School Spirits

chapter 24

“Okay, please do not be alarmed by our yard situation,” Dex said as I followed him up the driveway. “Nana is a fearsome cook but a truly dreadful gardener. It is known.”

Dex exaggerated about a lot of things, but the state of his yard was not one of them. Even though it was late February and nothing was exactly blooming, every bush and blade of grass in Dex’s front yard was brown and crispy-looking. Even the pear tree looked in danger of keeling over.

But the house itself was pretty. Nicer than ours and a little bigger, there were cheerful yellow curtains in the windows, and when Dex opened the front door, I froze and took a deep breath.

I don’t know what heaven smells like, but if it doesn’t smell like freshly baked cookies, I will be really disappointed.

Seeing my rapturous expression, Dex grinned. “This way,” he said, tugging me into the kitchen.

A woman in a light blue sweater and a pair of what I’m pretty sure could be described as Mom Jeans—Nana Jeans?—was pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven as we walked in.

“Dex!” she cried happily. And then her eyes swung to me. They were the same bright blue as Dex’s, and they nearly matched her sweater. “And who is this?”

“Izzy, my Nana, Nana, my Izzy.”

I shot Dex a glare as his Nana put the tray of cookies on the counter. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed, flapping her hands. “Dexter, if you’re going to have company, especially such lovely company, you need to warn your Nana! I look a mess.”

She actually looked pretty nice, in my opinion. Her hair, like Dex’s, was black and curly, with only a few touches of gray at her temples. Glasses perched on the edge of her nose, fastened to a sparkly chain draped around her neck. As she reached out and enfolded me in a hug, I caught a whiff of vanilla and baby powder.

Basically, Dex’s Nana was the Perfect Grandmother. When she pulled away, she even patted my cheek. “Oh, aren’t you a pretty thing. Dex said you were, but it’s nice to see he didn’t exaggerate for once.”

My cheeks flamed at that, and next to me, Dex nudged my ribs. “If anything, I undersold her, didn’t I, Nana?”

She swatted at his arm. “Now, Dexter, you’re making her blush. Come on and grab a couple of cookies, and tell me all about yourself, Izzy. What a sweet name. Is that short for Isabelle?”

“Isolde,” I told her, scooping up a cookie from the tray. Dex sat down on a gingham-covered stool and patted the one next to him. I sat, taking a bit of my cookie. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more. I wondered if Dex’s Nana would consider adopting me.

“How pretty,” she said. She moved to the giant stainless steel fridge and pulled out a carton of milk. “Wasn’t there a famous story about an Isolde? Something beautiful and tragic?”

“Tristan and Isolde,” Dex said before I could answer. “And quite frankly, I’m hoping the romance of Dexter and Isolde ends up with a lower body count.”

Nana tittered, and I brushed stray crumbs of cookie from my mouth. “There is not a romance of Dexter and Isolde,” I said, but I caught myself smiling anyway. Then I remembered. Dex was not just some boy, and I was not just some girl sitting in his Nana’s kitchen, eating the most wonderful cookies ever created by woman. He was some kind of Prodigium, and I was here to find out what.

And even if there hadn’t been that, romance between me and Dex was totally out of the question. I tried to imagine taking him home to Mom, introducing him as my boyfriend. Brannick women were always very careful about the men they chose. They had the bloodline to think about, after all, which was why they tended to pick warriors. Soldiers, Navy SEALS. My grandfather had even been a Green Beret.

Whenever Mom had talked about Finley’s and my dad, the one word that always came up was “strong.” Dex couldn’t even jog around the football field without his asthma flaring up.

And it wasn’t just that. How would Mom react to a boy who was so purely…decorative? Sure, Dex had salted a grave, but he’d taken his nice coat off first.

I shook those thoughts off. They were unproductive and pointless. Instead, I smiled at Nana and said, “So you and Dex moved here from New York?” I thought as far as questions went, it was fairly harmless. But I didn’t miss the way Nana stiffened slightly. “We’ve lived a little bit of everywhere. And I’ve told Dex that the important thing is the future, not the past.”

She stroked his hair. “He’s here now, and that’s all that matters.”

Dex smiled at her, but there was something kind of puzzled about it. Maybe he thought her answer was as weird as I did, but it almost seemed like more than that. It was the same look Finn used to get when she couldn’t remember where she’d put her crossbow. (That happened a lot more often than it should have, if you asked me. You should always know where you’ve left deadly weapons.)

“Nana’s right,” Dex finally said, slapping a hand on the counter. “As Shakespeare said, ‘Don’t look back, you should never look back.’”

“That was a Don Henley song, dear, but it’s an excellent sentiment nonetheless,” Nana said, patting his hand. Weirdness passed, she smiled at me again. “Izzy, will you be staying for dinner?”

If the rest of her food was as good as her cookies, I’d be an idiot not to.

Dex answered for me. “She will be. And then we’re going to go out for a while, if that’s okay with you.

Nana’s face creased into a frown. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, sweetie? Your asthma has been so bad lately—”

But Dex just waved that off. “I’m fine. It’s the time of year or something. Asthma season. But I have my trusty inhaler”—he pulled it out of his coat pocket, shaking it—“and the Fair Isolde to protect me if need be.”

When Nana didn’t stop frowning, Dex dropped the act, leaning in closer to her. “I’ll be fine, Nana,” he said, his voice softer. He laid a hand over hers, and his bracelet caught the light. “You worry too much.”

She touched the silver links around his wrist. “I’m your grandmother,” she said. “It’s allowed.”

Watching them together made me smile, and started this kind of warm, blooming feeling in my chest. Not only was Dex cute and smart and funny, but he loved his Nana—

And that’s when something occurred to me. Dex’s Nana. She was related to him by blood. That meant if he was Prodigium, then so was she. That’s how that worked; there was no skipping generations, no freak human kid born to Prodigium parents.

There were no vibes coming off of Nana, and she’d hugged me. Touched my cheek. I hadn’t felt anything. Not even the slightest hint that she was Prodigium. Still, just to be sure, I leaned forward and said, “That’s a pretty ring.”

Just as I’d hoped, she pushed her hand toward me so that I could get a better look. As she did, I caught her fingers.

Nothing. Not even the slightest tingle.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said. “I got it from one of those home-shopping shows. You know, the ones that come on late at night and make silly old ladies like me spend more than they should.”

I laughed harder than necessary, trying to cover my confusion. Nana wasn’t Prodigium, so Dex couldn’t be one either. But if that was true, what the heck was I feeling? No matter what everyone kept saying, I knew that little hum of magic when I touched him wasn’t just hormones.

I turned my head and looked at him grinning at his Nana, his silver bracelet winking in the sun, his coat just impossibly, stupidly purple.

Or did I just want Dex to be Prodigium because the idea of liking him was a lot scarier?