by C. J. Anaya
“Of course, Hope. We can continue getting to know one another some other time.”
He raised both of my hands to his lips and kissed them. He looked like he wanted to grab hold of me and never let me go, but whatever impulse he felt he managed to resist and merely gave me one of his charming smiles. I watched him walk back to the house and disappear inside.
My conversation with Victor had answered many questions and raised several more. I had no idea what he was trying to fix or how I’d get my memories back. It troubled me that the thought of Victor with a girl like Edana didn’t bother me nearly as much as the thought of Tie with a girl like Edana did.
Was Tie’s flirtatious behavior toward me a way to get even with Victor, and nothing more? He was here to help, but was he also here to hurt? Why would he have led Victor and Ms. Mori to my hometown if he’d been helping my parents at one point?
Nothing about my life made sense anymore.
Chapter Seventeen
Ms. Mori’s second floor was like an elegant looking hotel. I couldn’t believe how many rooms there were. It wasn’t like anybody lived with her. We each could’ve had a room to ourselves, but Angie and I weren’t about to be separated, although I was dreading the inevitable talk we’d have concerning my healing powers.
My father took the room right next to ours. I think if Angie hadn’t been with us he would’ve demanded to stay in the same room with me. He may have been tired, but his parental rights were being threatened by my mythology teacher, and my life had already been endangered twice tonight.
He was very tightly wound.
I made my way up the stairs and walked down the hall toward the first door to my right. I wanted to say goodnight to my father before I faced the inevitable with Angie. I was almost to the door when I heard Tie’s familiar voice floating softly from within.
What was Tie doing in my dad’s room? I stood to the side of the entryway and listened.
“You have to help me get Hope away from here tonight,” I heard my father hiss.
“I can’t do that this time, James. I got you out of Kagami, but I can’t get you out of this. Hope needs our protection now,” Tie responded unhappily.
“I thought you were our friend. Why bother helping Julia and I escape if you were just going to lead Ms. Mori and Victor right to us seventeen years later?”
I held my breath, anxious for the answer.
“I knew the demon god had finally found you.”
“How? How could you know that?”
“I have several unsavory connections. You wouldn’t have survived the attack and Hope would have been taken. And then there are those nekomata who simply want Hope dead. We barely got to you in time.”
There was a pause in the conversation, and I wondered if I needed to leave before I got caught.
“What do you get out of this, Tie? Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the help. Having you on our side makes me feel like the playing field has been leveled somewhat, but why are you doing this?”
A heavy silence followed my father’s question. I waited, impatient to hear more.
“Let’s just say Hope and I share a rather complicated history, and leave it at that.”
“What does that even mean?”
I wondered the same thing.
“Look, when it comes to Hope, I’ll always do what’s best for her. Okay?”
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
More silence followed, and I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. I was never going to get straight answers from anyone it seemed.
“I’m sorry about Julia,” Tie said changing the subject.
It surprised me to hear Tie mention my mother’s name.
“I had no idea the nekomata suspected Hope so many years ago, and I should have known. I could have prevented that disaster if I had known.”
“Don’t,” my father interjected. His voice was laced with pain. “You say the nekomata took the form of Hachiman?
“Yeah, it left you alone when your daughter couldn’t heal your wife. The way Hope described it, I’d swear Julia knew what was going on and left her body on purpose.”
“To save Hope.”
“To save Hope,” Tie agreed. “That’s what we all want to do, isn’t it? We just want to save Hope.” He sounded like he meant it.
I had to walk away after that. Hearing Tie talk about my mother was, in a word, devastating. It’d been awful, believing that I’d failed to save my mother when I’d had the power necessary to do so, but to think she’d consciously died for me made it worse. The guilt was worse. I tore into the room Angie and I were sharing and tried to forget about the conversation I’d just overheard.
There were two twin beds on opposite sides of the room. I promptly crawled into one of them and listened to Angie while she okayed our slumber party with her mom. She finished her conversation quickly, sat down on the other bed, and stared at me, waiting for me to crack under her intense gaze.
“Go ahead, Angie. Let’s start this already,” I finally said.
“You can heal people.”
She got right to the heart of the matter. I wanted to look down, but I knew I owed her. I matched her gaze and nodded in the affirmative.
“For some reason, I’m not at all surprised. It explains a lot, actually.” She rubbed the back of her neck and stayed silent for a few seconds.
I waited for her to yell at me. Get good and angry. I almost wanted her to. Anything was better than this weird, almost quiet acceptance of a secret that should’ve been shared with her long ago.
“How long have you been able to do this?” she asked.
“Ten years.” I had to choke back a few tears when I said it. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to cry, but I did. I felt like crying for a good, solid week.
“Ten years. That’s a long time to keep such a huge secret from your best friend. However did you manage it?” Venom was seeping into her voice.
“It was hard to keep it from you. I’ve always wanted you to know, but my father told me to keep it secret. He…we were afraid if anyone found out, something bad might happen to me.”
