“I …” Breathing seemed a good idea. “Mom, I don’t remember getting home.”
She patted my arm. “Of course you don’t, dear. You were out cold. That nice Mr. Block carried you in, and your father and I got you upstairs, changed, and into bed.”
“Block did?” My voice cracked like a twelve-year-old boy. I cleared my throat. “Not Malcolm?”
“Your broker? Was he there? No, it was Block.”
I don’t know why I preferred the thought of Malcolm handling me except, of course, I simply wanted Malcolm in general. And I’d had his lips on mine; he’d even initiated the kissing, until he’d changed his mind.
Block carrying me seemed … wrong.
Unless Malcolm had passed out too, which seemed highly unlikely. He didn’t seem like the fainting type.
“Okay.” I had to get my head on straight. Every morning couldn’t be a crisis. “I’ll get ready. I’ll get the kids to school. And then get Dex set up. And then we need to talk. There are things … I think it’s time for some conversations.”
My mom nodded. “I think so, too.”
I got through the rest of my morning on autopilot. Gray and Molly were dressed and on time for school. Sometimes just getting through the basics was good enough. I got home to find Dex also attired and at the kitchen table doing his work with my dad. I had never officially told the school that Dex wouldn’t be coming back, but since I wasn’t receiving automated calls informing me of his absences, I assumed Levi had let them know. I’d check to make sure when next I saw him. I stopped moving. I was going to see Levi tonight. We had a date. And the night before I’d been making out with Malcolm. What was the matter with me?
“Honey?” My mother turned around from the sink where, apparently, she was doing dishes. “Are you okay?”
“Mom. Yes.” I rushed to her. “Don’t do the dishes. I feel like you’ve done nothing but work since you got here. I didn’t want you to visit so you could clean up my house and raise my kids for me.”
She laughed, throwing her head back in a loud giggle. “Are you kidding? I love it. We stayed away for so long because we thought it was what you needed. I haven’t gotten to dote on these kids enough or on you. I’m not working. I’m not clearing houses. You are. This is nothing. I lived in a van. I’ve never gotten to keep up a house like this.”
I hugged her because I could. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
She waved her hand in the air. “We like this. If we get enough, we’ll let you know.”
“Okay. Then can we talk?” My mom nodded. “Peter. Can Dex work independently for a minute or two?”
My dad rose from his chair, rubbing Dex’s hair. “He can. The smart boy’s got this under control. But I hate to leave him.”
Dex raised his head to grin at his grandfather, and my heart turned over. I loved these moments. He’d be going to his father’s the next day, and I had to work out with Levi how we were going to handle this since Levi had to be at work and Dex could no longer be at school. Maybe he’d let him spend the days here during the times he would have been at school. Sometimes the logistics of life became so complicated I wanted to throw up my hands in defeat. Of course I didn’t. Giving up didn’t seem to be in my genetics.
The doorbell rang, and with a glance at my parents, who’d gone outside to settle around the pool furniture, I ran to answer it. Victoria stood on the other side, two coffees in hand.
“Hello.” She raised her hands to show the coffee. “I haven’t heard from you in days. You’re not answering your texts. I had to see you were alive.”
I grabbed her into a hug. She was right. I hadn’t answered a single text, except from Malcolm, since my parents arrived. I was overwhelmed, but here was Victoria, and she’d brought coffee, the overpriced kind that couldn’t be made at home.
“Actually this is perfect timing. I have lots to fill you in on and lots I need to learn. I’d like you with me, if you wouldn’t mind. My parents are here.”
She raised an eyebrow. “When I saw the van, I kind of figured. Okay, let’s get at it. I’m yours for the morning.”
I took a deep breath; the first of many, I hoped. Between Victoria and my parents, things were finally looking up.
