Kami Cursed (Dragon and Phoenix) Read Free Page A

uncomfortable.  I grabbed the sink to steady myself
as I stood on one foot to dry the other.  My dad had always teased me, saying sarcastically
that he should have named me Grace.  Man, he’d laugh his butt off now.
    There was a
commotion from outside the bathroom door and I could hear muffled voices.  One
of them was smooth like silk- the new Ryuu- and the other was probably my
father.  There was a third male voice that I couldn’t place.
    I pulled my clothes
on while they argued.  A sports bra, a t-shirt with a rhinestone rose, and some
stretchy, fitted jeans with narrow legs that felt all wrong.  None of the
clothes were familiar to me, and I wondered where they’d come from. 
    “There is just
no way this sort of thing could happen,” the stranger’s voice was saying.  “I
don’t want you to get your hopes up Mr. Callahan.”  His voice was dripping with
disapproval.
     Ryuu’s voice
was soft, but filled with anger and impatience.  “It’s her.  I’m telling you,
she’s woken up from the thing that was possessing her.”
    Dad laughed
nervously.  “She wasn’t possessed Ryuu.”  His voice was thin and he sounded
tired.
    “Even if she has
overcome whatever caused her to become unstable, we don’t know what kind of
mental state she’ll be in.”  The doctor said, in a tone that made me think he
had said this before, and that he thought they were both idiots.  “You won’t be
able to just take her home, Mr. Callahan.  People don’t spontaneously recover
from this sort of illness.”
    Tired of hiding,
I opened the door and stepped into the room.  They all stared at me.  Dad
rushed forward and took my hands.  Ryuu hung back.  He stood beside the guy in
the long white coat, but it was like there was a wall between them.
    “Kit, honey, do
you recognize daddy?”  My Dad looked terrible.  His eyes were red and his skin
looked kind of saggy.  He hadn’t shaved in a while, and he stank.
    “I…think so…”  My
eyes found Ryuu and he lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
    Dad pulled me
into his arms in a puff of fumes, then stepped back again, grasping my
shoulders.  “Look at her Doc,” he said excitedly.  “Look at how clear her eyes
are.”

Chapter 2
    “ Y ou really don’t
remember anything since that time with the book?” Ryuu asked once Dad had left
with the doctor.
    I shook my head,
looking down.  It was hard to look in his eyes.  He was my Ryuu, and not my
Ryuu at the same time.  “Well,” I said hesitantly, a misty memory tugging at my
brain, “there was something…but it’s really dumb.”
    I glanced at him
and he nodded encouragingly.  “What?  This is me you’re talking to.”
    I shrugged. 
“Well…there was this dream, but I only know it was a dream now.  At the time it
seemed so real.” 
    I pointed at the
vase on my desk.  “There was a whole field of flowers.  But they weren’t real
flowers, they were like that.”  Three intricately crafted paper flowers filled
the vase, each of them different, but all in vibrant shades of blue.
    Ryuu picked up a
flower and twirled it between his long fingers.  When had his hands gotten so
big?  I remembered when they felt small in mine- fragile.  When I’d protected
him from the bullies, and walked him home from school…
     “These?”  His
dark eyes watched my face intently.  I couldn’t handle those eyes just yet, so
I looked away.
    “Um…yeah.  They
were just like that- but there were so many- a whole field filled with them.  I
would walk through them and they made this swishing sound against my legs. 
Sometimes I laid down in them and looked up at the sky.” 
    I grinned.  “It
was purple, the sky I mean.  Purple with puffy pink clouds.”  It had been way
more girly than anything a tomboy like me would normally imagine.
    Ryuu smiled at
me.  “That’s good.  It sounds like a nice dream.”
    I frowned,
trying to remember.  “I think it was.  I loved the flowers.  I felt like