by Mia Castile
“Um, I think we are good enough for now.” We both stood after he handed us a packet about the bank and the starter checks. “Thank you for all your help.” Gideon shook his hand, and the bank manager shook my hand.
“It has been my pleasure. I look forward to serving your banking needs in the future.” He escorted us to the main door.
“Gideon, our parents wanted to give us a better life. Why didn’t Social Services let Hanna raise us? It was clearly their wishes,” I asked, as we walked toward the bus stop.
“I don’t know. The letter was notarized, but it might not have been a legal document. Maybe no one knew about these letters or their wishes. Why do people do any of the things that they do?” He sighed.
“What does this mean about your scholarship?” I asked.
“Does it matter? I can pay for college if they don’t want to give it to me anymore.” He grinned.
“We can’t get crazy with this money. We have to be smart about it.”
“I don’t think we should tell anyone except the group. We are still in a bad area of town. I signed a year’s lease. I can break the lease, but we have to buy a home first. We’re going to be there a few more months. After we buy a house, we can buy a car. I will tell work I only want to work about twenty hours a week. That way I will have more time to train, but people won’t know about the money.”
“Yeah, I guess if we start throwing money around, we will draw a lot of attention, more than we already are, I guess.” The bus came, and we went back to our side of town. Gideon walked me to work, and then he took the bus to his work. We could afford public transportation now at least. I was so happy I didn’t think anything could bring me down.
As I entered the bookstore, that suddenly changed. There was a still, solemn pensiveness oozing throughout the entire store. Selah was in the corner putting books away. Sonny was at the register, and he didn’t even look up as I came in. I put my things away and brought more books out to help Selah. She looked up from the lower shelf she was filling.
“What’s going on? Why’s it so quiet?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“Didn’t you hear? Margie got mugged and beaten to death. Sonny was on his way to her house to take some dinner, and he found her just lying there dying in the alley. Her groceries were scattered everywhere. The police think it might have been a gang or something. It was awful—blood everywhere.” Selah was somber.
“That’s so sad, and she lost her husband not too long ago, too,” I sighed, I remembered Margie from the day I filled out my application, and how kind Sonny was to her.
“Yeah, she was like a second mom to Sonny. She helped him through some hard times after the war.” We looked at each other, and I nodded. Sonny had mentioned he was in the Gulf War; however, he hadn’t said much more than that. He told me he had lost his wife and children in a car accident shortly after his return. It was a really hard time for him. Finally, when our shift was almost over, Sonny limped over to where we worked.
“Girls, with the circumstances being what they are, I’m going to close the shop the rest of the week. We’ll re-open on Monday. I need to take some time to make funeral arrangements.” He didn’t look us in the eyes.
“Sonny, let us know if we can do anything,” I said, as I put my hand on his arm.
“Thank you, but you’ve done enough.” He paused. “Just by being here, sticking it out with me today.” He halfheartedly shrugged. “Go ahead and go home. Ellie, I know money is tight. I’ll still pay you for this week.”
“No, it’s fine. You have enough going on. We will manage. Gideon’s been able to save a little extra. We’ll be all right.” I smiled warmly at him. He forced a smile back.
“Go on, girls, get your things. I’ll see you next week.” We gathered our bags from the back room and left the bookstore.
Chapter 26
“What do you want to do now?” Selah smiled as we walked toward my apartment. I didn’t want to go there because of the ravens.
“Do you want to go over to Hanna’s?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think that would be a great idea,” she answered—more eagerly than maybe she should have. We walked to Hanna’s house. It was a long walk. We talked about the graduations; we talked about training.
“It’s no big deal. We are stronger than the average person, so it will come naturally. We were created to do these things.” Selah was trying desperately to ease my mind about training.
“I just hope I’m coordinated enough to not fall on my face,” I laughed.
“You will be great. I just want you to know, Ellie, I have always felt close to you. Ever since we began hanging out two years ago. Even before we knew you and Gideon were part of our Generation.” She put her arm in mine, and we chattered the rest of the way. When we arrived at Hanna’s house, there were two SUVs parked in the driveway behind Hanna’s. Zeke and Ben were playing football in the backyard with two other boys. We stood there for a few minutes as they ran their plays. One of the other boys, a redhead with freckles all over his face, noticed us standing there along the fence. He smiled at us. Zeke threw the ball to Ben. Ben ran for it. He must have seen us out of the corner of his eye because he turned his head in surprise, and the ball smacked him in his chest and fell through his arms to the ground. Then he tripped over the ball and fell on his face. We giggled. Zeke looked over at us leaning on the fence and ran toward us. Dripping wet with sweat, he leaned over the fence and gave me a peck on the lips.
