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  The Delta Girls: Book Two

  Juliet Madison

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Juliet Madison

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition October 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-718-0

  Also by Juliet Madison

  The Delta Girls

  Sight

  To Julia Joyful Balanced Burdock (this will make sense in Chapter 21). For your friendship, insight, and breaking up my busy writing routine with copious cuppas, cocktails, and conversation.

  Chapter 1

  There’s nothing more unnerving than the sound of a scream. Not a “Holy crap, I’m kind of freaked out” scream or an “OMG! He asked for my number” scream, but a raw, guttural, “I’m going to die” scream. The scream I’d heard recently in a premonition, and the scream I’d hear any second now—for real—if I didn’t do something to stop it.

  The wind whipped at my face as I ran toward the cliff, air whooshing in and out of my lungs in time with my rapid strides. Up the hill—faster, faster—until I was sprinting at full speed. And then I saw her, a thin figure in the distance, appearing larger, clearer as I neared, her light brown hair flapping up and down behind her shoulders.

  “No!”

  She spun around, held her hand out as if to stop me. “Go away!” She turned back, her feet a few short, dangerous steps away from the cliff’s edge. The chaotic wind alone could knock her off.

  Panting, I arrived at the top of the hill. Before I could approach her and pull her back, she shoved her hand toward me again. “Come any closer and I’ll take you with me!”

  I put one hand on my chest as it ached and pounded. “Please—you don’t have to do this.” Desperation gripped my voice.

  I thought she would argue with me, but she didn’t. She simply stepped forward, once, then twice…

  Two Months Earlier

  “It’s time.” Savannah stood from the couch as though possessed.

  “Time for what?” I asked, peering up from my science homework.

  My sister looked at me with dark eyes of determination. I half expected her head to start turning around and spewing green vomit like in The Exorcist. “The letter, Serena. We have to open it. While Mom’s not here.”

  Dread bubbled up in my belly like a thick, putrid mixture in a witch’s cauldron. I gulped. I’m not ready for this. I stood, my homework toppling to the floor in a jumble of papers. “We should get Mom’s permission first.” I hated the idea of reading one of her private letters, almost as much as I hated the idea of remembering that our dad wasn’t here.

  “I think Savvy’s right. It is time.” Talia followed her to Mom’s bedroom.

  Great, the eldest and youngest in the family both agreed. The middle children never had any authority in decisions.

  “Can’t we at least wait till The Bachelor is finished on TV?” Sasha scrunched up her face in annoyance.

  “Yes, good idea!” I chirped.

  “Serena, you’re not even watching it,” said Tamara, heaving herself up from the couch and tossing an empty potato chip packet on the coffee table. “Might as well get it over with.” She sighed and walked off.

  Majority rules.

  It looked like they were going to do it with or without me. I walked with shaky legs to the hallway, and thought I could hear the theme music for Jaws. Lately, random songs would pop into my head at various times, songs that somehow related to the situation at hand. The worst thing was when it was a particularly crappy or annoying song and I couldn’t get it out of my head, humming it throughout the day (like the theme song for Sesame Street—sorry, Big Bird and friends—which had lodged in my mind after Mom asked me if I wanted bread rolls with or without sesame seeds). Then my sisters and friends would start humming whichever song I was afflicted with, and they too would be struck with the contagious disease that is an earworm—a song that, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get out of your head.

  Welcome to my world.

  I stood at the doorway to Mom’s bedroom. “Just let me know if it’s anything important. I don’t want to see it.” I glanced at the floor, glad that I didn’t share Savannah’s gift of sight, because then I might see killer sharks instead of only hearing the theme music. Then again, she only saw real stuff, as far as I knew. It was me whose imagination took off in multiple crazy directions, leading to the worst possible outcome every time and burdening me as the family worrywart and “sensitive one.”

  “Ad break. Quick, let’s do this.” Sasha pushed past me, a whiff of fruity body spray trailing after her, and sidled up next to Talia and Tamara. Savannah was already standing on tiptoes on the stool, pulling the old shoebox down from the top of the closet. She took the lid off and Sasha sucked in a sharp breath. “Whoa. I’d forgotten how strong that was.”

  The scent of stale potpourri met my nose, though obviously not as strongly as it did for Sasha, whose sense of smell had heightened ever since we had developed our abilities. They say smell is linked to our memories, and without it our past often fades away into a fuzzy, vague shadow. Well, tonight that would have been preferable. That wobbly, vulnerable part of me inside rippled with sadness as memories came rushing back.

  The night Mom first opened that shoebox and revealed her secret past as a psychic.

  The night we revealed to her that we were psychic in our own, fragmented way.

  And the night we found out for certain that Dad wasn’t coming back—the night Savannah saw his ghost.

  I clutched the front of my pajama top, twisting it into a knot. The sound of paper crinkling as Savannah opened the envelope was like paper cuts to my eardrums, but despite being overwhelmed by bad memories and my fear of the unknown, curiosity made me look up from the floor. Savannah sat on Mom’s bed and my sisters hunched around her, peering at the letter. I thought someone would read it out loud, Talia perhaps, but only silence floated up from the paper.