Angie’s eyes burned bright with anger.
“I must’ve seemed like quite the threat,” she spat out.
“Angie, it wasn’t like that.”
“You don’t get to talk right now. You don’t get to call the shots, okay? I’m your best friend, and for ten years you kept this from me when I could’ve been there to help you. I could have supported you. Who else knows besides your father?”
“Kirby.”
“Kirby gets to know, and I don’t?” she yelled.
I got to my feet as Angie shot to hers.
“I had to let Kirby know so I could continue healing him…er, trying anyway. His leukemia is relentless, and it’s not going away. I’ve been doing this for months now, and there was no way to keep him from knowing.”
Angie looked at the floor and started chewing the inside of her cheek. She tended to do that when she had something really nasty to say but was doing her best to hold back. It didn’t happen very often…holding back, that is.
“So you were seven when it first happened?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“What did happen? How did all of this craziness get started?”
I felt strangely uncomfortable. It was so hard to come to terms with the fact Angie was no longer a part of that safe haven I’d turned to for so long. She’d been wholly untouched by this part of my life I’d kept secret and hidden. In a world where fiction seemed to play a huge role in my reality it had been nice to have Angie on the outside of all that, representing the kind of crazy-normal I so desperately wished was mine. With Angie involved in all of this there really was no safe haven anymore. No person I could turn to who could help me forget, for just a little while, that I was not your average teenage girl.
“You fell out of our tree house,” I said reluctantly. “Your head hit a rock. My Dad called the paramedics, but I connected
with you while we were waiting. I don’t know how it happened or how I knew what to do, but I healed you immediately.”
Angie looked up. She was so surprised her eyebrows were shooting into her hairline.
I held out my hands.
“You were gonna die, Ang. So I fixed you. I should’ve told you sooner, and I’m sorry.”
She startled me by running over and wrapping her arms around me. Then she cried softly into my shoulder. My battered emotions, together with my lack of sleep, and Angie’s unexpected water works began taking their toll, and before I knew it, I was sobbing right along with her. I could feel the tears rolling down my face and nearly laughed when I considered what it had taken to unearth my biggest secret and get a serious moment with Angie.
“Are we okay, then?” I asked.
She nodded and pulled back. Her teary face took on a sheepish expression.
“In all honesty, I don’t have much room to throw accusations at you. I’ve never really been the same since the day of that accident. No one knows that better than you do, Hope, and you’ve stood by me through all of the crazy times without expecting any answers. I guess we were both hiding things from one another.”
“Does that mean you’re going to tell me what you’ve been dealing with for the last ten years?”
Angie let out a shaky breath and nodded.
“I had no idea how close I came to dying that day, but it makes everything else that’s happened since then more understandable. It’s probably what triggered my visions.”
I held my breath, fearing to show my curiosity and spook her into clamming up.
“I can see how a person is going to die if I touch them. When the contact is skin to skin the picture is much more detailed.”
My eyes widened. “You…Angie…you witness people’s deaths…before they even happen?”
She lowered her eyes to the floor and nodded.
“The gloves,” I said. Angie’s bizarre eccentric behavior was so much easier to understand now. “You’re not afraid of germs, you’re afraid of touching other people’s skin.”
“I generally wear them when I can’t take the images anymore. Sometimes I need a break, but I’m constantly bumping into people, and I never know if I’ll accidentally touch a hand or a bare arm. There are other times when I can handle it just fine, and sometimes I’m able to help people who are going to die from stupid accidents. I usually find ways to interfere.”
“What happens if your interference isn’t successful?”
Her eyes took on a haunted look, and I suddenly understood her dark periods so much better.
“Do you remember that time about a year ago when I had you come stay at my house and you were there with me for the whole week?”
I nodded. “It was right around the time that awful kitchen fire took out Rosarita’s Mexican restaurant and killed Rosarita and five other employees…” I gasped as I realized what she was getting at. The anguish in Angie’s eyes made me cringe.
“I bumped into her at the grocery store earlier that day and received a vision of her dying in a fire, but I thought it was going to happen at her house. When I get these visions I see a person’s death through their eyes. I can only see what they will see, and the picture just wasn’t as forthcoming as I needed it to be. There was so much smoke. I didn’t know the fire would start in the restaurant. By the time I realized my mistake, left Rosarita’s house, and arrived at the restaurant, the building was already burning to the ground, and firemen were carrying out the people who didn’t make it.”
I swallowed hard and prayed that she would believe me as I said, “Angie, it wasn’t your fault.” I doubted she would accept that affirmation. I never accepted death with my own gift even when I knew there was nothing I could do to save people who were meant to die, but the guilt remained either way.
“Six people died that night, Hope. I could have warned them if I’d read the vision right. That’s on me. It was completely senseless, and that’s on me.”
