Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (26 page)

“Shortly after you were born, you
died,” Mr. Wentworth was saying. He paused then and studied
me.

That
removed-from-the-situation feeling that started when he told me Dad
was dead kept me from displaying
any
visible reaction
. I continued to stare at
Jamieson’s father, knowing he expected me to say or do something. I
just didn’t know what that something was.

Mr. Wentworth sipped his tea, never
taking his eyes off of me. So, I sipped my tea, absently realizing
the amount of sugar I’d added might give me diabetes. Strange how
we were discussing life and death and my family’s skeletons and all
I could concentrate on were stupid things like Jamieson’s Facebook
statuses and my future theoretical diseases.

“You know that too, of course,” Mr.
Wentworth said when he realized I’d temporarily become a mute.
“Anyway, your father noticed right away that you were
different.”

“The electrical problems,”
I mumbled, thinking about
my Winnie the
Pooh mobile
and how I got my
nickname.

“Yes.” Mr. Wentworth sighed, almost
like he was relieved I understood. “At first, he thought it was
funny. I thought it was funny, too. I used to give him double-A’s
every time I came over.” He chuckled at the memory. “As time went
on, he became concerned. He thought dying and being brought back
had somehow altered you. And you know how Mark is; he started
researching it.”

So Dad made the same
connection Devon did, at least a
decade
earlier
. The detached feeling was
fading as reality started to set
in
. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to
hear the rest of Mr. Wentworth’s story. I had a horrible idea of
where it was headed.

Hastily, I grabbed my teacup again and
drank the sugary contents in one huge swallow. Then I busied my
hands fixing a second cup. The porcelain pot shook as I poured the
steaming liquid into my mug. The dishes clanged together, the noise
setting my teeth on edge. Mr. Wentworth had to pry the pot from my
fingers, saving Mr. Haverty the need for a new tea set.

“If you would rather I didn’t
continue…” Mr. Wentworth let his question trail off, leaving the
offer hanging in the air between us.

“No, I mean yes. Please, go on. I’m
fine,” I said, though I was far from fine. Talking with Kannon and
Devon about my quirks and how they were but a small part of a
humongous picture had been overwhelming. Discussing the same issues
with Mr. Wentworth was downright nerve-wracking.

“It took Mark years, but by the time
you were about ten he was confident he’d figured out what was wrong
with you.” Mr. Wentworth winced. “I’m sorry, that came out
wrong.”

I waved off his apology. There was
something wrong with me. Normal people didn’t short-circuit
electronics. Normal people didn’t have dreams that came true.
Normal people weren’t on a first-name basis with the
ferryman.

“Mark tracked down other people with
your same,” he paused, searching for the right word.

“Quirk?” I supplied. That was how I
preferred to think of my electrical issues, as quirks. Quirk
sounded cute, added to my personality. And it beat calling it a
“problem” or “abnormality.”

Mr. Wentworth smiled. “Yes, your same
quirk. Besides the electrical quirk, every one of them had also
died and been brought back.”

By the way Mr.
Wentworth
eyed me,
I knew he’d anticipated this to be a big revelation. I hated
to disappoint him, and I had no intention of telling him that I too
had met another person who shared my quirk. Recalling every trick
from my three-week stint in the drama club, I feigned surprise. My
eyebrows shot upward. My eyes bulged, almost painfully, out of my
face. I brought my hand to chest and even managed a small
gasp.

“How long have you known they were
related?” Mr. Wentworth asked dryly.

Apparently Mr. Lionel, the drama
teacher, was right when he’d said that I had no future as an
actress.

“A couple of days,” I admitted. “Devon
figured it out. Devon Holloway, she’s my best friend,” I added when
I remembered he had no idea who she was.

“What else have you worked
out?”

“Nothing really,” I said with a
noncommittal shrug.

Like with Mrs. Randolf, I had the
distinct impression that Mr. Wentworth knew I was lying. Not
surprising since, in my experience, all trial lawyers excel in two
games: lying and lie detection.

