A Gift of Time (Tassamara) (17 page)

Colin paused at the edge of the field. Examining the sandy soil without touching it, he kicked at the ground until he found the irrigation system he expected. The growers were using a simple hose set-up to shunt water from the pond to their field. Nothing elaborate, but effective enough in the Florida climate.

Hurrying to catch up to Akira, he paused at the edge of the campsite Rose had found. He understood immediately why she’d decided it was abandoned, instead of simply unoccupied at the moment. Something about it reeked of desolation. Maybe it was the two-person tent, ties flapping in the wind, middle drooping like a tired old man. Maybe it was the scattered trash and personal belongings. Or the lone sock caught in the roots of a tree, as if someone had rushed to pack up without looking behind them when they left.

“Do you think Kenzi was living here?” Akira’s eyes were troubled.

Colin rubbed his chin, thinking. Slowly, he shook his head. “She makes her bed. She sets the table. She eats what’s put in front of her. If she was here, it wasn’t for long. She’s not a kid who’s been living rough in the woods.”

Akira looked reassured, but there was a queasy feeling in the back of Colin’s throat. A memory itched at him, a thought he couldn’t quite grasp.

Marijuana growers.

A lost girl.

Could they have something in common?

Natalya worried. She hated it, but she couldn’t seem to help herself, and she hated that, too.

Seeing the future had never been as useful as one might imagine. Oh, sure, she’d probably saved a few lives with her gift. When a seemingly healthy patient walked into the emergency room complaining of a headache, the knowledge that she’d be scrambling to lower his dangerously elevated blood pressure in the near future meant she moved him to the front of the line. But that incident and others like it led to uncomfortable questions and odd looks.

And the silly stuff never worked out. She didn’t know the lottery numbers, probably because she never won so they weren’t important enough for her to remember. She still forgot to bring an umbrella on rainy days. Sports were boring when the winner was never in question and card games lost all their appeal when every turn of the deck was predictable. Not to mention no one she knew would play with her.

No, her precognition had always been more of a curse than a blessing. But losing it left her feeling like she was standing, blindfolded, at the edge of a chasm, where one false move would send her tumbling over the edge.

She stared at the blank canvas in front of her. The underpainting was done and dry, waiting for her to start sketching. A sampling of her drawings of her father was pinned to the wall. The blinds were up, letting in the clear natural light of a wintry Florida day. She had no reason not to get to work.

But her studio didn’t feel right.

Nothing felt right.

It wasn’t because her studio had become Kenzi’s bedroom with startling rapidity. She didn’t mind that she’d had to put most of her paints into boxes to make room for a small dresser to hold the clothes the little girl was accumulating. Or that she’d had to do the tone coat on the canvas outside, so Kenzi wouldn’t have to sleep surrounded by the smell of linseed oil. And sketching while Kenzi played contentedly with the over-the-top dollhouse Grace had brought by that morning ought to be easy. Kenzi was peaceful company most of the time.

But the feeling of foreboding was like ants crawling on the back of her neck, a prickling sense of danger, danger, danger. Without conscious thought, her hand started to move. Quick, light strokes. Fine lines, shading, charcoal angling smoothly across the burnt sienna surface of the canvas. Darker lines, deeper, heavier, almost a scribble of black curves until the charcoal snapped from the pressure and she stepped away from her easel. What the hell?

She glanced at the sketches on the wall. In them, she’d caught her father’s warmth, his lively curiosity, the quality of focus he gave to his conversations as if nothing could be more important to him than the person he was with. It was in his eyes.

This man’s eyes were cold.

She hadn’t drawn her father. But who had she drawn? She’d never seen him before.

“What. The. Hell.” She spoke aloud, oblivious of the little girl a few feet away.

Behind her, Kenzi yelped. It was a squeak of fear, and the first vocalization Natalya had heard her make.

Natalya spun as the dollhouse crashed to the ground, toppling over from the weight of the little girl scrambling over it in her rush to the door.

“Kenzi, no,” Natalya called out to the girl’s back. “I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—”

She sighed and said in a voice she knew the girl couldn’t hear. “I wasn’t swearing at you.”

