by Isabel Wroth
A little sideways? I dug up my birth mother’s body in the middle of the night with my bare hands...
Jolene gave a little roll of her eyes, circling her hand in the air to explain. “The closer the relation is to you, sometimes the easier it is for them to make contact.
“Her spirit isn’t lingering, but you were there where she’d died, close to her body, and it sent out some kind of cosmic signal to say you were in the right place—asleep—at the right time.
“I can almost guarantee that won’t happen again unless you get in proximity to your biological father or one of your siblings, and they’ve died a violent death.”
My birth father. I hadn’t given the man much thought after John Graham had come to the warehouse and told me the whole truth about my mother.
There is no question, my biological father is a monster. A member of the Russian mob, and an enforcer with Tomas Pirogov’s human trafficking and breeding program.
He hadn’t gotten a name from Andrew Sykes, or if he had, he’d left it out of his report.
John told me it was possible my father’s DNA was in the system and running it might flag a prisoner or someone previously convicted of a crime.
If my birth father had been convicted and his DNA is on file, we would know who he is.
Or was. I’d kind of prefer it if he’s dead.
I’d told John, no. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to put a face to the man who’d molested a fourteen-year-old girl, gotten her pregnant, and allowed the baby—his baby—to be sold like a puppy to the Beauchenes.
Right now, all I knew was that faceless man was a monster, and I wanted nothing to do with him.
I flinched at the sudden vibration that went off against my wrist. “Sorry, thought I turned that off.”
“No worries. It’s your man, go ahead,” Jolene told me with an easy smile, and sure enough, the caller ID said Detective Sexy.
It took me a second to remember I might have cause to worry about being in trouble if John had called his son to fill him in on my latest work of deathly art, but calmed almost as quickly, because John wouldn’t call and risk bringing Callum in on one of his cases unless it was absolutely necessary.
The two of them were ridiculous about what they considered their territory of PI versus PD, and it provided non-stop amusement for everyone around them.
But that push of guilty conscience told me I should have told Callum first.
I will when he comes home tonight.
I pulled the Bluetooth out of my pocket and took the call, appreciating the power Callum’s voice had over me. Just a few words, and the fear, the loathing I’d felt while thinking about the faceless man who’d sired me, disappeared.
“Hey, baby. You busy right now?”
“Oh, you know. Seeking out the dark forces to join their hellish brigade.” I shot a wink at Jolene and gave her mind-reading skills a test drive.
If she truly could read my mind, she’d know Callum and I had a running joke about me being Morticia Addams’s less creepy sister.
“But I can take a break for a few minutes. Are you okay?”
Jolene’s shoulders shook with silent laughter as she gave me a thumbs up. Amused approval of my answer? Or had she heard me?
“All good. Just left a scene. I have to go see one of my confidential informants to ask her some questions. She’s a prostitute who’s either on the street or in a strip club.”
I could hear the deadpan seriousness in his voice, and it didn’t cross my mind once that anything inappropriate would happen between them or any of the strippers Callum might come into contact with.
The fact that he felt the need to call me and tell me now, versus waiting until after I hypothetically found out from someone else, made me love him even more for making the effort.
And made me feel like crap for withholding the information about my newest portrait.
“Tip her well, honey. It’s cold as hell out there.” His response was full-blown laughter.
“I’ll do my best to be home for dinner,” Callum promised.
I shook my head, smiling at the deep gold liquid in my cup as a flush of absolute adoration washed through me.
“Dinner can wait, just come home safe. Okay?”
“Do my best, baby. Love you.”
No cider, no fire, no blanket could make me feel as warm as those two words. “Love you, too.”
We hung up, and Jolene gave a wistful sigh. “You are one lucky chick, and Morticia Addams is hot shit.”
Alrighty. She’s legit as can be. “I agree.”
“Ah, Bugaboo made her move. Excellent!” I looked down again to find a small, warm body tucked up against my thigh, and my hand was rhythmically petting the short, soft fur of the timid dog who now rested her smushed little face on my thigh.
I smiled for Bugaboo, curving my palm around her delicate skull, watching her huge bat ears perk up and lay flat a few times as she decided whether or not she liked my touch.
