A Deep and Dark December

  Graham reached for her hand across the table, the one with an engagement ring. She was engaged? To whom? Erin found herself moving closer, unable to pull her gaze from the ring and from Graham as he bent to kiss the back of her hand. It was difficult to read the other Erin’s expression. She appeared angry, yet at the same time she seemed to pity Graham as he held her hand in both of his. Erin could see the struggle on her own face. Graham was speaking in earnest and the other Erin was trying hard not to be swayed.

  He apologized. Again. The word echoed through her mind as if she’d heard all of his apologies on the subject before. Yet how could she? She inched closer, cautious, as though she’d be caught by her future self.

  “How many times do you expect me to go through this?” the other Erin asked. “I just want a number so I can know when it will finally stop.”

  “I didn’t ask for any of this,” Graham said.

  “Neither did I.”

  “I know I’ve hurt you—”

  “You’ve gotten very good at it.”

  “I’m trying. I really am.”

  “And while you try I’m supposed to do what? Wait around for a fiancé who may or may not come home? Where do you go? What do you do?”

  “I…” Graham pulled away, his hands fisting on his thighs under the table.

  “You know what? I don’t care.” Future Erin started to rise.

  “Wait! Don’t go, Erin. Please.”

  “Give me a reason not to.”

  He hesitated and it must have been too much for her. Her voice turned hard. “You’re so used to being the one who leaves you don’t know what it’s like to be left. Do you?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

  “Just go ahead and say it, Graham. I already know. You go to her grave.”

  Shock, guilt, and relief sifted through Graham’s expression like hourglass sand until it ran out and he went blank again.

  “You didn’t think I’d look?” Future Erin asked. “Didn’t think I’d use my ability to find you?”

  “You know how I feel about you doing that.”

  “What else am I supposed to do? Sit around and imagine you dead somewhere?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “God. If I hear you say that one more time—”

  Graham rubbed his thighs with the flat of his hands. “I want to come home.”

  Other Erin glanced away, close to tears. She sucked in a shuddering breath and let it out slowly.

  Graham reached out and stroked her face. “Don’t cry, Babe. Please.”

  Seeing herself suffering snapped something inside Erin and she felt herself being drawn down. Just as the window on her vision closed she heard her future self say, tears in her voice, “You’re the only one keeping you away, Graham. And you’re the only one who can bring you back to me.”

  The darkness was total and complete. In the distance Erin heard voices. She could feel a cold hardness beneath her. And then the curtain went up on another scene. She was in Keith’s house, standing at the railing of the second floor overlooking his living room. Alone. She’d been in Keith’s house just once before and then only briefly. The living room below was as she remembered it, clean and tidy. A place for everything and everything in its place.

  It suddenly struck her how odd it was that Keith and Deidre had an affair. Keith was a man who liked neat even rows. It was equally strange that Keith had gone out with someone as messy and unpredictable as Erin. She obviously hadn’t known Keith as well as she thought, to be so wrong about the choices he’d made. She wondered where she’d be right now if Deidre, Greg, and Keith hadn’t died. Where they’d all be if she could go back to that day on Amiable Lane and alter events.

  Keith walked into the room and looked up at the ceiling. He wore the black dress pants and white shirt of his work uniform. His hair was combed, his face freshly shaved. The scent of his cologne wafted up to Erin, bringing with it memories of their time together and the sharp pain of regret. He hadn’t been a bad guy. He’d always been respectful and kind toward her. She couldn’t help but feel that she’d let him down and had repaid his kindness with reserve instead of interest.

  He left the room again, then reappeared with rope and began to climb the stairs. Oh, no. She didn’t want to see this. She pushed hard against the wall that had sprung up between herself and reality, mentally beating at it, looking for a break she could exploit and escape through. But the wall was pain and the more she worked at it, the stronger it became until she doubled over, nauseous and nearly blinded.

  Keith hit the landing and paused. His eyes swam with despair. He looked down at the rope in his hands, then up at the beams in the ceiling, his fingers worrying the rope like a rosary. He was mumbling something, but Erin’s ears rang with misery and she couldn’t make out the words. He jolted, quaking like an addict denied his fix.

  His motions became frantic as he threw the end of the rope at the beam over and over, whipping at it until the end finally sailed over the other side. He jogged downstairs and retrieved the end, then came back up and repeated the process. Three times he wrapped the beam before tying it off. He stared at the other end of the rope as if he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it and then he began to fashion the noose. His movements were jerky and unsure. He paused several times and closed his eyes, shaking as though he was waging an internal war.

  Erin redoubled her efforts to break out of the vision, turning away from Keith’s trembling form hunched over the knot he was making. She felt the cold hardness again, pressing against her right side. Graham’s voice distant and flickering called to her from another time. A fissure formed in the vision, melting one world into the next. Behind her, a loud knock sounded at Keith’s front door.

  “Keith! Open up. Sherriff.” Graham’s voice.

  Keith began to sob.

