"I'm very glad to hear it." Niko, a solid corner piece if ever there was one, laid his hands flat on the table. "Georgina, we need a reading."
"I know," she said simply before giving him a cheeky grin. "I am psychic after all."
Niko curled up one side of his mouth in a rare smile. "So you are." He held out a hand. "Shall we begin?"
Wiping her hand carefully on the napkin, she then laid it on Niko's, palm to palm. Her small hand dwarfed by his, she closed her eyes and hummed softly under her breath. It was a familiar process, one I'd seen several times before… with other people. This was our first reading, a fact that hadn't seemed to surprise Georgie at all. I'd considered, God knew how many times, finding out if George could see where I'd been those two years I was missing from my life. But in the end two thoughts always stopped me. The first being, wherever I'd been, whatever had happened to me, I was damn sure it was nothing she should have to see. And the second, I wasn't sure I even wanted to know. Maybe the Grendels had made sure I wouldn't remember or maybe I had. Whatever my life had been in that missing time, you could bet your balls it hadn't been all wine and roses. If my mind was the one refusing to remember, there had to be a helluva good reason. A helluva good one or a thousand god-awful, mind-shredding ones.
"Misty, water-colored memories," my ass.
George's humming had drifted away to a still, vibrant silence. Then one word, a distant bell, dropped into that silence like a stone down a well. "Ask." Niko didn't waste any time. Succinctly he asked if we should leave the city, if our enemies had caught up with us. George wasn't quite as quick with a reply. Eyes still closed, she tilted her head as if in thought or as if she could hear someone… someone just a little to the left, a little back, a little ways off. Maybe that's what the future was… a place just off from ours, just the tiniest bit askew. After a long moment she straightened and shook her head.
"No," came her light voice. "You are safe. The Grendels can't see you here. Too many people. Too much noise and light. You're just one grain of sand on an endless beach, one leaf in a vast forest, one star in the distant sky." She opened her eyes and dimpled. "Literature was sixth period."
"Very poetic," Niko complimented with dry amusement. He didn't comment on George's pulling the Grendel name out of nowhere. Grendels they were to us, so Grendels they were to her. I wondered if she could see what they looked like in our minds or if they were just a word she'd seen painted in our thoughts. I also wondered, more than I should, if she looked at me and saw something less than human. If she did, she didn't say anything and the smile she gave me was just as sweet and open as always.
Ah, Jesus.
We finished our sodas while George chatted about girl things. Cute guys and clothes. Cute guys and her impossible brothers, not to mention hopelessly vain sisters. Then finally back to cute guys again. And all the while she would watch me with reassuring eyes. See? she seemed to say. You don't have to worry. I'll be a child for you. I'll be safe and distant in the normal soap opera world of high school romance. You don't have to worry. You don't have to be afraid.
And she was doing it for me—to ease my mind. I suspected it was an exaggeration at best. I'd yet to see a potential boyfriend around the soda shop. With someone like George—a high school stud would crap his pants at the thought of approaching her. She was… hell, she was a glory. It was the only way to put it. A glory.
Even with his so-called iron discipline, our glory had finally pushed Niko to the edge with her faux teenage chatter. My brother was beginning to look amusingly glassy-eyed by the time we managed to polish off the ice cream. He thanked George as politely and precisely as any British butler, while I gave her a casual wave and a "So long, Freckle Queen." She scowled cheerfully at me and waved back as we passed through the doors, the bell overhead giving a rusty tinkle. I felt better about the Grendel. When it came to news, good or bad, George was as reliable as they came, better than CNN any day. If she said we were safe, then we were. My belief in George was as firm as any I was capable of.
At least it was until I turned my head for one last look at the little seer. She wasn't smiling anymore. She was crying. Head pillowed on her arms, her shoulders shaking, she was crying in eerie silence behind the plate glass. Weeping as if she'd lost a friend or family or maybe even a piece of her soul.
Funny thing about faith… it goes a lot faster than it comes.
To tell Niko what I'd seen or not to tell—actually, Hamlet, that was not the question. It wasn't so much a matter of whether Nik would find out as a matter of when. He had X-ray vision, my brother. He'd know, sooner or later, that I was hiding something, and I was betting on sooner. So if I wanted a chance to brood darkly over the situation in true Heathcliff fashion, I was going to have to manufacture my own opportunity. And I was going to have to do it quick.
I fell back on a tried-and-true plan that had never failed. Ten seconds after we hit bur apartment I was out like a light on the couch. It was the perfect plan because there wasn't an ounce of deceit in it. I was the next best thing to some sort of friggin' yogi, able to enter a coma at the drop of a hat. When I woke up hours later the front door was securely locked and Niko had gone to the dojo to teach. At least that's what his note said, along with a scathing reminder that dishes didn't wash themselves and the fungus in the bathroom was one day away from evolving into sentient life. I folded the note into an airplane and sailed it across the room. It ended up perched jauntily on top of the ancient television. It looked good there and I left it as a tribute to freedom-loving fungi everywhere.
Pulling a half-empty peanut butter jar from the cabinet, I sat at the kitchen table and went to work. Just me, a spoon, and some peanut butter long past its prime. You can always tell… It's crunchy, but you bought smooth. Texture aside, it still tasted the same. More or less. Taking a bite, I let my eyes unfocus and thought about Georgina. I'd trusted her, almost as much as Niko. And that was huge in my book. Hell, in any book.
But she had lied to us. Lies were like acid, corrosive: They could dissolve trust in a heartbeat. And while I always had a wary eye out for betrayal, I wouldn't have thought to look in George's direction. I'd seen her help a lot of people, seen her bring so much hope into bleak, empty lives. I'd seen her deliver hard truths as well. They'd always been softened with George's calm words that told of the beautiful and vibrantly colored bigger picture. But she'd delivered the truth, softened or not. Always.
Until now.
And I had to wonder what had happened. Why would George turn her back on an integrity that was as much a part of her as that curly red hair? I took another bite and grimly ignored the thick sensation as it stuck in my throat. Maybe I should forget the why and focus on the what. She'd obviously lied, but what exactly was the lie? Were Grendels actually here and combing the city for me? Was it that neither Niko nor I was safe? Hell, maybe it was both. Pushing the jar away, I rested my chin in my hand, my elbow on the cheap plastic surface of the table. Shit. Whatever it was, it meant bailing and fast.