So a few minutes later, I found myself stepping into the overly air-conditioned, overly Muzaked store, trailing behind my aunt.
I pushed the buggy for Aunt Jewel while she scanned the shelves of the Piggly Wiggly, occasionally squinting at the yellow legal pad she’d pulled out of her purse. She had just put a bunch of bananas in a little plastic baggie and laid it in the buggy when she said, “So David can see the future.”
“Shh!” I hissed, glancing around us. This time of day, the Pig was mostly deserted, but I still couldn’t be too careful. “Aunt Jewel, that is a private topic.”
But she tsked at me and lifted her glasses to her nose, the sparkly chain winking in the fluorescent lights. Over the sound system, Whitney Houston wailed about finding the greatest love of all inside herself.
I trailed Aunt Jewel into the coffee and cereal aisle. “Yes,” I said as quietly as I could.
“Hmm.” Aunt Jewel picked up a can of Cream of Wheat. “How far into the future?”
I stopped, startled. Weirdly, I’d never thought of that before. It wasn’t like David was seeing spaceships or intergalactic wars. “I don’t know,” I told her. “We never tried that much, I guess.”
Aunt Jewel took that in with a little nod before adding a package of coffee to her groceries, along with some nondairy creamer. “Okay. Well, how often does he see the future? And is it only his future, or yours, or everyone in the whole wide world’s? Because it seems to me that that would be a lot going on in one brain. I know that Stark boy is bright, but I’m not sure anyone’s mind could handle all that information.”
“That’s exactly what I thought!” I exclaimed, our buggy squeaking to a halt. “But apparently me trying to keep him from seeing too much means that I’m controlling or whatever, and—”
I broke off, aware that Aunt Jewel was watching me. “Oh yeah,” I added, a little sheepishly. “I, uh, I may have done some things to be sure he couldn’t have very strong visions. But it’s only because I was trying to keep him safe, which is supposed to be the whole point of this thing.”
Sighing, Aunt Jewel wrapped her fingers around the edge of the buggy and tugged it out of my grip, wheeling it in front of her. As she took the handle and steered us down the Asian and ethnic food aisle (which contained some ramen and spaghetti sauce), she glanced over at me. “Don’t fret, honey. It seems like you and David have taken on more responsibility than most children should.”
“We’re not children,” I insisted, but Aunt Jewel only laughed.
“Of course you are. You’re barely seventeen, and you still have a whole other year of school to get through. That makes you a child as far as I’m concerned.”
When she turned back to me, her blue eyes were soft and she smiled. “But then you’ll always be my baby, even when you’re forty years old with babies of your own.”
It was a sweet thing to say, but it still hit me squarely in the chest. Aunt Jewel must’ve seen it, because her smile faded. “Oh. Except you can’t have babies, can you? Not if you have to run around protecting David. Doesn’t exactly seem like a child-friendly environment.”
I shook my head, but it wasn’t like I’d thought much about all of that. I’d thought about college, sure, but that was as far as I’d let myself go. Thinking about all the other stuff—marriage, kids, a career—had been too hard. Too scary, too much. I wasn’t proud of the whole head-in-the-sand thing I’d been doing, but I hadn’t known what else to do.
When the buggy stopped this time, it was Aunt Jewel’s fault. She stopped there in front of a row of Chef Boyardee, frowning. “And David is your boyfriend now, but what if you break up? Or find someone else?”
I put a couple of jars of spaghetti sauce into the buggy. “We already broke up,” I told her. “But bringing someone else into this would be a disaster. It was hard enough dealing with Ryan and Mary Beth.” I thought again about Bee locked in Ryan’s arms in the closet, her lip gloss smeared on Ryan’s face. “Not that they’re an issue anymore, I guess.”
I’d told Aunt Jewel about Ryan’s powers, but I’d left out the part with him and Bee. I wasn’t quite ready to get into that just yet.
But now Aunt Jewel was frowning at me, her eyes bright over the tops of her glasses. “How did Ryan even get involved in all this?” she asked. “How did he get . . . powers or magic or whatever you want to call it?”
“Saylor passed them on to him after Brandon stabbed her,” I answered without thinking.
The box of pasta in Aunt Jewel’s hand tumbled to the floor, the container breaking open and penne spilling everywhere. But she didn’t even seem to see it. “Saylor Stark was murdered?”
Oh. Right.
A stock boy rounded the corner and, seeing the mess, jogged off, probably to get a broom. I scooped Aunt Jewel’s purse up out of the buggy and took her gently by the elbow.
“Maybe we should shop later.”
“Yes,” she said faintly, giving a nod. “M-maybe that’s for the best.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were at Miss Annemarie’s Tearoom, huddled in one of the corner tables and drinking chamomile. Aunt Jewel’s pot of tea was half empty by the time she took a shuddery breath and said, “All right, Miss Harper Jane. I take it back. You are not overthinking this. I don’t think anyone could overthink such a thing—goodness.”
Pressing a shaking hand to her lips, Aunt Jewel shook her head. “And you’ve been dealing with this all alone.”
“Not alone,” I told her as I poured us both another cup. “I have David and Ryan. And Bee. Bee knows.” I left it at that, rather than explaining Bee’s new Paladin powers and her kidnapping and sudden reappearance. Aunt Jewel had had enough shocks for one day. We could always get into that later if needed.
“But no adults,” she said, dumping a few sugar cubes into her cup. “And all of you running around, breaking up with each other, getting together, breaking up again, getting together with different people.”
I thought about telling her about Alexander, but since I still hadn’t made up my mind how to feel about that, I decided I could skip it for now. “I know, things are complicated, and the dating stuff probably doesn’t help.”