by Brenda Drake
Fates passed to whomever the changer touched next. But changing the fate of a cursed person was different. The remaining time of the curse would transfer to someone in the changer’s family. If there wasn’t a male heir to pass it to, the curse would be broken. Reese would be free. He’d live. And Aster would be untouched.
Only he would most likely have to live without her. Unless she could forgive him for keeping the truth from her.
She gave him a sideways glance, a sweet smile on her face. “You’re deep in thought. Everything okay?”
“I’m just thinking of you.”
“You’re with me. Aren’t you supposed to do that when we’re apart?”
“Can’t help it.” He shrugged. “You’re always on my mind.”
She bumped his side. “That is so swoon-worthy.”
He believed she would eventually forgive him. At least he’d be alive to win her back.
Chapter Eleven
Aster
The woman sat stoic at the table, her gray hair sprayed into a perfect, unmoving bun. Miri shuffled the cards, her eyes seemingly dissecting the woman. For almost two weeks, Aster had sat in on Miri’s readings, observing. Until tonight.
The mask Miri had given Aster to wear was teal and glittered with rhinestones. A large peacock tail of the same color with elaborate feathers sprouted from it and dominated one side of the mask. Aster knew she shouldn’t be there, but she just couldn’t seem to stay away. She chalked it up to her need to learn how to control her gift, if she could call it that. She had an unsettling feeling it was more like a burden.
The older woman’s silvery eyes stuck on Aster. “Why is she in a mask?”
“We have discussed this,” Miri said. “She wants to be anonymous. You did say you wanted your fate card, yes?”
The woman nodded, her eyes never leaving Aster’s masked face. “I did.”
Miri continued shuffling the cards, then she placed ten of them on the table in what she called the Celtic cross spread. Aster couldn’t keep her focus on the woman’s reading. She didn’t care to hear about the present state of the woman’s life.
With one card, Aster could tell this person more than what Miri could in a thousand. Aster rested her hand on her own deck, feeling the power in them. Hers held fates good or bad, and Aster had the ability to turn them around for someone.
Every free moment, she had studied the cards. She knew them better than the freckles on her nose. No matter how many of them she flipped over, she could never see her own fate in them. And she desperately wanted to know if she and Reese had a happily ever after in their future.
The thought of Reese made her insides flutter, causing small quakes of anticipation within her. When they were apart, no matter how hard she tried to stay busy, he dominated her thoughts. Because she had given Leah and Iris shit for obsessing over boyfriends in the past, Aster refrained from talking about Reese to anyone.
No one likes a hypocrite, she decided.
“Destiny?” Miri said.
When Aster hadn’t responded to the alias she had picked for herself to use during the readings, Miri touched her arm. “Destiny, did you hear me? We’re ready for the fate.”
“Oh yes, sorry. I was focusing on the cards.” Aster shuffled her deck and fanned the cards out on the table. “Pick one.”
The woman chose the three of swords. Aster received an image of the woman unconscious in a hospital with tubes in her nose, the sound of a ventilator in the background. “You’re not well,” Aster said. “Your lungs are weak.”
The woman’s eyes bugged out. “How…how do you know that?”
Miri glanced between Aster and the woman. “Is it true?”
The woman swallowed hard, tears rising in her eyes. “I have lung cancer.”
“I can help you,” Aster said and touched the card, the mark on her wrist glowing red.
…
Aster guided the Bug around a corner, her thoughts distracted with the morning’s events. Along with the woman’s fate, she had changed three others. Of course, she wasn’t too sure she’d done anything at all. How would she know if their lives had taken another course? The freaky magic had happened with each, so hopefully she had done some good.
Their faces haunted Aster. There was a girl, dressed in black with more piercings than she could count, who drew the sun reversed. Concern flashed across Miri’s face at the sight of the upside-down card. Aster saw the girl depressed and alone in her room, cutting herself. A man, distraught over financial issues, turned over the reversed wheel of fortune card. And a boy with his mother picked the six of wands. Aster envisioned him running around with the wrong crowd and failing his classes. His mother was desperate to get her sweet boy back.
