Charmed: Destiny Romance (10 page)

She came closer, put her hands on his shoulders and went up on tippy-toe to brush a kiss against his cheek. ‘Michael,’ she whispered against his ear, ‘thank you for one of the best days ever. I’ll always treasure it. Please don’t be too hard on Kate. Good luck with everything.’

Her kiss and the whispering disarmed him, so when she pushed past him to go to the door, he didn’t stop her. He stood in a kind of daze, watching as she disappeared, trying to piece together what had just happened.

She closed the door behind her gently, so there was no reason at all for the surfboard, which had happily sat in place for nine months, to suddenly decide to topple and fall. But it did. In fact, it waited a good couple of minutes after the door had closed to tip over.

The noise of polystyrene and fibreglass crashing onto tiled floor was surprisingly loud. Enough to startle Michael from his reverie.

He tore open the door and ran down to the main entrance – getting there in just enough time to see a cab peel off from the kerb.

Mel was gone.

Back in the apartment, Michael stared at the upended surfboard. Was it a sign from Dave? He made a noise of disgust at himself. He didn’t believe in that shit. Absolutely not.

He didn’t believe in someone talking to his dead grandmother about the stolen Christmas biscuits from when he was a kid. He didn’t believe in a woman locating a lost child in a museum using only her mind. He didn’t believe in predicting the success of an ice-cream shop by mysteriously knowing about a recipe for minestrone from the shop owner’s father.

He also didn’t believe that Mel had been lying when she said she didn’t know Kate. Or Annie.

But then how . . .?

Michael picked up the surfboard. But he hesitated before sitting it back in its old position. It had always been kind of awkward there – made it difficult if he was carrying anything in or out of the door. And there was that empty space in the lounge room, behind the lamp, near the TV.

He carried it into the lounge and positioned it against the wall. Michael collapsed back on the sofa. The surfboard was a perfect fit for the space, only now it was in prime position – he’d be able to see it from just about anywhere in the apartment.

Maybe that was how it should be. Maybe instead of the board being a reminder of loss – each time he left and came home, thinking about what life might take away from him –he should instead think about what Dave had
given
him. A loving older brother, who’d taken care of his younger sibling. Taken him under his wing when Michael had first joined the business and helped him get established. Taught him about girls. Taught him to surf – to stand up on a piece of board on a wave.

In so many ways, Dave had always been teaching Michael to find his feet. Now he had to stand alone.

The rain outside had stopped and weak sunlight began to filter its way through the windows. One particularly strong beam hit the surfboard, glinting off its shiny surface. Michael blinked and looked away, only to find himself staring at one of Mel’s beaded necklaces, lying on the sofa. She must have taken it off and forgotten it.

Michael didn’t believe in signs. Absolutely not. Besides, he’d already chased after her once. And yet . . .

He wasn’t chasing after her this time. No, that wasn’t what this was about. He needed answers. Answers to help him move on with his life.

Michael grabbed the necklace in one fist and his car keys in the other and headed for the door.

‘Back already?’

Mel didn’t answer her godmother. She didn’t have
anything
to say to her. But she couldn’t face going home to an empty apartment, so instead she’d decided to come back to work. Hopefully, there’d be a constant stream of customers and she wouldn’t have to think about . . . any of it.

‘What’s wrong?’

The teasing, taunting tone in Aunt Gertrude’s voice was gone. She actually sounded serious for once – serious and concerned.

Too little too late.

‘I’m fine,’ Mel said, but her voice broke on a sob.

‘Oh, my darling girl.’

Mel absolutely did not want to accept comfort from the woman who’d caused all this drama in the first place, but Aunt Gertrude’s squishy, bosomy hugs were hard to resist –physically as well as emotionally.

Mel let herself give in to her tears. Sorrow at the loss of Michael was uppermost, but there was also a good deal of self-pity there. For what she’d never have. For the pain she’d suffered all her life for being ‘different’.

‘There, there.’

