Foretold Page 8

  “Know what?” Mrs. O asks.

  “I don’t know… that you have the wrong idea about him.”

  “I didn’t make the broth. I only tasted it.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but you need to cool it with the Yoda stuff. Oh no. This is him. Okay. Act normal.”

  “I’ve never heard you so flustered,” she says.

  “Colin! Hi!” My voice is too high and I try not to wince.

  He smiles warmly and comes up to my side by the counter. “Hey, Cass. You didn’t tell me your younger sister worked here.” He brandishes a surprise sunflower. “This is for you, ma’am.”

  Mrs. O laughs in delight. She reaches out, and Colin places it in her hand.

  “Such a cornball.” I shake my head.

  “A charming cornball, though? Maybe? Did it work, Mrs. O?”

  “Oh yes, I'm charmed to within an inch of my life. But you, young man, have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don’t know you.”

  “This is Colin,” I say, at the same time Colin says, “Colin. Cassie’s friend.”

  “I didn’t know Cassie had a friend named Colin. It's a pleasure meeting you.”

  “She didn’t mention me?” he asks.

  “I wrote a book report about you. She probably hasn’t gotten around to grading it yet,” I say.

  “I bet it was dark and mysterious and Faulkner-esque,” Colin says.

  I snort, and Mrs. O smiles.

  “I think my mom said she was in here not too long ago? Katherine Clay?”

  “Ah, you’re the diplomat’s son! I hope your mother comes and visits again soon. It’s been lonely ever since someone started their job hunt. I sit here all by my lonesome, praying a nice young gentleman will wander in to reach a certain box on the top shelf in my office. The one over my desk. It’s back that way.” Mrs. O points.

  “I’m your gentleman. No problem at all.” Colin flexes, and I laugh in spite of myself. “You laughing at my muscles isn’t offensive at all.” He whistles on his way to the office.

  “What box do you need?” I ask Mrs. O.

  “Fool’s errand to get a moment alone with you. To let you know I approve, little one. He’s a prism for your light. Fun, open, playful. He’s good for you.”

  “I told you, he doesn’t like me like that,” I whisper.

  “I notice you didn’t say you don’t like him like that.”

  “Hey, there’s a few boxes back here. Which one am I supposed to be grabbing?” Colin’s voice sounds from the office.

  “The one labeled ‘batteries,’ dear,” Mrs. O responds.

  “Is there a box of batteries back there?” I ask. I know her too well.

  “Nope!” Mrs. O crows cheerfully. “And deny all you like, but that boy likes you. And you like him. And it warms my old heart more than you know.” Mrs. O reaches out her hand, and I put my hand in hers. She lifts it to her lips.

  “I love you. You’re wrong, but I love you,” I say.

  “I’m blind, not blind. You’ll have to come back for some girl talk when you don’t have your young man with you. I’ll fill you in on the signs you’re missing. When you lose your sight, everything else is heightened, you know.”

  “Neat. Didn’t realize that included becoming a barometer for crushes. What’s going on with the guy from the city, by the way? With the eminent domain stuff?”

  Mrs. O sighs and pulls her hand out of mine. “I told you not to worry about that.”

  “I know you did. But I do. So what’s happening?”

  “Hey, I’m not seeing a box with that label up here,” Colin calls out.

  “My mistake, dear. I’ll have to place an order,” Mrs. O calls back. She sits back on her stool behind the counter and pats the one next to hers. I walk around and sit. “I am appealing, which should buy us a little bit more time, but I probably won’t be able to stop it. They want a nice, shiny supermarket here, and a ton of apartments, and they want them now. Doesn’t matter that I don’t have a mortgage on this place and I’ve always been on time with my taxes.”

  “No wonder people build Spite Houses,” I mutter. “What would stop it? Like, is it the lawyer? Is it the judge?”

  “What does it matter? It won’t happen anyway.”

  “Humor me! Please. What would stop it?”

  “Maybe if the developer pulled out of the project? Then the city wouldn’t have any reason to take the place.”

  “Who’s the developer?” I ask.

