Danika's Gift by Jayn Wilde Page A

declare someone was going to die.  That was all me.
    I sat on the window seat, looking at the beautiful rain garden just outside of the library.  Earlier in the year, a group of elementary students came and planted the garden.  They had even won a contest with their design.  It was really starting to look beautiful now.  I remembered the garden my mom and I created in our yard.  I stared at the birdhouse and wind chimes the children added to the garden and I drifted back in time for a moment.
    Mom and I built that birdhouse from scratch.  We modeled it after our own house and then painted it to match.  High up in that old oak tree, one family of birds came back year after year.  It was pretty amazing. The house was blue, a pretty blue, just like Celeste’s eyes.
    Celeste Monahan, dead at the age of twenty. Cause of death: accidental drowning. Predicted by none other than the infamous Danika Rodriguez. The girl that can see death coming but is helpless to stop it.
    I don’t know what I did wrong.  I didn’t know enough to help Mindy, when I was six.  I didn’t see enough to help Mom.  But, for once, I saw it and I said something…and nothing changed.  It still happened.  I wiped away the tears as I remembered that night at the party.  The night I turned eighteen was the worst night of my life.  I closed my eyes and saw everything as if it had just happened.
    “Dani!  Are you ok?”
    “Sam, what happened?”   I frantically felt all over my body for the crimson water.  Nothing.  I was bone dry and as I looked around me, I realized I was lying on the couch and a crowd of people were looking down at me.
    “You blacked out,” Sam’s face was scrunched with worry.
    “Is Celeste ok?”
    “Um, yeah.  Why?”  Sam didn’t understand.  Not at first.  Then, I could tell she realized what had happened.
    “Look, let’s deal with this right now.” Sam sat me up and led me into a small room. 
    The sorority sisters followed us, apparently interested in some tasty gossip.  They were practically salivating with big bright eyes, as they stared at me.  Except Celeste.
    Sam explained to her “sisters” that I had a gift and that I needed to explain something.  I felt all eyes on me, but I kept my focus on the ground.  I requested to speak to Celeste alone, but Queen…er, President Chelsea, wouldn’t allow it.  So, I told them what I saw and what I thought it meant.  It was a bit fuzzy for me, but the bottom line was that in the very, very near future, Celeste was going to die by drowning.
    At first, I thought they might believe me, their faces were shocked and no one said a word.   Then, Chelsea started laughing.  Tears streamed out of the sides of her eyes she was laughing so hard.  And, of course, her groupies followed along.  Even Celeste seemed slightly humored by what I had said.
    Twenty four hours later, the cops are at our door, asking me and Sam to come down to the police station for questioning.  I was a “person of interest” and Sam was a material witness or something like that.   I knew my gift was a curse; this just made it more real for me.  Of course, I was let go and the detective in charge told me to stick around for a few days.  That was after he heard my story and stared at me like I had grown a second head right before his very eyes.  But, I was working when Celeste drowned so they couldn’t hold me.
    A chair scuffed in the library, bringing me out of my daydream.  The kid moving the chair looked at me, his eyes wide as he went across the room and sat down.  It didn’t matter that I was never arrested and that I had an alibi, the kids at school still treated me like a freak.  Whether they though I was a liar or the grim reaper, either way, I was still a freak.  Part of me wanted to transfer away, but maybe I would wait until Sam graduated and then do that.  Not like Derek was coming back to school.  Nothing else to keep me there.
    So, I continued on