Touch of Frost (Mythos Academy #1)(8)
Author: Jennifer Estep

Sometimes, I wondered why she was lying to me-when she never had before.

"Hey there, pumpkin," Grandma Frost said, dropping a kiss on top of my head and brushing my cheek with her knuckles. "How was school today?"

I closed my eyes, enjoying the soft warmth of her skin against mine. Because of my Gypsy gift, because of my psychometry magic, I had to be careful about touching other people or letting them touch me. While I got vivid enough vibes from objects, I could get major flashes, major whammies of feeling, from actually coming into contact with someone’s skin. Seriously. I could see everything that they’d ever done, every dirty little secret that they’d ever tried to hide-the good, the bad, and the seriously ugly.

Oh, I wasn’t like a complete leper when it came to other people. I was usually okay when it came to small, brief, casual touches, like passing a pen to someone in class or letting a girl’s fingers brush mine when we both reached for the same piece of cheesecake in the lunch line.

Plus, a lot of what I saw depended on the other person and what he was thinking about at the time. I was pretty safe in class, at lunch, or in the library, since mostly the other kids were thinking about how totally boring a certain lecture was or wondering why the dining hall was serving lasagna for like the hundredth time that month.

But I was still cautious, still careful, around other people, just the way that my mom had taught me to be. Despite the fact that part of me really liked my gift and the power it gave me to know other people’s secrets. Yeah, I was a little dark and twisted that way. But I’d learned a long time ago that even the nicest-seeming person could have the blackest, ugliest heart-like Paige Forrest’s stepdad. It was better to know what people were really like than to put your trust in someone who just wanted to hurt you in the end.

But there was nothing to be afraid of with Grandma Frost. She loved me, and I loved her. That’s what I felt every time she touched me-the softness of her love, like a fleece blanket wrapping around me and warming me from head to toe. My mom had felt the same way to me, before she’d died.

I opened my eyes and shrugged, answering Grandma’s question. "The same, more or less. I did make two hundred bucks by finding a bracelet. I put a hundred of it in the cookie jar, just like usual."

Grandma hadn’t wanted to take my money when I’d started giving it to her, but I’d insisted. Of course, she wasn’t actually spending any of it, like I wanted her to. Instead, Grandma put all the money that I gave her into a savings account for me-one that I wasn’t supposed to know about. But I’d touched her checkbook one day when I’d been looking through her purse for some gum and had flashed on her setting up the account. I hadn’t said anything to Grandma about it, though. I loved her too much to ruin her secret.

Grandma nodded, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a crisp hundred of her own. "I made a little money, too, today."

I raised my eyebrows. "You must have told her something good."

"Him," Grandma corrected. "I told him that he and his wife are going to be the proud parents of a baby girl by this time next year. They’ve been trying to have a baby for two years now, and he was starting to give up hope."

I nodded. It wasn’t as weird as it sounded. People came to Grandma Frost and asked her all sorts of things. If they should get married, if they were ever going to have kids, if their spouses were cheating on them, which numbers they should pick to win the lottery. Grandma never lied to anyone who came to her for a reading, no matter how hard the truth was to hear.

Sometimes, she was even able to help people-like really help them. Just last month, she’d told a woman not to go home after work but to spend the night with a friend instead. Turned out that the woman’s house had been broken into that night by a guy who was wanted for rape, among other things. The police had caught the man just as he was leaving her house, a knife in his hand. The woman had been so grateful that she’d brought all her friends over to get psychic readings.

Grandma Frost sat down in the chair opposite me and began pulling off some of her scarves. The fabric fluttered down to the table in colorful waves, the coins on the edges tinkling together. "You want me to make you something to eat, pumpkin? I’ve got an hour before my next appointment shows up."

"Nah, I had a sandwich. I’ve got to go back to the academy anyway," I said, getting to my feet, grabbing my bag, and looping it around my shoulder. "I’ve got to work my shift at the library tonight, and I have a report on the Greek gods that’s due next week."

The tuition was just as astronomically expensive as everything else was at Mythos, and we just weren’t rich enough to afford it-unless Grandma was holding out on me and hiding secret stacks of cash somewhere. She might be, given how vague and mysterious she’d been about me going to the academy in the first place. Either way, I had to work several hours in the library each week to help offset the cost of my stellar education and expensive room and board. At least, that’s what Nickamedes, the head librarian, claimed. I just thought he liked the free slave labor and bossing me around.

Grandma Frost stared at me, her violet eyes taking on an empty, glassy look. Something seemed to stir in the air around her, something old and watchful, something that I was familiar with.

"Well, you be careful," Grandma Frost murmured in the absent way that she always did whenever she was looking at something that only she could see.

I waited a few seconds, wondering if she’d tell me to look out for something specific, like a crack in the sidewalk that I might trip over or some books that might topple off a shelf at the library and brain me in the head. But Grandma didn’t say anything else, and, after a moment, her eyes focused once more. Sometimes her visions weren’t crystal clear but more like a general feeling that something good or bad was going to happen. Plus, it was hard for her to even have visions concerning family in the first place. The closer Grandma was to someone, the less objective about the person she was, and the more her feelings clouded her visions. Even if she had seen something, she’d only tell me the broad outlines, just in case her emotions were screwing up her psychic reception or making her see what she wanted to see-and not what might actually happen.

Besides, Grandma always said that she wanted me to make my own choices, my own decisions, and not be influenced by some nebulous thing that she saw, since sometimes her visions didn’t come true. People often zigged when Grandma had seen them zag in her visions.

This must have been one of those times, because she gave me a smile, patted my hand, and moved over to the fridge.

"Well, at least let me wrap you up some pumpkin roll to take back to the academy," she said.