Enchanted, A Paranormal Romance / Fantasy (Forever Charmed) (17 page)

“First of all, I didn’t drag any of us into this. It’s part of who we all are. And secondly, I couldn’t have told only part of the story, Dear. That would have been like a lie by omission. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right,” Nana declared.

“Well, how bad is it? What exactly did you tell her about us?” Mandy urged.

“Stop fretting, Mandy. It’s not like I took out a half page advertisement touting our powers,” Nana frowned. “Besides the whole story and truth, I just said that she was our ancestor and that her trait had fortunately been handed down through the generation. That the least we could hope for was that Mary’s talents wouldn’t have been for naught, or lost, and they aren’t. They haven’t been forgotten.”

“Nana!” Mandy wailed. “Do you have any idea what this is going to mean for me now?”

“Now, now, Deary, calm down. It’s not like I mentioned you particularly by name.”

“You didn’t have to, Nana. Everyone in town knows you, and everyone in town knows I’m your granddaughter. I’m done for. Forget fitting at my new school. I might as well just hang a cardboard sign around my neck …
$1 dollar for a picture with a sideshow freak
,” Mandy groaned. “When’s the article coming out anyway?”

“Well, it will be in three parts, Dear. The first part will be the history of Mary, her grave and all that. Then the following week will be the letters, and the truth. And finally, just a little feature on yours truly. Oh, and Doris is also going to try to get Lucas’s father to interview as well,” Nana said, blushing slightly. “It will be good for business, you know.”

“I thought this wasn’t an advertisement, Nana?! I’ll deal with that later. When? When does the first one come out?” Mandy pressed.

“Soon,” Nana said appearing to address the flowers.

“What do you mean by soon? Tomorrow? Next month? I need some sort of frame of reference to work with here, Nana,” Mandy said, clenching her hands into fists at her sides.

“Well, truth is, I’m not exactly sure, Dear. I do know that Doris only just began working on it, and then of course it will have to be edited and finalized before it can go to copy. And we won’t be mentioned until the final article,” Nana smiled sweetly at Mandy as if this somehow made everything better. Mandy took a deep breath in through her nose. This was still her Nana, she had to try to control herself for the day. She could freak out later.

“All right, I told Ally I’d be right out, I better get out there,” Mandy said, happy to end this conversation. She grabbed her apron off the hook. “But I’m not done talking about this, Nana. Maybe we can salvage this somehow.”

“Oh, good, Dear. I’m glad you’re not done talking about this. I thought perhaps we could start some lessons. You know, in healing and such?” Nana nodded to the flowers, practically bursting with giddiness at the mere thought of this.

She’s off her flipping rocker
, Mandy thought. “Um, yeah, maybe, Nana,” Mandy shot Nana a close mouthed smile, her eyebrows high and clearly saying “Yeah right” but Nana didn’t see. Nana was putting carnations into a somber looking bouquet, one fit for Mandy right about now. Because Mandy was sure this was going to be the end of her in a sense. The end at any chance of normalcy anyway.

* * *

Chapter 16

The rest of the day passed uneventfully for Mandy. Work was dead and she was glad for the quiet reprieve. Ally kept her nose in one celebrity gossip magazine after another, occasionally shooting out an “Oh my God, you have to come look at this picture of…” once in a while. Nana buzzed around her flowers happy as a honey bee all day, completely oblivious by the looks of it to the mass destruction that would surely shortly ensue. Mandy alternated between staring out the window and watching the clock. Eventually her shift ended. She walked out the door happy to be free to go home. Her parents were going out to dinner with a couple of friends and she would have the house to herself for the evening. Her mother had apologized profusely for leaving Mandy to her own means for the night. It was something they hardly ever did. Mandy had tried to reassure her mom that she didn’t mind, and yes, she really did enjoy the occasional frozen pizza. Yes, she knew how to use the oven.

Even so, Mandy found a note hanging on the refrigerator with a little ducky magnet holding it up. Scrawled in her mom’s messy handwriting were little reminders for Mandy: the pizza cooks at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes, but keep an eye on it, you don’t want to burn it…don’t stay up too late, you have school in the morning…dad has his cell phone on, if you need us don’t hesitate to call. Mandy pulled the note from the door to the fridge and crumpled it into a ball and threw it in the trash. It was like her mom forgot she was almost 18 sometimes.

Mandy turned the knob on the oven to 400, but then after a bout of obstinacy she turned it to 425, popped the little pizza in the oven and walked away without setting the kitchen timer for 18 minutes.
Hah
, she thought contentedly to herself. She walked to the living room and sat in one of the overstuffed floral chairs and found the remote to the TV. She flipped around through a bunch of junk until she began to smell the pizza.

Upon opening the oven door to peek in Mandy found the pizza that perfect delicious golden color. Her stomach rumbled. She realized she was starving. She slid the pizza onto a plate, grabbed a fork and knife, and took it to her room. Something else her mother would object to, Mandy was sure. She wolfed it down in a few minutes and put the plate on her desk with the utensils. She flopped back on her bed and looked at the clock next to her. It was only 6:30. She had to find something to do so she wouldn’t start thinking about the conversation with Nana and the inevitable doom that was headed her way. She was too restless to sleep. Mary Nasson’s old letters were flashing through Mandy’s mind, but she was only able to grasp snippets of them as they flew past in her muddled brain. Lavinia, Daniel O’Leary, Ophelia Jenks…Mandy stopped there. Ophelia. Her thoughts flashed back to that first week here when she had been wandering the town and had found herself at the psychic Ophelia.
Too weird
, thought Mandy.
Two Ophelia’s in one summer from two completely different times. I wonder
…Mandy didn’t even bother to finish the thought. She grabbed her car keys and headed into town, not bothering to lock the door to the house behind her just because her mother would have wanted her to.