“So, back to business. When you came out of the hypnotherapy, the therapist told you the door was open, right? The door in your mind?” Jolene asked, pulling me out of the mushy feelings I was having for this weird dog.
“Yes. Dr. Anderson said the door keeping me from the memories of my childhood is open, and I can access them any time I want.”
“Well, that sort of explains the temporary shift in your abilities.” I looked up from Bugaboo’s sweet, bug-eyed face to find Jolene frowning thoughtfully at me.
“The messed up, blocked off, rerouted pathways in your brain are reforming correctly now that she helped you start the process of getting un-fucked.”
Right then and there, I decided I liked Jolene St. Claire, a lot.
“Un-fucked. Is that a technical term?”
Jolene’s laugh was loud and honest, her red brows bouncing with amusement. “Totally technical. She said something about where your feelings lived. A physical sensation in your body?”
If I needed any further proof about Jolene’s psychic abilities, she’d just given it to me.
“As I went into the hypnosis, Dr. Anderson asked me where I felt emotion when I thought about my mother, Katya.
“My hands clenched, and it was like I felt the blood throb outside my skin.”
With a mouthful of cider, the woman across from me made a knowing sound as she swallowed.
“Gotcha. Your gift manifests the strongest via touch and exits with a creative work, so what you felt, that throb, was your gift coming online.
“The lightbulb going on, sort of. I have some books to give you on clairvoyance and psychometry.
“I never developed the ability to touch people’s shit and see stuff on the same level that my mom did, but I know enough of the basics to walk you through learning more about how your gift works.
“It’s a highly private thing to ask, but it would be helpful for me to see the paintings you’ve done, new and old.
“Also, it’s possible someone in your family tree has or had a similar psychic ability, and if so, they might have some insights to share with you.
“But, as you already know, that might be a can of worms you’re not prepared to open, so the question becomes: how bad to you want to know?”
I was here to learn about my gift, but if it was hereditary, I’d have to ask my biological father, so in the end, the decision was an easy one.
“Not that bad.”
“Cool. So, reading list, and I’m going to teach you some meditation techniques today to help you start pro-actively helping your psychic brain reform the pathways it was originally meant to have.
“It’s a process, but just like anything else, your brain is a muscle and strengthening it comes with time. Is Mia someone important to you?”
My lashes fluttered, surprise coming at me from two fronts about my psychic muscle and Mia’s name being brought up.
I’d mentioned dreaming of Callum’s dead sister but hadn’t said her name aloud.
“Yeah. Why?”
Jolene shrugged and wiggled her be-ringed fingers in the air above her head. “There’s a message on my psychic answering machine about a Christmas list, but I don’t always take those seriously.
At my continued impression of a wide-eyed owl, Jolene went on to explain.
“If I reported every message left by a loved one that was off-topic and out of the blue, I’d spend my entire day telling people to turn the stove off and to pick up grandma’s denture cream while I was out. Ghosts, man. They say the weirdest shit.”
I had to ask. “Can a person be at peace and still be a ghost?”
Jolene nodded easily, completely comfortable in talking about her gifts in a way I’m not sure I’ll ever be.
“Sure. It’s busy season right now with it being a full moon, and the voices are coming through loud and clear.
“Or, in your case, the murder channel on the psychic radio channel is crystal clear, and you—the receiver— are pulling in the frequencies like a super-conductor.
“If you’re worried Mia isn’t at peace, or she has unfinished business, she’s fine. She’s just apparently appointed herself as a spiritual assistant and will pop in from time to time with important messages. You’ll probably continue to dream about her on and off for the rest of your life.
“That Christmas list is pretty short, by the way. VIP tickets to the first Mets game of the season for John and Callum, and Marcy has been wanting to go to the ballet but is worried if she asks, it’ll bring up sad memories.
“Apparently, one of Mia’s friends got a principal role in a Christmas production and reached out to Marcy with an invite, but she felt weird about accepting.”
I sighed, feeling a sense of relief and amusement. “If I buy the tickets and give them as a gift, it takes the pressure off of Marcy while making it sort of an obligation to go, since I made it a present.”
“Right,” Jolene agreed, “but you all have to go. The boyfriend, the parents, and Nigel.”
