He got the stricken look again.
He's a human. One of them, Thea reminded herself. She put even more scorn in her voice. "I'm part of everything; I did something to your leg... yeah, sure. I bet you believe in Santa Claus, too."
Now he looked shocked-and uncertain. Thea went for the coup de gras. "Or were you just trying to put the moves on me?"
"Huh? No," he said. He blinked and looked around. The desert was the ordinary desert, gray-green and parched and flat. Then he looked at his leg. He blinked again, as if getting a fresh grip on reality. "I... look, I'm sorry if I upset you. I don't know what's wrong with me."
Suddenly he gave a sheepish smile. "Maybe I'm kind of weird from being scared. I guess I'm not as brave as I thought."
Relief trickled through Thea. He was buying it. Thank Isis that humans were stupider than chickens.
"And I wasn't trying to move in on you. I just-" He broke off. "You know, I don't even know your name."
"Thea Harman."
"I'm Eric Ross. You're new here, aren't you?"
"Yes." Stop talking and go, she ordered herself.
"If I can show you around or anything... I mean, I would like to see you again...."
"No," Thea said flatly. She would have liked to have kept it to that monosyllable, but she wanted to crush this new idea of his completely. "I don't want to see you," she said, too rattled to think of any more subtle way to put it.
And then she turned and walked away. What else was there to do? She certainly couldn't talk to him anymore. Even if she would always wonder why he'd been crazy enough to care about the snake, she couldn't ask. From now on she had to stay as far away from him as possible.
She hurried back to the school-and realized immediately that she was late. The parking lot was quiet. Nobody was walking outside the adobe buildings.
On my first day, too, Thea thought. Her backpack was on the ground where she'd dropped it, a notebook lying beside it on the asphalt. She grabbed them both and all but ran to the office.
It was only in physics class, after she'd handed her admission slip to the teacher and walked past rows of curious eyes to an empty seat in the back, that she realized the notebook wasn't hers.
It fell open to a page that had Introduction to Flat-worms scribbled in sloping, spiky blue ink. Below were some pictures labeled Class Turbellaria and Class Trematoda. The worms were beautifully drawn, with their nervous systems and reproductive organs shaded in different colors of highlighter, but the artist had also given them big goofy smiling faces. Grotesque but lovable in a cross-eyed way. Thea turned the page and saw another drawing, the Life Cycle of the Pork Tapeworm.
Yum.
She leafed back to the beginning of the notebook. Eric Ross, Honors Zoology I.
She shut the book.
Now how was she going to get it back to him?
Part of her mind worried about this through physics and her next class, computer applications. Part of it did what it always did at a new school, or any new gathering of humans: it watched and cataloged, keeping alert for danger, figuring out how to fit in. And part of it simply said, I didn't know they had a zoology class here.
The one question she didn't want to ask herself was what had happened out there in the desert? Whenever the thought came up, she pushed it away brusquely. It must have had something to do with her senses being too open after merging with the snake.
Anyway, it hadn't meant anything. It had been a weird one-time fluke.
In the main hallway at break, Blaise came rushing up, quick as a lioness despite the high heels.
"How's it going?" Thea said, as Blaise drew her into a temporarily deserted classroom.
Blaise just held out her hand. Thea fished in her pocket for the carnelian.
"You ruined the chain, you know," Blaise said as
she shook back midnight hair and examined the stone for damage. "And it was one I designed."
"Sorry. I was in a hurry."
"Yes, and why? What did you want with it?" Blaise didn't wait for a response. "You healed that boy, didn't you? I knew he got bitten. But he was human."
"Reverence for life, remember?" Thea said. " 'An ye harm none, do as you will." She didn't say it with much conviction.
"That doesn't mean humans. And what did he think?"
"Nothing. He didn't know I was healing him; he didn't even realize he got bitten." It wasn't exactly a lie.
Blaise looked at her with smoky, suspicious gray eyes. Then she glanced heavenward and shook her head. "Now if you'd been using it to heat his blood, I'd understand. But maybe you were doing a little of that, too...."
"No, I was not," Thea said. And despite the warmth that rose in her cheeks her voice was cold and sharp. The horror of that death vision was still with her. "In fact, I don't ever want to see him again," she went on jaggedly, "and I told him so, but I've got his stupid notebook, and I don't know what to do with it." She waved the notebook in Blaise's face.
"Oh." Blaise considered, head on one side. "Well... I'll take it to him for you. I'll track him down somehow."
"Would you?" Thea was startled. "That's really nice."
"Yes, it is," Blaise said. She took the notebook, handling it carefully, as if her nails were wet. "Okay, well, I'd better get to my next class. Algebra." She made a face. " 'Bye now."
Suspicion struck as Thea watched her go.
Blaise wasn't usually so accommodating. And that " 'bye now"... too sweet. She was up to something.
Thea followed the ruby of Blaise's shirt as Blaise went back into the main hallway, then turned without hesitation into a locker-lined corridor. There, searching through one of the lockers, was a lean figure with long legs and sandy hair.
Fastest tracking I've ever seen, Thea thought sourly. She peered around the Mediterranean-blue door of a broken locker.
Blaise walked up behind Eric very slowly, hips swaying. She put a hand on his back.
Eric jumped slightly, then turned around.
Blaise just stood there.
It was all she needed to do. Blaise reeled guys in just by being. It was the glorious dark hair, the smoldering gray eyes... plus a figure that could stop traffic on the freeway. Curves galore, and clothes that emphasized every one. On another girl it might have been too much, but on Blaise it was just breathtaking. Guys who thought they liked the waif look dropped everything to follow her just as fast as guys who thought they liked blonds.