Miss Fortune

Chapter Eight

Alex paused in the doorway to her sister's room. Teddy was at her desk, her back to the door, as she tapped away on her laptop's keyboard. "Hey, Teddy?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

With a sigh, Teddy stopped typing and swung around to face her. "Yeah. What's up?"

As her sister's intense green eyes almost blazed through her, Alex decided that she and her oldest sister didn't really look all that much alike. Another shiver ran along her spine, steeling her to ask, "When did you know you'd been given the Sight?"

Teddy reached up to tighten her loose ebony ponytail and shrugged. "I don't know, Lex. I don't remember there being a time when I didn't have it." She narrowed her eyes, demanding, "Why?"

Alex came all the way into the room and closed the door behind her. Like Teddy herself, the room was perfect. Perfectly arranged for maximum space, perfectly neat and organized, the perfect shade of pale gray, with the shelves perfectly arranged. It was enough to make her roll her eyes as she sat down on the perfectly made bed with its perfectly creased pale orchid comforter. "Do you think Charlie and Syd were the same way?"

"Not Charlie. She didn't figure it out until she was about six. Syd? She was reading Dad's dollar bills when she was two. How do you think Mom knew where he'd been?"

"And did Dad have the gift?"

Teddy sighed, shaking her head. "No. Gram always said it was because it skipped a generation, but I think that was because she didn't want Dad to feel bad."

Alex didn't miss the hint of shine suddenly glinting in Teddy's eyes. It'd been thirteen years since their parents were killed in an accident on the Garden State Parkway, but she also felt the pang at the thought of them. "So you've always known?"

"Yeah. Why? What's going on, Alex?" Teddy slid easily into big-sister mode, crossing her arms over her chest and stared at her.

Alex recrossed her legs before saying, "I think I've got it, Teddy."

"What?"

Alex heard the disbelief in her sister's voice and immediately went on the defensive. "Why it that so hard to believe? I've got Preskova blood just like the three of you."

"Well, yeah, but that was as far as it ever went," Teddy replied, tossing her perfect-length bangs out of her eyes. "Since when?"

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach. She knew Teddy would scoff, knew she'd never believe that the one non-gifted Prescott wasn't so non-gifted after all. For as long as she could remember, Alex always felt different from her sisters, always felt like the outsider in her own home, though she'd learned years earlier to not let it bother her too badly. But now, Teddy was single-handedly bringing all of oddball feelings back in a raging torrent. "I know it sounds ludicrous, Teddy, but I've got it."

"It's not a cold, Lex." Teddy shook her head, a note of superiority creeping into her tone. "You don't just catch it and bam! You're a Seer. Either you're born with it, or not."

"Well, then I was just real slow to find it. I'm telling you, I've got something because there's a guy taking up residence in my bedroom who claims he was murdered six months ago and he needs me to help him."

Teddy slightly cocked one perfectly tweezed ebony brow. "Oh, really?"

Alex gritted her teeth at the smugness in those two words, her temper rising. "Yes, really," she sneered back, crossing her arms and glaring at her sister. Of course, what she really wanted to do was smack the perfect smirk off Teddy's perfect oval face, but that just wouldn't do right now. She needed her help, not to fight with her. "Frerin Durin. You graduated with his brother and—"