The Death Catchers by Jennifer Anne Kogler Read Free Book Online Page B

ain’t you as sweet as pie.”
    â€œYou’re supposed to lie still,” I chided.
    â€œHow did Dixie fare? She in one piece?”
    â€œDixie is in better shape than you are,” I said, looking at Bizzy’s fire-engine-colored walker lying on its side a few feet away. The cracked side-view mirror was in the gutter. I’d dropped it there when I blacked out.
    Bizzy began blinking more frequently. She was growing more alert.
    â€œJodi, would you mind runnin’ inside and gettin’ me a sweater. ’Fraid I’m gonna be spendin’ some time at the hospital. It’s always as cold as a well digger’s heinie in there.”
    Jodi nodded and headed inside. Once she was gone, Bizzy started speaking quickly. “Lizzy, listen to me: We went to Mora’s Market to get you some Pepto. You ran out in front of me,” she said, talking quickly, but struggling. “I tried to catch up. That’s when the accident happened. Then you fainted when you saw me bleedin’. Simple as that.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWhen anybody asks, Sweet Pea, that’s what we’re gonna tell ’em, okay?”
    â€œBut I don’t understand, Bizzy,” I pleaded. “Why can’t we tell anyone what happened?”
    â€œWe’ll straighten all this out,” she said. “But it’s important we keep this between you ’n’ me.”
    Miss Mora and Jodi came out of the market with a shawl and some water.
    â€œHow are you feeling, Bizzy?”
    â€œBe good as new in a few days!” Bizzy shifted her head slightly so she could look at Jodi directly. “How you doin’, Jodi dear?”
    â€œI’m totally fine. Thank you … for saving my life,” Jodi said, sounding shyer than I’d ever heard her.
    Miss Mora looked directly at my grandma. “I … I don’t know how we’ll ever repay you for what you did,” she said, growing emotional.
    â€œOh, it was nothin’, Mora,” Bizzy responded. “Even a blind hog finds herself an acorn now and again.”
    In the distance I could hear sirens blaring. The hospital was not far up the road and the ambulance would arrive any minute. But Bizzy’s injuries would be only the first in a string of problems.
    I suppose I was too focused on the monumental change happening in front of me—that I was a Hand of Fate—to realize everything was connected. Then again, at that point, Bizzy hadn’t exactly figured it out either. Now, though, it seems so clear: that the death-specter about Jodi was a part of the larger puzzle that included the murky origins of Crabapple, Agatha Cantare and her horrible sister Vivienne, the shrieking girl, Ambrosius, and Old Arthur himself. Sometimes I blame myself for being unable, at the time, to put more of the pieces together so I could prepare myself.
    But that’s the thing about fate. It comes at you whether you’re ready for it or not. In fact, my next death-specter was only hours away.

 
    Transitions
    Transitions assist in the formation of the connections between sentences, paragraphs, and themes of your written work. Without them, readers may have a hard time following your argument .
    If you’re wondering who wrote that, Mrs. Tweedy … you did. It was part of a handout on transition sentences. I remember thinking at the time that it would be pretty handy to have the equivalent of transition sentences in life. Yes, sometimes life moves nicely from one thing to the next: a graduation lets you know you’re growing up and school’s getting harder; the changing color of the trees from green to red-orange signals that it’s about to get colder. A lot of the time, though, there’s nothing that glues one thing in your life to the next. You can go from being a normal freshman to a freak of nature in one second, without any signal or reason at all.
    Life isn’t smooth and flowing,