Aftermath (13 page)

“What’s inside?”
there was more fear in my voice than I realized.

“I haven’t opened
it yet. I mean, I have my suspicions because my granny has been
telling me these stories since I was a kid. I wouldn’t normally
have made such a big deal about it but something about it just
exhausts me. I knew I needed y’all here with me. To give me
strength. To find out whatever it is in this box, because I feel like
it’s important, ya know? I am drawn to it. And I’m scared.”
Marie trembled and I put my hand over hers. She was drawn to the same
box I felt repelled to. I was more curious than ever. Whatever was in
there was not just something Marie needed to find out, I was dying to
know as well.

“Just open it
already!” Nikki blurted out, voicing her shared impatience.

I shot her a slighted
look and turned to Marie. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“No, Nikki is right.”
And she shoved a single key into the lock and twisted. A heavy click
sounded throughout the room and the top of the chest popped open. The
smell of sandalwood and lilac filled in the air round the chest.
Marie threw the top back and we stared inside in awe.

“What is this stuff?”
Nikki asked, not bothering to hide her disgust.

I knew exactly what it
was. I had become unwillingly familiar with voodoo since I'd met
Hayden and Luke. After they had kidnapped me, they brought me to the
house of Sansha, a voodoo priestess. It was there that I saw how real
voodoo was in Louisiana, and got a taste of it firsthand. She had
given me a potion that was supposed to make me sleep, but instead I
had fought the battle for consciousness and stumbled about
incoherently as Hayden, Luke and I continued evacuating. I sighed to
myself, remembering that was the first time I had kissed Hayden. The
potion had given me false confidence, numbing my senses and dulling
my instincts to fight or flee.

Now it was all out in
front of me. The contents of my memories sprawled out before me in a
chest meant for Marie. My memories, my personal history, out in the
open for everyone to see. But this wasn’t about me. This, for some
reason, had a connection to Marie. And why she had a trunk full of
gris gris, potions, powders and what looked like a grimoire, was
something I was going to find out.

Marie took out the
battered textbook bound in some leathery material and held it wearily
to her chest.

“No, seriously? This
is kinda weird.” Nikki picked up a small bone in between her
forefinger and thumb before throwing it to the ground. “That was
from an animal, right?”

“Voodoo.” I
answered. “Don’t touch that!” I held out my hand to stop Nikki
who was about to smell a vile she uncorked. “This is a trunk for a
voodoo priestess.” Nikki put the cap back on then set the vile back
in the chest with wide eyes. I was hesitant to touch anything but
Marie was taking inventory. Taking things out of the chest and
placing them on the floor beside her. “The question is: why does
Marie have it?"

“I don’t know.”
Marie was shaking her head in wonder. “Like I said, my granny gave
it to me. For my eighteenth birthday.” Suddenly, that sounded so
wrong.

As the last of the
contents piled out from the chest, Marie shook her head. “They were
just stories. I didn’t know any of it was real.”

I opened my mouth to
ask Marie to explain what stories she was talking about when Nikki
shrieked and pointed at the bottom of the chest. “I ain’t
touching it!”

I looked in to see
something tightly wrapped in cloth and tied with string.

“If it is a head, I
am
so
out of here.”

Marie didn’t reply, I
don’t even think she heard Nikki; she was looking at the chest with
fascination. Her shaking hands floated toward it slowly and untied
the string. She carefully parted the cloth and pulled out a dress.

“That’s the dress
I’m wearing to the ball.” My heart froze in my chest. Marie
looked the dress over. An amethyst Victorian-style gown with gold
brocade and satin. It was accentuated with matching foliage. When I
could breathe again, I reached out to run the tips of my fingers over
it. It was a beautiful dress and the craftsmanship was like nothing
you’d ever see—in this century.

“I mean
wore
to the ball, in my dream. Of course I wouldn’t wear it now.” I
found my voice but stuttered nonetheless.

Marie’s jaw was set
and she sat silently staring over the dress and the items from the
chest.