  In front of her, Erin could see the long expanse of her entryway floor, stretching out into the living room. Graham leaned down into her line of vision. She blinked up at him. At her back, Keith got to his feet. She turned in the vision and the two images overlapped. Graham over Keith. Keith slipped the noose over his head. Graham touched her face. She fought for breath. Fought to move. Keith threw one leg over the railing, then the other.

  She reached out for Keith and hit Graham. “No! Don’t!”

  “Don’t what?” Graham asked.

  Keith gripped the sides of his head, wincing as though he felt the same pain she did. And then he jumped. She screamed. Graham shook her. Keith kicked, losing a shoe. A lamp crashed. He jerked. The rope squeaked, protesting against the weight.

  A pounding on Keith’s door. “Sheriff. Open the door!” The doorknob jiggled.

  “Keith!” Erin shrieked.

  “Erin! Stop it!” Graham gripped her shoulders harder, jostling her against the floor. “It’s not real. Snap out of it.”

  Her head knocked against the hardwood, cracking the pain open. Suddenly she was free of the vision. Thrust back into the here and now. She closed her eyes, then opened them again.

  “Graham?”

  “Yes.” He released her shoulders and smoothed her hair back from her face. “I’m here, Babe.”

  “I couldn’t stop it.”

  “I tried to reach you.”

  “I heard you calling.”

  “You did?” He sagged down onto the floor next to her, laid his head against the cool wood floor. “You scared the crap out of me. What the hell happened?”

  She wanted to move, but couldn’t find the strength. “I got sucked into one vision and then another. Couldn’t break free.” She pulled in a shaky breath. “It’s never been like that.” She put a hand to her head where the pain had nearly split her head in two.

  He moved closer. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay.” But she wasn’t. Keith’s anguished moan as he’d leapt to his death looped through her head. She rolled onto her back slowly and stared up at the ceiling.

  Something wasn’t righ
t. She tried to reconcile the Keith in her vision with the Keith she’d known. His expressions and movements didn’t match, like a movie out of sync he’d been confusing to watch, his body moving one way while his mind seemed to move in another. What did a person think of when he took his own life? Was he scared? Happy? Relieved?

  “You saw Keith in your vision,” Graham prompted.

  She continued to stare at the ceiling. Graham was hard to look at, knowing how much pain he was going to cause her. But there would be joy, too, she imagined or else why would they move in together? Why would they get engaged? What would make him pull away from her eventually and whose grave would he go to when he’d leave her? This was why she tried hard not to ever look at the future. Why seeing Greg’s death had disturbed her so much. She’d not tempted fate by summoning up the future since she was a child and saw the night her mother would leave forever.

  “Yes, I did. You were there.” She bolted upright, the realization striking with shocking force. “You could’ve stopped him.”

  Graham sat up next to her. “Stopped him from what?”

  “Oh, my God. You were there. At Keith’s house. You were knocking on the front door as he jumped off the balcony.”

  “Jesus. You saw Keith’s death?”

  “Didn’t you hear him?” She looked off into the distance, trying to remember the details. “You knocked. His shoe fell off and hit the lamp. It crashed to the floor. You banged on the door again and tried to open it.” She turned to him. “You might’ve saved him.”

  Graham met her gaze and in his eyes she saw realization dawn. “Holy shit. I heard a noise. I just thought he was hiding to keep from answering my questions.” He pounded the floor with a fist. “Damn it. I tried to get in, but all the doors were locked. Damn it!”

  “I don’t think he really wanted to kill himself.” His struggle, the jerkiness of his movement. How out of sync his actions were with who he was as a person and the emotions that had played across his face. She really didn’t think that Keith wanted to kill himself. He’d fought against it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think someone or something drove him to do it.”

  “Drove him? Like a mind control kind of thing?”

  “Yes. Exactly like mind control.”

  ~*~

  Graham leaned back against the sofa. The fright of seeing Erin lying unconscious on the floor was just now wearing off, but his heart hadn’t gotten the memo. It still pounded out a fight-or-flight beat. He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. This day had been a shit-fest from the moment he’d stepped out onto Erin’s porch that morning. And now she was trying to tell him that there might be someone in San Rey with the ability to control other people’s thoughts. Fucking hell.

  “How is that possible?” he asked.

  “Oh, my God!” She popped up to her feet and began to pace. “Greg.”

  He followed suit, moving slower than she had. “You think someone got to Greg too?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. Let me try and explain—” She suddenly clamped both hands to the side of her head and squeezed her eyes shut, swaying.

  “Erin!” He raced to her side and put his hands over hers. “Erin. Make it stop. Come on, Babe. You can do it.”

  She sucked in air and her eyes popped open. “I was just thinking about Greg and the pain hit. I started to see him and then you pulled me back. What the hell is going on?’

  The fear in her voice shook him. He wouldn’t let her see how much. “Just hang on to me.” He pulled her hands down and held them in his. “I’m right here.”

