Chapter 41

The pillow beneath her head was too high and had started a pain in her neck. She opened her eyes and shifted her position.

John jumped and leaned over, worry etched his brow and she saw fear in his eyes. “Sammi?”

The childhood pet name made her smile. He’d not called her than since she was ten. He had told her she was too old to be a Sammi and became a Sam from that point on.

“I’m fine, John.” She reached out and patted his face. “Really.”

Yet, when she raised her head she had a pounding headache, and probably because her neck was strained from the pillow. She pushed her self into a sitting position.

“Sam, wait. Take it easy.”

Darkness filled the window and she realized with a shock that it was very late. The last thing she remembered was having breakfast with Reece and then the vision overwhelmed her. “John, how long . . .”

“It’s past midnight.”

She looked at him in shock. “Midnight! Lillian will be worried sick. John, you have to go home.”

He shook his head. “She sent Matt to check on us when I didn’t come home. He came by around noon. I told him I couldn’t leave you.”

Matt was their middle brother and lived near John. “What did you tell him?” She wasn’t sure how much her other siblings knew about her ability but she assumed that it was very little.

“You’ve had these spells since you were a child. It’s why we didn’t want you living alone after mother and dad died. You’re vulnerable when they come on.”

A light flashed on in her mind. “Oh, I never thought.”

Irritation flitted over his face and he sat back, crossing his arms. “No, Sam, you didn’t. You never think!”

Instant remorse brought tears to her eyes and they spilled over. “I’m sorry, John. I would never worry you deliberately. I wish I was different. I’m sorry.” She covered her face with her hands.

Three beats of silence and then he said, “Ah, Sammi, don’t cry now. It’s all right. I know you don’t have any way to control this. I’m sorry I was so mean. I just get terrified when you go into one of those things. Mom and Dad always told people you had seizures.”

She looked up in shock. The day seemed to be filled with them. She’d seen a few people have a seizure and it had been frightening to her. “Seizures? Is that what they look like?”

He smiled, “Well, not exactly like you’re picturing. More like a deep faint. You can’t be wakened. You always wake up on your own but for a long time Mother lived in terror that you wouldn’t wake at all.”

For several minutes she tried to absorb that bit of family history. It had never occurred to her the toll this must have taken on her parents, particularly her mother, who couldn’t understand the gift at all. How terrified she must have been, not just once in awhile, but constantly. Sam could only remember a few times as a child when she had fainted and she had never remembered any visions she had, if she had them at all. She just remembered her mother’s pale face when she opened her eyes and the tears that would fill her eyes and spill over onto Sam’s face.

The memory and realization brought fresh tears to Sam’s own eyes. “Oh, John. How they must have hated this thing.”

“But never you, Sam.”

John stood and moved his chair as she swung her legs off the bed and got up. “I’ve had not blackouts when I was alone. I’ve had one strange vision before today where I was completely awake. It frightened me and I don’t know what it meant.”

He waited for her to continue. “It was the night we came back from the Outland. I dozed off in the chair and when I woke, I knew someone was coming through. But it was different. I opened the front door and there was this boiling mist and a man stepped through. He was terrified. I could see and feel what he was feeling. He was lost and had no idea where he was or how he got here.”

“What did you do?”

She paused, not sure how to explain. “I sent him back.”

He followed as she went into the kitchen and began to make a cup of tea. “What do you mean you ‘sent him back’?”

The spoon tinkled against the side of the cup. At some point in the evening, John had put the kettle on the hook in the fireplace. A small fire burned there and kept it hot. She used a pot hook and retrieved the kettle and poured hot water over the silver tea ball. “I don’t know exactly. I pushed him back out into the mist and slammed the door.” She paused a moment then said softly, “It was the most horrible feeling, John.”

She heard him take a deep breath and breathe out slowly. “I’m going to bed down on the couch and go home in the morning, well, in a few hours. You should try and sleep.”

She laughed. “I’ve just had over 12 hours of sleep.”

He sat down and began to take off his shoes. “That’s not real sleep. You were terribly restless the whole time. I thought a few times you were in pain. Do you remember what you saw or was it dreaming?”

“I remembered.” She picked up the cup and joined him in the living room. He tossed a log on the fire and then lay down on the couch, facing her.

Quietly, as she sipped her tea and watch the flames lick along the bark of the log she began to tell him what she had seen. When she finished she thought he had fallen asleep, he was so silent. But when she looked him he was frowning and staring into the flames as well.

“So, who is Helen?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what is that building? It isn’t there now.”

She didn’t reply.

“And what is our dear cousin up to? Smuggling, of course but how is that connected to this gift.”

“Helen said she had corrupted her gift.”

“By smuggling? That’s a crime, yes, but there are far worse crimes.”

“She said I allowed Alaina to attack me.”

“Did you?”

Sam frowned, thinking. Had she? She’d been looking for answers. She had opened herself up at the circle and the very next thing had been the mental attack by Alaina. What if Aliana had been testing her own ability? She asked John the question.

“You think Alaina doesn’t know the extent of her gift?”

“I got that impression from Helen, yes. But I think it is more apt that she is trying to see how far it goes.”

“You believe that Alaina wants to see if she can kill someone with this ability?”

The thought had occurred to her but hearing John voice it was somehow more terrifying. Frustrated, she sat her cup down and shook her head several times. “I don’t understand! It isn’t possible to do that. My experience is that you can only “see” things. You can’t move pots or mountains. You can’t pull hair. It isn’t a weapon. She didn’t let me ask the right questions. She directed me. I don’t appreciate that, Helen.”

John gave her a sharp look. “Sam, there’s only you and me here.”

“She said she’d been watching me. I don’t know how.” She remembered something then and sat up with a gasp. “John! She said something else. She said she was a distant relative of mother’s and that this gift was strong in their line.”

“So?”

“John, everyone always thought I got this through daddy’s line. Mother didn’t have this ability!”

They stared at one another dumbstruck. John sat up and put his hands on the edge of the couch as if to push off. He stared hard at the floor. “No,” his voice was barely a whisper, “she didn’t. I never heard of anyone but Aunt Isabel.”

“Pricilla and Drusilla Tyndale said I am the very image of mother.”

He looked up, confused. “What?”

“I saw them the day after the murder. They said I looked like mother.”

He frowned. “Yes, you do.”

“They’re quite old, aren’t they?”

“Sam, what does this have to do with anything?”

She shook her head and stood up. “I don’t know. But I’m suddenly very tired and you need to sleep. I’m going to bed to sleep on it. I’ll see you later.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “That’s if I don’t see you when you leave. Give my love to the Lil and the children.”

She reached the kitchen and then stopped. “John?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever suspected that Lily had the gift?”

He sat up and looked at her in shock. “No!”

“Ask Mari about Lily knowing things.”

He watched her leave the room, putting out the lights as she went. The fire was the only light remaining as he lay back and attempted to sleep. Sam often needed a good spanking. Maybe that new fellow of her’s could take care of it.