Gifted (Awakening Book 2)

by Jacqueline Brown

  “Okay,” he said, and went up the stairs.

  I sat beside my sisters at the table. Dad was humming while removing the baking pan of garlic bread from the oven.

  “Does he know?” I whispered to them.

  Each shook their head.

  “Why didn’t Gigi tell him?” I asked.

  Lisieux shrugged. Avi didn’t respond.

  “I hope you girls are hungry! Your Gigi and I have made quite the feast,” he said with far too much enthusiasm.

  I whispered, “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Nothing,” Avi replied. “He’s just happy.”

  “Too happy,” Lisieux countered.

  “Especially for our life,” I mumbled, and then left the table.

  I wasn’t going to hide the truth from my father, not when he knew so much of it already. Why was Gigi keeping this from him? Secrets did not bring peace—only a fragile shell of true peace.

  “Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked Gigi as I stood at the counter watching her slice olives for the salad.

  “Now isn’t the time,” she mumbled. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Later? Later, when? When I suddenly become normal again?”

  “What?” Dad said with a smile that reminded me of an eerie clown.

  “What’s wrong with him? Why is he acting like everything’s perfect? Things haven’t been perfect for … things have never been perfect.” Perfect did not exist in this life.

  “It isn’t an act,” Dad said, his expression the same. “I’m very happy this morning.”

  I stared at him. In place of my father was a man with a plastered-on smile, a man who was a total stranger to me. I saw the image of my father from last night, passed out on the couch—also a stranger.

  “Everyone grab your plate,” Gigi called, and within seconds I was surrounded by my sisters, Luca, and his family.

  It was time to eat. It was time for me to drop my concerns of the past and the present.

  “Here you go,” Dad said. He handed me a plate of lasagna. His sleeves were rolled up, the scar visible.

  Luca’s question rang so loudly in my mind that I spoke it. “Where did you get that scar?”

  The thick raised line was still pink after all these years. Why was it still discolored? I had a few scars from my childhood; they were thin and ghostly white. He was older, so the scars from his childhood should be more faded than any scar of mine, and yet it wasn’t.

  “What scar?” Dad said, serving plates, humming to himself.

  “The one on your arm,” I said.

  “Oh.” He glanced at his left arm. “I tripped and fell against a rock. I’ve told you that.”

  “It’s still so discolored,” I said, focusing on the raised line that spanned the diagonal width of his arm.

  “We all heal differently, I suppose,” Dad said, continuing to dish up plates.

  He continued to pretend there was nothing strange about his behavior or his scar.

  “It bled pretty bad,” Jason stated as he took his plate to the end of the counter.

  “Do you remember that?” Gigi asked him. “You would’ve been so young.”

  “A boy doesn’t forget something like that, no matter how small he is,” Jason said, avoiding her eyes.

  “I didn’t realize you saw me,” Dad said lightheartedly to Jason.

  Jason poked at the food on his plate, then looked at Dad. “I was picking blueberries. You came up the trail, your arm hanging straight, blood streaming off your fingers. Your eyes were …. Naw, that don’t matter. Point is, a kid don’t forget that, even if he tries,” Jason said, refocusing on his food but not taking a bite.

  Sam brought her plate beside her husband. As she sat, she squeezed his shoulder, a silent offer of support. They’d discussed this before. It was clear since she asked him no more questions. She knew this story better than the rest of us.

  “You don’t remember passing Jason?” Gigi asked Dad, with more interest than I expected.

  Dad shook his head. “I don’t remember much about that day, just slipping on a rock.”

  “I suppose the fever took away your memory,” Gigi said.

  “Fever?” Luca said.

  “The cut got infected. He was fighting for his life for close to a month. It took three different types of antibiotics and lots of prayers before he was finally out of danger. Those were scary times,” Gigi said, taking off the tomato-splattered apron.

  “Is that why the scar is so big?” Lisieux asked. “I’ve always wondered.”

  “That’s what your grandfather and I assumed.”