She set down the charcoal, wiping the dust off her fingers and onto her paint-splattered shirt. She should have been more careful. She didn’t think her tone sounded angry, but Kenzi didn’t handle anger well. And then Natalya’s eyes narrowed. She glanced from the easel to the door and back again.

Oh, damn, she was stupid.

Natalya hurried after Kenzi. Her eyes swept the living room, a quick check to see that the girl wasn’t hiding under the tables before she headed straight to the bathroom closet. Kenzi wasn’t buried in the back of it as she had been before. Frowning, Natalya checked the tub and behind the door, then more slowly, went back to the kitchen. The back door was closed, deadbolt locked. Her eyes scanned the room, but there was no place to hide. She checked the linen closet on her way to the bedroom, then her bedroom closet, but Kenzi wasn’t on the shelves or crouched in the back behind her clothes.

She looked around her room.

Where could Kenzi be? Her house just wasn’t large enough to have many hiding places. She crouched to look under the king-size bed, despite knowing the little girl couldn’t possibly fit because of the boxes stored under it. A pair of small feet tucked up at the top revealed that she was wrong.

Natalya knelt for a moment, wondering what to do. Crossing to the other side of the bed, she lay down flat on the floor. From this position, Kenzi was totally hidden. If Natalya had looked under the bed when she came into the room instead of after checking the closet, she would never have seen her.

“You’re not hiding because I said a bad word, are you?” she asked, her voice gentle. She waited for a response, but wasn’t surprised not to get one. The carpet felt scratchy against her cheek and her nose itched as if the dust might make her sneeze but she ignored the discomfort. “Do you think you know the man in my drawing?”

Still no response, but the silence felt frozen, as if Kenzi was holding her breath.

“I don’t know him. I just drew a picture that came into my head. But that’s what scared you, isn’t it?”

Still no response.

“I’m scared, too.” The words slipped out without forethought.

Immediately, she cursed herself silently. What the hell kind of grown-up tells a troubled child that she’s afraid? What an idiotic thing to do. But a rustle from under the bed told her Kenzi was pushing a box aside.

In the shadows, Natalya couldn’t see much but there was enough light to let her see Kenzi’s searching gaze.

“I am,” Natalya repeated herself. “I don’t know why. I don’t know what there is to be afraid of. Do you know?”

Kenzi didn’t answer her.

“We’re safe here,” Natalya told her. She slid her arm under her cheek, hoping to get more comfortable, but her discomfort wasn’t caused by the hard floor. It was the surge of dread rising in her throat at her own words. “You don’t think so,” she whispered. The words weren’t quite a question.

Kenzi shook her head.

Natalya stared at her, trying to put the pieces together.

Her gift was back. Not completely, not like it used to be. But the nightmarish feeling, the sketch—those were premonitions, not random.

“Do you recognize the man in my drawing?” she asked Kenzi, keeping her voice steady with an effort.

Kenzi turned her face away, burying her expression in the darkness under the bed.

“Kenzi, I can keep us safe,” Natalya said. “Colin is the police. He can keep us safe. I promise you, he can. But not if you don’t tell us what we should be afraid of.”

Kenzi took a gasping breath, the kind of shaky inhalation presaging tears. But she didn’t say anything and she didn’t start crying.

Natalya reached under the bed and touched the top of Kenzi’s head, feeling the smooth silk of her hair under her fingertips. What could she do? How could she comfort the girl? Kenzi must have scoped out this hiding place earlier in the week, maybe right after Natalya found her in the bathroom closet. What must her life have been like if she searched for hiding places as a matter of course?

“I want to help you,” Natalya said softly. “But sweetheart, you need to help yourself, too. I know…”

She paused. She had deliberately sheltered Kenzi from their conversation with Rose. Little girls didn’t need to know about ghosts and she’d been worried about the long-term consequences if Kenzi started talking to outsiders—like that psychologist—about her experiences. But what did Kenzi know already? “You drew a picture of a girl in a pink dress,” she said, voice cautious. “You saw that girl when you were lost in the woods, didn’t you?”

Silence from under the bed.

“Her name is Rose.”

