Aunt Martha pointed at me with her fork. “Just be sure you keep your hair up. Don’t want to end up like Dot Jenkins.”
I had no idea who Dot Jenkins was, but Aunt Martha was clearly going to tell me something awful that had befallen the unfortunate Dot. The Aunts collected horrible stories the way some old ladies collected ceramic angels.
“It was 1956,” Aunt Martha continued, confirming my suspicion. “Swimming at the pool we used to have here at the club. Caught her hair in a drain, and that was that.”
“It was 1955,” Aunt May said, and Aunt Jewel rolled her eyes, pushing a chunk of sweet potato around her plate.
“It was 19–Both of You Are Ridiculous,” she said. “Dot Jenkins did not drown in the country club pool. She hit her head on a dock at Lake Prater and drowned there.”
As The Aunts squabbled over just what tragic drowning had befallen Dot Jenkins, I turned my attention back to my plate, still thinking about the past couple of days, and how close I had come to being one of those stories. Heck, that was just the last in a long line of Terrible Deaths I Almost Experienced. Stabbed to death in the school bathroom, stabbed in a college office, stabbed at Cotillion . . .
Frowning, I wondered why all the bad guys I faced were so stabby. I’d definitely need to make sure my training was more focused on anti-stabby things if I—
I was suddenly aware of someone standing over my shoulder, and I nearly turned in my seat to see who it was. The Aunts were still arguing, but my dad was glancing up with polite inquiry on his face.
And then I felt it. Whoever it was behind me, they were radiating power.
It all happened in the space of a few heartbeats. A hand touched my shoulder, and magic flared under my skin. What kind of magic, I had no idea, but I didn’t give myself time to think. Instead, I covered the hand with mine, and as I did, shot to my feet, my other hand coming across my body to grab an arm, foot hooking under ankles to bring the person down hard. I had enough time to see dark eyes go wide as the person fell, hitting the table on the way down, rattling dishes and glasses. Next to me, I heard Mom gasp and cry, “Harper!” I lifted my head to meet a sea of shocked faces. My mom’s closest friend in the Junior League, Mrs. Andrews, had gone pale, and one of the partners at Dad’s law firm, Mr. Montgomery, was mouthing what seemed to be a couple of variations of the F-word. But I couldn’t have stopped myself for anything. All I could think of was that feeling of helplessness lying on the floor of the changing room Friday night.
This time, my powers didn’t falter even for a second. They pulsed through my veins, strong as ever, and I might have been smiling in kind of a creepy way.
But that smile fell off my face immediately when I realized who was on the country club floor under my foot, wearing a smile of her own.
Blythe.
Chapter 9
“HOLY CRAP,” I breathed, my fingers still locked around Blythe’s delicate wrist. “You.”
She had one hand free, which she used to wiggle her fingers at me in a little wave. “Harper.”
I was breathing hard, but as the adrenaline faded, the realization that I had just handed a girl her lunch in front of a third of Pine Grove suddenly began to dawn.
Then Aunt Jewel, bless her heart, stood up and said, “Ooh, is this the girl teaching your self-defense course, Harper Jane?”
She said it so loudly that I was pretty sure people in the next town over had heard her, so it wasn’t exactly the most subtle of saves.
But it was effective, especially when Bee came over and said, “Wow, when you said the final exam could happen anywhere, I didn’t think you meant the country club!”
She gave a bright laugh that was as high as it was fake, but I could feel some of the tension drain out of the room, especially when I finally took my foot off Blythe’s chest and offered a hand to help pull her up.
Shooting to her feet, Blythe just smiled again and, for whatever reason, decided to play along. “And you passed!” she said before rubbing at her chest with the tips of her fingers and grimacing slightly. “With flying, really painful colors!”
At my side, Mom still had her palm flat against her pearls, her gaze shooting between me and Blythe. Dad was also on his feet, hands deep in his pockets, watching up over the tops of his new bifocals.
“What self-defense class, Harper?”
My head was spinning, wondering both what Blythe was doing here—and if her being here had anything to do with what had happened at the pool on Friday night—and with making sure I sold this to my parents as quickly as possible.
“Just an extra little thing I picked up for the summer,” I said, waving it away like it wasn’t a big deal. “You know, getting ready for college and all that. Girl has to be able to defend herself.”