Gift of Death (Gifted Book 1)

by Lin Augustine

  “Sure,” Darius says, sorting through Cabin 3’s box now.

  I go to the kitchen. Hunter is in there washing dishes. Some other people who are not familiar are cleaning the counters and floor.

  “Hey, Hunter,” I say.

  He looks back at me from the sink. “Hey, Chrys. Who won?”

  “Remington’s fire team or whatever it’s called.”

  “Sweet,” he says. “Are you coming for something to eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Best hurry. We’ll be cleaning it up in like ten minutes.”

  I go over to the buffet table. There are a few bagels and croissants left. There are containers of various spreads like butter, cream cheese and jam. I stand over the table and eat a couple croissants and a bagel with cream cheese and then go back to the laundry room.

  Darius and I sort through the rest of the boxes. Now we just have to wait for the clothes to finish washing and drying before we can put in the other boxes. Darius sits down on the floor against the wall. I only know because I can see a handheld game.

  He hasn’t spoken to me much.

  I go through the red box of clothes and set aside some things that look like they’ll fit me. Then I go to the storage room and rummage through it. I find a tote bag in there. I put in some toiletries, a wristwatch with a black leather band, and a notebook and pens. There are all kinds of other things like board games, batteries, toys, paper, books, writing supplies, but no phone chargers. I browse through the books. They’re mostly coloring books, but there are also some fiction and non-fiction books. I find a book on meditation and stick that in my bag too.

  I go back to the laundry room and put the clothes I set aside into the bag too. There’s still half an hour left until some of the machines finish. I sit down on the ground and start reading the book.

  When a machine’s timer goes off, it gets a little quieter in here, but then we take out the stuff in the machine and replace it with more stuff. The noise starts up again.

  We continue doing that until all the laundry is done, me reading and Darius playing his game while we wait.

  By the time we’re done, the smell of food surrounds us in the laundry room. It’s half past six. Darius turns on his visibility and we both leave the laundry room. He gets some food from the buffet and goes to the tables outside. I can hear a lot of people out there.

  I really don’t feel like being around any of them.

  I look at the spread on the table. Pasta, garlic bread and chocolate cake for dessert. Ron would love that. Chocolate is her favorite kind of cake.

  Some adults—or perhaps older teens—are working in the kitchen, starting to wash the dishes they used to cook.

  I go to one of them, a woman, and ask, “Hey, um, is it possible to take this to go?”

  She shakes her head. “Just eat it here and go.”

  I sigh and go back to the table. I take a napkin and wrap up several pieces of garlic bread in it and put it in my bag. I take one more piece and eat it as I leave the kitchen, out of the door that doesn’t lead to the tables.

  I go back to the cabin and turn on the light. No one. They’re probably having dinner.

  I go to my desk. Next to my gloves, someone put a sewing kit, book on hand sewing and some fabric. On the book there’s a note.

  “Start studying. —Remy,” it says.

  Sighing, I put the tote bag on my desk chair. I put everything inside of it on the desk. I grab the toiletries and some clothes and go to the bathroom. I take a long, hot shower.

  And then, I bring the book on meditation, notebook, a pen and the garlic bread up with me to the bed. I eat as I read, underlining sentences that I find interesting.

  It’s strange. Things feel almost normal.

  Chapter 11

  Ron wakes up uncharacteristically early to the smell of bacon and pancakes wafting through the closed door. Ron likes her sleep, and never has any trouble getting it—even in a stranger’s house. She’s been sleeping in strangers’ houses since she was six after all.

  She doesn’t feel tired, but still, she wishes she could have slept in until noon at least. She gets up and changes into her second set of clothes.

  The room she’s staying in is decorated much like the rest of the house in that strange old lady fashion—an itchy patchwork quilt and lace-lined pillow shams on the bed, a wide wooden dresser with a creepy collection of dolls facing the bed, a tiny succulent on the windowsill. Whose taste is this? It doesn’t seem to suit either of them really, but if Ron has to guess, she’d say Iris did the decorating rather than Giselle.

