Awakenings (Intertwined Souls Series Book 4)

by Mary D. Brooks

  “Your gun jamming once up in the mountain could be a faulty gun, but jamming three times? Twice in the cellar?”

  “Four times. I fired twice on Athena’s Bluff and twice in the cellar.”

  “Wow,” Eva exclaimed quietly. “You tried to kill me four times and each time someone or something was jamming the gun? How could they know at that precise moment that you were aiming that gun…”

  “Unless they could see the future,” Zoe finished Eva’s sentence. “Unless they knew the precise moment that was going to happen.”

  Eva stared at Zoe for a long moment. She rubbed her hand over her arm. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Zo. Who are these people? What if they are possessed?”

  “Are you possessed?”

  “I don’t know. One minute everything is fine and the next I just know something is wrong. Where does that come from?”

  “Do you see visions?”

  “No. I just feel that something will happen.”

  “Have you ever had visions?” Zoe asked as she sat on the coffee table and gazed at Eva. “Think back to before you were sent to Aiden.”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really means yes, I think so, but I’m not sure,” Zoe reasoned.

  “I don’t remember anything other than seeing Irene, but that was not a vision of the future.” Eva shook her head slowly. “I’ve always known when something was going to happen, but I didn’t think anything of it.”

  A gentle knock preceded the door opening. Tessa walked in and closed the door. She carried a plate with Eva’s breakfast, and a towel was draped over her arm. She put the plate in front of Eva.

  “Eat something.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Eva replied as she poured herself another glass of whisky. She drank from it and put it down.

  “You are going to feel absolutely awful in an hour.”

  “How do you know that? Your gift?” Eva asked with a nervous laugh.

  “No.” Tessa shook her head and sat down. “When Irene told me what I had inherited, I drank a full bottle of Retsina on an empty stomach.” She smiled. “Poor Stella had to clean up after me because I threw up all over the place.”

  Eva stared at Tessa for a moment before she picked up a fork and cut off a piece of the bauerfruhstuck and gave it to Zoe. Zoe accepted the morsel and then gave Eva a pointed look. With a resigned shrug, Eva ate some of her breakfast.

  “I know what you are going through,” Tessa said. “I know the questions running through your mind.”

  “No, you don’t,” Eva mumbled as she put another forkful of her breakfast in her mouth.

  “I have a question.” Zoe quickly glanced at Eva and then back at Tessa. “What are your powers?”

  “They’re not powers.”

  “Gifts, powers, whatever they are called. What are they?”

  “As you know, I have visions.”

  “What else?”

  Tessa tilted her head and smiled. “I was just saying to Irene that you would be the one to ask me. One of the gifts I have is that I can move objects with my mind.”

  “Huh?” Eva mumbled with a mouthful of food.

  Tessa exhaled slowly and closed her eyes. She placed her hands on her lap, opened her eyes, and looked at Eva.

  Nothing happened for a moment, but then Eva and her chair moved sideways by a few inches.

  “Ugh!” Eva screamed. She bolted up and the plate with the bauerfruhstuck crashed to the carpet. She stood staring at the chair, the fork still in her hand.

  Zoe stood with her mouth agape and her hand over her heart in shock. “Fuck.”

  “That word seems to be getting a good workout today.” Tessa smiled serenely. “Katarina is going to get so mad at me,” she muttered as she knelt by the upturned plate and picked up the remains of the food. She placed the plate on the table and resumed her seat.

  “You jammed the gun,” Zoe said.

  “I did. Every time you pulled that trigger and you were aiming at Eva, it jammed, and yes, it was me.” Tessa nodded. “Eva was going to die by your hand. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  “How did you know that Zoe was going to shoot me at that point in time?”

  The study door was flung open and Stella came running in to find Tessa smiling and sitting in the comfortable leather chair. Stella glanced at Eva, who was still looking at the carpet in shock, an upraised fork in her hand.

  Irene peered around Stella at the occupants of the room. “Oh dear, that’s going to stain the carpet again,” she said, shaking her head, and walked off.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Eva decided she needed to walk away. Anywhere. It didn’t matter where as long as she was alone and able to think. She could not be part of this; whatever ‘this’ was. It was too fanciful.

  She found herself walking in the gardens surrounding the villas until she got to a garage. She sat down on the wooden bench and stared off into the sky as if seeking answers to her many questions. She heard noises coming from the garage, so she got up and went to investigate.

  “Hello?” Eva said as she spied a couple of legs sticking out from under an old car.

  The legs moved as the person they belonged to slid out from under the undercarriage of the car.

  “Hello,” the man said as he got up and picked up a cloth to wipe the oil from his hands.

  “Who are you?”

  “I could say the same to you, but I already know.” The man chuckled.

  Eva couldn’t see him clearly in the dark garage. She took a step back to allow him to exit. Great, another seer, she thought.

  The man smiled and walked out into the sunshine. Eva stared slack jawed up at him. He was taller than she was, and broad shouldered, and he had salt-and-pepper hair and a dimpled chin.