Aunt Gertrude patted her back and made her feel like a child, but for now, Mel would accept it. She felt like a child. Silly and naive. What had she been thinking? Had she really thought to hide her abilities from Michael? Had she expected to have a ‘normal’ life for once? She should know by now that wasn’t an option open to her.

She hiccupped and sniffed and pulled herself away from her godmother’s comforting arms and overpowering perfume.

‘Here’s a tissue.’

Mel blew her nose noisily, belatedly thinking to check the shop for customers. It was empty.

‘Now, tell me what happened.’

‘I was an idiot,’ Mel said.

Aunt Gertrude nodded. ‘Apparently. And what else?’

Still sniffing, Mel gave a brief outline of her interactions with Kate and what she’d discovered.

‘And you told Michael?’

‘What else could I do? It was destroying him. He needed to know.’

Aunt Gertrude clucked her tongue. ‘That’s your problem. Too soft-hearted.’

‘There was no future for us anyway. What was the point?’

‘The point was to have fun.’

Mel’s fingernails bit into her palms as she fought the desire to punch her godmother square in the face. ‘You and your “have fun”. That’s what got me into all this in the first place.’

‘What’s wrong with fun? Apart from the fact that you have too little of it?’

‘It wasn’t fun!’ Mel couldn’t help her voice rising. Her grief was somehow morphing into anger. ‘I mean, it
was
fun, but . . . It wasn’t
just
fun.’

‘You have a strange definition of —’

A lifetime of anger came crashing down out of nowhere. ‘It’s not fair! Why can’t I have a normal life? I didn’t ask to be able to read minds or tell the future. I didn’t ask to be a freak or to be pushed away by anyone I care about! But I’m stuck with it! And it means I’m always going to be alone!’ Her tears were back, rolling down her cheeks in hot wet drops of pointless anger and painful self-pity.

‘But you’ve always known that, pet,’ Aunt Gertrude had her teasing voice on again. ‘Why is it different now?’

‘Because . . . I was falling in love with him, okay?’ she shouted. Her voice echoed around the shop. But the silence wasn’t as silent as it should have been. There was traffic noise. The ding of a tram bell from somewhere down the street.

Because the door was open.

And Michael was standing there.

‘You . . . You can read minds?’

Mel gasped and swallowed at the same time, choking herself. If it wasn’t bad enough for Michael to see her with blood-shot eyes, tear-stained cheeks and a snotty nose, now she had an epic coughing fit right in front of him.

Aunt Gertrude smacked her on the back, hard, causing Mel to stagger forward. But her coughing instantly vanished – her godmother must have cast a charm over her. Her tears and sniffing abated, too.

‘What . . . what are you doing here?’ Mel searched inside herself for the right emotion. There were so many it was difficult to choose just one. Especially since – pathetically – she was just stupidly glad to see him again. But she went with holding on to her anger, hauling up what she hoped was just the right indignant expression. It wouldn’t really matter anyway. Aunt Gertrude was going to have to cast a spell to erase his memory of this conversation. Non-magical people weren’t allowed to know of the existence of psychic-seers.

Michael didn’t say anything, he just held up a hand – one of her favourite beaded necklaces hung from it.

Indignant, remember?
‘You could have just posted it to me.’

He opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head and looking entirely bewildered.

Aunt Gertrude bustled over to him. ‘Here, young man, you look like you need to sit down.’ She wrapped an arm around his waist and led him over to a stool by the counter.

Once he was seated, and had gently removed Aunt Gertrude’s arm from around him, he stared at Mel again.

‘I guess . . . I thought . . . But then I . . . No.’ He slumped against the counter. ‘It does explain . . . But . . .’

Suddenly he sat bolt upright, his eyes wide. ‘Me. My mind.’ He put his hands over his skull as if he could somehow protect himself. ‘You read my mind! Did you read my mind?’

Mel shook her head. ‘No. I can’t read your mind, Michael.’

‘I don’t believe you! Prove it!’

‘How? How can I prove it to you? By
not
predicting what you’re thinking about? Think of a number. There. Four hundred and three. Was I right? No! Because I can’t read your mind.’

‘But you said . . .’