“What bothered your father the most
after meeting these people wasn’t what you have in common with
them. It was what you don’t. What you couldn’t, given the age at
which you died.”

“I was too young to give my
consent, you mean,” I said. Kannon had said as much the night
before. You had to be sixteen to sign the contract for a second
life. I was minutes old. Even among a race of mythological beings,
I still managed to stick out ― awesome.

“So you do know more,” Mr.
Wentworth said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his
mouth.

“Sort of,” I conceded. “I found
someone like me, and he told me some stuff.”

The smile faltered and Mr. Wentworth’s
expression turned to alarm. “Where did you meet this person?” he
demanded.

I squirmed in my seat; the intensity
in his question unnerved me. Mr. Wentworth grew visibly more
agitated with each second that I remained quiet.

“Endora, where did you meet this
person?” 

I shrugged as if meeting an Egrgoroi
happened every day. “Out,” I said evasively.

“Endora, not all people like you
are…safe. I think it best you stay away from this
person.”

“Kannon is safe,” I retorted
defensively.

Mr. Wentworth did a double-take.
“Kannon? You don’t mean Kannon Stevens?”

Crap. What was that my
mother said about answering a question you weren’t asked? Oh yeah ―
don’t. Somehow, I’d forgotten that Mr. Wentworth knew
Kannon.

“Um, actually I do. We met on my
birthday. He sort of saved my life.”

“I see,” Mr. Wentworth replied
tightly. “What else did he tell you?”

Where to begin? Just
because Jamieson’s father knew all the variables in the equation
didn’t mean that he’d settled on the same answer. What if he
thought I was crazy for believing that the gods had granted me a
second life?

“It’s okay, Endora. Just tell me what
he told you,” Mr. Wentworth said kindly, as if sensing my
reluctance.

I took a deep breath and launched into
the story. “Kannon said that when I died the Panel of Three judged
my soul and offered me a chance at a second life. In exchange, they
will send me messages in my dreams, and I have to make sure the
events unfold the same way in real life as they did in the
dream.”

The words sounded ridiculous coming
out of my mouth, particularly since I was saying them to a friend
of my parents. Did I really believe all of this? Last night I was
sure I did. Now I thought maybe Devon’s original assessment of
Kannon had been correct, that he was looney tunes.

When I met Mr. Wentworth’s
gaze, though, his expression was dead serious. He believed. This
man was second only to my mother on the
hyper-rational
end of the spectrum,
and he believed. My insides were leaden and my mouth inexplicably
dry, like the one time I’d taken a puff of Cooper’s homegrown
“cigarette.”

I desperately searched the
table for a napkin, finding only the one
wrapped around
the silverware. I
tore off the green strip of paper binding the rolled silverware,
letting the knife and fork fall to the table with a clang. Then, I
folded the napkin in half over and over again, until it was no
larger than my palm. Before I could start the tearing process, Mr.
Wentworth gently covered both of my hands with one of
his.

“Do you remember the Judgment?” he
asked in a low voice.

“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head
and refusing to look up from the napkin. “I don’t remember anything
about dying or the Judgment or whatever.”

The pressure on my hands increased
until it was painful. I winced, finally meeting Mr. Wentworth’s
alarmed gaze. The lump in my throat made it impossible to swallow.
All of a sudden I was ten years old and I was staring into my
father’s eyes, just before he told me my Airedale didn’t really go
live on a farm two years before.

“Did Kannon explain how a person
becomes an Egrgoroi? That your soul must be judged as blessed or
condemned?”

Hearing him say that word, Egrgoroi,
erased any lingering doubt. This was all very real. The Egrgoroi
were real. Free will was the myth.

“I am one of the blessed, right? I
didn’t live long enough the first time to rack up hash marks in the
condemned column, right?” The questions were like a dying man’s
pleas as they left my lips.

Mr. Wentworth shifted his
gaze from mine and pulled his hand back. He
laced his slender fingers and rested his hands
on top of the table. There is more truth in
silence than in words, my mother liked to say. Because while man
can lie, silence never does.

