Touched - By Cyn Balog Page 0,88

and tell him to withdraw the curse on my family. He’ll have to listen. Flight of Song makes people do exactly what you say.”

She nodded. “All right,” she said. “Tonight.”

I went upstairs as Nan got ready to go out. I could smell the perfume she always wore and knew she was probably changing out of her cooking-grease-stained clothes so that she could head to the boardwalk. I knew she would do it; once she said she’d go ahead with something, she never went back. I just hoped it would work. In theory, it should have worked. For them, not for me. It was too late for me. I felt as good as dead. As if death would feel better.

“Nick?” a voice called to me in the darkness of the hallway.

“Yeah, Mom,” I said, turning into her room. I’d planned on going in there anyway. I hadn’t been inside her room in a while. She was propped against the headboard, paler and smaller than her usual pale and small. I’d never known a time when she looked right, but now something was especially wrong. “You okay? Can I get you anything?”

She shook her head and placed a hand on mine. “I know what has been happening,” she said, her voice weak.

“Well, you can see the future.” I started the joke I’d told her a hundred times, wondering how much she knew. I’d kept a lot from her. “So that doesn’t make you Einstein.”

She smiled a small, sad smile. “The funeral I saw … that girl? She was your girlfriend. I’m sorry we couldn’t … do something.”

I shrugged. It was once in a long line of times that this gift or curse or whatever it was had let me down in an epic way. But it really didn’t matter. Eventually, we’d all go. And maybe it was better that way. The world would probably be a better place without the two of us.

“And I know that we are going to die,” she said.

“We all die,” I said quickly, and then realized that she was saying she knew about the Touch. She knew we were going to die soon. “Did you have a vision?”

She shook her head and picked up the water glass next to her bed. “Did you know that if you put this to the floor, you can hear everything downstairs? I was listening when you, Nan, and your girlfriend were talking about it.”

I just stood there, startled. Mom usually lived in her own little world up here. She didn’t want to know anything that was going on outside, but it always invaded her space, anyway.

“What was her name? She seemed very nice.”

My tongue lolled in my mouth, almost like it didn’t want to form the word. “Taryn. And she was.”

She sighed. “I ruined that for you. Oh, my dear, how many things have I ruined for you?” she said, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t blame you for hating me.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said.

“Yes, you do.”

I started to argue again, to say no, no I didn’t, when in fact I did, just a little, but it didn’t matter because she was still my mom, and as much as I hated her, I loved her more. But suddenly she threw her shoulders forward and began to cough so violently it seemed her whole body would break apart. It reminded me so much of Taryn that I cringed and took a step back. Then I patted her back and helped her bring the straw in her water glass to her lips. She swallowed with a loud gulp and rubbed her temples. “The cycling is bad today.”

I hadn’t noticed. Every part of me ached with a brilliant, crushing pain. Especially my chest.

“You were always better at handling the pain. What was that thing you used to say?”

“Green elephant,” I said as she began coughing again. She brought a tissue to her mouth, and the bright crimson was a shock against the doughy white of her skin and everything else around her. I motioned to my neck. “Because of that necklace you used to wear.”

She coughed more, then reached behind her neck and pulled out a white string. It had blended with her shirt so, that I’d never seen it before. As she lifted the string she freed the green elephant from underneath her shirt. The black cord was gone and the white string she put in its place was longer, allowing the necklace to hide lower on her chest, which