A Broken Fate (The Beautiful Fate Series book 2) by Cat Mann Read Free Book Online Page B

Kokkino, why do you ask?” Ari shifted in his seat to face me.
    “Well, yesterday your mom and I both said some something at the same time and she freaked out on me. I had to leave the kitchen before she started to do that weird spitting thing you guys all do.”
    “Touch red.”
    “Yeah, that’s what she said.”
    “Well… did you touch red?”
    “No, I refuse to fall victim to her silly superstitions.”
    “Damnit, Ava!” Ari laughed, “You just sealed your fate with my mother. I’m sure there will be hell to pay between the two of you and I am going to get stuck in the middle of some dumb fight of yours.”
    “You can’t possibly believe in that bull. Last year when I said that spitting ‘ftou , ftou, ftou’ thing they do was silly, you agreed with me.”
    “Well…. For starters, I really liked you and I would have agreed with anything you said and… spitting is silly, but I still believe it, that it wards of evil spirits.”
    I leaned across Ari and gently placed my finger on his red lips. “Piase Kokkino. There, all better.”
    He smiled in response. “It’s too late now, Ava.”
    “What other things, superstitions , do you believe in?”
    “You really want to know?”
    I laughed, “I feel as though I am left with no choice; I will be doomed if I never learn these oddities.”
    “Ok… Well, you know that cactus over there by the door?”
    Ari pointed to a round cactus in a big blue pot that sat perched by our backdoor.
    I nodded.
    “My parents have one, too and so do Gianna and Thias. A cactus is supposed to ward off the evil eye from the home.”
    “What is the evil eye?” I said the words with a fake, spooky tone.
    Ari shook his head at me incredulously. “Evil eye or Matiasma comes from someone’s jealous compliment and is intended to make you feel bad or ruin you. Greeks go out of their way to avoid the evil eye. Some wear blue charms around their neck and even hang ropes of garlic above doorways. My mom keeps that rope of garlic over her stove to keep her cooking safe from the evil eye. She thinks people are jealous of her culinary skills.”
    I smiled a great big smile. “How do you know all of this stuff?”
    Ari scoffed, “I had to endure Greek School for nine years before DPI and I had the information beat in to me on a daily basis.”
    “Will you tell me more?” As silly as the beliefs sounded, I really enjoyed the stories but even more so, I loved to see Ari’s passion for his heritage.
    “Of course I will. Crows…” Ari pointed to a bird in the distance. “If you see a crow it is considered an omen of bad news, misfortune or death. If you hear a crow cawing, you say ‘Sto Kalo … Sto Kalo … Kala Nea na me Feris.’ By doing so you are telling the crow to fly away and bring back good news.”
    “What is that thing your mom always does with her bread knife?” I asked.
    Ari raised his eyebrow. “Knives… you never ever hand someone a knife. Every evening my mom sets the bread knife down on the table in front of my dad; he picks the knife back up off the table and slices the bread. If she were to hand the knife directly to him, that is her giving him permission to stab her in the back or do her harm. Now… Bread… we have bread at every meal, it is considered a gift from God and should never be thrown away. If the bread becomes too hard to be eaten, we feed it to the birds. Since the food was a gift from God, it would be a sin to put it in the garbage.”
    “I like that one.”
    “Me too.”
    “What else?”
    “One more…” Ari looked down at his watch and then grabbed hold of my shoe and shook my foot playfully. “Shoes… a shoe left out, sitting overturned with the sole facing up is an omen of death. If you take your shoes off and they were to accidently land upside down, you have to immediately turn them around, say ‘skorda’ and spit on them.”
    “So many of the beliefs have to do with death; it seems like a lot of energy wasted on trying to avoid