by Dale Mayer
Phoenix followed. All she wanted to do was get away from that edge and wasn’t at all surprised when Rowan snatched the woman up and ran back several hundred feet. She applauded his actions, racing at his heels until he finally slowed and lowered the woman to the ground, checking for a pulse.
“Is she alive?” Phoenix asked.
He nodded. “She is. But I don’t know what that just was.”
“I don’t know either,” her voice replied softer. She stared over at the cliff’s edge. “I’m starting to wonder how we could both have seen the same thing.”
“It wasn’t a mirage,” he said. “It wasn’t something we made up in our minds.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because I really want it to be.”
His look was understanding but hard. “We can’t forget what just happened,” he said abruptly. “This woman was thrown off the cliff and somehow returned.”
Phoenix rubbed her temples. “There has to be another explanation.”
“Sure, and I’d love to hear it,” he said harshly. “Because, if that ever happens again, … what if she isn’t returned to safety?”
Phoenix sank back on her heels and stared down at the young woman, still shocked at what she’d just witnessed. She couldn’t get her mind wrapped around it. She tried to see the woman’s energy, but, whether because of what just happened or because Phoenix was off-balance, she wasn’t seeing it. “Will she remember any of this?”
“I have no idea,” Rowan replied. “We need to get her some help.” He looked at her. “And don’t say a word.”
Her mouth dropped open. “And just what would I possibly say?” She motioned toward the cliff’s edge. “Anything I say will make me sound like a crazy person.”
“I know,” he said. “We came upon her like this. That’s the end of the story. Okay?”
Phoenix nodded slowly because he was right. That was exactly what they needed to say. And he already had his phone out, calling for help.
She stroked the woman’s waxy cheeks. “Please wake up,” she whispered. “Please.” The woman’s cheeks were cold. “It’s almost like she’s hypothermic,” Phoenix said. “But the evening is warm.”
“She’s definitely suffering from something,” he said. “I don’t know if that had something to do with what we just saw or not, but it’s impossible to discount it.”
“Ghostly or spiritual encounters often have that reaction, don’t they?”
His initial response was to study her intently. “What do you know about such things?”
“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. “Nothing like this.”
“Interesting,” he said. “Because I’ve heard the same thing.”
“And what do you know about such things?” she asked, flipping his words around at him.
He smiled and said, “Nothing.”
She glared at him and then looked back down at the woman, picking up her hand and gently stroking the back of her wrist. “I want her to wake up,” she said. “I want her to wake up and tell us she’s okay.”
“Do you really believe she is?”
“I’ve seen a hell of a lot of nastiness in my life,” Phoenix whispered, her voice very soft, almost faint. “But I’ve never seen anything like that. I want it to be a mirage. I want it to all just go away and be erased from my mind, so I never saw it …” She shook her head. “But I can’t.”
He nodded. “Neither of us can.” He gently patted the woman’s cheeks. “Irene, wake up. Please, wake up.”
First came a moan, and the woman’s chest shuddered, then she took a great big breath, and her eyes opened. She looked over at the cop in confusion and then in dawning horror. “What just happened?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied, keeping his tone neutral. “What do you think happened?”
“I was being held down by some weird pressure all around me,” she said. “It was like somebody was squeezing the life out of me. And I kept hearing the word sacrifice. I fought, but it wasn’t doing any good. I could scream sometimes, but I couldn’t handle it.” Her voice broke off, and the tremors started.
“And then?” he prompted, taking off his jacket to drape it over her.
“I swear to God, I was thrown off the cliff, and I fell,” Irene whispered, horror reflected in her eyes, “screaming all the way down the valley to the bottom. She shuddered and closed her eyes again, tears leaking out. “Dear God, that nightmare was so real.”
“You’re here. You’re alive, and you’re safe,” Rowan said, his voice strong and reassuring.
Phoenix wanted to step in and say, like hell, but there wasn’t any point. The woman’s words confirmed exactly what they had both seen. Phoenix placed her hand on the woman’s belly. “How are you feeling now?” she asked, infusing some warmth into the chilled woman.
Irene turned her head slowly to look up at her. “I feel better,” she said. “Of course I’m not caught in that nightmare, so anything is better than that.”
Phoenix nodded. “That sounds like it was a pretty rough trip.”
The woman gave a gargled laugh. “Absolutely.” She looked up and said, “Everything seems so much brighter. So much stronger.”
“Brighter? Stronger? In what way?” Rowan asked, his tone deepening suspiciously.
She smiled at him. “I can’t really explain. … I must be still caught up in a dream state. Everything looks odd.”
“In what way is it odd?” Phoenix asked, bending slightly so she could look into the woman’s eyes.
“Like I said, everything is brighter. Like, your face,” she said. “An unworldly glow is around your head.” She looked over at the cop. “You too, Rowan.”
Rowan, Phoenix thought. So that’s his name.
“Can you see anything else?” he asked, leaning back slightly.
“Everything seems gentler,” she said. “If it wasn’t for the nightmare, I’d be feeling really good. Like waking up from a good dream.”
