11-11

by Doreen Serrano

  Jade noticed her expression and knew that her sister had fallen into an emotional pothole. As usual, she jumped to the rescue.

  “Heather, are you all right?” she frowned.

  “Yeah,” she answered softly. “It’s all good.”

  Heather pulled back on the sniffl e trying to escape and turned her attention back to the psychic.

  “I have known a lot of love,” Heather agreed. She smiled despite the tears shining from her eyes.

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  Soraya placed a hand over hers and made eye contact on a even deeper level. When she spoke, her voice held a tone of affection and Heather wondered what she’d seen that had softened her so much. She looked at the card and wished she understood what the psychic had come to know already.

  “Are you looking for an answer to a specifi c question?”

  she asked.

  “Kind of,” Heather answered.

  She could hardly share with the woman that her refl ection had taken on a life of its own or that she suspected she had an immortal stalker. Soraya would think they were just playing with her and would be insulted. Or worse, she would believe Heather needed a different kind of help and become sympathetic.

  She lifted her gaze to Jade in search of some assistance. Jade caught the look and took over.

  “Let’s just say some strange things have been happening to my sister and that your kind of help is what we need,” she explained.

  Soraya fl ipped over the next card and her smile disappeared. She may as well have told Heather that she was scheduled to die in an hour. A wave of nauseating panic washed through her nervous system and left sick chills in its wake.

  “What?” Heather practically screamed.

  Jade’s voice echoed the same loud question at the same moment. Soraya raised a fi nger to her lips to signify the need for silence. The sisters quieted down but were 215

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  visibly brimming over with their need for an immediate response.

  “Relax, ladies,” Soraya said, her voice still low.

  “Remember, this is your past, Heather, not your future.

  Anything I see right now, you already know about, okay?”

  “Well, God, try not to look so horrifi ed about it,”

  Heather answered.

  “I’m sorry. It wasn’t horror. It was sadness I was feeling. It was your sadness I was feeling,” she fi nished.

  Soraya’s expression said she was also feeling somewhat uncomfortable. It suddenly seemed as though she were trying hard to maintain eye contact and Heather wondered which horrid memory the poor woman had tripped over.

  “What did you see?” she asked against her better judgment.

  “I saw a painful separation,” Soraya said.

  Heather grunted and laughed. “Well, get used to that card.”

  “No,” the psychic continued, “This was a big one.”

  When she closed her eyes, Heather noticed that her lids sparkled and wondered if it came from make-up or from magic.

  “I see a family divided,” she continued. “There’s a man you love very much and he’s going far away.”

  Heather looked at Jade. Her sister was already staring at her and Heather’s eyes bounced off the stare just as quickly. She looked back at Soraya and said nothing. She 216

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  wanted to see how much the psychic could actually pick up on without any help from her. The vision of her past continued and Heather assumed that Soraya was looking back at the day their father left.

  “This man, he was a good man,” she continued. “He loved you very much.”

  Heather thought about how close she and her father had always been before his alcoholism and subsequent insanity took him away. He had traveled the world, exploring oil as a career, traveling to places like Indonesia and Thailand and Nigeria. Heather missed her father every day that he was gone.

  “He’s angry. You’ve been left with everything and he has nothing,” Soraya went on.

  Heather frowned at Jade. She knew they were both wondering whether or not their dad had some pent up resentment for the life he had left behind. His being angry didn’t make sense.

  “There’s a storm,” Soraya said, somewhat rattled. “It’s a bad storm and you’re both afraid.”

  Heather didn’t understand the fear either. She and her father had both loved the stormy weather. She started to wonder just what Soraya was seeing when the woman stopped on her own.

  “Let’s look at the next card, shall we?” she smiled.

  Her phony smile didn’t fool either one of them.

  Something she had seen in the cards bothered her. Soraya spent the next forty minutes helping Heather relive some of her best and worse childhood memories. They got to 217

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  replay her relationships and her career choices. They traveled the road that led to her children and got a good chuckle over her lifelong clumsiness. Eventually, the time to read her future came and all three regained the seriousness they began with.

  Soraya had come to know such intimate parts of their lives that the sisters realized a bond had formed. Their psychic was a gentle and compassionate woman who had a way of delivering the good and the bad with an empathy most people didn’t possess. Heather hoped their new attachment wouldn’t hinder the tale of her future.

  Soraya turned the fi rst card of her future over and just stared at it. The sisters leaned over to see what she had become fi xated on but didn’t understand the image anyway. A man holding an hourglass stood in what appeared to be a rainstorm. Lightning was at the top of the card and rolling waves edged the bottom.

  “I don’t understand,” Soraya said softly.

  “What is it?” Heather asked nervously.

  “It’s the man from your past,” the psychic answered.

