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When I woke at 3:17a.m., I wrote down another
one of my silly dreams, this one seamed sillier than the night
before. I remembered Jett at the top of the hill today; he almost
mimicked my dream. Crap. Now I was nervous recording this one, I
wrote: 'I had a dream that Dracula was sucking my blood.' I looked
at the ceiling and laughed at myself and thought I'd keep this one
to myself. 'He sucked the blood out of my neck while I was sleeping
but I woke before he was done and ran after him.’ I thought that
was unlikely. Everything in the room was dark, all the walls and
comforter matched, I had never seen the room before but felt
familiar. The dream cut off and picked up again, the second time I
met Dracula, I was awake and I went to him willingly and when he
took blood from my wrist he turned veiny then back to normal.'

The next
morning Nic came over early, she’d do that sometimes; she
always fed her horses and lets them out every morning and afterward
she’d get her mom to drop her off at my house. My mom was making a
huge breakfast since Jett had slept over and we knew he had a good
appetite. I answered the door in my pajamas and Nic asked
me how last night went, so I dragged her to Kit's room, cracked the
door and we peeked in at Jett, who was adorable even when he slept
– Nic's eyes almost popped out of her head.

We went into my room
giggling and I quickly grabbed some clean clothes, one of my notes
and Nic’s hand and we flew into the bathroom and locked the door
tight. I told her all the details of Jett being a grump and how he
pulled the tree out with his bare hands and how I thought he was
like the hulk in my dream and his shoulders, arms and whole body
bloated; they amplified…. and then I handed her my note. I gave her
a minute to read while I brushed my teeth and hair. She looked at
me with her mouth open; I told her we could talk about it later. ….
and I continued my story about my night with Jett and the great
kiss after dinner. I also told her how totally fun it was to put
him to bed. He was so relaxed and funny, he was like a huge teddy
bear.

“Did you strip him naked
before you put him in?” Nic giggled...

“
No!”
I said “He borrowed a pair of
sweats and that's what he went to bed in - - but no
shirt.”

“Yeah I noticed that.” Nic
gave me a wink.

After I finished
dressing, Nic and I went to check on Jett again. He
looked so cute his hair was tousled and the blankets tossed. He
moved and Nic and I closed the door quickly and bolted to
the kitchen.

While we were chowing down
on scrambled eggs, fluffy pancakes and some crisp bacon, my mom
asked if we would both head up to the Richfield Reading and Speech
Center with her, she was going to have coffee with her new friend
who had a daughter she wanted to introduce us too. I looked
at Nic and rolled my eyes, but she immediately said yes
for the both of us. I gave her a dirty look, she said “Where's your
sense of adventure?”

“In Kit's room of course” I
whispered.

We had just finished eating
when my mom walked back in the kitchen with keys and purse in hand
and said “You girls ready?”

“Now mom? But Jett's still
sleeping I feel rude just leaving him here.”

“We won't be but an hour;
I'm sure he'll just be waking up by then – write him a
note.”

So Nic and I wrote
him a note and hustled my mom out the door to get this party
started.

The good thing was we could
walk there but we took the car so it only took us a minute to get
there. My mom pulled into the empty parking lot but kept driving
until she reached the back where there was a separate entrance. On
the window it read 'Shelia's Future Diagnostics' and underneath in
small letters read 'Fortune Telling and Horoscopes'. We went in and
there she was; she looked different today then I noticed she had
straightened her hair, she was wearing nice pants and a blouse. My
mom immediately gave her a friendly hug and introduced
us.

Sheila said “We've met, how
are you two doing? Thanks for your help by the way.”

“Where’s your daughter
Shelia?” My mom asked.

From behind us another girl
walked in, she was slim and had long dark wavy hair. She was pretty
but looked like a burn-out by the way she dressed and wore her
make-up. Sheila introduced us to her daughter as Catalina; she was
carrying in boxes of pastries. She acted like we’ve never met, so I
went along. She seemed totally normal, at least from the outside. A
couple other ladies walked in too.

Catalina handed me the boxes
“We're running a little late. Can you two help me set up the pastry
table?” She asked eyeballing Nic and me.

“I have two more boxes in my
car.” 

“Sure,” was all I said and
she dumped the boxes into my arms and disappeared outside. Nic
followed. I walked over to the table and started setting it up. My
mom was helping Shelia set up the coffee table.

Nic walked up next to me
holding some folding chairs, “Too bad we didn't know there would be
food, we could have saved some room.” Nic said. I looked
at Nic and then at the sweets, they all looked good.
Catalina returned with two more boxes, she set one on the table and
the other behind. We set up the table as quickly as possible, in
silence, as others were coming in the door.

“Catalina” I said “I guess
this is an open house, since you’re new in town.”

“Yeah” she
responded “Promise free food and coffee and people will come,
it’s from 9 – 1 so people can come before or after church so tell
all your friends.” She said happily, “And by the way just call me
Cat.” She stuck her hand out to shake Nic's hand and then mine. I
held tightly and stared right at her and asked “You were there that
night. Weren’t you?”

She gave me a cocksure
smile, “I was, I overheard you were going to try a spell and I
wanted to see if it would work.”

“What did you
think?”

She smiled like she knew it
did but her mom called her so she walked away without answering my
question.

I was satisfied with the
look she gave me. I popped a pastry in my mouth, they were
scrumptious. Nic gave me a crazy look, I just winked at
her.

We finished setting the
table, the room was crowded with ten of us in it, Cat motioned for
us to follow her outside. Nic got really into it and
started asking Cat all sorts of questions. “Can your mom
really read fortunes and horoscopes? How much does she charge, what
happens if she's wrong?”

