See How She Runs (8 page)

I looked at him, then I glanced back at my
present. I was anxious to open it, but in the light of everything
it seemed like I should not be able to have this sort of easy
happiness. I bit into my perfectly burnt bacon, and looked back up
to Kennan who was looking as anxious as I was for me to open
it.

“It isn’t a magical wombat or anything
equally weird is it?"

I felt justified in asking. I mean, it could
be. Kennan over here was like a zillion years old but still looked
thirty. Magical wombats seemed a viable option.

“No it is not a magical wombat. They have
not been around for at least three hundred years,” he said as he
bit into one of his eight pieces of toast. I looked at him blankly
as he started that deep rumbly laugh that I loved. The spark of
amusement in his eyes after an emotionally charged few days was a
welcome sight.

I shook my head as I reached for the box
with trepidation. I opened the box to find a tablet with a note on
top. It was in Kennan’s elegant scrawl:

Dearest Izzy,

Perhaps this may not be the best birthday
you have ever had. I fear that I have taken you away from
everything and left you with nothing in return. I attempted to
bring the things that mattered most to you, but in the end I don’t
really know what that is. In an effort to keep my distance and give
you privacy, I fear that I only know the basics of what matters
most to you. You have never been one to hold value in material
things, but I know how much you love your Jane Austen and Bronte
based movies. I loaded all of them that I could find onto this
tablet. Every version I could uncover. I know it is not much in the
grand scheme of all that is coming your way. I just want you to
find some happiness. I am so very glad that you were born. You have
brought sunshine into my otherwise monotonous world. I pray to the
gods that the sun is not taken from you. So, happy birthday.
Yeah.

Yours eternally,

Kennan

P.S. I will watch one of these horrible
movies with you for your birthday. Your choice. But I reserve the
right to make fun of them.

I glanced at Kennan and for the first time
he looked sheepish. Honestly, it was the first time he had ever
expressed any emotion other than happiness toward me. I giggled
with delight as I powered up the tablet and noticed not only were
all of my favorite movies loaded on to it, he had also added
hundreds of books. Officially, the best present ever.

I squealed and jumped up from my seat,
rushing to hug him. He almost fell backwards in his chair from the
surprise and force of my hug. He was my Kennan, the same as he had
always been. He looked down at me with a slow heat in his eyes that
made me realize, perhaps things weren’t as they always had been. I
quickly got myself back under a semblance of control and sat back
down to finish my breakfast while doing a little happy dance.

Breakfast ended with Kennan gathering up the
dishes and doing them while I sat drinking coffee and thinking of
what to do next.

“Kennan?”

“Yeah, Iz?”

“I can’t leave her there, no matter what she
said. You know that right?”

He sighed heavily as if I spoke the very
words he had been dreading since the start of this whole thing.

“It won’t be easy, Lass, I mean kid." He
looked at me with a sly grin as he continued. “You know she is
locked up in a max security building run by the scum of the earth.
You know we could very well die or you could get captured in the
process, making all she did to protect you pointless, right?”

“I do, but I also know that I can’t live
with myself if I sit here hiding while she suffers. I don’t think
she is the only one there either Kennan. How can I live with myself
if I just let it go on? That would make me just as bad as them. I
am not saying we should go right now. I am saying that eventually
it has to happen. I know that I am ill prepared. I am not
suggesting a suicide mission or anything. I just need a plan of
action, like always. I need something to work towards. Hell, I have
not even had another vision yet, so I don’t even know what to
expect there. Just promise me, promise me we will try.”

“I promise, but not until I think you are
ready, do you understand? This could take a long time. This place
is secure. We are too far away from anything for them to be able to
mentally track you. But if he hacks into your visions again, you
must be careful. You have to block him. You have to keep him from
reading the images in your mind.”

“Um, I am assuming this is something you
will be able to teach me, right? Along with maybe some jujitsu or
something equally as ninja like?" I smiled hopefully up at him. If
I was meant to be some sort of super Seer, I should at least get
some cool action-figure moves.

“Maybe we should work on you being able to
do a single pushup first?"

He snickered to himself as he put the dishes
away. I threw the balled-up wrapping paper at his head and quicker
than my eyes could track he spun and caught it. He looked at my
astonished face and winked. Okay then, apparently he had super
speed. Awesome.

“Alright, smarty pants. I am assuming you
have some sort of training plan. Obviously I am not in fighting
condition, so maybe we should start there?" Now that I had gotten
past the initial shock of it all, I felt like I needed to move
forward and do something productive.

“Easy there, Skipper," he said, with that
same old twinkle in his eyes. “Yes, I do have a plan. Prepare for
some major suckage. My plan involves both physical and mental
training. You will start having more and more visions and getting
you through those will be the biggest challenge. The ones you share
with your mother are relatively safe. You can control them easily
because she is there to help filter the information. Eventually we
will get to the ninja skills." He winked at me as he headed toward
the door.

“So are we starting now?" I asked, since he
was giving me absolutely nothing.

“No, today is your birthday. It is the last
day you get to rest and be comfortable. And there is something else
I need to give you. Your mother gave me some letters long ago. She
told me to keep them safe until they found you." He looked at me
with the same sad cast in his eyes as he pointed to the coffee
table. There lay a bundle of three letters wrapped with twine.

“I need to go chop some wood and get some
stuff done around the property. Don’t leave the cabin. I don’t want
you tripping over a root and breaking something. Give me a yell
when you are done."

With that, he left me alone with the pile of
letters.

**********

NINE

I looked at the bundle of letters as I heard
the door shut behind him. Well, there was no time like the present.
Maybe she could help explain some things. A girl could hope
right?

With a sense of trepidation I reached for
the pile of letters and opened the one dated as the oldest. As I
pulled it from the envelope I was assaulted by a vision.

