Chapter Seven
"Okay, run that by me one more time?" I asked of Celeste. We were sitting at the breakfast nook table Tuesday night over homemade sugar cookies and milk.
"We're going to tell Travis that I'm going with you to see a band at Nicky's tomorrow night, so that I can secretly be there for your ascension."
"And if he shows up at Nicky's?"
"Then we're screwed." I pushed the plate away from me and laid my head on the table. My melodramatic side told me that I should be frantic, but I really didn't feel much about the fact that I could die in less than 24 hours. I was trying to take on one problem at a time, and the main problem at this moment was figuring out a way to get Celeste to the Putnam barn without Travis being suspicious of where she was going and why. "Let's use the Sons as an excuse." I raised an eyebrow at her, my cheek still firmly planted against the cold wood tabletop.
"What?"
"We'll tell Travis that you and I are having dinner with the boys."
"Oh, yeah, because you having dinner with a bunch of gorgeous males is better than the fact that I'm secretly a witch."
"Then you come up with something."
"I don't want to," I whined. She rolled her eyes at me and leaned back in her chair. She was staring at me so I stuck my tongue out at her. "I guess we could just ask Nicky to cover for us. He's still got it bad for you, so I'm sure he would."
"How are you and Reid?" I sat up at this question and slouched in my chair.
"Fine." I continued looking at her. "Where'd that come from?"
"I don't know, just wondering." I opened my mouth to say something else, but quickly closed it when my phone rang. It was Caleb. I flipped it open and sat back in my chair.
"Hello?"
"Karli? We have a huge problem." I raised an eyebrow and looked at Celeste.
"What's that?"
"I kind of just told Sarah."
"Told Sarah, what, exactly?"
"About us."
"I don't understand."
"I told her about me and you, and how we dated a million times and would break up. Then I told her about you and Reid and that's why you were hesitant to try to have a relationship with him." Yeah, the fact that I'd slept with Reid two years ago was the reason I didn't want to date him; the fact that I had it for Caleb had nothing to do with it.
"What's the problem?"
"She's pissed off at me, that's the problem!" he yelled at me. My attitude immediately switched into defense mode.
"Caleb, chill out, I didn't do anything wrong here." He sighed and I could imagine him digging the heels of his palms into his eyes.
"God, I'm sorry, Karls." I froze. He had just called me 'Karls.' I hadn't heard that pet name in years. "Are you still there?"
"Yeah."
"What do I do?"
"Well, I'm at Celeste's right now, but I'm leaving soon. Maybe when I get back to the dorms I'll swing by her room and talk to her."
"Are you so sure that's a good idea?"
"No, but do you have a better one?"
"No."
"Okay, then."
"Call me and let me know how it goes?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"What are friends for?"
"Great drinking parties."
"That's not exactly what I was going for, but, okay." We said our goodbyes and hung up. Then Celeste walked me to the door.
"Karli, just be careful with Sarah, okay? I realize how easy it would be to break her down, but Caleb really needs your help." I started out onto the lawn and then at my crappy old 1982 Toyota Celica sitting in the driveway.
"Celeste, I would never do that to her," I began, turning around to face her. " I would never do that to Caleb."
"I didn't think so, but as we've all seen, power is sometimes hard keep under control." I snorted and sighed before I hugged my sister.
"Hey, since tomorrow is my birthday, how about you let me take the Tahoe?"
"Hey, how about not?" I pouted as she hugged me again and pushed me towards my car. "You turn 18 tomorrow which means you get, like, four of your trust funds. You can buy a car with one of them."
"It won't take a whole one to buy a car." She shrugged, said goodbye, and walked back into the house, locking the door behind her. I stuck my tongue out and climbed into my car, praying that the piece of junk would start. It did with ease and I pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road. Then I realized that I had again forgotten to ask Celeste about Mom. Oops.
The 13 minute drive wasn't nearly long enough for me to plan what I was going to say to Sarah. Then again, it would have been useless anyways. I didn't know her well enough to know what she would say to what I was telling her.
I took a deep breath as I walked down her hall and stood in front of her dorm room door. I rapped on it three times and waited, breathing. She opened the door with a smile, saw me, and her smile dropped. I slipped my foot between the doorframe and the path of the door so when she tried to slam the door, she couldn't.
"Karli, you are not welcome here, and I'm not kidding," she said, still trying to close the door.
"Sarah, it's time you and I had a little chat." She was frantic with the door, then, trying over and over to get it to close. "My foot is in the way, you're not going to get it closed." She looked up at me and I could see the anger in her eyes, and deeper than that, hurt.
"I don't want to talk to you."
"I know that, but I need to talk to you."
"Please, just leave." I almost felt sorry for her. She was trying to hard to be strong but Caleb had just smashed her heart into a million pieces and there I was trying to help her pick them up, but she believed only the worst in me. Not that I could really blame her.