“I’m not opposed in any way. He’ll love seeing the guys in tights, but why Nigel?” I asked, glancing around the room looking for signs of Mia’s presence, like I’d know what to look for even if she was standing right next to me.
“No idea. I merely report the weather.” There was a frustrated sort of acceptance to Jolene’s remark, but we shared a look that made me feel suddenly much better about my own dilemma of not always having answers.
“I’ll agree that it’s the most frustrating part of what we get, Jo,” she told me. “It’s like playing a cosmic game of Telephone.
“By the time we get the message, ‘tell mom I love her’ has turned into ‘your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries’.”
There was no way for me not to laugh, and it felt good to not bottle up my questions, to be able to discuss Mia and psychic messages as though they were a legitimate form of science and not science-fiction.
Once our giggles subsided, Jolene gave a sigh and a shrug. “All we can do is work with what we’ve got, and sometimes, what we’ve got is absolute shit.”
“About those messages," I drawled, referring more to my own messages than the ones Jolene got, because it seemed like we had two different answering services from two different sources.
“Where the hell do they come from? God? Other dead people?”
“Mine come from all over the place,” Jolene said with another expressive wave of her hand. “Yours ... I’m not sure yet.”
A strange sensation of being watched suddenly came over me. The dogs were all looking at me, the bird was looking at me, and if there were ghosts in the room I couldn’t see, I felt as though they were looking at me too.
Jolene set her elbow on the arm of her chair, resting her chin on her fist as her green eyes roamed around the room looking at who knows what, her foot making circles in the air.
“Automatic writers often experience a similar state as to what you go through when you touch an item and space out.
“In their case, it’s usually a spirit taking their hand or riding them like a pony to get their point across.
“I’m no expert, I don’t know all there is to know about everything in the realm of psychic, and I’m not hearing anyone fess up to knowing anything about anything.
“My only suggestion would be to start working on honing your sense of psychic touch to the point where you can clearly tell whether or not the object you’re about to grab has someone’s murder attached to it, and I’ll come over to listen in while you’re in the middle of an episode.”
As far as plans went, it was pretty weak, but it was more than I’d had coming in here.
“Okay. I’m ready. Let’s do it. Just one more question.”
Jolene rolled her lips together and seemed to be as confused as I was. She answered my unasked question,
“No, I have no idea why everyone is staring at you. You want my opinion?”
With every hair on my body doing the tango, I said, “Yes.”
“In the puzzle that is your life, you’ve just found the last corner edge piece that’s been missing for years, and now you can start filling in the rest of it to get a better idea of the big picture.
“You’re leveling up, and whether or not you made the decision consciously, you’ve opened yourself up to sharing your ability with people who matter.
“You’ve opened your mind, and your heart to more than just psychic shit, traveling in the right direction, and all eyes are on you to see what happens next.”
In response to Jolene’s observation, something like the reverberating bang of a gong went off inside my chest.
A resounding vibration that rippled through my body, like a stone thrown into water.
I reached up to put my hand over my heart, and Jolene gave a final nod, lifting a long, elegant finger to tap the air.
What the hell was that?
“That’s what it feels like when the Universe says ‘yes.’”
It’s cool you can read minds, but what if I was thinking about my boyfriend, naked?
Jolene made a sound between a snort and a giggle, getting up to start gathering books and a few spears of crystal.
“It’d be a great day in the neighborhood for me. We’ll work on your psychic shields, too.
“You don’t have any, which is why I can hear you so clearly. Once they’re rock solid, we’ll get to the ‘touch it and see’ phase.”
Sqwaaaaaak! “That’s what she said!”
Jolene heaved an exasperated sigh and shook her head at the raven bouncing up and down on his perch.
“Peggy, you’re not funny.”
“Suck it, bitch! Feed me!” the bird commanded, and I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I tried. I laughed so hard I couldn’t sit up straight.
When I got it together enough to string a few thoughts together, I wiped the tears of mirth from my cheeks, and looked in Jolene’s direction.
Why has it taken me thirty years to finally get answers about something I’ve had my whole life? Or to meet another psychic?
“The door wasn’t open; you weren’t ready to see, and you had some really shit people in your life who only served to reinforce the fear and stigma associated with what you are. But it’s time now. The unknown will soon become known.”
That sounds ominous....