Enchanted, A Paranormal Romance / Fantasy (Forever Charmed) (19 page)

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Chapter 18

Mandy took a steaming hot shower, trying to clear the images of the dream from her head. It was so hot it almost scalding her. When she stepped out from the water to grab a towel her skin had a red tint to it from the heat. The dream was taking up so much space in her brain that she was having trouble wrapping her mind around the fact that it was the first day of school. The dreaded day had finally arrived. It would have been bad enough after a normal summer. Generally most kids returned to school reluctantly. But this was a new school, full of new people. She wouldn’t know where any of her classes were, which meant she would be forced to actually talk to some of the intimidating students to ask directions, or stumble around lost all day. She also had those stupid articles her grandmother had commissioned hanging over her head. Suddenly, she remembered she had a shred of hope. Stephen. Stephen was coming to pick her up. She wouldn’t be facing the horror of today alone at least.

Mandy hurriedly threw on some clothes and a few minutes later she was downstairs, sitting at the little round table in the kitchen, staring at the clock above the microwave and drumming her fingers nervously on the wood. 7:10. Twenty minutes to wait. Mandy supposed this must be how it felt to wait to be executed. At the same time she realized she might be slightly overreacting and slightly blowing things out of proportion. Still she let her imagination wander and her fingers fly. Her foot began accompanying the tuneless song her fingers were drumming on the table top…tap tap tap, faster and faster.

“Mandy!” Mandy’s mom exclaimed in a sharp voice. Mandy forced her foot and fingers to go limp. She made herself look away from the clock above the microwave. 7:12. She looked over at her mother, unable to process what had warranted the sharp tone.

“What?” Mandy asked innocently.

“You’re acting like you’re waiting to face a firing squad! It’s just school. Take a deep breath and calm down. I’m about to have a heart attack just watching you,” Mandy’s mom shook her head.

Mandy unwillingly sucked in a deep breath and blew it out of pursed lips. She turned to look out the window for about the tenth time and saw a familiar vehicle pull up. “My ride’s here…bye Mom!” Mandy grabbed her backpack and headed for the door.

“Mandy?” Mandy’s mom called behind her.

“Yeah?”

“Good luck. I know you’ll be fine,” Mandy’s mom smiled the way she had smiled at her on every first day of school since kindergarten. “Love you!”

“Love you too,” Mandy forced a quick smile at her mom and pulled the door shut behind her. She was at the door to Stephen’s minivan in a few steps. He opened it from inside.

“Hey…sorry I’m a little early,” Stephen began.

“No apologies needed. I was practically giving myself an ulcer in there from my anxiety attacks. I’m ready to go and get this over with,” Mandy said with a sigh.

They were almost to the school’s parking lot. Stephen eased slowly into a space. “I know I shouldn’t complain, cuz I’m lucky to have a car to drive and all, but I hate trying to park this thing!” Stephen said good-naturedly as he reversed and pulled forward again, trying to straighten the van out.

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Mandy said. “My car, well it’s a boat it’s so enormous,” Mandy said with a smile.

“Hey you brought your schedule right? We should see if we have any classes together.”

“Oh yeah. Hang on, it’s in here somewhere,” said Mandy, rummaging through the outside zippered pocket. She handed it over to Steve and he lined his schedule up parallel to hers and began scanning both papers.

“Figures,” Steve said. “Not even one class.”

Mandy groaned. “It would have been nice to have one familiar face in a class somewhere today.”

“It’s not going to be as bad as you think,” Stephen reassured Mandy. “I’ll walk you to your first class and if you want I’ll even come get you in between your classes all day too, that way you’re not alone.” He turned his schedule over and began copying down Mandy’s onto the back of the paper. He folded her schedule back into a little square and handed it back to her.

True to his word, Stephen took Mandy to her first class and was there within minutes of each bell ringing to escort her to all subsequent ones. He was like her own personal tour guide. Mandy tried to pay attention to the layout of the school and where her classes were so she wouldn’t have to rely on him every day. For the most part, she thought she had it down.

Remarkably, the kids weren’t such a nightmare as Mandy had feared. She got some curious looks, and a few introductions, but for the most part the kids acted like there was nothing special about her which is how she wanted it. Ally was in two of her classes, history and math. That was good because the history teacher seemed entirely too dull and she could always use an extra brain at math. Mandy recognized some other kids in a few of her other classes too. She saw Henry in gym, and Sami was in her English class. Even though she had only met her once a few weeks ago, she motioned Mandy over to sit with her. Altogether, Mandy couldn’t have asked for an easier first day of school thus far.

She spotted Lucas from a distance when she stopped at her locker before lunch. Apparently his own locker was only about 20 lockers away from hers. He looked over just in time to catch her staring. He waved, the white sunglasses from last night sitting goofily on top of his head. Mandy waved back and quickly averted her eyes. “He still likes you, you know,” Steve said quietly from her side.
Dang it
, Mandy had been hoping Steve hadn’t noticed that little exchange.

“We’re just friends, and he knows that,” Mandy said firmly. They walked into the cafeteria. It was painted a nauseating shade of green and the putrid smell of day old gravy and peas hung heavy in the air. She sat with Stephen and Ally and the others and was able to quietly join in the bubbly conversation surrounding her as she pleased. Stephen had been right. The scariest thing in the cafeteria was her tray of food. Salisbury steak, a spotted brown banana, and orange jello. At least she had been able to correctly identify it all. Before long, Mandy found herself packing up at the last bell. She had lived. One down, too many days to go to count. But the first of anything was always the worst. Now this first was behind her and she could move on, knowing what to expect of the days now. Tomorrow would be easier.

