Haunting Whispers

by V. K. Powell

  “She doesn’t have a choice. It’s over.” Rae shrugged like she had nothing more to say on the subject, and Audrey tingled in relief. Her words rang true.

  “Sorry if I interrupted your evening. It looked like you were hosting an international conference, or were they friends?”

  Audrey took a deep breath and steeled herself for Rae’s reaction. “Actually, they’re more like family.”

  Rae’s expression didn’t change. “They seem very nice. How did you meet such a diverse group of people?”

  “Why don’t you sit down? Would you like something to drink?” Audrey stalled for time. She needed a few more seconds to mentally map her strategy.

  “No, thanks.” Rae took a seat at one end of the sofa with Audrey at the other.

  “I met those people when I was young, in the International Cirque.”

  Rae’s gaze never left hers, her eyes full of attention and interest. An involuntary twitch in her brow was the only indication that the comment registered as unusual.

  “My mother, Nadja, was a dancer with IC originally, ex-quisitely creative and coordinated. When she retired, they kept her on as a dance recruiter and instructor until she died.” The memory of her mother and her amazing career brought a wave of pride and sadness. She fought to control the swell of emotions. “From my earliest recollections, we moved every couple of weeks from one venue to another. The small cirque family became my family. We were close-knit and lived together in the beginning. Wherever we went we had a few rooms and everybody shared space and resources. Everyone had a job—fixing meals, educating the children, planning events, transportation, or housing. It was like a busy little ant hill.”

  Audrey looked to Rae for an indication to continue. Her face was softer than she’d ever seen. The small worry lines that usually creased her forehead had disappeared and her eyes shone with kindness and curiosity. So far so good, but this was the easier of the two bombs to drop.

  “Please go on.”

  “When I was old enough to work, I chose to become a clown. The more experienced performers took me under their wings and gave me on-the-job training. Melvin and Tony are trapeze artists. Hope, Faith, and Charity are tumblers/gymnasts. Yasi is an exquisite dancer. Sam and I developed a clown routine—Sam and Sanjana.”

  Rae looked confused. “Sanjana?”

  “In Sanskrit it means soft, gentle, untouchable. I chose it for the act. Sam was the Charlie Brown to my Lucy. I was a Queen of Hearts jester with a hood hat, comedy and tragedy masks, curly toed shoes, and oversized gloves. I never handled anything directly. I carried huge tongs in my back pocket. I’d start to touch something or shake Sam’s hand and change my mind at the last minute. Silly, I know, but the crowds loved us.”

  Rae smiled. “I’m trying to envision you dressed in that costume acting onstage in front of thousands of people. You’re so private now. I bet you had a great childhood, full of fun and adventures.”

  So far Rae’s reaction hadn’t been what Audrey expected. Her background had no more adverse effect than any other person’s recollection of their childhood. Rae seemed interested and asked questions, showing no signs of judgment or disapproval. “It was a happy time until I went away to college.”

  “Did you stop performing?”

  “I returned at summer breaks and did a few shows, because I loved it so much and it kept me in touch with friends. My last one was a year ago.” Audrey remembered the night of her final performance. The arena had been packed and they’d done shows back-to-back. Afterward she’d changed clothes and was walking to join the others at a nearby bar to celebrate. Her memory always faded at this point. She hadn’t figured out if the blockage resulted from the incident or her refusal to remember it.

  “You look sad. Did something happen?” Rae asked.

  Audrey barely contained her feeling of helplessness. She couldn’t tell Rae this part of the story until she remembered everything. To unearth the past, she had to stop running in the present. “I’m getting ahead of the story. I wanted to tell you about myself because I find it difficult to make new friends without being honest.”

  Rae’s bright eyes sparkled and her face seemed to glow. The corners of her very kissable mouth curved into a smile. It was as if Audrey had given her a gift. “You can tell me anything, Audrey. If you want it kept confidential, just say so.” Rae reached for Audrey’s hands but seemed to reconsider. “May I?”

