A Gift of Time (Tassamara)

by Sarah Wynde

  “That sucks,” Akira said, as Max returned to the table. He set a plate containing grilled chicken and roasted vegetables down as he slid into his seat.

  “I didn’t hear yelling,” Natalya said, keeping her voice light.

  Max snorted, but his expression was glum. “She says she’s cooking what her inspiration tells her to cook and if I don’t like it, I can order off the menu like anyone else.”

  “At least she didn’t tell you to get out of her kitchen.”

  “Oh, she did that, too.”

  “But what good is it to see the future if you can’t do anything about it?” Akira ignored the interruption, sounding irate on Natalya’s behalf.

  “Ha,” Max responded.

  “Excellent question.” Natalya pushed her salad bowl away.

  “Nat and I have differing opinions on this,” Max said, poking at the chunks of roasted squash on his plate. “I see it as an early warning system, a chance to prepare.”

  “I see it as the ruin of every birthday surprise and twist ending.” Natalya tried to infuse her tone with humor. She didn’t want to stir up old arguments with her father about the usefulness of their foresight. He was comfortable using his ability, while she thought she’d done her best to ignore hers. It was disconcerting to discover how much she relied on it.

  Max snorted. “The strength of your ability does come with disadvantages, my dear.”

  “Every twist ending?” Akira asked. “You mean you always know how movies will end?”

  “I’ve got a brain filled with spoilers,” Natalya said dryly.

  “How do you know them, though?” Akira asked. “I assumed you had visions. Or maybe precognitive dreams.”

  “I use the word vision sometimes, but for me, it’s closer to memory,” Natalya answered.

  “What I have is more like extremely good intuition. I’ve learned to trust it,” Max responded. “Generally, I see possibilities. Likely futures, potential outcomes. Usually they’re related to hard facts. Semantic memory, conceptual in nature. Natalya sees what will be. Her signal comes in much clearer than mine, if you will.”

  “How does that work?” Akira’s eyes narrowed, her intellectual curiosity clear.

  “Ask me again in a few more years.” Natalya shrugged. “I spend a lot of time looking at brain scans, but I haven’t solved the puzzle of how our minds work. Yet.”

  “But your foresight is like memory?” Akira prompted.

  “I remember the future the way most people remember the past,” Natalya explained.

  “Does that mean you know the next thing I’m going to say, the next person that’s going to walk in the door?”

  Before Akira even finished her question, Natalya was shaking her head. “I’m not experiencing the future. I just remember it.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Natalya gestured at the door behind them. “Do you remember the last person to walk in?”

  Akira turned and let her gaze skim over the patrons at the restaurant. The booths that lined the walls were three-quarters full, mostly with families or teenagers, while the smaller tables held couples. A few middle-aged men sat together at the long counter, while a younger man sat alone at the other end.

  “No idea,” she admitted as she turned back. She tilted her head in the direction of the counter. “I said hi to the guys from the quantum teleportation project when I came in so I know they were here, but otherwise I didn’t notice.”

  “Right. It’s called selective attention. Memory requires three steps—we experience, we record, we retrieve. What you don’t notice, you can’t remember.”

  “Most of us can’t remember much of anything,” Max pointed out. “We forget what we had for breakfast, much less every conversation we have.”

  “I remember experiences that haven’t happened yet as if they were memories,” Natalya continued. “Sometimes vague or fuzzy, sometimes without the context that would help me understand what I’m seeing, but only ever when it’s something I would have remembered anyway.”

  “But can you see anything you want to? If I asked you a question, something like—”

  “Don’t!” Natalya interrupted Akira sharply. As Akira drew back, looking startled, Natalya repeated herself in a gentler voice. “Please don’t. I try not to see more than I have to.” She forced a smile, rubbing her temple. The tension was turning the pounding in her head into shooting pains running up her jawline. “It causes a lot more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “But you know everything about your future?” Akira still sounded doubtful. One hand curled around her abdomen protectively, as if she were considering the advantages and disadvantages.