“I don’t know, Endora,” Mr.
Wentworth finally said. “That is what Mark was trying to determine.
Ever since he learned about the others, he has made it his mission
to learn the truth. Logically, you should have been judged neutral.
But from everything your father has told me, the neutral are never
chosen. There would be no purpose since no god rules over Asphodel
Meadows. The
gods
of both Tartarus and Elysian have a vested interested in
controlling events on earth. The Egrgoroi work for either Tartarus,
God of Tartarus, or Kronos, King of Elysian. The visions come from
them.”

Speechless, I sat back in my seat.
Several times I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. If
I weren’t a neutral soul, then I had to be one of the Blessed. The
third option was too unfathomable to comprehend. I couldn’t accept
that I was one of the condemned. Besides, that wouldn’t be fair.
Life is not fair, my mother’s voice sang in my head.

“Do you…do you believe all of this?” I
asked Mr. Wentworth. “Do you think I am an Egrgoroi sent back to
influence the outcomes of events?”

Mr. Wentworth took a long drink from
his teacup, all the while weighing me with his gray eyes. “Your
father believed, Endora. It was an obsession with him. Do I
believe?” He shrugged. “I come from a religious family. I was
raised to believe in heaven and hell. I believe men are judged when
they die and sentenced accordingly. Modern medicine cannot
adequately explain why some people come back after being dead for
minutes, while others are gone the second their hearts stop
beating. I believe your father’s theory could be true.”

“What does any of this have to do with
whether Dad is…dead?” I stumbled over the word in my haste to get
it out.

“Again, I don’t know. I am so sorry,
Endora. A year ago, Mark came and asked me to get in touch with you
one week after your eighteenth birthday unless he told me
otherwise. He asked that I inform you of his research and theories
and the story I just told you. When I asked why he couldn’t tell
you himself, he said he planned to…unless he didn’t live long
enough. So, when I called you and you hadn’t heard from him, I
feared the worst.” Mr. Wentworth reached for my hand again and
squeezed it gently. With his free hand he reached into the
briefcase sitting on the bench next to him. “He also wanted me to
give you this.”

Mr. Wentworth placed a wooden box,
roughly the same size as a shoebox, on the table between us. Ornate
carvings stretched over the lid, and a gold latch fastened the two
halves together. Tentatively, I slid the box closer to me. The wood
was warm and smooth to the touch. I traced the carvings with my
forefinger.

A half-man, half-serpent was the
largest of the drawings, located in the very center of the lid. On
either side of him, two men clutched scepters and wore crowns. The
base of the box had one carving on each of the four sides. A
rooster, not unlike the one Mrs. Randolf used as a hall pass, was
on the front of the box. The Minotaur on the right side was
bare-chested with long, flowing hair held back from his forehead
with a thin band. Outstretched wings of a Pegasus consumed the left
side, the beast’s mouth open in a battle cry. And on the back, a
mermaid perched on three small boulders, splashing her scaly tail
in the crashing surf. The sight of her caused my throat to
constrict; she reminded me of the creature who had attacked me on
my birthday.

The designs were intricate and
beautiful, the level of detail amazing. The artist hadn’t painted
the carvings, but I could envision the vivid blue-green waters in
the mermaid scene, the silvery-white feathers of the Pegasus, and
the shimmery golden crowns of the men on the lid.

“What’s inside?” I asked quietly,
fingering the latch.

“I have never opened it,” Mr.
Wentworth replied.

Curiously, I slowly
unhooked the latch and gently
opened the
lid
. Inside, nestled in a blanket of soft
cotton,
was a necklace
. A solitary pendant the size of a sand dollar hung from a
thin
rope of solid gold.
The pendant was heavy in my palm, weighing more
than my cell phone. A web of fine gold crisscrossed from the edges
of a circle, converging around a large, clear crystal in the
center. Seven delicate feathers hung from the bottom.