  Savannah’s expression changed first. Fast reader. Her furrowed brows of concentration and curiosity softened, as though she were made weak by what she’d read, then they morphed into steely realization and she straightened up. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked, turning to both sides to see our sisters.

  Talia nodded. Tamara covered her mouth. Sasha said, “Wow.”

  “Wow what?” I asked. “What are you thinking? What does it say?” I couldn’t stay in this safe but stalling place of Not Knowing. I walked to the bed, glancing at the envelope nearby, “My Darling Rose” handwritten on the front. Dad’s letter to Mom. She must have hidden it under the cardboard layer of the shoebox housing her psychic past for a reason.

  Savannah handed the letter to me and I took it with shaky hands. Seeing my dad’s handwriting sent more ripples of sadness rolling through my body. Although it hurt, I wished I could hear his voice reading the letter to me. But after nine years without hearing it, apart from a brief, muffled whisper during a vision just before his ghost appeared to Savannah, the sound of his voice was like one of those faded, vague shadows of a memory.

  My Darling Rose,

  Sometimes the written word is the best way to say what must be said.

 
; Every day I’m grateful for the love we’ve shared, my bella.

  An amazing, unique, unconventional luv.

  Never did I stop searching for you, my soul mate, and the day that we became husband and wife was the best day of my life.

  But as you would say: it was simply fab.

  On the off chance I’m ever unable to do what a father should do, look after our girls, my Rose, please promise to.

  Life will go on, as I know you will.

  Thank you for everything, from the bottom of my heart.

  David.

  I read it a second time to confirm my suspicions. “Dad knew his life was in danger,” I whispered. “It wasn’t some random tragedy.”

  Silence told me my sisters had thought the same thing.

  Savannah took the letter from me. “If we can tell this from reading the letter, then…”

  “Mom knows too,” Talia said.

  “But she doesn’t know that we know. Should we talk to her about it?” I asked. I hated keeping secrets. They ate away at your insides like a disease. They were worse than an earworm.

  Savannah folded the letter closed and put it back in the envelope. “But if she knows that we know that she knows that he knew, then she’ll know that we snooped.”

  “My brain hurts.” Sasha slumped on the bed with a sigh.

  “Look, let’s just sit on it for a while.” Talia put the envelope back in the box and stood on the stool to put it back where it came from. “There’s no need to bring it all up again with Mom. She’s still getting over what happened at the play; this will just make everything worse.”

  She was right. We had to think of Mom.

  “Yeah, let’s leave it for now,” Tamara said, walking to the doorway. “Who’s up for a cheese melt?” She disappeared into the hallway, toward the place she always went when she needed comfort.

  “I’ll have one.” I followed her, and Sasha returned to her spot on the couch to watch The Bachelor like nothing had happened.

  Life moved on, but heaviness now sat in the air. We knew more than we did yesterday. We knew more than Mom realized. But we were still no closer to knowing exactly what Dad had been in danger from, who was responsible, or why, and most important, where he had taken his last breath.

  Chapter 2

  “Take a breath, lovebirds.” Sasha glanced back at Savannah and Riley, who were dawdling along the side of the road on the way to school, doing more kissing than walking.

  I looked back at the dark-haired couple, just as Savannah sucked air in an exaggerated breath.

  “There, breath taken. Now, where were we?” My sister smiled at her boyfriend and he grasped the side of her face as he planted a kiss on her lips.

  I returned my gaze to the road in front of me, a weird feeling barging into my chest. I really liked Riley. After all, he helped save our mother’s life just over a month ago, and had kept the secret of The Delta Girls for even longer. And I was happy Savvy had a nice boyfriend, especially after all the challenges she’d been through in her sixteen and a half years. But seeing them together, in that way, it made me feel…I dunno. What was it? Embarrassed? Awkward? No. I took a deep breath and tried to exhale the murky sensation from my lungs. Damn. I knew what it was now.

  I was jealous.

  Not that I’d ever let her know. Or anyone, for that matter. Now that would be embarrassing. I picked up my pace, swinging my violin case with my eager strides, and walked ahead of the group with my chin held high. So what if I’d never had a boyfriend? So what if all my sisters had experienced some kind of romance and I hadn’t yet? I was still young; there was plenty of time.

  “In a hurry for science class?” Sasha called out.

  I turned briefly. “I’m not hurrying, I’m walking at my usual speed. You guys are all just slow.” I swished my head back around, my side ponytail resting its dark, smooth strands against the front of my shoulder like a fancy letter Q.

  “I’d walk faster, but…” I turned back again as Sasha drew her sentence out with a suggestive tip of her head to the side, her eyes wide.

  Oh, of course. Taylor Petrenko’s house. As we passed it, she slowed even more, but alas, she had not yet perfected the art of exact timing so as to happen to be walking by when he came out the door. He was probably already at school, allowing more time for flirting. Or still at home, flirting on Facebook with whoever happened to be online.

