Sunny and I had been eating my mother’s homemade cinnamon buns, sitting on a porch swing in the late-summer heat. The sky had been a dappled pink, with clouds casting irregular shadows across the ground. We sipped fresh lemonade, the flavor so tart my lips had puckered, and listened to the sound of cicadas humming, turning the air around us into a
living thing.
Fragments of this were taken from reality, which made the dream all the more potent. That swing probably still existed on my grandmother’s front porch in Kentucky. My mother might still bake those cinnamon buns. She always used too much icing, and it would drip off in rich, white blobs, turning my fingers into a sticky mess.
Maybe she’d stopped making them after Sunny and I were gone.
Whenever I remembered that dream, I felt a pang, thinking of the life my sister and I might have had if not for the stupid marks we’d been born with. I hadn’t even had a chance to imagine being something else because I’d known my whole life this was my fate.
In a way I hated that dream as much as I loved it.
This year, Seth was the one who wanted to show off, and he was going to use me to do it. What better way to prove how extraordinary he was than to use me as a lightning rod?
I had a headache just thinking about it.
The cab we’d caught at the Luxor pulled up to a small, private heliport, and Sawyer’s eyes had grown so wide I worried they might pop out of her head. “Are we going on a helicopter?”
“I’m afraid so.” I preferred to keep my feet on solid ground. It was part of the reason I never flew. If you didn’t go too high, there was a much smaller distance to fall.
“Amazing.”
Leo was eyeing the waiting helicopter with the same uneasy expression I probably wore. “I could just stay here.”
“You afraid of heights?” I teased, elbowing him in the ribs.
“I’m afraid of crashing and burning in a fiery husk of twisted metal at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” He glanced over at me, like he was waiting for me to mock him about his confession.
I wouldn’t dare.
Sawyer was already at the door to the helicopter, waiting to be given access. She danced from one foot to the other. “Do I get a headset?” she asked a man in sunglasses standing next to her.
“Sure.”
“Can I fly the chopper?”
“We don’t really call them choppers,” he told her. “And no.”
The balls on this kid.
A young redheaded man with a neatly trimmed beard emerged from the main terminal and jogged towards us, lifting his hand in a wave. He had the kind of smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, making me wary of him before he even had a chance to speak.
He was also carrying a clipboard, which generally meant he thought he was important, and that was usually not the kind of individual I got along with.
I didn’t respond well to authority.
“You must be Tallulah,” he declared, holding his hand out to me.
“I think there might have been other options on the short list, but Tallulah does seem to be what I got stuck with.”
His hand was limp and vaguely damp in mine, and he held the handshake one beat too long.
“I’m Teddy.” Of course he was. The name was too perfect not to be his. “And I’ve been assigned by the convention committee to be your liaison for this external public event.” He scribbled a note on the board, and when I craned my neck to see what he’d written, he hugged it against his chest.
“Sorry, a liaison?” I repeated.
Teddy nodded like a very enthusiastic puppy. “Yes, this was all cleared in advance with your temple. I spoke with the High Priestess Sidonie.” He pronounced her name Sid-ney, which wasn’t exactly wrong but lacked the appropriate French inflection that Sido used when she introduced herself. His version sounded flat and painfully American.
“The High Priestess failed to mention to me we needed a babysitter.” My fake polite tone couldn’t make the words sound friendly. Teddy’s smile faltered. I think he’d just realized this might not be as easy as he’d been led to believe.