This remark drew Grace’s attention away from Ellie. “Oh, Angel, thank you. Whatever happened, I know we have you to thank for Ellie’s safety.”
“Wish I could take the credit, but…” Angel was grinning from ear to ear. Clearly, harboring the secret was about to burst her skull.
“For God’s sake, child, spill! Tell us!” Granny blurted her impatience.
Angel and Joe exchanged glances, then he looked right at Granny. “Gran, maybe you should sit down.”
“Whatever for?”
Willow took her by the elbow and gently pointed her toward one of the chairs. “Why don’t we just do as he asks?”
“Fine.” Granny plunked down in the room’s antique rocking chair. “Okay, the old bird’s in the rocker. Now, will you tell me?”
Angel looked at her and then over at Grace and Ellie. “Well, when Grace said I saved Ellie, she was wrong. Ellie saved me. I mean, with her Gift.”
Ellie finally showed some sign of life. She pulled away from Grace and stared at Angel. “Wait, what? I didn’t do anything. All I did was…”
“You knocked the drink out of my hand, Ellie. Why? Do you remember why you did that?”
Ellie spoke slowly, as if it was all coming together in her mind like a jigsaw puzzle. “Because…there was something wrong with it. It was drugged or poisoned or something. I knew it. I just…knew it.”
Joe urged her on, “How did you know, Ellie? What was the clue?”
“Carlo. I could see it. I mean, feel it. I mean, it was like he was telling me. He may as well have been screaming it.” She shook her head in confusion, then looked at all of them. “How did I know? How did I do that?”
“Good heavens!” Everyone’s eyes shifted over to Granny as she let out a little cry. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she jumped up from the rocking chair. She ran over to the couch and plopped down on the other side of Ellie. She bit her lip, swallowed the lump in her throat, and battled back the tears. She lifted her bony hand to Ellie’s face and caressed her cheek.
Ellie gave her an uncomfortable smile, then shot a sidelong glance back toward her Uncle Joe. She dared to look at Granny again and said, “What?”
Granny gripped Ellie’s chin and looked intently into her eyes. “You’re a Reader, my dear. A Reader.”
“A Reader?”
Granny wanted to explain, but she was losing the fight against her emotions. After she choked out a couple of unintelligible syllables, Angel picked up the slack. She walked over and set her butt down on the coffee table, facing Grace, Ellie, and Granny. She patted Granny’s knee and said quietly, “Granny’s first husband was a Reader. He’s the only one she’s ever found. Ever. Among all the thousands of Gifted people she’s traced and tracked and met.” Granny nodded her assent to Angel’s explanation while continuing to stare at Ellie. She had always known this one would be special.
Angel continued her commentary, “Granny’s told me dozens, hundreds of stories over the years. Stories about different Gifteds and all the things they could do. She told me about Oren, her husband, and how he could see and feel what others were feeling. He saw colors, chica, just like you. Like you told me you were seeing, and I just didn’t get it. And the temperature—” Angel looked at Granny a moment, then back at Ellie. “Oren could sense changes in mood through his body temperature.”
Ellie’s mouth fell open, “Whoa, that’s just what happened to me.” She was starting to look a little wary of the whole thing. Granny nodded at Willow, hoping the wise woman would have something to offer.
“Now, Elodie,” Willow started. “We’re not talking crystal balls or ESP or channeling the other side here…not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but…reading people, or seeing auras, is a bona fide scientific phenomenon. It’s called synesthesia. It’s an unusual collaboration of the synapses in the brain. There are pathways overlapping sight and smell and touch and emotion that occur in most humans, but for you, because you’re Gifted, there are just more of them, or they’re more focused, or more intertwined, or
something
, enabling you to comprehend those connections and actually make use of them.”
Joe finally joined them, settling himself on the couch that sat opposite Ellie and Grace and Granny—and as far from Doo, who was seated on the other end of that couch, as possible. “Has it ever happened before, Ellie? Do you remember knowing what someone was feeling any other times?”
“Oh, yeah. The exact same thing—that black haze and the chilly sensation—with that creepy Aiden kid. That’s how I figured out what was going on at Carlo’s. It was déjà vu all over again.”
