Defiance (Significance #3)(27)

Caleb walked to Lynne and Jen, who were watching a heated game of chess between Rodney and Kyle. He started talking to them and looked back at me a couple of times. I started to go over, because his mind was still closed off to me, but Gran grabbed my hand and took me back to the kitchen. "You can go necking with him later," she said and cackled.
I wanted to tell her no and go to Caleb, but he apparently had a reason for why he shut his mind. I trusted him, so I stayed put and prayed that he wasn't keeping anything from me.
We put the crystal on the table and I started pouring the punch that Gran had made. Marla came and took it from me when my pitcher was empty. "Here, I'll help. I make a seriously good punch."
I let her take it, though the good girl act wasn't fooling me. She was definitely up to something. They called everyone to come and sit and they all piled in eagerly. The goulash they had made smelled like something right out of the Wolfgang Puck cookbook.
I spent the next hour and a half of my life serving drinks, bringing bowls of soup and baskets of fresh rolls with scoops of cinnamon butter to anyone who dared to ask me. I tried to smile and show them they didn't have to be afraid, and it seemed to be working. To be served by the one you were supposed to bow to was humbling and eye opening.
I made jokes about being a waitress and being made for serving the dignitary lunch. They laughed and oohed when I carried the bowls stacked down my arm like I used to do at the 25 Hour Skillet.
Then it was finally my turn to sit. I was exhausted. Or rather, I felt like I should be. My imprinted body could withstand a lot more now, but the memory my body had of doing work like that was playing tricks with my mind and making me feel like I should be achy and tired.
When I sat next to Caleb I already had a bowl in my hand, but didn't have a glass. I said screw it and began to eat. Eventually I saw Marla going around refilling glasses. What was she doing? 
She eventually came to our table and saw I had no glass. She left and came back with one and a pitcher full as well. She smiled as she set my glass down for me and began to fill more glasses with the red liquid. Caleb gave me the 'What the' look and I shrugged. She was apparently trying to play the angel card with everyone.
Oh, well. I scarfed my bowl and carefully sipped the punch. I'd never been a big fan of punch before. It always tasted so hokey to me, but this was really good. A good mixture of sweet and tangy and fizz.
I took the last roll from the basket and started to butter it, but my knife slipped from my buttery bread, clanking loudly with my glass. "Sorry," I muttered.
"Are you ok?" Jen asked from across us.
"Yeah."
"Your eyes look funny," she mused.
"I had to cut up onions," I told her.
"You had to what?" she asked and gave me a funny look. I looked over at Caleb and he was looking at me strangely, too.
"I said, I had to chop onions," I said, but it sounded like my tongue was triple its size and my words were muffled in my mouth. That was suddenly the funniest thing ever that this world has seen. I giggled and my knife slipped from my hand to my plate, once again clanking loudly. The sound seemed to travel around the room like music.
I tried to bite my bread, but it completely missed my mouth, smearing a dab of butter on the side of my mouth. Caleb laughed nervously as he took his thumb and wiped it off for me. I leaned in and kissed him. It seemed like the perfectly acceptable thing to do when he was being sweet and sexy, wiping my mouth for me.
But when he pushed me back and looked into my face, I bristled. "Oh, you don't want to kiss me now?" I shrieked.
"Of course I do," he soothed and shushed me. "What's wrong? Is this about your dad?" he whispered.
"No, this is about you not wanting me! Why? What did I do?" I groaned and heard him shush me again. 'Why are you shushing me?" I shrieked again.
"Because you're yelling, babe," he said and looked around the room. I looked around too and the lady next to me was wearing glasses. I realized it was Gran. Her glasses looked huge! They were clown glasses! I laughed so hard I doubled over and fell off the back of the bench to the hard floor. I giggled more as Caleb scrambled to help me up.
"What's going on?" I heard someone say.
Someone else said, "Something happened."
"Hey, it's a party…kind of. Lighten up, people!" I yelled back and then leaned on Caleb as the room began to spin like the Gravitron at the county fair.
"Maggie," Caleb said and patted my cheek. I didn't know why he was doing that. I was looking right at him. "Maggie," he said louder and held my face. "Say something, baby."