Pulling the Bug to a stop in the driveway, Aster sat in the car. The thoughts engulfed her, and she wondered if playing God would come back to bite her in the ass. She had voiced her concerns with Miri. Touching Iris after she had changed Leah’s fate seemed to have transferred their destinies. Or had it been just coincidence? When she had touched Roselyn after changing the woman’s travel mess-ups, Herman’s plans to make it home for his baby’s birth were canceled.
Miri instructed her to avoid touching anyone for twenty-four hours, but Aster wasn’t sure the reader knew anything about what she should or shouldn’t do. Aster stumbled out of the Bug and headed into the kitchen. Tillie stood at her screen door, watching with those beady eyes, an evil scowl on her face. It was getting to be a habit, so Aster did what she did every time Tillie stared at her.
Aster waved at her. “Hi, Tillie! It’s such a nice day today, isn’t it? It feels like summer will be here soon.”
Tillie grunted, her gaze following Aster all the way up the porch.
“Have a nice day,” Aster said over her shoulder and pushed open the kitchen door.
Her mom, hunched over a cutting board, diced carrots. Violet was on the other side, peeling potatoes. Gram stirred a pot at the stove, and Daisy sat on the counter beside her, picking rosemary leaves and flinging them into the boiling liquid.
Mom looked up. “Where have you been?”
“I was shopping for a necklace,” Aster lied, hugging her purse to her chest, as if her mom could see the tarot cards inside. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been searching for something to go with the blue dress she had bought for prom. Just not today. She considered it a half truth instead of a full-blown lie.
“I have something that would go perfectly with your dress,” Gram said, wiping her hands on her apron and rushing out of the kitchen.
“I wish you’d let me make a corsage for you, dear,” Mom said, resuming her task. “Flowers and prom just go together.”
“I can do your hair if you like,” Violet offered. She was lost lately, ever since her twin, Iris, started spending all her time with her loser boyfriend.
“Thanks, but I’m just wearing it down.”
Violet gave Aster a horrified look. “You have to add some sort of flair to it. Let me help you. I’m skilled with braids.”
“Well, I’ll think about it.” Aster decided her best bet was to put Violet off instead of outright refusing the offer. It was a good call, because both Violet and her mom rewarded her with a smile.
Gram rushed back in with a jewelry box. She lifted the lid, removed a necklace from inside it, and looked pointedly at Aster. “Before she died, your grandfather’s mother gave this to me. She had no daughters of her own. Her mother had given it to her, and now I pass it down to you. Here, let me help you put it on.”
Worried about touching Gram, Aster quickly retreated and bumped hard against the kitchen island. She threw her arms back to brace herself against the counter. A static charge zapped across the metal surrounding the kitchen. A chorus of gasps broke out as everyone received a shock. Aster slid down the cabinet to her butt and pulled her knees to her chest.
“Oh, no. No. No. NO,” Aster cried. Not entirely sure what had happened, she had a horrible feeling that someone in the kitchen had
just received an evil fate. Transferring the energy didn’t require her to touch someone. She was the conductor. All she had to do was come in contact with anything to release the burden she carried.
She thought back on her every step, from leaving Miri’s to getting home. Miri had opened the door for her, so she hadn’t touched anything there. She did touch the Bug, so why hadn’t there been a shock then? It had to be that she was a positively charged anode and the fate’s current needed to find a proper cathode. Only a human could accept the charge.
Mom dropped to the floor beside her. “Did you get hurt?”
“I’m okay,” Aster whispered.
“That’s it,” Mom snapped, standing. “We have to get the wires checked throughout the house. All this static electricity lately isn’t right.”
Gram sat the jewelry box on the table. “I guess this old house needs an overhaul. I’ll call someone. That man you know,” she said, looking at Mom. “He works on Saturdays?”
“I think so.” Mom returned to the carrots.
