Gifted (Awakening Book 2)

by Jacqueline Brown

  “She loved her sister,” I said, thinking of my own sisters, of how much they annoyed me, yet how difficult it would be to live in this world without them.

  “They were best friends until everything changed. The awful thing, the thing I feel most guilty about, is my mom was right. That first morning, as I woke up somewhere in South Carolina, in a cramped rental car, I realized she was right. I was next to someone who loved me, and there was no evil, only goodness. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t terrified about what was going to happen to her. I could simply be still and watch as the world flew by the windows. I was loved by someone who could truly love me back. I felt peace and I hated myself for it.” He lowered his head.

  There was a long, awful silence.

  After a few minutes, I summoned the strength to speak. “You told me a long time ago that evil killed both of our moms—I thought you were crazy. I hated you for a few hours, but I couldn’t hate you for longer than that. You and I are the same in the best … and worst of ways.”

  “It’s eerie,” he said softly.

  “It’s meant to be,” I said, suddenly sure of myself. “None of this is a coincidence. You and me. Our gifts, our losses.”

  “Your gift is not like mine,” he said fearfully. “It’s like hers.”

  Again, silence fell upon us. He was terrified I’d become his mother, terrified I’d fall to the evil that constantly surrounded us.

  “It’s not the gift,” I said, “it’s what we do with the gift.” I breathed in the salt air and with it a sense of hope, not the foreboding that had existed a second earlier. “It’s like the Witch of Endor.”

  He cocked his head at me. “From the Bible?”

  “Yes.”

  “That story didn’t end well. Saul and his kids were dead the next day.”

  “Exactly. The Bible doesn’t say that people with gifts aren’t real or are inherently evil. They existed before Jesus and they exist now.”

  “Yes,” he said, trying to understand my point.

  “The same people with the same gifts, used very differently, wouldn’t have been called witches. They would’ve been prophets or some other thing that wasn’t bad.”

  “You think my mom was a prophet?”

  “She could’ve been, or maybe she could’ve helped holy souls. That’s the point. The Bible doesn’t say these things can’t happen or that the people they happen to are evil. It says, don’t call on spirits, don’t try and know the future. These things are bad—deadly. But at the same time, the Bible has many prophets. People who can hear God, who know parts of the future, the part he wants them to know, or they see angels. And then there are all the saints. A lot of them could do some completely bizarre stuff—read souls, be two places at once, levitate, see the dead. These aren’t evil demoniacs. These are named saints in heaven. It’s not the gift. It’s what you do with the gift. I’m not doomed because I can … do whatever it is I can do. That’s not what led your mom to—.” I caught my words, realizing what I was about to say.

  “To death,” Luca said.

  “Her death came because she summoned spirits, which the Bible very clearly says never to do. That’s the problem. That’s when evil enters. The good spirits can’t be summoned.”

  “They never were,” Luca said. “Every single time, I felt evil. She said they were good, they were beautiful, always gazing toward their home in heaven. But they weren’t from heaven. I told her they weren’t. She didn’t believe me.”

  “She believed they were good?” I asked.

  “She wanted to.” He paused. “That’s not true. She believed it. She put up pictures and statues of angels everywhere, trying to invite them. She always had welcoming music playing—whatever that meant—and incense burning in the house.”

  “Did she have pictures of God or Jesus or saints or anything like that?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “She believed in God, but she believed in angels more, and she didn’t believe in Jesus. Not as God’s son, though she called herself a Christian psychic.”

  “Those two words don’t go together,” I said quietly.

  “She didn’t understand that, and neither did the people who came to her. For the most part, her clients were sincere, seeking nice things.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  Gigi’s mom went to a psychic once, to find out if she’d ever meet the right man. The psychic told her there would not be time for that. Gigi’s mom died less than a year later. The psychic was right.

  “A lot of the clients were missing someone they loved and wanted to make sure they were okay. Some wanted peace about difficult choices or the future. Those were the most common reasons.”

  I thought back to the night Thomas died. I hesitated. Luca hadn’t heard what the demons told me. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him.

  “What is it?” he asked, watching me as I tried to clear my expression.

  I couldn’t lie to him. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know what they told me.

  “On the night Thomas died, the demons spoke to me—to me and my dad,” I said. “It’s how I know …. Never mind, that’s not important right now.” I didn’t want to discuss how they had chastised my father for trying to protect me, but that he hadn’t earlier—how shortsighted he’d been, how far-reaching his actions were.

  I said, “Thomas told us—I mean, the demons told us they knew your mom.”

  Luca’s body shivered violently. “Wh-what … did … they … say?” he asked, barely able to form the words.

  “That she brought them many souls, but that they couldn’t be themselves around her, not like they could with Gigi’s grandmother.”

  “They couldn’t be themselves?” he said, staring beyond where I sat, his gaze falling on the ruins of the inn.

  “That would fit, don’t you think? With what she told you. She must’ve been seeing the lie they wanted her to see. They must have appeared as angels or maybe souls of loved ones. Demons can do that. I’ve read about it in the writings of different saints. They can even appear as Jesus or Mary.”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “that would fit.”

