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What the hell, the media is biased, I may as well put my own agenda out there.
I peer into the crystal ball and see the guy at a podium, a seriously pissed off wife next to him, giving a Tammy Wynette “stand by your man” Academy Award performance as he sadly delivers the standard mea culpa to the press about his “error in judgement” that landed him in bed with a stripper and his balls in a sling with his constituents.
“Well?”
“Shhhh,” I say, putting up one finger. “The image is clearing.”
This is going to be fun. The sonofabitch licks his lips; the thought that he can install a trapeze in his secret apartment makes his beady dark eyes gleam. I begin to nod and smile. I’m going to seriously screw with this guy.
I lean back and look up at him. “Your wife will never know. In fact, you’ll also have a second affair with a famous movie star.”
Now the guy’s lips are twitching in anticipation. I give him the name of one of Hollywood’s serious babes, a girl who is light years out of his league, and his smile grows from ear to ear.
Annnnnnnnd…Cue the big tip.
***
“Do I have a shot with Adrianna?”
Just like clockwork, our class supernerd Melvin Hendrick corners me at my locker between third and fourth period with a question about his crush of the day.
“Hello, Melvin,” I say, without any emotion.
“So, waddaya think? Me and Adrianna?”
The question is beyond ridiculous. Melvin is five feet tall and wide, dark eyes peering through Coke-bottle glasses, constantly in a state of flop sweat. Adrianna is the prom queen, five-ten, blonde, legs up to her neck. A girl who not only stops traffic but makes it back up.
“You and Adrianna?”
Melvin’s face fills with anticipation. “Yeah. So, do I have a shot?”
“Four words, Melvin. Out. Of. Your. League. Go find a girl who has things in common with you, maybe owns a pair of Vulcan ears. Stop shooting for supermodels.”
His smile fades. “Maybe so. Thanks, Jillian.”
I realize I’ve gone a bit far, so I dial down the sarcasm. “Trust me, Melvin, there’s a nice girl out there for you. (Hey, he’s a sci-fi fanboy; I might as well toss him some fiction.) See you tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat station.”
Melvin heads off to class while I shut the door to my locker, revealing one half of my personal romantic dilemma behind it.
“Hey, Sparks.”
My heart flutters as Ryan Harker looks down at me with those deep blue eyes that reach right into my soul and give it a hug. But my rush is short-lived, as I panic and immediately switch my focus to my upcoming Algebra Two test.
I have to. Ryan is a mindreader.
Well, not a full-fledged mindreader. He’s still an apprentice under his father, and his powers are developing, so his abilities are sporadic. Problem is, I never know when he can read my thoughts.
And if he can read them now, I want him to see math equations instead of my original daydream, which included deeds that would make my crystal ball seriously fog up.
“Hey, Ryan.”
“Math test got you worried, huh?”
Whew. Almost busted. “You know me. I always get nervous about tests.”
“Yeah, and you always get an A. I don’t know why you worry so much.”
Suddenly I’m channeling Melvin as I feel my armpits grow damp.
Here’s what it’s like inside my head when these impromptu meetings with Ryan occur:
Damn, I want to run my fingers through that thick black hair and jump on…. the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to…I think he’s gotten a little taller. Must be six feet now. God, those dimples when he smiles at me…the circumference of a circle is how many times the radius…oooh, those broad shoulders and slim hips. Nice jeans today…. A parallelogram has equal sides…
Look, I know what you’re thinking. If the guy obviously likes you, and you like him, then take down the firewall in your head.
But it’s not that simple. It would give Ryan an unfair advantage.
And I know what else you’re thinking. If Jillian can read the future of everyone else, why not read Ryan’s future?
Tried that already. There’s a big blank spot in the crystal ball.
Which, according to Mom, means I’m somehow involved. To what degree is anyone’s guess.
The bell rings, mercifully taking me out of my lust-for-Ryan-mathematical-formula loop.
“See you in the cafeteria,” he says. “Buy you lunch?”
“Sure thing,” I say, trying unsuccessfully to hold back a huge smile.
***
“Jillian. You look hot today.”
Since we’re into mathematical equations, it’s time you met the source of that comment who happens to be the other half of my romantic problem for which no answer key exists.