“Maybe that’s what you needed then,” Phoenix said slowly. “What if that nightmare was enough to kick you out of whatever fog you were in? I understand you’ve been dealing with a lot of grief and loss lately.” She’d brought it up deliberately—not sure what reaction she’d get from Irene.
Rowan wasn’t happy with her. He shot her a hard look and gave a small shake. But the damage was already done.
Irene looked up at her and smiled. “That’s the thing,” she said. “It’s like I’m at peace with it now. As if whatever crazy nightmare that tumbled me off that cliff, when I came back up again, I could leave it all behind.”
Phoenix settled back slowly and looked at her. “That would be lovely if that was the case.” Just then they heard sirens in the distance. Phoenix looked down at the woman and asked, “Can you move? Are you okay? Do you have any injuries?”
Irene stretched her hands up, rotated her shoulders, then her head. “I know it sounds foolish. I know I was crying out, screaming in pain earlier, but I feel much better now.” She slowly sat up. “Now I feel foolish that you called the ambulance.”
“You were unconscious,” Rowan said. “No way I wouldn’t have you checked over.”
She smiled and gently patted his cheek. “You’re a good man.”
“So is Pelchi,” he said. “He has been really worried about you.”
She sighed and gave an oddly beautiful smile. “I know. It should be better now,” she said, and, against their protests, she stood and stretched. “I do feel so much better. I don’t know why. I don’t know what that was all about, but I feel really good now.”
The ambulance stopped, she turned and waved at them as the men raced toward her.
“Hey, John. Hey, Crem. I’m fine. Really.”
The men looked at her, surprised, and turned to Rowan.
He shrugged and said, “She was unconscious.”
The two paramedics stood with their hands on their hips. “Let us take you in and get you checked over,” John said.
Crem
reached out his hand. “Come on, Irene. You’ve had a tough couple months.”
She smiled and said, “I have, haven’t I? But that’s all over with.” She gave everybody a beautiful smile and then turned to face the cliff.
Phoenix got a horrible feeling.
Irene bolted as fast as she could away from them and did a swan dive off the cliff.
Phoenix screamed.
Rowan ran past her, reaching for Irene before she went over, barely stopping himself from falling off the cliff after her.
Phoenix sat on the ground, arms wrapped tight around her knees, shuddering, hating what she knew happened. She buried her face in her knees and rocked back and forth. She could hear sobbing—great big gulping sobs from somewhere around her.
Finally hands—big, thick, warm and comforting—wrapped around her, and she was tugged into a man’s embrace.
She raised her head and realized it was her sobbing, tears pouring hot and fiercely down her cheeks. She stared up at Rowan.
He placed a finger against her lips, as if to tell her to not speak, pulling her tight against him and together, the two were silent as they tried to process the horror of what they had just seen.
*
Rowan looked over at the paramedics, keeping the still-shuddering Phoenix tucked against his chest. The shocked look on all their faces, the distress. One of the EMTs walked to the edge and then turned to look at his buddy and shook his head. “I can’t even see her.”
Rowan had to admit he was staring at the same location on the top of the cliff, wondering if by chance she would return again after the same crazed fall she’d had the first time. But he knew in his heart it wouldn’t happen. Whatever Irene had gone through, she had made a decision to run for freedom. Whatever freedom death offered.
The woman in his arms let out great big devastating sobs as she clung to him. And he couldn’t help thinking of all she’d been through since she’d arrived in town. He held her close, watching as their energies blended and fused. He shook his head at that too. How was that even possible? It was too fast. He didn’t even know this woman, but either they shared a bonding experience over what they had just both witnessed or something about their individual energies was pulling them together into one connected river as it flowed around the two of them.
He closed his eyes, dropped his chin on top of her head and held her, realizing that a ball of energy was wrapping up and around them, sealing them off from the rest of the world. Bits and pieces of her past flowed through him, revealing images he could only hope had been from a long time ago, and he hoped to God it was her past lives. He didn’t always get information as easily as this, and these were some he’d wished he’d never seen.
There was so much torture, such fiery flames that he could feel his arms clenching, as if to protect her, and yet knowing that all this was history. He didn’t know why he was seeing it all. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the information, but, as he slowly looked up, he saw the two paramedics calling out to him. He lifted a hand and waved them off.
They nodded and walked away. He could see them back over by the ambulance, calling in for search and rescue. He couldn’t even imagine telling Irene’s husband what they had just seen. And yet, somebody had to. And that somebody would be him.
Seemed liked suicide season had begun early.
Chapter 5
Phoenix shifted in his arms, tilting her head back, her eyes hot, her body anguished. “Please tell me that didn’t just happen,” she said in a broken whisper.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, “but it did.”
She shuddered, wrapping her arms tighter around his chest. “She looked so happy. It was like she was this otherworldly being,” she whispered. “As if she thought she could fly.”
Privately he agreed. “I don’t know what that experience was,” he said, “but we have to be careful about what we say.”
