The Gifting (Book 1 in The Gifting Series) Read online

  Chapter Nineteen

  Confessions

  The short walk over to Luka’s doesn’t give me enough time to gather my courage. I find myself wishing he lived on the other side of the country instead of next door. In all my seventeen years, I’ve never worked alone with a boy before. At the library in groups, sure. But never one-on-one.

  I hike the strap of my backpack over my shoulder and step onto his front stoop, inhaling deeply through my nostrils. I can do this. I can work on a history project with Luka. If the topic is broached, I can talk to him about insane, impossible things—like spiritual beings that aren’t supposed to exist. I shake my head, wondering if psychosis would be the better scenario. At least then medicine could solve the problem. But angels and demons that nobody else can see but me and him? There’s no solution that I’ve heard of.

  I glance at my house, then back at Luka’s door. How long before he regrets asking me to be his partner? How long before he realizes the girl with the frozen tongue is an idiot? I lick my bottom lip and stare at the doorbell. Why is it so hard to reach out my finger and push a stupid button?

  The door swings open.

  I step back and almost stumble off the step behind me.

  Luka stands on the threshold, his hand on the door, his head cocked, his eyebrow quirked. “I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to knock.”

  “You were watching me?”

  “Maybe.” He opens the door wider—a nonverbal invitation to step inside.

  The foyer is large and tall with a hanging chandelier that looks like it came straight out of the nineteenth century. The house is warm and quiet. I look past Luka toward a kitchen that is different from our own.

  “Looking for somebody?”

  Oh, just an angel. Maybe some evil spirits. Perhaps a parent. I bite the inside of my cheek. This is all so preposterous.

  “You rarely say what you’re thinking.”

  I pull my gaze away from the great room and look him in the face.

  “I can tell you have a million thoughts racing through your head, but you keep them to yourself.” Something like amusement sparkles in the green of his eyes. “You’re very mysterious.”

  Me? Mysterious? I think painfully shy is more accurate.

  “My mom does Zumba on Thursdays. She won’t be home until dinner. Can I get you anything? Water? Chocolate milk?”

  “Chocolate milk?”

  “Your drink of choice at lunch.”

  Heat creeps into my cheeks. “Water’s fine.”

  He disappears into the kitchen and I’m left standing in his tall, empty foyer with dark polished floors and textured, copper-colored wallpaper. My attention follows a wide-set staircase up to the second floor. A family portrait and school pictures of Luka through the years hang on the wall in gold, ornate frames. We don’t live in one of those neighborhoods where every house is a slightly different version of every other. We lived in one like that in Illinois for about a year-and-a-half and Mom was perpetually pulling into the wrong driveways. The houses in Forest Grove are all unique and old—mansions from the early twentieth century.

  A can cracks open behind me. I swivel around.

  “Pretty embarrassing,” he says, raising his Mountain Dew toward the portraits.

  “My mom does the same thing.” Only unlike Luka’s flawless transition from adorable boy to striking young man, mine are filled with awkward years. The winner being seventh grade, when no girl should ever be photographed. My hideous haircut is forever memorialized in a frame in our hallway. “Mine are more embarrassing though.”

  “I doubt it.” Luka hands me my water. “Want to go up to my room?”

  “Um …” Gulp. “Sure.”

  He leads the way up the stairs, past several open doors, and into his bedroom. It’s large and not at all like the typical teenage boy room—at least not at all like Pete’s. He has no posters on his walls or dirty clothes on the floor or unidentifiable smells. The room is tidy with warm, brown walls, a large window that overlooks the ocean, a desk with an opened laptop, a dresser with an attached mirror, a queen-sized bed with a navy blue comforter, and an insanely huge bookcase that covers an entire wall. Several pictures are pinned to a bulletin board—not of girls or friends—but a couple of the ocean and one of his parents. There’s a water glass on his nightstand, a pair of glasses, and an intimidating book titled World Dictators: Past and Present.

  “You like to read.” It’s a nice discovery.

  He stands in the doorway looking uncertain, as if he’s awaiting my approval. “A little.”

  I walk over to his nightstand, run my hand over the cover of the thick book, and raise my eyebrows.