Mandy parked the boat in a space towards the front of the lot, locking the doors behind her. She had an uneasy feeling for some reason. Probably because the last time she had come into town and talked to Ophelia, it had turned out to be exceedingly weird and creepy even. She braced herself for more strangeness and walked down the sidewalk towards the little hole in the wall psychic.

The sidewalks weren’t so congested with pedestrians at this time of the year. The summer was winding down and with it being a Sunday evening and the night before the first day of school, not many people were out and about. Mandy had been hoping for a way to scope things out unseen before actually confronting Ophelia, but with the street free of crowds, there wasn’t really a good way to do so. The only way she could think of accomplishing this was to start on the opposite side of the street from the little store front.

Mandy crossed the street before reaching Ophelia’s and entered a little store selling sunglasses and sunscreen.
Perfect
, she thought. There was a large display of sunglasses right in front of the big picture window that faced Ophelia’s. She would just try on a few pairs of sunglasses while surreptitiously keeping tabs on Ophelia. Mandy didn’t really understand why she felt the need to watch Ophelia before talking to her. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but she felt like it was the right thing to do.

Mandy twirled the rack holding the Ray-Bans around slowly, looking out of the corner of her eye at Ophelia’s. It was almost exactly the same scene as the last time she had visited. In fact, as far as Mandy could remember, it had always pretty much been the same scene. The only thing different at the moment was that that skeezy old guy was missing. Ophelia sat with her little dog, his leash extended as far as possible. He lay next to the sidewalk, muzzle on the cement, looking bored today instead of excited. Not too many people were walking by so he didn’t really have anything to sniff at or bark at.

Mandy took down a pair of tortoise shell rimmed glasses and tried them on. She made herself look up at her reflection in the little rectangle mirror on top of the display rack. She put on the glasses and everything turned to different shades of gray.
Of course
, Mandy thought sullenly.
More gray
. This is why she didn’t wear sunglasses, they took the color out of everything. Mandy pushed the glasses on top of her head, letting them pull back her hair gently and turned her head different ways, seeing how the glasses looked sitting there. Suddenly she caught sight of someone watching her in the mirror.

“Lookin’ good!” Lucas called with a big smile on his face.

Are you kidding?
Mandy thought. This was all she needed right now. If there was a god, he had one sick sense of humor. “Hi Lucas,” Mandy tried to act natural. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you, apparently. Looking for some new shades. Trying to start the school year off cool,” Lucas laughed. “What do you think? These?” He put on a streamlined black pair and mugged for Mandy. “Or these?” Now he tried on a small white pair with rectangular frames. He pretended to slick back his hair jokingly at Mandy like Joe Cool.

Mandy knew it was mean of her, but she said, “Oh definitely the white,” because she liked those ones the least. She smiled encouragingly at Lucas.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Lucas said. “Great minds think alike.”

Mandy gave a weak laugh. She put the tortoise shell pair she had been trying on back on the rack. “Well I better get going. School tomorrow, my parents will be wondering where I am,” she lied.

“Aren’t you going to get those glasses? They looked hot,” Lucas said.

“Nah, they’re not really my style,” Mandy said, hoping to be able to make a quick exit. She took a few steps backwards towards the exit. “Well, I guess I’ll see you…”

“Wait, Mandy. Can I talk to you for a sec?” Lucas asked. He looked serious. He put the white pair of sunglasses on the counter. “I’ll be back in one sec, dude. Is that all right?” he asked the young guy behind the counter.

“Whatever,” the guy shrugged his shoulders, not even bothering to look up from his comic book. He reached for his soda sitting there and took a long noisy swig from the straw, completely ignoring Lucas and Mandy.

“Lucas, first of all, I’m not really sure who I’m seeing, or not seeing, is your business. And I wasn’t aware there was an
us
,” Mandy had a feeling she wasn’t disguising the disgust in her voice very well.

“Don’t be like that Mandy,” Lucas said. “Didn’t you have fun when I took you out? It must have been more fun than that date with that Steve kid, if you can even call it a date.” Lucas smirked.

“Steve and I had tons of fun together, if you really want to know. And yes, I had fun with you, but let’s be honest Lucas. You and I aren’t really right for each other. I think you know that. You must see that,” Mandy tried to sound nicer this time.

Mandy sighed. “Our personalities are totally different, Lucas. You’re sparkling water and like prom date material. I’m soda and like anti-social bookworm. It would never work.”

“See ya,” Lucas said, turning back into the sunglasses shop. Mandy headed down the street towards the coffee shop. She couldn’t go directly over to Ophelia’s for fear that Lucas would see her. She didn’t want to have to deal with Lucas asking questions about what she was doing at Ophelia’s. She decided she would go into the coffee shop and order something. She’d sit and drink it for a bit and then go up to Ophelia’s when enough time had passed that she should be in the clear.

Mandy ordered a white hot chocolate and took a little table by the window. She sat there and drank the cocoa and stared out the window vacantly. She couldn’t believe the way this summer had turned out. She couldn’t believe it was over and the first day of school was tomorrow. She picked up the Styrofoam cup for a sip and had to tip it upside down to get out the last of it. She hadn’t realized she had drunk it all. She looked down at her watch. It was almost 8 o’clock. How long had she been sitting here? At least forty-five minutes. The stores would be packing up for the night in a few minutes. If she was going to go get some answers from Ophelia she was going to have to go now.

Mandy threw her cup out in the waste can by the door and stepped out into the cool evening air. The sun was sinking, giving everything a rosy golden glow. Mandy crossed the street and walked up towards Ophelia’s. She hadn’t thought this through very well, actually not at all. She didn’t even know what she was going to say.