Stranger on the Shore (16 page)

She blinked, attempting to banish the tears that threatened her vision. To stand by and let him leave would be the hard part. Every time she saw him, every hour she spent with him, made that parting harder. She'd wanted to pretend, to dream, a little longer, but as with so many other things in her life, she wasn't in control. Better to get it over with now.

"No," she said, "you're right. We do need to talk about it, but I'm not sure where to start."

"Alice always says, 'Start at the beginning.'"

"Alice?"

"Alice in Wonderland."

Sarah turned abruptly, her eyes snapping green fire. "This is not a joke, Jordan. Not to me."

Jordan's face registered surprise at her attack. "I know that, Sarah. I didn't mean—"

Her shoulders immediately sagged in defeat. "No. That's all right. I know you didn't."

Jordan stood abruptly. "Let's go for a walk." As they moved off the porch, Jordan placed his arm around her waist. It was a casual gesture he'd indulged in many times in the last week. When Sarah stiffened, he refused to retreat. They walked across the yard, moving toward the woodlot and the high pasture beyond the barn. Gradually Jordan felt some of her tension dissolve under his touch.

"Do you know much about—about...." Her voice faltered.

"About
the sight,
or ESP, or whatever it's called?" Jordan shook his head, fighting his conscience, which was urging him to tell her the truth. Now wasn't the time, not when she was already upset. "I've read a bit about it, of course," he finally admitted. "But I've never known anyone with it before. In fact, the cases I've heard of usually turned out to be fake." At least that statement was perfectly honest.

"A lot of them are. Especially the ones you hear about. But not always. Sometimes—" Sarah stopped again, allowing herself a second to gather her courage. She stepped away from his touch, turning to face him. "You have to understand, Jordan. I have 'it', whatever 'it' is. I don't understand how it works. It just is. Sometimes I know things without knowing how or why I know them. Most of the time I wish I didn't, but I wasn't asked. I don't have a choice."

"Why don't you begin by telling me what you do, besides telling little boys where they've left their shoes and sometimes answering questions that haven't been asked out loud?"

"Did I do that to you? Mind-read your questions?"

Her startled expression surprised him. He'd known she hadn't realized what she was doing at the time, but he'd thought it was normal for her. "Is that unusual?"

"Yes and no," she said. "Occasionally I do it with people I'm close to, but I don't usually give answers without realizing the question wasn't asked."

"I think I'm flattered," he told her. "Especially the part about doing it with people you're close to." He saw a flicker of fear in her eyes. "So," he said, straining to keep a normal tone of voice, "you mind-read a little, and can see the past, like discovering where Jimmy Joe left his shoes. Anything else?"

"When I was at the university I did some research. I tried to match definitions with skills. Some of the definitions fit generally, but not exactly. For example, I seem to be clairvoyant, but usually not precognitive. Do you know what I mean?"

Jordan nodded. "You know or see things happening in other places, or things that have happen before, but you don't see things that have yet to happen."

"That's pretty close, at least according to the definitions. Sometimes I can force the clairvoyance, as I did with Jimmy Joe's shoes. Outside the community and family circles, where I'm exposed to more people and more things, I sometimes get flashes that have no meaning to me at all. I can't read the future on demand, although I can usually predict the weather and occasionally get glimpses of other things. Sometimes I get a warning, like when the bench was tumbling toward me."

"You knew
that
was going to happen?"

"No. At least not until it was seconds away. I didn't even have time to look at it. Only duck. Seeing my own future is one thing I do not do at all. Heaven knows, it would have saved me a lot of misery if I could. Sometimes I get vaguely uneasy, but I never know if it's a special warning or plain, ordinary fear."

Jordan saw her tremble. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I still don't understand why you work so hard to hide it, Sarah. After all, it's a pretty special gift. I suspect you help a lot of people. What makes you so afraid?"

"Exposure. Publicity. Threats. Public ridicule. If I'm careful, sometimes I can at least spare myself that pain."

Her voice was flat, not devoid of emotion but drained. He knew immediately that experience, not imagination, was the cause.

When Sarah turned and continued walking along the path through the woodlot, Jordan matched her pace. Neither of them spoke as they reached the edge of the woods. They stepped from under the trees into bright sunlight. The gently rolling pasture stretched green and silent in front of them, and the gazebo waited peacefully in the distance.

"I'm protected here in the valley," said suddenly. "Outside, I'm vulnerable. When I left Mountain Springs to attend college on the other side of the state I discovered I could see things that had no connection with my family or me. They were things I couldn't keep to myself. I found I had no control over knowing them. And I also found that outside the valley people don't understand."

Jordan stopped, puzzled. "But didn't you know—before you went outside, I mean—that you were..."

Sarah's eyes filled with pain. "Oh, yes. I've known I was different since I was eight years old."

"Eight?"

She nodded. "That's when my parents were killed and I came to live with my grandparents. I'd used it before that, but I didn't realize it. I was good at finding lost mittens. I always knew when it was going to rain, even if the sun was shining. I'd gather all my toys and bring them inside before there was a cloud in the sky."

When they reached the fenced enclosure, Jordan leaned over to unfasten the gate latch, then allowed her to lead the way. Inside the gazebo, he seated himself on the cushioned bench next to her and reached out to take her hand. This time she didn't flinch at his touch.

Sarah leaned against one of the support posts and squeezed her eyes shut. Her hand still lay loosely in his.

"I remember Mother watching me gather my toys," she said quietly, obviously straining to keep her voice detached. "Mother never questioned me. She'd watch for a minute, then take the wash off the clothesline, just as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I realize now that my parents knew I was different, but were trying to treat my unusual abilities as something usual and natural. They were trying to let me be a normal little girl."

