Chapter 40

She didn’t know how long she knelt that way but an unusual drifted around her and she looked up. The sky had darkened and through the fence, into the woods, she could see a small glowing light. Someone had a fire going.

It seemed she only had to think about it and she was standing in a clearing, beside a roaring fire. She could even feel the warmth of it against her skin and she realized she felt cool.

“Sit down and rest, Samantha. Please.”

She almost jumped into the fire and she looked around to find the source of the voice. Darkness had fallen. She could see the building behind her, glowing in moonlight but here, the forest seemed to crowd in around her and she couldn’t see beyond the circle of light created by the flames.

A large log lay on the ground opposite her and she moved to sit on it. Again she jumped and gasped when she saw a woman standing in the same spot she had just stood. She was tall with long flowing dark hair and she wore a long flowing white dress that seemed to billow around her toward the flames. Samantha considered warning her but for some reason didn’t feel it necessary. She was a pretty woman with blue eyes that seemed to draw you in. Sam had to consciously back away from the feeling.

“Who are you?”

She smiled and raised her hands. “You’re very good at control. You were able to break away.”

“I don’t like what you were doing. It’s wrong.”

“Yes,” the smile broadened into a grin, “it is. Your cousin doesn’t feel that way.”

Alaina. So this wasn’t her cousin in some contrived guise.

“No, she doesn’t have that ability.”

Sam flinched.

She laughed. “That’s rude of me. But unfortunately, unavoidable.”

“You can’t avoid reading minds?”

“It isn’t exactly reading minds, Samantha. It’s just that here, well, there is nothing hidden . . . unless it is by choice. You’re an open book and hide very little from people. Except . . . perhaps . . . your gifts.”

“Who are you? And where, pray tell, is here?”

“My name is Helen. Actually, I’m a distant relative or your mother. This,” she laughed a pretty light laugh, “this gift is strong in our line.”

“How many others?” It was the question she’d asked John and he’d not known.

Sam saw her move slightly and then sit down on a stump, probably the one from the log she now sat on. Helen crossed her hands in her lap and stared into the fire. Sam waited and watched. Slowly, as if she were waking up, Sam began to hear voices and she looked around the darkened clearing. She realized this was the buzz she had heard when her aunt had brought her to the circle. She looked at Helen.

“Yes. You hear them.”

Abruptly, she stood up and exasperation strained her voice, “Hear WHO!”

Helen smoothed her skirt and sat straight, “Samantha, you have to learn to control that as well. You can’t know everything at once and some things never!”

She sat down, casting looks over her shoulder. That feeling of being watched had grown so strong it was like a dagger between her shoulder blades.

Laughter rippled across the fire and the flames actually danced higher. “You’ve got the most wonderful imagination. It has been a great joy watching you.”

That drew her attention back to Helen. “Watching me?”

“Listen, Sam, you can’t stay here much longer. John will be terrified as it is but you have to wake soon. Once you left the protection of the circle your time here is limited. I’ve wasted too much time as it is.

“This place, this place is where it begins for all of us. Once you touched the stone you set off a set of reactions you can’t stop. But you weren’t ready and Isabel should have seen that. You weren’t even aware of how strong a gift you possess but perhaps Isabel didn’t either. She isn’t even aware of Aliana’s strength.

A sadness swept over her face and she paused to stare into the fire. “And she doesn’t know that Aliana’s abilities have been corrupted.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Helen look up sharply. “Of course you do. She’d tested you with it.” She waved that away, “Never mind, listen. You are going to gain strength in this but you must stop running from it. Instead of being blindsided by the visions, you have to allow them. You . . . you’re going to be hurt if you don’t.”

“I never wanted this . . . this gift of yours!”

“If you don’t allow them, Samantha, other’s will be hurt.”

“Are you threatening me?” She jumped to her feet.

Helen sighed and stood. “You’re foolish, Samantha. If I wanted to hurt you I could have tried what Alaina tried. Incidentially, you allowed her to do that to you. But my motives do not lie where Aliana’s do. I am here at your request.”

Sam frowned and stared at her. At her request? She shook her head.

“You came here, Samantha. We did not go to you. We can’t.”

Her mind staggered beneath the weight of this information, shuffling through what she had learned in the last months.

“How . . .”

Fear etched her face and she looked into the darkness briefly and then turned back to Samantha. Her hand reached toward Sam and with great urgency she said, “You must go! Go, Sam, go NOW!”

She was on the beach. The air was filled with a roaring sound and as she looked out to sea she was horrified to see a great wall of water rushing toward where she stood. A tidal wave, she thought. She’d never seen one but had read of them and seen photos.

Above the roar of water she heard a sound from high above and behind her. She looked up at the cliff top and saw Helen standing shouting and suddenly, all along the cliff was a row of people in white flowing robes, all shouting at her and waving.

“No one gave me an instruction manual, Helen!” she shouted then, looked back at the advancing wall of water. “Open your eyes, Samantha and see what’s real.”