“Hey, you,” he smiled.
“Hey, yourself,” I winked back.
“Gawd, get a room!” Selah teased. She smiled warmly at Ben as he ran over to us.
“Get a room, you two,” he teased as he came up. He slapped Zeke on the back— maybe a little too hard. Zeke winced in pain.
“Brother, take it easy on me. I’ve been pummeled today.” Zeke feigned an injury as he walked to the gate. We followed on the other side.
“I guess the game is over,” the redheaded boy said to the other boy as they headed toward the gate.
“Dude, the game was over a long time ago. We were spanking you guys,” Ben bragged as he followed Zeke to the gate. Zeke opened the gate and took my hand as Selah and I walked through to the backyard.
“Unfair advantage, don’t you think?” I said under my breath.
“Depends on how you look at it. They challenged us.” He winked at me. I shook my head as I giggled at him. We went inside. Hanna was sitting in the great room reading an old, leather bound book. It didn’t look like the Book of Truth though. She looked up from her reading and smiled happily.
“Hi, girls. This is a surprise. I thought you’d be working a few more hours today.”
“The owner, Sonny, had a friend who passed away. He closed the shop for the rest of the week,” Selah said. Ben put his hand on her shoulder.
“Hanna, do you mind if we get something to drink?” the redheaded boy asked, as he leaned on the island totally unaffected by our sad news.
“Sure, Jason, help yourself. You guys know where everything is.” Hanna motioned for them to go on. They crowded the refrigerator and began tossing around sports drinks.
“I’ll have tea,” I said, as I went around and squeezed in to get the pitcher of tea out.
“Me too,” Selah added, as she went to the cabinet and took out two glasses.
“So what’s the plan for this afternoon, girls?” Ben asked before he began to chug his sports drink.
“We were hoping you guys would tell us,” Selah smiled innocently at him. Was she flirting with him? I hoped so.
“Well, before we do anything, I need a shower,” Zeke said, a little embarrassed.
“Yeah, cause I can smell you all the way over here.” Jason plugged his nose.
“No, that’s your mom,” the other boy came back at him.
“Eric, that was a good one—two years ago,” Jason quipped.
“Admit defeat. You threw one out, and you have to take it back,” Ben teased as he slapped Jason
on his back.
“Anyway, like I was saying, I need to get cleaned up and then we can do dinner and get a movie. Maybe Gideon and Moriah can join us too,” Zeke said more to me than anyone else.
“You guys aren’t going over to Parker’s? He’s having a ‘school’s out for summer’ party. It’s supposed to be eighties themed,” Jason said.
“Does anyone ever dress up for his parties? The one after the championship was ‘chimpionship’ where we were supposed to come as monkeys. Really, who would ever wear a monkey costume?” Ben laughed. “His themes! Anyway, Ellie needs to make friends with Kateland and Ashley.” How did I know that would be their names? I thought.
“I like the idea of dinner and a movie,” I interjected.
“Of course, you do. You’ll side with your boyfriend every time,” Ben argued.
“I’m up for whatever.” Selah was a little too agreeable. She did like him.
“Jason and I are going to the party. Maybe Kateland and Ashley will make friends with us,” Eric teased, as they turned and high-fived each other.
“Who haven’t they made friends with?” Ben asked rudely. “Sometimes at the same time, or so I’ve heard,” he laughed. The other two boys laughed. Zeke shook his head in disagreement, and I slapped Ben on the arm. Still laughing, he flinched, trying to avert the slap.
“There are respectable girls here. Not all girls are like that,” Selah stated flatly.
“I know, and that’s why you would never come up in a conversation like this,” Ben said trying to recover.
“That’s not helping. Why would you have this conversation in the first place?” Selah continued to prove her point.
“We’ll see you later at the party,” Jason said and patted Ben on the shoulder. Selah shot him an annoyed look. “Or not. Enjoy your movie, dude.” He and Eric waved good-bye and left.
“Come on, Selah, don’t you want to tear it up tonight?” Ben said, trying to convince her to go to the party as he walked around and put his hand on her hips and looked into her eyes. She looked at me for reinforcements.
“Ben, don’t you remember how the last party ended?” I said, trying to reason with him.