  Natalya shook her head. “No. My foresight gets triggered. Something—a smell, a feeling, a thought, a question—brings the memory to my conscious mind. But it’s not all encompassing. Or constant, thank God. My worst nightmare is to develop hyperthymestic syndrome.”

  “Hyper-thy-mes-tic?” Akira sounded the word out. “From the Greek? Speed memory?”

  “Vast memory, I think. It’s a neurological condition, possibly caused by a defective frontostriatal circuit. It’s characterized by an enlarged temporal lobe and caudate nucleus, which affect—” Natalya paused at the blank look on Akira’s face. Right. Akira had a PhD and a fondness for science, but she wasn’t a medical doctor. “People with it remember every detail of their lives. Random actions can trigger a flood of memories. One patient described it as living life with a split-screen, always half her attention caught by her memories of the past.”

  Akira wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

  “Not so much, no.” Natalya tipped her head from side to side, trying to ease the tension in her neck.

  With a loaded plate in one hand, a coffee pot in the other, Emma swung by their table. As she slipped the plate in front of Akira, she glanced at Max. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Latimer, but Maggie’s not mean. Well, maybe a little mean. But not, like, mean-mean.”

  “She’s torturing me,” Max complained. “I wanted bacon and eggs.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like she plans what to make for people, you know?” Emma said. Max frowned but Akira gave Emma a nod, and, encouraged, Emma continued. “When she doesn’t know what to make she gets cranky, but with you, she does know. It’s good stuff, too, not like that time with the turkey sandwich. That time, she was mad. It was, like, symbolic, that turkey.”

  Natalya looked at her father’s plate and her eyes narrowed. Emma had a point. Max’s food looked and smelled as delicious as everything else Maggie cooked, despite its simplicity. Okay, maybe not quite as delicious as Akira’s blueberry waffles, but still quite tasty.

  “But that’s not turkey,” Emma finished. With a satisfied nod, as if she’d said what she wanted to say, she headed off to refill the next table’s coffee cups.

  “When did you last have a checkup, Dad?” Natalya asked. Maybe there was a subliminal meaning to the heart-healthy, low-sugar food Maggie was feeding Max.

  “A checkup?” His gaze slid sideways. “Oh, it’s been a while.”

  “How long a while?” she asked as he turned his attention to his plate.

  “Let me see.” Busily, he sliced into his chicken, working with more precision than strictly necessary. “I suppose, uh, I suppose it would have been before your mother passed away.”

  “Dad!” Natalya protested. Her mother had died several years ago, and her father was fast approaching his sixties. “Regular checkups are basic self-care.”

  “She scheduled that stuff for me,” he said, hunching his shoulders like a scolded schoolboy. “I guess I should do that, huh?”

  “I guess,” Natalya answered, a touch of sarcasm in her voice, before frowning. This conversation should have stirred up foreknowledge for her. Mentally, she poked at the hole in her memory again.

  “What is it?” her father asked. His eyes went vague and unfocused for a moment or two and then he shook his head. “I don’t see anything. Did yo
u just—”

  “No,” Natalya interrupted him. “Nothing. But my foresight isn't working, I told you that. You should still schedule a checkup.”

  “You know, the longer I live here, the more I realize why no one gets too bothered when I see ghosts,” Akira said, cutting up her waffle. “Do you really think Maggie is somehow psychically choosing a diet for Max based on data she couldn’t possibly have?”

  Natalya lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Why take chances?”

  Max cut off a bite of his chicken. “I suppose she’d give me bacon and eggs if I insisted. But I like being surprised by my food.”

  “Does Maggie surprise you?” Akira asked Natalya.

  “Not usually,” Natalya admitted. “It’s hard not to think about eating when you sit down at the table. With such an immediate experience my foresight is—well, was—quite clear.”

  “Was,” Max repeated. “Where did it go?”

