The Power of Love kbaa-2 Page 2

  "Come get them." Gregory egged him on, holding up Eric's trunks. "Come on. Give it your best shot."

  "I'm going to—" "Sure, sure," Gregory baited.

  Eric suddenly stopped running. "I'll get you, Gregory," he warned. "When you least expect it."

  Chapter 2

  Lacey sat back in the cafe chair, smiling at Tristan and looking very pleased with herself. Apparently she had forgiven him for dragging her away from the pool house free-for-all at Eric's party. Now she hooked her thumbs together and flapped her hands, rippling her fingers like wings. "You have to admit, landing that butterfly on Ivy was a nice touch."

  Tristan eyed her shimmering fingers and long nails, and responded with something between a grimace and a smile. When he had first met Lacey Lovitt, he had thought the purple nails and the odd magenta rinse on her dark, spiked hair were a result of her hanging around in this world for two years — a long period of time for their kind of angel. But actually it was the way she liked her nails and hair to look, the way she had colored them after her last Hollywood film and before her plane went down.

  "The butterfly was nice," he began, "but—" "You're wondering how I did it," she interrupted. "I guess I'll have to teach you about using force fields." She eyed the dessert tray as it went by — not that she, or he, could actually eat. "But—" Tristan said again. "You're wondering how I knew about the butterfly," she said. "I told you, I read all about Stonehill High's hero, the great swimmer, Tristan Carruthers, in the local paper. I knew the butterfly was your stroke. I knew it would make Ivy think of you."

  "What I was wondering was this: Couldn't you have left die pies alone?"

  Her eyes slid over to the dessert tray again. "Don't even think about it," he said. There were only a handful of customers sitting at the town's outdoor cafe at four-thirty in the afternoon, but he knew Lacey could create chaos with very little. Two pies and some whipped cream — that's all it had taken earlier at Eric's. "I mean, isn't that kind of stunt a little old, Lacey? It was old when the Three Stooges did it."

  "Oh, lighten up. Dumps," she replied. "Everyone at the party enjoyed it. Okay, okay," she said, "some people enjoyed it, and a few, like Suzanne, got fussy about their hair. But I had a good time."

  Tristan shook his head. Lacey had been lightning-quick, moving around die pool house, invisibly picking fights. She had obviously enjoyed yanking at Gregory's swimming trunks whenever Eric was dose by.

  "Now I know why you never complete your mission," Tristan said.

  "Well, excu-u-use me! Please remind me of dial next time you beg me to come widi you and help you reach Ivy." She stood up abruptly and stomped out of die cafe. Tristan was used со her dramatics and followed her slowly onto Main Street.

  "You've got nerve, Tristan, criticizing my little bit of fun. Where were you when Ivy started making faces like a goldfish down in die deep end of the pool? Who took care of Eric?"

  "You did," he said, "and you know where I was."

  "All tangled up inside of Will." Tristan nodded. The truth was embarrassing. He and Lacey moved silently down die brick sidewalk, passing a row of shops with bright striped awnings. Windows full of antiques and dried-flower arrangements, art books and decorator wallpaper showed off die taste of die wealthy Connecticut town. Tristan still walked as if he were alive and solid, moving out of the way of shoppers.

  Lacey went straight through them.

  "I must be doing something wrong," Tristan said at last. "One moment I'm inside Will, so much a part of him that when he looks at Ivy, I do, too. It's like he feels what I feel for her. Then all of a sudden he pulls back."

  Lacey had stopped to look in the window of a dress shop.

  "I must be pushing too hard," Tristan continued. "I need Will to speak for me. But I think he's discovered me prowling around in his mind, and now he's afraid of me."

  "Or maybe," said Lacey, "he's afraid of her."

  "Of Ivy?"

  "Of his feelings for her."

  "My feelings for her!" Tristan said quickly.

  Lacey turned to look at him, her head cocked. Tristan feigned a sudden interest in an ugly black sequined dress hanging in the window. He couldn't see a reflection of Lacey's face in the glass, any more than he could see his own. Just a shimmer of gold and wisps of soft color shone against the window; he guessed that it was what a believer would see when looking at them.