  “The angry one who left me?” Heather asked.

  “Yes, him,” Soraya answered dully.

  “So?” Heather asked. “There are a lot of people from my past that I hope to meet again in my future. Why is that so upsetting?”

  Soraya looked up shyly. She didn’t want to tell them something but obviously felt that she had to.

  “The man from your past died. You were so sure it was your father and I didn’t want to make you relive his death again.”

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  “Yeah, that’s really important,” Jade jumped in.

  “Especially since our father’s not dead.”

  “Yeah, well this man did die. And now, somehow, he’s in your future. And he’s angry,” she fi nished. Her expression said she wished the girls had never come to her for a reading.

  Heather fi nally dared a glance at her sister. When she caught Jade’s expression, she knew her sister had been overcome by the same dark chills.

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  Chapter 15

  Like a Pill

  Heather sat on Dr. Angel’s couch, holding the pillow and looking expectantly at her psychiatrist. He was the only person who understood her, who knew her as much as she knew herself. The small offi ce was her safe haven and she waited for the words that turned on her invisible safety valve. They were the seven words that gave her permission to explore her soul and until she heard them, she wouldn’t begin.

  “Where would you like to start today?” he asked.

  She smiled. Heather knew it wasn’t healthy that she idealized him so much but she couldn’t help it. He read her like a book and she desperately needed a good reader to get her through the blind spots. She only wished he allowed for the possibility of the unexplainable at times.

  She wanted him to travel with her to places where reason didn’t exist and only faith would guide the way. She knew he was capable of it because of his religious beliefs but couldn’t understand why he didn’t allow her to have it as well.

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errano

  She fi gured she may as well just get to it. Her main objective was to share with her doctor that she believed her random attacks were all related. She would somehow work up to telling him her attacker had been the same man every time. The risk was high because the confession spoke to her instability on many levels. It said she not only believed in time travel but also that she was the target of a supernatural enemy. It wasn’t a confession she could take back or brush off by saying she was just kidding.

  She glanced around nervously and looked for cameras or tape recorders. In case he decided to fi nally call in for back-up, Heather wanted to make sure he couldn’t prove her words. Although she trusted Dr. Angel more than she had ever trusted anyone, she never forgot who he was. He was her doctor and was still mandated to follow a certain protocol when dealing with crazy people.

  “Okay,” she began. “Try to stay with me cause it’s gonna sound weird,” she said pensively. She was quiet as she waited for the affi rmation that he wouldn’t abandon her either mentally, physically, or spiritually.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “All right, it’s like the attacks are becoming more memorable instead of fading away,” Heather began.

  She left out the part about being stalked by a guy who disappears into thin air and is obsessed with the time.

  “What’s clearer about them now than before?” he asked.

  “Well, the attacker for one,” she answered. “His face used to be blurry.”

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  “And it’s not any more?”

  She shook her head slowly and peeked out at him from behind a curtain of hair.

  “I don’t want to say it,” she replied quickly.

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “My need for you to believe I’m sane,” she said.

  “Or maybe the need for you to believe you’re sane?”

  he ventured.

  “I don’t know,” Heather said warily. “I’m sure you’ll fi nd a logical explanation for it. You’ll probably say that my memories are convoluted or that I’m unknowingly applying the same face to each attacker.”

  She knew what was going through his mind as the words came out of her mouth. He believed she was transferring all of her thoughts and feelings onto him and that it was she who feared fi nding the logical explanation.

  He would try to convince her she needed to make it bigger than it really was because she lacked something else and if he were successful, she would have to accept the worst case scenario. She would have to believe that nothing supernatural was happening and that she was just suffering from paranoid delusions.

  He sat back in his chair, his combination of frown and grin throwing her off.

  “You’ve already decided what my response will be but you haven’t even told me what’s going on,” he shared, amused.

  Heather searched for the right words. She was afraid of his response on two entirely different levels. If he 222

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  disbelieved her, she knew it would mean he didn’t trust her and that he never had. Even worse, his disbelief in her would prove his inability to believe in anything bigger than them. She didn’t want to face the issues that would arise if either came to light.

  “You remember the time lapses between the attacks, right?” she asked him.

  “Well, ” he leaned forward. “If memory serves me correctly, there was the break in at twelve, the attempted kidnapping at seventeen, and the mugging just a few years ago, right?” he asked.

  Heather nodded.

  “So,” he began, “they took place over a span of about twenty years,” he concluded.

  “That’s right, twenty years,” she repeated.

  “Okay,” he responded slowly.

  The puzzled expression remained stuck to his face.

  He wanted her to know that he wasn’t with her so she could fi nd another way to bring him in. Their honesty and communication had always worked to open up lines that otherwise would have stayed closed.

