Irregular Magic
Page 33
“Amazing,” Seth agreed. I smiled up at him. He really was a wonderful distraction.
I leaned into him for another kiss.
◆◆◆
It wasn’t until hours later that I thought about anything more important than how silky Seth’s hair was when I ran my fingers through it. In fact, I was still having a pleasant dream about stars and kisses when everything faded, and I was left standing in a dark room with my mother.
“Don’t trust him,” she said.
“Who?” I asked. My mother had been trying to warn me for weeks, and it was long past time to figure it out. There was no way she meant Chas. I could never trust him again.
“He’s here to destroy you,” she said.
My heart thundered in my chest. I loved my mother, and I missed her, but I wished she had left me alone to my sweet dreams. The look on her face terrified me.
“Please,” I begged. Communication with the dead was so frustrating. I was supposed to use my intuition to understand messages from my guardians, but I was terrible at it. “Tell me who and I’ll be on my guard.”
She reached for me, slow and graceful in that dreamlike way. I stretched out, trying yet again to clasp her hand. There was too much space between us, and I couldn’t reach her.
My mother sighed. Her frustration made me smile. It was like looking into a mirror.
“I’ll never understand the rules,” she said. The quality of her speech changed, and suddenly we were having a real conversation instead of a dream trance. “What is the harm in a hug now and then? But it’s not the time for that discussion. I must hurry.”
There were so many questions of my own that popped into mind. And what was it about those dreams that made it so hard to touch my mother’s hand? I didn’t spend enough time with her in life. Was it really too much to ask to get a hug, a hand squeeze, a sign of affection while I was asleep? Who made the rules, anyway?
“I love you,” I blurted, interrupting her. I knew she was dead, died with my father in a car accident, an assassination that had orphaned me. But her spirit was there, right there across from me, and I wasn’t going to lose my chance to tell her something I didn’t say often enough when she was alive.
She smiled at me, and in response to my declaration, her entire being was infused with light. She was so bright I had to squint my eyes. Her aura blended with the light behind her, and I realized she was fading.
“Don’t trust him,” my mother said urgently. There was no time left to say more. Again. “Don’t trust Adrian.”
My sleep pattern changed as she disappeared in the final seconds of my dream. My mind lifted towards consciousness, the last pieces of the dark dream-room disappearing around me. I opened my eyes and stretched. Time to start another day.
Wait.
Who’s Adrian?
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About the Author
T.J. Kelly writes Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, and Sci-fi novels. Destiny called on her thirteenth birthday when her mother asked the local bookstore owner to choose thirteen books a girl her age might like. The resulting pile of sci-fi and fantasy novels was her first love. When she can tear herself away from reading and writing, T.J. watches movies, asks countless questions, and bakes treats. Originally from California, T.J. now lives in Texas where she’s hard at work on the Armageddon’s Ward series.
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