Predestined (5 page)

No. Wyatt was friends with Leif.
Wyatt hadn’t been crazy about Dank and me. He felt like I was
cheating on Leif even though I’d told them all that Leif had broken
up with me. I shifted my gaze to Wyatt who was happily eating the
food I’d given him while waiting on me to reply. Had they forgotten
Leif completely?

“Oh, okay, well let me talk to him.
He’ll be gone for a little while but when he gets back, then
sure.”

Wyatt grinned and took a swig of
water. I shifted my attention to the table beside us where Leif
normally sat as reigning king. No one seemed to be concerned about
his absence. Not even Kendra, his girlfriend for years before he’d
broken things off with her this summer. Had they ever really been a
couple or had he just played with her head?

Kendra threw her head back and
laughed at something one of the boys said and I watched in
fascination as she flirted openly with them. Thankfully she’d
forgotten all about Dank once he left the first time. I hadn’t had
to deal with her flirting with him on his return. It was almost
like I didn’t exist as far as she was concerned. Then her eyes
caught mine and a flicker of knowledge startled me before she gazed
right past me and squealed out the name of another cheerleader
approaching the table. They all acted like nothing had happened. No
one worried over their star quarterback anymore.

“I need to brush my teeth and
reapply lipstick. Come with?” Miranda asked, standing
up.

I nodded and stood up to follow her
out of the cafeteria.

“Hey Miranda, so Wyatt’s not upset
about Leif so much now,” I coaxed, waiting to see how she
responded.

Miranda peered back over her
shoulder, “Who?”

Mom wasn’t home. Fantastic. I was
alone. I closed the door behind me and scanned the kitchen to see
if there were any unwanted visitors either floating around or, in
Leif’s case, walking around. The coast seemed clear but that didn’t
calm my nerves much. I dropped my bag on the table and walked over
to the fridge to get a drink and make myself a sandwich.

A taco salad complete with a crispy
tortilla bowl was wrapped up with a sticky note on top.

Gone out with Roger. Be back late.
I ordered your favorite from Los Tacos. Enjoy.

Love you,

Mom

Add
this to the fact that she’d left me at home alone and I could kiss
her face. I was starving after nothing but a roll for lunch. I’d
tutored two freshmen after school and there had been no time for
eating then. Now it was after six and I swear my big intestines
were eating my little intestines. I needed food. Grabbing the salad
and a can of soda I headed for the living room. After hearing
Miranda talk about this week’s
Pretty Little Liars
,
I wanted to watch it myself.

Sinking down onto the couch with my
meal I tucked my feet up under me and turned on the television.
Thanks to good ‘ol Roger, my mom’s boyfriend, we had ourselves a
nice new sixty-two inch flat screen on the wall. Roger was the
district manager over the Best Buys in this area so he got killer
deals. I’d already dropped the hint I was in the market for a new
laptop. My old one was headed to the grave yard fast.

“Pagan.”

Screaming, I dropped my fork and
scanned the room for the owner of that voice.

Leif stood just inside the doorway
leading into the kitchen. He didn’t look ghostly or freaky. He just
looked like Leif. Except he was in my house. Uninvited. And he
didn’t have a soul.

“Pagan,” he repeated.

I opened my mouth to asked him what
the heck when he disappeared in front of me as Gee came storming in
the door like she was on the warpath.

“Where is he? Where’s that little
shit at? I felt him. Now WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

I watched as Gee scanned the living
room and stalked into the kitchen. “He’s gone. Freaking coward,”
she said out loud as she stormed up the steps.

I sat frozen waiting for Gee to
calm down and come back into the room. I was still reeling over
Leif being in my house and Gee was yelling curse words while she
searched every corner.

“You okay?” she asked once she
walked back into the room. I tried to nod but I couldn’t manage.
Instead, I forced a “mmm” out of my throat. My heart was still
racing so fast it felt as if it was going to beat through my
chest.

