Tricking Death

Chapter 1 - A Not-So Happy Birthday

If you asked me a few weeks ago how I imagined my Sweet Sixteen was going to go, I would have said it would have been a day filled with happiness, smiles, balloons, of course cake... All of the normal, happy birthday things. The things that you would expect. All of the things that should be involved with a celebration of life, of being brought onto this earth on whatever day your mom gave birth to you all those years ago. 

Instead, my lovely Sweet Sixteen came with a not-so-healthy helping of Death. 

I capitalized that for a reason. Death isn't just something that happens to people in unfortunate circumstances, like getting old or getting in a fatal accident. He's a person, as real as anyone else on this earth, though I'm not so sure I would go as far as to label him as flesh and blood. 

And I made him mad. 

But let me back up a little. Before I start launching into my story, there are some things that need to be explained. 

My name is Emily. I was fifteen, going on sixteen, raised by my mother and my aunts just like every other girl that came before me. 

We've got this freaky thing going on where every member of the family only ever has girls. Any men who do get brought into our cozy little group quickly end up leaving, since they usually can't handle what our family is really all about. The truth ends up being more than too much for someone to keep to themselves, so we usually don't end up telling them anyway. That might turn us all into some kind of derogatory slur towards women, but we've come to accept it. 

We're mediums, psychics, whatever you want to call us, whatever name happens to suit your mood. There's just one slight difference between us and all those kooky people you make fun of on TV, or see in the tiny little home-run businesses here and there: we actually do have powers. We aren't fakes; we just pretend that we're the typical frauds so we can use our special little gifts without drawing unwanted attention to ourselves in the process. Every family member gets her own unique way of looking into the future, or seeing the present for what it really is, along with a long set of rules to follow as far as what they can and can't do with their "gift". Sometimes it's just cruel to refer to them as such, but the fact that they come along on our birthdays just made the affectionate little name make sense. 

My immediate family, composed of my mother and her twin half-sisters and I, all live in a tiny, little apartment located above our own little store. Mom was hoping that once I actually got my powers that I would be a little more involved in the business instead of calling the whole thing "lame" at every possible opportunity. It's just hard to truly feel involved with something so cheesy and fake when you can't actually do the real thing yourself. Our place was only still around because of us giving real, useful information to customers on the regular, with the occasional false reading here and there to avoid suspicion. Selling the ridiculous good luck charms and all natural remedies helped to bring the cash flowing in, too. We weren't rich by any means, but we got by. 

In any other case, my mom probably would have been right about me being more excited to help out: I had been looking forward to my sixteenth birthday for years, ever since I found out about who our family was and what we could really do. I wanted nothing more than to find out what my own special gift was so I could start using it to my heart's content. 

It wasn't long before I would get to find out what exactly it was. 

"Em, get up," my mom was pounding on my bedroom door with enough force to wake the dead. "Your Great Aunt Serena is waiting for us, and I really don't think you want to be late!" 

I groaned and mushed my face into my pillow. "It's not like I'm going to get some lame power if we're late, Mom! Just let me sleep for a few more minutes."