Meet Jake Revson, rogue telekinetic of the senior class. Possessor of classic dark brown bedroom eyes behind which lurk some semi-evil plan to move objects in a fashion that will amuse him. Mom hates him and the fact that I’m attracted to him. It’s not just the mop of always tousled medium brown hair or that wicked smile that tells you he’s up to something, it’s what’s behind those eyes that deserves more exploration. Deep down I sense he’s an incredibly decent person who simply puts up his bad boy persona in the torn black jeans to keep people at a distance. The distance part frustrates the hell out of me. But at least I don’t have to think about math formulas when I take in that slender five foot eight frame of his that is no doubt built for speed.
I slide into the desk next to his. “You say that to all the girls.”
“Yeah, but with you it’s true.” His lean face develops a slight smile.
I’m not sure I believe him, but I hope he’s not lying. There is a bit of evidence to support the theory that he’s interested in me. Jake once rescued me from a guy who wouldn’t leave me alone by sending his textbooks flying into the boys’ bathroom and into the toilet. After that he rearranged the Christmas lights on the guy’s house to spell out a double entendre regarding the North Pole. He also unbuttoned my blouse a bit one time with his thoughts; when I discovered this unfortunate disrobing I looked up to find him smiling at me.
And of course I can’t read his future either. Damn blank spot.
“Jake, I’ll never believe you until you ask me out.”
“You free Friday night?”
“Yeah…”
“Too bad. I’ll be out of town.”
“You know, Jake, I read your future last night. I saw you married to an absolute bitch. She didn’t have red hair. So choose your next words carefully.”
***
Okay, back to my peek at the afterlife, because I know you’ve been drooling over that little tease I dropped and you’ve actually put aside your personal questions because you want to know what’s on the other side.
Fine, I’ll share what happened, because I’ve been holding it in all day and am about to tell my mother in the hopes she’ll be able to explain it.
I was doing a reading for a very nervous, thirty year old woman named Donna and things were going along as usual. I saw her meeting a man named Jefferson, dating for several months, falling in love. I’m telling her this and she’s all smiles. Then, and this puzzled me since I supposedly can only read romance, I saw him murder her. Perhaps it was because she was in love with the killer, I don’t know. Anyway I know she was dead because I saw him shoot her in the head, then her lifeless eyes as she hit the ground. The shock left me speechless for a few seconds, the color drained from my face. Donna’s face tightened as she noticed the change. “What’s wrong?” she asked, obviously concerned that I’d seen something really bad.
Before I could answer the image dissolved into something I could not explain. Donna walking barefoot in sunlight, surrounded by the brightest primary colors you can imagine, wearing a smile, just before the image disappeared as it always did at the five year marker.
What happened next was even more amazing. I told her to forget what I’d told her about finding love with a man named Jefferson, that he was a bad man, a dangerous man. Her face went pale, matching mine. Since she’s been a client for a while and I’ve always been right, she nodded, assuring me that she would avoid this man. I took her hands, begged her to promise me, and she did.
And just when I began to relax a bit, to breathe normally for the first time in two minutes, I saw it.
Donna’s life on a different path. The images started again, rushing forward at a speed I’d never experienced, going forward five years.
This time she was still alive.
I had not only seen the afterlife, but had apparently changed her future.
CHAPTER TWO (#ua083f870-6d11-52ab-8419-75659a7579c1)
My mom, who now wants me to call her Zelda when we’re open for business, is right out of central casting when it comes to her mystic seer persona. She dresses in the Stevie Nicks 1980s fall collection, with wispy capes, translucent scarves, and willowy mid-calf dresses that (in her opinion) make her look as though she’s floating through a room. Since she’s carrying about fifty extra pounds on her five-two frame, the floating part doesn’t exactly work. But she’s got those dark gypsy eyes peering out through bangs that cover her eyebrows, long straight black hair down to what passes for a waist, and enough bling on her fingers and around her neck to set off the TSA alarm at LaGuardia ten feet from the metal detector. Or at least make Dennis Rodman jealous.