  Mrs. O gestures at a paper on the shelf under the register. “Some bigshot. Tautamo Associates.”

  I mentally file that information away and hop up as Colin approaches, leaning forward and dusting his thick dark hair with his hands until it’s endearingly disheveled. “It’s really dusty on those top shelves. If you want, I can come back one day and help clean up and organize. It’s too high up for you to be messing with.”

  “Aren’t you sweet? I would love the company. Especially now that your Cassie here has abandoned me for this camp she’s going to…”

  “I have not abandoned you. And didn’t you say you wouldn’t accept free help?”

  “I said I wouldn’t give you a full-time job when I couldn’t pay you. I love the occasional helping hand. Especially when it’s from sweet young men who bring me flowers and pretend to think I’m your younger sister.”

  “See, Cass? I don’t chase all the ladies away,” Colin says.

  “Just the smart ones.”

  Mrs. O and Colin chuckle, and I wrap her up in a big hug. She throws an arm around me and returns it briefly.

  “Have fun, you two. Go get into some trouble. This one plays it much too safe.” Mrs. O gestures toward me.

  “I promise to be a terrible influence,” Colin says.

  I grab the paper with the developer’s information and shove it in the waistband of my jeans while they’re distracting each other.

  “She’s really great,” Colin says, once we’ve left.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  He steps off the curb while we wait at a crosswalk, and I yank his arm to pull him back onto the sidewalk. He slips, falling in front of a car. Ambulances. I’m the one to talk to his mother. His father. Telling them he’s dead. His mother screams.

  “The fortune teller said to be careful with streets!” I say.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he says with a laugh. “You’re really lucky, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “Mrs. O. You’re really lucky to have her.”

  “Oh. Yeah. She sucks down weed like a frat guy, and she likes tormenting me with advice, but she really is amazing.” A moment passes and the light turns. I stick close to Colin, warily looking around as we cross the street.

  Colin nudges me with his shoulder. “Wonder how many boxes I’ll have to pull down from shelves before she adopts me.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re already in.”

  He reaches my stoop and turns to me with a serious expression. “You didn’t mention you’d be going to camp. When’s that happening?”

  “I leave in a couple of weeks.”

  “Oh… okay. I guess we’ll have to hang out every day until you leave, then.” His eyes are midnight velvet as they scan my face, and I desperately want to spin the moment into a fairy tale. Instead, I puff out a laugh that I hope sounds authentic.

  “Right. Sounds good. I better get inside now, though. My dad’s probably home.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’ll sketch out our joint custody agreement,” Colin calls out. At my confused glance back, he adds, “For Mrs. O.”

  I shake my head and let myself in my building.

  That night I dream of Mrs. O’s tormentor, pale-eyed nutjobs, and boys who don’t want to kiss me.

  Chapter 9

  “You can take that with you,” Colin says, pointing at the book I’m holding. Faulkner’s A Fable. “It’ll give you something to read on the bus tomorrow. How long’s the drive to camp?”

  “Sweet, thanks,�
�� I say, ignoring his question and the reminder that I’m headed into the virtual unknown tomorrow. I’ve bombarded Aunt Bree with text messages, and she—chock full of encouragement but citing how busy she is—looped in Martha to give me hard-fought drips of intel that haven’t exactly helped with my comfort levels.

  Will there be other people training with me?

  Yes.

  There’s a place for me to live there?

  Dorms.

  Do I need to share the dorm with a roommate? (This one had me especially worried.)

  No.

  Is the training just classes and stuff? Like school?

  Yes.

  What happens if I suck at this scrying stuff?

  …

  I hug my knees up to my chest as I flip through the book Colin’s offered up. It’s not just worry about tomorrow that has me shaking, though. The central air in Colin’s house has his bedroom meat-locker cold.

  Colin notices me shiver, of course, and he hops up and ducks into his walk-in closet—a luxury in this city—and reappears, balling up a maroon sweatshirt that he tosses at me like a missile. I block it with the book, laughing.

  He wasn’t kidding about hanging out every day. We’ve been inseparable, and when we’re not together, I stare into space thinking about him.