She gave a heavy sigh. “That’s all right. I’ve had a lifetime of being careful of what I say.” Tears still ran down her cheeks. “But I have to admit to being more than a little terrified of closing my eyes tonight. Because this will play over and over again.”
“No, you need to sleep,” he said. “Your body is now in a state of shock, and, when it wears off, you are likely to collapse from exhaustion.”
“Does something like this ever wear off?” she asked, thinking about how absolutely insane what she had just seen was. What they had seen. And thank God he’d been here too. No one would believe her if she tried to tell them what just happened.
“But we only saw the beginning part,” Rowan added. “The paramedics saw the rest. They’re witnesses that she just took off and flew over the edge. Committing suicide.”
“As if her second chance at life changed something inside her,” she theorized.
“But remember. Nobody else but you and I saw that first fall,” he said. “And you need to not bring it up. I don’t want to make it an order, but it’s pretty damn hard not to. Stay quiet.”
She nodded, hating the need for secrecy, but understanding. Some women were good with that, and some had to talk things out over and over again, and then there were the gossips, who embellished everything they heard and saw, until the end result was something completely unrecognizable from the original story.
“I need to move around,” Phoenix said quietly. “I’m stiff, sore.”
He stepped back slightly, letting his arms drop to his side. But she swayed unsteadily. He shifted position and tucked her up tight against him.
“I should have taken her farther away from the edge,” he muttered. “I hate the guilt of knowing I could have, should have done more.”
“I don’t think it would have mattered,” she whispered. “I don’t think we could have stopped it. Or maybe I just want to believe that. Maybe I just want to be absolved of my own guilt.”
His gaze was hooded. The light in his eyes shadowed as he looked around.
“I suppose they will mount a rescue now?” she murmured, not sure what to do at this point.
“A retrieval,” he corrected. “They’ll retrieve the body.”
“Because, of course, no chance she is alive.” And then she gave a broken sigh. “Or is there?”
“I’d love to see her reappear,” he said, his voice heavy. “At this point, for such a thing to happen, we’d have a bigger problem.”
“You mean, a resurgence of the talk about the Burning Fires here?” she murmured. “The craziness that happens here? The weird supernatural events? … The evil?”
He squeezed her shoulders and said, “That’s enough of that talk. We work hard to calm those rumors.”
“I can tell you that you won’t quell this one,” she said. “It’s one thing if it was just you and me and what we saw at the beginning. But the paramedics. What will they say?”
“They’ll say, she stood up, appeared to be fine and then took off running to do a swan dive off the cliff. They’ll assume she was in an altered state from having fallen or taken something or having tried to commit suicide, not having the strength, and, when she woke up, finding the strength, she took off.”
“Had she tried before?”
He nodded slowly. “Twice.”
“Ouch,” she said. She shook her head. “At least maybe now she’s at peace.”
He slowly turned her in the direction of the paramedics and asked, “Do you need to be checked over?”
She gave a strangled laugh. “They can’t see into my crazed mind now,” she said. “Or see my heart that aches for a young woman’s life cut so short. Or the spiritual side of my life, standing here and staring at whatever good or evil stood on that cliff with us today.”
“You realize it could have been a premonition,” he said, suddenly stopping in his tracks and looking down at her.
She frowned. “The fact that she flew off the first time? That was a premonition of her committing suicide?” She shook her head, seeing the wheels turning around in his mind. “Can p
remonitions be shared?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled about seeing this one either. But it is an explanation.” She smiled up at him. “And that’s what the mind needs, isn’t it? An explanation. Some way to understand. To fit this into our record of experience and move forward. Maybe a premonition is a good way to look at that. Of course she didn’t exactly fly peacefully the first time, did she?”
“No, and, maybe for that reason alone, its better this way. Maybe we are happier to know that, when she did fly over that edge, she was in an altered state, and she was happy with her decision.”
“How wrong is that?” she asked.
“I understand she just lost her child, but she had a husband who loved her. She had a life ahead of her. And what we can’t do is judge,” Rowan said softly as they slowly walked toward the paramedics. “Because, even though to us, she had all those things, we don’t know the truth because we never looked that closely into her life.”
“Will you now?” she asked.
He stopped to consider her question and nodded. “I pretty much have to.”
*
Rowan walked back into his office, his head full of all he’d seen. Questions streamed through his mind. He didn’t understand so much; he wasn’t sure he could ever understand enough because there just weren’t answers to be had.
Above all else he still couldn’t let go of what had happened to Irene. And the fact that he was here with Phoenix, a woman he was attracted to, and yet even he could see the danger of being associated with her—that too made no sense. That their energy melted together had stunned him. He did see auras. Not all the time. Not with everyone. And that was something else that just blew him away.
Why wasn’t it all the time? Why wasn’t it like math, when two plus two always made four? When it came to psychic energy, there was always this level of sometime, some days, with nothing ever certain. That bothered him.
He could also see Phoenix kept her energy extremely tight against her body, as if afraid to let anybody in. But not only did she keep it tight against her body but it was hard, tense, almost like a shield.