  “No idea.” The ice was melting in her tea, the water condensing on the sides of the glass. Natalya drank a little more of it, wondering how long it would take her to get used to the loss. Would it be permanent? Was her foresight gone forever? As she set her glass down, the corner of her mouth quirked up. If only she could see the future…

  Akira said thoughtfully, “I wonder…” before letting her words trail off and putting a bite of waffle in her mouth.

  Natalya tilted her head, waiting for Akira to finish her thought. In the purse by her side, her phone buzzed. Sliding her hand into the purse, she touched the phone’s plastic, and then gave a sigh when she realized she didn’t know who was calling.

  “Do you mind if I get this?” At her father’s shrug and Akira’s head shake, she pulled her phone out. She didn’t recognize the number, so frowning, she answered it.

  “Nat, good. I’m glad you picked up.”

  A little jolt of recognition shot down her spine at the sound of Colin’s voice, followed by a flush of heat. If she’d known who was calling, would she have answered? She didn’t know, and the uncertainty put bite in her tone as she asked, “How did you get this number?”

  “Your brother.”

  “Which brother?” Natalya needed to know who to scold. If she wanted her ex-boyfriend to have her unlisted number, she’d give it to him herself.

  “Lucas. Apparently Zane called him?” His tone held a question.

  Natalya closed her eyes. What had Zane told Lucas? She supposed it depended on what Akira had told Zane, and what Rose had told Akira. If her father wasn’t sitting across the table, she’d ask, but that wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have under her father’s interested eyes.

  “I managed to talk him out of flying home to kick my ass without pulling out my badge, but just barely. You might want to give him a call.”

  She managed to bite back a groan with an effort. Clenching her teeth, though, sent tendrils of tension pain spiraling into her head.

  “But that’s not why I’m calling. Where are you?”

  “At Maggie’s,” she answered automatically, distracted by her headache. Then, “Why?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Excellent. I need you. Can you get back here?”

  “You need me?”

  “Yeah. No,” he corrected himself. “Kenzi needs you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just get over here. Please.”

  “What’s happening?” There was no answer. “Colin?”

  But the line had gone dead.

  Chapter Seven

  Shifting from foot to foot, Colin knocked on the front door of Nat’s cottage. As he waited for her to answer, he realized what he was doing and, disgusted, forced himself to stand still. He’d knocked on doors to serve divorce papers and foreclosure notices, evict tenants, break up domestic disputes and arrest violent criminals. It was ridiculous to feel nervous. Nat wasn’t going to shoot him, after all. But when she yanked open the door, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Anything?” she demanded, not bothering to greet him.

  “Not a clue,” he admitted.

  “It’s been three days.” Nat kept her voice low, but her accompanying glare was heated.

  “I know.” For seventy-two hours, ever since he’d persuaded her to rescue Kenzi from the system, he’d been reassuring her. Give it a day. One more night. Just a little longer. But it was getting increasingly difficult to pretend a confidence he didn’t feel.

  “What are you doing about it?”

  “We’re trying, Nat.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve had deputies running the plates of every car at the campgrounds and recreation areas, searching for one that’s been abandoned. We’ve had people scouting all the back roads, all the trails. By now the rangers must have shown her photo to every registered camper in the area, looking for someone who recognizes her. But we’ve got nothing.”

  “Registered campers?” Nat recognized the caveat immediately.

  “The squatters are tougher to find.”

  Nat glanced over her shoulder before opening the screen door and stepping out onto the porch. The night was cool, but not cold, and she didn’t bother with a jacket. She looked up at him under the glow of her porch light.

  He let his gaze drop to her mouth, wanting to taste her, wanting to tug her into his arms and feel her against him. She must have recognized the look, because her chin tilted up—unfortunately, not in the “kiss me, now, you fool,” way but with a narrowed eye expression that said, “touch me and I’ll smack you, jerk.”

  “What next?” she asked.

  “We’ve been trying to get her picture on the news,” he answered. “It may be our best chance of finding someone who recognizes her.”