  “What sort of rock did you cut it on?” Luca asked.

  It was a strange question. None of us were particularly interested in geology.

  “Uh, I don’t know. A rock,” Dad said in a mocking tone.

  “I mean, was it jutting out from the side of a slope, or could it have been an oyster shell on the beach? Where was it, what shape was it?”

  “Luca, I don’t remember those kinds of details about last year, let alone forty-something years ago. I don’t even remember how old I was. Umm, younger than Lisieux, I think.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

  Avi asked Jason, “Where was he coming from?”

  Jason spun in the barstool to face her. “The beach,” he answered. “He was twelve,” he added. “I was four.”

  “How do you remember that?” Dad asked in amazement.

  “I remember how old I was when she died. So I remember how old I was when you come screaming along the trail.”

  “When who died?” Gigi asked.

  “Your grandmother,” Jason said with an edge of contempt.

  “Was it that close in time, her death and his cut? How did I not remember that?”

  Jason laid his fork down on his plate. “She didn’t want you to,” he said, this time not hiding his eyes.

  “She?” Gigi said. “You believe my grandmother had something to do with the cut on Paul’s arm?”

  “Don’t you?” Jason said, staring at her.

  “I never … I never thought of the two as being related,” Gigi said. “She wasn’t part of our lives. Paul getting a cut on his arm never made me think about her.”

  Sam stared noticeably at the food on her plate.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What are you not telling us?”

  “Nothin’. Lasagna’s good. Thanks,” Jason answered, stuffing a forkful into his mouth.

  “Jason, if you have something you want to say, please do so,” Gigi said.

  “No, nothin’,” Jason said, glancing at Gigi before returning his gaze to his food.

  Dad handed me a fork. His scar gleamed at me.

  I was in the past, seeing the arm at the inn. Pale, thin, dripping with blood. The knife cut diagonally from one side to the other. Blood spilled. I watched drips splatter onto the center stone of the fireplace. It was not a large stone. The top was smooth, with a mild indentation. The blood spilled into the indentation; it acted as a basin, the stone absorbing the blood.

  I blinked back to the present—Luca’s eyes stared at mine.

  I asked Dad, “What did you ….” It was hard to speak. “What did you look like as a child? I mean, as a twelve-year-old.”

  Gigi and Dad gave each other confused looks.

  “Umm, like this, but shorter and skinnier,” Dad said dismissively.

  “Twelve-year-old boys are usually pretty skinny,” Luca said, paying close attention to every movement I made.

  “May I …”—I lost my voice for a second as everyone in the room stared at me—“may I see your scar?”

  “Siena, you’ve seen it a thousand times,” my father said, his voice rising in irritation.

  I got up and grasped his hand. He attempted to pull it away. Luca held it in place.

  “Just for a moment?” I asked.

  He stopped resisting us. My thumb was tracing the scar, my eyes seeing the past and present all in one moment. The edge of the blade went in at t
he top—my thumb repeating the action. The blade pulled slowly across the skin, like the hand that held the blade was not aware of the pain it was causing, but the hand matched the other. The person holding the blade was the same one being cut by it. The blade was dull. I could feel it tearing the skin apart more than cutting it. Finally, it released.

  “The scar is the same,” I said.

  Luca and I let go of my dad’s arm.

  “Of course it’s the same. Did you think it changed?” My dad’s voice sounded belligerent.

  I felt Luca’s hand on my shoulder. The rest of my family stared at me. Sam held a napkin to her face, catching tears that seeped from the corners of her blue eyes.

  Jason said, “What did you see?”

  “See? She saw my scar,” Dad said in a derisive tone. He stepped away, pulling the sleeves of his dress shirt down, fastening the buttons around his wrists.

  I said, “That scar was made by a knife, not a rock.”

  “What!” Gigi exclaimed. She looked at me as if trying to see what I had seen.

  “It was a rock,” Dad said.