Cat stopped by a car and
opened the trunk. She took out some chairs and we took them from
her, she pulled a small card table out. We set it up near the
building under some shade and we all sat down.

Cat started talking and I
thought it sounded more like a sales pitch for her mom “My mom is
actually very good at fortune telling, we won the lotto recently
from her predicting the winning numbers. She’s not supposed to use
her 'gift' for herself, so when I turned 18 a few months ago I paid
her and asked her for lotto numbers. She got five out of six of
them correct so we won a hundred grand. We used the money to move
here, and re-start her business. I also took some money and
invested it for us.”

“Why don't you keep on
playing the lotto, have your mom keep predicting numbers for you?”
I asked.

“My mom doesn't want to
'
jinx it.’
If we win too much, or use her gifts too much for our benefit
we’ll be jinxed, she thinks her gifts will dry up or something bad
will happen. Plus, she says we won't appreciate life if we don't
work for it. She said we need to struggle a little to live a good
life and enjoy what we have. She'd like to keep her good
'predicting' for her clients. We'll see though, we are trying
the investment angle to try and keep our money working for
us.”

“So how do you get the gift?
Do you have it?” Nic asked.

“My mom and I are from a
very long line of original gypsies, some call us witches,
depending on what a person’s beliefs are. I don't have any
psychic abilities yet, but my mom said I can develop them at any
time. It usually happens around the age of thirteen but they can
develop as late as your twenties. She has told me all the family
stories
'that must be handed
down'
generation to generation.” Cat
was a dandy smooth talker and I’m sure it came from the experience
working her mom's business.

“We actually picked this
location, my mom said, for two reasons. She’s predicting in the
next ten years that this area will grow and will be the perfect
town for us. But most importantly, a person, I mean a relative,
actually a couple of relatives moved to this area that she'd like
to be closer to.”

I scrunched my eyebrows
together in confusion. They followed someone here not relatives but
they want everyone to think they are relatives.....?

Nic asked “What kinds
of stories are you to hand down?”

“The accurate history
according to us
gypsies.
” When she said
gypsies she made her fingers scrunch in the air like quotation
marks.

“Stories about witches,
fairies and leprechaun’s?” Nic asked with a grin.

“Can you tell us the
accurate history according to the gypsies?” I asked squinting my
eyes at her.

“Well there are stories of
what happened to people that were thought to be witches, or fairies
but most rumors were about vampires and werewolves. As far as our
tales go on vampires and werewolves they were all killed by one
vampire in the late 1800’s and then he killed himself. In this
century, they haven’t
been witnessed by our group, but
rumors did fly around in the early 1900’s.
Our
legend says a scientist went insane, and did experiments on people
that went “wrong.” She said with her air quotes again. “These
stories were kept in secret and not published in history books or
anywhere, it was scandalous and a huge cover-up.”

“Sounds interesting” I said
looking her in the eye, I like having direct eye to eye contact
with people. My dad says it shows strength and honesty. “Can you
tell us more about them?”

She let a slight pause go by then said “they,
this scientist, was trying to make the perfect human or one that
wouldn't get sick but the experiments didn't work the way they were
intended. They were supposedly ahead of their time trying to heal
lepers and other diseases. Some experiments changed appearances
physically, and they didn't go back to normal either, for
better or worse. In some instances, some were cured, but they grew
hair all over their face and body and were unstable afterward –
hence the werewolf syndrome and
stories.”

“Anyway” Cat continued. “The
rumors became vicious stories and the people became afraid of the
so called monsters, vampires and werewolves, creating huge chaos in
the cities. In the end, they were hunted down like animals. The
scientists, all his notes and subjects were destroyed; everything
was burned until every scrap of evidence was gone.”

“So although the stories of
vampires and werewolves may have had some truth to them centuries
ago, nothing really exists like that now. Nothing scary, like in
the movies, has been documented in our journals this century, just
rumors exploding. Rumors don't get out the same way they used to
either, my Great Grandmother tells me. There are lots of new ways
to communicate and get the 'word' or truth out. Now-a-days anyone
slightly insane or considered mad are institutionalized pretty
quickly or put in jail.”

“Well, that's the really
fast version of the “history” I've been told a million times.”
There went her air quotes again. She seemed really nice and her
stories even make a bit of sense.

As Nic and I were walking
home, we saw Jett's brother’s car pulling out of my driveway, they
stopped in front of us. Jett asked me if I wanted to hang out at
his house later. Of course I said sure, not even checking with Nic
or my parents first. I looked over at her quickly and she said not
to worry her family had plans and her mom was picking her up by
Noon. “You better have eaten some food..... “ I started to say to
the boys when Jett interrupted me by showing me the very full bag
between his legs on the floor.

Jett replied “Tori gave us
enough food to feed us all day.” I smiled and said “Good, what time
should I stop by? “Any time after 1:00.” He pulled his arm in the
car like he was ready to leave and I went to walk away but then
pulled me back and said “What, no kiss?”

I was in high heaven on the
way back.

“Sooo.....” Nic
said....

”I know, she told us some
odd stories, but then again not so odd according to my dreams.” I
was thinking out loud.

“And what about the comment
that they moved here for a person and then she changed her story
and said it was a couple of relatives.” Nic commented.

“You caught that too” I
said. “Weird, right?” I paused then closed my eyes took a deep
breath and said “I got one more ‘weird’ thing for you, there’s been
like a series of dreams I’ve been having that I haven’t told you
about…” I told her all the details I could remember. She sat there
contemplating what I just told her and concluded with “Did you
write them down?” I shook my head.