“Aye, but you haven’t gone through it with me!” she shot back angrily. “I come home to an empty house, no note or anything. The next thing I know, Ben is on the phone telling me that Carl is bringing you in to the station bleeding. What was I supposed to think?! What were YOU thinking?!”
“I told you already. I was looking for an answer.”
“You could have told me what you wanted to do when I called this afternoon.”
“Would you have agreed to it?”
“Maybe.”
“Be serious, dear.”
“That’s not the point!” she burst forth once again. “Whether or not I would have agreed to it has absolutely nothing to do with what you did. You lied to Carl and you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you,” I told her. “I just didn’t tell you what I had planned.”
“Don’t split hairs. You know exactly what I meant!”
“You’ll want to exit up here at Page and hang a left,” I told her, as much to change the subject as to provide her with directions. It didn’t work.
“So what did you accomplish?” she demanded stonily.
With a downshift and quick spin of the wheel, she arced the Jeep through the green light at the bottom of the exit ramp and merged into the right lane.
“I had another vision,” I answered her. “At least, I think I did.”
“What do you mean ‘you think you did’?”
Open mouth, insert foot, I thought to myself. I didn’t really intend for the last part of that sentence to come out, but I guess my own personal doubts were starting to take hold. It didn’t matter much now because I knew my wife, and she wasn’t going to let it drop. I had no choice but to explain it.
“I haven’t been able to remember much of anything,” I began outlining. “I feel like I had a vision, but everything is all foggy. I seem to remember the little girl, and I keep flashing on not being able to breathe, but that’s about it. The rest is all just a blur.”
“Why do you think that is?” She cautiously pushed the vehicle onward through an intersection guarded by a winking yellow traffic signal. “Do you think it might have something to do with what Carl was saying then?”
Detective Deckert had detailed to her his story about the basement door and the events that followed. Every time he reiterated the tale, his eyes grew wide, and he would shake his greying head while repeating, “It’s just kinda weird, y’know?” I almost wished that Agent Mandalay had been the one to have his experience. Then maybe she would be slightly less skeptical.
“It’s possible. Roger spoke to me in the vision last night, and then there was the nightmare…” I mused aloud. “I was expecting some kind of presence from him. That’s why I went there in the first place.”
We were both silent for a short while as Felicity pressed the Jeep along, occasionally shifting gears up and down to adjust speed for the various intersections we crossed. The pulsing yellow and red signals gave warning at each junction, serving also to punctuate my realization that the hour had grown later than I realized.
“How’s your head?” Felicity finally asked.
“Still hurts-hang a right up here on Ashby-but not as bad as before.” I settled back in the seat and closed my eyes for a moment. “I took a handful of aspirin earlier, and they’re starting to kick in. Not quite as fast as willow bark tea, but they don’t leave an aftertaste.”
“I know what you mean.”
I could feel the Jeep sway to the left, centrifugal force acting in opposition to the right-hand turn. My eyes were still closed, and I heard the smooth, metallic click of the stick shift as the gears were shifted down then back up. The hum of the tires against pavement was pinpricked by a low, quick, electronic beep as Felicity’s watch announced the half-hour.
“What time is it anyway?” I asked, still resting limply in the seat. Before she could answer, I began a wildly disorienting carnival ride between realities.
“ Hey, mister, what time is it?” A little, strawberry-blonde girl is talking to me. She is dressed in white lace and is tugging franticly at my sleeve. “What time is it? Hey, mister!”
“It’s twelve-thirty,” she answered.
“ Hey, mister, what time is it?” The little girl is pointing above the horizon. The pregnant globe of the moon is lifting itself heavily, casting its reflected light down upon her upturned face. The hands of a clock spin urgently about the mottled silvery-white surface. “What time is it? Hey, mister?”
“Rowan? Rowan? Are you okay?”
There is a grove of trees surrounding a small clearing. Centered in the clearing is a hooded, robed figure standing with hands raised high. Moonlight glints from an object held in those hands. Moonlight glints from an athame.
A small figure lies prone before the cloaked one. A small figure clad in white lace. Preened and arranged. Unblemished and virginal.
“Rowan! Answer me!”
Trees begin to erupt from the landscape, and the earth begins to tremble and sink. The depression fills with dark water and ripples in the slight breeze. The moonlight reflects in a shimmering stripe.
Another stand of trees erupt skyward. The tall pines form a line before us, completely obscuring the view except for a few small glimpses of the shallow lake.
“ What does it say, mister?” The little girl is pointing at a small sign. Bold letters spell out PLEASE DO NOT FEED GEESE.
“Rowan! Breathe, dammit!”
I can’t breathe. My lungs are on fire, and the flames are licking up my throat. My chest feels heavy, and there is something tightening about my neck. The atmosphere feels thick and fluid around me. I want to gasp for air, but something is telling me I shouldn’t. My thoughts are beginning to cloud; my mind is turning murky and dark.
“ROWAN!”
I snapped fully back into conscious reality when Felicity combined her urgent voice with even more urgent one-handed jostling. We had just rolled to a halt in a bus turnout near the off-ramp onto Midland. The Jeep made a jarring lurch as she franticly switched off the engine and in her haste, released the clutch pedal a second too soon. At almost the same instant, I gasped, ravenously sucking in the cool air.
“Rowan! Answer me! Are you all right?”
I choked and sputtered on the intoxicating oxygen and wheezed in more as I began to catch my breath. The dull ache that had been residing in the back of my head for the majority of the evening was now making an all out assault on my skull, pounding rhythmically through my scalp. The faint tickle of oncoming nausea started down the back of my throat, and my mouth began to water slightly. I fought it back, concentrating on my breathing and forcing myself to at least try to relax.
“Okay,” I sputtered between breaths, “I’m okay.”
“What happened?” Concern permeated Felicity’s voice. “You stopped breathing.”
“The vision.” I was no longer gulping air, and my respirations were beginning to slow. “The vision came back.”
“What did you see?”
“The little girl. A small clearing and some trees. The full moon,” I described slowly, reviewing the brilliant Technicolor playback of the memories in my mind. “The moon had hands on it. Like a clock. They were spinning around, and the little girl kept asking me what time it was.” My speech started coming quicker as the vision flooded in. “There was a lake too. And a row of pine trees that hid the clearing. The little girl was pointing at a sign.”
“What did it say?”
“Please do not feed geese, in bold letters.” I painted the image for her. “It was black on white. Like a road sign.”
“A park sign maybe?” she ventured.
“That would explain what it said,” I agreed. “And the lake and trees too. Do you have your cell phone with you?”
“Sure.” She pulled it from a pocket on the side of her purse and offered it to me. “Who are you going to call? Ben?”
“Yeah. I promised I’d let him know if I remembered any of the vision. This whole park thing might be important.”
Thumbing the power switch, I began stabbing out Ben’s number on the lighted buttons. The amber, segmented digits advanced across the small display, and a second later there was a brief, mechanical trill from the earpiece as the phone rang at the other end.