Jennifer Estep Bundle (2 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Estep

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“What happened?” I asked.
I sat up and realized that I was lying in a hospital bed, wearing a paper-thin gray gown covered with purple polka dots. Plastic tubes snaked from my left wrist over to some machines that beeped out my heart rate and other vital signs. Off to my right was an open door. Beyond that, nurses walked up and down a drab hallway, while patients attached to IVs shuffled along behind them.
“You had an epileptic seizure,” my mom said. “At least, that's what the doctors think.”
I shook my head and winced as a dull ache started throbbing behind my eyes. “It wasn't a seizure. It was my Gypsy gift. It just . . . I just . . . freaked out.”
Concern filled my mom's eyes. She was a Gypsy just like me, which meant that she had a gift like me. In my mom's case, she knew if someone was telling the truth or not just by listening to their words. Basically, my mom was like a living, breathing lie detector. Yeah, her magic made it hard on me whenever I wanted to get away with something that I shouldn't. Still, my mom's Gypsy gift came in handy, especially since she was a police detective. My mom had dedicated her life and her magic to helping people. She was the bravest person I knew, and I wanted to be just like her.
In a shaky voice, I told her about picking up Paige's hairbrush and the terrible things that I'd seen Paige's stepdad doing to her. My mom's face got a little tighter and her violet eyes grew a little darker with every word I said. By the time I finished my story, I could almost feel the anger coming off her in cold waves.
“Did Paige say anything to you?” my mom asked. “Did she ever mention her stepdad to you before?”
I shook my head. “No. We're not that close, and I didn't see him around when I went over to her house to find her phone.”
My mom had opened her mouth to ask me another question, when a series of familiar
jingle-jingle-jingles
sounded. A moment later, an older woman wearing a purple silk shirt and black pants and shoes stepped into the room. At least, that's what I thought she was wearing. It was kind of hard to tell since layers of colorful scarves covered her body, wrapping around her in a rainbow of fluttering fabric. Bright, gleaming silver coins dangled off the fringed ends of the scarves and jangled together with every step she took. Another scarf held her iron-gray hair back off her wrinkled face. The scarf was the same violet color as her eyes—as all our eyes were.
“Hello, pumpkin,” Grandma Frost said in a warm, cheery voice, coming over to stand beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, Grandma,” I said. “I have a headache, though.”
For a second, Grandma's eyes took on an empty, glassy look, and something stirred in the air around her—something that seemed old, watchful, and knowing all at the same time.
“Well, I'm sure you'll be fine in another hour or two,” Grandma murmured in an absent tone.
I knew she was having one of her visions. Geraldine Frost had a Gypsy gift just like my mom and I did. In my grandma's case, she could see the future, something that she used to make extra money, telling fortunes out of her house. Grandma was an entrepreneur, like me.
After a moment, Grandma Frost's eyes focused again, and the invisible force that had been swirling around her vanished. She looked at me and smiled.
“I'm afraid we have a problem,” my mom said, staring at my grandma. “A big one.”
My mom told my grandma about Paige's stepdad abusing her. Soon, my grandma was radiating the same cold anger as my mom.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
My mom looked at me. “I'm going to go talk to Paige, and I'm going to see what I can find out about her stepdad. Whether he has a record, whether he's ever done this before. Don't worry, Gwen. No matter what happens or what I find out, I'm going to help your friend. The gods wanted you to pick up Paige's hairbrush so you could see what she was going through. Now they want me to help her.”
Mom was a little weird that way, always talking about gods and goddesses as if they were real and not just characters in the mythological stories that she'd read to me when I was a kid. Ares, Athena, some warrior chicks named Nike and Sigyn. Mom called all the gods and goddesses by name, like she knew them on a personal basis or something. Yeah, it was totally embarrassing whenever she said something about the gods in front of my friends, but I loved her too much to be mean and tell her so. Most of the time, anyway.
“I'll stay here and deal with the doctors,” Grandma Frost said. “You go help that poor girl, Grace.”
My mom nodded and turned back to me. “Bye, baby. I'll be home tonight as soon as I can.”
She touched my cheek, and once again, I felt the warmth of her love wash over me, taking all my troubles with it. My mom smiled, then left the room.
 
