Fearless The King Series Book One - By Tawdra Kandle Page 0,55
me into him. I felt very safe and very grateful.
He leaned back, still holding me. His fingers grazed over my forehead and along my cheek as his eyes searched my face.
“Are you okay?” he demanded. “No bruises, no cuts or scrapes…”
“I was sitting down when it happened, and I never actually went under. It was a second of faintness, and everyone is making much more out of it than it was.”
He pulled me close again. “I am so sorry. It’s my fault. I’ve felt horrible all afternoon.”
“What do you mean, your fault? You had nothing to do with it.”
“I was the one who suggested you listen to Nell. It was something to do with her that knocked you out, wasn’t it? When that girl from your class came in to tell me you had passed out and were going home—” He closed his eyes and laid his cheek on the top of my head, stroking my back. “I knew it had to be something to do with Nell.”
I leaned back slightly and held up my hand. “Hold on just a minute. I don’t want to get into this here.”
Opening the front door, I leaned inside. “Mom! How long til dinner?”
She appeared in the hallway that led to the kitchen. “About half an hour. Why?”
“Would it be okay if Michael and I went for a quick walk before we eat? I want to get out in the air a little bit.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea after today?”
“Mom, Michael will be with me the whole time. I promise, if I get even the tiniest bit dizzy, he’ll throw me over his shoulder and bring me home.”
She smiled. “Okay. Be careful, and be back in half an hour.”
“I promise.”
I closed the door behind me and offered Michael my hand. “Shall we?”
We turned down the sidewalk. “First of all, it wasn’t your fault. It was a good idea, and I would have done it anyway. And it’s not your fault or mine that Nell is evil.”
“Evil?” he asked, surprised.
I filled him in on what had transpired that afternoon in History class. I watched his face carefully and was relieved to see not a hint of disbelief there.
“A knife? Are you sure it was a knife?”
“Positive. A big and nasty knife.”
He was very serious now. “I don’t know what to make of it. Could it be just Nell—I don’t know, fantasizing or something?”
“Well, yuck, even if she’s fantasizing, the girl needs help. And if I had wandered onto this image by chance, I might have thought the same thing. But adding it to what I heard from Amber today, I have to say, no, this was more of a concrete plan than wishful thinking.”
“So what do we do? Can we tell a teacher or the police or something?”
I had been mulling this over all afternoon. “I don’t think we can. We’d have to lie in order to do it. I can’t risk telling anyone exactly how I came by this information, even if I thought they might believe me. I considered telling my parents, but I’m afraid they’d overreact and pull me out of school. And then probably out of the state.”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “We definitely don’t want that. So can’t we just say we overheard Nell making these plans?”
“I don’t even know what the plans are, exactly, except they’re not good. And Nell will know that we never overheard her, because she probably never talked to anyone else about this. Whatever ‘this’ is.”
“The chanting you mentioned… that was weird. Do you think you remember any of the words? Maybe that has something to do with it.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “I don’t know. Maybe. I know I can’t tell you any of them right now, but if I heard it again, I might recognize it.”
He seemed troubled, more so than he had before.
“What? What are thinking that you don’t want to tell me?” I demanded. I could only feel an usual reticence and reluctance.
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I’ve lived here all my life, and there’s been talk, but I always thought that was all it was. Like tourist hype, you know. My parents always told me it was just that. But they also won’t live in town.”
“What kind of talk? I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I told you about how the town was started, with King bringing his carnival people here to settle. And he played up the whole mystical angle, remember?”