  He drops down to sit across from me on his rug, his lashes hiding those rich blue eyes that usually take center stage on his face. I greedily drink in the black of his hair and the angles of his face. “I’m going to miss you, you know,” he says with a lopsided smile.

  My heart lurches. “What?”

  He plucks the book from my hands and examines it. “When you’re at camp. It’s going to suck around here.”

  I pull his sweatshirt on over my head to cover my expression. “I’m going to miss you, too.” Unfair. He shouldn’t say things like that when I’m about to expire from unrequited love.

  When it’s time for me to leave, he gives me a lingering hug and I wrap my arms around him tightly, my thoughts keeping time with his beating heart. I’m going to save you. I’m going to save you. Save you. Save you. Save you.

  He releases me and moves to kiss my cheek, catching the corner of my mouth when I turn. I blush and stammer. He flushes and apologizes, his expression inscrutable.

  When I climb the knee-wall and open the door to my building, I turn to take a mental picture of him, ruffled dark hair, hands in his pockets, solemn eyes. I wave and close the roof door behind me, feeling as if my chest were used as a punching bag. I touch my fingers to the corner of my lips and burrow my face into the neck of his sweatshirt. It smells like him.

  I pad back to my apartment slowly. It’s okay. You’ll be back for your birthday. Dad insisted he be able to pick me up for my birthday, and whoever answered the “camp” hotline graciously said they would bus me back for that. Martha is good.

  The front door opens five minutes after I enter. “Where’s our lasagna, chef?” I call out.

  “Damn it! I’m so sorry, Cass. I knew I forgot something,” Dad says. “Let’s make it pizza Friday instead? Giuseppe’s cut their delivery driver.” He sets down his messenger bag. “Unless you really want it for your last night at home?”

  The world has spun off its axis. “No, it’s cool. Pizza. Sure. I’ll call up Sal’s and order a pie, I guess.”

  “And garlic knots.”

  Breathe! It’s okay. “And garlic knots. Trivinometry will be extra fragrant tonight.”

  Dad sits next to me with a sigh. “Can we scrap Trivinometry and just hang out tonight? The revisions for my manuscript were due today, and the university is breathing down my neck. Then Eleanor stopped by to say hi, but she ended up staying so long I didn’t finish my edits, and I lost track of time. It’s been a mess of a day. Not to mention my baby is leaving me tomorrow.”

  “Yeah… of course.” It’s okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

  Just over half an hour later, the pizza I’m not hungry for is sliding down my throat like gravel. It gives me crazy heartburn. Odd, though: that pizza heartburn is still there in the morning.

  It seems fitting that my fake pick-up for fake camp would be in front of my school, feet away from the place I watched Colin die. It’s a good reminder why I’m doing all this, too, since my feet are longing for a good escape. I gnaw at my lip and pick at the skin of my thumb.

  “Remember your sunscreen! And if you need anything, you call me, okay?” Dad rests his hands on my shoulders.

  “No cell phones allowed, remember?” I mutter.

  “They said there’s a computer lab with phones you can sign up for. And of course in an emergency—”

  The driver of the bus parked in front of the school pokes her head out. “Sorry to break it up, but we’re on a schedule. Bags are stowed and we’re waiting on you.”

  Dad pulls me in for a bear hug, and I hug him back fiercely. “You go out there and slay dragons, okay? Even the ones in there.” He points at my head, his eyes damp. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” My voice catches.

  I run over to the bus before I call it all off and confess everything. My dad and I haven’t been apart since Mom…

  The doors close behind me, and the driver smiles. “Tell your aunt I was convincing, yeah?”

  I nod and take the empty first seat, staring down at Dad through the window. It’s going to be okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I pick at the duct tape on the seat. We’re pulling away when I see Mrs. O has rushed over, white cane in hand, and is talking to Dad. I stand, but we’re moving too fast now. I watch them until we take our first turn, until I can’t see them anymore.

  I sit down hard.

  “Don’t stress. You’ll see your parents super soon,” a voice says from the seat across from me.