  “Sigh,” Sasha said. “One day, I’ll get here right on time. He’ll walk out and say, ‘Oh, hi, Sasha. Good timing, I was just about to walk to school. Since we’re both going in the same direction, how about we walk together?’ and I’ll say, ‘That would be great, did you do anything fun last night?’ and he’ll say, ‘Not much—I could do with some fun, though,’ and I’ll say, ‘Me too,’ and he’ll say, ‘Well, maybe we should do something fun together.’ Then he’ll smile at me and I’ll smile back and say, ‘Maybe we should. Tonight?’ And next thing you know we’ll be walking to school the same way as those two lovebirds.” She grinned and pointed her thumb behind her.

  I shook my head and looked ahead, where no love-obsessed people were in my field of vision.

  “Keep dreaming,” Tamara said.

  “And to be honest, he’s probably not the best guy to get involved with anyway,” Talia interjected. “Bit of an ego.”

  “Hey, don’t speak that way about my future husband,” Sasha chuckled.

  Not yet seventeen and she’s already talking husbands? I knew she was sort of joking, but I also knew she was sort of not. I sighed. Right now, I’d just be happy for someone who’s not female to ask for my number. That would be an achievement worthy of a celebration. I’d throw a “Congratulations, Your First Phone Number Exchange” party. Even if it was only in my mind and I was the only guest.

  Oh well, at least all this lovey-dovey talk was taking our minds off last night’s discovery. Until tonight, anyway. Tonight, we had agreed that we would connect—join hands and close our eyes, make ourselves receptive to any sensory predictions that might appear. We hadn’t done it for a while, and the last few times we did we hadn’t sensed anything much at all. Maybe our psychic ability with all five senses was wearing down? But nothing had changed when it came to our senses on a daily basis; my sense of hearing was still more acute than it had ever been, and the same went for my sisters and their particular senses. Now that we had read Dad’s letter, maybe something would show up in a vision. For now, it was time to switch the focus to a day of learning, which for me was actually kind of fun. My brain thrived on stimulation, and not just as a distraction mechanism. I loved finding out how things worked, understanding the reasons behind things, and discovering new ways of thinking. Savannah loved this too—not learning, but the fact that I loved learning, because it meant she could get me to help her out with homework.

  We arrived at school and went to our respective classes when the bell rang. And yes, though I hadn’t been rushing that much, I was looking forward to science class. Mr. Jenkins stood calm and smart at the front of the room, as he always did, as though even a wild wind would not knock him down. Though Mr. Jenkins was a slim guy, his limbs seemed strong. He’d lost his wife suddenly; maybe some of his strength derived from that. Maybe that was why he’d been getting along well with Mom. Apart from the fact that he’d assisted Riley and Savannah in saving Mom’s life, he probably understood some of what she had gone through with Dad. If she’d even told him about our father’s disappearance.

  I sat with Savannah, and Lara, whose fingernails were painted varying shades of blue and purple. They looked like the ocean at dusk—ripples of dark purple interspersed with vibrant iris-colored waves, like the flowers that grew in the garden of the house overlooking the harbor. Lara said hello but didn’t look at me, and lined up her pens neatly as she always did. Savannah leaned back in her chair and sighed as she always did. I sat up straight and waited eagerly for the class to begin.

  Mr. Jenkins checked off the roll, then projected some notes onto the whi
teboard through his computer. I thought I could hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D Minor floating softly in the air, but maybe that was because I sometimes listened to it when I did my science homework, and my brain had made the association.

  My mind lit up like a Christmas tree at the words on the screen, while I was sure whatever light was in Savannah’s mind had fizzled.

  Science Project. 15% of final end-of-year grade.

  Oh yes, a nice meaty project to sink my teeth into. Lara wrote the words from the screen into a new page of her notebook.

  “This project will be done in groups of three,” said Mr. Jenkins. “So for those of you already in a table of three, that can be your group, and those on double tables, I’ll allocate you into groups.”

  I glanced at Savannah, who pumped her fist in the air as if to say, “Yee-hah, two smartypants are in my group. Easy A for me.” But Lara squirmed in her chair. Then she raised her hand.

  “Yes, Lara?”

  “I’d like to be in a group with my brother.”

  I turned around to where her twin, Damon Jameson, sat a couple of rows behind us. He raised his eyebrows, and scratched his head of light brown, scruffy hair.

  “It would be more convenient for us, because of our special situation.”

  Special situation? What was she talking about?

  “And our group can work on the project after school at our home where we have ample space and materials conducive to study. It makes sense for Damon and me to be in the same group.”

  A girl somewhere up the back huffed, as though she were either making fun of the quirky Lara or annoyed that she dared ask for special treatment.

  Mr. Jenkins cast a cautionary glance at the girl, then scrutinized Lara. “Very well, if that would make things easier. You and Damon can be in the same group, and…” He looked around. “Serena.” I glanced at Lara but she simply wrote down our names in her notebook, even her own name. “Savannah, you can join Mandy and Samantha.”