Grace butted in, “But that’s not the only time. She’s always done it.” She looked at Ellie. “Honey, you were always telling me you knew what your teachers were going to ask on a test, and you knew who was about to leave their table, and-and…remember that guy?” Grace started to laugh, “The guy in the coffee shop? You knew he was going to come over and flirt with me, and he did.”
Doo chuckled at that, but Ellie said, “Oh, Aunt Grace, that’s totally different.”
“Maybe not,” Willow interjected. “Ellie, you may have been reading people for years without realizing it. But until you started seeing and feeling things that you knew weren’t there, it just seemed normal. You probably thought everybody could do it, right?” Ellie nodded.
Angel spoke up, “But Willow, how come Ellie only has the auras and the chills and whatever with the bad guys? Why can’t she read anyone else like that?”
Willow shrugged. “Hard to say at this point. Could’ve been fear, heightened emotions, the danger, the necessity…or something she ate that day. Her Gift is still so new. It’s just developing. We don’t know how it will evolve. Like all Gifts, she’ll have to work at it, and learn to manage and control it.”
Granny turned Ellie toward her. “But listen, Ellie. Trust me, it won’t always be scary. Sometimes…it will be rather wonderful. You’ll be able to connect with people in ways others can only dream of.” She closed her eyes, seeing and feeling the connection she once shared with Oren.
“Wait, I-I think I know what you mean.”
“You do?” Granny opened her eyes, surprised.
Ellie nodded and looked over at Angel. “It happens with the good guys, too. I saw that aura thing…around Enrique.”
Simultaneously, Angel and Joe said, “Rique?”
“Yes. That’s how I knew he was okay. When I saw him in the courtyard, he looked like just another big scary dude. But the light around him—it was beautiful. Bright. Shiny. With lots of colors, like sunlight through a prism. It was magnificent. It made me feel safe. That’s how I knew I could trust him and go with him.”
“Yes, my dear. That’s it exactly.” Granny took Ellie’s hand again and held it tight. She felt closer to Oren at that moment than she had since the day he died so long ago.
# # #
“You’re a Reader, my dear. A Reader.” Granny’s words kept running through Ellie’s head. How was she supposed to get to sleep, knowing she had this Gift? Aunt Grace had, as usual, broken up the party earlier than anyone wanted to leave, insisting it was too late, and they all needed to get to bed. It was something like three in the morning by then, so maybe she had a point, but Ellie felt wide awake now. She wanted to know everything there was to know about being a Reader. She wanted to hear every story Granny had to tell about her husband Oren. And she couldn’t wait to try out her newfound skill on more people. She would be able to tell what they were feeling, for God’s sake. How freakin’ cool was that? For the first time in her life, Ellie knew she was someone special, and that wasn’t exactly a thought that made her drowsy.
She was laying on her back, surveying her surroundings in the little light afforded by the moon outside her window. She was in her pretty room on the second floor of the farmhouse, and Aunt Grace was down the hall a ways, with a nice corner room overlooking the pasture. On their second day at the farm, a couple of guys had shown up with boxes containing, as Angel had promised, everything that meant anything to them. Her clothes, her books, her computer, pictures of her parents, even her stuffed animals, including Josephina, a beloved stuffed pig she’d had as long as she could remember. With all of that around her, budding friendships in the works, and Uncle Joe back in her life, this place already felt like home. Now, the only question was—would Aunt Grace let her stay?
Oooh. Ellie’s tummy made an uncomfortable growling noise. Angel had told her something about how using a Gift would make people really hungry and really tired, especially in the beginning, when they were first learning. Something about hypermetabolism. She wondered what the consequences might be if she snuck down into Chef Ren’s kitchen for a snack.
Since sleep was elusive anyway, Ellie decided to give it a shot. She got up and headed to the bathroom for her robe. As she pulled open the bathroom door, though, she saw a sliver of light across the floor, and noticed that the door to Angel’s room was slightly ajar. Angel was still up? Yes, she was; Ellie could hear her talking or listening to music or, no, that wasn’t it. That was the sound of…crying. Ellie paused. She wasn’t sure what to do. This wasn’t something she had a lot of experience with. Back in their house in Atlanta, Ellie was the only one who ever cried, and Aunt Grace did all the comforting and bucking up. Should she ignore it and pretend she never heard it? Should she go in? Should she knock? Or would Angel be mortified? Still undecided, she went ahead and grabbed her robe and pulled it on. In the process, she managed to knock her hairbrush on the floor, making a nice loud rattle and bang sound.