  Ron leaves the room and walks down the hallway to the kitchen. Giselle is already sitting at the table, sipping on a cup of hot coffee, staring into the distance. A steaming pile of pancakes, a bottle of syrup and a folded newspaper are at the center of the table. Iris is standing over the stove flipping bacon and chatting.

  “And then,” Iris says, “some sort of three-legged monster chased me down the hall while Carl watched at the end of the hall. I screamed for him to help me but he just stood there and said, ‘Please help me!’ Psh. Like he’s the one who needed help. Anyway, the monster kept getting closer and closer. And just when I reached Carl, just before it caught me, I woke up!”

  “You couldn’t outrun a three-legged monster?” Ron says as she sits down. Ron can’t help but admire how quickly she made herself fit in here, as if she’s been sitting down here for breakfast for years.

  Giselle gives Ron a tired look, probably annoyed she’s humoring Iris.

  Iris transfers the bacon to a plate covered in paper towels. She pats the top of them with another paper towel. “Ron, this thing wasn’t like the kind of monster that’s supposed to have four legs but it’s missing one. It was like the kind that’s supposed to have two but has an extra one!”

  “Still, wouldn’t that make it kind of awkward then?” Ron says.

  “No way. It was super fast. But honestly, Carl was kinda scarier than the monster itself.”

  “How so?” Ron says. “Also who is Carl?”

  “Something about his eyes—I don’t really know. Seemed different from normal,” Iris says as she comes over to the table. “Carl’s a guy from the neighborhood. Moved down here last year.”

  “Why are you dreaming about that asshole Carl?” Giselle says, her tone less harsh than the words.

  “I don’t know. He seemed really out of place in the dream too. Like he wasn’t supposed to be there or something,” Iris says.

  Iris picks up the newspaper and puts the plate of bacon in its place.

  “Help yourself,” she says.

  She sits down and opens the paper. It’s the same one that Ron saw yesterday, The Normal News, but this time the front page headline says, “Healer girl kidnapped by gifted scum!” That newspaper is all text and no pictures—what a bore—so Ron sets her sights on pancakes instead.

  Giselle is already quarter-way through a stack.

  Ron puts three pancakes on the plate and drowns them in syrup. She cuts them all into bite-sized pieces before she starts to eat—something her foster mother Mary used to tell her was rude. But why would cutting your food up in advance be rude? Ron smiles a little as she remembers cutting up absolutely everything—even mac and cheese, which is quite the challenge by the way—just to drive Mary mad.

  Mary was an idiot. She was an idiot about a lot of things, some big and some small. But Mary also had a way of getting in the other kids’ heads and making them believe what she said. She never hurt them or anything like that, not physically at least. It was just words. Words, words, words. Mary had a lot of words, and hardly any good ones.

  “Stop reading that junk and eat already,” Giselle says with her mouth full. “We’ve got to get going soon.”

  “It’s not junk,” Iris says, folding the paper so the article she’s reading is visible
and setting it on her lap. She takes two pancakes from the stack. “Besides, I won’t be going. Someone has to watch the store.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Giselle says.

  “Think of how many’ll be upset if we don’t open the store today,” Iris says.

  “I suppose,” Giselle says, stuffing a huge bite in her mouth. “But it’s just for a couple hours.”

  Ron takes a piece of bacon and eats it with her hand.

  “Ya’ll don’t need me anyway,” Iris says.

  “But it’d be nice to have your pretty face around,” Giselle says.

  Iris laughs. “Sorry to disappoint ya.”

  Giselle picks up her empty plate and stands up. “Alright. We’ll just be scouting anyway. Shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Sure thing,” Iris says. She takes a bite of her pancakes as she reads the newspaper from her lap.

  “You done, Ron?” Giselle asks.

  “Oh, yes,” Ron says, finishing up the bacon in her hand.

