Becoming Indigo Read online

  Praise for Becoming Indigo

  “Indigo has left home and spread her wings, and she’s now developing her intuitive gifts. This wonderful story is packed with twists and turns that will have you tearing through the pages. It’s one of those books you can’t stop reading—but that you don’t want to end. A great addition to the Indigo series. Can’t wait for the next one!”

  — David Michie, author of The Dalai Lama’s Cat

  “Captivating! An evocative glimpse into a very different kind of coming-of-age story. Becoming Indigo is a compelling page turner that will leave any reader wanting more.”

  — Jordan Dane, critically acclaimed and best-selling author of Indigo Awakening

  “Becoming Indigo is a delicious mix of gritty realism and mystical elements guaranteed to keep readers flipping pages to see what will happen next! This fast-paced novel will appeal to a wide variety of readers. Both contemporary and paranormal readers will have elements to love!”

  — Janet Gurtler, author of the

  RITA Award finalist I’m Not Her

  “This fascinating sequel to Through Indigo’s Eyes takes us deeper into mysterious realms, leading us through the dark maze of the unknown and into the light. Indie takes us with her as she explores love, sex, the meaning of true friendship, and a hidden destiny she must claim as her own. Page-turning excitement that will leave you wanting more!”

  — Jacqueline Guest, international award-winning author of 17 books for young people

  Copyright © 2013 by Tara Taylor and Lorna Schultz Nicholson

  Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com® • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Cover design: Charles McStravick • Interior design: Riann Bender

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, or persons living or deceased, is strictly coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Taylor, Tara

  Becoming indigo / Tara Taylor & Lorna Schultz Nicholson. — 1st edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-4019-3530-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  I. Schultz Nicholson, Lorna. II. Title.

  PS3620.A97546B43 2013

  813’.6—dc23

  2013000664

  Tradepaper ISBN: 978-1-4019-3530-6

  16 15 14 13 4 3 2 1

  1st edition, July 2013

  Printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Two

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Three

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  Questions and Answers

  About the Authors

  Part One

  Chapter One

  July 1998

  The sound of water running woke me up.

  Tangled, sweaty hair was stuck to my face, so I pushed it away. Who’d left the tap running? This was crazy. I needed sleep—big time. Light from the outside streetlight shone through the open window, and I covered my eyes for a second. We definitely needed a curtain on that window, but more than that, we needed air-conditioning or a fan. I pulled my T-shirt away from my body, hoping that would cool me off a bit.

  What time was it, anyway?

  The red lights on my clock radio said 4:30 A.M. I groaned; I had to work at nine. I rolled out of bed and stepped over shirts and pants and high-heeled shoes to get to the kitchen. Water was flowing full blast from the tap, and it sounded like it was splashing against the metal sink and onto the kitchen counters. In the dark, I stumbled to the sink and quickly shut off the tap. Then I stood there for a second before I decided to turn the cold water back on because I was so parched that I needed a drink. I took the one clean glass from the cupboard, filled it up, and gulped the water down. Then I put the glass in the sink with the other, now wet, dirty dishes. Sarah was supposed to do them—it was her turn—but she must have forgotten or gotten too busy. Between the three of us, they did manage to get done at least a few times a week.

  I would do them in the morning before I left for my crappy job. Just thinking of another day at work almost made me puke. I leaned my butt against the kitchen counter and stood for a few minutes listening to the white noise: the refrigerator humming, the kitchen clock ticking, the gentle buzzing of night life. The sounds all blended and made me feel as if I were listening to a soft ballad. White noise had a calming effect on me. Too bad an air conditioner couldn’t be added to the band. It would fit right in. I pulled at my T-shirt again, to get it off my skin and cool me down.

  Then I heard a door slam.

  I jumped at the sound. My heart picked up its pace, and all my senses kicked into high gear. Was it the front door? Was someone coming into our apartment?

  I had to stay quiet. I sucked in a deep breath, held the air in my lungs, and stood ramrod straight.

  We had all gone to bed around midnight, so I knew Sarah and Natalie were asleep. Unless they had gone out for a smoke … but … in the middle of the night? Besides, they wouldn’t slam the door coming back in, and there was certainly no wind to push it shut. I grabbed a frying pan from the sink and tuned my hearing toward where I thought the sound had come from, which was the front door.

  But I heard only white noise. No creaking. No footsteps. No anything. Just white noise and my own breath, which was now coming out in staggered rasps because I had held it in for too long. I lowered the arm holding the pan, letting my shoulders sag and consciously slowing my breathing, allowing it to return to normal.

  I stayed in the kitchen for a few more minutes, leaning against the counter, waiting, listening for another slam, and when I was absolutely positive that I had imagined the noise, I knew I had to go back to bed. With the frying pan still in my hand, I tiptoed across the linoleum floor.

