by T. Jones
"Nat, don't say that, Ozzy's the idiot for not standing up to his Dad. And he's an idiot if he doesn't see how wonderful you are." She put an arm around the tall blonde's waist and put her head on her shoulder.
"Do you really think that. Thanks for saying it, even if it's not true."
"Jesus Natalie, you're beautiful, and I know you're smart, stop wasting your time on that asshole Oz. Anyone would be lucky to have you." Natalie looked at Callie for a moment, then suddenly pushed her back onto the bed, kissing her and pulling at her pajamas. Callie thought about the irony for a moment. She wanted to leave home to find willing girls, and suddenly they seemed to be everywhere, but all she could think about was Jenny, the girl from home. She had to push Natalie away, nearly knocking her off the bed, before the girl stopped groping her.
"Callie, I know you want me, and you know I'm into girls and guys, so what the hell? We're roommates, why not enjoy each other's company."
"Natalie, Jesus. That's been my point all along. You have so much more to offer than sex. You don't need to fuck everybody for them to like you. Make Oz treat you like you deserve to be treated, or find somebody that will. I like you Nat, without you having to sleep with me." The tears started again and Callie kissed her forehead quickly, then moved back to her own bed. Natalie dug into her purse and pulled out a joint, suddenly cold and defiant.
"Can I smoke this in here, or will you be pissed?"
"Go ahead. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tell you how to live your life, but somebody has to, since you won't take care of yourself. I mean it, I like you."
"Yeah, well that makes one of us." Callie didn't know what to say after that. She drifted off to sleep with the smell of the joint tickling her nose.
When the dream started, she thought immediately about the pot. Damn, she hadn't been bothered by a dream like this in a while, had to be the marijuana. This dream was fractured, just bits and pieces of seemingly unconnected chaos. She was with Danielle running through the University campus again, then suddenly she was riding on her shoulder, being carried like a sack of potatoes. Then a man appeared, then two men, twins, each shouting and firing guns at people. Natalie was there, with Oz at first, then she was dancing with one of the twins, smiling happily, until the other twin came up and started shooting at them all. Then there was a roar, a huge noise and a blast that sent everyone flying into the air. She drifted like that for a while, serenely. Then she looked down and saw Jenny waving to her, trying to get her to come back to the ground. She fell then, watching the earth rush at her, closer and closer.
Callie sat up in bed, covered in sweat. She looked over to her roommate's bed and saw that she was gone. The room still reeked of pot, so she was pretty sure she hadn't gone far. She slipped out of the room and walked to the front entrance. Natalie was there, looking up at the stars, a smile on her face. She turned a little when Callie opened the door.
"What are you doing Nat? Come back to the room, please. There's creepers around here. I don't want to have to worry about you." Natalie smiled demurely, stoned out of her mind.
"It's all so peaceful, Callie. I could float away into the stars. No more Oz or his Dad to make me feel bad. I wish I could stay right here forever."
"Come to bed, you stoner. You can dream about the stars. You should sleep really good at least." The girl allowed Callie to steer her back to their room and tuck her into bed. Callie sat on the edge of her bed for a while, then pushed the hair from her eyes, and kissed her on the forehead before turning off the light. Natalie grasped her hand for a moment.
" Night Callie, thank you for being my friend." Callie smiled as she covered up. Growth, her mother called it.
*****
Danielle Ogren stood at the door of the restaurant, surveying the clientele and looking for her scheduled meeting. She saw the woman sitting alone near the very back, surprisingly close to the double doors of the kitchen. The maître d led her back, nodding to the older women, who smiled at her. She was a stout woman, twenty pounds too heavy. She had short black hair, flecked with considerable gray, that currently served as a place to hold her glasses. She wore a light blue pantsuit and too much jewelry, including a diamond ring of considerable size on her left hand. Danielle sat down across from her.
"Hello Teresa, I would have thought you'd get a better table, doesn't the kitchen noise bother you?"
