Ask Me (12 page)

“Like those Nostradamus prophecies.”

“Yeah, kind of like that type of thing.” I fell silent, watching his thumb make circles on the back of my hand.

“You’re
always
right?” he asked.

“The truth is in me,” I said in that deep voice again. I sighed. “Yes, always. If you can puzzle it out. The rhymes are the worst.”

“This is pretty amazing, Aria,” he said.

He didn’t understand. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

“Why—sorry.” He stopped to think. “Can—” He stopped again. “This is hard.”

“Tell me about it,” I said. Granddad had been struggling with it for years.

“I have so many questions,” he said.

“Everyone does. Trust me. I would know.” That was my feeble attempt to make a joke. He didn’t laugh. I didn’t
either. “Why do you think I was eating all those crackers this week?”

“Crackers …” He raised an eyebrow, avoiding the inflection in his voice by proxy.

“The really hard questions … the tough ones … I
feel
them. All the stuff about Jade …” I trailed off.

He was silent a moment. “I suppose everyone has been asking who did it.” He let go of my hand and stood up, turning away from me. This had to be hard for him to think about. Even if they really weren’t going together it was obvious he still had feelings for her. He’d said as much. Besides, they’d known each other all their lives.

If it was hard for me to think about, I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him. I nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “And why and … how.”

“I need to know what you know, Aria.” He turned and looked at me, his eyes unblinking and bright. He stepped closer. I picked up an orange from the counter and stared down at it, picking at the peel and releasing the sharp scent of citrus into the air. How much should I tell him? How much would it hurt him to hear it?

“Aria,” he said. “Tell me.
Please.”

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the sweet smell of the orange. “Well, she was stabbed, like they reported. Three times. She … crawled for help, but she didn’t make it.” Obviously. I was terrible at this. “And then she just … stopped.” A long sliver of orange peel twirled between my fingers, twitching.

He let out a long breath, deep enough to disturb the hair hanging in front of my eyes. I blinked as they
brushed against my eyelashes. “There must be more.” His voice was shaking.

I didn’t want to tell him any more. Not about the blood or the pain or the despair she had felt and especially not the emptiness at the end. “Well, if you wanted an example of how stupid my answers can be, every time someone asked who did it, it was just this weird bit of poetry. Same thing every time.” I had no trouble reciting it from memory; I’d whispered it to myself so many times. “Water is like life, it arrives madly, then recedes away faster, faster … leaving everything silent.”

“Hmmm,” he said, taking the orange from my hand and working a segment loose. “Water is like life …”

“It’s not from anything. I looked it up on the Internet while I was at school. I don’t know what it means.” I watched as he took a bite of the slice of orange and chewed it slowly.

The entire stand seemed filled with the smell of it now. I knew I would never again be able to eat an orange without thinking of this day, this moment in time.

“Interesting,” he finally said. “Your answers really always mean something?”

“I only speak the truth. It is up to the listener to bring meaning.” I cleared my throat. He’d forgotten that time, but I could forgive him. It was hard to remember not to ask.

He began pacing back and forth within the small confines of the stand, in between the pickled green tomatoes and the orange marmalade. Dust motes danced in the air, disturbed by his passage. “There are just so many possibilities,” he said, hands waving in the air.

A Chevy sped by, kicking up sand and rocks as it vanished
down the road. A missed customer. I didn’t let it bother me. I relaxed my shoulders, realizing for the first time that I must look like some kind of troll all hunched over on my stool. “It’s really not that simple,” I said. I tried to think what this must seem like from his point of view. It would be like finding out magic existed. But from my point of view, I knew the magic didn’t bring happiness, only tragedy. The fairy tales were right about that.

“I don’t see why not. You know, you could change the world.”

He sounded like Gran. I looked away. “I don’t want to change the world,” I said quietly. “I just want—” I stopped short. I didn’t know what I wanted. I really just knew what I didn’t want.

Will pulled himself up to sit on the counter next to me. It let out a loud creak, making us both jump. “No offense, Aria … but I was wondering … I was wondering why you guys … do this.” Will looked embarrassed for me as he waved a hand around at the shack.

“You mean, why haven’t we won the lottery a few times?” So we didn’t have to live like poor white trash? I stared out into the sunlight. “Granddad does try, but the answers never work out. I mean, they’re always right and everything, but nothing you can figure out ahead of time. The last time he asked for the numbers, it was something about how the devil’s chance is a pious man’s dream.” I left out the part about how there had been three sixes in the winning numbers that week, so that answer had made at least a little sense later, but definitely not at the time.

“Ah,” he said. “But it is possible.”

“I suppose,” I said. “Gran doesn’t like that we even try. She says it’s practically an abomination. A crime to use my gift that way. She says it should only be used to help people.”

“Well, you’re people, too. Even oracles have to live.” He managed a sad grin. “You deserve something nice.”

“I did help Granddad win a thousand dollars at the dog track this week.”

“That’s great! You just have to ask the right question or be smart enough to figure out the answer,” he said.

“I guess.” I wasn’t stupid, and neither was Granddad. Some of my answers, in my opinion, really weren’t meant to be figured out, like my inner oracle was trying to be unclear on purpose. But Will was new to this. He’d heard some strange answers from me, but nothing as off-the-wall as some of the stuff I’d said over the years. He’d be scratching his head soon, too.

“No worries,” he said, and his smile brightened. “We’ll figure it out. The two of us.”

Granddad was already at the house when Gran and I got back from the stand. He was busy filleting some perch and whistling a jaunty tune. He’d been lucky today after all. He was on a streak. I snuck past him to move the ground beef from the fridge to the freezer again so he wouldn’t notice that our faith had been lacking. I kissed him on the cheek, his stubby whiskers scratchy against my lips.