  We watched air gurgle from beneath a rock that was partially submerged a few feet in front of us.

  “How did she bring them souls?” he asked.

  I had hoped he’d forgotten that part of the demons’ words. I wanted him to focus on how they deceived her, not how she had deceived others. To accept his mom’s fate was one thing; to accept that she led others to hell was another.

  “Sin separates us from God. Going to psychics is a sin,” I said. “Maybe it was that simple.”

  He was still. “It was more than that,” Luca said. “I think they liked to mess with people. Almost like some disgusting form of entertainment for them.” His face looked as if he smelled something rotting.

  “How could they mess with people?”

  “Mom held a lot of power. I hadn’t thought of that before now, but it was true. People believed what she told them. She was right so much of the time, how could they not? And she completely believed what she was saying, which made her all the more convincing. So if the demons fed her enough accurate information about the past or immediate future, then why would she not become someone they believed above all others? She didn’t follow the teachings of any major religion. She was simply making up the rules of life as she went, going along with whatever the demons said. The advice she gave—if that’s what you want to call it—it was dark. Even as a kid, I understood there were certain lines you don’t cross, and yet the angels said God always made exceptions. That life was never black-and-white and people must allow their desires to dictate their actions. I get how she was leading them to hell. It was like lambs to the slaughter. How many did she hand them on silver platters? Her clients went away believing, coming back often, thanking her, and all the while she was leading them to eternal agony and they had no clue.”

  “Neither did she,” I said, placing a hand on his. “They hid their true nat
ure from her. She didn’t know what she was doing was evil.”

  “I told her. Sam told her.”

  “And the demons showed up as angels,” I said. “They made her believe that’s what they were. After all, that’s what they are, fallen angels. So they could easily appear as what they had once been.” I realized that anyone who didn’t feel the repulsion Luca or Sam did, or didn’t believe the Bible when it said not to engage in divination, would be easy prey. Especially if that same person did have a spiritual gift and could reach out to the spiritual world. It made me wonder how many others were the same as Luca’s mom. I’d been raised to stay away from psychics, tarot cards, Ouija boards. Gigi had made that clear. I never thought of psychics as evil people, but I certainly never thought of them as trying to do God’s will. Now I wondered how many falsely believed they were listening to angels, when they were listening to demons?

  Luca replied, “I want to believe she was innocent, but by the end she couldn’t deny what was happening.”

  “By then, her mind was warped,” I said.

  “She knew, somehow,” he said. “She wouldn’t have … have done what she did in the end if she didn’t realize how messed up she was.”

  “Luca, when Thomas died, even though I was down here and he was up on that cliff, I sensed something. He was sorry. I’m sure of it. And he threw that box with whatever it was inside it, into the ocean, despite the demons wanting him to keep it. They screamed out when he did that and threw him off the cliff.”

  “Even if that’s true, Siena, it wasn’t the same for my mom. She wrote a note. She planned to end her life and she did.”

  “You said she wasn’t as bad off as Thomas, not as intertwined, and yet Thomas repented. He tried to make things right.”

  “And he died,” Luca said, unimpressed with my logic.

  “He died in this life. We’re all going to die in this life. That doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s awful for those of us left behind,” I said, never forgetting the loss of my mom or the horror of Thomas falling from the cliff. “In the end, this life matters because the next life matters. Don’t you get it? If Thomas could repent, if he could have a chance at choosing God, then so could your mom.”

  Luca picked up a stick washed up by the waves and tried to dislodge a rock with it. The weathered stick snapped at his attempt. “Maybe,” he said, watching the broken portion of the stick float away with the outgoing wave.

  I said, “When I asked you why you were staring at my house every night, you said you were watching for your mom. You wouldn’t have done that—you wouldn’t still be doing that if you didn’t have hope.”

  “It’s been weeks and I haven’t seen her,” he said, sounding lost.

  “There are millions or maybe billions of souls in purgatory. You aren’t going to see everyone.”

  “I don’t want to see everyone. I just want to see her.”

  “Then you’re no better than she was,” I said.

  He stared at me. The words sounded more cruel than I’d intended, but I didn’t take them back. “It’s the truth. She was trying to control things, to know more than God wanted her to know. That’s exactly what you’re trying to do. I get it. I wished and prayed that my mom would visit me and tell me she’s okay, but that has never happened, and I understand now why it hasn’t. It’s not God’s will, and I need to accept that.”

  “Your mom was a saint,” he said stoically.

  “Hopefully, she is,” I said, “but I still pray for her. We all do. That’s what helps her—not going to a psychic and trying to talk to her. How does that help the dead?” I realized that was something Luca and I had not thought of.

  “Maybe,” I said, “that was another reason the demons told your mom the right information. If the clients were there talking to your mom, they weren’t praying for the dead or offering their sorrow for the soul’s purification. They were not helping them get to heaven, only dragging themselves down. If their loved ones were holy souls, they were hurting them by going to a psychic instead of praying for them.”