"Hard to overhear things with all the chatter."
"How's Frank? And the kids?"
"Frank's as big a dick as ever. Someday soon I'm going to divorce his worthless ass. The boys are both playing football, college stuff, against my wishes I have to say. If anybody knows how fragile the human brain is, it's me."
"Yeah, lots of ways to scramble the gray matter."
"You're back early, I take that as a good sign. Did you manage to do what we talked about?" Danielle poured herself some tea from the small pot sitting on the table.
"I didn't do a thing. Almost seems like someone else took care of it for us. Tumbled down the stairs, is the official conclusion. Hell of a coincidence."
"That is curious, isn't it? I'll get people working on it. How's the weather in DC?"
"It's a shithole. I like it here this time of year, starting to cool off. Fall's the best time of year in Minnesota. Any more contact from the girl?"
"The girl?" Teresa smiled. "I would think you would address her by name. What do you think of her, in general." Danielle smiled thoughtfully and Teresa frowned at her. "I'm not interested in how good she is in bed, does she have as many gifts as we think she does?"
"She is amazing, but she hasn't figured out what she is capable of yet. She's farsighted, in very specific ways, but she can't interpret what she's seeing. She channeled the group through me, like it was nothing. I'm sorry about that, but she took over, I couldn't stop her."
"Well, I know she didn't overpower you."
"She did in a way. I was bound somehow, couldn't move a muscle, like I was hypnotized only I was wide awake. She needed me to be still to concentrate, and I was, no choice."
"Sounds dangerous."
"She terrified some of the members, but when she felt that she backed off and let them go. She wasn't willing to hurt them, empathy I guess."
"That's different from earlier. She is learning to care about other people. The girl from home is having an effect on her. But you need to bring her along, develop her skills, and she needs to be here for you to do that. We can't have her running back home all the time."
"I'm working on that."
"Good. She is coming here."
"Really? You invited her, is this an actual meeting?"
"Not at all. She is growing stronger. Because of her connection to you, she can sense that I am here and that I'm an Elder. She wants answers. Ah, I see she has arrived."
Callie had entered the restaurant and stood near the front, talking to the maître d, who smiled and led her back to the table, offering her a menu. She tossed it on the table and sat in the chair across from Teresa. She glanced at Danielle briefly.
"Back so soon? You said longer."
"Things went very smoothly, glad to see you too. Callie, this is Teresa Blackburn."
"I would say nice to meet you, but since you've been running around in my brain for a dozen years, that wouldn't be very accurate, would it? Are you the head Sister bitch?"
"Callie! Teresa has accomplished a lot of wonderful thing." Danielle touched Callie arm, frowning slightly. Callie jerked away from her.
"All I know, is my life is fucked up because of the dreams and visions I keep having, and the Sisters seem to be in the middle of it. Count me out, stay out of my head, and take your damn psychic bullshit with you. I don't want any part of it."
"Ah Callie, it's wonderful to finally meet you, and I'm sorry that you feel that way. Greatness is sometimes thrust upon us. I haven't done this to you my dear, it is all inside of you. We only started watching you because your gifts are unusually strong." Callie stared thoughtfully at the older woman, a
nd excepted the tea Danielle had poured for her.
"Okay, Teresa. I'll play along. This gift, has caused me nothing but trouble. Explain it to me, please. Why me? When I feel the group, they're always searching, or prying into my thoughts, my memories. Honestly, it pisses me off, I don't like it. They sure as hell didn't like it when I started digging around in their heads."
"No one wants others knowing their darkest secrets."
"So, how is what they're doing, or what you're doing, benefiting anybody?"
"All the Sisters have abilities, beyond what normal people may perceive, but for the most part those abilities are very limited. Often, they're just intuitions, gut feelings, a little voice that won't go away. Within the group, when we share these thoughts, sometimes we find common threads. We can piece together a picture of what is going to happen, or in some cases, has happened, if it's important. Sometimes, when enough of the members concur on an outcome that we find unacceptable, we take actions to change that outcome."