"Not until you talk to me." She broke then. A sobbing mess, she just fell to the floor. I pushed through the door and helped her get to the bed. I closed the door behind us and sat beside her. She wouldn't look at me, and I could do was sit there. "Sarah, what happened between me and Caleb happened. I'm not going to deny that. But I am going to tell you that we were kids. We were stupid and thought we were meant to be together. Which, obviously, was very wrong."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"All of it? Why were you together? Why did you think you were meant to be together? Why were you wrong?"
"God, Caleb is going to kill me." She looked at me then.
"For what?" I pushed my fingers through my hair and turned to completely face her.
"Sarah, I'm the descendant of the sixth family of Ipswich."
"There are only five families. I've seen the book, Karli."
"Yeah, you've seen the chapters of the book, but you've never seen the prologue."
"What?"
"John Putnam's mistresses are the ones who came together to write the Book of Damnation. They began with a prologue, but never got any further because John discovered them and took the book away. He ripped the prologue out and burned it, but was surprised to find that the pages would not burn." I looked at her; her eyes were wide with interest. "Sarah, you cannot tell anyone what I'm about to tell you."
"I know, I can't tell anyone about the Sons."
"No, I mean, you can't even tell the Sons what I'm about to tell you. This stays between you and I."
"Why?"
"Because, basically, what I'm about to tell you could change the outcome of the human race." She said nothing. "John did not have time to retrieve the pages from the fire, however, because the City Council barged into his house and arrested him. His sixth and final mistress, Sadie Tuten, who was actually his house cleaner, quickly grabbed the pages and hid them away. She was three months pregnant at the time. Everyone assumed the child was that of her husbands, but it was actually John Putnam's."
"I don't understand why I can't tell Caleb this."
"Let me finish."
"Sorry."
"It's okay. The reason that John Putnam tried to destroy the prologue was his third child conceived out of wedlock turned out to be a girl. He was embarrassed and shamed, so he killed her mother, thinking it was her fault. He hid the girl away from the world, but never had the heart to kill her, you know, daddy's little girl, and all that. He was a male chauvinist, and believed that nothing would ever come from this child, but she turned 13 about a week before he was killed. She, like the men, would receive her powers when she ascended. She did, five years later, and had one son, who received powers, also."
"Cool."
"It's confusing, because sometimes it's a male, and sometimes it's a female that is born, but John Putnam didn't want the world to know that females could have the powers, and the prologue told all about his female child. So, before he died, he promised his mistresses that if they ever wrote of her again, he'd come back from the dead and kill them, yadda yadda, and he also cast a spell right before he was killed."
"What was it?"
"Any female that does not possess the courage, heart, and strength equal to that of a male will die through ascension on her 18th birthday."
"Oh my God."
"Yeah, and I'm to ascend tomorrow. Anyways, the reason that you can't tell the Sons is because of what else the prologue says."
"What?"
"That there are no consequences of using. The addiction, the aging? Those are all psychologically carried out. These men really believe that they will age, so they do. They really believe they'll become addicted, so they do. You cannot tell the Sons because with the power that they have, they could pretty much take over the world, Sarah. You don't realize just how much power they possess. Neither do they, because they're afraid to test it out because of the fear that they'll become addicted. It's a self-contained system of checks and balances, all created by the mistresses of John Putnam."
"But, you could have saved Caleb's father!"
"No, no, he was far too gone before I received the prologue."
"Wait, wait, wait. Before you 'received' the prologue?" I sat quietly for a few minutes. "Karli?"
"Yeah."
"You possess it?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"That's how it stays in the families. My blood line is the only one that can even know that it exists. Every child receives it on his or her 13th birthday with the promise that he or she will be killed if the others find out. It's a huge responsibility for a 13-year-old." We sat quietly for a few moments, her absorbing the information I had just given her.
"So, what if you die tomorrow night? There are no more descendants of the sixth family, right?"
"Right, if I die, the sixth family dies with me."
"Jeez."
"You're telling me."
"Do you mind if I come tomorrow? I know the Sons are going."
"What? Want to see me die?" She looked appalled and I laughed.
"Karli, of course not."
"Sarah, I was kidding. You can come, but only if you forgive me and Caleb for not telling you about us."
"I do forgive you. I guess I kind of understand now, like, about how you thought you could be together. But what I don't understand is why you guys always broke up."
"I wanted a relationship and all he wanted was a chick to call his girlfriend."
"Ouch. He's changed since then." I smiled.
"Yeah."
"Hold up. You wanted a real relationship, but you were with Reid?"
"Reid has always treated me differently than he did other girls."
"I certainly hope so." I gave a playful roll of my eyes and she actually hugged me. "Friends?"
"Friends."