  I wipe at my eyes self-consciously. The girl is a stick of dynamite topped with a crop of corkscrew curls that bounce and pop with every movement. “That wasn’t my mom,” I say.

  She shifts, turning toward me fully, tucking a foot under her. “I thought maybe your dad was into old ladies. It’s cool either way. Love doesn’t care about numbers. That’s why I’m going to marry Jordan Welborne. Have you ever seen him? He’s so gorg.” She smiles with her whole face, her wide mouth vying for dominance with her large, dancing gray eyes. “You’re Cassandra Morai, right? That’s a mouthful. Cass-an-dra. Serious. Do you go by Cassie? Yes? Cool if I call you Cassie?”

  “Sure.”

  “Cool, cool. I’m Regan. You look my age. How old are you? Your aunt is like a big deal with a capital ‘D,’ if you know what I mean. Even if I didn’t know anything about her, you can tell. It’s her whole vibe, you know? I’m pretty good at picking up what people put down. That’s how I know you and I are going to get along.”

  I don’t know how to respond, but it feels as though a whirlwind has picked me up and tossed me miles away. Before my mom passed, I would’ve been friends with someone like her. Now, though… she’s interrupted my cry, and my body feels the lack of that release keenly. I just want to rest my head on the cool glass of the window and weep quietly, but the chattering is making that tough.

  “We were all waiting for our dorm assignments,” she continues, waving her hand in the air to indicate everyone on the bus, “and your aunt told a bunch of us to take a ride on a bus to pick up her niece, and we all filed onto this thing like nice little sheep. ‘Keep your mouths shut, and if anyone talks to you, pretend you’re off to summer camp.’” She mimics Aunt Bree with scary accuracy. “It’s hard for me to keep my mouth shut when I’m excited though.”

  I shift to look behind me, really registering the others for the first time. There are about twelve people behind us, an even sprinkling of guys and girls around our age, their conversations blending into a gentle murmur. I’d almost think I was on a city bus with the mix of ethnicities and the ratio of kids wearing gear I can’t afford to those who look just the opposite.

  “Is… are you all training with me?” I ask the girl, Regan, curiosity bri
efly winning out over my misery.

  “Oh yeah, all of us and then some. I think I heard someone say there are twenty-four initiates this year. What’s the deal with the whole camp thing? Why’d we have to pick you up?”

  “My dad doesn’t know about Theban Group.”

  “Makes sense, then! Yusef over there?” She points to a boy a few rows behind us, and he gives me a nod hello when I turn to look. “His granddad is the only scryer in his family, and no one else knows anything about it. He convinced everyone to send Yusef to what they think is a regular boarding school.”

  “I flew in today,” Yusef says in a melodic, accented voice.

  “From hella far away, too. I thought there was a satellite office near you,” Regan says to him. To me she says, “Your aunt recruited us all. I heard she hit up like six continents.”

  “There is a satellite. But here is better. Headquarters is the center of it all.” Yusef smiles.

  I smile politely at the boy, then turn to look out the window, watching a shabby Spiderman-outfitted man pose for pictures with some tourists.

  “You know, Fortnight Foresight did a whole spread on your aunt in their latest issue,” Regan says, drawing my attention back to her. She says it loud, and I glance around, hoping the others don’t think I’m a snob for my connection with Bree… worrying this girl’s friendliness is because of that connection.

  She digs into her bag and hands me a glossy magazine. The cover is dominated by an image of Aunt Bree from the shoulders up in a pool. Her gorgeous face is damp and flawless, and her dark hair is pulled back tight. Her cat-like eyes stare coldly beneath the cover line: Aubrey Morai. Theban Group’s Hottest Oracle Reveals All.

  “I’m not really close with my aunt,” I say in a voice that carries.

  She shrugs, easing my worry over that second concern, as least. “This was a really good article too.” Regan points at a smaller cover line. Breakup Blues. Get Over Him & Get Your Visions Back On Track. “Like, even if you aren’t dealing with a breakup, it has some amazeballs tips on clearing your mind.”