  "Why?" Lacey asked. "I want to know why you assume that you're the only guy in the world in love with—" Tristan cut in. "I entered Will, and since he's a good radio, he started to feel my feelings and think my thoughts. That's how it works, right?"

  "Didn't it ever occur to you that the reason it was so easy for an amateur like you to enter Will was because he was already feeling your feelings and thinking your thoughts, at least when it comes to Ivy?"

  It had. but Tristan had done his best to squelch the idea.

  "I got inside Beth's mind, too," he reminded her.

  The first time Lacey had seen Beth, she had told Tristan that Ivy's friend would be a natural "radio," someone who could transmit messages from a different side of life. Just as Tristan had coaxed Will into drawing angels in an effort to comfort Ivy, he had gotten Beth to do some automatic writing, though it was so jumbled that no one had been able to make sense of it.

  "You got inside, but it was tougher for you," Lacey pointed out. "You bumbled a lot, remember? And besides, Beth also loves Ivy."

  She turned back to the window. "A killer dress," she said, then walked on. "What I really want to know is what everyone sees in this chick."

  "It was nice of you to save a chick you think so little of," Tristan remarked dryly.

  They passed the photo lab where Will worked and stopped in front of Celentano's, the pizza parlor where Will had drawn the angels on the paper tablecloth.

  "I didn't save her," Lacey replied. "Eric was just playing — but you'd better figure out what kind of game it is. I've known some real creeps in my life, and I've got to say, he's not someone I'd like to party with."

  Tristan nodded. He had so much to learn. After traveling back in time through his own mind, he was sure that someone had cut the brake line the night his car had slammed head-on into a deer. But he had no idea why. "Do you think Eric did it?" he asked. "Went after your brakes?" Lacey twisted a spike of purple hair around a daggerlike fingernail. "That's a leap, from being a bully in the deep end to committing murder. What did he have against you and Ivy?"

  Tristan lifted his hands, then let them drop. "I don't know."

  "What did anybody have against you or her? They could have been after just one of you. If it was you they wanted to get rid of, she's safe now."

  "If she's safe, why was I brought back on a mission?"

  "To annoy me," Lacey said. "Obviously you're some kind of penance for me. Oh, cheer up, Dumps!

  Maybe you just got your mission wrong."

  She slipped through the door of Celentano's without opening it, then reached up mischievously and jangled the three little bells over it. Two guys in T-shirts and grass-stained cutoffs stared at the door.

  Tristan knew she had materialized the tips of her fingers — a trick that he had just recently masteredand managed to pull on the string of bells. She jangled them a second time, and the guys, unable to see either Lacey or Tristan, looked at each other.

  Tristan smiled, then said, "You're going to scare away business."

  Lacey climbed up on the counter next to Dennis Celentano. He had rolled out some dough and was expertly flipping it above his head — until it didn't come back down. It hung like a wet washrag in midair.

  Dennis gaped up at it, then leaned from one side to the other, trying to figure out what was holding up the dough.

  Tristan guessed that the dough was going to be one more pie in the face. "Be nice, Lacey."

  She dropped the dough neatly on the counter. They left Dennis and his customers to look at one another and wonder. "With you around," she complained to Tristan, "I'll be e
arning gold stars and finishing up my mission in no time."

  Tristan doubted it. "Maybe you can earn some more stars by helping me with mine," he told her. "Didn't you tell me there was a way to travel back in time through somebody else's mind? Didn't you say I could search the past through someone else's memory?"

  "No, I said I could," she replied.

  "Teach me."

  She shook her head.

  "Come on, Lacey."

  "Nope."

  They were at the end of the street now, standing in front of an old church with a low stone wall around it. Lacey hopped up on the wall and began to walk it.

  "It's too risky, Tristan. And I don't think it's going to help you any. Even if you could get inside a mind like Eric's, what do you think you'd find? That guy's circuits have been curled and fried. It could be — to use one of his terms — a very bad trip for you."