  She gets up but before she can take her plate, Giselle takes it and brings it to the kitchen. She puts it in the sink.

  “Let’s head out then,” Giselle says as she walks back to the table.

  She pats Iris on her head.

  “Have fun,” Iris says.

  “Mhm, we’ll be back soon,” Giselle says.

  Giselle leads the way out of the house, Ron following behind. They go down the stairs to the large pickup truck parked next to the store. They get in and drive out of town.

  “So where’d you see those gifted people?” Giselle says, driving past the spot where Ron dumped the truck yesterday.

  “It’s a little up ahead. There’s a dirt road coming up soon. Turn in there.”

  Ron figured she’d just take her to the same road she and Chrys went up yesterday, but not as far. She’d take her into the forest until they got tired of looking.

  Giselle turns onto the narrow dirt road, but after just a minute or so of driving, they see a motorcycle parked right in the middle, blocking their way. Giselle stops the truck and groans.

  “Damn Carl,” she says, hitting the steering wheel.

  “Carl?” Ron asks. “The guy from Iris’s dream?”

  “Did you tell anyone else about your lead?”

  “No. No one. I hardly wanted to tell you.”

  She sighs. “I’ll just get out for a bit and move his bike.”

  “It’s fine,” Ron says. “It’s not far from here anyway. Let’s just get out here.”

  “It’s not far? That means Carl might be around and ruin everything.”

  “Why would Carl be out here?”

  “Calls himself an inventor. Claims he made some sort of dumb technology that can spot gifted people. He’s probably waving it around testing it or something.”

  “Have you ever seen it? Does it work?”

  “No I’ve never seen it but I don’t have to to know it’s a bunch of horse shit. There’s just no way science can compete with that stuff—those gifts or whatever. Science has got nothing on magic.”

  Magic. Yeah, that’s how Ron likes to think about it too, especially because Chrys always seemed to hate it when Ron called it a “gift” back in the day. Ron touches her pants pocket where she keeps the phone. If Chrys calls right now, she’d ditch these people in a heartbeat. But, until then, maybe it’d be helpful to Chrys if Ron found out just what exactly these people so close to the magic camp can do.

  Carl. Giselle might think he’s talking crap but what if he isn’t? She’d have to look into him later.

  “Anyway,” Ron says, “I’ll take you to the spot from here.”

  “Yeah, alright.” Giselle turns off the engine and tucks the keys into the pocket on her shorts.

  As Ron climbs out of the truck, she stares at the motorcycle. It’s a cherry red Harley Davidson. License plate number 3RFP5A.

  She points to the right, the side that’ll lead deeper into the forest and not back to the main road. “This way.”

  She leads Giselle deep into the forest where the lush green trees stretch out overhead, shielding them from the hot sun. Every now and then, she reminds herself of the motorcycle.

  Cherry red Harley Davidson. 3RFP5A.

  She makes a couple turns at notable spots, like a huge boulder and a tree shaped like a gnarly old lady, to make it seem like she knows where she’s going.

  They reach a small grassy clearing—not large enough for more than one person to camp in, but this should be good enough.

  Cherry red Harley Davidson. 3RFP5A.

  Ron stops Giselle.

  “This is where I found them,” Ron says in a low voice.

  Giselle nods, looking around suspiciously.

  “What if we actually stumble on the camp?” Ron says, even lower.

  Giselle’s presses her lips into a thin line. “Then we’ll have to hope we can get out of there before anyone notices. We aren’t prepared for a fight. Besides, even if we outnumber them and carried weapons, they’d probably still beat us.”

  “What is your goal exactly? Why do you want to find the camp?”

  “If we know where they are, maybe we can find a way to contain them somehow. Lock ‘em in.”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “What about you? Why are you looking?”

  “Well, it’d be nice if I could get my money and stuff back.”

  “But why were you out here looking in the first place?” Giselle says.