“Deep breaths, Peggy Ann. Take deep
breaths. Don’t get his majesty over here raining down hell on all
who get in his path because his girl is scared
shitless.”

Her colorful vocabulary caused a
giggle to erupt and I was able to take the deep breath she
suggested.

“There we go. Good girl,” she
affirmed with a satisfied smile and sank down on the sofa beside
me.

I stared down at the salad in my
lap trying to work through my head the fact that Leif had been in
my house. He’d just appeared out of nowhere. Had it been something
else that looked like Leif? He’d sure sounded like Leif.

“You gonna eat that?” Her question
sounded more like a demand as she motioned to the salad bowl that
had miraculously not been spilled all over the floor during the
drama.

I needed to eat it. I hadn’t eaten
all day but the hunger was gone. Now I felt slightly
ill.

“That was Leif, right?” I asked
turning my head so I could see her face.

“Yep. Little shit. Showing up like
a damn coward and scaring you like that. Ain’t so sweet now, is
he?”

I glanced back over to where he’d
been standing. He hadn’t looked scary. He had looked worried. Or
maybe guilty.

“Dank’s gonna get this all worked
out. Stop worrying. Now, you gonna eat that or not because it looks
good.”

I shook my head and Gee snatched it
up and instantly a fork was in her hand.

“Sip on your drink if you feel
sick. You don’t want to go into shock. The sugar will
help.”

Nodding, I took a small sip of the
cold sweet soda and my stomach seemed to settle some.

“Why was he here?”

“Cause he wanted to talk to you, I
guess,” Gee replied before shoving another forkful of salad into
her mouth.

“The kids at school, his parents,
they’re all forgetting him.”

Gee nodded, “Yeah they are. He
didn’t have a soul, Pagan. Remember, you are a soul. Your body is
just the house for it. Those with souls will forget him because
their souls were never attached to his. Can’t be attached to
something that isn’t there.”

“Why do I remember him?” My voice
came out in a whisper. I was almost afraid to hear the answer to
this one.

Gee set the fork down in her bowl
and sighed. That wasn’t good.

“You’re different. He has... There
is this... Ugh, why the hell didn’t Dankmar explain this crazy shit
to you?” Gee placed the almost empty tortilla bowl on the coffee
table and broke off a piece of it before leaning back again and
looking at me.

“Your soul was marked when you were
a child. Leif has some sort of claim on your soul. Now, don’t go
getting all freaked out. Dank is more than able to fix this but
until he does Leif will be linked to you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Linked?” I choked out.

Gee nodded and took another bite of
the broken tortilla bowl in her hand. She was handling all this so
casually. Maybe I needed to calm down. She wasn’t worried. But...
linked?

“Stop frowning, Peggy Ann. It isn’t
all that bad. So, here’s the deal: your mom made a bad decision.
You have a dark spirit determined to claim you. Things could be
worse,” she finished with a shrug of her shoulders.

“How? How could they be worse? A
dark spirit?” I reached for my soda as my stomach rolled at the
thought of what a dark spirit actually meant.

“How could it be worse? Well, for
starters, you could be without the complete devotion of Death
himself. I mean, come on, Peggy Ann. What is one dark spirit up
against Death? I mean, really.” Gee rolled her eyes and popped the
last bite, of the tortilla bowl she was holding, into her
mouth.

I soaked in her words wishing they
were more comforting.

“You got anything good recorded on
this thing?” Gee asked, reaching for the remote control.

“Um,
yes just watch whatever,” I muttered and sipped at my drink wishing
Dank would come home. Now.

Chapter Five

Pagan

“Please. If you can save her then
just do it! Do whatever you have to,” my mommy begged with tears
streaming down her face.

The wrinkled old lady stared down
at me. Her white hair stood out against her dark skin. She studied
me carefully before lifting her glassy gaze back to my mother. “You
axe me for gris-gris dat wilt cause tings you mightna
want.”

