Beyond Wild Imaginings (3 page)

Rachel took a step closer to Kelly in the way a person might approach a frightened animal. “No,” she said in a placating tone, “there is nothing there, Kelly. Are you feeling okay?”

Kelly’s stomach made a strange flip, and she held the feather straight up to Rachel’s face. “You mean to tell me that you don’t see this?” she all but snarled.

“Kelly!” Rachel exclaimed. “There’s nothing there! What’s the matter with you? Did you take something?”

Flustered and bewildered, Kelly looked back down at the feather in her hand, and her fingers began to tremble. Rachel couldn’t see it. It was there, plain as day, but she couldn’t see it.

“Kelly, answer me!”

She directed her attention to Rachel, who was starting to look frantic. “Uh…y-yeah,” she stuttered, saying the first thing that popped into her head that might appease her sister. “I took a tranquilizer. Probably took too much.” She giggled nervously. “I should probably just go to sleep. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Rachel stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to decipher if Kelly was telling the truth. “A tranquilizer?”

Kelly nodded, her heart beating out a strange rhythm. Her fingers tingled where they touched the feather, and all she could think about was getting Rachel out of the apartment. “Yeah, something Chad gave me. I think it was just too potent. I’ll probably be seeing pink elephants next. How embarrassing.” She tried to laugh again, but Rachel did not look amused. Kelly shrugged. “Look, I just need to get some rest, okay? Don’t worry about it.” She started to usher her sister toward the door.

“Don’t worry about it? Kelly, you’re hallucinating!”

Kelly rolled her eyes and tried to seem casual when she felt anything but. “Yeah, and you once sleep walked all the way into the kitchen when you were sixteen and started shouting at the top of your lungs that Elvis was alive. That make any sense?”

Rachel smiled in spite of herself. “Hey, that’s not fair. I was asleep at the time.”

“And I’m doped up on prescription medication that’s not my own. So let me go to bed before I start talking to the King also.”

Rachel shook her head, but seemed momentarily appeased. “Fine, but I’m coming over on my way to work in the morning. I want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Fine,” Kelly grumbled. “It’s becoming your routine stop anyway. See you tomorrow.” She all but pushed her sister out the door and shut it before Rachel could say anything.

Kelly swallowed hard and looked down at the black feather she clutched in her shaky hand. Why couldn’t Rachel see it? It was there. There was no denying it. She was
not
insane. Chad had seen it earlier—

Her eyes widened. Chad! He had seen it too! Without hesitation, she grabbed her purse and a light jacket and headed out the door.

* * * *

“Of course I see it,” Chad said, arching an eyebrow as he let Kelly barrel into his apartment. “What in the heck is the matter with you?”

“So you do see it?” she repeated. “You see the big, black feather I’m waving in your face?” She passed it back and forth in front of him a few times.

Chad frowned and swatted it away. “Yes, I see it. How could I miss it? I talked to you about it when I came over earlier. It was sitting on your coffee table. What is
the matter
with you?”

“Yeah! Okay, I took a nap and had this weird dream about little girls singing and this winged man that looked an awful lot like the shadow of whatever it was that saved me earlier today. When I woke up, I went to—”

She sighed in defeat and sank down onto his sofa. “Okay, but you absolutely can
not
think I’m crazy.”

“O…kay. Continue.” He folded his arms and waited.

She forced her breath out in a short huff. “This morning I was standing on the kitchen window ledge—”

“You were
what
?”

She waved her hand. “Don’t freak out. I just wanted to feel the wind against my face.”

“And you couldn’t feel it from
inside
the twenty-story-high building?”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, can I finish my story, or not?”

He snorted, but motioned for her to go on.

“Anyway, I was standing there, and I turned to go inside when this flock of pigeons came out of nowhere and scared the crap out of me. So I fell—”

Chad’s eyes bulged. “Kelly!” he shouted. “Oh my gosh! How are you not dead?” He flew to sit down beside her and took her by the shoulders as if to make sure she was really there.

Kelly giggled a little, her heart warmed by Chad’s obvious concern. “I’m getting there. That’s what was weird. So there I was, falling to my death, and suddenly something grabbed hold of my wrist, and I felt like I was flying instead of falling. The next thing I know, I’m standing on solid ground in front of my building. I looked up at the sky and, right out of my line of vision, I could swear I saw this shadow that was like a person with…” She stole a glance up at Chad and swallowed. “Well, with wings.”

He stared at her. “Wings?”

She nodded. “And then this feather fell down into my hand.” She held up the black feather. “I took a nap and had this weird dream where this nursery-rhyme song thing kept playing. I felt like I should know it. And then I saw the silhouette of this man with enormous black wings standing beyond an ivy-covered gate that I also felt like I should know. I’ve been dreaming about this guy for weeks now, but this dream felt different. When I woke up, I went into the living room to look at the feather because my mind was reeling from my dream, and Rachel came tramping in. I was still holding the feather in my hand, and I mentioned it to Rachel.” She glanced up into her friend’s eyes. “Chad, she couldn’t see it. She thought I’d lost it. I had to tell her you’d given me a tranquilizer and that I was getting loopy. It was the only way I could get her out of there. I thought she was going to try to commit me or something.”

