The Unsacred Gift (A Young Adult Paranormal Novel)

by C. S. Dorsey

  I got up and walked into my mom’s room, but the room was empty, so I went into the kitchen. No one was around. It was just me and Angel in the house. I looked to see if there was a note on the refrigerator door, and of course there was.

  Hey honey,

  We went to the funeral home to make the arrangements.

  I didn’t want to wake you.

  Be back soon.

  Love,

  Ma

  P.S. I rode with Mark, so I left the car keys on my bed.

  I ignored the last part. I didn’t think I would need to drive her car for any reason. There was nowhere I needed to go, and nowhere I wanted to go right now.

  I headed back to the living room and plopped on the couch. Angel was just waking up from his cat nap. It must have been a bad one, because he looked at me in an eerie way. “Hey, Angel, it’s me,” I said to him as I reached out my hand to caress his furry head. He backed away and hissed at me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I said. I normally would have ignored his little mood swing, but I noticed he was shaking. “Angel? What is it?” I tried to reach for him again, but he backed away with his body up in a fighting stance, and hissed again. I decided to leave him alone—I was not going to fight with a possessed cat. He slowly walked away, his eyes never leaving mine. “Crazy cat,” I said, and turned on the TV.

  There was some movie on where the woman was screaming and running from her husband, who was trying to kill her. I was not really watching it, more just staring at the TV, when I saw a flash of light. I gasped for air. This was not happening right now. No, no visions please! But I couldn’t fight it.

  Am I dreaming? This was different, I thought, but I knew that I wasn’t dreaming. I was standing in the forest where my dream kept occurring. I turned around, only to see the same face that I had been seeing in my dreams for the last few days. The little girl had her head down. She was drenched in water. Her clothes had dirt spots on them. She was shaking uncontrollably, like she was having a seizure.

  Is this for real? I wondered. My heart raced as I stared at her. She lifted up her head and looked at me, and pointed. Then I came back to myself.

  I broke out in tears.

  “Misty, what is it? What are you trying to tell me?” I said, sobbing. I was glad no one was here to see me like this. I had to get in control of myself before my mom came home. But I couldn’t stop. The tears came back. It was a familiar stream that clouded my eyes. I was once again confused by my plague of a gift. Only this time the dead girl was alive and haunting me.

  Sitting on the couch, I started shaking. I didn’t know what to do. I needed to calm down. I went and grabbed my purse and rambled through it until a little piece of paper fell on the floor. “Here it is,” I said, and picked it up. I got off the couch and went into the kitchen, grabbed the phone, and dialed the numbers on the paper.

  “Hello?” Just the sound of that voice made me want to melt.

  “Hey, Chris…it’s Sissy.”

  “Sissy?” he said, sounding surprised. I wasn’t sure if he would be happy to hear from me after how we’d left things.

  “Yes,” I said, swallowing down the lump in my throat.

  “Are you OK? What’s going on?” I broke out in tears; I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to say that my sister is haunting me, the daughter that no one talks about.

  “It’s my Granny, she…she passed away.” With all my sobbing, I didn’t know how to tell him the truth.

  “Where are you?” he asked, concern in his sexy voice.

  “I’m at my mom’s.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said, and hung up the phone.

  I felt a little selfish for calling him, but I needed a shoulder to cry on. I couldn’t cry on my mom’s shoulder, because she needed mine to cry on, while everyone else was crying on hers. I wanted him here because I needed to tell someone about my gift before I went nuts. I knew Granny said we couldn’t tell anyone, but I needed to get it off my chest. The secrecy was killing me inside.

  It seemed like he got to the house in a flash. I opened the door, and embraced him. He held me so tight I was lifted off the ground, and held me as he walked through the door. Tears were flowing down my face and onto his neck. I wanted to stay in his arms forever.

  It was easy to create this fantasy in my mind, but eventually I had to wake up and face reality. I lifted my head off his shoulders, but I kept my head down and my eyes closed. Even though I could feel him, I was scared that if I opened my eyes he would be gone. My dreams were coming alive, it seemed, so I didn’t want to take any chances.

  He took my chin between his fingers and lifted up my head. I still had my eyes closed and refused to open them.

  “Sissy, you can open your eyes,” he said softly. It sounded like he wanted to cry, too. I could hear the concern in his voice.

  “Honey, look at me,” he said. I slowly opened my eyes to gaze up at the man that had come to my rescue.

  “I can’t believe you got here so fast. I thought maybe after Granny’s birthday party, you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “I always want something to do with you, Sissy. I never wanted to let you go, but you insisted.” He wiped the tears from my eyes. His touch felt like rose petals, so silky and soft. “I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. She was so sweet.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” I swallowed hard to keep the lump down. I hesitated for a moment. “Sit down, Chris,” I said, gesturing toward the couch. I followed him, taking a deep breath in. We sat down facing each other. He grabbed my hand. I didn’t know if this guy really knew what he was getting himself into, but I figured if he wanted to stick around, then he had to know about the unsacred gift.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I was begging myself to wake up, because I knew that this could not be real.”

