Read Online Dark Arts by Randolph Lalonde - Free Book Online

Max was my destiny, trying to get me all worked up about
visions of him and me getting together now that we’re both ready.”
She huffed, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “They actually
cursed me with a memory spell for two weeks. I kept having dreams
that were just memories of Max and me. You know, him playing that
old acoustic and me singing along beside the barn. A few where
we’re just running around like the kids we were, having fun. There
was one, it must have been when Max was eight, I was seven, we were
all snuggled up in the yard in one of those night time family
circle ceremonies and my mother wraps a blanket around us. When I
woke up I could remember how sweet and comfortable and safe that
moment was. Riding his bike with him was just as good. No, better,
because there was more, like our auras were merging, it was just
amazing and right. Then it’s over and he says ‘take it easy,’ like
I was just another saddlebag, and my aunts are standing there
grinning, because they know I won’t be able to stop thinking about
him, and I can’t, even though I should be just as happy to see both
of you, we grew up together, until I got kidnapped off to Italy,
and Spain, and New York. Maybe I should just stay away from him to
make a point,” she actually made a growling sound as her lips
pressed together with such tension that they were drawn across her
face in a straight line. Meanwhile, her foot was getting heavier on
the accelerator.
    Bernie was rattled in his seat as the car
went over a section of road that was recently flooded, small
potholes and loose stones. “Easy, these roads aren’t nice to
speeders.”
    She slowed down to a slightly more
reasonable speed and turned the radio on, Wish You Were Here was
playing, one of only a few songs that Bernie sang on stage every
once in a while, usually to buy Zack time to get on stage or decide
that he was finished pitching a fit over the latest slight.
    “You heard me, right?” Miranda said.
    “Oh, yeah, destiny, you didn’t want to like
him,” Bernie said, realizing that Miranda was paying more attention
to him than she was the winding road. “Road, road,” he said,
pointing over the dash.
    “I’m a great driver, never had an accident.
Then again, I didn’t drive in New York, and I don’t have my license
here, but this isn’t much different from Italy or Spain, lots of
dirt roads there. Anyway, you had to know why they separated Max
and me back then.”
    “No, I just heard your mother died and you
were going to live with your aunt,” Bernie replied. “I was sad
about it for a few months, well, maybe a few weeks, but Max was
pissed. First, at loud, slamming doors and skipping school to play
guitar, then he didn’t talk about it, he was just low, you know? I
knew why, but no one at school did, so we started high school and
he was just this quiet, dark, kind of unpleasant English guy to
them.”
    “Wait, when I left he was what, fourteen,
fifteen?”
    “He was about to turn fifteen,” Bernie
said.
    “So, how long did his pouting last?”
    “It wasn’t pouting,” Bernie said,
emphatically shaking his head. “At first, when he was loud about
it, yeah, but then he got quiet and didn’t come back up unless you
counted the noise he made with his guitar. He wrote some amazing
stuff back then, we played constantly after his father died. Music
was how he connected to people, and I think he jammed with everyone
who could play three chords or more. He just never really got happy
again, like when we were kids.”
    “So why would my Aunts and his dad agree
that I had to go half way across the world and pretend he didn’t
exist? I mean, I guess I wasn’t distracted either, they taught me
everything they knew, and other than not having too many friends I
had a great time growing up, well, until New York, things were
okay.”
    “Let me guess,” Bernie was momentarily
interrupted as they struck a pothole dead on and he was bounced in
his seat, his head