‘Yes, I can read minds.
Usually
.’ Mel shrugged. It didn’t matter if she admitted it, the forgetting spell would mean he’d never recall her confession anyway. ‘But not yours, for some reason. I don’t know why.’

‘But you —’

‘She actually can’t, you know,’ Aunt Gertrude piped up.

‘Shut up,’ they both said in unison.

‘No, listen here to me. Just for a moment. I could tell when I smelled your jacket.’

Michael shot Mel that slightly panicked, slightly appalled look that Aunt Gertrude seemed to provoke in him. ‘When you
smelled
my jacket?’ he echoed.

‘Yes, of course.’

Mel was quickly growing tired of this conversation. When would her godmother wipe Michael’s brain so that Mel could go buy a tonne of chocolate and retreat to her bed? She sighed. ‘Aunt Gertrude, what are you talking about?’

‘Soul mates.’

‘What?’ Mel and Michael once again spoke at the same time.

‘Soul mates,’ she repeated, looking annoyed. ‘Mel, you know this.’

‘Know what?’ Mel asked, thoroughly confused. But a little seed of knowledge lodged somewhere deep inside her. Michael was her soul mate.
Yes. That felt right
. But it only made the fact that they couldn’t be together that much more painful.

‘Here. Let me show you.’

Aunt Gertrude gestured for them to follow her through the bead curtain to the back of the shop. Once they were in the hallway, she waved her arm to access the Other Room.

Michael’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. ‘But that . . . Where did that come from? It wasn’t there . . .’

Aunt Gertrude patted Michael on the arm. ‘Poor boy. You really don’t get it, do you? Magic, dear, magic.’

‘Magic,’ he muttered under his breath.

Mel and Michael stood in the doorway while Aunt Gertrude entered the musty room. It was much larger than the physical space would indicate, and Mel couldn’t help smiling as Michael kept swaying back and forth, looking into the room, then looking back out into the corridor, trying to calculate how it worked.

Aunt Gertrude murmured an incantation, and a large, dusty book flew into her hand from a distant shelf. She blew the dust from the cover, sneezed, and then opened it, scanning through the pages.

‘Here,’ she said, walking back towards them and the brighter light of the corridor. ‘It says it right here.’

Mel took the book from her godmother and looked down at the passage she’d been pointing to. The text of the book was in a fancy, cursive font – the difficulty of reading it only magnified by the fact that it was in purple ink on pink paper.

Mel began reading aloud. ‘When souls are intertwined as per a joint collaboration vis-a-vis universal connection (heretofore known as soul mates) there is—’ Mel broke off and looked at her godmother. ‘It’s in ancient officialdomese? I hate this language.’

‘Keep going. You’ll get it.’

‘— there is an automatic right to recognise such a pairing or duo. (Trios are not as yet officially recognised. See Magic Code part MXXIII, subsection VII.) Pairings are, however, rare, and notification to the Magic Council and/or its legally appointed representative as per section IV of the Magic Code, part XVII, is required for record-keeping purposes.’

Mel frowned at her godmother. ‘That doesn’t mean anything.’

Beside her, Michael nodded. ‘It really doesn’t. I’m an accountant and I’ve read tax law. All that says is that so-called “soul mates” need to register with some council. Nothing about mind-reading.’

‘The footnote!’ Aunt Gertrude said, pouncing on them to point at the bottom of the page. ‘You missed the footnote!’

Mel squinted to read the tiny print. ‘Soul-mate pairings render null and void the powers of psychic-seers, telekenetics and shape-shifters. (Shape-shifters should refer to part MXXIV, subsection III of the Magic Code: care and treatment of animals as per magic transmutations.)’

‘Shape-shifters exist?’ Michael whispered.

‘Oh, just a few werewolves and werecats,’ Aunt Gertrude said with a wave of her hand, ‘and a few werekangaroos – they’re downright creepy. But that’s not important right now. Did you read it?’

Mel nodded. She pointed at the exact words. ‘See, Michael? “Null and void”. My powers don’t work on you.’

‘I guess.’ He didn’t sound convinced.