  I was waiting for Chris to get up and leave. I stared at him, waiting for his reaction. He just looked at the floor with his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together. He looked…confused and worried all at once.

  I’d told him about Misty and her disappearance, about the dreams I’d been having of trying to save her and not being able to. I told him about the visions I had of Ms. Chavez in high school, and the flight attendant, and the vision I had of Granny on her birthday. I decided to leave out the dreams I had been having here lately. I figured my sister’s disappearance, the visions, and some old nightmares were enough for now.

  He was still looking at the floor, so I started looking there, too. I saw nothing there. I guessed he was looking for words, so I gave him time.

  After a few minutes passed, he finally spoke.

  “Does anyone in your family mention your sister?”

  “No. No one ever speaks of her. I can’t even find pictures of her. I guess my mom got rid of them after she was gone.”

  “Have you spoken of her?”

  “No. Everyone acts like she never existed, so I act the same way.”

  He shook his head. I wished I had the gift of mind-reading instead, so that I could find out what he was thinking at that moment. He grabbed my hand and rubbed it. At first, I thought he was going to say that I was a freak and he couldn’t be with me, but…he didn’t. He took my hand and placed it around his waist, then grabbed my face. I wasn’t prepared for this move.

  “I feel so sorry for you, and I wish I could take it away. But you can’t reverse what is given to you.” He took my face and kissed me. His kiss made me melt. The sugar was extra sweet this time, and the high was unbelievable. We came up for air. I looked him in his eyes.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m wondering when you’re going to run away, and say I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy. You just have a gift.”

  “A curse. I have a curse. Not a gift.”

  “You’re not cursed. You’re just unique.”

  I just looked at him. Either he is on the rebound and really wants t
o be with someone, or he has completely lost his mind. I settled on lost his mind.

  “You’re just as crazy as I am. I think we both need to admit ourselves to the hospital. What do you think?”

  “As long as I get to be with you. We can go there now if you want,” Chris said without a smile on his face. I was waiting for him to laugh, but I looked deep into his golden-brown, hypnotic eyes, and found that he was serious.

  “Are you serious? You would you do that…for me?” I asked, with my hand on my chest. I was taken aback by the sincerity in his words. Chris was what I was looking for and never thought I would be able to find.

  He placed his hands on my face and caressed my cheeks. “I would do anything for you, as long as you stay with me.” He drove a hard bargain, but I figured that I might wake up anytime now from this dream, so I might as well agree to it.

  “I will stay.” OK, Sissy, you can wake up now, I thought to myself. He came close to my face again and kissed me. Only this time was different—the passion in this kiss left me wanting more. I was hungry for his touch; I wanted to feel his lips all over me. He was so gentle. His lips made their way to my neck. I was begging myself to wake up, because I knew that this could not be real. After a few minutes of kissing and touching, I cried.

  “What’s wrong, did I hurt you?” he asked.

  “This can’t be real. Things like this don’t happen to me.”

  “Me either. Only when I’m with you.” He wiped my tears away again, and held me in his arms as I rested my head on his shoulder.

  I heard the key turn in the door and it opened. I quickly pulled away from Chris, and he straightened up. My mom walked in the house. She was so out of it, she didn’t even notice that he and I were sitting on the couch.

  “Hey, Ma, how are the funeral arrangements going?”

  She looked over to me and then saw Chris, and her mood changed.“Oh, hey, Chris, how are you?”

  “Hi, Ms. Monroe, I’m fine.”

  “I wish I could say the same.” My mom went into the kitchen.

  “Um, I will be back, let me just check on her for a minute.” Chris nodded, and I went into the kitchen. She was standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open.

  “Hey, Ma, how did everything go?”

  “Everything went well. The service is set for Friday at ten in the morning, and all we have to do is show up. The funeral home is going to do everything. Of course, Tyler paid them to do everything, so we wouldn’t have to do anything.”

  “Is there anything you need me to do, Ma?”

  She shook her head. “No, honey. Just live your life.”

  Before I knew it, it was Friday. My Auntie Tiy spent the night with us, so I had to give up my room and my bed and sleep on the couch. Chris had spent the last few days with me, making sure I was OK. I told him that I was fine, but of course he ignored me, and said that he would not let me out of his sight. He had asked me to stay with him last night, since my auntie was here, but I told him that it wouldn’t be appropriate. And besides, I needed to be with my family.

  While Chris was keeping me sane, Mark and my mother were close as ever. He was there to drive my mom and auntie around for last-minute funeral details. He made sure the right flowers were ordered and the program looked perfect. I wanted to help so badly, but my mom just kept telling me that everything was fine. She was trying so hard to keep it together. Everyone was worried for her, even Aunt Tiy—it seemed like after her outburst, she’d started looking after my mom, which my mom didn’t notice. She was walking around on autopilot, and I was just waiting for her to come back.

  I hadn’t had any dreams, luckily. I was trying not to get too excited about it, to just be grateful they were giving me a break. I needed to stay focused. The last thing I needed was a vision to impair my sight, or a bad dream to clog my mind.