A scramble as boxes shifted. Natalya rolled away, pushing herself up as Kenzi pulled herself out from under the bed and stared at her, eyes wide. The little girl opened her mouth as if to speak and then closed it again, pressing her lips together as if the words were struggling to fly free and she fighting them. She swallowed hard.

Natalya reached out and stroked a bit of hair out of Kenzi’s face. “Someone told you not to talk,” she said. “Someone told you to run, to hide, not to say a word. And you’re trying so hard to do what you were told, aren’t you?”

Her lips stayed tightly pressed together, but her chin wobbled. Natalya could see the answer in Kenzi’s eyes. What now? She wasn’t about to tell Kenzi her mother was likely dead—that job was reserved for a time when the knowledge was sure and certain, not speculation. But how could she reassure Kenzi enough that the little girl would tell her the truth?

The doorbell rang.

Suddenly, the dread was back. Natalya’s stomach churned as she glanced over her shoulder.

It was broad daylight.

She was in her own home.

The doors were locked.

She had no reason to be afraid. But she was. The fear felt almost like a living thing, grabbing her and twisting. She put a hand on her abdomen, pressing against it, and looked back at Kenzi.

“Sweetheart,” she said, “I’m sure this is nothing. But you go ahead and hide again.” Kenzi’s lips parted in surprise but Natalya nodded at her, gesturing toward the bed. “Quickly, go on now.”

She waited until the girl obediently slithered under the bed again and then helped her position the boxes, feeling her heartbeat pulsing at her throat.

Leaves on water, she reminded herself, trying to calm her racing thoughts. It was probably Grace at the door, bringing more furniture for the dollhouse. She’d promised to come by again after the afternoon mail delivery.

Undoubtedly, Natalya was being ridiculous.

Of course, she was being ridiculous.

But telling herself so didn’t calm her pounding heart as she walked toward the front door. Leaves on water, she told herself again. Leaves on water. Why the hell was calming meditation so hard?

At the door, she called out, “Yes, who is it?”

She never did that. It was Tassamara, home. She knew her neighbors. She knew every person who would drop by. The doorbell rang and she opened the door. That was how it worked. But not today.

She pressed herself against the door, trying to hear a response. Grace’s voice, she told herself. It will be Grace… except Grace never bothered with the doorbell, she just let herself in. So maybe a delivery guy? A package she needed to sign for?

“Excuse me, ma’am, I’m sorry to disturb you.”

Natalya’s brows drew down. That sounded like a boy. A young boy, maybe in his early teens.

“I was wondering if I could use your phone? My grampa and me, our car’s broke down.”

Natalya pulled away from the door.

She stared at it. A car breakdown. On her dead-end road?

“Where were you going?” she called out.

The answer was slow to come. “Fishing, ma’am. On the lake.”

In the middle of the day?

Natalya’s heartbeat was so loud in her ears she almost missed a muffled aside as if the boy were whispering to someone else.

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands against her face, trying desperately to think. Okay, two people out there. One of them, maybe, the scary man Kenzi feared. One of them, a young boy. She could send him on his way easily enough, but what then? If they’d found Kenzi and were lying to get to her, they’d be back. And the boy might need help as much as Kenzi did.

But maybe she was being ridiculous. Maybe that was just a young boy, going fishing with his grandfather, experiencing car trouble, nothing to worry about.

She snorted, a sound audible and louder than she expected, and then rubbed her hands across her face, shaking her head in decision. No one went fishing in the middle of the day. The car breakdown was bad enough, but fishing was a stupid lie.

“Hang on, I’ll get my phone,” she yelled through the door, keeping her voice steady.

She’d call Colin. He might still be out marching around the woods with Akira and Rose, searching for Kenzi’s starting point, but he’d send help. And a nice police officer, preferably in uniform, joining the two people on her doorstep would make everything so much simpler.

She retrieved her phone from the kitchen. Standing in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, she found Colin’s number in her caller ID and pressed the call button. Eyes on the front door, she waited for him to answer.

Her heart was pounding, she realized. His phone only rang twice before he picked up, but the time stretched out like saltwater taffy. What was the boy doing? Was he waiting patiently? She hadn’t exactly been welcoming, but did he believe she was going to open the door to him?