A Matter of Fate Page 3

  It didn’t stop my mother, though, from continuing to pressure me. And out of freely admitted spite, I’ve continued to refuse to go.

  But now . . . .

  Maybe Lizzie has a point. And not just about Kellan. Because Jonah was in my math class today, and he was real. My curiosity about him . . . about them . . . is nearly incapacitating.

  How will I be able to focus on anything else?

  Chapter 4

  Today, like most days after school, the Cousins and I head over to the diner on the outskirts of town. It’s called The Hollow Deer and has stuffed animal heads all over the walls. They’re dusty and gross, so I tend to only eat salads when I’m there.

  Alex watches me as I squish cherry tomatoes with my fork.

  “What?” I demand.

  “There were three shifts today while we were at school.”

  Cora coughs while drinking her tea. Her pointed ahem toward Lizzie prompts Meg to ask, “What am I missing?”

  “So?” I stab at the tomatoes, popping them. Seeds and goo seep onto the cabbage.

  He huffs, something he does when he gets all Intellectual on us. “I’m not stupid, Chloe. They were yours. So, I’m wondering what they’re about.”

  I put my fork down. “What makes you think they’re mine?”

  He laughs and leans back in the booth. “I don’t think. I know.”

  “Ohmigods,” Meg squeaks. “That’s so cool, Chloe!”

  “Shifts,” Alex continues, “tend to only occur during truly significant events in a Magical’s life. They’re pretty rare and should be taken seriously. Some Magicals never even experience them, and here you are, with multiples in one day. The first one was very strong. What precipitated it?”

  If he wasn’t being so sanctimonious and bossy, I might’ve asked him what he thinks about all of this. But Alex has a way of rubbing me the wrong way when he demands information. It’s like he thinks, because he’s an Intellectual, all information is his by default.

  We girls have long learned to not talk to him about secrets, relationships, and sensitive feelings. Talking to Alex is like talking to the most non-empathetic shrink ever. Everything is textbook, analyzed within an inch of its life. There’s precious little feeling behind his advice or conclusions. Why Meg adores him is beyond me.

  I tell him, “It’s none of your business.”

  “I think shifts like those deserve an explan—”

  “Back off,” Cora snarls. “She doesn’t want to talk about it. If she did, she’d already have done so, Alex.”

  This doesn’t faze him in the slightest, I can tell.

  “Am I always the last person to know anything?” Meg accuses. “How do you know those shifts belong to Chloe, Alex?”

  He shrugs. “Intellectuals know these things. It’s written all over her.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I don’t like the thought of something so personal being broadcast all over my person without my knowledge.

  Cora points her spoon at him. “If you can read what’s written all over her, then you should know to shut your trap.”

  He sighs, frustrated. “When was the last time any of you felt a shift? It’s been years. And today there are three, and they belong to Chloe. I can’t believe none of you are curious—”

  “I am!” Meg pipes up.

  “—about what they mean,” Alex continues. “Chloe, let’s face it. You’re a Creator. That in itself is a big deal. But now you have three shifts connected with you. Aren’t you curious about what they symbolize? You must have an idea. If it’s something big, then we have a right to know.”

  “No, you don’t,” Cora says. “Whatever this is, it’s her business.”

  “She’s a Creator,” he repeats. “Creators don’t get to keep their business to themselves.”

  I pick my fork up and stab at the ruined tomatoes some more, pretending they’re his brains. But he’s right, of course. My life is pretty much an open book. Chloe the Creator. Everyone knows what I’m capable of and where I’m headed.

  But they don’t know about him. Jonah’s always been my secret, someone and something that no one else has a say over or an opinion about. Mine and mine alone.

  I get what Alex is saying. Had three shifts happened to any other person at this table, I’d be pressing hard core to find out what it was about. And he’s right. Shifts are a big deal. They’re pretty much the equivalent of a bell ringing, heralding the arrival of something—people or events—majorly important.