“Good day today?”

I didn’t even mind that he’d forgotten and had asked it as a question. “Surprisingly so,” I answered. “Sometimes the truth really does set you free.” Granddad didn’t bother asking me to explain, being used to my weird utterances.

“Aria had a visitor come by today,” said Gran. She paused for impact. “A boy.”

“Oh, must have been the boy who stopped by here earlier. I sent him over that way. Big fellow, dark hair.”

Dark hair? Couldn’t be Will. Alex? Apparently, he
actually remembered last night. I was kind of surprised. But why was he looking for me? I remembered the sudden growl of gravel being kicked up as a truck had sped by the stand while I’d talked with Will. Had that been Alex? I’d left his Chevy at the lake, but maybe he’d picked it up.

“No, different boy,” said Gran, lifting an eyebrow at me. “The one I saw was blond. Our Aria is popular today.”

“Hmm,” said Granddad. “I suppose I ought to make sure my shotgun is clean then.” He grinned at me, but I knew he was at least partly serious. He didn’t keep a baseball bat in his car because he liked to play ball. He looked frail, but he was wiry and his time in the Army had taught him some dirty moves. Just ask the guy who’d tried to rob him the last time he’d been down in Miami. Granddad had walked away unscathed, but the robber had lost three teeth.

“Well, the one I met seemed very nice,” said Gran. “Maybe you should invite him over for dinner sometime.” She stopped what she was doing and took my face in her hands, looking deep into my eyes. “Talking to him … worked out okay, I’m guessing.”

“Yes,” I said, not looking away. “More than okay.” I didn’t tell her he knew my secret, saving that for myself. She said she missed her gift, but I could only imagine that she had forgotten what it was like to actually have it. She’d met Granddad well after she’d lost it. She’d never been forced to tell him something unpleasantly true, only what it was like to live that way. And he’d always believed her, even before he saw it in me.

Gran went back to wandering around the kitchen,
straightening this, moving that. She never knew what to do when Granddad was doing the cooking.

“I went downtown to give you kids a chance to talk,” she said. “It was deserted.” I snorted, and she amended that. “Even more deserted than normal. The only people I saw walking around were some police, and they didn’t look overly happy. Don’t think their investigation is getting anywhere.”

That brought me down again. Maybe I should have asked Will more about his relationship or lack thereof with Jade. I wasn’t used to asking questions myself. I wasn’t used to
talking
.

“Yeah, on my way back from fishing I saw some highway patrol out by the road where the first guy was hit. Not sure what they’re gonna find out there now, but they had police tape up. Looked like something out of a TV show.”

“Maybe I should pull out the old stones and bones and see what I see,” said Gran.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to go to this secret place. I had only seen Gran do “her thing” a few times since I had moved in with them after my parents divorced, and neither one of them wanted me. She said throwing the bones looked flaky as anything, but it worked. At least, she thought it worked for her. She didn’t have much respect for palm readers and those who read tarot, with their flashing neon signs and ridiculous turbaned headgear, like the lady up the road. “Anyone can check out a book from the library and learn to do that,” she’d said time and again, “and most of it is pure New Age bullshit. It’s rare that people have an actual gift like us.”

Granddad had admitted to me once that he thought Gran had taken up the stones because she missed her gift. I really didn’t get it. When my “gift” was gone, I was never going to look back.

“Gran,” I said, “I wanted to ask you something about that.” Talking with Will had gotten me thinking, especially about that response I’d given about being descended from a long line of seers. About being a Sybil.

“Ask away,” said Gran.

“Not the casting thing, but, well … you know, I was wondering about our family history. About the stuff we can do.”

Gran dropped the dish towel she’d just picked up and clapped like an overjoyed seal. “I’ve been waiting years for you to ask me that,” she gasped. She sat down next to me and scooted her chair in close. “We’re from a long line, you and me, Aria. I bet you’re still not quite sure what to make of that.”

I shook my head, relieved she didn’t phrase it as a question, relieved she still knew better.

“I’ll make it as plain as I can,” Gran said. “In the beginning, there were ten Sibyls. We are descended from the original Erythraean Sibyl.”

“Try saying that three times fast,” said Granddad, still preparing the fish like we weren’t sitting there talking about people out of mythology being related to us.

“Shush,” said Gran, but she gave him a smile. “She predicted the Trojan War. You know, Michelangelo even painted her. Imagine that! Our ancestress is up on the wall in the Sistine Chapel!”

“Whoo!” said Granddad, twirling a gnarled finger in
the air. Gran reached behind her and gave him a whack without even looking. He chuckled and went back to working on the fish.

“Everyone has heard of the oracle at Delphi, but that was just the most famous location where people would go to ask questions. There were lots of others. There were traveling Sibyls, too. They roamed the countryside and helped people.”

My heart leapt. “If there were ten originally … does that mean that there are more now?” Was I not the only person with my particular problem? Were there more girls out there like me?

“Definitely possible. It’s hard to say how many of us are left. We’re the last in this line, and sometimes the gift is not passed on.”

“Like Mom,” I said.

Gran frowned. “It often skips a generation, but the knowledge is passed down all the same.”

“But then why—” My voice cracked a little, and I cleared my throat. “Why does she hate me so much? If she knew?” She had to have realized it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t make Dad cheat. I had just been the one to tell her.

“She never believed, Aria, and she doesn’t hate you,” said Gran softly. “If anything, she hates herself.”

“And your father,” added Granddad. He gave a vicious chop with his knife and severed the head of a fish with the blow.

Well,
I
was the one she wouldn’t talk to. The daughter she couldn’t look in the face. It had been over three years since I had even seen her.