"I knew most of that already. But who are you to change people's fate, or destiny, or whatever the hell you want to call it?"
"The world is full of tiny moments, one little tweak, can sometimes save countless lives."
"That doesn't answer my question. Why do you get to do it, mess with thing?"
"Because we have knowledge no one else possesses. The more knowledge we have, the more good we can do. You have extraordinary abilities, and you haven't scratched the surface of what you are capable of. The members of our group, see tiny bits of things, like a puzzle we have to put together, and then hope we have assembled it correctly. You see more than a few pieces, sometimes you see the whole picture, you even paint it." It was obvious what she was talking about, but Callie tried to steer the conversation away from the Coopers.
"Not everybody agrees with you, right? I know some of the Sisters don't share your enthusiasm for trying to change history."
"All the more reason we need someone with your gifts. You were right all along about Davis Cooper. Even with our connection to you, none of us saw what you did. It may be that your physical connection with Abby, made that possible. I don't have all the answers."
"You know all that? It's wrong to dig around in people's minds like that. This whole thing seems wrong! How do you know what you do won't come back and bite you in the ass? Because of what I knew about Davis, I thought it was okay to screw with their marriage. It all turned to shit, everything went to hell and it was my fault. It all sounds good, change fate and make good shit happen, but what about unintended consequences. What happens when someone dies, and you're to blame?"
"Callie," Teresa struggled for a minute, thinking. "Imagine that a school bus driver was going to fall asleep and drive off a cliff, and maybe kill twenty kids. Because you knew that, you might slip a little something in his coffee so that he had to call in sick that day. If you knew what was going to happen, and could prevent it, wouldn't it be wrong not to?"
"Maybe, but maybe that was what was meant to happen from the start."
"That's an argument that just goes in a circle. Some of the girls think that we're just doing God's work, making sure things turn out the way they were supposed to in the first place."
"Yeah? And maybe God is really pissed off that you're screwing with his plans. Sisters! Are you all women?" Callie glanced at Teresa's wedding ring. "I see you're married."
"To a wonderful man, yes." Teresa glanced at Danielle when she snickered, frowning. "Most of the members are with men. There are a few others who are like you and Dani here, who prefer women. I don't think there is necessarily a connection."
"I'm sorry, I don't think I can go along with this. I cared about Abby, truly, as I'm sure you know. And I thought getting Davis out of her life was a good thing. Look what happened."
"Okay, let's look at what happened. Instead of going back to the war, to be bombarded by even more bloodshed and death, and doing God knows what, Davis is safely in a place where he can get the help he needs. And because he is incarcerated, instead of spending his life in the Army, away from his wife, they are reconciling and will have a full and happy life together. As unintended consequences go, that seems like a pretty good one."
"Did you orchestrate that somehow?" Callie asked, the edge gone from her voice.
"There's a doctor who may have found himself paying special attention to patient Cooper without knowing why. As a group, we can sometime influence people in small ways."
"Well, thank you for that, really. But that wasn't the worst of it. A boy died, mostly because I was selfish. I didn't swing that tire iron, but it was my fault Davis did."
"But don't you see," Teresa leaned forward eagerly. "That's why we work together, to try to figure out ahead of time, what might go wrong. That's why someone with your gift is so important to the group. We need your help, Miss Fisher. You could do so much good."
"This all seems nuts to me. It still seems wrong to mess with Destiny, even if I don't completely believe there is such a thing. There's something you're not telling me, I can feel it."
"There are a lot of things I'm not telling you, Callie. All in good time. There are things only the Elders of the group know, and even you aren't strong enough to enter my mind, dear. Most of the Sisters know only what they need to, and probing their minds could be harmful. That is why I'm here today. I would rather answer your questions directly."