  “I think my mom might be in there,” Ron lies smoothly. She’d already thought about all of this last night as she laid in bed, coming up with reasons and motives and backstory for just about anything Giselle or Iris might ask.

  “Why do you want to find your mom?” Giselle asks, a dark look in her eyes.

  Ron smiles and mimics that dark look. “Revenge.”

  Giselle laughs lowly to match the volume they’d been speaking at. “You’re something else, you know that?”

  Ron shrugs. “Just being honest.”

  Giselle nods. “I appreciate that.” She looks around. “Which way should we go?”

  Ron points to the right. “We should go in deeper.”

  Ron leads the way. They walk further into the forest, going in as straight a line as possible, stumbling over tree roots and pushing past bushes and branches.

  Cherry red Harley Davidson. 3RFP5A.

  There’s no sign of any camps. There isn’t even any sign that people have come this way before. But Ron keeps going, waiting for Giselle to give in.

  After some time, Giselle finally does.

  “Ron,” she says, almost a whisper, “The bush is getting thicker. Plus, I think if the camp were this way and people walked by recently, we’d be able to see that.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Ron says in a fake defeated tone.

  Giselle pulls out a smartphone from her pocket and presses the home key. “Already past noon. Jeez, we’ve been out here for a while. Let’s head back and call it a day. Don’t want to get stuck out here overnight.”

  “Good idea,” Ron says.

  They walk for a couple more hours back to the truck. The motorcycle is gone.

  As they drive home—home, easy for Ron to call it that, since she doesn’t really consider anywhere her real home—the sky turns orange.

  Giselle says nothing as she drives back, which is perfect for Ron to focus on her thoughts.

  Cherry red Harley Davidson. 3RFP5A.

  Cherry red Harley Davidson. 3RFP5A.

  Chapter 12

  I wake up, blinded by the yellow light overhead suddenly being turned on. I groggily look at the watch on my wrist.

  5:54 AM.

  “Why’d you turn on the light, man?” I hear Remington say from his bed.

  I sit up in bed and rub
my eyes. Remington is still lying down on his back with an arm over his face. Hunter is in front of his wardrobe, pulling on a pair of jeans.

  “Cabin 2 is in distress,” Hunter says.

  “Distress?” I say, stifling a yawn. “What kind of distress?”

  “I don’t know but it… it’s too hard to ignore. I have to go see,” Hunter says.

  “And you had to wake us all up for that? One of the kids probably wet the bed or something,” Remington says, turning over to his side and pulling the blankets over his head.

  “I don’t think that’s it, Remy,” Hunter says.

  “Whatever, man. Turn off the light when you leave.”

  I throw off the covers and climb down the ladder, feeling more and more awake with every passing second. “The entire cabin is in distress? When did it start?”

  “Just now—a moment ago,” he says, closing his wardrobe door. “You coming?”

  “Uh…” I look down at myself. I’m in a pair of loose running shorts and a T-shirt with some cartoon character I don’t recognize on it. I suppose I’m presentable enough. “Sure, I guess. I doubt I’ll be able to fall back asleep anyway.”

  Hunter heads to the door without another word and puts on his shoes. I follow his lead, turning off the light as we leave.

  It’s still dark outside, but each cabin has an outside light on that’s enough to light the way to Cabin 2.

  A little girl with messy pigtails is sitting on the steps of Cabin 2, sobbing loudly.

  Hunter sits down next to her. “What’s wrong, Yumi?”

  “Adrien,” the girl says between sobs, “he’s… he’s…”

  A man comes out of the cabin, holding a young boy in his arms. He’s short and balding with skin that looks red in the glow of the light.

  “Oh good,” he says, out of breath like he just ran a marathon. “Please watch the young ones for me. I have to go to the infirmary.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  But instead of responding to me, the man looks to Hunter and says, “Please take Yumi inside. The others are… quite upset.”

  The man walks down the steps and stops in front of me. The young boy in his arms is very still.