  “No,” I stated flatly, my mouth dry, my stomach twisting. “It was a knife. You were in front of the fireplace at the inn. Your blood dripped onto the middle stone, the stone that is no longer there.”

  “The inn?” Gigi stepped away from all of us. “That cut happened at the inn?” Her eyes wide, she clutched the collar of her blouse.

  “She’s confused,” Dad said. “How could a knife at the inn have cut my arm?”

  I swallowed, my voice becoming stronger. There was no doubt. I was sure of what I’d witnessed. “You did it yourself. The hand that held the blade belonged to the same person whose hand was clenched in pain.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dad said.

  His fake clown smile was long gone.

  “She can sense the memory of a place,” Sam said, her voice shaky.

  Dad shouted, “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s the truth,” Luca said from my left side. His fingers were laced through mine.

  “This is your fault,” Dad said, rounding on Luca.

  Luca stood taller. Jason, too, was standing. Avi started to cry.

  “I’m not the one to blame,” Luca said, stepping in front of me.

  “You’re crazy,” Dad said, his chest broad, shoulders back. “And now you’ve gone and made her crazy with all of your insane talk of demons and spirits. I knew you didn’t belong here. I knew you’d be trouble.”

  “Watch it, Paul,” Jason said as he stepped beside his nephew. “Don’t say something you’re going to regret.”

  “Regret? What I regret is not kicking you off my land years ago!” Dad’s eyes blazed.

  “That’s enough!” Gigi shouted. “I have allowed a lot from you through the years, but I will not allow you to speak that way to Jason or Luca or Siena.”

  Dad turned away in anger, veins bulging in his neck. “Why on earth would I have cut my arm on purpose?” Dad said, barely keeping his voice below a yell.

  Behind the anger, it was clear he was not pretending. He didn’t remember, and he was faced with a part of his memory that was, in so many ways, best forgotten. But it had not been forgotten—by the inn. The stones of that burned-down building remembered the evil done there. That was what I’d been faced with at the inn and the BayTree … the memory of evil.

  “It was her, your great-grandmother,” Jason said with quiet force.

  Gigi’s hand clutched at her neckline more tightly. “Why do you think that?” she asked.

  She wasn’t scared of my father, as she had not been scared of Thomas. But she had been scared of her grandmother. Gigi was right to fear her—even the memory of her.

  “Because of the way he acted that day,” Jason said. “That old woman … I hated her. I never went near the beach. My parents didn’t care where I went, but I did. I wouldn’t go near her. But Paul went down there all the time, and when he’d come back, he was just like her—mean. Nothing like you and his daddy. You two were always nice to me, and Paul was too, after he’d been with you. But after he was at the beach, he was like that evil old woman. That day was no different. He come up with an awful expression on his face. I was afraid of him. I tried to hide from him, but I was a clumsy little kid. As soon as he saw me, it’s like he woke up and started screaming his head off. Scared me to death.”

  Dad rubbed his arm. His voice subtly calmer, he said, “I remember falling and cutting it on a stone.”

  “That’s what she wanted you to remember,” Jason said abrasively. “I ain’t kiddin’ when I say you were in a daze or fog or something. Like you were walking in a trance.”

  Gigi studied Dad. “Your father thought it was strange,” she said. “ ‘How could Paul fall directly against a stone like that and not have cut up his hands or knees?’ he asked me. All I could tell him was young boys get hurt in strange ways. We had no reason not to believe you. And so we did. We were wrong.” Her voice held remorse.

  “It was a rock,” Dad bellowed, throwing a plate of food into the sink.

  Lisieux screamed. I ran to my sisters and held them, protecting them from him. Luca and Jason and even Sam formed a wall around us.

  Dad yelled, “Do you think I would hurt them?”

  Gigi stood tall in front of all of us. The frail old woman remained unphased by the darkness in her son.