Mel looked at him. For some reason it felt important for him to understand this. ‘I promise. I absolutely cannot read your mind. It freaked me out when you first came in for your reading – I couldn’t get any information about you at all, it’s why I had to reach out to the spirits.’

He didn’t seem to be the least bit comforted by that. ‘So you can talk to dead people, too?’

‘No, no. It’s not like that. I just —’

Michael turned on his heel and swept the bead curtain aside, leaving it clattering loudly behind him.

Mel waited for the sound of the door opening, but it didn’t come. She tucked the musty old book under her arm and cautiously stepped through the curtain herself, finding Michael standing at the display of porcelain angels, staring unseeingly at them.

‘I know it’s a lot to take in,’ she said gently.

He blinked and turned to look at her. ‘You really
can’t
read my mind?’ he asked.

‘I really can’t.’

‘But you can read other people’s?’

She nodded. ‘If I try. But most of the time I don’t. I wear this ring,’ she held up her hand to show off her crystal, ‘and that blocks my powers. I normally only take it off when people come in here for a reading.’

‘So you read Kate’s mind?’

Mel drew in a breath. ‘Yes. Well . . . She feels so guilty, Michael, she’s kind of broadcasting her thoughts like a beacon. It was almost impossible
not
to read her.’ She looked away. ‘And you . . . You were hurting and didn’t understand and I just thought . . . I just thought you needed to know.’

‘You were trying to help me.’

He didn’t sound grateful, or understanding. Just . . . 
cold
. Mel swallowed nervously.

‘Yes, I was trying to help you.’

‘By keeping this enormous secret from me? By hiding who you really were?’

Mel’s nerves suddenly vanished, replaced by white-hot anger. She’d spent all her life hiding who she really was! ‘I couldn’t tell you! How exactly was I supposed to say, “Oh, by the way, I’m a psychic-seer who can read minds and predict the future”? Exactly when was I going to drop that into the conversation?’

‘So you thought it was better for me to remain in the dark?’ Michael was angry now, too. ‘To go on as normal, not knowing what was really going on? To let me just fall in love with you and not know the most important thing about you?’

‘I didn’t have a choice! I was doing what was best for you!’

‘Yeah, that’s what they all say.’ He spun on his heel, heading for the door.

‘Michael, wait . . .’ Mel’s chest ached, the pain acute, like she was having surgery without anaesthetic.

‘Hang on a moment, boy.’ Aunt Gertrude emerged and grabbed his wrist. She muttered a few words and a cloudy, confused expression crossed his face.

Mel’s anger vanished, tipping over into pure grief. Tears rolled down her face.

Michael. Her love. Her soul mate. Her very own, personal archangel. He’d forget her now. She wished Aunt Gertrude had prepared her, given her time to say goodbye, somehow. But there was no way to do that. Michael was furious with her for lying to him. He wasn’t interested in tearful goodbyes.

‘I have to . . .’ Michael said. He rubbed his forehead. ‘I’ve got a headache. I have to go home,’ he said eventually. ‘I have to think about all this. Mel, I . . .’ He looked at her, for what Mel knew would be one last time, and as painful as it was to meet his gaze, she couldn’t look away. She soaked him in – his brown eyes and too-long hair and stubbled jaw – and tried to store enough memories to last the rest of her life. Because she’d never do this again. There’d never be another Michael.

How could you ever find another soul mate?

Too soon he was gone, the chimes on the door sounding dull and cheap as they sang of his departure.

‘Well, that went better than expected,’ Aunt Gertrude said cheerily, clapping her hands together.

‘
What?
’ Mel rounded on her godmother. ‘How can you possibly say that? He’s my soul mate. And he just walked out the door!’

Aunt Gertrude didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed. She wandered over to the counter and began tidying the displays there. ‘Did you hear it when he said he’d fallen in love with you? You were being all cranky and mean, so I wondered if you might have missed it. But he did say it. And I’m pretty sure he heard you say you loved him, too. It’s like a fairytale. Or a really good episode of
Grey’s Anatomy
 – only if you were doctors, obviously.’