Her eyes misted over. "If—" Her voice trembled, then broke. She started again. "If I'd known I was different, that everyone didn't know the things I did, then maybe my parents wouldn't have died. If I had realized I could tell them what I saw, they might have been able to change it."

Jordan leaned forward and gently brushed the tears rolling down her cheeks. He felt a dull ache, a churning grief deep inside. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, knowing it would also comfort him. "Sarah, don't—"

"I'm okay, Jordan. You were right. You need to know. You see, I'm psychic, or extra sensitive, or whatever you want to call it. My parents weren't. When they left that night, I knew they wouldn't be coming home. I didn't know why. I didn't know they would both die in an automobile accident before they arrived at their meeting. I only knew, as they went out the door, that I was alone. If I'd asked them why, maybe... maybe they wouldn't have gone. So in a way it was my fault. I knew and I didn't tell them."

"An eight-year-old trying to sort through that— Oh, Sarah, how did you survive?" Jordan could feel tears burning in his own eyes.

"Aunt Cinda."

"Aunt Cinda? The old lady who refuses to leave the mountain? Is she—"

Sarah nodded. "It seems to run in the family. Aunt Cinda didn't
see
my parents' accident. Neither of us predict the specific future very often, and never on demand. But she knew I was in trouble. She came running off her mountain in the dead of night to be with me."

She took another deep breath. "So Aunt Cinda took me under her wing. The rest of the family took over what my parents started, treating me as normal, protecting me, comforting me, and life went on. Little by little, with Aunt Cinda's help, I learned to cope. Or at least I thought I had, until I went outside. It was then I learned what a strange creature I am."

Jordan could hear the pain in her voice. Unable to resist any longer, he freed her hand and gathered her close in his arms. His touch was soothing, comforting. "What hurt you so badly, Sarah?"

She let her head rest against his shoulder while she tried to collect her thoughts.

"I had no idea of what it would be like, living outside the valley," she began in a tight voice. "Here, in Mountain Springs, I didn't advertise
my gift
, but I had no real reason to hide my skills. I didn't fully realize how uncomfortable other people would be discovering them."

"Your aunt didn't warn you?"

Sarah shook her head. "She didn't know—not the worst of it, anyway. She's never lived outside this community. We know we're viewed as a little strange, a little different. There's a certain distance between us and other people, particularly outside the family circle. But we're accepted—at least believed—to a certain extent, and shielded. Outside, it's completely different. I'm a freak."

Jordan wanted to say something, to offer reassurance, but was afraid to speak. He also heard what she didn't say. Some would consider her a freak. Others, a fake. He held her, offering comfort in the only way he dared.

Finally, she stirred in his arms. The movement failed to disguise her trembling. Her eyes were clouded, like those of a child remembering a nightmare.

"Something happened." His voice was as calm and emotionless as he could make it.

Sarah looked up. "Yes," she said. "A private plane carrying a couple of state legislators crashed in the mountains near my school. There were newspapers and television people all over the place."

He could guess what happened next. "You got involved and the story got out," he said, trying to make it easier for her.

"I had to. I recognized the crash site, but by then I'd learned a little. I thought I could protect myself. I tried to talk to the searchers, tried to suggest where the crash might be. They wouldn't listen. And they were searching the wrong mountain. In the end, I had to go find them myself. I talked several friends into going on a hike, and we 'accidentally' stumbled across the crash. The pilot was dead, but the two passengers were still alive. We found them in time."

"I imagine the publicity was pretty heavy."

Sarah nodded. "It was bad enough when we were 'accidental heroes.' Then someone remembered the stories about me, and the searchers I'd tried to talk to remembered how I wanted them to search that mountain." She shuddered. "It was awful."

Jordan couldn't keep the sympathy from his eyes. He could imagine her as she had been then—young, unsure of herself, besieged from every side, and bewildered by it all.

What was he supposed to do now? Despite the lack of what he would normally have considered proof, he didn't doubt Sarah was telling him the truth. She was real. He had found the magic. If she had been a fraud, like the others, it wouldn't have mattered, but this was a situation he hadn't considered.

Although he'd given lip service to the idea that she might be psychic, he'd never really thought about what he'd do if she was real. Because, deep down he hadn't really believed it. His so-called search for the truth had been nothing but an excuse to bring him back to Mountain Springs.

What was he going to tell his agent? Jack would expect a story one way or the other. But more important, what was he going to tell Sarah?

And how?

"I can imagine how difficult it was," he said after a long moment. "Some of it, anyway. I wish I could say something to make it easier, but I can't. All I can say is I'm sorry."

Sarah shrugged. "I managed to survive—barely. I finished out the year, and then I came home. I transferred to the university at Fayetteville in the fall and finished there."

"Was Fayetteville better?"

"Much better. I'd learned a lot during that first year. And Fayetteville was closer to home. Then, too, there was Sheriff Bascomb. He knew some people in Fayetteville. So when anything happened, I had someone to tell."

She stood up abruptly, turned her back and walked across the gazebo. "There've been other times, Jordan. Some bad. Some only frustrating. But exposure, bad as it is, isn't the worst part of all this."

Jordan barely heard her last words, so softly were they spoken. "What is the worst of it, Sarah? Tell me. Let me help."

"No one can. That's part of the problem. I've learned that no one else can possibly understand. Sometimes they say they do, but then something happens, he—they pull away as if they're afraid to be contaminated. It makes me feel so alone."

Anger sliced through him—anger directed at whoever had hurt her so deeply. He moved to her side. "Try me," he whispered softy in her ear. "Give me a chance."