An hour later, I had finally filled them in on all I knew, or the little I did. I’d not dealt with a ghost for over a decade, and then one attacked me in the PTA meeting. My life had fallen apart. I couldn’t remember things—large chunks of time—from the years when I was nine until I was twelve. Dex was having visions he couldn’t control. Malcolm seemed to think I should know something I didn’t. The only part I left out was the kissing. Somehow, it felt really important I not let anyone know what had happened between the broker and me the night before.
I didn’t want my parents telling me Malcolm had crossed some kind of line with me, because I wanted him to do it again. I was really worse than a teenager.
Oh, and Grayson hated me. But I’d be taking him to the therapist later. Those were human problems.
Victoria took a long pull from what must be her now-cold coffee. “That’s a lot on your shoulders. Add to that your ex-husband driving you through an emotional roller coaster, and you’ve had quite a time.”
“Dex is really the one having a time.” My poor son. I’d been able to do nothing for him at all. Maybe my mother was getting somewhere. When would he have another vision? It could be minutes, days, weeks …
“I can help.” Victoria stood up and moved until she sat in front of me. “We can unlock your memory, but I’m going to need some help directing my energy. What happened when you were nine? Did something particularly traumatic occur?”
My mother shook her head. “Not any worse than any other time. Kendall always rolled with the bad very well. She was made for this. The most powerful child we’d ever seen. We encountered some others over the years but no one who could do what Kendall could at such a young age.” She looked away, staring at the house. “Maybe Dex is the only one I’ve ever seen who is stronger.”
“Well, we are going to figure out a way to stop his. If everything is a choice like you always raised me to believe, then he is going to choose to put his away for a while.”
Saying the words helped me to believe them. I’d chosen to not have my powers, and they’d gone away. Dex could do the same.
Of course mine had eventually come back …
“Can you remember who you were with at all?” Victoria brought my attention back to the conundrum at hand.
I shook my head. “Not even a little bit, and that’s weird. If you would have asked me last week, I would have told you I remembered all the poor souls my parents dragged me around to see. At least from the time I was four. The first demon I ever saw was that year. He’d convinced a woman she was trapped in an igloo instead of her basement. Where was that? Wisconsin?”
“Denver actually,” my dad added to the conversation. “He was dark haired, that little boy. Dark eyes. Skinny as a rail. His foster people weren’t feeding him enough. There were ghosts all over him. He was basically a magnet. He was powerful; he could clear them, but the constant onslaught exhausted him. The nightmares he endured were horrific. He loved you, Kendall. You used to hold his hand. You bought him a hot dog. He’d never had one before.”
A tear slipped down my mother’s face, and she dashed it away. “I haven’t thought about him in years. He must have been ten. I think one or two more sessions with me and he would have been able to protect himself. But then the state came and took him. I was so upset. Honestly, he’d asked us to keep him. He was going to run away and live with us in the van. Your father and I were actually considering it.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people who needed our help.” My father stared off in the distance, and I had a feeling he wasn’t seeing my back fence but a time I couldn’t remember instead. “No one as much as that kid. Maryann never had another vision of him. We didn’t know where they’d taken him. He was just gone.”
<
br /> Everyone’s eyes turned as if to wait for some reaction from me about what they’d said. “I’m sorry. It’s like you’re describing someone I’ve never met. I’m sorry to hear of this little boy’s troubles—as I would be for anyone who needed help. I can’t say I have any personal investment in his story. I bought him a hot dog and held his hand. I can’t remember doing either.” I added because it seemed appropriate, “I’m sorry. I’d like to remember him since he was obviously very important to you.”
My mom squeezed my hand. “He was important to you too, sweetie. You cried for months and months. And then you stopped. Everything changed after that. By the time you were sixteen you no longer wanted to hone your powers. You begrudgingly went on jobs with us and studied for your SATs. We didn’t realize for a long time that you didn’t remember Menkaura.”
Victoria chewed on her bottom lip. “That’s Egyptian isn’t it?”
My mother smiled at her. “I think so. He knew nothing about himself. They found him wandering a shopping mall when he was three. He didn’t know who his parents were, and they never found anyone—if they bothered looking. Poor lost soul.”