Grandma Frost stayed with me in the hospital. The doctors wanted to run some more tests, mainly brain scans, to try to figure out why I'd had such a freak-out in the locker room. Of course, Grandma couldn't exactly tell them the truth—that my Gypsy gift had made me see something so awful that my brain had basically been overloaded with pain and gone haywire. They'd probably want to scan
her
brain then, if she started talking about my psychometry.
Mom and Grandma didn't hide the fact that we were Gypsies who had magic, but they didn't exactly advertise it, either. We used our gifts, but we didn't explain them to people or brag about the things we could do. The magic was just a part of us, along with our violet eyes and the Frost family name, and no one had ever really asked many questions about our powers—except me.
It took some arguing on Grandma Frost's part, but since the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with me, they eventually discharged me that afternoon.
Grandma took me to her house, which was located a few streets over from the downtown district in Asheville. I stayed with Grandma on the nights that Mom had to work late, so I had my own room there. Grandma insisted that I stay in bed for the rest of the day, but she let me call Bethany.
“Gwen!” Bethany shrieked in my ear. “Are you okay? What was wrong with you?”
“I'm fine,” I said. “I'm at my grandma's house. The doctors think I had a seizure or something. They ran some tests, but they said I'll be fine. I'll be back at school tomorrow. I don't even get a day off.”
“Well, whatever it was, it was
freaky,
” Bethany said. “Especially since you kept right on screaming even after you passed out. You were yelling and thrashing around like you were possessed or something the whole time. Everyone at school's talking about it.”
I winced. “They are?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bethany said. “Everybody was texting about it.”
I sighed. So now I was going to be even more of a freak than I already was. Gwen Frost, the seizure girl. Great. There went any chance I had of finding a date for the sophomore prom, which was coming up in a few days. I might have dumped Drew, but I was still going to the prom, since my mom had found the perfect dress for me.
“What about Paige?” I asked.
“What about her?” I could hear the confusion in Bethany's voice. “She was just as scared as the rest of us were.”
I wondered about that, especially when I remembered the weird look Paige had given me before I'd picked up her hairbrush, but I didn't ask Bethany any more questions about Paige. She wouldn't know the answers, anyway.
I talked to Bethany a few more minutes before Grandma came into my room and said that I needed to get some rest. I told Bethany I'd see her tomorrow and hung up. I spent the rest of the day lazing in bed and reading the comic books I had stashed in my messenger bag. Grandma Frost had stopped at school and picked up my bag on the way home from the hospital. She'd also gotten my homework assignments for the classes I'd missed, but I'd do those later. I figured I deserved to slack off a little.
Grandma made a great dinner of spicy, Southwestern chicken, black bean salsa, and roasted sweet potatoes. For dessert, we had sticky-sweet apple enchiladas sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and topped with vanilla bean ice cream. I didn't eat much, though. I was too busy thinking about Paige and what might be happening to her.
My mom finally called late that night.
“It's done,” she said in a weary voice. “I told Paige that I was your mom and got her to talk to me. She told me exactly what you saw with your psychometry, and I arrested her stepdad.”
I let out a tense breath. “So Paige is okay now?”
“She will be,” my mom said. “Paige's mom is out of town on a business trip, so Paige and her sister are staying with some relatives. I called her mom, and she's on her way back home right now. She was horrified by what I told her. She had no idea that was going on. Nobody did, except for Paige. Her stepdad threatened to start doing the same thing to her little sister if Paige told anyone what he was doing to her.”
We didn't say anything for several seconds.
“You did a good thing today, Gwen,” my mom finally said in a gentle voice. “A really good thing. I'm proud of you.”
“For what? Freaking out and screaming my head off?”
“You know what I mean,” my mom said. “You used your psychometry magic to help someone else. That's why we have our Gypsy gifts in the first place, you know. To help others—and ourselves, if we need to.”
No, I didn't know, because Mom and Grandma Frost never talked about stuff like that. They never mentioned why we were Gypsies or where our magic came from in the first place. On the rare times when I tried to talk to them about it, they got all vague and uptight, just like they did whenever I asked about my dad, Tyr, who'd died from cancer when I was two.
I opened my mouth to ask my mom once again about who we were and why we could do the things we did, but she cut me off.
“Anyway, I've still got a ton of paperwork to finish,” my mom said. “Don't wait up for me. I'll talk to you in the morning. I love you, Gwen.”
For a second, I again thought about asking her about our magic, but I knew she wouldn't answer me. She never did. Besides, she'd had a long day, helping Paige. My mom sounded tired, so I decided not to bother her tonight.
“Love you, too,” I said, and hung up.
I didn't know then that this would be the last time I ever talked to her.
 
I took a shower, threw on my pajamas, and crawled into bed. Grandma Frost came and tucked me in, just like she used to when I was a little girl. She turned out the light, and I snuggled under the covers and went to sleep.
My dreams were strange that night, filled with swords and shadowy figures and a pair of burning red eyes that seemed to follow me no matter how hard I tried to get away from them. In my dreams, I ran and ran and ran, carrying a silver sword in my hand, but the eyes were always there, always chasing me. When I finally stopped running and turned to face them, the eyes kept coming, washing over me like clouds of choking smoke before they swallowed me whole—
I woke up sweating, a scream lodged in my throat, my legs thrashing, my heart beating crazily in my chest.
Thump-thump-thump
. It took me a few seconds to realize that it had just been a dream and that I was safe and warm at Grandma Frost's house. I shivered. For some reason, the fact that it was only a dream didn't make it any less creepy. Not tonight.
I rolled over and looked at the clock beside the bed. Three thirty-seven in the morning, but I knew I couldn't go back to sleep, not with the image of those burning eyes still fresh in my head. The weird thing was, I couldn't figure out where they had come from.
Whenever I touched an object, whenever I flashed on the images and feelings associated with it, they became a part of me, and I could always remember what I'd seen. It was sort of like having a photographic memory. Sometimes, when I was asleep, my mind surfed through all those memories, showing me random bits and pieces of them, like I was watching clips from a dozen movies at once.
But I'd never seen a pair of red eyes before—and I
definitely
would have remembered those eyes and their cruel, burning glow.
Still a little fuzzy with sleep, I got out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. Voices sounded from below, drifting up the stairs to me—low, soft, urgent. Mom must have finally made it home and was talking to Grandma. Good.
When I finished in the bathroom, I headed downstairs to the kitchen, where Mom and Grandma always had their late-night conferences over homemade hot chocolate and whatever sweet treat my grandma had baked that day.
But they weren't in the kitchen, even though the lights were on. Weird. I didn't hear the voices talking anymore, either, so I walked down the hallway and into the front of the house.
Grandma Frost was slumped against the front door, her hand on the knob like she'd just closed it behind someone.

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