Jennifer Estep Bundle by Jennifer Estep Page B

to give up hope.”
    I nodded. It wasn’t as weird as it sounded. People came to Grandma Frost and asked her all sorts of things. If they should get married, if they were ever going to have kids, if their spouses were cheating on them, which numbers they should pick to win the lottery. Grandma never lied to anyone who came to her for a reading, no matter how hard the truth was to hear.
    Sometimes, she was even able to help people—like really help them. Just last month, she’d told a woman not to go home after work but to spend the night with a friend instead. Turned out that the woman’s house had been broken into that night by a guy who was wanted for rape, among other things. The police had caught the man just as he was leaving her house, a knife in his hand. The woman had been so grateful that she’d brought all her friends over to get psychic readings.
    Grandma Frost sat down in the chair opposite me and began pulling off some of her scarves. The fabric fluttered down to the table in colorful waves, the coins on the edges tinkling together. “You want me to make you something to eat, pumpkin? I’ve got an hour before my next appointment shows up.”
    â€œNah, I had a sandwich. I’ve got to go back to the academy anyway,” I said, getting to my feet, grabbing my bag, and looping it around my shoulder. “I’ve got to work my shift at the library tonight, and I have a report on the Greek gods that’s due next week.”
    The tuition was just as astronomically expensive as everything else was at Mythos, and we just weren’t rich enough to afford it—unless Grandma was holding out on me and hiding secret stacks of cash somewhere. She might be, given how vague and mysterious she’d been about me going to the academy in the first place. Either way, I had to work several hours in the library each week to help offset the cost of my stellar education and expensive room and board. At least, that’s what Nickamedes, the head librarian, claimed. I just thought he liked the free slave labor and bossing me around.
    Grandma Frost stared at me, her violet eyes taking on an empty, glassy look. Something seemed to stir in the air around her, something old and watchful, something that I was familiar with.
    â€œWell, you be careful,” Grandma Frost murmured in the absent way that she always did whenever she was looking at something that only she could see.
    I waited a few seconds, wondering if she’d tell me to look out for something specific, like a crack in the sidewalk that I might trip over or some books that might topple off a shelf at the library and brain me in the head. But Grandma didn’t say anything else, and, after a moment, her eyes focused once more. Sometimes her visions weren’t crystal clear but more like a general feeling that something good or bad was going to happen. Plus, it was hard for her to even have visions concerning family in the first place. The closer Grandma was to someone, the less objective about the person she was, and the more her feelings clouded her visions. Even if she had seen something, she’d only tell me the broad outlines, just in case her emotions were screwing up her psychic reception or making her see what she wanted to see—and not what might actually happen.
    Besides, Grandma always said that she wanted me to make my own choices, my own decisions, and not be influenced by some nebulous thing that she saw, since sometimes her visions didn’t come true. People often zigged when Grandma had seen them zag in her visions.
    This must have been one of those times, because she gave me a smile, patted my hand, and moved over to the fridge.
    â€œWell, at least let me wrap you up some pumpkin roll to take back to the academy,” she said.
    I stood there and watched Grandma Frost bustle around the kitchen. I wasn’t psychic, not like she was. I couldn’t see things without touching them, and I