"I don't know that either," Kylie said to Miranda. "But what I do know is that I really don't like it. So just take the thing away. Nice and safe like. And maybe put it somewhere more secure this time. Like in a vault."
"Wow," said Miranda.
"Wow what?" Burnett asked at the same time Kylie blurted out the words.
Miranda pointed to the sword. "It has an aura."
"The sword has an aura?" Holiday moved beside Miranda, looking intrigued. Kylie took another step back because she wasn't at all intrigued.
"What kind of aura?" Holiday asked the witch.
"Maybe Hayden was right. It's possessed," Burnett said.
"Wait! Can inanimate objects really be possessed?" Kylie folded her arms, not from the cold, but from feeling freaked out."No," Della said.
Miranda rolled her eyes at the vamp. "Of course they can."
"Really?" Della asked. "Cool!"
"Not cool!" Kylie snapped.
Miranda stared back at the sword. "It takes a strong witch-or a demon-to possess an object. But I don't think that's what's going on."
"Why not?" asked Holiday.
"You said it had an aura?" Burnett piped up.
"Yeah," Miranda answered, looking proud to be the one with information. "But just because an object has an aura doesn't mean it's possessed. Some things, like weapons and such, will carry an aura because emotion sort of gets soaked up into the physical matter during an attack."
"So this thing has killed a lot of people?" Kylie asked, remembering the ghost's sword and the head she so proudly brought to show Kylie.
"Probably, but I don't think it's possessed. Normally when something is possessed, it's completely evil."
"Then what kind of aura is it?" Kylie asked.
"A little bit evil," Miranda said, contradicting herself.
"Love it." Della rubbed her hands together.
Kylie moaned and focused on Miranda. "But you just said-"
"I said something that is possessed is completely evil." Miranda looked back at the sword. "This is just ... Okay, it isn't even really evil. But I can feel that it has taken lives. A lot of them. But most of its aura is about justice, and..." She tilted her head to the side and focused on the sword like she was trying to read the supernatural pattern. Her hair, streaked with pink, black, and lime-green, curtained the side of her face. "And it sounds crazy but it's also about ... courage."
"Courage?" Kylie remembered the voice she'd heard on the way to the falls. "What does it mean by courage? Ask it what it means by that?"
Miranda snickered. "Auras don't answer questions. I'm just telling you what the aura seems to exude."
"How do you know what it exudes?" Della asked.
"The colors, the intensity of the colors, and how it moves and blends together. It's sort of like reading a mood ring."
"I wish I could see auras," Della said to Miranda. "Could you like zap me the gift to see auras?"
"No," Miranda said. "No more than you can give me your ability to fly."
Kylie continued to stare at the sword, remembering the sword the ghost carried. "I still think it's somehow tied to the ghost. She could have brought it here."
"Oh, damn! Do we have a ghost here now?" Della asked.
"Not now," Holiday replied to Della, then looked back at Kylie. "Ghosts can't transport objects of real matter."
"Not true. I had one knock my phone off my nightstand," Kylie said.
"Yes, they might be able to create enough energy to nudge something small, and they can play with electronics left and right, but they can't physically move an object from one place to another. That would take an enormous amount of energy. It's impossible.""Well, that makes me feel somewhat better," Della said.
Holiday moved closer to the table. "This doesn't make sense."
"I know," Kylie said. "And that seems to be the theme song of my life right now. Not a damn thing makes sense."
* * *
Burnett carried the sword out. He refused to let Holiday touch it in case it came to life. Right as they went to leave, Kylie heard a light burpy sound from Holiday.
The fae bit down on her lip and her eyes shifted to Kylie. In spite of being weirded out by finding the aura-carrying sword on her table, she sent Holiday a sympathetic smile. She knew the fae was panicking about the possibility of being pregnant.
Not that Kylie saw it as a bad thing. It would be neat to see what a child that was half-Burnett and halfHoliday would look like.
When Holiday and Burnett were out of the cabin, Della and Miranda turned to Kylie. Della spoke first.
"Okay ... sit down and explain why you didn't tell us about the sword, and then tell us what else you've been hiding."
Kylie started to remind Della that she kept her own secrets, like just who had given her the hickey, but all of a sudden Kylie didn't mind telling them. As a matter of fact, it might help if she talked about it. It wasn't as if she'd kept any of it from them on purpose. It was like Kylie had said earlier, she hadn't wanted to think about it.
She moved to the kitchen, glancing around to make sure the sword hadn't magically reappeared. Seeing the table clear, she dropped down in a chair with a defeated sigh.
Della went to the fridge and snagged three diet sodas and passed them out. The sound of the tops being popped echoed in the small kitchen. Then Kylie started talking. Between sips of fizzy soda slipping down her throat, she told them everything. About what happened at her grandfather's place, to how the teen chameleons were treated. She covered leaving in the middle of the night because someone had plans to abduct her. Then she blurted out the hardest part-Mario showing up and how she'd almost killed Lucas.
"Well, not for nothing," Della said. "Lucas did sort of have it coming. I'll bet it felt good."
"No it didn't," Kylie insisted.
"Wait," Miranda said. "Before we get off talking about the whole boy issue, you haven't gotten to the part about the sword." She took a big sip of Diet Coke and continued to eye Kylie over the rim.
Kylie went into her visit to the falls with Holiday.
"What about this ghost?" Della asked, and looked around. "Are you gonna wig out on us again with those vision things? I mean, the last time you had that whole episode during class and I had to break down the closet door in Miss Cane's room, it really freaked me out. I swear, now every time she sees me, she has to remind me ... 'You know, I had a key to that door.' But damn, you were screaming bloody murder in there."