Painfully Ordinary Special Edition Read Online Free PDF

suddenly
sat upright. “Now the real crisis—what are we going to wear ?”
    We ended up
spending every day after school for the rest of the week at The Shops. We knew
we were going to have to wear jeans and tennis shoes, since the whole area
around the bridge is wooded and we have this aversion to bugs.
    Leah made it
clear we needed “really cute” shirts to make up for it. I was normally pretty conservative about my tops. I was what you could call
“blessed”, so I didn’t usually like tanks or halter
tops unless I had something to throw over them. Amazingly, I let Leah talk me
into a top that was a cross between a tank and a halter. The collar went all
the way around the back of my neck, like a halter, but it had a back to it,
like a tank. It was mostly black with a really cool teal pattern on it that reminded me of one of my mom’s Caddo Indian vases. Anyway,
Leah said the color really brought out my strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes.
    I went into
my bathroom, took off my makeup and stared in the
mirror as I brushed my teeth. What a day. Leah viewed shopping as an Olympic
event and I was exhausted.
    I fed Faffy,
plugged in my phone and climbed into bed. Unfortunately, after staring at the
ceiling for some time, determined I was still too wound up to sleep, so I
rolled over and switched on one of my mellow playlists on the radio. After a
few minutes, I fell into a restless sleep.
    ***
    The dream
started as it always did, but tonight the mysterious woman brought company.
    If she brought
any more people, I was going to need a bigger room. This situation was definitely
getting out of control.
    The second
woman had thick, black hair that hung to her shoulders. Her eyes were an
unusual blue--extremely bright, almost electric. They reminded me of the tide
pools we saw during our last vacation to Wailea in Maui. Her eyes narrowed and
darted around the room, constantly evaluating the situation before her, never
missing a detail. She stood with her feet shoulder-width apart and her arms
crossed over her chest – like a drill sergeant.
    A third
woman was dressed like the previous two, in a flowing white gown. She resembled
pictures of mom when she was younger, and they could easily
have been related . She had the same gorgeous, thick, strawberry-blonde
hair as mom, and me as well, as it hung like a
shimmering curtain down her back. Her eyes were a clear, bright green with a
mischievous twinkle. I liked her immediately.
    So strange,
yet they all seemed so familiar – as if I should know them. They weren’t
exactly frightening, but they filled me with such a sense of dread. The women
moved closer to my bed-- one on each side, and the third at the footboard.
    I was surrounded .
    I squeezed
my eyes shut and clutched the blanket to my face, chanting to myself, “Wake up,
wake up, wake up.”
    I cautiously
lowered the blanket and opened my eyes, but to my great frustration, they were
still there, and wearing almost identical amused expressions. The woman on each
side deferred to the red-haired woman at the foot of my bed and nodded. She
opened her mouth and spoke for the first time. Her voice had a graceful cadence
that sounded as though she was singing and I was mesmerized.
    “ My sioga íníon .” She
said to me, almost lovingly.
    I quickly
realized things were not what they appeared. I was awake. I had to be.
    What the
hell was going on?
    I stared at
her for a long time before I finally found my voice. “What does that mean? Who
are you?” I asked in a shaky voice.
    She tilted
her head to the side, letting her hair cascade over one slim shoulder. “My sioga íníon –my fairy daughter, it’s time
for you to awaken your potential. You have been sleeping too long.”
     
    I rolled my eyes.
Well, I’m sure glad she cleared that up. Sleeping too long? Me? She has to be kidding.
    The dark-haired
woman leaned forward, her electric blue eyes flashing. “You will be kal’enedral with your ves’tacha and the world will