“Anything. I’m begging you,
anything you can do. The doctors can’t help her. She’s dying.
Anything, please,” my mommy’s voice broke as she let out a loud
sob.

“Etel ne’er passe’ tis you know,”
the old lady said as she hobbled over to a shelf with hundreds of
containers filled with strange things I didn’t recognize. “What you
axe don matta. Ain’t non udder way. If de beb he want ta live. He
make dat call.”

I watched as she shuffled around
mixing different items she took off the shelf while she muttered to
herself.

“Who is he?” I heard my mommy
ask.

I had been wondering that myself.
He seemed to be calling the shots not the old lady. Why Mommy was
asking her to help me I didn’t understand. She didn’t look like any
doctor I’d ever seen. When I’d fallen asleep the white walls of the
hospital room I’d spent the last few months in were the last thing
I remembered seeing. Then I woke up and I was here. With this
strange woman in a small dirty house that smelled funny.

“De only one dat can save dis
gurl,” she said, shuffling over to me while she stirred the smelly
concoction and began softly chanting.

“Where is he? Do I need to go get
him?” The panic in mommy’s voice made me fight to keep my eyes
open. I knew she was scared. The doctors didn’t expect me to wake
up. I’d heard them whispering while they’d thought I was sleeping.
The disease had taken over my body. I was sick. My mommy was
sad.

“You tink I’d do dis iffn’ he
weren’t here,” the humor in the old lady’s voice was obvious. “Dis
gris-gris I don do. Only him.”

Before mommy could ask any more
questions the door opened and in stepped a boy not much older than
me. His eyes reminded me of a stormy sea swirling wildly as he
closed the door behind him. Blond shaggy hair hung in his eyes and
he didn’t look as if he belonged to the older dark lady. Was he
sick too? A low murmur in a language I didn’t understand tumbled
out of his mouth as the room began to darken and my eyes slowly
closed.

“It’s time,” the familiar voice
whispered in my ear.

I sat straight up in
bed gasping for air. Sunlight poured through my window and the
bright cheeriness of my yellow room seemed at odds with the dark
shack I’d been dreaming about. Where had that come from? And that
old woman’s accent. It had been thick and... and Cajun? Then there
had been the boy. Once again he’d been there while I was sick. I
had been sick. I’d had a miraculous recovery at the age of three.
This memory of the boy was the earliest I’d had. Who was he? And
why had the voice said “It’s time” instead of “It’s almost
time”?

Glancing around the room I searched
for Gee.

“Pagan,” Dank was standing in front
of my bed and bending down to pull me in his arms.

“Gee said he got to you. She
couldn’t see him but she felt him. She can’t stop him so she came
and got me.”

I nodded, letting him fuss over me.
It was a comfort measure I needed right now. None of this made
sense.

“I remembered something. Another
dream. It doesn’t make sense but if it is real... then it explains
something. Something from my past.”

Dank pulled back and stared down at
me.

“What?” the tightness in his voice
didn’t surprise me. He was upset.

“I was sick once. When I was
little. Really sick. I had leukemia and the doctors had given my
mom no hope... and... and then I was all better. It was a miracle.
We never really spoke about it after that. Mom never worried it
would return. The check-ups with my doctors ended a few years later
and that was the end of it.”

Dank’s hold on me had turned into a
vice-like grip. “What did you remember in your dreams?”

“It was so real, Dank. I could even
smell the moldy scent of the old shack.”

“Tell me,” he encouraged, as his
fingers ran through my tangled hair gently working out the knots as
he went.

“An old lady was there. Her accent
was thick. It was hard to understand everything she said. I’m not
even sure what kind of accent it was. But she was doing a... spell,
I think. Mom had taken me to her. She was begging her to save me.
Then the boy, the one from the other dreams, he was there. He began
chanting something and then... I woke up to the words ‘it’s time’
being repeated in my ear.”