Defy the Dark by Saundra Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

Incredible Hulk.
    â€œI look like a gorilla at the opera.”
    â€œYou do not! Don’t be so down on yourself. You’re handsome and smart”—Patricia jabbed him with the metal purse after each point—“and a soon-to-be world-famous flutist.”
    â€œI guess. You smeared lipstick on your purse.”
    â€œThat’s not lipstick,” she said, and then applied some to her mouth, as if he had reminded her. “That’s blood. And what do you mean, ‘you guess’?”
    â€œAre you bleeding?” He grabbed her hand and she wound up with lipstick on her chin.
    â€œThat’s not my blood, silly.” She swatted him away and fixed her face while he examined the purse. “It’s not even fresh; it just looks like it is.”
    And it did, dripping across one side of the metal like an open wound but not staining his hands.
    â€œA couple years ago, there was a plague of blood grackles,” Patricia explained through lips that matched the stain on her purse. “They looked just like regular grackles, except blood grackles liked to eat people instead of worms. Fortunately they couldn’t abide metal, so for a while, it was all the thing to wear metal accessories as protection. Mama bought me that purse for my birthday, and wouldn’t you know that very same night, I had to bash a couple of blood grackles out of the air when they dive-bombed me. On my birthday of all days!”
    She finished doing her makeup and fluffed out the curly afro puff resting cloudlike atop her head, not even interested in his reaction to her story.
    No one back home would have believed her, but Cado did. Patricia wasn’t the type to bullshit anyone or mince words. “Are they still around?” he asked. “Those blood grackles?”
    â€œThey got wiped out last year. All the metal was too much for them.” She nodded at the purse in his hands. “That stain is all that’s left, as far as I know.” Patricia unknotted the mess he’d made of her father’s tie and redid it. “Some of the faculty from the Shepherd School are gonna be at the retreat.”
    Patricia’s ability to flit nimbly from the bizarre to the mundane floored him yet again. “The Shepherd School at Rice? Why do you care? I thought you wanted to go to Oberlin?”
    â€œRice is closer. And cheaper.” She smoothed her hand over his now-perfect tie. “Cheap enough even for gorillas who play the flute.”
    â€œIt’d be better for my family if I went to A&M and studied farming or—”
    â€œThe hell with your family! Just man up and make a decision, Cado, and don’t hide behind your family.”
    Definitely didn’t mince words.
    â€œThat’s why I came early,” Cado told her. “To man up.”
    The car horn startled them both. Patricia peeped through the window blinds; the dying sunlight clawed her face.
    â€œIt’s my folks.” She took her purse from him and tucked it under her arm. “This conversation isn’t over.”
    Cado didn’t like when she got upset with him, but he didn’t mind it—Patricia was cute when she got her back up. He grabbed her hand and held it all the way down the stairs. “Do you have any other magic weapons like that purse?”
    â€œThere’s no such thing as magic. Otherwise I’d send a wise old elf to tell you to apply to Rice so that we can finally be together. Not a day here or two weeks there, but really together. For as long as we want.”
    â€œI might not get in. It’s not a sure thing.”
    â€œYou were on From the Top , for God’s sake. You know how many classical musicians would kill to be on that show? Rice would slit its wrists to have you enroll.”
    â€œBut it’s so . . . high art. You know? Tuxedos and tea sandwiches.” His hand sweated all over hers just thinking about it. “That’s your world, not