  But old habits die hard. And since it’s bad enough I gave up a few memories to Cora and Lizzie, I’m done with show and tell.

  Okay. I lied. There’s one person I’m willing to talk with, but it’s not Alex.

  “You look like crap,” Caleb says when he finds me sitting on a fallen log. We’re in the woods on the outskirts of town, somewhere peaceful and far from anyone or anything I like to avoid on a regular basis.

  “Nice. Remind me why I came here again?”

  It’s amazing he’s able to keep a straight face when he says, “Because I’m awesome and you can’t do without me.”

  I grin at the Faerie in front of me and think, once again, how amusing it is that he looks and acts nothing like how most people assume a Faerie would. For instance, he isn’t wearing a little leather or gossamer outfit like Disney tells us Faeries do. Instead, he’s got on a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. His hair is dreadlocked, with one side tucked behind a pointy ear. His eyes are wide set and deep hazel, his mouth perpetually curved in amusement.

  I met him as a kid at the first annual get together for all the Magicals of our region that I’d gotten to go to. We’d instantly clicked as friends. I also discovered at that meeting that there were more than just Human Magicals living here. In fact, we had a number of Faeries and Gnomes living in homes shielded by Magic in the woods.

  Caleb sits down on a low-hanging branch nearby my log. “Actually, I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I’ve always been impressed with his sense of intuition. He unfailingly anticipates my needs, even when I’m not sure of myself. Over the years, I’ve come to rely on him as a sounding board, even more so than Cora or Lizzie.

  But what’s up with the disapproving look he’s giving me? “Really?” I ask.

  “Do you want the truth?”

  This is what Caleb is like. Somehow or other, he always seems to know what I need to hear. Sometimes it’s so eerie, so uncanny, I don’t know what to make of him. But talking to Caleb is nothing like talking to Alex, or even Cora or Lizzie. (I don’t include Meg in the sharing circle because Meg, inevitably, will turn a conversation back to Alex. You could be talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall and she’ll somehow tie it to Alex.) I say hesitantly, “Sure?”

  “It’s really him.”

  This is what I’m talking about. How he can even guess at something like this is beyond me. Am I really such an open book? “How do you know about him?”

  Caleb stares into the distance. “I’m a Faerie. We know things.”

  Uh-huh. I’m not buying it. Faeries, even Magical ones, aren’t all-knowing. “There’s no way you could have known.”

  He shrugs, drumming his fingers against a knee. “I’ve got a revolutionary idea. You should talk to him.”

  “What?” I sputter, laughing.

  “Why not? You want to, right?”

  I do, of course. If he really is the Jonah I know, then I desperately want to talk to him. Touch him. Hold him. Kiss him. Do anything, really, as long as it’s with him. But I also don’t want to go through this last year again.

  “You’re hesitating, Chloe. Why?”

  I don’t know quite how to explain it. So I offer lamely, “I don’t want to sound stupid.”

  He flies down from the tree and sits down next to me on the log. “You know what’s stupid? That reason.”

  I tear a brown leaf apart carefully at the veins until all that’s left is a skeleton. “I’ve dreamed about him since
I was a little girl,” I admit out loud, the first time to anyone. Cora and Lizzie might’ve guessed this, but I didn’t actually tell them. “Lucid dreams, pretty much every night. I’ve watched him grow up until just recently.”

  “How recently?”

  The pain over this last memory still rubs at me like a shoe rubs against a healing blister. “Up until about a year ago. He just . . . disappeared.”

  Caleb frowns. “One would think that you’d be happy about him being here, then. Why aren’t you over-the-moon happy?”

  It’s a good question, and surprisingly, one I hadn’t asked myself yet. I should be happy. If this is Jonah, I should be so happy I shouldn’t be able to think straight. Why am I not happy?

  Because . . . I’m terrified.

  What I don’t tell Caleb is that Jonah’s disappearance out of my life and dreams a year ago is the most painful experience I’ve ever gone through.