"So, if I really do have these gifts, can you help me make them better. The dreams I have are always surreal. Sometimes I know there's a message, but I can't figure it out."
"Like I said, sometimes information we have, along with your vision, might prevent a disaster." Callie sat quietly, looking back and forth between the two women.
"This is a lot, Teresa." Callie extended her hand. "I need to think, okay? You've managed without me this long. Six months ago, I'd have said you were both bat shit crazy, but now I know better. Danielle knows how to find me. What am I saying, you could find me anytime, right?"
"Neither I nor the Sisters will enter your space, Callie. We'll give you time to think. It is important that you commit on your own, completely." Teresa released Callie's hand as the blond girl stood up.
"Then Danielle knows where to find me, we both like the same hot dogs. When the time is right, I'll be in touch." Danielle smiled at her and waved briefly as Callie walked away. The two women sat looking at each other, both smiling slightly.
"That went well, better than I expected." Teresa offered.
"You left out a couple of important things. I know you probably have your reasons."
"Some of it isn't my story to tell. The trouble at the school, as hard as that will be, we have to see how she handles it. She has to know what she is getting herself into. I want her fully committed, and aware of the dangers. And she has to be able to make the really hard choices, not everyone can do that."
"Not everyone wants to, that's for sure. Most days I can't blame them." Teresa smiled at Danielle and raised her cup.
Chapter 19
Elliot Nucci was frustrated. He had been texting Natalie, the tall blond girl of his dreams, repeatedly for the last couple of days. She hadn't been to class. That wasn't unusual, her attendance was sporadic at best, but Eliot was afraid that she was avoiding him. Eddie thought it was funny that Eliot wasn't more sure of himself. But Eliot didn't have the track record with the girls that Eddie did. And Eddie hadn't seen Natalie yet. He had no idea how beautiful she was. A girl like that could have anybody, and she had picked Eliot for a crazy night of passion. It wasn't just drug fueled sex, it was passion. But there was Oz, the narcissistic boyfriend that Eliot had to outdo somehow. It was understandable her going back to him, bad habits like that were hard to break. Eliot was sure he could take her from Ozzy, but the dumb bitch needed to reply to his texts! He turned his phone on and off, just to be sure that it was working properly, then gave up and threw it onto the coffee table. He left it lay and walked down into the basement to see what his brother was up to.
Even though he had his own place now, Eddie still hung around a lot. He was always tinkering with guns. Ever since his stint in the Marines he'd been a bit of a gun nut. He loved messing around, reloading his own ammunition and experimenting, trying to blow shit up. Eliot had put his foot down when it came to explosives, and they usually drove up to their grandparents' farm when Eddie wanted to get really creative. But the basement was totally empty except for the water heater and furnace, and Eddie had built their own little shooting range. He had insulated the hell out of the ceiling and walls so that the neighbors wouldn't have a fit. Eddie had a Glock 19, the 9mm revolver that he had brought home from the Marines, pilfered from military supply no doubt, as well as a snub nosed .38 that their father had left behind many years ago. The 9mm was too much for Eliot, and he had bought himself a small .22 caliber pistol, just for target practice. Sometimes on the weekends they drove to one of the shooting ranges. Eddie always outscored Eliot from a distance, but in the basement, Eliot beat him, often as not. But shooting in the basement was uncomfortable even with good earmuffs, and they didn't usually stick with it long.
After twenty minutes, the smell of the reloads got to Eliot and he went back upstairs. He glanced at his phone, instantly elated to see that he had missed a call from Natalie. He danced around a bit, then walked outside to call her back. Besides the noise, he didn't want Eddie catching him on the phone with a girl. He would undoubtedly stand there and make faces at him when he was trying to talk and crack him up. He wanted this conversation to go just right. He walked down the sidewalk a hundred feet or so then dialed her number. He smiled happily when she agreed to go out to dinner with him, maybe a show after that. He hung up, then practically skipped back to the house. First thing, he ran down to the basement to tell his brother.