  No matter how much things had changed since high school, I still felt like I had some weird disorder. I really wasn’t normal. Was I being told something? Was I being warned? Did we need to buy a deadbolt for our door? Was that what this was all about?

  Or was I just imagining everything?

  This is not your imagination. His voice spoke in my head; he always came to soothe me and reassure me that these abilities that I had to see and hear and feel were okay.

  “Really?” I whispered. “Then why am I hearing noises?”

  Once I
had scanned the hallway and found it empty, I padded down the hall and back to my bedroom. “It was nothing. Nothing at all,” I whispered to myself.

  The noises had to be all in my head, because there was obviously no one in the apartment but the three of us. After placing the frying pan on the floor beside my bed, I quietly lay down on my back and stared wide-eyed into space. I tried to suck in some air, but it was so stagnant that I felt I was being suffocated with a pillow. Again, I pinched my T-shirt away from my body, flapping it back and forth. The sticky, humid air hung around the apartment like an unwanted guest. When a heat wave hit Ottawa in the summer months, the air seeped with moisture, air conditioners ran full tilt, and everyone across the entire city complained. Newspaper headlines shouted it out in big, bold, black letters: NO LETUP IN SIGHT.

  The television news coverage talked nonstop about how hot it was and where the warm front was coming from and how the moisture was building. Then they would tell old people to stay inside and parents not to let their little ones out. Find indoor activities, they would recommend. Pools and recreation centers were jammed to capacity, as were the lake beaches in the Ottawa Valley, because people didn’t listen to the news reporters when there was a beach in sight. Businesspeople literally ran from their cars to the shelter of their air-conditioned buildings.

  As I lay on my sheet, I wished I could jump in a lake or a fountain, or take shelter in a deep freeze somewhere. Or at least be in an air-conditioned apartment. But no, I had to be in a hot, stuffy room, awake in the middle of the night, with too many thoughts blasting through my brain.

  I would have to buy a deadbolt tomorrow.

  With that thought solved, my mind started bouncing, thinking about other things, like my life. What the heck was I going to do? This thought seemed to appear all the time, and it made me uncomfortable. Sure, I’d moved out of my parents’ house and was living in an old, run-down apartment in the Glebe, and it was fun because it was summer.

  But … then what?

  I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—stay at my job for any longer than I had to. I hated it more than I had hated anything in my life. For now, it paid the rent, but that was all it was good for. I needed to find another job, and I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. So many kids my age knew exactly what university or college to go to. After my split with John, that unrealistic dream of living in England (yes, it was totally unrealistic, I realized now) was gone, and I had nothing. Nothing. I hadn’t applied to any universities, because I had no idea what courses to enroll in.

  John. My chest still constricted when I thought of what we’d had and how close we’d been, or how close I thought we’d been. I hadn’t dated anyone since him, and I figured it was better to live a carefree single summer life, or at least that’s what Sarah had convinced me to do. Our apartment motto was “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

  You have unfinished business with him.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  Yeah. And you never told him how his father died. And you know how it happened.

  “Stop,” I whispered to myself. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the mean voice that spoke to me.

  I had to forget about John. And what I saw. And I had to forget about the voices.

  I needed sleep.

  If a girl wanted to have fun, she had to have money, so she had to work, which meant she needed to sleep.

  Slam!

  My eyes popped open, and I stared at the stucco ceiling that was supposed to be white but was really stained yellow. I didn’t move a muscle. I just lay there, arms by my sides, listening.

  Through the white noise, I thought I could hear the faint sound of someone singing a mournful lullaby.

  Sadness seeped through my veins. My head pounded, right at the temples. I wanted a pain reliever to make the throbbing stop. But I couldn’t move. Not even to put my hand down to reach for the frying pan. But I did know it was there. I did.

  The old brick apartment building we lived in was constructed in the early 1900s and was probably once some rich family’s residence. The landlord had converted it into apartments, adding kitchens to a few rooms. We were up on the third floor, and there were three other tenants. I knew old places came with noises, but this sounded different, like nothing I had heard before. It wasn’t footsteps from the middle-aged Southern woman who practiced her clogging in the morning because she worked at night as a nurse, or the screeching sound of the man playing his accordion during the week because he was a banker by day and in a polka band on the weekend, or the blaring television of the elderly man across the hall who wore a hearing aid. No, this was definitely different. The mournful sound made my throat catch, and I gasped.

  A wash of cold air circled my body, and my skin erupted in goose bumps, which was totally nuts. You didn’t shiver in a heat wave unless you were dehydrated and ill. I didn’t cross my arms over my chest, because I didn’t dare move.

  The wailing stopped.

  Slam, slam, slam, slam …

  My entire body tensed. I felt as if I were being watched by someone. I touched the frying pan on the floor.

