Free Eternal by Debra Glass Page A

nose.
    “Uh…hi,” I said. “Have you seen Laura?”
    “Laura checked out. Orthodontist appointment or something.”
    Disappointment surged. My shoulders sagged.
    “Did you get a chance to finish that article?” he asked hopefully.
    I flashed him a smile. “Yes. Thanks again. I learned a lot about my house I wouldn’t have otherwise known.”
    His pale face flushed with pride. “I thought you’d like it.”
    I seized the tongs and filled my bowl with lettuce.
    Briar and her two minions strolled into the lunchroom. I flinched.
    “What’s up with them?” Waylon asked.
    I made a mental note that Waylon could be extremely observant.
    “Briar bothering you?” he asked, his posture immediately stiffening as if he was ready to do battle.
    I debated. I couldn’t tell him the whole story. He didn’t need to know about Jeremiah. No one did. More to the point, I doubted if Waylon would believe me and I didn’t want to get the reputation as a bigger weirdo than people already thought.
    “She…just gives me the creeps is all,” I managed, turning my attention back to building my salad.
    “She gives everybody the creeps,” he said, still glaring at the Goth girl.
    Pumping ranch on my salad, I glanced up at him. “Why?” I wished he would stop scowling. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing her threats worried me.
    “She’s always telling people they’re going to break a leg or be in a wreck or that their dog is going to die.” He loaded a mountain of shredded cheese onto his salad.
    She hadn’t predicted anything for me. She’d only told me I’d better not have my haint back at school. Worse, she’d zeroed in on my guilty secret.
    “Does…do any of her predictions ever come true?” I asked, moving toward the check out.
    “That’s why she creeps everybody out,” Waylon whispered, leaning in so close I detected the scent of some sort of masculine cologne. “Most of the time, her prophecies do come true.”
    No surprise to me. Still, her credibility didn’t give her the right to threaten me. What was she going to do? Tell everyone I brought a ghost to school who tinkered with her car?
    All I had to do was deny it.
    Down deep though, I sensed she’d do far more than that. Still, I couldn’t control what Jeremiah did. It wasn’t as if I had asked him to accompany me to school—or to screw up Briar’s car. He hadn’t brought it up the night before and I really had no reason to believe he’d done it, other than Briar’s bald-faced accusation.
    “I…think she has it in for me,” I ventured, fishing for more information. “I mean, why would I be a threat to her?”
    Waylon nearly laughed out loud. “Because you live in the most haunted house in town other than the funeral home.”
    My gaze shot to his.
    “She’s just a dorcas who thinks she’s the local ghost expert,” Waylon explained.
    Waylon was not the simple country boy I’d originally thought. Well-spoken and perceptive, he hid a thoughtful intelligence under his muscled, jock exterior.
    Holly waved excitedly from our table so Waylon and I joined her. He kept pace with me although, with his long, thick legs, he could have reached the table in half as many strides as it took me. The table shifted under Waylon’s sheer size when he sat.
    “Briar’s giving Wren the stank eye,” he said nonchalantly to Holly and Frank.
    Holly smirked and glanced at the Goth table. “She gives everybody the stank eye.”
    I shrugged as if I couldn’t comprehend it at all.
    Waylon took a bite of the apple he’d picked up. “I told her,” he said, his voice muffled by the food in his mouth, “it’s because she lives in a haunted house.”
    “Is it true?” Holly leaned forward in her seat. “Is it really haunted, Wren?”
    From across the room, I felt Briar’s eyes boring into me. I wished I knew how to block her—to keep her from reading my thoughts. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I couldn’t even control the few psychic skills