A Chance for Charity (The Immortal Ones)

A Chance for Charity

The Immortal Ones

S.L. Baum

Image used in designing the cover was created
by Laura Morariu

Published by S.L. Baum - Smashwords
Edition

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals in this novel are
either products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously.

Copyright 2009 by S. Baum

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

This ebook is licensed for
your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or
given away to other people. If you would like to share this book
with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
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the hard work of this author.

****

BOOK JACKET DESCRIPTION

A new family has just arrived in the
isolated mountain town of Telluride, Colorado. Welcome the
Johnstons – Jason (a doctor), Rachel (a designer), and their niece
Emily (a current High School Senior).

Emily has lived the life of a quiet loner in
the past, trying to go unnoticed. But with Telluride being such a
small and welcoming town, she finds a group of friends at school
almost immediately. When Emily meets Link (another new transplant
in town) her world turns upside down. She doesn’t understand why
she feels a magnetic pull toward him, or why she unknowingly lets
her guard down around him. Link is just as confused by his own need
to be with her.

Emily knows she is playing with fire. She
should be doing whatever she can to keep herself isolated, to keep
Link from getting too close. Danger has a way of finding Emily’s
family – that is what keeps them on the move. They arrive in a new
town every few years – it is safer that way.

Because… Emily isn’t really Emily… her real
name is Charity – and Charity has an even bigger secret. Charity
and her family are not like other people, they have “skills” that
mere mortals cannot begin to comprehend.

Before long, Charity is struggling with the
reality that her two lives are coming closer to each other with
each passing day. Soon Link will find himself wrapped in a
supernatural world that he never knew existed – and discover that
mortals are not the only beings that walk this earth.

****

For my kiddos

So they know that being a mommy

doesn't mean giving up your dreams.

It’s never too late to try something
new.

****

prologue

I was twenty years old when my fiancé died.
His death almost destroyed me. The world as I knew it ceased to
exist, and I fell into a cavernous depression. I wasn’t sure that I
could ascend from the abyss, to claw my way out, to continue
on.

How could I live without him?

My
Aunt
and
Uncle
saved me from my hopelessness.
They have a way of making the past disappear so life can start
fresh. And that was what I needed at the time. Now, here we are
again... starting over. This time, it’s out of necessity. This
time, I’m apprehensive. This time, everything is about to
change.

I can feel it.

chapter one

A NEW BEGINNING - AGAIN

“
Emily Johnston?... Is
Emily Johnston here?” This teacher was clearly annoyed. I could
tell by the scowl on his face. His eyebrows almost met in the
center of his forehead when he squinted that way and there was a
vein pulsing at his temple. I wished Emily Johnston would raise her
hand or this guy would give up and move on to the next name. I
glanced around the room to see where Emily might be and felt the
burn of sixteen pair of eyes glaring at me.

“
Oh Crap!” I whispered.
“Here,” I mumbled aloud. “Sorry... Spacing...,” were the only other
words I could manage to utter.

Why did it always take me
so long to remember a new name?
Well good
job, “Emily,” nothing like calling attention to yourself on your
first day of classes
, I admonished myself.
I’d choose the name next time. This was the second time Catherine
had picked a name that just wouldn’t stick in my brain. Emily...
Emily... Emily... I silently chanted in my head.

And Seventeen! Why did I have to be
seventeen again? I hated not being considered an adult. High school
was interesting the first time, but I hated repeating it. I put my
foot down about the grade though, I’m a senior. One year was all I
could bear to put in this time. Well, less than one year, it was
getting close to the middle of October already. We tried starting
me out as a sophomore once, but I could barely pull off fifteen.
I’m seventeen, I’m a senior in high school, and my name is
Emily.

You are Emily
Johnston
, I told myself. Emily is an
average girl, of average height. She has a slight, athletic build.
She could be a gymnast or a swimmer. She has dark, almost black,
hair that falls just below her shoulders, most days it is pulled
back into a low pony-tail, and her eyes are the palest blue. Some
people find the eyes quite startling. I try not to hold eye contact
for too long. I am Emily... and she is me.

I looked down at the book as Mr. Duncan
placed it on my desk. I hadn’t read that one in forever. Did I like
it? It took place in a jungle... guy goes crazy... I tried to
remember all the details.

“
You can copy my notes if
you want. We just started the book last Thursday. You didn’t miss
much.”

“
Thanks, that’d be great.”
I turned to the girl sitting at my right and smiled.

“
I’m Summer.”

“
Emily,” I
offered.

“
Yeah, kinda figured that,”
Summer teased.

“
So embarrassing,” I
cringed, replaying the moment in my head. I couldn’t believe I had
called attention to myself that way. I hated first days, first
weeks. It always took awhile for me to settle into my new
life.