They all continued what they were doing, as if the game of Russian roulette hadn’t just happened. Aster picked up her purse and stood on shaky legs. She was done playing with fates. Her head throbbed and her hands trembled as she made her way to the garage. The piles of wood and boxes of tools were just as her grandfather had left them. It had been two years since he’d died, and no one had sorted through his things.
Aster pulled the box of tarot cards from her purse. The toolbox creaked as she opened the top. She stuffed the box under the neatly arranged tools and eased the lid back into place. It was a real possibility that she was overreacting, but if everything was just a coincidence, then she was cheating people out of their money. And if she was indeed changing fates, who was she to play with divine intervention?
It’s not right. Aster plodded back into the kitchen and up the staircase to her room. Tears swamped her eyes. There was a real possibility she’d get struck by lightning for messing with people’s lives. She grabbed her robe from the hook on the back of her door and buried her face in the soft plush material. The smell of her bath soap still hung on it.
No more. It stops now.
Closing the bathroom door behind her, she leaned against it, trying to suck back the tears. Leah would be over in half an hour to get ready for prom, and Aster didn’t want to have puffy red eyes. Besides, nothing had happened yet. And she was determined that this evening was going to be spectacular.
After a long bath and a half hour of removing all the hair everywhere a person doesn’t want to have it, Aster tightened the belt to her robe and padded downstairs. The stew preparations done, only Gram was in the kitchen, sitting at the table doing the newspaper crossword puzzle. The delicious smell of cooked beef and vegetables filled the room. Aster’s stomach grumbled.
“Where is everyone?” Aster picked up the wooden spoon on the counter by the stove and stirred the pot.
“Your mom drove Daisy to a friend’s house,” she said. “Violet’s watching some cake decorating show.”
“And they’re all okay?”
Gram raised a curious brow at her. “Why do you ask?”
“That shock thing that happened…I just hoped no one was hurt.” Potatoes, beef, and veggies swirled in the pot, mesmerizing Aster.
“It was just static, dear.” She returned her focus on the paper. “You don’t have to worry. Rex will be here on Monday to fix the wires.”
Aster started to leave, but stopped when a thought hit her. “Why did Mom have to drive Daisy? Carly only lives a street over.”
“She didn’t go to Carly’s,” Gram said. “Some girl from school invited her over for a sleepover.”
“Do you know the girl’s name?” Aster had a sinking feeling. The boy whose fate she had changed had gotten involved in the wrong crowd.
“Abigail…” Gram trailed off, putting her finger against her mouth. “Now what was her last name? Mason, I believe.”
“You mean, Massey? As in, Abby Massey? That girl is bad news.” At the same time it made her sick to think of Daisy hanging out with Abby, she was relieved the fate that had chosen to transfer had been that one. It was the lesser of four evils. If any mother could handle something like that, it was her mom. She’d lock Daisy up until she was an adult.
“I’ll talk to your mother about the girl.” Gram pushed herself up from the chair. “I’m going to lie down for a bit before all the prom festivities begin.”
“You okay, Gram?”
“Just tired. Did a lot today.” Her weak smile concerned Aster. “Will you do me a favor, dear?”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Let Violet do your hair. She’s been moping around all day.” She grasped the railing of the back staircase. “She’s lost without Iris.”
Aster wanted to tell her she should knock some damn sense into Iris’s thick skull, but instead she nodded. “Okay, one braid can’t hurt.”
…
The braid Violet weaved into Aster’s hair was like a crown on her head. Soft waves fell past Aster’s shoulders and brushed her back. After doing her hair, Violet had meticulously done Aster’s makeup, applying smoky eyeshadow and pink gloss. Aster’s eyes popped, and her lips seemed plumper.
“You look fabulous,” Violet said, shaking a can before aiming the pump at Aster’s head. “Close your eyes and don’t breathe.” It was as if a napalm bomb went off in the room with a cloud of hair spray mushrooming around them.
Leah stood in front of a full-length mirror, admiring her own hair and twisting around and trying to get a good look at her backside. “I love this updo, Violet.” She turned from the mirror. “You’ve got talent. You totes should do this for a living.”