But it’s the faux accent she saves for customers that cracks me up. If a pastrami sandwich could talk, it would sound like mom. She tries to take her Noo Yawk fuhgeddaboudit twang and combine it with a stereotypical vampire, resulting in a husky, sleeps-in-a-smoky-bar concoction that doesn’t exactly blend. “Gooood evening, youse vant to look into da future, or vhat?” Luckily she’s usually spot-on in her predictions, so people put up with a voice that sounds like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny meets Dracula.
Right now, however, she’s not Zelda or a Brooklyn Transylvestite, but mom. And what I’m telling her is making the color drain from her face.
She bites her lower lip as she reaches out and takes my hands. “This is highly unusual, Jillian.”
“So what does it mean? Do I have some special power, or was this just some sort of crystal ball hiccup?”
She shakes her head. “I dunno. Hard to say.”
“Has this ever happened to you, or anyone you know?”
“Uh-uh. But…”
“But…what?”
“There is a very old legend. Of a seer who can see beyond this world.”
“Isn’t that basically a medium?”
She shakes her head. “Nah. They don’t see the afterlife, they contact spirits who have moved on. Big difference.”
“So what’s the legend?”
“It’s easier if…well…I think this is a matter for…The Council.”
I gulp and my pulse shoots through the roof. The Council. So cloaked in secrecy, so high up, so legendary that few in our neighborhood have ever been granted an audience. People refer to it as The Council in hushed tones, as though you could speak in italics. As far as I know, no one my age has ever appeared before The Council.
Except for my own mother.
***
“You okay, Sparks?”
Ryan’s soothing voice makes me turn around as I’m heading into homeroom. “You have to turn it off today,” I say, knowing he must be picking up my anxiety.
He furrows his brow and looks at me with genuine concern. “You’re extremely worried. Anything I can do to help?”
“Yeah, stop reading my thoughts today. I know you’re just trying to be helpful, but please, Ryan, I’m going through something that is very private.”
He nods, closes his eyes for a moment. It’s what he does when he disconnects, or whatever you want to call it, his mind reading ability. He opens his eyes and offers a soft smile. “Sorry, Sparks. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. But you can’t go around sneaking up on girls who might be thinking…you know…stuff.”
I get the sheepish grin that makes him look like a little boy who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, the look that reminds me of when we first met in the second grade. He started calling me Sparks back then because he said when the sun hit me just right it looked like sparks were coming out of my hair. “Sure, I get it. I guess I should really leave my abilities at home. At least…when I’m around someone I care for.”
My heart hits a speed bump and takes my mind off The Council for the first time since the talk with mom. I’ve known the guy since I was seven…is he finally getting it after all these years? Can you please stop thinking of me as your oldest female friend and look at the total package which is dying for a date? “You shouldn’t need to read minds to know how a girl feels, Ryan.” (Well, so much for playing my cards close to the vest. But honestly, when it comes to romance, the guy needs a road map, so I might have to be his GPS.) I wonder how he’s taking my comment. Does he realize I’m talking about myself, or just girls in general? His casual nod tells me it’s the latter. Sonofabitch.
“Hey, girls are always saying boys are clueless when it comes to understanding women. I was trying to get ahead of the curve. You guys aren’t exactly easy to figure out.”
“Part of our charm.” I glance at the clock and know we have about one minute before class. “Better get rolling,” I say, as I head into my homeroom.
“Yeah. See you at lunch. Hope the thing that’s bothering you goes away.”
“Thanks.”
I’m heading into the room and think the conversation is over when I hear him again. “But what you were thinking was pretty spectacular.”
***
The drive to rural New Jersey (yeah, it exists in the western part of the state) is a pleasant one, a welcome change from the crammed together lifestyle that is New York City. I love living in the Big Apple, but it’s nice to get out of town and clear my head. And not worry about someone reading my mind. We’re going to a place known as The Summit, which is not spoken in italics like The Council. It’s basically the home office for the people who oversee those of us in the paranormal world.
I’m trying to pump mom for information about her visit years ago. She keeps telling me “it’s privileged” and can only be revealed with special permission, even though I’m her daughter.
“Can you at least tell me why you only came here once? Did they help you?” I ask.
She shakes her head while keeping her eyes on the road. “Jillian, please stop. We’ll be there in ten minutes and they’ll start as soon as we arrive.”
“They’ll start…what?”