Stephen was outside her classroom waiting for her. He threw one hand up in the air in a shy wave. Mandy felt a big grin spread across her face. She almost felt giddy at seeing him, she assumed this was probably fueled by the fact that the school day was done at last. She threw her notebook and science book in her backpack along with all her other assignments and headed towards Stephen.

“Yeah, well, I guess I tend to overreact a little,” Mandy admitted. They were walking down the hall towards the exit. “Um, thanks a lot for today.”

“What do you mean?” Stephen asked, confused.

“You know, being my escort all day. I don’t know what I would have done without you. I definitely would have been lost all day. And that would have made my day a whole lot worse,” Mandy smiled.

“It was nothing. I had fun escorting you around,” Stephen smiled back at Mandy.

“Well to me it was something,” Mandy corrected.

“Well to me,
you’re
something,” Stephen answered quietly.

Mandy blushed and felt the grasshoppers back in her stomach. “Ditto,” she answered shyly. “Oh, hey, can we just stop for a second at my locker? I just want to grab my English book.”

“That’s fine. Starting the year off studiously?” Stephen teased. They were at Mandy’s locker now. She reached in her pocket for the little piece of paper she had written the combination on. She would have to work on memorizing that tonight. She unfolded it and began twirling the dial around to the right numbers.

“Yeah,” she answered as she spun. “I like to keep my grades up. I know, nerdy right?” Mandy shrugged apologetically. The combination clicked into place, and Mandy was able to slide the latch up and swing the door open.

“I like nerdy,” Stephen answered. He was standing with his back against the lockers, staring aimlessly at the other side of the hallway.

“What the…” Mandy muttered aloud without finishing her train of thought. Inside there was a single red rose. Mandy pulled it out, confused. “How’d this get in here?” she exclaimed.

Steve looked over and raised his eyebrows. “Secret admirer already?” he said, half a smile on his face. “You’re starting the year off with a bang.”

“No, seriously. How’d somebody even get this in here? And who would do that?” Mandy asked, taken aback.

“It’s not really that hard to break into these old lockers. If you do it once, you can do it to anybody’s. You just have to listen for the little clicks when you spin the dial. They tell you which numbers to stop on,” Steve replied.

“Oh, great, it’s good to know my stuff is secure,” Mandy joked. “Now if only I knew who had left this I could tell them I don’t like red roses.”

“I think I can guess who left that,” Steve said under his breath. He was staring down the lockers a bit. Mandy followed his gaze and landed on Lucas. His locker was open and he was piling stuff in it from his backpack. He shut the door with a slam and pulled his white shades down, without so much as glancing in their direction. “Grady! Hey, wait up, Man!” Lucas yelled at some kid further down the hall and took off after him.

“No. I’m telling you, I was very clear with Lucas about where we stood,” Mandy said. “Maybe somebody stuck it in the wrong locker.” Mandy suggested. She flung the flower into a huge trash can as they passed it. Steve opened his mouth to object, but Mandy cut him off saying, “What? I told you, I don’t like red roses.”

“More like you hate them?” Lucas said looking back at the trash can that had swallowed the bloom.

“Hate’s a strong word. It’s just that red roses are so stereotypical, you know? I like things outside of the box,” Mandy realized. “Hey, I like things outside the box!” she repeated, surprised to know this.

“Um, good?” Steve said, clearly unsure as to what the proper response was to this announcement. Mandy laughed and took his hand as they walked out of the school and to his van.

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Chapter 19

The school week started off smoothly and continued on in the same fashion. On Wednesday Mandy was scheduled to work at Enchanted Dew Drops and she found her shift couldn’t come fast enough. After her sudden realization the other day that she liked “things outside the box”, her path had suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious. Whereas before Mandy had not been at all sure what she wanted, she knew with certainty now. She wanted to embrace the past and learn the craft that was rightfully hers. She would be a healer, like her grandmother, like Mary Nasson. For Mary Nasson.

The dream Mandy had a few days ago had been horrific, but it had brought her to her senses. Before the dream Mandy had felt bad for Mary Nasson and her untimely and unjust fate. Feeling bad had been the extent of it though. In fact, not only had Mandy felt bad for Mary, she had felt bad for herself. Felt bad because she was stuck in this tangled web of weirdness and confusion, bad because she had been shoved into a category she never even knew existed, and even if she had, she most certainly would have never chosen for herself. She had tried to pretend it wasn’t real, that it didn’t exist. She had tried to shun it, to hide from it. But what Mandy realized is you can’t hide from the past. It has a way of seeking you out, a way of molding you, of integrating itself into your future.

The dream had made all of this clear. Mandy no longer felt bad for Mary. She wanted to avenge her, to make her proud of her, to carry on her work so that it wouldn’t be a death died in vain. Mandy was going to talk to her grandmother as soon as she got to work. She would tell her all of this, and apologize for being such a jackass about it before. And then she would ask, beg if she had to, for Nana to teach her all the mysterious secrets. Mandy would learn them, commit them to memory, and carry on with Mary’s work as best as she could. Mary didn’t die for nothing.

Mandy blew through the door to the flower shop about as quietly as a stray gale from a hurricane. The bells clanked loudly, jingling and bouncing off the glass pane. Ally looked up quickly from her magazine, startled. “Hey, Mand…” But Mandy had already blown past her, acknowledging her with a quick flick of her hand. Ally stared after her for a minute. “Weird,” Ally muttered as she lost herself in the Hollywood gossip.

Nana chuckled and raised her eyebrows at Mandy, apparently surprised by the sudden change of heart. “That’s ok, Dear. I know it was a lot to swallow, to consider. I knew you’d come around with time.” She went on to the next bunch of flowers with the water.