cars weren't al owed on campus during the week. But the most popular stores with the academy kids were the ones that sold wine, liquor, cigarettes, and condoms-and that wouldn't look too closely at your ID as long as you paid in cash, preferably hundreds.
I caught one of the afternoon buses that shuttled tourists down from Cypress Mountain to the city and back up again.
Twenty minutes later, I got off in a residential neighborhood ful of old, spacious homes, just a few streets over from downtown Ashevil e. I walked to the opposite end of the block, then hurried up the gray, concrete steps of a three-story house painted a light shade of lavender. A sign beside the front door read PSYCHIC
READINGS HERE. The brass plate looked a little dul , so I polished it up a bit with the edge of my jacket sleeve before I used my key to let myself inside.
"Back here, pumpkin."
I'd barely closed the front door behind me when my grandma's voice drifted down the hal way. I couldn't see her from where I was, but it sounded like she was in the kitchen.
Grandma Frost was a Gypsy, just like me, which meant that she also had a gift, that she had magic. In Grandma's case, she could see the future. In fact, that's how she made extra cash-by giving psychic readings here in her house.
People came from near and far to get Geraldine Frost to read their fortunes. But unlike some of the conmen out there, Grandma didn't lie to anyone about what she saw.
She always told people the truth, no matter how good, bad, or ugly it was.
I walked down the hal way and stepped into the kitchen.
With its white tile floors and sky blue wal s, the kitchen was a bright, cheery space and my favorite room in the whole house.
Grandma Frost stood in front of one of the counters, chopping up dried strawberries and dropping the ruby red pieces into a bowl of cookie dough. In addition to her psychic powers, Grandma also had some mad baking skil s. I breathed in and could practical y taste the dark chocolate, rich brown sugar, and bittersweet almond flavoring she'd already stirred into the batter.
Yum.
Grandma must have just finished tel ing her fortunes for the day because she was stil dressed in what she cal ed her "Gypsy gear"-a white silk blouse, black pants, black slippers with curled toes, and most important, lots and lots of colorful scarves. The gauzy layers of lilac, gray, and emerald fabric fluttered around her body, while the gleaming silver coins on the ends of the scarves jingled and jangled together in a merry way. She also had a scarf wrapped over her head, hiding her iron gray hair from sight.
Grandma had taken off the stacks of rings she usual y wore on her fingers. The silver bands clumped together in a smal patch of sunlight on the kitchen table, the jewels in them flashing and winking like faceted fireflies.
"You were expecting me," I said, slinging my messenger bag into a chair and eyeing the gooey batter with hungry interest. "Did you get a psychic flash that I was coming over?"
"Nah," Grandma Frost said, her violet eyes twinkling in her wrinkled face. "It's Wednesday. You always come to see me on Wednesdays, before you work your shift at the library. I finished a little early today, so I thought I'd make some cookies for you and Daphne."
I'd brought Daphne over and introduced the Valkyrie to my grandma a few weeks ago. The two of them had total y hit it off, thanks in part to the excel ent applesauce cake Grandma had made that day. Daphne didn't have a raging sweet tooth like Grandma and I did, but the cake had stil knocked off her pink argyle socks.
Now, every time I came over here, Grandma always sent me back to Mythos with a treat for both me and Daphne, usual y packed up in a tin shaped like a giant chocolate-chip cookie. The tin matched the cookie jar on the counter.
"So what's going on at school this week, pumpkin?"
Grandma asked, dividing the batter into smal , round bal s and then sliding the cookies into the oven so they could bake.
I sat down at the table. "Not much. Classes, homework, weapons training-the usual. Although Daphne keeps asking me to go with her to this thing cal ed the Winter Carnival. The Powers That Were at the academy are taking al the kids over to one of the ski resorts. There are supposed to be carnival games and parties and stuff al weekend long."
"Oh?" Grandma said. "I remember that from your mom's days at the academy. She always seemed to have a lot of fun on those trips."
I shrugged. "Maybe the carnival wil be fun, maybe not.
I'm not even sure yet if I'm going or not." Grandma looked over at me, but her violet eyes were suddenly blank and glassy, like she was seeing something very far away instead of just me sitting in her kitchen.
"Wel , I think you should go," she murmured in that odd, absentminded voice she used whenever she was staring at something only she could see. "Get away from the academy for a while."
She was having one of her visions. I sat there, stil and quiet, while something old, powerful, and watchful swirled in the air around us. Something familiar and almost comforting. Something that made me think of a certain goddess I'd met not too long ago.
After a few seconds, Grandma's eyes snapped back into focus, and she smiled at me once more. The moment and her vision had passed, and the ancient, invisible force that had been stirring in the air around her was gone.
Sometimes Grandma got al sorts of details when she had one of her visions, seeing the future with sharp, crystal clarity.
Sometimes, though, her psychic flashes were vague and hazy, and she only got a general sense that something good or bad was going to happen, but not exactly what it was. This must have been one of those vague and hazy times, because she didn't say anything else about why I should go to the Winter Carnival or what might take place once I got there. Besides, Grandma had always told me that she wanted me to make my own choices and chart my own destiny, instead of acting on a possible future that might never come to pass in the first place. That's why she rarely shared the specific things she saw whenever she had a vision about me.
Grandma sat down beside me at the kitchen table while we waited for the chocolate-strawberry cookies to bake.
"So, pumpkin, what are you on the trail of this week?" she asked, smiling. "Tracking down more lost cel phones and laptops for the other Mythos students?"
"Nah," I said. "Everyone's focused on the Winter Carnival.
Nobody's hired me to find anything for them this week." Cel phones, laptops, wal ets, purses, car keys, jewelry, discarded bras, and missing boxers-my psychometry magic helped me find al sorts of things that were lost, stolen, or otherwise missing. Of course, if the object wasn't where it was supposed to be, I couldn't actual y touch it, but people left vibes everywhere they went and on everything they handled. Usual y, al I had to do was run my fingers across a guy's desk or dig through a girl's purse to get an idea about where he'd last left his wal et or where she'd put down her cel phone. And if I didn't immediately flash on an item's location, then I kept touching that person's stuff until I did-or saw an image of who had swiped it. Most of the time, it was pretty easy for me to fol ow the trail of psychic bread crumbs to the missing item.