, buy some overpriced cookies or something for the ride home?”

      The ride home…when I’d find out what happened to Brendan. And suddenly I felt horribly, terribly, soul-crushingly guilty for the levity I’d enjoyed for the past ten minutes.

       “I’ll come,” Cisco said, standing up more carefully than Jenn had, crumpling the remains of his sandwich into a ball. “Emma, are you coming?”

       “No, I think I want to walk around, take some pics,” I said, finally finding my new camera—a Christmas present from Aunt Christine—in my backpack. Brendan had told me how much he liked Fort Tryon Park, but he hadn’t been there since he was a little kid. I wanted to take a few pictures of the grounds for him. But the truth was I really just wanted to be alone in case I started crying. Between my little breakdown last night—and the crushing flood of guilt I was drowning in—my emotions were bubbling right under the surface. Angelique would be proud of how in-touch with my inner emogirl I was. Meet the worst superhero ever! Emogirl, whose superpower is crying on command.

      They headed toward the café as I took a deep breath and tried to calm my stripped nerves. I started walking along a path on the grounds, taking pictures of the impressive Cloisters. It was pretty here. Quiet—much more relaxing than Central Park. The birds were louder than the minimal traffic noises from the nearby parking lot.

       I wanted to get a full shot of the museum, so I walked several yards away, farther into the park as I toyed with the panoramic setting on my camera.

       I turned to my left, taking a shot of the trees, bright green with new leaves.

       I turned west, snapping a pic of the beige stone structure. It looked like a knight should come barreling through those doors instead the group of tourists who emerged, cameras in hand as they piled into their tour bus.

       I continued walking, into an area more densely packed with trees, trying to play with the nature settings on my camera. There were too many shadows.

       “Like I know what white balance even is,” I muttered aloud, playing with the buttons. I looked at the digital screen again—there was a bigger shadow.

       I put the camera down and squinted my eyes in the distance.

       There’s no way I was mistaken. A person—at least, I think it was a person—in all black with a black hood covering the face—was standing amidst the trees, the figure obscured by the shade.

       And then the figure started running toward me.

      Chapter 3

      At first, my feet were frozen to the ground. My brain screamed to my body to run, but I couldn’t force my limbs to move. It was like they were locked—immobile from the fear that this was happening to me. Again.

       “This can’t be real,” I whispered, my brain reeling as the hooded figure swerved around the trees, coming my way.

       “Run.”

       I heard the disembodied voice from somewhere. The rough sound of it was enough to jolt me out of my shock until I realized it was mine. I spun around and started running through the trees, back to the path, the panic building as I stumbled through the unfamiliar terrain. The last time I had to run for my life, it was right after the winter formal, when Anthony chased me through Central Park. But then, I knew the area. I knew the park. This time, I was racing through Fort Tryon blind.

       I sprinted back toward where I thought the path to the Cloisters were, weaving my way through the landscape. I had no idea how close the hooded figure was. I just knew I had to get away.

       My shoes skidded on the rain-dampened blades of grass. I pitched forward, my palms outstretched as I stumbled into the trunk of a nearby tree, the slick soles of my Mary Janes slipping on the wet ground. I whipped my head around, looking for the hooded figure. I didn’t see him, but that didn’t mean anything. He