CHAPTER 11: Fortune Telling
Me: (coughs) Okay, I am tired of being sick. Somebody just shoot me now!
Jet: If you want, I could arrange that...
Me: Um... or maybe just find a cure for the common cold.
Jet: Fine then. (sulks in a corner.)
Me: I guess I am lucky. My little sister has strept throat and tonsilitis. At the same time. Anyway, at the moment of writing this sentence, I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen this chapter. Really. So if it's incredibly stupid, blame my disease and Jet. If it's really good, apply it to my literary genius.
Jet: (snort) Literary Genius?
Me: Oh, hah hah.
SHOUT-OUTS:
triquetraperson: It was an accident, so probably not, but I'm sure she'll find a way to get her revenge. As soon as I find a way to get her her revenge.... And it's nice to know that not all people in California are that ignorant because I have a cousin who's moving there next week. (I have a lot of cousins. 81 total, not counting the people they've married. And all of them are at least four years older than me.)
Readerrr Grrrl: Glad someone actually finds this humorous. (Glances at Jet.) The audiance around here is more mortified than amused. And I'll work on the spaces in the dialouge, thanks for alerting me. And I'm sure that if Jen could read the reviews on her story, she'd be happy to know that she's liked. But she can't, unless I loose all sense of reality in this in the which case your praise about the realisticness of her would be wasted... Yeah. Ignore my ramblings unless they amuse you.
malciah: Thanks. I suppose it would be fun, but I wouldn't know as I hadn't tried. Guess Jen isn't alone in her pool playing styles either then.
Mareo and Anime: Someone here has read Dinotopia at least once. My brother loves that book. Anyway, glad you're enjoying this. The floating thing will be explained eventually, but it might be a long, long eventually...
DISCLAIMER: No tengo nada. Bad grammar but I don't care. For my fellow gringos who are not fluent in that language, I don't own anything.
Bryan:
As I write this, I am watching the men in the building. They are looking at recordings from various security cameras, and I'm watching too, hoping to figure out what their plan is exactly, and whether or not I can stop them. Most of the footage seems to be of Sydney and Jennifer, the two girls who I suspected them to be after. There is more of Sydney; possibly because the security at the place Jennifer is staying is much more advanced. It makes me feel guilty; I also watch people without them knowing I'm watching, but then I don't use what I see to hurt people. And it's only because I have no choice.
They certainly suspect Jennifer, but don't seem to be completely sure. I can only hope that she has enough control over her powers not to leave anything for them to see. If so, maybe she'll be safe. Maybe they'll decide they were wrong and leave these people alone.
Maybe the moon really is made of cheese.
Well, a fool's hope is better than none. All I can do now is keep writing these letters that no one will ever read, and try to find a way to help.
Jennifer:
Sydney's eyes grew wide when she saw me during guitar class the next day.
"What happened?" She hissed during warm ups.
"Huh?"
"Your band-aids."
"Oh those." I tried to think of an honest answer to that. "Lets just say there are people in the institute who like to play with fire, and I got lots of people mad at me."
"Ouch." I looked her over to see what she looked like today. She was wearing a black skirt, a large long-sleeved white shirt, a maroon vest, lots of necklaces, lots of mascara, a green shawl, and a purple scarf around her hair. And gold hoop earrings.
"Gypsy?" I asked.
"Yes. Do you want to come over after school for a while, get away from your angry house mates? I'm planning on having a seance."
"Sounds fun." I said. "I'll just have to call Professor Xavier, then I'll let you know."
Then the guitar teacher noticed we were talking yet again, and made us sit on different sides of the room.
After class I called the number for the Institute, which my parents had forced me to memorize before I boarded the plane to New York.
Hello Jennifer. His voice came into my head before I'd even said anything.
"Hi Professor." I said, feeling akward. "Um, can I go to a friend's house after school?"
"How long are you planning on staying at Sydney's house?" He asked after a moment. I assumed he had been reading my mind to find out where I was going. I related the question to Sydney.
"Whatever works; my Mom doesn't care." A bit of discussion with the Professor, and it was agreed that someone would pick me up in a few hours, so I walked with Sydney to her house.
Sydney's room was almost as boring as mine at the Institute had been when I first entered it. The walls were plain white, with a few photos of her family on one wall. The entire room was white and without decoration, except for a wooden bookshelf. But in the center of the floor was a bright red rug, with a circle of candles, a piece of paper with all the letters of the alphabet aranged in a circle on it, and a piece of string with a rock tied to one end.
"So... what's a seance?" I asked, as Sydney closed the blinds to darken the room, and pulled a box of matches out of her pocket.
"It's when you contact the spirits from the realm beyond." She said in a mysterious voice.
"Cool." Sydney nodded, then struck a match.