“
That’s
the
dress? The one we were trying to find? How freaking weird is this? I
think I have had enough of these supernatural coincidences to last a
lifetime.

“There are no
coincidences. Only destiny.” Our heads whipped toward Marie, who
spoke in a zoned out calm.

“What’s wrong
Marie?”

She shook her hair out
once and then started piling everything back into the chest.
Everything except for the dress. “Nothing. Just tell me about your
dream.”

I didn’t want to
start talking about my dreams again; it was Marie who needed the
support now.

“Tell me,” Marie
urged with a sense of demand. I hesitantly described to her the ball
and the dress that I saw in my dream while she worked to put
everything away and slide the chest back into the closet. Of course,
I had to leave out the part about Luke killing Mr. Christian as it
would give away their secret. A secret that wasn’t mine to tell.
Even though I had told my friends about my new abilities, I had never
told them the whole truth, including that Hayden and Luke were
Hunters. After Marie slid the chest back into the closet, she laid a
mask on my lap. “This is for the dress.”

“Marie. I can’t—no.
It was just a dream; I don’t expect to actually wear the dress. I
couldn’t care less about what I am wearing.”

“Okay, for one, the
dress is not going to fit me. And most importantly, when are you
going to realize it wasn’t just a dream?”

“What are you talking
about?”

“For whatever reason,
your dreams are predicting the future. That’s not supposed to
happen. I am not about to mess with what is destined. If it were
under other circumstances, I would have opened the chest by myself
and found the dress which I would have shown Nikki, who would have
said how perfect it would be for Ana to wear to the ball. Then she
would have made you wear it and you would have gone to the ball in it
just like what happened in your dream. But because I felt something
and wanted you here with me to open the chest, and because of what
else
you saw in that chest and because for some reason you are
a psychic and saw yourself wearing it in a dream ahead of time, you
don’t want to wear it now. Well, I’m sorry. You are going to. I
don’t want to be the one who suffers from the repercussions that
come from trying to change the future.

“Are you saying I
can’t change the future?” Luke’s words came back to me.
Do
you ever think you can’t change the future. You are just dreaming
things before they happen.
Hearing them from her mouth made it
all too real.

Nikki mumbled something
but no one heard her. We were too engrossed with what was developing.
Our shoulders squared, hands on our hips, and our eyes locked.
Countries have gone to war for less.

“I’m not saying
anything; I just don’t want to bear the consequences for trying to
change the future. I think you should just leave your dream alone and
wear the dress as if you never saw what happened in the first place.”

My heart sank. Did she
know what she was saying? If she knew what really happened, would she
be talking like this? Where is this coming from anyway? This was the
most outspoken I’d seen her since we’d been friends.

“
Trying
to
change the future? Are you saying that I can’t? That I can only
try
?” Oh God, please say no.

“That’s exactly
what I’m saying,” Marie huffed. “Now can we just move on to
something else?”

“What about innocent
people? What if innocent people die? You would do nothing to try to
help them if you were me? What about that jogger in one of my dreams
who was attacked? Were you not the one who told me where you thought
the location was?”

“I told you that so
you could get a better understanding of your situation. Your dreams.”

“Again, you’ve lost
me. Are you saying you wouldn’t try to save someone’s life if you
had the chance?”

“You can’t change
what’s already written. You can try but it only upsets the
balance.”

“What are you talking
about Marie? Where is this coming from? This isn’t like you.”
It’s not that I didn’t like this new passion that was coming from
Marie but it was different. It was a change. And under the
circumstances, a change I wasn’t ready for.

“This is me, okay?
This is who I am.”

Those words were eerily
familiar. And at that moment I realized there was something more
about Marie that I didn’t know.

I took a breath and
waited until I knew I was calm. “I don’t care who you are —
what you are. I just want to be your friend. This night was about you
and I’m sorry if I turned it around to me and my stupid dreams
again. I’m scared too, you know? I am not ready to believe that
there is no reason I’m having these predictions and that I can’t
do anything to help people. Anyway, we don’t have to talk any more
about it.
Right now.
But just know I am here for you and you
can tell me anything.”