“
Don’t worry about it,”
Summer tried to reassure me.

I sat at my desk and tried to tune-in to the
teacher’s voice and tune-out the various distracting sounds around
the room. I could hear a few kids to the left of me snicker at my
“space out.” Some girl, two desks in front of me, was filing her
nails and the rhythmic scrape of the emery board was roaring in my
ears. The tiny squeak of a dull pencil on notebook paper, from
behind me, was driving me crazy. I shook my head and pushed all the
extra sounds into the background and concentrated on Mr. Duncan’s
voice only.

It was a very long hour.

When the bell rang, releasing us from first
period, Summer exited the room alongside me, matching my pace. It
made me a bit nervous. I usually kept to myself.

“
So, your uncle is the new
doc over at the medical center. My mom is a nurse there,” she
smiled warmly.

“
Clairvoyant?” I
asked.

“
Small town,” she answered.
“What do you have next? I can tell you where to go.”

Summer was trying to be helpful, to ease my
transition into this new school. She had a sincere face, I found
myself liking her already.

“
Trig – with Peterson,” I
read to her from my newly printed schedule.

“
I have Calculus, right
next door. Walk with me.”

Calculus was not my strong point. I’d tried
it the last time. The equations were some form of cruel torture,
like a constant dripping of water onto my forehead until my brain
was ready to explode. Trig was as far as I was willing to test my
math skills this time around.

We walked down the hall and Summer pointed
in the general direction of each of my classes. It turned out we
had four of our six subjects together. With less than two hundred
students in all of the high school, each grade level averaged fewer
than fifty students. I would have no choice but to get to know
these kids extremely well. Why couldn’t I have five hundred
students per grade level again? Then I could sink into oblivion and
no one would notice. Why did James have to pick Telluride anyway?
It was such a tiny town.

“
Well, see you in an hour,”
Summer chimed as we arrived at our separate math
classes.

I watched as she walked through the adjacent
doorway. Summer Paxton was a cute girl. Her short brown hair was
pulled into two tiny pony-tails. She was dressed neatly, in the
unofficial uniform for this high school, jeans and a t-shirt. I was
glad I’d picked a similar outfit. I needed to blend in as much as
possible. I envied her ease, but she’d said she had lived in
Telluride since the age of three. I had been here for three
days.

Four days ago I was with my family, in a
vehicle, driving to Colorado. It was beautiful. I’d give Telluride
that. During the drive I was awed by the fall colors in full
display on the trees - with their brilliant deep jewel toned
leaves. Everywhere I looked, out the window, vibrant colors stared
back at me. There was gold, amber, and garnet splashed across the
mountainside with the evergreens continuously peeking through.
Their deep emerald green a constant in any season. The peaks of the
mountains were white with snow, pearl white I’d say, keeping with
the jewel theme. Did the snow ever melt from up there? I suppose
I’d find out next summer.

I wondered how long we’d
last in Telluride. We couldn’t stay in one place forever. For now,
I was seventeen and lived with my
Uncle
Jason
, who was twenty-nine, and my
Aunt Rachel
, who was
twenty-five. Jason had recently finished all his medical training
and Rachel was a designer. I was Emily, a high school student. Oh
yeah, we had moved to Colorado from Canada. That was our story and
we were sticking to it.

I drove straight home after
school. Home –
that
word would never again mean what I believed it should. Home
was a house now, whatever house we found in our new city or town to
suit our needs. This was our one vice, the one place where we
didn’t follow the rules and try to blend in. We lived well. We
liked a big, strong, beautiful looking, well constructed house. We
also needed space, lots of space. After living together as long as
we had, there were times when each of us needed to get lost, at
home. James and Catherine, aka Jason and Rachel, seemed to need it
less than I did. They gravitated toward each other without ever
being fully aware of it.

Home was now in Mountain Village, an
extension of Telluride, a twenty-or-so minute drive or a ten-plus
minute gondola ride from the center of town. We bought an eight
thousand square foot house overlooking one of the ski trails. The
trail was called Galloping Goose - the thought of a goose galloping
made me smile. I had never skied before and was actually looking
forward to learning the new skill. It was even part of the
curriculum at school. When there was snow enough on the ground, and
I was confident enough in my abilities, I could ski out of and ski
back onto our property. But the white blanket of snow would not
arrive until late November.

I parked my SUV in the garage and entered
the house with a smile on my face. I could hear Catherine
humming... as she poured... (I inhaled deeply through my nose)
...lavender tea into a mug.

“
Hello,
Rachel
, how was your day today?” I
asked as I walked into the kitchen.