The doorbell rang downstairs, and Aster’s stomach ignited as if she had just swallowed a million packets of Pop Rocks. She did a quick check in the mirror. The bodice of the dress sparkled against the light with her movements. The Empire waist flattered her torso, and she loved how the royal-blue chiffon skirt flowed around her legs.
“You need a necklace or something,” Leah said.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot.” Violet pointed to the dresser. “I brought Gram’s necklace up.”
Aster removed the necklace from the box and clasped it around her neck, checking how it looked in the mirror. A tiny infinity symbol hung from a dainty silver chain.
“It’s so pretty.” Aster touched the necklace tenderly. It had been passed down to her great-grandmother and now to her. The meaning behind the symbol was clear. At one time, fate changers were proud of their gift.
Leah yanked open the door. “You ready?”
“Yep.” Aster hugged Violet. “Thank you, for the hair and the makeup. For everything.”
“You made my job easy,” Violet said, pride lacing her voice as she followed Aster into the hallway.
Stepping off the bottom stair, Aster lost her breath. Reese stood regal in his tuxedo with his hands behind his back. His hair was perfectly styled, and his blue tie made his eyes even more incredible. He wore a broad smile, which he directed at her. The Pop Rocks started exploding again.
“Wow,” he mouthed before saying, “You’re lovely.”
Aster flushed. “Thank you.”
Iris and Josh were already exchanging flowers. Hers, a wrist corsage with exotic white flowers, and his, a boutonniere with one single white rose. Leah’s parents snapped pictures of the exchange ritual. Aster refrained from rolling her eyes. She looked back for Violet, but her sister must have gone to her room.
Leah rushed to Jan. He held a clear box with pink sweetheart roses inside.
Reese brought his hands out from behind his back, a white box in his right one. Aster was immediately disappointed. He hadn’t taken her request to forgo the flower ritual seriously. She forced a smile, not wanting to ruin the night by protesting. He opened the box and removed a wrist corsage.
“I know you said you didn’t want flowers, but I thought…” He took her hand and slapped a brace
let on her wrist with perfectly folded origami flowers on it. “Possibly, you’d like paper ones.”
“I love it,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes. “And the slap band is brilliant.”
He took out a matching boutonniere. “Daisy made them for us.”
“Here, let me,” Aster said, taking the single origami flower that matched hers, and pinned it to his lapel.
They spent the next half an hour posing for the parents as they captured images on their various devices. Seeing Leah’s father there made Aster wish hers were around. She missed him. The him he’d been before the Barracuda (Gram’s name for her) took him away from his family.
Aster pushed all negative thoughts about her dad and fates to the outer regions of her mind. She was with the hottest guy at school, and she was going to let loose and enjoy the night.
Chapter Twelve
Reese
The entire prom ritual fascinated Reese. So much fuss and worry and planning to get every detail correct, as if one mishap would ruin the whole occasion. He’d made certain everything was as perfect as possible, no matter the expense. He’d even seen to certain precautions for the grand finale. And he received his reward when Aster stepped down the staircase looking more beautiful than he thought possible.
Stunned to his spot in front of the fireplace, he mouthed, “Wow.” And she gave him a dazzling smile. “You’re lovely,” he said, not caring who heard. Because she was that, and more.
She’d chosen to leave her hair mostly down in sexy waves. The sequined bodice of the dress hugged her breasts nicely. The flouncy skirt trailed behind her as she descended the stairs. He could make out the silhouette of her shapely legs behind the soft fabric with each of her steps.
The origami corsage had been a splendid idea. Aster had loved it. He’d have to remember to do something special for Daisy for crafting it. He was relieved when Aster’s mother said they were finished taking pictures.
Leah glided over to them, looking regal. Her hair had been pulled up, and a rhinestone choker hung around her long neck. She flashed a wide smile at Reese. “Well done, Mr. Van Buren. You might start a trend. Can I see?” she asked Aster.
