Royal Arcanum (Book 1 of The Arcanum Revelation) [PREVIEW]

3. Immigration

The moving day finally came. Cathy had prepared everything she wanted to bring along, especially all of her favorite books.

Her dad would put this small house on sale. He left the furniture since he already bought the furnished apartment in Brooklyn.

A few hours before Cathy moved out from Bisbee, she visited Josh at his house. When she saw his grandma in the living room, she was so happily surprised. Grandma Martha was discharged from the hospital yesterday. Cathy got to say a proper goodbye with them both.

"Haile has told me about the plan. Good luck, Cathy! New York is a big place, just try not to get lost, honey..." Grandma Martha shouted out at her from the sofa. She was watching her favorite cooking show when Cathy just came. And then she shouted again to ask, "Oh... and Josh, have you told her about your scholarship yet?"

Cathy glanced at him wonderingly. But then she just remembered about the scholarship program from Bisbee High School, which he once enrolled in. She heard only two students would receive it.

Josh stroked his hair. He looked shy as he was about to tell her, "Well, yeah, you still remember the gym class, right? Before graduation, Couch Clark enrolled me in a baseball competition. I won. And with my good grades, lucky me, I received the scholarship."

"Oh, my God, that's really great, Josh!" She shouted happily for him. "That's good news. Have you applied for college anywhere?"

He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Nope. I haven't thought about it. But I will tell you as soon as I pass the application."

"Ah, Cathy, one more thing..." Grandma Martha looked at her while smiling sweetly. "Tell Haile and her little sister that I will miss them so much."

Her mom liked to visit Grandma Martha once in a while and shared some family stories. Although she never met Aunt Sarah in person, she had heard a lot about her and also about the mysterious Aloise family.

Cathy put a big smile in front of her and pretended she was okay with it. But actually, Cathy felt peeved that her mom could tell more things to a neighbor than to her own daughter. She was always wondering what the Aloise people looked like. She could only imagine them in her head. Her mom rarely talked about them in front of her. But probably, her mom only told the things that were not really important to Grandma Martha. She could only assume.

"And to your distant relative, of course," said Grandma Martha again. "Yesterday, when I got discharged from the hospital, Haile came with her. Oh, she's so lovely."

"Yeah, she practically looks like a walking crystal doll," Josh snapped. Subsequently, he walked closer to her and whispered, "You're right in that department, she looks kind of weird. Well, in a way."

Cathy immediately stared back confused at him. "What's in a way?"

"She's just..." Josh took a deep breath before telling her, "Do you know that your cousin is kind of psychic? Unless you told her about me."

"No..." Cathy narrowed her eyes and shook her head concurrently.

Josh chuckled and said, "She knows that I won the scholarship. And she knows that many girls adore me in school. I mean, I'm kind of the prince charming type, don't you think? She can guess it all perfectly."

Cathy rolled her eyes at him and replied, "Yeah, until the clique girls are crazy head over heels in love with you, but you selfishly ignore them."

"However, that's still weird, since your mom seems like the skeptical type, and yet, her relative is into the occultism stuff," Josh muttered bewilderingly. "I'm just saying, it's such a contrast."