Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,66
beginning of time. We have to give people their deepest desires. We’re tied to this book. If we don’t perform these Touches, all of them, Grandma says we’ll die. There are only five Touches left in this book. Once we finish with them, we’re done. We’re free.”
“Why doesn’t your grandmother do them and leave you out of it?”
“Because she’s dying, that’s why,” Taryn said, her face reddening. “She has pancreatic cancer, and the doctors gave her fewer than three months to live. That was two months ago. She needs to train me so that I know what to do in case she dies before the Touches have been used. If I’m not properly trained to carry out the Touches by the time she dies, I won’t be able to do them, and I’ll die, too.”
I just stared at her. “Wow. How did you guys ever get so lucky?”
“It was over two hundred years ago. Back in Hungary. Basically one of my ancestors pissed off a Gypsy. Supposedly my ancestor was a charlatan, and a very gifted actress. She used to go from place to place and promise she could perform miracles, but she used cheap parlor tricks and stuff to make people believe in her. Even so, she thrived. She was very successful at fooling everyone, and it was majorly cutting into this other woman’s—the real Gypsy’s—business. To exact revenge and prove who the real mystic was, the Gypsy placed this curse on her. She would have to perform these spells on people—her very life depended on it. Her last grandchild inherited the book, and that grandchild’s last grandchild, and then Grandma, and now me. And here we are.” She turned back to the book. “I really hate this,” she whispered. “Don’t think I don’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Well, maybe this will be a good one. Maybe this person will do amazing things with this Touch.”
“Maybe,” I said, thinking, Not possible. It was too volatile. There was too much room for bad things to happen. After all, how often do people say things they don’t mean? “Do you know who is getting it?”
She shook her head and hunched over the book for a minute, quiet, and I watched her, her blond hair pooling on the pages.
“Do you have to memorize it?”
“Yeah. Well, I can always refer to the book, but it’s tricky because it’s in Hungarian. If I say one syllable wrong, the Touch won’t work and both the person receiving the Touch and I will …” She cringed. “I don’t want to think about that right now. But anyway, that’s why I want you there. If anything happens, I’d hate to be alone.”
She didn’t have to complete the sentence. I knew what she meant. If she didn’t do it, she’d die. If she didn’t do it right, she’d die. Death was a pretty big part of the whole thing. For some reason, the thought comforted me. Like maybe I’d finally found someone with a curse worse than mine. “Your grandmother—”
“Not the same,” she muttered. “She would probably just stand over me and curse my stupidity in Hungarian.”
She studied the page, her brow furrowing and her lips moving slowly. Every once in a while some strange syllable came out of her mouth. Then she exhaled heavily and took another bite of pizza. “I am so not cut out for this. You know when we moved to Maine, I had it in my head I was going to be a veterinarian.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. Explained why she liked seagulls so much.
She nodded. “But my parents just patted my head and said, ‘That’s cute.’ I guess because all kids under ten want to be veterinarians.”
“I never wanted to be one,” I pointed out. But then again, I never wanted to be anything. I never had any plans for the future. I just wanted to be … normal.
“Okay, so you’re the only one. But really, I still wish I could be one. I love animals. And I really think I could be good at it.” She looked at the book in front of her. “Not this. I never wanted this.”
“Who would?”
“Well … I get the feeling my grandmother doesn’t mind doing it.”
“She’s probably just been doing it so long, it doesn’t bother her.” I leaned forward. There were four more red tabs sticking out from other pages. “Are the tabs the Touches that haven’t been used yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Not that many.”
“I know. Only five. And when I was saying that I didn’t have any