“So here’s what I propose.” My best friend sat forward in her seat. “We’ll do a little energy work on you. Nothing can ever be created or destroyed. Energy is infinite. The memory of what happened to you is somewhere in there. We’ll find it. And maybe in the process work out what Malcolm wants from you too.”
She lowered her voice when she said the last bit, and I wished I could read minds to see where hers had gone. What was Victoria keeping to herself? Did she want to keep it from my parents or from me to?
“I work energy for people. I don’t usually have it done to me in return.” The idea made me shift in my seat. I didn’t enjoy the thought of being the client and not the professional.
“I’m not you. I’m not going to move energy around. I’d have no idea if you had a ghost on you or not. All I can do is help your body heal itself.” She took my hand in hers and squeezed. “It’ll take multiple visits to get it really going. No worries on my end. That just means I get to see you more.”
She was such a ball of energy. I envied her upbeat nature. Had I ever been that way, or was I born under a dark sky? “What will we do?”
Victoria winked at me. “It’s already done.”
“What?” We hadn’t done anything except … “You squeezed my hand.”
“I love witches.” My father laughed. “The real ones. Not the pretenders. We’ve had more help from witches and warlocks over the years than I can count. We had one helping with Menkaura all those year ago.”
“Hey Mom.” Dex called from the doorway, and we all turned to look at him. “I finished my reading.”
I grinned at his happy face. “That’s great, bud.”
“Why is six afraid of seven?” He turned his question, which was really a joke disguised as an inquiry, to Victoria.
She picked up her coffee cup before she answered. “Ah … I don’t know. Why is six afraid of seven?”
“Because seven eight nine. Get it? Seven ate nine?” He laughed at his own delivery, throwing his head back with joy. I had been only a little bit older than him when something had happened to make me forget years of my life. Nothing like that would be happening to him, not ever.
Chapter Eleven
Victoria got up and, with a flick of her hand, floated the coffee cup next to her while she walked. Dex’s eyes got huge. “Mom, she’s making that fly.”
I walked toward him and pulled him into a hug. “The world is bigger than we’ve let you know. I’m sorry about that. It’s my fault I never told you. Victoria is only the beginning. You? You’re also magical.”
He looked up at me, his eyes big and teary. “I love you. “
“Me too, bud. I love you so much.”
Victoria patted me on the shoulder. “I’m having a dinner party. Next Saturday. We want you to come. Bring Levi.” Only I could hear the way she dropped her voice with his name. My best friend would never be his biggest fan. “Or someone else if you want. I’ll come by in two days and give you another dose of happy energy. We’ll see if your brain starts to respond to it.”
“I don’t know.” The clouds above of us started to darken. What was up with the weather lately? “My brain is pretty happy as it is. Stubborn should have been my middle name.”
“We’ll see.” She kissed me on the cheek. “Come to the party, and bring your mom by my shop. I have some scarves she would look gorgeous in.”
I didn’t know if my mother had ever bought an actual scarf. “I’ll do that.”
She winked. “Great. See you later, Dex. Wait till you see all the things I can float. Oh, and Kendall”—Victoria leaned over to whisper in my ear—“your parents love you. I get nothing but good vibrations from them.”
“Oh … okay.” I wouldn’t have thought differently. Having them back felt like no time had passed at all.
She squeezed my arm. “All of that being said, they’re lying through their teeth. You might want to find out why. Love you, girlfriend.”
A cold feeling seeped into my stomach. They were lying? I turned to look at my mom as she laughed at something my father said. We lied to the rest of the world but not each other. Didn’t we?
Later that day as I sat in the psychologist’s office with Gray. Most of the time I didn’t sit in the room with him while he talked to the doctor. Today, they wanted me in there. His accounting of what happened was quite different than mine. We needed to reconcile the two. I wished Gray could have been present to see Victoria levitate her coffee cup. He squirmed in his seat, and if he’d been even four years younger, I would have asked him if he needed to use the bathroom. As it was, all I got from him was agitation.