I tried to say "What's wrong with you?", but it was a mumbled, jumbled mess of words. Then I felt a sickness hit my stomach and the fun was over. I no longer thought things were funny. I was about to hurl goulash all over my significant.
I groaned and leaned on him more. I felt him lift me under my knees and back, holding me against him and I seemed to black out, for how long I didn't know. Then I was all of a sudden awake, and the shouting had already started. "Marla spiked Maggie's drink and you're telling me to calm down! She could have killed her and still might! You can't just sit back and do nothing this time.""Where would she even get alcohol in the palace?" Paulo, I think, was saying. "We don't keep that poison here."
"Marla apparently brought it with her!" Rachel shrieked, just as I had and it was like fingernails scraping my head. "Paulo, councilors, this is too much evidence for you to let slide. Maggie is-"
"There is no evidence!" Donald roared at her.
"Don't you ever speak to my wife that way," Peter said and I heard Rachel calming him, which meant he was probably about to bash Donald's face in. I wanted to giggle at that, too, but my body was numb in a sickening way.
"Forgive me, Rachel," Donald said. "What I was saying was, that no one saw her spike anything. Maggie could have taken the alcohol on her own. She was human, after all."
"No," Caleb growled at him. "I told Maggie about what alcohol did to us. She wouldn't have done that, especially in the middle of a dinner with everyone around."
"I would never do something like this," Marla said and sniffed, further away from the rest of them. "I was just trying to be nice to her, show her that I could be humble, too."
"Well," Donald interrupted, "innocent until proven guilty works best in this matter, I think. Marla can't be blamed for something plainly on hearsay, and we won't know that Maggie didn't do this to herself until she wakes. And even then, she could lie. She is quite the little manipulator."
"Donald!" Paulo yelled. "That is enough. Just because she can't hear you doesn't mean that you can be so disrespectful."
"And she can hear you," Caleb said. "She's awake, she just can't move."
I was awake. So this wasn't some dream. I was just lying there and could hear them and they were all just standing around looking at me like the freak show I was.
"Yes," he said to me softly, laughing sadly. "Where can I take her?" he asked someone. "Her room won't work since it's been charmed," he barked angrily cutting someone off.
"Take her to my room," Gran volunteered. It sounded like she was really upset. I wondered why. "Come on."
I felt myself being carried. His steps were extra loud and jarring, the swaying was extra big, like he was trying to make me sick.
"No," Caleb said. "You're just drunk."
"Drunk?" I slurred. "I've never been drunk before." 
"And you shouldn't be drunk now," Peter said beside us, startling me. I felt myself being lowered to a bed. I sagged into the comfort of it. "Keep touching her," Peter said quickly.
"Yes, don't take your hands off of her at all," Rachel ordered and I felt her rub my hair as Caleb's warmth settled in beside me. "This new life hasn't been very good to you so far, has it?"
"I'm ok," I tried to say, but even I couldn't make out the words. My head swam with the fishes. "Can we stop the rocking?"
Caleb once again did that little sad laugh. Like it was funny, but it also wasn't. "We're not rocking, babe, just you."
"Keep your hands on her," Peter reminded. "If the alcohol gets even a few seconds without your healing counteracting it, it'll be too late."
"I got it. You couldn’t make me leave anyway." He sighed and then jerked his head. "Hey, Dad? Can you go call Uncle Ken for me?"
"Of course. What for?"
The reminder that Dad was in danger, or worse, brought on a hysteria that was worse than the first time I heard it. I cried with big heaping sobs into Caleb's neck. I could hear the rumble of his voice vibrating his neck and chest as he explained to his parents about my dad. I heard Peter scold Caleb for not saying something sooner. Caleb said back that there was nothing his dad could do to stop it anymore that Caleb or I could.
Then he left to go make the call and I felt someone rubbing my back on my other side. I cried myself into a strange sleep, where half of the things were out of reach completely and the other half were hazy and unfocused. Time was of no consequence at all and I had no idea how long we lay there like that. I heard people come and go, not making out who they were. I felt hands on me at all times, Caleb's or someone else, didn’t matter. And the pounding of my blood in my ears was the only real sound I could make out.