  He shifts on his feet. “I like history.”

  I twist the cap off my water.

  Luka sets the Mountain Dew on a coaster on his desk, pulls out his computer chair, and sits on it backward. He nods toward his bed. “You can sit down if you want.”

  Positive he can hear the lame thumping of my heart, I take a sip of water and sit on the very edge, trying hard not to think about the fact that I’m on his bed. The air feels charged, like it does whenever a storm rolls in and lightning is about to strike. I wonder if Luka can feel it too. I twist the cap back on the water bottle and clear my throat. “So where should we start?”

  He folds his arms over the backrest of his chair. “I have a confession.”

  I look up from his hemp bracelet, momentarily dazed by his face. Seriously. It’s like staring at a picture of a Calvin Klein model.

  “I don’t want to work on our history project.”

  The water bottle crinkles in my hand. I set it beside the glasses on his nightstand, trying to imagine what he might look like in them, then slide my hands beneath my knees. “I did some research during study hall. About your theory.”

  “Find anything interesting?”

  “There are people out there who believe in it—a spiritual realm.” The two words sound silly when I speak them out loud. Sillier even than when I read them on the computer screen in the library, paranoid somebody might come up behind me and read my Google search. “But I couldn’t find anything about people who are able to see it.”

  Luka wheels his chair closer. “I keep thinking about what happened today, in Ceramics. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “I thought you said you have.”

  “I don’t mean what we saw. I mean what happened.”

  My forehead scrunches. “I don’t understand.”

  “It was trying to interact with you. And then yesterday, in Lotsam’s class. It was almost like that thing was trying to provoke you. Like it wanted you to react. Every time I replay it in my head, that’s what I come up with.”

  His words settle between us. I’m not sure what to do with them, so I leave them untouched. Perhaps I’ll come back to them later. “I have a question.”

  One corner of his mouth lifts. “Just one?”

  “It’s about our dream.”

  “Okay.”

  “How did that work, do you think?”

  He shakes his head. “I wish I knew.”

  “Has anything like that ever happened to you before?”

  He averts his gaze, but in the split second before he does, I see something guarded flicker on his face. He swivels away to take a drink. When he turns back around, his expression is unreadable. “Has it to you?”

  I scratch the inside of my wrist, trying to decide if I should tell him or not. Especially since he’s not being forthright with me. I can tell he’s holding something back. I just wish I knew what. “Remember the clinic bombing?”

  “Sure.”

  “This is going to sound crazy.”

  “Crazier than angels in Ceramics?”

  “Right.” I let out a shaky laugh, loosening up a bit. “I dreamt about the bombing the night before. Two people died in my dream. Then the next morning in Current Events, I learned that the bombing actually happened and the two people who died in my dr
eam were on the news, reported as dead.”

  I pause, waiting for his reaction. He stares at me attentively and waits.

  “The next night …” I shake my head. “This is totally weird.”

  Luka scoots even closer, so much so that his knees are on either side of mine. “What?”

  “When we visited each other in our dream?”

  He raises his eyebrows, urging me to continue.

  “What happened to me?” I have to know what he saw.

  “You sank into the ground. I tried grabbing you, but I wasn’t quick enough. Where did you go?”

  “All of a sudden, I was on the Golden Gate Bridge. And the freaky man in Lotsam’s class? He was taunting this girl, trying to get her to jump. I wrestled him away from her and we fell.” I think about the cold words spoken—about me being a fighter—but can’t bring myself to say them out loud. I don’t even know what they mean.

  “You wrestled him?” There’s a hint of amusement in the question.

  “Is that hard to believe?”

  “It’s just … you don’t look like the wrestling type.”

  “Hey, I’m a black belt.” And I was strong in the dream. It was only later, when I woke up, that I felt weak and drained.

  “Really?”

  I lift my chin. “Really.”

  Luka laughs. “Okay, so what happened next, Karate Kid?”

  “I woke up. And that same girl was on the news. She was about to commit suicide, but the police got to her in time. She didn’t die.”

  Luka’s teasing from a second ago has disappeared. His eyes search mine with an intensity that makes my skin break into goose bumps. “Do you think they’re real—the dreams? Prophetic or something?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  My shoulders sag. “You’ve never had dreams like that? Dreams that actually come true?”