Chad shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, let me get this straight. You fall off a building and, for all intents and purposes, should be dead right now. Except something you never really got a look at saved you, something with big wings. Am I right, so far?”

Kelly swallowed. “Right.” Having it repeated like that did make her sound like a lunatic.

“Okay, then you had a bizarro dream about said winged dude.”

“No, I don’t know if it’s the same one.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve been dreaming about this guy for awhile. I thought maybe he was a story character idea or something.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Do you remember the rhyme thing you said was in your dream?”

Kelly frowned for a minute as she tried to recall it. “‘Sing the song of Guardians who live beyond the skies, who fly to fight beside us and help us when we cry. Come to us, great Guardians, your friendship is a must. We are your kindred spirit sisters. You have our promise and our trust.’”

Chad’s brown eyes were as big as saucers, and he looked very much like a little boy who was hearing a fantastic bedtime story. “Wow, that’s so cool,” he murmured.

Kelly frowned. “What’s so cool about it? It doesn’t even make sense. Oh, and I kept hearing this voice. It sounded like a little girl, and she kept saying, ‘I’m not scared. Garren will always protect me.’”

“Who’s Garren?”

Kelly flung her hands up in frustration. “If I knew, would I be here right now?” She shook her head, then thrust the feather back in Chad’s face and shook it vigorously. “Why couldn’t Rachel see it?” she cried.

“Here, I have an idea. Hold on.” Chad snatched the feather from Kelly’s hand and disappeared out into the hall for a few minutes. When he came back in, he looked completely stunned.

“What?” Kelly prodded. “What’s wrong?”

He glanced up at her. “Bob couldn’t see it either. My neighbor. I knocked on his door and asked him what I was holding in my hand. He said, ‘nothing’.” He frowned. “And then he told me what I could go and do with my hand, which was really not very friendly at all.” He put his hand on his hip and gave a furious scowl. “You know, I fixed his friggin’ leaky sink last week. You would think he’d have the common decency to be nice at least.”

“Chad!” Kelly exclaimed. “Could you focus for two seconds?” She stood and went to him. “You mean to tell me that no one besides you and me can see this thing?” She felt like she had fallen into a bad sci-fi show. Or maybe this was all some elaborate practical joke…No, she was a bestselling author, but she was nowhere near famous enough to get
Punk’d
. Ashton Kutcher had a lot more interesting people to pick on besides her. And she didn’t know anyone creative enough to go to such lengths. Besides, there would be no point to it.

Chad tapped his finger against his chin in thought. “Maybe it’s a ghost or something.”

Kelly rolled her eyes. Whenever anything weird happened, Chad summed it all up by deciding it had to be a ghost. “Ghosts don’t exist,” she spat.

He stared at her. “And giant, winged guys do?”

Okay, he had a point there. She shook her head. “Still, ghosts are supposed to be spirits, right? Whatever this thing was seemed solid enough to me when I was being flown to safety.”

“Hmmm.” He frowned and resumed the tapping on his chin.

Kelly sighed and twisted her fingers in uneasy agitation. This whole situation seemed very surreal. Her life was complicated enough as it was. She did not need a story like
The X-Files
right now. Maybe in a few months or something after she got out of her depression and felt like a human being again, but not now.

Chad ignored her and pulled her out into the hall. He led her to the stairwell, and they climbed about five stories until they emerged, huffing and puffing, onto the roof.

“What in the world are you doing?” Kelly wheezed.

“Look, my building is a lot smaller than yours is. There are only five stories in mine. You won’t die if you leap off of this roof.”

Her eyes bulged. “Excuse me?” she screeched. “I think the concrete I meet when I collide with it might have other ideas!”

He shook his head. “No, look.” He pulled her over to the edge of the building and pointed to a large trash bin below. It was open and filled to the brim. “See, jump into that. It’ll break your fall.” He shrugged. “You still might break an arm or a leg or something, but that’s fixable. Besides, they do it in movies all the time.”

Kelly made a slow turn and fixed her friend with a lethal glower. “You know, I’m glad you think that this is all so interesting, and I am so happy that you base everything you do in life on whether or not it’s done in Hollywood, but I am
not
leaping off of any kind of building just for kicks!”

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Whatever it is that saved you this morning will save you again, I’m sure.”

She continued to stare at him. “Chad, you are seriously more insane than I ever thought. I don’t know what happened to me earlier! I don’t know if my experience and my dream are even related! I don’t know who or what Garren is and if he has anything to do with me! I don’t know what that rhyme was, and I don’t know why no one but you and I can see that feather!”

“So find out! Kelly, I have a feeling that you have something protecting you. Do you want to spend forever wondering what it is, or do you want to find out?”

He huffed in frustration. “I’d do it myself, but I don’t think that whatever is protecting you is going to do the same for me. Look, say that rhyme again.”

“Come on, Kelly,” he all but pleaded. “You need to figure this out.
I
need to figure this out because, obviously, I’m involved too. I want to know why only we can see that feather just as badly as you do.”