  “Well, don’t you think it’s weird that I seem to attract so many bad guys who want to hurt me?” she asked.

  Her shoulders pulled into a shrug and her hands went dramatically into the air. The non-verbal gesture spoke more clearly than her words could at the moment.

  It said that, to her, the many attacks were a phenomenon and she found it hard to believe everyone else ignored and brushed them off.

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  “Sure, there are some coincidences, Heather,” he began. She noticed that he was choosing his words more carefully and she wondered why.

  “I also think that the propensity for sudden violence goes up when one places themselves in certain situations,”

  he continued.

  “So, it’s my fault,” she said fl atly.

  “Heather, what’s got you so defensive today? What’s going on?” he asked with sincere concern.

  “I don’t want to say it,” she said.

  The room got quiet and they both waited to see what would come out of her mouth next. She wanted to just spit it out and then deal with the consequences but she was having a hard time working up the courage. When he didn’t respond, she tried again.

  “Remember I always told you there was something familiar about the attackers and that I couldn’t put my fi nger on because they were always blurred?”

  “Yes,” he answered softly.

  “Well, I remember what they look like and now I understand what freaks me out about it.”

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “They were all the same guy.”

  His reaction hadn’t been as bad as Heather had planned. Dr. Angel didn’t freak out or call in the nut squad or maniacally pull out a hidden recording device. He simply nodded and asked some questions and scribbled on his pad. By the time Heather left his offi ce, she wondered why the confession had ever been so scary.

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  Chapter 16

  Pretty Piece of Flesh

  She saw him sitting on the stairwell out front. He was on the last step with his back to her, but she knew who he was right away. She had never taken for granted that daylight was any safer than nightfall and just felt grateful that the boys weren’t with her.

  She wondered if he planned to move off the stoop to let her pass or if he were just going to grab her leg as she stepped over him. She knew he heard her coming but he remained very still. Heather didn’t have to worry about what would happen when she passed him. She couldn’t even move.

  She stood frozen in her spot half inside, half outside the exit of Dr. Angel’s building and tried to block out the screams inside of her head. Finally, he stood slowly but still made no effort to turn and face her. As he reached his full height, Heather felt her senses start to tingle with an uncomfortable familiarity. A deep heat rushed toward her fi ngertips and shocked them into numbness when he 225

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  did turn around. Her stalker just stood there staring at her and her fear threshold broke down completely. Without realizing it, she took two steps backwards and barely controlled the stumble that played with her ankles.

  She cut her eyes up to her doctor’s window and willed him to look out but he never did. Upon a new wave of icy fear, she realized that all other noise and motion had been muted. The only sound she heard was the fabric of stalker’s jacket colliding with the blast of wind that suddenly whipped passed them.

  “I don’t understand,” she asked in a whispered croak.

  “I know but you will,” he replied.

  Humor etched itself into his features and it angered her. She was tired of men getting off on her fear.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I want you,” he answered without hesitation.

  “Why?” she asked, fearing the answer.

  “You have something I want.

  “Well, you can’t have
it,” she stammered, hoping she sounded less terrifi ed than she felt. She half expected a swift backhand for her disrespect Her eyes darted around the parking lot. Although she continued to pray that someone would come along soon, Heather had the uneasy feeling that the rest of the world had stopped. He was somehow controlling everything in time and space as he held her courage in the palm of his hand. Heather worried she would lose hope in the shadow of his power.

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  The memory of his smirking face as he dragged her down the interstate made an unwanted appearance. She pictured him wrapping his hands around her throat and squeezing the life out of her and wondered if he expected her to run or fi ght.

  “It looks like one little girl has fi nally found her voice,” he mocked.

  “What do you want?” Heather screamed.

  He half grunted, half barked and she was horrifi ed to discover it was his laugh.

  “I want what should have been mine, that’s all,” he said.

  Confusion mingled with horror and Heather wanted an answer.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Your choices are powerful,” he said. “They always were. But this time, it’ll mean nothing.”

  She felt as though they were having two different frightening conversations. It made no sense that this man who had terrorized her for so long would think she had any power on him. The realization that the same person had committed all of her attacks had been hard enough to wrap her brain around. Now, she had to accept that she held some sort of power over the madman of her nightmares. She wished she knew what it was right then so she could destroy him with it.

  She shoved her hands into her jacket pocket to look for something sharp and hope defl ated like a popped balloon when she only felt only a cough drop. If she could 227

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  go back in time, she would pocket one of the tacks she saw pinned to a clipboard at the bookstore. Or she would lift Jade’s nail clippers with the small scissors attached.

  What remained of her hope started to dissolve faster than an antacid tablet dropped into cold water. He pointed toward Dr. Angel’s offi ce.

  “Do you really think he’s helping you?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do,” she said, eyebrows lifted in surprise.