  Was I being watched? I grabbed my top sheet, which I had thrown onto the floor, and wrapped it around me. The cotton stuck to my skin.

  Then the slamming just stopped.

  And I could hear insects buzzing outside.

  Hot air once again bathed my skin, and I felt clammy and gooey and gross and disgusting. My hair stuck to my cheeks. My T-shirt stuck to my body. My skin stuck to the sheets.

  Clutching my top sheet in my fists, I rolled over and closed my eyes.

  “Who left the tap on last night?” I asked when I entered the kitchen a few hours later, feeling like a bag of trash.

  Natalie took one look at me and started laughing. Then she took a clean mug from the drying rack and filled it with coffee. “Lahrd Jesus, as my grandma would say. You need this ’ere cuppa.”

  I took the steaming mug of coffee and wrapped my hands around it. “Thanks.”

  Natalie was Sarah’s friend from Newfoundland. Why I was surrounded by Newfoundlanders, I wasn’t sure, but Natalie was nothing like John. Bright, bubbly, and caring, she took everything in stride, and never judged, and never talked like she knew everything. And she had the cutest accent, which made Sarah and me howl with laughter, especially when she mimicked her grandmother.

  All in all, she had been a well-packaged gift, complete with a ribbon and bow. Natalie had arrived in Ottawa at the perfect time. When Sarah and I made the definite decision to move out from under our parents’ roofs, we scoured newspapers daily and finally found an apartment in the Glebe, but we needed another roommate to help pay the bills. At first I was a bit unsure about the apartment, because it was an old building, and every time I walked into it, my body got hot and felt a bit weird. But it was cheap, and the utilities and cable were included. Plus, Sarah convinced me it was the best we could do and a “rocking good deal” if we had three people. Minimum-wage jobs sucked and created limitations on what kind of apartment we could afford.

  Sarah and I felt we’d hit the lotto when Natalie showed up and jumped in headfirst, paying her first and last months’ rent no problem. It took her all of one afternoon to find a job.

  “What are you talking about the tap for?” Sarah looked worse than I did. Her red hair had turned into a mass of curls in the humidity, and the sweat glistening on her face just made her freckles blotch together. Of course, the beer she had drunk the night before probably didn’t help how she looked and felt. And, really, with Sarah, a lot could be chalked up to the fact that she was not a morning person.

  Unlike Natalie, who was an any-time-of-the-day person. Her dark, almost-black, short hair looked like she had styled it, when really she had just slept on it. I honestly would have cut my hair exactly the same way if it would have looked like that. But mine would be everywhere and a disaster, and hers just suited her high cheekbones and sculpted face. Built like a wafer, with a backbone like a ruler, Natalie stood at ar
ound five foot nine, which in my world was really tall. I think she might have been the most striking girl I’d ever met, with her round dark eyes, full lips, thin eyebrows, and pale skin. Childhood storybooks, the fairy-tale ones, always had a queen, and to me Natalie looked like some kind of stately queen—but one of the nice ones, not the mean one from Snow White. As thin and majestic as she was, she had this huge laugh that came from the bottom of her stomach, and generosity and kindness oozed from her pores.

  “Someone left the tap on,” I said. “I had to get up in the middle of the night and turn it off.” I sipped my coffee.

  “Wasn’t me,” barked Sarah. “Holy crap.” She picked up a newspaper and waved it in front of her face.

  “I’ll pick up a fan at Zellers today after work,” I said.

  “Maybe I left it on,” said Natalie, shrugging her bony shoulders. “I don’t think so. But maybe.” She paused. “But this ’ere building is so old there could be plumbing problems.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s off now.” I paused but only for a second. “I was thinking of buying some sort of deadbolt, too.”

  “Why?” Sarah scrunched up her face when she looked at me. “The stairs are so creaky it’s not like anyone could come upstairs without us hearing. And if we hear them, we call the cops, then bang them over the head with something.”

  “A frying pan,” I said. I thought about the frying pan that was still in my room.

  “That would work,” replied Sarah. “I’ve got a baseball bat in my room just in case.”

  I mimicked whacking someone to lighten the conversation, even though my brain was bursting inside just thinking about Sarah’s creaking comment. I had only heard slamming. Sarah was right—if someone came up the stairs, there would be creaking.

  Natalie giggled at my antics, with her hand in front of her face.

  Sarah laughed too, but suddenly she just stopped, eyed me, and pointed. “Are you nervous about something?”

  “Nah,” I replied, trying to sound flippant.

  Sarah narrowed her eyes until they were slits. “Do you know something we don’t?” Then she turned to Natalie. “You probably don’t know this, but Indie has this weird thing going on. She can actually see things before they happen. It is soooo cool … but also kind of creepy.”