  It took every ounce of Audrey’s resolve to refuse Rae’s touch. “I’d prefer you didn’t. I need to stay focused. This part is the shocker.” Audrey wanted Rae to hold her and tell her everything would be all right, no matter what she revealed. She wanted to be loved and accepted exactly as she was, but that hadn’t been her predominant experience.

  “Say it, Audrey. What could be so bad anyway?”

  “I’m psychic.”

  Rae’s head tilted to the side sharply as though she hadn’t heard properly. “What?”

  “Psychic, clairsentient, seer, clairvoyant, whatever you want to call it. If you tell anybody else, I’ll have you put to sleep.” Audrey joked in the hopes of dislodging the stunned look from Rae’s face. It didn’t work. Rae’s eyes opened wider and her gaze bounced around the room before settling on Audrey.

  “The conversation we had the other day, was that a trick of some sort?”

  “If I recall, you brought up the subject. I tested the waters.”

  “And I failed miserably.”

  “Please don’t start with the jokes. I’ve heard them all. What’s a blond psychic’s greatest achievement? An in-body experience. Why do psychics have to ask your name? Where do fortunetellers go to dance? The crystal ball. They’re all pretty lame.”

  The jokes weren’t helping. Audrey could feel the confusion rolling off Rae. She had no idea what to say. Her attitude toward psychics had been clear, and her opinion of Audrey had probably gone off the scale on the negative side.

  Rae stood and paced in front of the sofa, her mind spinning with Audrey’s revelations and her new willingness to be so exposed. While the conversation felt genuine, almost intimate, the news disturbed her. “How do you know you’re…psychic?” Even the word didn’t flow easily off her tongue. She wasn’t sure how she’d reconcile Audrey with her idea of a clairvoyant.

  “I apparently come from a long line of similar relatives, gypsies, actually. I know, I’m blond and blue. We’re not all dark-haired, brown-eyed vagrants, basket makers or chimney sweeps—a common misconception. My mother was the first to break the mold and refuse to use her gift to make money fortunetelling. At first I denied I had any intuitive ability, then I ignored it, and finally I refused to use it.”

  The conflict on Audrey’s face made Rae wince. It was obviously painful for her to reveal something so personal and controversial. No wonder she’d been so secretive about her past. This wasn’t the kind of thing you told folks in casual conversation. It actually wasn’t the kind of thing you told at all. Her response to Audrey’s news would be crucial.

  “I’m not sure what to say.” Honesty was her only hope of getting through. “Can you tell me how you realized you could do this? I confess total ignorance on the subject.”

  Audrey seemed to relax as she released a deep sigh. “I used to watch my mother make predictions for friends, help find lost children, or send clues to the police, but I never understood how she did it.

  “When I was ten, a lady in the cirque came to ask about her daughter, who had been missing for months. My mother didn’t see anything, but I did. It was a horrible flash of a body inside a car in a junkyard. I blurted out, ‘She’s dead.’ It made no sense how I knew that, yet I was certain it was true. Mom hurried me from the room, scolding me for being insensitive and giving me the rules for delivering bad news to people.”

  “Did it scare you, the first time it happened?”

  “I thought I was a terrible child and was being punished. If I saw bad things, it had to mean I was bad. I couldn’t tell anyone about it. At that ag
e all you want is to fit in, to be normal, and I definitely wasn’t. I felt so alone. Mother tried to convince me I had a great gift that I would grow to appreciate and utilize to help people. To me, it felt like a curse.”

  “Your mother and your friends…?”

  “Accepted me the way I was and helped me cope. The people who come to circus life are a little different anyway. I find them more tolerant than most. I fit in there.”

  “And when you went away to college?” Rae asked.

  The pained expression returned to Audrey’s face. “I got a bitter dose of reality when I realized that the world isn’t made up of open-minded circus people. Teenagers can be so cruel, especially if you don’t conform. I tried to intellectualize everything and ignore my feelings. My entire system felt constipated, emotionally and spiritually blocked. Does that make any sense?”

  Rae imagined Audrey denying her feelings, obstructing that vital part of herself. She thought about her recent crisis of confidence and decided Audrey’s experience must have been many times worse. “Maybe a little. It’s like losing your internal guidance system.”