  “It sounds so thought out,” Luca said, rubbing his hair. “I told you, after Thomas died, that evil underestimated me. I was wrong—I’ve underestimated it.”

  “It is thought out. There’s a reason we on earth are called the Church Militant. We’re in a battle. A battle for souls, but we aren’t fighting alone.”

  “We’re not alone,” Luca said with exhaustion, “but it feels that way.”

  “Of course it does to you. You feel the evil. But remember, you feel it when it outweighs the good. Angels, real angels, surround us.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in guardian angels,” Luca said.

  I hesitated. “I think I do now,” I said, starting to grasp the wisdom of the Church.

  “I wish I could feel our guardian angels,” he said, squinting off to the side as if trying to see the invisible. “I wouldn’t feel so beaten if the good was as obvious to me as the evil.”

  “The person who could do that would be way more gifted than you or I,” I said. “It has happened, though. Some saints have reported seeing their guardian angels.”

  “That would be a nice gift,” he said, his body relaxing a little. “There are moments, like right now, when I’m alone with you, the ocean at our feet, when I believe the world is good—or, at least, mostly good. Then there are all the other times, when darkness seems to be enveloping every inch, stifling the air, making it difficult to breathe.”

  “That’s what evil wants you to think. That you’re in this alone, that evil is winning.”

  “It seems like it is most of the time,” he said.

  “God won the war. The outcome is known. It’s unchanging. We’re not fighting to defeat evil in the world, merely in ourselves.”

  He inhaled and exhaled, his posture relaxing further—our bodies leaning against each other.

  Luca said, “It doesn’t seem fair that most people make choices in life without knowing they are choosing their eternity.”

  “Would it matter?” I asked.

  He gave me a questioning glance.

  “It’s like that Bible story, when the rich man dies and goes to hell, and then begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers to live differently. But Abraham says no because if they aren’t going to listen to Moses and the prophets, they aren’t going to listen to Lazarus. I guess people are going to do what they’re going to do. Besides, I might feel sorry for the person who was completely aware of the angelic world. The little bit you and I are aware of is difficult to comprehend. To be aware of more? It wouldn’t be easy.”

  “That would be difficult,” Luca said, his face concerned.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He blinked. “Nothing.”

  “It’s something.”

  “It’s nothing that matters right now,” he said as he stood, holding a hand out for me.

  I took his hand as he led me away from the gentle waves. “Why doesn’t it matter?”

  He squeezed my hand. “We shouldn’t spend our time in the future … or the past. We should do our best to be here in this moment, together.”

  We walked on in silence, my hand in his. Jackson was running in front of us. As much as Luca may have wanted to be focused on the present, he was not. He was lost in thought.

  Not of the past, but of the future. A future that did not bring him peace.

  An image flashed in my mind: a beautiful little girl, her hair long, with loose brown curls. Her eyes, green with golden flecks of amber, stared back at me. They glowed with an intensity that startled me. Her skin was tan with a few freckles across her nose, her mind knowing; she understood more than I did. She was gifted in all the ways Luca and I were … and much more.

  Startled by the image, I loosened my hand from his.

  “What is it?” Luca asked, his amber eyes bright in the speckled morning sun that shone onto the trail.

  I stared up at him. “Did you see her?”

  “Who?” he
asked, in such a way that told me he hoped I would not ask him more.

  I didn’t answer, watching him.

  He held his hand open for mine. “We should get back,” he said.

  I placed my hand gingerly in his. Was that how the child appeared? Did she come from his mind? Not his past but his future.

  He wrapped his fingers around the palm of my hand.

  “You help ground me,” he said. “You help me focus on the here and now, not the past, and not the—”

  “Future,” I said, before he could finish his thought.

  He squeezed my hand. “It’s good to focus on the present. God wants us to focus on the present and allow him to be in control of the future.”

  “Yes,” I said, “that’s what God wants.” I wouldn’t ask him more or ask him to answer questions about a future that might never be.

  We walked along in silence, a silence brimming with more questions than could ever be answered.

  Jackson broke the silence. He barked as we neared my house. Luca squeezed my hand one last time before releasing it and allowing me to go first up the hill of my yard.

  Twenty-Three

  “You’re back!” Avi shouted when we entered the kitchen.

  The smell of garlic bread reminded me I hadn’t eaten breakfast and my dinner last night was best forgotten—though it never would be.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Dad said, his tone buoyant. “Your sisters were getting worried.”

  “We weren’t the only ones,” Lisieux said, nodding her head toward our grandmother.

  “Yes, I was equally concerned,” Gigi said with a meaningful glance at each of us.

  I hung my coat on the hook. “We were at the beach,” I said as Jackson trotted through the kitchen to his bed near the oven, the warmest spot in the room.

  “Where’s Aunt Sam and Uncle Jace?” Luca asked, hanging up his coat.

  “They haven’t come down yet. Will you go tell them lunch is ready?” Gigi said, placing her wrinkled hands on Luca’s chilled face.

  He leaned into her touch. He was safe here; this was his home.