  "Teach me," he persisted. "If I'm going to learn who cut the brakes, I'm going to have to go back to that night in the mind of everybody who might have seen something, including Ivy."

  "Ivy! You'll never get in! That chick's got you and everyone else closed out cold."

  Lacey paused, waiting till she had Tristan's full attention, then lifted up one leg as if she were doing a balance-beam routine. She's never lost her appetite for an audience, Tristan thought.

  "I tried Ivy myself at the pool party this afternoon," Lacey went on. "I can't imagine how, even when you were alive, you and that chick ever got it on."

  "Do you think you could come up with a way to give advice without making sarcastic remarks about 'that chick'?"

  "Sure," she answered agreeably, and started walking the wall again. "But it wouldn't be half as much fun."

  "I´ll try Philip again," Tristan said, more to himself than to her. "And Gregory—" "Now, Gregory's a tough nut to crack. Do you trust him? Stupid question," she said before he could answer. "You don't trust anyone who's got eyes for Ivy."

  Tristan's head bobbed up. "Gregory's dating Suzanne."

  She laughed-down at him. "You're so naive! It's refreshing, for a jock-hunk type like you, but it's kind of pitiful, too."

  "Teach me," he said for the third time, then reached up and caught her hand. Since angel hands did not pass through each other, he could hold on tight. "I'm worried about her, Lacey, I'm really worried."

  She looked down at him.

  "Help me."

  Lacey stared at her long fingers caught by his.

  She pulled her hand away very slowly, then reached down and patted him on the head. He hated the way she could patronize him, and he didn't like begging, but she knew things that would take a long time for him to learn on his own.

  "Okay, okay. But listen up, because I'm only telling you once."

  He nodded.

  "First you have to find the hook. You have to find something that the person saw or did that night. The best kind of hook is an object or action that is connected with that night only, but avoid anything that might threaten your host. You don't want to set off alarm bells in his head."

  She stepped carefully along a crumbling section of wall. "It's sort of like doing a word search on a library computer. If you pick a term that's too general, you'll call up all kinds of junk you don't want."

  "Easy enough," he said with confidence.

  "Uh-huh," she said, and rolled her eyes. "Once you've got your hook, you enter the person, like you've already done with Will and Beth, only you have to be more careful than ever. If your host feels you prowling around, if something feels strange to him, he's going to be on guard. Then he'll be too alert to let his mind wander back through memories."

  "They'll never guess I'm there."

  "Uh-huh," she said again. "Be patient. Creep." She crept along the wall in slow motion. "And slowly bring into focus whatever image you're using for the hook. Remember to see it the same way that your host would."

  "Of course." It was simple. He probably could have figured it out on his own, he thought. "And then?"

  She jumped down from the wall. "That's it."

  "That's it?"

  "That's when the fun begins."

  "But tell me what it's like, Lacey, so I know what to expect. Tell me how it feels."

  "Oh, I think you probably could figure it out on your own."

  He stopped short. "Can you read minds?"

  She turned to look him straight in the eye. "No, but I'm pretty good at reading faces. And yours is like a large-print book."

  He glanced away.

  "You need me, Tristan, but you don't take me seriously. I met a lot of people like you when I was alive."

  He didn't know what to say.

  "Listen, I've got my own mission to work on. It's time I start poking around New York City, going back to the beginning and figuring out what I'm supposed to be figuring out. Thanks to you, I'm already late for the train. "

  "Sorry, " he said.

  "I know you can't help it. Listen, if you should finish up your mission before I get back, can I have your grave? I mean, me not having one, unless you count my airplane seat at the bottom of the Atlantic, and you wouldn't be needing one after that—" "Sure, sure."

  "Of course, I might finish up my mission first." After two years of procrastinating? he thought, but didn't dare say it aloud.

  "I swear your face is like one of those large-print books my mother used to read."

  Then she laughed and hurried off in the direction of the station that was at the edge of town, nestled between the river and the ridge.

  Tristan turned the opposite way to climb a road that would take him to the top of the ridge, where the Baines house was. Philip might be home, he thought. Ivy's little brother had held on to the belief in angels that Ivy had given up. He could see Tristan shimmering, though he didn't know who it was.