  “Exactly.” Rae’s answer seemed to please Audrey.

  “What’s it like to have this…ability?”

  “You mean physically?” Rae nodded. “It can manifest in several ways. I sometimes get a tingling sensation on my face or hands or feel pressure in my head. It could be a chill, a scent, or a hazy vision or image. I might zone out for a few seconds. Sometimes I feel like my body is wrapped in fiberglass. My physical reaction often depends on what I’m picking up. And occasionally the energy around me is so disturbing I have to completely shut down. That’s the dark side of this gift.”

  Rae’s heart ached for the huge burden Audrey had always carried. She believed some people had extrasensory perception and were gifted with occasional insights unavailable to the masses. But she couldn’t imagine being privy to other people’s feelings or constantly receiving unwanted images and information. She couldn’t fathom wading around in the sick minds of some of the deviants she’d encountered. Rae found it hard to accept that this could be a way of life for some. And if it was, the emotional consequence and responsibility were bound to be tremendous.

  A strange sensation crept over her. Was Audrey reading her, knowing she had trouble absorbing all this? Rae based her knowledge of the world mostly on facts and tangibles. “Can you read everybody’s mind?”

  Audrey smiled and shook her head. “That’s another common misconception. I’m not a mind reader. I sense things from people’s energy, an object, or even a picture. It’s usually necessary that the person opens the door or invites me to read them fully. Otherwise, I read their surface energy—are they a nice person, is it safe to be with them, generic things.”

  “So you don’t know what I’m thinking right now?”

  “You seem to be one of the few people I can’t read very well. I’m not sure why.”

  “Maybe because you like me too much.” Rae was fishing but couldn’t help wishing.

  “My mother used to say that reading close friends and family was psychic cheating. Who knows, maybe it’s nature’s way of leveling the playing field. I don’t need to be psychic to see your apprehension and disbelief, maybe even confusion. That’s normal. I’m asking you to stretch your perception of reality.”

  “I’ll say. How do you turn it off, or can you? I imagine it gets pretty exhausting.”

  “It would be if I engaged everybody I passed on the street or met each day. I listen to music, hum, or cuddle my kitten. It soothes and distracts me from the bombardment of stimuli. I don’t own a television. The news is always negative and drains me. I don’t only see things, I also hear, smell, feel, and taste spiritually.”

  Rae caught herself right before she shook her head in disbelief. When she didn’t understand something, she investigated and questioned until it came together in a coherent picture. However, the more Audrey talked the more conflicted she became. She’d handled cases where people were institutionalized for espousing such things as Audrey had. Rae desperately wanted to believe in her, because it had taken tremendous courage to expose herself so completely. Rae simply couldn’t embrace this notion of psychic ability. She was too realistic, too by the book—too closed-minded?

  Audrey patted the sofa beside her. “Please sit down. You’re wearing a hole in my carpet. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Most people would find this difficult to grasp. It violates their preconceived notions of God versus the Devil, religion versus the occult, good versus evil. You’re having trouble too, aren’t you?”

  “Forgive me, I’m thinking like a cop. It could take a while to wrap my head around it.”

  “Ask your questions. It’s best to get them out.”

  “That comment about the red dress and gold heels—was that one of your—I don’t even know what to call it. Did you really dream that?”

  “Yes, I dreamed it, and I had no idea it was connected to your victim until later.”

  Rae raked her hands through her hair in frustration. “See, that’s what I have trouble with, the whole it’s-connected-to-my-victim thing. What about the knife? Where did that little tidbit come from, another dream?”

  “I had a momentary image when your victim touched me. I felt her pain, saw her dressed in those clothes, and flashed on the knife slicing through her flesh.”

  “My mind tells me that’s not possible unless you were involved in the case. And I don’t want to believe you were.”

  Audrey was obviously struggling to explain the reality of her situation. “Consider for a moment that I might be authentically psychic. Would you turn down my help if it led to a suspect in these cases?”