My mother was in a summer dress spinning
around in the yard and making me fly. I could feel the sticky
humidity and hear the cicadas and frogs chirping in the background.
The sun was getting ready to set and my mom was going to take me
inside soon. She led me through the door still flying me like an
airplane and took me to my father. She leaned in to kiss his cheek
then left the room to head to the office.

I followed her, there, but not there. She
sat down at a desk and inhaled deeply. Just before she began to
write, she looked over her shoulder at me and smiled sadly.

I jerked, surprised by the vision of the
past. It was as though my very soul was walking through her
memories. Even stranger, it was as if she expected me to be there.
She knew I was coming. She knew all those years ago that I would
grow up without her. Embittered that she would still set herself on
that course, but strangely comforted in knowing she did all she
could for me. I wiped my eyes and began reading the first
letter.

My dear girl,

I never wanted you to live the life that you
are about to be forced to live. I hope you know that I did not want
to leave you. I tried to prevent it as long as I could. This day, I
know I will only have at the most three more years with you.You
have been the best thing I have ever done on this earth.You have a
light that shines from you and touches even the darkest of places.
Don’t lose that sense of wonder and optimism. No matter what they
do to me Izzy, or what you must face in the days to come. I have
tried to see the life that awaits you, but I am never able to get
beyond the fog and see what is to come. I hope that you live a life
of calm and thatyou are never forced to deal with the madness and
greed that is coming for me. I hope that you grow old, you have
babies,and you are free from the insanity that has been brought
down upon so many Seers. I wish for you a fate vastly different
than my own.

I know that you feel alone. I know that I
have left you with a terrible burden to bear. But know that you do
not have to do this without help. Kennan is there for you. He may
be hard to crack in the emotions department, but I saw the way he
lit up around you. He left today. Your father had a talk with him.
I think he was beginning to feel the guardian’s pull toward you.
Even though you are so very young. So he and your father felt it
best that he left. Most Guardians don’t meet their charges until
they reach the age of seeing. What happened with you and Kennan is
almost unheard of. He would have started aging had he stayed. So,
for him to be fit to protect you, he left. He sacrificed finally
having a place to call home in order to do what was best for you
and your father. So please, dear daughter, trust him.

I love you more than you will ever possibly
know. I know you will be faced with so many obstacles. Your future
is not something I can see, so it is something you must create for
yourself. Be brave, be smart, and above all trust your heart, my
dear one. I will miss you so very much. Just remember to be the
very best version of yourself you can possibly be.

With all that I am,

Mommy

I sat motionless and numb for longer than I
could imagine. By the time I finally pulled myself out of my
reverie I realized I was no closer to understanding anything than I
was before this letter. I glanced back at the paragraph about
Kennan. I had wondered why he left when I was young. Though, with
the feelings that kept surfacing toward him, I was kind of glad he
left when he did. How creepy would that be? Uncle Kennan.

No thank you.

I was not quite ready to deal with the
feelings brought on by my mother’s words. Kennan, I could handle.
The overwhelming sense of love that poured from her every word
scared the bejeezes out of me. I read through the letter twice more
before glancing at the clock. I realized four hours had passed
without my notice.

Now that I was pulled back to the present, I
heard a constant thwack noise coming from outside. I got up and
moved to the window noticing that Kennan was chopping wood, and by
the grace of God himself he was shirtless. I had seen him without a
shirt before. But this was different.

This was the real Kennan, not the mockery I
had been seeing for the past two years. I gawked at the intricate
tattoos that started on his back and looped in and out across his
broad shoulders and down his arms. The knots seemed to have no
beginning and no end. They spoke of old magic and times long
forgotten. His muscles rippled and glistened as he swung the axe to
split another log.

He stacked the split logs on the growing
pile behind him. He turned toward where I was standing and winked
before he went back to chopping. Shocked that he knew I was there
and more than a little mortified at being caught gawking, I blushed
crimson. Yep, certainly glad he was not dear, old Uncle Kennan,
because that would be super skeevy.

Determined to calm my hormones and distract
my mind from everything happening, I moved into the kitchen to fix
some sandwiches. One for me, and three for Kennan. A growing man
needed to eat. After I piled everything up on two plates, I stuck
my head out the door and hollered that lunch was done. Kennan
picked up his shirts and wiped his face before heading into the
cabin. Between the drizzle and the sweat he was drenched.

He walked past me toward his bag and pulled
out a plain tee shirt. I was suddenly struck with the desire to be
that shirt clung to him as tightly. Maybe I needed a cold shower.
This was getting out of control. Two years of nothing and then
whammy, hormone overload.

Trying to distract myself, I headed back to
the kitchen and filled two cups full of water. I sat down and
stared directly at my sandwich. Not willing to make eye contact for
fear of blushing again, I dug into my sandwich.

Kennan lowered himself into his chair with
more grace than should have been afforded the mountain that he was.
He snickered at me.

“You alright there, Red? You look a little
flustered. Thanks for the grub by the way. I am famished.”

“Nope, not flustered, totally fine. Just
feeling a bit weird about the whole Mom letter."

Even to my own ears I sounded tightly wound
and ridiculous. Luckily for me, Kennan did not press the issue.

“So, what did it say? Anything that might
help us figure out what to do next?" he asked around a mouthful of
sandwich.

Must not look at his lips.

“Hm? Oh, well, she said she could not see
through the fog or something like that. Most of the letter was
about you actually. Were ya’ll really close when I was younger? I
mean, I have these vague memories of someone that must have been
you being around. But nothing that is clear. It gets kind of fuzzy
where you are concerned." I looked into his eyes, realizing the
truth of it. My memories had been hacked again.