by Chloe Garner
“The world is a big place, when you’re looking under rocks. You learn to take what comes.”
He opened a beer and tipped it back.
“Amen to that,” he said. He motioned with the beer. “You want one?”
“Not at five dollars apiece,” she said. “They’re wasted on me.”
“Whatever,” he said. “A day when I don’t need to drink to sleep is a day worth drinking to celebrate.”
She snorted, but didn’t answer.
A couple hours later, he gave up on the television and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. He came back into the room in a tee shirt and boxers, feeling inexplicably uncomfortable. She glanced up from her computer when she noticed him staring at her.
“Sleep well,” she said.
“Yeah. Um. Have a good night,” he said. She looked back up at him again and nodded.
“Okay. Thanks.”
He shook his head. Whatever. He got into bed and pulled the covers up and didn’t remember any more.
<><><>
Sam woke in the tiny hours of the morning feeling normal. He sat up and bed and stretched, then looked over at Samantha, who was watching him. She looked so different than she had just a couple of days before. Withdrawn. Clinical. Sad. Just the same, he realized, as she had before the Iara. He felt like he had opened some little window and found a secret space no one else knew existed, but that it had slipped away from him.
“How do you feel?” she whispered. He glanced over at Jason, who was snoring with his head tipped back and his arms flung across the bed, then looked back at Samantha. He shrugged.
“Fine.”
“Can we go out for a bit?” she asked softly. “We need to talk.”
He realized he was still dressed from yesterday.
“Okay.”
She nodded and put her computer aside, motioning for him to follow her. She held up a key in the hallway as he patted his pants pockets, then handed it to him. He let the door close.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I’d like to start by asking you the same question,” she said. “Do you remember coming up here, last night?”
He looked around. Just another hotel, but one he didn’t remember.
“No.”
They got to the elevators and rode down to the ground floor in silence. Once they were outside, the crisp morning air finished waking him up, and he remembered.
“You watched over me, last night,” he said.
“I did.”
“I remember.”
“Okay.”
“I watched you. But I was asleep. I checked. I remember I was asleep.”
“Okay.”
“There were things… it was cold, and dark, and dark and they were watching me, then I saw you, and you…”
“I put my hand on your chest.”
“And I was okay again, and then I was asleep again.”
He could feel the spot where she would touch, warm, like it was in sunlight.
“Was it lucid, or are you interpreting a dream to try to make it make sense?” she asked.
“It was real,” he said.
“I understand, and I believe you. But was it lucid or dreamlike?”
He struggled.
“Both.”
She nodded, as if that made sense. They reached the edge of the parking lot and went to stand underneath a tree. She stopped and turned to face him.
“I need to explain something to you,” she said.
“Okay.”
She paused for a long time.
“Walnut trees put out hundreds of walnuts every year.”
He laughed.
“Okay. I can’t begin to imagine where this is going.”
“They’re prolific, and in theory, every one of those walnuts is alive. They never germinate. They live and die inside a nice hard protective shell and they never struggle.”
He leaned against the tree and frowned.
“If I’m supposed to get what you’re saying, I don’t.”
“But if one of them, one of the right ones, ends up in the right spot with the right temperature and the right water, it will germinate. Best I can figure, germinating sucks. They have to drill through their own protective shell and explore the world blind, trying to figure out how to make a go of things…”
She paused and sighed.
“Abby, I’m trying.”
She looked at him again.
“Walnuts that don’t germinate have a pretty predictable life. Most of the ones that do germinate are only going to set themselves up for a lot of struggle and a pretty pointless death at the end of it, when someone steps on them by accident, or when they realize they’ve germinated in a storm drain.”
“Okay, now I’m pretty sure you think I should be getting it. I still don’t.”
“I triggered you,” she said. “That’s the term for it. I didn’t mean to, but there wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do, or anything I could have done to stop it, other than just not be here.”
“You triggered me.” Sam wondered if this was part of the crazy half of Samantha.
“You’re psychic,” she said plainly. He opened his mouth to tell her that was crazy. Then closed it, when he saw how earnest she was. Then frowned.
“You’re crazy,” he said. She shook her head.
“Your brain is even now trying to bore a hole in the safety shell human minds come equipped with so that it can tap into the other side and start bringing you information,” she said. “And it’s going to hurt like nothing else, and no one is going to understand.”
He thought about going with ‘you’re crazy’ again, but couldn’t justify that to himself. He was scared that he believed her.
“Are you sure?”
“You watched me warm your spirit back up last night. You watched Jason come home the night before that. You’re cold and I can only imagine that you feel like the whole world is dark, no matter what your eyes tell you. The headache, the cold sweat, the screaming in your sleep, then waking up feeling like you didn’t sleep at all… I’m pretty certain.”
The headache was building up again.
“It hurts,” he said, putting his hand on his forehead. His skin was cool, even to his own touch.