  He doesn’t answer right away. The longer he waits, the more I regret telling him. Maybe he’s finally realizing that between the two of us, I am a whole different brand of crazy. “I’ve had one,” he finally says. “It’s recurring.”

  Hope blossoms in my chest. “Like mine?”

  “Not exactly.” He wipes his palms along the thighs of his jeans. “Your first day of school wasn’t the first time I’ve seen you.”

  “You saw me when we were moving in or something?”

  “No.”

  Confusion settles in my brow.

  He takes a deep breath. Like here goes nothing. “I’ve dreamt about you.”

  “Yeah, that night—”

  He shakes his head. “Before that night.”

  “Before?”

  “For as long as I can remember. I’ve dreamt about this girl with dark hair and fair skin and big, navy blue eyes and freckles across her nose.”

  The hair on the back of my arms stands on end.

  “And then you showed up in class and … it was you. You’re her.”

  “What happens in the dream?” My voice escapes in a whisper.

  “That man in Lotsam’s class? There’s a whole army of them. They are strong, impenetrable. But there’s another army too. An army of these bright beings, charging ahead, and you’re leading them.”

  “Me?”

  He nods. “You’re fearless. Brave. But you’re in danger, too. So out in the open and the soldiers of the other army are targeting you. In the dream, I’m fighting them. Trying to get to you. Screaming for you to run. It’s like your life is the most important thing. Like if you die, then so will everything else.”

  The weight of Luka’s words sits between us.

  He leans forward, his chest against the back of the chair, so close my knees touch his seat. “I’ve spent my life looking for you. Everywhere. At stores, restaurants, malls, in the newspaper, on TV shows. When you showed up in Current Events, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I still can’t.”

  I can’t seem to get a handle on my breathing. It’s too fast, too loud.

  “When we met on the beach in our dream, it was the first time your life wasn’t in danger. But then you disappeared and I thought …”

  “You thought something bad happened.”

  “Yeah.”

  My attention drops to my feet. I wish I knew what was going on. I wish I understood this connection between me and Luka. I wish I could go to the library and check out a book titled Seeing the Spiritual Realm, Prophetic Dreams, and Dream Sharing: All You Need to Know. Somehow, I don’t think that book exists.

  “Tess?” Luka’s voice is husky, close.

  I look into his eyes.

  “I’m glad you’re here, in Thornsdale.”

  “Me too.” Despite all the unanswered questions, having someone to share the craziness with makes the burden so much lighter.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  Luka scoots away, leaving my legs cold and numb.

  “Luka?” A slender woman with dark, shiny hair pulled into a ponytail leans inside Luka’s bedroom. She and Luka share the same straight nose, the same full lips, the same olive colored skin. Only this woman has dark, suspicious eyes. Not Luka’s green warm ones. She’s dressed in yoga pants and a tank top. “Who’s this?”

  “Tess Ekhart. She moved in next door. Tess, this is my mom.”

  Her smile is tight, pinched. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  Mrs. Williams turns toward Luka. “We’re going to have dinner in thirty minutes. You should probably wrap things up. And leave your door open, please. You know that’s the rule when girls are over.”

  Girls. I blush at the implication. How many girls has Luka had over?

  When she leaves, a tinge of pink stains Luka’s cheeks.

  I’m suddenly claustrophobic. I need to get away from this boy who makes thinking impossible. After everything he told me, I need to go on a hike. Gather my thoughts. Glancing at his bedside clock, I stand, pull my backpack over my shoulders, and head to his door. “I should get going.”

  Luka comes out of his chair. “Tess.”

  I stop. Turn around.

  “We should try to do it again.”

  “What?”

  “The dream thing.” He shoves his hands in the back of his pockets. “If we think about each other before we fall asleep …”

  “You think that’s how it works?” The warmth in my face intensifies. If that’s so, then he’ll know I was thinking about him. But it also means he was thinking about me, too.

  “It’s worth a try.”

  “O-okay. Sure.” Before he can offer to walk me to my house, I hurry out of his room, down the stairs, and out the front door.