For years, Angie and I had been fighting to save people with our different talents, experiencing devastation when we failed and satisfaction when we were able to intercede on someone’s behalf. If we had confided in one another we might have helped each other. We could have saved more lives working together than apart. What were the odds that Angie and I both possessed different abilities that allowed us to thwart death? I didn’t believe it could be a coincidence.
“No more guilt, and no more living with these powers on our own,” I said “From now on we help each other save lives and we tell each other everything.”
“Agreed.”
“I have to ask this, Angie. Why didn’t you ever have a problem touching me?”
The corners of her mouth turned up into a soft smile. “When I touch you, all I ever see is light. There’s a blank space in the place of your death. I suppose that means you’re never meant to die seeing as how you’ll eventually become immortal, but up until Tie and Victor came along, I’d never encountered anyone else I couldn’t get a read on. You’re the only person I can be around without worrying about the time, date, and circumstances surrounding your death. You’ve been my rock, Hope. I wouldn’t have survived all of my visions without you.”
“You’ve been mine too. I certainly wouldn’t have survived high school without you.”
We both laughed at that.
“I can’t believe you saved my life and didn’t have the decency to tell me about it.” She straightened up and wiped the dripping mascara from under her eyes. “Do you have any idea the kind of mileage you could have had with that ‘I saved your life’ card? Do you have any idea how pissed I am that you made me miss my junior prom last year instead of healing me from that awful flu bug I caught?”
I felt a little bit lighter knowing I could talk to her about these things.
“For the record, you didn’t have the flu. You had a very serious case of pneumonia which I partly healed so you wouldn’t end up in the hospital.”
“I had pneumonia? That’s awful. Was it so serious that healing me completely would have weakened you?”
“Not really. I just didn’t want you to go to the prom with Jathan Cox. That guy was an idiot and wholly undeserving of you.” My grin was naughty.
She gave me an appraising look.
“You know, Hope. You’re much more devious than you’ve ever let on. I think I like this side of you.”
“Even if it comes with human sized cats, demon gods, and your best friend having lived one thousand years before you were born?”
“We get to hang out with two hot deities. The glass is half full in my opinion,” she replied. “Speaking of which, how soon are you and Victor tying the knot?”
Her excitement sounded forced.
“Angie…”
“As your best friend and soon to be maid of honor, I need to know these things. Finding the perfect dress, while evading an army of killer felines is going to be quite stressful. I’ll be needing details ASAP.”
“I’m not having this conversation with you.” I rolled onto my comfy twin bed and pulled the covers over myself. I felt the bed sink down to my right as Angie snuggled up next to me.
“He did kiss you, you know. It may not have been the most private first kiss ever, but it looked to me like you were enjoying it.”
“I didn’t enjoy it,” I said defensively.
“You didn’t put up much of a fight,” she accused.
“That’s because he caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting him to kiss me. We don’t even know each other.” My confusion had returned tenfold. I decided not to mention my second kiss with Victor. With Angie, more really was more.
“Well, according to Ms. Mori, you guys know each other. Or your spirits do, anyway.” She pulled the covers off me. “Do you realize you were born a thousand years ago? Maybe that’s why you’ve always been so responsible. You’re like an old person trapped inside a teenager’s body. I bet it felt good to lecture me every time I did somethi
ng crazy and stupid.”
“You mean potentially suicidal?”
“Whatever.” Angie waved her hand in the air like she was swatting an obnoxious fly. “I’m just saying, Victor knew you and clearly loved you in your first life, and based on what I was seeing tonight, I don’t think time has changed that, even if you aren’t some gorgeous looking Japanese princess.”
“Gee thanks, Ang.”
“You know what I mean. That kiss he gave you was heavy.” She sounded wistful, and studied my features carefully. “I noticed it, and so did someone else.”
“What are you talking about?”
Angie studied her cuticles like she didn’t have a care in the world.
“It was just interesting to watch Tie’s reaction, that’s all. One minute you’ve saved each other’s lives, and you’re staring into each other’s eyes like no one else is in the room, and the next minute Victor’s got you wrapped up in a passionate exchange. For a second there, I thought Tie was going to take that rather nasty looking sword of his and plunge it through Victor’s heart.”
“You did? I mean…he looked bothered watching Victor kiss me?”
I wanted to pretend that her answer wasn’t particularly important to me. I wasn’t interested in Tie, and I certainly wasn’t going to marry Victor, but Angie was reading me like the open book that I was. She knew exactly how much her response would mean to me.
“He looked like his whole world had bottomed out. Not the reaction I was expecting from a guy so wholly indifferent to everyone and everything around him. I tell you what, though, he’s got a mean poker face, and he managed to slide it back into place before you finished lip locking with Victor.” She rose from the bed and ran across the room, diving under her own covers and then letting out an obnoxious snoring sound.
“Angie! Is that it? Is that all you noticed? Is that all you’re going to tell me?” I was desperate to know more.