  “You have hurt them, Paul, more than you understand, more than we will ever understand in this life. It’s my fault, mine and your father’s. We gave you too much freedom. We shouldn’t have. I believed you when you told me you weren’t going near her.” Gigi’s shoulders fell a little. “I wanted to believe you, so I convinced myself you were telling the truth when you were not. Just like now. I convince myself that you are sober, though you are not!” She stared at him, daring him to deny the truth.

  For a moment he looked as though he’d strike her: his eyes bulged, his fists clenched. Jason abruptly angled his body in front of hers. He was small compared to my father, though far stronger, the result of a life harder than my father had known. Luca’s movement was not as obvious, a subtle step in Gigi’s direction. He would not stand a chance against my father, but he could at least protect Gigi.

  She did not back down. “We did not realize—that is the sole defense I can offer for my actions. The truth was not known to us at that time. It was not until after she died … after you cut your arm,” she said with growing sadness.

  Dad stomped to the sink in a show that he could not be bothered by his mother or the rest of us. His face was red and his body was drenched in sweat, but the veins in his neck were smaller.

  Avi was shaking.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered to her as Lisieux and I held her, protecting her, keeping her from watching our father.

  Gigi went to the kitchen island. Moving closer to Dad, she slumped onto a counter stool. “How did I not realize how close in time those two events were? It must have been because after your fever broke, life turned upside down,” she said.

  “What happened?” Luca asked, too curious to remain silent.

  For a moment Gigi was still. “How did I not put it together before?” she said, shaking her head.

  Sam sat beside her and placed her hand on Gigi’s back, offering support, silently telling Gigi she was loved even if mistakes had been made.

  Gigi said, “We realized then that it had something to do with Paul … why didn’t we make the connection with the cut?”

  “What happened here, Ms. Gemma?” Jason asked with a hint of dread.

  Gigi’s shoulders slouched forward, causing her to look so much older—to look her age, I supposed. She was turning eighty this year. She should look old—though she never had before.

  “Strange things,” she said. Her voice sounded as tired as her body appeared.

  “What sorts of things?” Sam asked, still holding Gigi.

  Gigi’s clear blue eyes misted and her fingers lac
ed together on the counter. “Things that made us call our priest.”

  Twenty-Four

  “I don’t know why we didn’t associate his cut with all that happened,” Gigi said, her face contorted in a way that made me understand she doubted her mind—her memory. Two pieces that should’ve fit easily together did not, and she did not understand why.

  “Because I cut it on a rock,” Dad argued. “I can remember the rock. It was on the beach. I fell, it sliced my arm. I was a clumsy kid.” His tone was harsh, though his breathing was slightly more rhythmic. He was calming down.

  “That’s why we didn’t realize the truth,” Gigi said, sitting taller, her voice matching the harshness of her son’s. “You were so good at making us believe you. You still are!”

  Dad groaned.

  Jason interjected, remaining calm. “What were you doing before you fell?”

  Dad inhaled and exhaled as if trying to decide if he would allow the anger to slip away long enough to answer the question. “I don’t remember,” he said sharply.

  “What about after?” Jason asked.

  “Probably running home.”

  “You don’t remember, do you?” Jason said, staring at Dad and challenging him to dispute his words.

  “This is ridiculous,” Dad growled, though behind the anger there was doubt.

  “How did we not put it together?” Gigi leaned against Sam. “It started in his room, all of it. The broken light bulbs, the pictures that fell off the wall, the pockets of cold air that never warmed—all of them started in his room before moving into the rest of the house.”

  Dad shook his head, disgust showing in his face.

  Did he think she was making it all up? Did he want to pretend none of it was true, as badly as I did?

  “Do you remember the scratches?” Gigi asked Dad, not allowing him to tune her out.

  He stared at her. She stood her ground.

  He fell backward, his back hitting the countertop, which kept him upright. His eyes widened. “Those were real? I thought they were part of a nightmare lodged in my memory.”

  “They were the stuff of nightmares,” she said wryly, “but they were horribly real. More than a few scars remain.”

  “You think I did that?” he asked in horror.