  Strangely enough. Ivy's cat, Ella, saw Tristan, too.

  He was able to pet Ella when he materialized the tips of his fingers. That was about as much as he could do now: pet a cat, pick up a piece of paper. Tristan longed to touch Ivy, to be strong enough to hold her in his arms.

  He'd go straight to the house now and wait for her to come home from the party. He'd watch for Gregory, too. While he did, he'd figure out whose mind might hold the clue he needed — and how, please tell me how, he prayed, to reach Ivy!

  Chapter 3

  Suzanne swatted back a piece of hanging plant that needed clipping, then stretched out luxuriously on her lounge. She wore a gold silk robe and had wrapped a green-and-gold towel around her head like a turban. Everything in the room— the large, round tub, the pillows, the luxurious carpeting and silkgrained wallpaper — was green or gold.

  The first time Ivy had walked into this room at Suzanne's house, her eyes had popped open. She was seven years old then. The sumptuous bath, the elegant child's bedroom, and the velvet-lined trunks containing twenty-six Barbie dolls immediately convinced Ivy that Suzanne was a princess, and Suzanne didn't act otherwise. She was a remarkable princess who cheerfully shared all her toys and had a nice streak of wildness in her.

  That day Ivy and Suzanne had snipped off small hunks of their own hair and made little wigs for the dolls. Twenty-six dolls required a lot of hair. Ivy figured she'd never get invited back, but soon she was being picked up by Mrs. Goldstein all the time, because Suzanne said she wanted to play with Ivy even more than she wanted her allowance or a pony.

  Suzanne sighed, adjusted her turban, and opened her eyes. "Are you warm enough, Ivy?"

  Ivy nodded. "Perfect."

  After bringing Suzanne home from the party. Ivy had changed from her wet bathing suit to a T-shirt and shorts. Suzanne had lent her a pink, satiny robe, which was needed in the air-conditioned house. It made Ivy feel like part of the princess scene.

  "Perfect," Suzanne repeated, lifting a long, tan leg, pointing her toes. She took a sudden ungraceful swat at the plant hanging over her lounge, then dropped her leg and laughed. Now that the pie and whipped cream had been washed out of her ha
ir, she was in a much better mood.

  "He is… perfect. Tell me the truth. Ivy," she said. "Does Gregory think about me often?"

  "How would I know, Suzanne?"

  Suzanne turned on her side to face Ivy. "Well, does Gregory talk about me?"

  "He has," Ivy said cautiously.

  "A lot?"

  "Naturally he wouldn't say a lot to me. He knows I'm your best friend and would pass it along to you, or at least have it tortured out of me." Ivy grinned.

  Suzanne sat up and whipped the towel off her head. A tumble of jet black hair fell over her shoulders.

  "He's a flirt," she said. "Gregory will flirt with anyone — even you."

  Ivy didn't take offense at the words even vou. "Of course he will," she said. "He knows it gets to you. He likes to play games, too."

  Suzanne dropped her chin and smiled up at Ivy through wisps of damp hair.

  "You know," Ivy went on, "you two are supplying Beth with a ton of material. She'll have written five Harlequins before we graduate from high school. If I were you, I'd ask for a cut."

  "Mmm." Suzanne smiled to herself. "And I've only just begun."

  Ivy laughed and stood up. "Well, I've got to go now."

  "You're going? Wait! We've hardly talked about the other girls at the party."

  They had dissected the other girls all the way home and shouted a dozen more catty comments over the loud drumming of Suzanne's shower.

  "And we haven't talked about you," said Suzanne.

  "Well, when it comes to me, there's really nothing to talk about," Ivy told her. She took off the robe and started folding it.

  "Nothing? That's not what I heard," Suzanne said slyly.

  "What did you hear?"

  "Well, first off, I want you to know that when I heard it-" "Heard what?" Ivy asked impatiently. " — I told them all that, as someone who has known you a long time, I thought it unlikely." "Thought what unlikely?" Suzanne started combing her hair. "I may have even said very unlikely — I can't remember."