  “I’d have no choice but to turn it down. They’d laugh me out of the office, not to mention the courtroom. Anything you told me as a result of your ability would be inadmissible and unquestionably discredited—and my reputation along with it. We deal in facts of law, Audrey, not psychic perceptions.”

  “And the law isn’t about perceptions?”

  “You know what I mean,” Rae said.

  “Actually, I don’t. If I’m not mistaken, your job depends greatly on a cop’s intuition and ability to read people. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean you dismiss it.”

  Rae thought about her conversation with Ken Whitt and acknowledged the heavy credence she’d given his insights into the case. None of them were based on facts. She’d specifically asked him to speculate, to give his opinion and gut instincts. “It’s not the same thing at all. We operate on valid hunches, not dreams and visions.” Rae regretted the comment the minute she said it. Audrey’s cobalt eyes darkened and her lips closed in a tight, decidedly unpleasant grimace.

  “The sad part is you believe that. I obviously made a mistake by sharing this with you.”

  The statement landed like a blow. Rae had done the one thing she wanted to avoid—lost Audrey’s confidence and trust. Why hadn’t she taken more time to think everything through before automatically reverting to the rational? “Don’t say that.”

  “What else can I say? I expected the usual logical, information-gathering questions and that you’d have to process and formulate an opinion. Then, I even expected you to dive into the professional queries. But I prayed you’d be different, that you could see beyond the hypothetical arm’s length. Maybe I misjudged your capacity for compassion and understanding. Perhaps the woman I wanted to see isn’t the woman who actually exists.” Audrey rose from the sofa and headed toward the door. “I think you should go now.”

  Rae hadn’t thought she could feel any worse. She’d disappointed Audrey on a profound level, and the result hurt her more than she could’ve imagined. It never occurred to her that she could betray someone instead of vice versa. The dish was bitter from either side. She didn’t believe Audrey and basically rejected her for admitting who she was. And the wound would have been even deeper if they’d been closer. Rae had essentially destroyed that possibility. “I’m sorry.
” As the door shut behind her, Rae thought she heard a soft cry from the other side.

  Audrey slumped to the floor as her hope that Rae would understand and accept her disappeared. For a moment she was back in college with her peers pointing and laughing at her, the rejection sharp and damaging. She tried to muffle the sorrow that rose in her throat but failed. The cry sounded like a tortured animal as it escaped her lips. When would she learn not to trust people? What made her think Rae Butler was different, special?

  It was common to have philosophical and ideological differences, but they could also be grounds for disagreement and serious conflict. Now Rae probably thought Audrey was a crazy circus freak who should take her act back to the big top. Audrey would’ve had more luck revealing herself to the mayor. At least he didn’t cling to some antiquated idea of truth as only black and white or right and wrong. She had challenged the very foundation of Rae’s just-the-facts mentality and been rebuffed. What had she been thinking? She’d trusted a cop.

  If Rae didn’t believe her, she wasn’t the person to help uncover the remaining mystery in her life. Once again she was on her own, struggling to understand something she didn’t even remember. Her instincts had brought her to Kramer for a reason, and it had to be connected to her forgotten past. Nothing else made sense. She would eventually unravel the convoluted threads and come up with the answer with or without help.

  Audrey drew her knees to her chest, feeling alone and strangely uncomfortable. Looking around her little apartment, she wondered why it suddenly felt vast and unwelcoming. Cannonball nudged her legs, and when Audrey stretched out, the kitten nestled in her lap. The tiny creature licked her hands and seemed to be trying to console her. If only people were as nonjudgmental and accepting as animals, life would be much easier. She gently stroked the wiry hair on her kitten’s back. Had she seen the last of Rae Butler?

  *

  Arya bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood. Strangers surrounded her all night. Those strange people from her past, touching her, talking, laughing—always touching. The annoying woman who delivered a pesky animal had again brought disruption. It burrowed into his soul and made him crave retribution. He wanted to punish them for their violations. Instead he was forced to watch without taking action. His rage always flared when he felt helpless. She needed him and he could do nothing.