And anger.
“They believe in ghosts. They keep insisting my brother can see them.” That wasn’t exactly true, but since Gray didn’t seem well-versed on Dex’s issues, I wasn’t going to illuminate things for him in the therapist’s office. “The whole school is calling my brother a freak. Why can’t they all understand how this makes me feel?”
I reached out to touch him, and he jerked back before my hand could make contact with his body. He’d been the sweetest baby, the most loving toddler, and even though I’d always been told there would come a day when he wouldn’t want to cuddle anymore, this level of distance between us killed me.
“Dex, the whole school is not making fun of you.” I stared at the therapist for some kind of confirmation. A woman in her late thirties with glasses, graying roots, and a kind smile, I’d always liked Dr. Bloom. She’d been helpful to us thus far. Of course I’d never dumped on her my family’s strange abilities or our rather unusual take on the world. Today we’d see how things went.
I continued my train of thought. “You’re in elementary school. Sure, there’s some teasing, but what happened with our family, most of the kids don’t even know about. Daddy emailed your teacher, and she doesn’t think you’re having any trouble socially right now. So let’s drop the drama and talk about the real one with Dr. Bloom. How you got in trouble in lacrosse and your anger towards me.”
Dr. Bloom gave Gray a quick nod and a smile. “Listen, there are lots of people who believe in ghosts. That’s not such an unusual thing. Are you guys changing religions post-divorce? I know sometimes families make big changes after the separation. Sometimes the kids need some time to adjust to the sudden differences in their lives.”
I shook my head. “No, we haven’t picked up any new beliefs. Dex is going to be homeschooled for a while because of a condition that runs through my family that he may or may not be handling. Kind of a … seizure thing.” Yep, now I was lying to Gray’s therapist. I’d been raised to do it, and I slipped back into my clothes of deception as though I’d never taken them off. Although he’d object to the assertion, I actually did this to protect Grayson. If he thought he was having a hard time now, he had no idea how bad it would get if people knew the truth about u
s. We’d probably have to leave home, and I wasn’t even certain what Levi would do or how he could manage that. Would I have to slip away in the middle of the night with the kids? Would he send the police after us … ?
“Kendall?” Dr. Bloom caught my attention. I’d gone into my own head again. I should save my end-of-the-world musings for the middle of the night where they belonged.
“Sorry. My mind, it’s in a million places today. I’d really like to focus, if we can, on why he attacked his teammate and his anger at all of us. I can’t believe it’s because Dex needs some extra help now.”
Gray sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and refused to speak any further. Nothing I nor Dr. Bloom said could get him to open up at all. Eventually, she excused him from the room to address me directly out of his earshot.
“I have to say I agree with you. This is a huge dramatic shift with Gray. And nothing happened? Nothing changed?”
I shook my head. “Dex took ill, but Gray changed first, so we can’t blame this on that. His outburst of hatred happened the day before his little brother’s episodes started. I have to say, though, I’m not sure his outburst had anything to do with Dex at all. It was more like an excuse to spew more venom. My parents are visiting, which is a dramatic shift, but lacrosse happened first. There’s nothing his father or I can pinpoint.”
She nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Kendall, I’ve hesitated to say this to you.”
“Please, speak frankly.” At least one of us should be able to do so.
“I …” She took a deep breath. “I can feel your powers. I know what you can do, or I suspect it. I’m a cleanser myself. I work on people, lightly. My mother was the real thing, but I didn’t inherit her abilities. I want you to know you can speak freely in here. I don’t think it was an accident of fate that your pediatrician sent you to me. I think the powers that be knew you need this kind of help. If Dex needs to talk to someone, I’m here.”
Patricia Bloom couldn’t have shocked me any more if she’d stripped off her clothes and started dancing around the room. “I-I’m not sure what to say.”
Haunted Redemption (The Cascade Book 1) Page 12