“One, Parker is my best friend, and two, I was really nervous and then pissed off that night.” He looked at Zeke, a little annoyed.
“Yes, and you would want to subject Selah to that possibility again?” I asked, not believing what I was hearing.
“I was all on board too. I thought it would be fun, but you can’t talk about girls like that, especially in front of other girls,” Selah added, as she stepped back and broke his hold on her. “You have to respect us.”
“Zeke, come on, help me out here, man.” He looked to Zeke to back him up.
“You’re on your own.” With that he turned and went to the stairs. He stood there a moment until I looked his way. He motioned for me to come with him. Ben and Selah were still deep in conversation. I slowly stepped backward until I was out of the room. I turned and met him on the stairs. He took my hand and led me up the stairs.
“What’s this about?” I smiled, as we reached top of the stairs.
“This.” He took my face in his hands and kissed me gently. “Hang out in my room until I get out of the shower.” I followed him to his room and sat on his bed as he got his clothes and went to bathroom. I sat back and lounged with my legs crossed. There, sitting on his nightstand, was the book I’d bought him and the note I’d written him, opened. It told him I was proud of him. I was so happy he was in my life, and I thanked him for all the years of dreams and nightly visits the past few months. I told him I loved him deeply, and he was my hero. He was my angel. He was my inspiration. I smiled as I thought about how lucky I was to have him. I stood up and walked over to his bookcase and there was the Book of Truth. I recognized it because it was so large and had symbols on it I didn’t recognize. I traced the binding of it. There were other smaller books that had similar symbols on them. He also had some classic fiction books. Some were really old. Most were leather bound.
“You can borrow some if you’d like.” I turned and he stood in the doorway. His hair was wet and crazy. He looked handsome in a pair of long khaki shorts and a polo shirt. He smelled clean.
“I need to learn these symbols.” I pointed to the books that were shelved with Book of Truth.
“That is our original alphabet in our native tongue. You will understand it soon enough. It’s pretty easy.” He walked over to me. He pointed to each book. “Book of Truth, Book of Learning, Book of Ancestry, Book of History, Book of Prophecies, Book of Rituals—they are basically school books. Don’t be nervous about them. We’ll help you, and I can give you tutoring sessions for a nominal fee.” He winked at me.
“Like your medical bills?” I laughed.
“So what’s your big news?” he smiled, changing the subject.
“How did you know I have big news?” I asked.
“We’re connected. Once you tune into it, you’ll know more about me than you want to,” he stated.
“Gideon and I just found out there is a bank account our parents left us that has a lot of money in it. We don’t want anyone to know though. But, your mom doesn’t have to pay for my school next year.” I couldn’t contain my happiness.
“I bet that’s a huge relief.” He put his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. I turned into him as I looked in his eyes.
“It is. We’re going to start looking for a house,” I said happily, “in a good neighborhood.”
“Don’t move too far away from me. I need you close,” he whispered as he brought my chin closer to his. He kissed me again. It began gentle and grew deeper. He ran his hand through my hair and traced the middle of my back to the small of my back. He held me tight, close to him. I lost myself in his kiss. I ran my hands through his still damp, wavy hair. My heart began to race. I could feel myself growing desperate for him. I pulled away to catch my breath. He kissed my forehead and pulled me close again. I leaned my head against his chest. We stood there holding each other. We didn’t say words. We didn’t need them; we just held each other.
“Do you think they’ve noticed you’re gone yet?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know. Selah and Ben were pretty heated in their conversation. We should go back down though,” I said quietly.
“Ok, let’s go.” He took my hand and led me down the stairs. When we went back into the kitchen, Selah and Ben had joined Hanna in the great room. They were watching a TV show. She was still reading. We sat on the sectional with everyone.
“So are you guys done making out?” Ben said gruffly. My face turned red.
“Yes, Ben, we’re done. Did you miss us?” Zeke snapped.
“I’m not a girl. I didn’t miss you,” Ben answered. Hanna looked at him over her glasses not believing him.
“Do we know what we’re doing tonight?” Zeke changed the subject.
“I’m going to a party at Parker’s house. I don’t care what you guys do. Selah, are you going with me or what?” Ben turned to her.
“I’ll call Gideon and see if he wants to go to dinner and a movie,” I interjected. I left the room and called Gideon. He had plans to have dinner with Moriah and her parents. They were getting serious. I returned to the great room and found that Selah had agreed to go to the party. I told them Gideon and Moriah had plans.