  Being with Chris has made things a little more calm. I felt guilty for being happy in a tragic time like this, but I had never felt this way before. I never knew what it was like to have a butterflies flying around my stomach. Call me selfish, but Chris’s presence was the only thing that was getting me through this. If Granny had been there, she would have wanted me to be the way I am right now—happy.

  I heard my mom and auntie making noise and decided to get up as well. I went to the bathroom, but it was closed and locked.

  “Tiy is in there, and you know she is going to be an hour getting ready,” my mom said, putting on her makeup in the mirror. She had on a black slip and black stockings. Her hair was curled in an updo, with a strand falling down her face. She had on a pair of silver earrings that dangled down to her shoulders. Her clothes were laid out on the bed.

  “Ma, when did you use the bathroom?”

  “Well, I knew Tiy was here so I set my clock for seven. I had to beat her to it.” My mom finished her makeup. She saw me jumping up and down because I had to pee. I was on the verge of exploding.

  “Tiy!” My mom yelled and banged on the door.“Your niece peed all over herself and my carpet, so now you have to clean it up.” She leaned over to me and whispered, “When she opens the door, run in and close it.” I nodded my head in agreement. Apparently my mom was used to dealing with this type of behavior from Auntie Tiy when they were younger.

  “I am not cleaning—” She opened the door, and I ran in, pushed her out of the way, and closed it.

  “Sissy!” she yelled and banged on the door. My mom laughed so hard I could hear her from the bathroom.

  “Hey, there’s no pee on the floor! You guys set me up!”

  “I had to do it. You were in there for an hour. Let someone else use it. You’ve been doing this since we where little, and you’re still doing it to this day.”

  Auntie Tiy sighed and stormed out of the room. I ignored the siblings arguing. All I needed right now was a nice, warm shower. Today was going to be a long day. There was the funeral at ten, then we had to go to the burial, and then we had to go back to the funeral home to have the banquet. My eyes became heavy when I thought about everything we had to do. God, get me and my family though this day.

  I finished showering, got out, and dried myself off. My mom knocked on the door. “Honey, Tiy and I have to get to the funeral home early to make sure everything is OK. Do you want me to come back and pick you up?”

  “No, Chris is going to pick me up and we are going to drive there together.”

  “OK.”

  I heard her walk away, and then I heard a door close. I opened the door to the bathroom and peeked though the crack to make sure the coast was clear. When I saw that no one was there, I made a dash to my room. My clothes were hanging up already in the closet. I got dressed and put on my makeup to cover up the circles under my eyes, and combed my hair. I decided to leave my hair down. I was not in the mood for curling it, and putting it up it was too much work.

  I looked at the girl in the mirror. I stared at her for the longest time. It was almost like I was looking at someone else. She looked so different than she did seven days ago. There was a glow in her eyes, I could see a twinkle. The dark circles under her eyes were fading away. She didn’t look like she had missed any meals lately.

  I smiled at the girl in the mirror, because she looked so happy. “Enjoy this moment, Sissy,” I said to myself. I took a deep breath, grabbed my purse, and headed out of the room. Ten minutes later, Chris knocked on the door.

  He looked as good as ever. His hair was cut short, and he had on a gray top with black slacks. His scent was intoxicating. It was a different type of cologne that I had never smelled on him before. He had on a pair of shades that made him even more appealing.

  “Look at you. I think you’re trying to distract me from the funeral. If you are, it’s working,” I said, giving him a kiss as he walked inside.

  “Is it?” he said, tilting his head to the side, giving me a half-smile. I hated when he did that. For some reason, it just made me want him more, and I think he knew it. But I had to focus. The things that were going t
hrough my mind could not be acted on at this moment.

  “We need to go, let me make sure everything is off,” I said, ignoring his last comment. I went into the kitchen, looked around, and then checked the bedrooms. I needed to make sure Auntie Tiy had turned off anything she’d turned on. “OK, I’m ready.”

  When we arrived at the funeral home, everyone was already parked and inside. “You ready?” Chris asked, as I looked out the window. I didn’t move, I just stared out of the windshield with no expression on my face.

  “You OK?”

  “I’m OK. It’s just…well, I just realized that my Granny is really gone now. I mean…after today, I will never see her again.” A tear rolled down my face. It was a tear of sadness, though, not fear. The glue that kept my family in place was gone.

  Chris wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me forward. I did not cry, I just lay my head there on his shoulder for a moment. He didn’t say a word, just rubbed my back, which felt really nice. I inhaled and exhaled a deep breath for a moment. I turned away from Chris and opened the door. I felt him grab my hand.

  “I’m here for you as long as you need.”

  I nodded my head. “I know you are.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Sissy…I don’t have an issue with you. I look up to you a lot.”

  We got out of the car and walked into the doors of the deceased’s last stop before being planted in the ground and left there to be forgotten. My family was in the lobby. My mom and Aunt Tiy were talking to the director of the funeral home. I saw Uncle Tyler off to the side typing on his BlackBerry. Could he not do business for once? I thought to myself. But who knows, maybe business was his way of grieving for his mother, keeping his mind off of things. I just prayed that all of this wouldn’t sneak up on him and make him go insane, too. I’d have to rethink my hospital admitting strategy for my family.