The Heavenstone Secrets (Heavenstone 1)

“What did he say about Noel?” Kent asked.

“He has a concussion for sure. They’re checking to see if his spine was damaged.”

“Oh, no,” Susie said and began to cry harder.

Kent’s father returned to tell us that with the policeman’s help, he had called everyone’s parents. I looked up, terrified. I had hoped somehow to just go home and calmly explain, but I understood why Kent’s father had felt obligated to make the calls. Susie’s parents arrived first. They talked to Kent’s father for a while and then took Susie home. Eddie’s father came without his mother. He was much bigger than Eddie and looked angry enough to beat him right there in the lobby. He spoke to Kent’s father, too, and Kent’s father managed to calm him. He ordered Eddie out to the car and then went to speak with Noel’s parents. Just then, Cassie arrived.

I think I shall never forget her reaction. In contrast to everyone else’s parents, their face pasted over with fear and anger, my sister looked calm and in a strange way satisfied, and I don’t mean satisfied that I was fine. She had an expression on her face that said that everything she believed and told me about other people had been verified. She politely thanked Kent’s father for calling our home, asked about Noel, listened, and then nodded at me.

I turned to Kent, who had kept his head down and his hands over his face all the while. “My sister’s here. I’m going home, Kent.”

He looked up slowly and nodded. “Yeah. I guess we just don’t have luck when it comes to being together,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He didn’t reply. He looked down again, as if he wanted to avoid looking at Cassie.

“Call me if you hear any more about Noel,” I told him. He nodded but didn’t look up.

“Let’s go home, Semantha,” Cassie said.

I followed her out to her car. She said nothing and looked as if she might not even when we were in the car. When I got in, I said, “It was terrifying, Cassie.”

“Of course it was.” She started the engine and backed out of the parking spot. “Don’t worry. I didn’t tell Daddy. He was asleep on the sofa in the living room when Mr. Pearson called the house, and I just left for the hospital. I’m sure he’s still asleep. We don’t have to say anything until the morning.”

“Why is he asleep on the sofa?” I asked. It wasn’t that late, and I wondered why he wouldn’t be upstairs with Mother.

“He drank too much wine at dinner. We both did, but he drank far more. He needed desperately to relax, so I didn’t say anything or try to stop him. We went into the living room to talk afterward, and when he fell asleep, I simply took off his shoes, got him comfortable, and put a blanket on him and a pillow under his head. He’s better off sleeping there and not with Mother tonight. She’s still obsessing about losing Asa, dreaming she hears a baby cry.”

“Maybe it’s better that she return to the hospital,” I said.

“If she goes back in there, she might never come out, Semantha. How would you like that?”

I started to cry.

“Stop it. That’s all we need now is you bawling like some infant.”

I sucked back my tears. “How terrible, and now this happens.”

“Yes, now this happens. Were you all drinking?”

“No. We had just left the movie and were going to a friend’s home.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know. Listen to music and stuff.”

“Right, stuff,” she said. She looked at me and nodded. “Maybe you were lucky you were in an accident.”

“Oh, Cassie, how can you say such a thing? Noel might have serious injuries.”

“You could have had serious injuries, too.”

“Right.”

“I don’t mean in a car accident, Semantha. I mean in a different kind of accident, a sexual accident.”

“I wouldn’t,” I insisted.