  Pain like that isn’t easy to get over.

  Pain like that changes a person.

  Pain like that changed me.

  Chapter 5

  On the surface, my home appears extremely comfortable—rich wooden furniture covered in leather, plush cushions and blankets. There are stained-glass lamps and windows alongside lush artwork everywhere.

  It’s a really beautiful house. Too bad it always feels so cold inside.

  I find my mother in the kitchen chopping vegetables she’s grown in her garden. “Big game tonight, huh?” she asks. Idle chitchat is not my mother’s forte. We rarely engage in full conversations anymore, so it’s interesting to watch her attempt to ease into what she really wants to know.

  I shrug noncommittally.

  When she reminisces about her high-school glory days, I fade out quickly. It’s frustrating how she’ll open up about irrelevant things like high school, but mostly refuse to talk to me about anything to do with being a Magical. I don’t care about her being Homecoming Queen. I’d rather know what the Ascension will be like, if she knows any Elves, if the University I’m set to go to is fun, or if she’s ever had to do something the Council ordered that she personally didn’t approve of.

  These are all questions I’ve asked in the past. I’ve never gotten an answer to any of them, and for the life of me, I’m not sure if it’s because answering my questions takes too much time and effort on her behalf, or if it’s because I’m not supposed to know. I’ve learned to just stop asking.

  I wish we were close. I really do. But my mom just isn’t warm with anyone—not my dad, not her friends, and certainly not me. As a Nymph, she loves her plants the way my Intellectual father loves his books.

  My mother shoves a head of lettuce my way to chop. “Tell me about the shifts today. I’ve already gotten a number of phone calls from up and down the coast from Magicals wondering if they stemmed from you.”

  Fabulous. Everyone is in on my business now. It’s bad enough that the Magicals in town seem to know the shifts were mine, but the entire West Coast? I am even more resentful now.

  I give my mother the bare bones of the situation, referring to the first shift only, since I don’t really have any concrete answers to share. She’s no dummy, though. She calls me out on the other shifts right away.

  I can’t evade her as easily as I can Alex. I have to live with her, after all. So I vaguely describe the second shift.

  She sets her knife down and stares at me, hard. “Who is this boy?”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Try.”

  It surprises me that she doesn’t try to surge, even without permission. “I’m your mother,” she’s told me in the past. “I’m allowed to surge when I like.” “Fine,” I say. “I met him in my dreams as a little kid.”

  Her eyebrows shoot up, but before she can respond, my father strolls into the kitchen. “How are my girls doing?”

  Like he cares. Like he ever thinks of me when I’m outside of his eyesight.

  As is the case with most Intellectuals, my father is hopelessly myopic in his vision towards life. Pursuit of knowledge is key, and while he’s considered one of the finest Intellectuals in all the worlds, and a distinguished Council member to boot, he’s been an absentee father, both physically and emotionally.

  He proves this point by saying, “The Seer has agreed to meet with you,” while awkwardly patting me on the shoulder. “What a treat for you. Astrid Lotus is the lead Seer on the Council. You’ll be going to Annar to talk to her.”

  The victorious grin my mother’s wearing makes me want to scream. Even still, a sliver of excitement runs through me.

  Annar—the plane of existence reserved solely for Magicals. I’ve never been there, and it’s not for want of trying.

  “Now,” he continues, “did your mother ask about the shifts we felt today?”

  The urge to scream intensifies.

  It takes a good five minutes of grilling before I can escape. In the quiet of my bedroom, I finally get a chance to get my bearings. Someone I’d always believed to be simply a creation of my imagination stepped out of my head and into my math class.

  The first time I discovered Jonah in my dreams, I’d been four. Up until that point, my dreams were like, well, dreams: unicorns, flying, stuff like that. But then, one night, I saw him and my dreams changed. They became very lucid, so much so that I remember them more like true memories rather than dreams.