  “Someone is doing this. Someone with a powerful ability.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But he knows about me, knows how to bend my ability and turn it against me.” She put a hand on his chest and gripped his shirt, bringing him closer. “He’s doing the same thing to my dad and my aunt.”

  He could see she believed what she was saying. How could this be? A person with an undiscovered ability, running around San Rey, using his influence to make people kill themselves? How was that possible? He couldn’t wrap his head around it. And then he thought of the interviews he’d done over the past few weeks. Over and over people told him how they didn’t know why they’d done the things he was arresting them for. The thought had struck them and they’d felt compelled to act on it. As though they had no choice. No free will.

  “I think he compelled Greg and Keith to take their own lives,” Erin was saying, her voice full of purpose and determination. “He probably killed Deidre. In fact, I know he did. I think that’s what started this whole thing. He killed Deidre and is using his ability to distract you and the entire town from what he’s done.”

  “Compelled. That’s an interesting word.” And consistent with what had been happening. Turning it around in his head, he could see it. The person manipulating people into committing crimes and worse, had to be in possession of a very strong ability. Erin had shied away from the word power, but in this instance, it fit.

  “He targeted my aunt because she can read minds and my dad because he can put suggestions into people’s heads,” Erin continued. “I can see the past and future. I’ve actually seen what he’s done. He’s twisting our abilities, using them against us.”

  He couldn’t deny what she was saying. At the same time he didn’t want to believe it. A murderer with the ability to command others to do terrible things. Things they would never do on their own. If what Erin was saying was true, there was a serial killer in San Rey(?).

  “You don’t believe me,” Erin said.

  Graham let out a frustrated breath. “It’s not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Graham rubbed her shoulder. They sat side by side on the couch in front of the fire. Outside the wind had kicked up, rushing through the trees and rattling the windows. Inside the fire leapt and spat, licking up in spiraling tendrils. Every once in a while, the wind dashed down the chimney and flattened it, but the fire would surge up again, more determined than ever to burn on. A lot like Erin and her indomitable spirit, he thought.

  “How do we find out who it is and stop them?” he asked. “Is there some kind of ability detector? Can you or your aunt or your dad tell if someone you meet has a talent of some kind?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Have you ever met anyone else with abilities?”

  She shook her head.

  He waited a beat then asked, “Did your mother have an ability?”

  “No.” Her answer closed the door on any other questions he might have had about that side of her family.

  He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. He still shook inside from seeing Erin lying on the floor, her gaze fixed and blank. He’d thought for a moment that she was dead and it was Patricia all over again without all the blood and the sickening knowledge that he was to blame. Only it would be his fault if something happened to Erin.

  He sat up and turned to face her. “I have to tell you something.” He hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but if he couldn’t be honest with himself, he could at least be honest with her.

  She shifted, pulling away from him a little. “What.”

  Not a question. Maybe she already knew. That was why she’d been acting suspicious toward him, standoffish. Even now he could feel her withdrawing from him, watching him as though he’d turn on her at any moment. She deserved better than him, better than a son who couldn’t stand up to his father, better than the failure he was. She was right to mistrust him. He would let her down as he’d let Patricia down. He was a disappointment to his father, this town, himself.

  “What, Graham?”

  He looked down at her hand on his arm, then up into her eyes. The wariness was there, but at the center was something he hadn’t expected and didn’t deserve. She cared for him. He’d have to find a way to nurture it, make it crowd out the doubt until it disappeared entirely.

  “I came
here to break things off between us.”

  Her head jolted back a little and her lips parted. She hadn’t been expecting him to say that. Then what—

  “Why?” she was asking, her hands now clenched in her lap. “I mean okay. Sure. If that’s what you want.”

  “No, I—”

  She took a breath and lifted her chin. “It was a stupid idea anyway and never would have worked out. You’re right. It’s best to end things now. I guess I should thank you.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “It doesn’t seem to—” Her body went stiff and she clamped her eyes shut, grabbing her head in her hands. “The…pain.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her and gripped her forearms. “Erin. Break out of it.” He gave her a little shake. “Stop it!”

  Her eyes popped open. She blinked slowly as though she expected the pain to strike again.

  “Gone?”

  “Yeah. I think so. You can let go of me.”

  He eased back, his heart pounding so hard, the backs of his eyes stung. “It hit faster that time.”

  “I’m fine now. You can go.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “I’m not up for any more of your games.”

  “What do you mean any more?”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head as though breaking free from thoughts she couldn’t trace. “Nothing. Poor choice of words.”

  “Let me start again.” He returned to the sofa, giving her the space she seemed to want. “I came here intending to break up with you.”

  “Yeah, we went over that part.”

  “But I don’t want to.”

  “Graham, I’m tired. This has been a really, really crappy day.” She rose and moved to the door. “I think you should leave.”

  He jumped up and followed her, the need to make her understand riding him hard. He was going to disappoint someone either way. It may as well be the person who was used to it. “Let me explain.”