  “I’m Father Johan Faber. I’m also known as Uncle Johan.” He approached Eva and engulfed her in a hug that she surprisingly reciprocated.

  “Wow.”

  “Yes, your great aunt Irene did draw the short stature straw.” Johan chuckled. “My, my, my, let me look at you.” He held her at arm’s length. “You have the Faber dimple, and our black hair and blue eyes. You are the spitting image of—”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes, you do look like Daphne.” Johan nodded. “But the template for this look belongs to your great great grandfather Johan Faber Senior.”

  “Yes, my great great grandfather. I don’t know a lot about him.”

  “There’s a lot you haven’t heard about.” Johan led Eva to the bench. “So has Irene dazzled you yet?”

  “Dazzled isn’t the right word. Bamboozled, puzzled, confused, bewildered, baffled, perplexed, horrified and—”

  “Are you going through the whole thesaurus?” Johan asked.

  Eva nodded.

  Johan smiled. “You’re trying to find the right word to describe the indescribable?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Hm. Don’t.” Johan stretched out his long legs and folded them at the ankles. “Sometimes it’s best to just accept what God has given you.”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know what God has given me.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I just found out about this inherited gift. I don’t even know how much I want to believe is true.”

  “What is faith?”

  “I don’t think faith is the issue here.”

  “Yes, it is. So tell me—what is faith to you?”

  “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Eva recited the Bible verse she knew by heart.

  “Yes, that is what the Bible says, but what do you think faith is?”

  Eva took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Believing in something so profound, something that is bigger than you, and knowing that it’s true even though you can’t see it.”

  Johan smiled. “This gift is profound, bigger than you, and you can’t see it, but it’s there. If you can accept that this is what faith is, t
hen why can’t you accept that God gave you this gift as a sign of His love?”

  Eva looked down at the ground and tracked an ant as it went around her foot. “How does a woman who goes into a room with one-hundred-and-twenty people, a normal, average woman who just happened to believe in Jesus Christ, come out totally transformed?”

  “That, Eva, is called being touched by The Holy Ghost. They were normal people, and they had every day jobs and every day concerns like you and me. They went into that room to congregate together, to find solace in each other’s company. The Lord promised them that He would send help. He did. It was The Holy Ghost.”

  “They walked out totally transformed.”

  “They did.” Johan smiled. “Everyone outside thought they were drunk. They were speaking in tongues. People who could barely speak their own language spoke with great authority and in a different language. The power of God.”

  “I understand that, but why has this gift come down through the generations to today?”

  “I don’t know,” Johan replied. “Why do the descendants of Eva Theresa receive this gift? I don’t know.”

  “If this is from God, why does the Church condemn people like Aunt Tessa and think she is possessed?”

  Johan took out a small bible from his top pocket. “The Church has lost its way.”

  Eva turned to him, astonished at such sentiments coming from a priest. “Are you saying the Church is wrong?”

  “Yes, I am. They fear what they do not know.”

  “Good thing we are not living through the Inquisition,” Eva quipped.

  Johan put his hand on her shoulder. “We would have been in a lot of trouble.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Nothing,” Johan replied. “You do nothing. Have you experienced anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Other than knowing when things are going to happen? No,” Eva replied with a wry smile. “Learning a language comes easily to me. Is that a gift?”

  “Yes, that was the first gift. How long have you known things were going to happen before they happened?”

  “For as long as I can remember,” Eva admitted. “I knew things would happen and they did.”

  “You didn’t think that strange?”

  “No. I thought everyone thought this way. I just never questioned it.”

  “Interesting.” Johan took a cigar from his pocket.

  Eva raised her eyebrows.

  “I like cigars.”

  “Me too.”

  “You do? Wonderful. Wait here.” Johan went back into the garage. Moments later he came out with another cigar. “Here you go.”

  Eva chuckled while Johan lit her cigar. “I wonder if I’m dreaming all of this.”

  “Nah,” Johan said as he took a puff of his own cigar. “Life is far more interesting than dreams.”

  “Not if you have visions, it’s not.”

  “Ah yes, those.”

  “Am I supposed to have them too?”

  “Yes, I believe visions do come with the knowing everything before it happens part of the gift.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Yes.” Johan chuckled. “Everyone has different gifts. Some foresee events before they happen or know they will happen. Others move objects with their minds, although I’m not quite sure what good that does in spreading the word of God. Others project themselves to another time and place.”

  “Like Aunty Tessa.”

  “Oh, yes, Tessa is something else.” Johan smiled knowingly. “She has to be the most powerful of all the generations so far. Has she shown you yet?”

  “She moved me and my seat while I was eating.”

  Johan laughed lightly. “That’s her favorite. Gave me a few extra gray hairs when she did that to me. Did she do that whole sitting down and concentrating? She can do it with a blink of an eye.”

  “What else can she do?”