“I know,” she said. “And I can help some.”
She put her hand on his chest again and appeared to brace herself. He didn’t realize how tight his chest had been until it suddenly relaxed and he could breathe again. The headache ebbed away, and a chill ran down his arms chased by the sensation of warmth. She looked up at him.
“Better?”
He nodded.
“What did you do?”
“Brought your spirit warmth and light from somewhere else. That’s all I can really tell you. It’s going to be tough for a few days, at least, for you to generate any of your own light.” She shook her head. “Take lots of hot showers and get as much sunlight as you can. That’s all I can tell you to do for yourself for now.”
“What about what you gave me to drink last night?” he asked. She drew breath through her teeth.
“That was jasmine and water. I wanted you to get some real sleep and let your brain heal some before I dropped this on you,” she said.
“When you helped me sit up,” he said, mind a fuzzy recollection of mostly pain. She nodded. He dropped his head back against the tree.
“It’s like falling in love,” he said, immediately regretting it. She looked away sharply. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It shouldn’t surprise me that that’s how someone would describe it.”
He wanted to say something, anything about laying next to her in the fog, or sitting on the rocks while she played with his hair, but it felt wrong and out of place.
“You’ve done this before?” he asked instead. She shook her head.
“No.” She looked up at the sky. “I’m sorry, my love.”
“For what?”
“Not you.”
“No.”
They were silent for a minute, and she went to lean against the other side of the tree.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“For now, keep it together and let me know if you’re uncomfortable or if anything changes. Soon, though, you’ll need to make a decision.”
“What’s that?”
“Whether you want this or not.”
“I get to choose?”
“Mostly you wouldn’t, but I can either help your abilities grow or, for a brief window of time, cut them back entirely and stop them from ever developing again.”
“Oh.”
“It’s the walnut, germinating. It puts down a taproot, first, and if that gets cut off, it will never grow again. If you wait too long, the plant will have expended too much energy and it will die. Early enough, though, if you patch it up right, it will live and die just like the rest of the walnuts.”
“I’m a walnut,” he said absurdly. “Why can’t you do it now?”
“The analogy says that the tap root hasn’t made it out of your head yet. It isn’t actually true, really, but it’s close enough for horseshoes.” She walked back around the tree.
“The world that you’re tapping into isn’t even close to as hospitable as this one is for a walnut tree, though. Psychic means that you’re off rooting around in the darkest, bloodiest side of creation. The standard rule of thumb is: you see them, they see you. You guys are bush league, compared to what’s out there.”
“What would you do?” he asked. She snorted, seeming surprised.
“I don’t know. Not many people actually get a choice. There’s an argument to be made that the gifts you’re given are ones that you should always grab hold of and use, but I’m about as poor a poster child for that as has ever lived. Given that I’m standing here, talking to you now, I’d have to say that I’d run screaming for normal.”
As she described it to him, he recognized what she had been talking about. He did feel like there was a cloud, or a swarm, somewhere just outside his range of vision. He kept catching himself jerking his head, trying to see it. Impending. It wasn’t as bad as when he was asleep. Asleep, he couldn’t understand it. He just kept running from it, or froze, terrified. He pushed away the feeling, again, looking over at the horizon where the stars had faded to make way for sunrise.
“I don’t know,” he said. She nodded, going over to lean on the other side of the tree again.
“I understand. You’ve got a little time. And in the meantime, apparently, we have some goblins to find.”
“Is that what Jason thinks they are?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“Fits.”
She laughed.
“If you say so.”
“Hey, Sam,” he said.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Thanks.”
“It’s kind of my fault, to begin with. It’s the least I can do.”
“Still. Thanks.”
<><><>
“Psychic,” Jason said, stretching his arms across the back of the diner booth.
“Yeah,” Samantha said.
“Sam…”
“What?” they both answered.
“Her. How in the world do you expect me to believe that? Psychics don’t exist.”
“You’re going to look at me and tell me something doesn’t exist,” she said.
“Why haven’t we ever heard of them, then?”
“An unguided psychic can end up a few ways: a bunch kill themselves, some on purpose, some on accident, more and more are medicated numb, a few go pro. The rest of them end up getting trained and making themselves useful. Those are what real psychics look like, and it frankly doesn’t surprise me that you wouldn’t run across them. They look normal.”
“Okay, you just earned yourself a permanent crazy card, and I’m taking Sam to the doctor.”
“Jason, I feel fine.”
Jason looked across the table first at one, then the other of them.
“What did she do to you?” He glared at her. “What did you actually give him?”
“Jasmine and water, I told you. I’m helping him… another way.”
“That’s just creepy. I want you gone.”
“No,” Sam said. They both looked at him. He raised his eyebrows. “Look, you say she goes, I say she stays. It isn’t that complicated. She does what she wants. You aren’t actually in charge, here.”
