Child of Destiny by Annemarie Musawale - HTML preview

CHAPTER 11: IN WHICH A CHANGE OCCURS

“Hello, Evangeline here, how can I help you?”

“Hi Tata Evangeline, can I speak to Grammy please?”

“Mya, petite amie! How are you doing?”

“I’m good, how are you?”

“Great! The preparations are going really good. Will we be seeing you soon?”

“I’ll be down in October. Is Grammy close?”

“Yes, let me get her”. That peculiar silence that accompanied a hanging phone assailed her ears. She sighed resignedly, thinking that Tata Evangeline was a sweetheart but she talked too much and was rather scatterbrained. She’d probably forget to tell her grandmother that she had a phone call. Mya really needed to speak to her; not only did she need a friendly ear to help her work through everything that had happened recently but she also needed to find out about magic pools. There was something strange about that whole business and she wanted...

A loud honking startled her out of her thoughts. She pulled the phone cord as far as it would go so she could peep out of the living room windows that faced the front garden. Leo’s car was at the gate, and it was he who was hooting. She stared at it until she realised the flies were gathering outside her open mouth. Then she hung up the silent phone and went outside to see what he wanted.“Hi!” he shouted from the car, “is it safe?”

“Safe?” she called back, puzzled.

“For me to come in” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked, arms folded and legs akimbo. His brow furrowed as he said, “I thought I was your slave for the next two weeks?”

Her brows rose in surprise and she opened her mouth to say something, and then discovered that she had nothing to say.“It’s safe” she stated before turning around and walking back into the house. She wondered if she should try to call her grandmother again, but figured she would call back. If she got the message. Besides, she couldn’t exactly talk to her grandmother with one of the main subjects of the conversation hanging on every word. She couldn’t quite believe he came back after yesterday. Not that it had been so bad – in fact, she would have gone so far as to call it fun. A little embarrassing being caught spying on him, but he’d been cool about it, and they’d gone on that ride and she’d met his aunt...He’d seen her attic and not run away screaming. And afterwards they’d sat talking on the bar counter in the kitchen until their coffees were stone cold. The conversation had somehow managed to flow so easily and she’d hardly noticed the passing time. He was easy to talk to, when he wasn’t being a dick. But just because she’d enjoyed herself, didn’t mean he had, and she hadn’t assumed that he’d had the same kind of time she did. But here he was, back again. What, to make of it? The door slammed behind her and she whirled around to look at him.“So, what’s on the schedule today?” he asked.

“The roof’s leaking if you wanna try your hand at that” she replied, expecting him to turn around and leave.

“Okay, you got a ladder?” he asked

“Umm, yeah I think so. Not sure about how stable it is – we haven’t used it in a while. You might be better off free climbing over the porch. “He snorted and murmured, “Good thing I’m a tall guy then...” before heading out to the back porch. He examined the structure of the house from the wooden frame that surrounded the veranda to the pipe that snaked up the side of the house up to the roof. If he stretched his hand out to its full length, he could just touch the tip of the ceiling. It wouldn’t take much to pull himself up. She watched bemused as he climbed athletically up the porch frame then up the pipe and over the roof. He really was quite graceful; she had to give him that. His heavy footsteps tramped across the roof above her and it occurred to her that she hadn’t told him where the leak was. She wondered whether she should try shouting up at him or leave him to figure it out. With a mental shrug she decided to go try her grandmother again.

The phone rang and rang and she wondered if they’d all left the house. Just as she was about to give up, someone picked up.“Hello”, a male voice answered this time.

“Hello, may I speak with Matia please?” she asked in a whisper.

“Just one minute, I’ll get her for you.”

“Thank you” she said. She tapped her foot impatiently, keeping an ear out for a bump that would tell her that Leo was back on the ground.“Helloo”, her grandmother’s voice came down the line.

“Hi Grammy. How are you?” she replied with relief.

“What’s wrong honey?” her grandmother asked. She laughed shakily thinking fondly that she could never fool her grandmother.“I hardly know where to start” she replied a smile in her voice.

“Well, like the rabbit said in Alice in Wonderland, start at the beginning, go on till you reach the end, and then stop.”So she did. She told her grandmother everything. Considering that she felt like she had lived three lifetimes in the last three weeks, it didn’t take that long. Just talking about the whole thing gave her such relief that she didn’t really mind if her grandmother had anything useful to tell her about it all or not.“First honey, about the pool – you are probably right about that; this is the first pool I have ever heard about that appeared without being conjured by someone. Unless...was there a witch in the vicinity, or a warlock?”

“Not that I know of Grammy”, she replied

“We need to find out more about it. I’ll ask around here and get back to you. About this boy though...I’m not sure what is going on. You say he practically jumped you – twice. And now he’s repairing the roof? What do you think you are up to Mya?” her grandmother’s tone was concerned.

“I don’t think I’m up to anything. I was trying to help a friend, and next thing I know, I’m on the bed with her boyfriend on top of me. I don’t know what is going on Grammy. He kept coming back, and I just wanted to feel like I was in control of my life again. I wanted to feel safe again. “Mya told her.

“And do you?” she asked Mya was silent for a while and then said, “Sometimes...”

Leo did not mean to eavesdrop; he’d come back into the house to collect some tools and find out where exactly the leaks were and heard her talking. He hesitated in the doorway, wondering who she was talking to and then heard his name. She was telling someone about what had happened between them. He heard the name ‘Grammy’ and realised she was talking to her grandmother. He couldn’t believe she was sparing no detail in telling her what happened. Wasn’t the woman like 95? This seemed like a good way to give her a stroke if you asked him; not that anybody was...

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Other books in the series:

Between Death and Heaven: http://amzn.to/1mKIFua; http://bit.ly/BDAHiTunes;