  “Ah, Eva, that’s not for me to tell. That’s for your Aunty Tessa. When she was a child she suffered a great deal because she truly believed she was possessed.”

  “I’m incredulous at thirty. I can’t imagine what that would do to a child.”

  “It’s not something a child can comprehend. Tessa possessed the ability to foresee events that hadn’t happened, and because she was an artist, she drew them. You can imagine her horror in drawing something and then finding out it was true.”

  “I don’t have to imagine,” Eva said quietly. “I’ve seen her art.”

  “Hm, yes. That wasn’t one of Stella’s brightest ideas.”

  “You heard?” Eva asked, feeling a little apprehensive at what Johan would think of her.

  Johan took Eva’s hand and gazed at her. “There is no shame in showing those you love how you feel. You have gone through a terrible ordeal, but you are stronger for it.”

  “I am, sometimes.”

  “I think you underestimate yourself. Did you believe you would survive Aiden?”

  “No.”

  “Even with your gift, you didn’t believe it?”

  “No.”

  “But you have. You are sitting here, in this lovely garden, with your great uncle, smoking a great cigar.” Johan held up his cigar and smiled. “Are you sure you didn’t know this was going to happen?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “No. I think you are wrong. I think you did know this would happen, but you believed it wouldn’t. Believing in something requires faith. You lost your faith.”

  Eva stared at Johan open mouthed. “How—”

  “We all lose faith. Even Saint Peter lost faith. Remember when Jesus asked him to join him on the water? Peter was full of faith and he stepped out of the boat.” Johan smiled. “But once his brain caught up with his faith, it said ‘oops, what are you doing, stop,’ and down Peter went. He lost faith that he could walk on water just like Jesus.”

  “But he couldn’t walk on water.”

  “But he did,” Johan replied. “He walked on water with Jesus. He had so much faith in the Lord that he was the only second mortal man to ever do it. What does that tell you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure, you do. God calls us to do impossible things by faith. He asked Peter to come and Peter came. Peter kept his eyes on Jesus and by doing that he believed. Looking around and believing the storm was going to defeat him, his faith wavered for a moment and he lost the ability to walk on water.”

  “He actually walked on water?”

  “He did. He also uttered the words you said many times while in Aiden.”

  “Lord, save me,” Eva whispered.

  “Yes, and what did the Lord do?”

  “Saved me,” Eva replied as she closed her eyes.

  “He did. He sent Tessa, Irene, Tommy, and your own father. When you found the strength, you opened your heart and he sent Zoe.”

  “You know about Zoe?”

  Johan laughed heartily. “Have you forgotten who my sister is? I’ve been hearing about that young woman for a long time. Eva, God sent you people who could help you because you asked Him.”

  “He did.”

  “You said to Him, ‘save me,’ and He did. Don’t question why He gave you this gift. Accept it for what it is.”

  “But Uncle Johan, I have no idea what it is.”

  “Many didn’t know why they were given those gifts or how to use them, but in time they were shown. Give it time and He will tell you.”

  Eva sighed. “I’m normally a very patient person, but Zoe must be rubbing off on me because I want to know now.”

  Johan put his arm around Eva and smiled. “My dear Eva, all will be revealed when He wants it to be revealed.”

  “Spoken like a priest,” Eva joked, and for the first time that day she felt a calm descend on her. “Talking to you about this has been good.”

  “I actually think it’s the cigar. I find it calms my nerves, but I’ll take the compliment.” Johan chuckled.

  “What were you doing in there?”

 
“That is my lost cause. When I have something on my mind, I find it relaxing to tinker with the car.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  “No, it’s unfixable, but I tinker with it anyway, hoping by some miracle I can actually fix it. I may take it apart again just to reassemble it.” Johan leaned back against the garage wall and sighed contentedly. “A young man passed away last night from that dreaded cancer. I was with him before he passed on.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Hm. He is now with the Lord and not in pain anymore. What is your favorite scripture from the Bible?”

  “Psalm 23,” Eva replied without hesitation. “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’”

  Johan nodded. “Why do you think you like that?”

  “I walked through the valley of the shadow of death.”

  “Yes, indeed, and the end of that chapter says, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ God has shown you mercy and a whole lot of goodness.’”

  “He has.”

  “My favorite is from Revelation 21: 4, where it says, ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’ That young man is with God and there is no more pain.” Johan brought out the gold cross that hung around his neck and kissed it. “Have faith in God, Eva, and the rest will sort itself out.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “What the hell was that?” Zoe yelled as she stormed into the kitchen. Eva had been positively rattled by Tessa's display of her telekinetic powers, to the point where Zoe could see Eva just needed to walk away and be by herself. Zoe wanted to run out of the house herself, but her anger at those that caused all the anxiety won out.

  Stella looked up from her cup of coffee with a startled look. “Zoe, what is the matter?”

  “What's the matter?” Zoe asked, incredulous. “For the love of God, are you people insane?”

  “Please, calm down,” Tessa said calmly as she entered the kitchen. “The neighbors can hear you.”