Samantha licked her lips, then looked down at her plate.
“And if she’s poisoning you?” Jason asked.
“I drank a bowl of water yesterday and slept for eighteen hours, then woke up feeling great. I’ll take anything else she gives me,” Sam answered.
“Look, I think it’s great you’ve got a crush on her,” Jason said.
“This isn’t a crush. Yes, I’m attracted to her. I think she’s quirky and funny and smart, and I like being around her. A lot. But I have never been in pain like that before, and I keep having these out-of-body experiences, and it feels like I’m dying. And she makes me feel better.”
“You do remember I’m still right here, right?” Samantha asked, peeking up from her soda.
“And what if she made you like that in the first place?”
Sam paused, considering.
“I don’t believe that. Do you?”
Now Jason was quiet.
“No.”
His brother’s response was sullen, but the truth.
“Then why are we fighting about this?”
“Because I don’t like it.”
“When has that ever stopped us with getting on with the job?” Sam asked. “This isn’t her fault. She’s just helping the best she can.”
“Actually, it kind of is my fault,” she said.
“She doesn’t belong with us,” Jason said. Sam held his hands out over the table.
“Maybe she does.”
Jason jerked his head back in shock. The waitress chose this moment to stop at the end of the table.
“Does everyone know what they’re having?” she asked. Jason chewed his lip.
“Breakfast platter three,” he finally said.
“Coffee, eggs, scrambled, and a glass of orange juice,” Sam said.
“Pancakes, please,” Samantha said handing the woman her menu.
“Oh, we have the best mixed-berry syrup in the state,” the woman said. “You have to try it.”
Samantha nodded.
“That sounds great, thank you.”
The woman took the other two menus and left.
“Maybe she does?” Jason asked.
“You heard me.”
“What’s going on with you, man? I honestly thought you knew better than that.”
“Is that really what you think? That she doesn’t belong with us?” Sam asked.
Jason glared hard.
“No.”
“No what?”
“No. I don’t actually think that.”
Sam nodded.
“You’ve got too many voices in your head. What do you actually think?”
“I think she’s fun. And that I haven’t seen you happy like you have been for the past few days since I can remember.”
“So you can hear the waitress, but not me?” Samantha asked.
“I am happy,” Sam said. “But that’s not it. I just feel like she should be here.”
Jason sighed.
“Fine. So do I.”
“So are we done now?”
“Fine.”
Jason frowned and looked at Samantha.
“Did you say that it actually was your fault?”
<><><>
“Hi, I’m Jason, this is my brother Sam, and our forensic specialist, Sam,” Jason said, shaking hands with the rancher.
“That must get confusing,” the man said, tipping his hat to Samantha.
“Mostly I answer to ‘hey, you’,” she said. He grinned at her and tip
ped his hat again.
“You’re out of Omaha?” the rancher asked. Jason nodded.
“An environmental group. We heard that you might have a pack of gray wolves down here, and wanted to check it out for ourselves. Wouldn’t expect to see them this far south,” Sam said. The man nodded.
“Sure, sure. Well, I can take you down to the valley where we found the carcasses, but I gotta say, this has got to be the weirdest pack of predators I’ve ever seen. They leave all the meat.”
“Another reason we’re here,” Jason said.
“You ride?” the rancher asked.
“Uh,” Jason said.
“I do, but they’re city boys at heart,” Samantha said.
“Book smart, huh?” the man asked, wrinkling his nose. “Well, I could get Carl to take the truck out, but it would be about an extra hour, if it could even make it. You want to ride ahead, in case the truck gets blocked out?” he asked Samantha. She glanced at Sam.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We would probably need to take a truck, anyway. I’ve got a lot of gear.”
She shifted her backpack.
“Yeah, you can’t ride with that, but they can take it on the truck with them. No guarantee’s it’d make it that far. We’ve had a couple of hard rains, recently. Besides, when was the last time you were out on the range on horseback?” he asked. She smiled.
“It’s been years.”
“Good for the soul. Let them take care of it,” the man said. Jason scratched his neck and looked down at her.
“Whatever you want,” he said softly. She nodded.
“No, that will be great. I’ll get a head start on working, and just get everything documented once they get there.”
The rancher nodded and called back to one of the cowboys.
“We’ll take a couple of the boys for extra guns, just in case. Pack of wolves that’d attack a trio of cows with suckling calves are bold as anything I’ve ever heard of.”
The man headed toward the barn and Samantha turned to Jason.
“Let me borrow your bag?” she asked, her voice taut.
“It’s full,” he said.
“Can I see?” she asked. He unzipped it and let her look inside.
She looked at her backpack, rubbing her thumb over her fingers, then sighed.
“I feel naked without it. I’ve got three different light sources in it, for heaven’s sake. I’m ready for anything.”
“Like, three flashlights?” Jason asked.