I waited, hoping that
she would confide and me and talk about what was going on but she
just lowered her head and nodded in agreement. I nodded mine and
fought hard the urges to press the matter.

“Where’s Nikki?”
I looked around the room, realizing we were alone.

Marie looked around too
but didn’t answer. We walked to the living room but she wasn’t
there. A light shone from the kitchen. Inside, Nikki was slumping
over an open pizza box at the breakfast table.

“What’s wrong?” I
pulled out a chair to sit next to her. Marie did the same.

“The pizza guy was
here. I tried telling y’all but I guess you didn’t hear me with
all that fighting you two were doing. Want some?”

She slid the box in my
direction but Marie and I declined. “We weren’t fighting. And is
there something else bothering you?”

“Nope.” She set
down her piece of cheese pizza. “It’s just…You know I don’t
like being left out of things.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. You
guys are all super freaks and I’m just normal. Nothing cool about
me."

I placed my palms flat
on the table. “Are you kidding? I would do anything to be normal.”

Marie pushed her lips
together so I continued talking. “Even when I didn’t have all
this
stuff
going on, I still wished to be normal, to be like
you Nikki. Believe it or not, I felt bad all those times you dragged
me to the mall and got annoyed with me. I wanted to be like you,
for
you
.”

She stared at me before
a wide smile broke across her face and she started chuckling. “That’s
really sad Ana, you know that?”

“I know that now. I
didn’t know that then.” I playfully hit her arm when she wouldn’t
stop laughing. “And you know what? Now I’m happy with not being
normal. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

“And I didn’t get
annoyed with you.”

“Sure,” I teased
her.

She straightened,
becoming serious. “I didn’t. Really. To be honest, I admired you.
You just did your own thing and didn’t care about what people
thought of you. I just wanted you to like me and your indifference
wasn’t giving me any assurance.”

How funny you hear
these things when you need them the least. “Maybe that is my
problem: not caring about what people think of me.”

“Stop, you’re fine.
Marie why are you so quiet? Don’t you have something to add to this
sob fest?”

Marie tried to smile
genuinely.

“It’s okay, Marie
has a lot on her mind already.” I smiled at Marie who was looking
up at me through lowered brows. I shivered unwillingly. “I'd better
get going.“ I pulled out my cell from my back pocket to check the
time.

“What? You just got
here!” Nikki protested.

“Talk to you later…”
Marie and I said at the same time.

Nikki looked over at
Marie with confusion and a frown.

“I know but I still
have something with Hayden’s parents and have to bust my butt
tomorrow at work for leaving early today.”

“Sure, ye need yer
beauty rest, the grand ball is naught but in a fortnight.”

I couldn’t help but
laugh at Nikki’s attempt at an accent. “That was wrong on so many
levels.”

“I’d like to hear
you do better.”

“I’m just saying, a
fortnight is about two weeks. The ball is only two nights from now.
And what kind of accent is that anyway? English, Irish? The
masquerade ball celebrates Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, which have
French influences so not only is your geography wrong, but your time
period as well.”

“Why am I friends
with you again?”

I shrugged. “I just
like history.” My thoughts briefly drifted away from my
conversation with Nikki to why exactly I liked history. Had I always
been interested in it? Or was it something new, as a result of the
events and people around me, that history has began to play such a
big role in my life? I thought about Rachel and why she had turned to
history. Was there an event in her life that forced her to look into
the past? Ironically, the fact that I saw the future was what forced
me to seek out the past.

“Why do you and Marie
keep zoning out tonight? Geez- I thought this was going to be a fun
night but you two are a bunch of downers.” Nikki’s sarcasm
brought me back and I scooted back my chair to stand up.

“Well, I’ll see
y’all tomorrow.”

“Bye, Ana! Can’t
wait to see you in that dress!”