  He’d been little then, too. He was sitting near a riverbank, reading a book. There was a break in the tree canopy, and the sun shone off of his glossy hair, nearly blinding me.

  I was a goner right from the start.

  We didn’t talk for several nights, although I faithfully watched him from a distance. He’d catch me and reward me with a dimpled smile that caused my heart, even back then, to do back flips. But after a while, my curiosity grew so much that I had no choice but to join him on the river’s edge.

  When we spoke, it was like I already knew him.

  There was a deep connection between us, stronger than any I had with anyone else. Stronger than the bonds I had with the Cousins. Stronger than what I had with my parents. It seemed crazy, since he was someone from my dreams. But I didn’t care. Real or imaginary, he became the most important person I knew.

  Our secret rendezvous were something I impatiently looked forward to every night. No topic was off limits. I often caught myself storing information in the back of my mind just to share with him.

  There was no other person who could make me so happy. And then, sometime around the age of eleven, he kissed me. We were sitting in a tree, high above the river, laughing so hard my sides hurt. That dimple of his had appeared, and I just loved it so much I touched it. The laughter faded away and he looked at me intently before he brushed his lips against mine.

  I fell irrevocably in love with him. No—I’d always loved him. The kiss just permanently cemented this fact. Our feelings for one another only intensified with every year that passed—we began to see each other by more than simple words and emotions. I coveted my time with him, even though when I woke up I’d remind myself that what I believed to be memories were only dreams, made up in my head.

  In the end, it didn’t really matter what the reasons were for his existence—as long as I had him, life was good. And then it became harder and harder to find each other.

  Approximately one year ago, a day when we were standing knee deep in a purple ocean, Jonah told me in the most heartbreaking way, “Know that I love you. That I always will.”

  It was like he was saying goodbye.

  And the weird thing was I had known that same night that I’d needed to say the same thing, too. Because there was this inherent knowledge, just like I knew my hair was light brown or that I was a girl, that I was going to lose Jonah and had absolutely no control over it.

  When I woke the next morning, I could smell him on my clothes and in my hair. I sat in bed for hours, hugging my knees to my chest, breathing in his smell, replaying our farewell over and over until I shattered.


  He was gone. I knew he was gone. I felt his absence plain as day. Something crucial to my existence was missing, and it hollowed me.

  I cried a lot that day and many days after, refusing to explain to anyone where my outbursts were coming from. I fell into a deep depression, one I didn’t really care to get out of. The misery became a companion of sorts, something that told me, dreams or no, he’d been mine. That my heart hadn’t lied.

  Things went downhill fast. It was then that the resentment toward my destiny and my surroundings intensified, and I lashed out at everyone and everything.

  That was at the end of last summer, and while I continued to search for him in my dreams, I didn’t see him again until today.

  I have no idea what to do. And since I’d never told anyone about him, I don’t really have anyone to go to for concrete advice.

  I dreamed about Jonah. For years. And dreams aren’t real. They’d felt real, and I’d prayed for so long that they could be real, but they weren’t. They couldn’t be. No one ever told me that their dreams came true. That’s movie stuff, not Magic.

  How do you explain him then? the little voice asks. Cora and Lizzie both saw him, so he isn’t a delusion. You need to figure this out. Go and talk to him. Get answers. No matter what.

  No matter what . . . .

  But what if Jonah disappears again?

  A year after I lost him, I’m still bitter, miserable, and unsettled. If we were to reconnect, and he left me again . . .

  I have no doubt. Being hollow would be the least of my problems.

  Chapter 6

  Later that night during our football game’s halftime, I spot Jonah and Kellan. They’re standing near the exit closest to the parking lot, directly in my line of sight. I surreptitiously stare to my heart’s content instead of listening to the Cousins talk, until a couple of girls descend upon the two boys. To my relief, Jonah takes a cell phone from his brother and heads out into the parking lot just before the girls reach them.