A little gasp came from the other side of Angel’s door, and then a throat-clearing sound. “Ellie? Chica, is that you?”
Okay, no choice now. Ellie stepped to the door and pushed it open. “Uh, yeah, Angel, it’s me.”
Angel was sitting on her bed in black sweat pants and a loose black tee shirt, with a bunch of papers spread out in front of her. She quickly turned her head away and brought both hands to her face, trying to hide the fact that she was wiping away tears. She looked back at Ellie and pasted on a smile. “Hey, what’s got you up so late?”
Ellie walked over to the bed uninvited and sat down on it. She looked at Angel’s face. There was mascara streaked down one cheek and black smudges under both eyes. Her nose and cheeks were red and blotchy. That she thought Ellie would
not
know she’d been crying was almost comical. Ellie reached out and laid her hand on top of Angel’s. “Why so sad?”
Angel sniffled, lowering her head to avoid eye contact, and mumbled, “I’m not sad. I’m really pissed. I hate him!” She smashed her hand through the pile of papers and finally looked up. “That stupid jerk actually made me believe he loved me. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about him, but I was sure how he felt about me. He fooled me, El. He fooled me good. I thought I was so smart. I always thought
I
could read people, ya know? Because, in a fight, I can. I always know what they’re thinking. I know where the next punch is going, when they’re gonna kick, when they’re gonna duck. That’s why I can beat them, beat them all. But not Carlo.”
She grabbed a handful of the papers and held them up. “You know what these are? Love letters. Yeah, seriously. Love letters. Who the hell writes love letters nowadays? He wrote me all the time, every day, even when I couldn’t be in contact because we were on some kind of a mission. He sucked me in.” She looked up in her head. “I’m such a sap.”
Ellie picked up one of the letters. Indeed, it was sweet and syrupy and dripping with declarations of love and devotion…and horrendous spelling. As she held the letter, though, Ellie started to feel something. She felt warm. She picked up more of them and held them in her hands. Carlo. She could still feel him. She looked at Angel’s war-torn face and slowly shook her head. “No, Angel, you’re not a sap. Whatever Carlo did and whyever he did it, I’m not sure, but I do know this—he loved you. That part was real.”
Angel looked at her like she had three heads. “Chica, what part of the last twenty-four hours did you not get? Carlo lied to me, about everything, from the moment we met. He’s a way better actor than anyone’s given him credit for being. I was totally deluded. Me!” Her tone became sarcastic, “Angel Espinoza, The World’s Greatest Defender. Ha! What a joke.”
“It’s not a joke, Angel. I’m telling you—he only fooled you, because he wasn’t fooling. He was sincere…at least about that.” Angel was quiet, but her expression demanded elaboration. “I saw it. I felt it. In the restaurant. In his apartment.” Ellie raised her eyebrows. “Especially in the kitchen. Hoo boy, did I feel it. You guys were about to burn the place down.”
Angel shook her head. “I don’t understand…”
“I didn’t just know that he was lying or that the drinks were bad. I felt
everything
he was feeling, Angel. His feelings for you—maybe love is the wrong word. It was more like…passion. Whenever he got close to you, it was like hot, burning, sizzling, fiery desire.”
Angel sat back a little, appearing surprised and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Wow. I mean that’s kinda how it felt to me, too, being around him. He’s definitely a very…passionate person.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, that part was real, and you
are
the most awesome Defender ever, so please don’t be so sad.”
“I told you, I’m not sad!”
Ellie widened her eyes and felt her jaw go slack. There was a shimmer around Angel now. It was bright, sparkly, like Rique’s, but shrouded in blue. “Yes, you are sad,” she said. “I can see it, and, oh man, I can feel it, too.” Ellie’s throat tightened up. Tears were welling in her eyes. “This is awful. What a horrible feeling.” She stared at Angel, feeling overwhelmed with sadness.