"Sit down within the ring." She said, and I obeyed. Sydney then went around the circle, lighting candles, then sitting inside before she lit the last one.
"Okay, now rub this on your third eye." She said, handing me a little cup of some kind of red goop.
"My what?"
"Your third eye. It's in the center of your forehead." I raised my eybrows, shrugged, and rubbed some of the stuff onto my forehead.
"Does this have a purpose?" I asked while Sydney applied it to her face.
"Yes, but I don't know what it is." Sydney put the piece of paper in between us, then picked up the rockless end of the string. "Grab my left hand and concentrate."
"On what?"
"The instructions didn't say. I guess on contacting the spirits from the realm beyond."
"Ah." I did my best not to laugh, and started focusing on 'spirits from the realm beyond.'
Sydney began chanting.
"Ghosts, spirits, beings come from the realms of the dead, come here. Now! Please?" I had an unexplainable feeling that she was making that up.
After Sydney had repeated that a few times, I felt an odd tingling on my spine.
She's good. I thought, wondering how Sydney accomplished that. She stopped talking as the room seemed to get a little bit colder, then held the rope over the paper. And though her fingers didn't move, the rope began to swing.
At first the string went in a spiral, then stopped when it had widened out to where the letters where on the paper. Then it began to swing over letters.
'Y-O-U-A-R-E-B-0-T-H-I–" Sydney made a surprised sound, and dropped the string, almost knocking over a candle as she jumped backwards.
"What?" I asked, looking at her, though I was surprized too.
"That's not what it was supposed to do!" Sydney looked shaken. "It's a trick I learned a long time ago; there are little muscles in your fingers that can move the string to what your subconcious is thinking even if you try to keep your hand still. I was going to make up some kind of bogus stuff. But that wasn't what I was thinking for the string to do."
"Weird." I said after a moment of silence. "What do you think the 'spirits from the realm beyond' were trying to tell us before you so rudely interrupted?"
"Um... You are both intelligent?"
"You are both ignorant?"
"You are both idiots."
"You are both illiterate."
"That makes no sense, how would we know they were saying that if we were illiterate?"
"Um... You are both iambic?"
"Say what? Isn't that a kind of poem?"
"I dunno. How about ignitable?"
"Interesting."
"Idols." I tried.
"Impertinant?"
"Maybe it knew you were going to interrupt him."
"How about inept?"
"That could work. How about this; improptu."
"Impressive."
"Incoherant."
"Inconsolable."
"I have it! Incorrect!"
"True enough." Sydney laughed, then added, "Maybe we're in something."
"You are both in a house?"
"You are both in New York?"
"You are both in danger?" I stopped. "Woah." We looked back at the piece of paper and the string with the rock.
"I'm starting to feel paranoid again." Sydney said. "Do you mind if we do something else?"
"Not at all." I said, and helped her blow out the candles. Sydney then got out a 'crystal ball.' It was one of those globes they sell at science museums with the purple electricity in it that follows your hands around. She then proceeded to look into a complicated future where I'd marry a millionare, move to South America, and become nocturnal.
"Somehow I doubt the nocturnal part." I said.
"Oh, whatever. You try to do better." She handed me the ball.
"Well..." I peered into it. "It looks like you're going to get struck by lightning." Sydney glowered at me.
"I want my money back." I snorted.
"Hey, want me to read your palm?" Sydney asked. I started to say yes, but remembered the gloves.
"No thanks, I've heard enough about South American Millionaires." Sydney gave me a thoughtful look, then pulled a deck of cards off her bookshelf and we took turns reading each other's 'futures' until that got boring.
"Let's play a card game." Sydney said.
"All right."
"Do you know War?"
"Nope."
"Equiptian Rack Screw?"
"No."
"Poker?"
"No."
"You don't know how to play poker."
"Mom wouldn't let me play it anyway."
"What do you know how to play?"
"Solitare."
"That's not really a two player game."
"Well, there is one game..."
"Got any sevens?" Sydney asked.
"Go Fish." A honk sounded outside, and I glanced at the clock. "Oh, it's time for me to go home."
"We'll just say I won then."
"Thanks for having me over, it was fun."
"Oh, no problem. Besides, you can't tell fortunes without someone to tell them to."
"Bye."
I walked out the door, and couldn't help but notice a man across the street in a jogging uniform, who was tying his shoe. Hadn't he been there when we'd first gotten to Sydney's house? I shrugged. My nightmares were starting to get to my head.
Me: Oh yeah, I rock! (coughs)
Jet: The sad thing is, she had to use a dictionary to think of possibiliities for what 'You are both i' could be.
Me: Blame the cold.
Jet: Nah, blaming you is more fun.
Me: (coughs) I'm too sick to argue. Please review!