Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1)

  “I am so sorry, Endora,” Mr. Wentworth said.

  “No.” I shook my head firmly. “No, you’re wrong. Dad isn’t…he can’t be…” I couldn’t bring myself to use “Dad” and “dead” in the same sentence.

  Mr. Haverty appeared at the table, smiling his grandfatherly smile. I blinked up at him in a daze. Maybe Dad had come into the Moonlight in the last twenty-four hours. That would prove to Mr. Wentworth that he was wrong and that Dad was very much alive. But before I could ask Mr. Haverty, Mr. Wentworth asked, “Henry, could you bring us some chamomile tea?”

  Chamomile tea. The drink Mr. Wentworth served his daughter whenever he broke bad news. The tradition started the night the first Mrs. Wentworth passed away after losing her battle with breast cancer. If Mr. Wentworth believed the situation warranted chamomile tea, he really did fear Dad was no longer among the living.

  “How…how?” I asked after Mr. Haverty left.

  Mr. Wentworth said nothing at first. He just sat there, staring at me, gray eyes filled with concern and regret. I imagined it was the same way cops looked at victims’ families when they imparted bad news. Except, in this case, Mr. Wentworth wasn’t detached from the situation. He had been my father’s friend and, since the divorce, probably Dad’s best friend, maybe his only friend.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Wentworth finally said.

  I blinked. “If you don’t know how he…how it happened, then how do you know it did?”

  Besides not being able to say the word “dead” with respect to Dad, I was oddly detached from the situation. It was almost like we were talking about a stranger’s passing. I thought maybe I should cry or scream or bang my fists on the table, throw a temper tantrum. I didn’t have the urge to do any of that. Maybe Mr. Wentworth was right, I was becoming my mother’s daughter: cold, unfeeling, too practical to cry. When Mom’s sister died, she didn’t shed a single tear; she just asked where to send flowers. Or at least that was the way the story went. My aunt Samantha died before I was born.

  Mr. Haverty returned with a porcelain pot and two mugs. He set one in front of me and one in front of Mr. Wentworth.

  “Let me know when you two are ready to order, James,” Mr. Haverty said before retreating once again.

  Mr. Wentworth poured the tea, most likely stalling for time. I dumped too much sugar into mine, while Mr. Wentworth chose to drink his straight.

  “After the divorce,” Mr. Wentworth finally began with the weariness of someone about to recount a very long tale, “Your father knew Evelyn would stop at nothing to keep him away from you.”

  “No shit,” I muttered, then blanched. I rarely cussed in front of adults. Whenever I let a curse slip in my mother’s presence, she made this clucking noise with her tongue and said, “Endora” in this nasally tone that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard.

  Mr. Wentworth laughed, though. I supposed he was used to teenagers cussing. Jamieson lacked a filter and believed censorship had no place in a country where the First Amendment was freedom of speech. She routinely expressed her views on the matter in her Facebook status updates.

  “I guess you know that,” Mr. Wentworth continued. “What you probably don’t know is why.”

  He was right; I had no idea why Mom was hell-bent on keeping Dad and me apart. In the beginning, the whole kidnapping fiasco probably had a lot to do with it. But it was a huge misunderstanding. True, the courts hadn’t seen it that way. I knew the truth. Dad never meant to hurt me or take me away from Mom permanently. The two of them could have worked out their differences if Mom had one compromising bone in her body. Too bad it was her way or no way.

  “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 yo
u 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.

  I smiled. So Dad had sent me another one after all.

  “It’s a dream catcher,” I told Mr. Wentworth, holding it up for him to inspect.

  Mr. Wentworth fingered the pendant delicately, almost reverently. A small smile crossed his lips. His touch made the feathers clink together, creating a soft melodic sound like wind chimes.

  “So it is,” he said in a voice just above a whisper.

  I looped the necklace over my head. The chain was long, and the dream catcher rested just below the center of my bra, gleaming in the dim overhead lights. There was no note in the box, but I knew the purpose. Dad thought the dream catcher would ward off the messages from the underworld.

  “Thank you,” I told Mr. Wentworth, tearing my gaze from the pendant hanging around my neck.

  Mr. Wentworth nodded, oddly transfixed by the dream catcher. Silence stretched between us, comfortable and patient. I had a lot to digest and nothing more to say. My father’s longtime friend continued to gaze thoughtfully at the gift he’d just given me.

  “He bought that in Hawaii two Christmases ago,” Mr. Wentworth informed me.

  “Were you with him?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes. He joined Jamieson, Melina, and me for the holidays.”

  The admission made me both relieved and jealous. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving since the divorce, I’d wondered where Dad was while Mom and I ate takeout Chinese or overcooked turkey. I felt better knowing Dad hadn’t spent the holidays alone, but hated that he’d chosen Jamieson’s family to be with. In fairness to him, he didn’t have many friends and he was the only person in his family still alive besides me. It seemed unfair somehow that, of all people, Jamieson Wentworth saw my father more than I did.