  Nat wrinkled her nose. “No one in Tassamara is going to like having reporters in town.”

  “We’ve had no luck so far. Apparently a pop star got caught with a prostitute. The television stations don’t have time for anything else.

  Nat’s scowl deepened. “You’d think a little girl lost in the woods on Christmas Day would be more important.”

  “You’d think,” he agreed, his frustration adding an edge to his tone, before he changed the subject. “You’re sure she doesn’t speak Spanish?” He’d asked the question before. It was wishful thinking to hope the answer might be different.

  “She doesn’t speak anything,” Nat responded with a snap. “She doesn’t speak at all.” He looked at her silently and she sighed, before adding, in a more reasonable tone. “My Spanish isn’t great, but she doesn’t show any indication of understanding it. English is no problem. Why?”

  “Illegal immigrant parents might have an excuse for not searching for her.”

  It was Nat’s turn to fall silent. For a moment, they stood together in shared worry, Nat looking up at him, and then her gaze fell. She stepped away and dropped down to sit on the porch steps. Absently, she swept the wood floor with her hand, grimacing at the dust before brushing her hands together to wipe it off. “I should sweep.”

  Colin sat down next to her. Their shoulders brushed, but Nat made no move to scoot away.

  “If nobody’s looking for her…” Nat said softly. “You’re thinking Hansel and Gretel?”

  “No Hansel,” he answered. He looked over his shoulder at her neat cottage with its trim blue and white paint. “And your house lacks the requisite gingerbread.” He paused. Trying to make a joke of it didn’t help. “But yeah. Her parents might have abandoned her.”

  “I still don’t think she’s autistic.” Nat stared out into the darkness as if she could see into the trees. “Or even truly emotionally disturbed. She’s been through a trauma, that’s clear, but when she thinks she’s alone, she relaxes. She seems like a perfectly normal child. She plays, she draws.”

  The psychologist had been quick to give up on interviewing Kenzi, and as quick to decide the girl displayed symptoms of autism and should be placed in a residential facility. Colin was no expert, but he didn’t think a cursory non-interview with a lost child was the right basis f
or that diagnosis or that decision. Nat agreed. After a confrontation with the psychologist in which the woman stiffly asserted that she’d done what she could, the stalemate was resolved when Carla, the caseworker from the foster care agency, suggested Kenzi stay with Nat. For a little while longer, until her parents could be found.

  “She watches television.” Nat pulled her hair over her shoulder and started twisting a lock around her finger, winding it tighter and tighter. “Too much television, probably. She watches it as if she’s hypnotized. It’s the Disney channel, but I’m not sure it’s good for her.”

  “Is that what she’s doing now?” Colin asked.

  Nat nodded. “I was cooking dinner.”

  As if in response, his stomach rumbled. He put a hand on it. “Sorry. Long day, not much food.”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment before letting the words slip out. “There’s plenty if you want to stay.”

  Colin didn’t grin but his lips twitched. If he gauged her mood correctly, her ingrained southern hospitality had overridden her anger, and she was already regretting the words. Still, he would grab the opportunity with both hands. “I’d appreciate that, thank you.” A muscle flickered in her jaw as if she were gritting her teeth so he added easily, as if it were the only reason he was staying, “I’d like the chance to spend some more time with Kenzi.”

  “Watching her watch television isn’t fascinating.” She’d wound her dark hair so tightly around her finger that the tip was turning red

  “I want to ask her a few more questions.”

  Nat tugged her finger free. “You think she’ll talk to you?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. He’d been too busy over the past few days for more than fleeting interactions with Nat and Kenzi, but he’d seen the girl’s body language when Nat returned to the sheriff’s office. Her muscles relaxed, her breathing slowed in relief and trust. When Kenzi talked, it would be to Nat, he was sure. Still, given that she hadn’t yet spoken, they couldn’t count on that. “But her reactions could give us some clues to her background.”