A Gift of Time (Tassamara) (15 page)

“Not the most useful gift,” Akira responded as Natalya emerged from the front bedroom, pulling the door closed behind her.

“Not really, no,” he agreed.

Natalya looked between them and sighed. “Colin is here working on a case, and that’s all.”

“She gave him dinner, though. Chicken something. It looked good,” Rose told Akira.

Akira didn’t say anything, but she looked amused as she took a seat on the couch. “So how can I help?”

“Rose was the first person to find Kenzi,” Colin answered readily, sitting in the chair across from Akira. “Anything she can tell us about where Kenzi came from or how she found her could be useful information.”

“Aw, how sweet.” Rose ran her hand through Colin’s tawny hair, her touch not disturbing the short strands. “He called me a person.”

“Rose,” Akira said, a warning in her voice.

“He’s cute. Not really my type, though. But they make a pretty couple, don’t you think?” Rose gestured at Natalya who still stood by the door.

“Rose,” Akira repeated, the warning tone a little clearer. Colin shifted in his seat, turning his head as if hoping to see what Akira was looking at.

“She should be nicer to him. He did die, after all.” Rose slipped away from Colin and joined Akira on the couch.

“Did he?” Akira asked, interest replacing the reproof in her voice. Colin relaxed as Akira’s gaze followed Rose’s movement away from him.

“Oh, yes,” Rose reported. “Dead as a doornail.”

“But he’s not now. Did you have something to do with that?”

“Hmm.” Rose blinked. “Maybe. I’m not really sure.”

Akira crossed her arms, looking exasperated. “You know, I warned Natalya you liked to be mysterious.”

“I do not,” Rose protested. “I don’t know what happened.” Akira might not believe her, but it was the truth. She and Colin had been having a pleasant conversation after his death. Maybe she’d been flirting a little, but she didn’t have many opportunities to flirt these days. And then the little girl did something and Rose’s energy went all shivery. Next thing she knew, Natalya was there and Colin was sitting up. She told Akira the story.

“Huh,” Akira said thoughtfully.

“What’s she saying?” Colin asked.

Akira shook her head as if to say it was nothing important. He opened his mouth as if to object, and she said hastily, “Tell me about the little girl, Rose. How did you find her?”

Rose sighed. Although she felt reluctant to share the details, she could tell Colin wouldn’t give up. He was going to find the little girl’s parents one way or another. She might as well give him what help she could, but she shared her reservations with Akira as she told her about the spirit at the hospital. Akira relayed the information, warnings and all.

Natalya and Colin exchanged a long look. “Not Hansel and Gretel, after all,” Natalya said. “More like Snow White, I suppose. Or maybe Bluebeard.”

“Yeah,” Colin agreed. The single word held a weight of sorrow.

Natalya glanced over her shoulder at the closed door to Kenzi’s bedroom. “She’s asleep, but…” She stepped away from the door, moving to perch on the arm of the couch next to Akira. “We should keep it down. I don’t want her to wake up.”

Colin’s expression was grim as he nodded.

Rose flitted up and off the sofa. She stuck her head through the wall into Kenzi’s bedroom, near her bed. The girl’s eyes were closed, her breath even. Rose popped her head back out and reported to Akira cheerfully, “She looks sound asleep to me. I’ll keep checking.”

Akira thanked her and then asked, “Was the spirit her mother, do you think?”

Rose shrugged. “Maybe. Probably, I guess.”

“Poor kid,” Akira muttered. “Seven is…”

“…too young,” Natalya finished the thought and put a hand on Akira’s shoulder, before moving to sit next to her. Both women had lost their mothers.

Colin turned in his chair to address Rose, but the direction of his gaze was off by a solid two feet. “Did the spirit give you a name?”

“Oh, look how polite he is,” Rose said approvingly. “Trying to talk right to me.” She sidled a few steps closer to the door so she could pretend he was looking at her.

“A name, Rose?” Akira prompted.

“She didn’t say.” Rose shook her head, Akira following suit.

“Can you describe her?” Colin asked.

Rose tried, but after a rattle-fire series of questions from Colin—height, weight, hair color, eye color, skin color, age—she could tell she was disappointing him. But she truly hadn’t noticed much beyond the woman’s desperation.

“Do you have any idea how the woman died?” Colin asked.

Rose thought back. The living people in the hospital had been talking, sometimes shouting. Could she remember any of their words? Nothing came to her, and she spread her hands helplessly. “No,” she admitted.

“I’ll check on all the deaths at the hospital,” Colin said, pulling a small notepad out of his pocket and making a note with a frown. “There can’t be too many in the right timeframe. We should be able to find her.” He tucked the notepad back in his pocket. “What about the spot in the forest where you found the girl? Was it near a road? Any houses around?”

Rose brightened. “I bet I could take you back there. We walked a long way, but I think I’d be able to find it again.”

“Great,” Colin said with enthusiasm, but Akira looked noticeably less excited.

“How exactly do you plan to follow a ghost through the woods?” Natalya asked Colin, arching an eyebrow.

“Ah…” He looked closer at Akira and winced. “I guess you haven’t been taking too many long hikes, huh?”

“I’m pregnant, not disabled,” she told him, putting one hand on her rounded belly.

“Would you be willing to give it a try?” The question was tentative, as if Colin was unsure whether he should ask.

“Sure.” Akira shrugged, but Natalya’s brows drew down.

“What’s wrong?” Colin asked immediately.

“I—” She shook her head without saying any more.

“Are you seeing something?” “Is it dangerous?” Colin and Akira spoke over one another.

Again, Natalya shook her head. Restlessly, she stood and paced across the room. “No, it’s not my precognition. And medically, there’s no reason a healthy pregnant woman can’t hike a reasonable distance. ” She turned back, facing them, crossing her arms over her chest. “But I’m worried. Something feels wrong.”

“Could it be Rose?” Akira asked.

“Hey!” Rose protested. There was nothing wrong with her.

“What do you mean?” Natalya asked, her hands relaxing but her arms not dropping.

“Some people are more sensitive to the presence of spirits than others,” Akira explained. “Ghosts can make rooms colder. Those temperature drops are a measurable physical reality.”

“Ha. Now you tell them.” Rose bounced on the sofa. “Tell them not to ignore me next time.”

Akira’s lips curved up. “I guess you experienced that already. But people who are sensitive to ghosts also sometimes have an emotional reaction to their presence. Sometimes it’s uneasiness or fear. Sometimes it’s warmth or a sense of peace. Rose is worried, too.” Akira gestured in Rose’s direction, even though the others couldn’t see her. “Maybe you’re picking up on that.”

Natalya didn’t look reassured, but Colin said, “We’ll be careful. We need to trace her family, but we won’t just hand her over to them.”

“Yeah, you better not,” Rose said with an emphatic nod that set her blonde curls to bobbing. “Because if anything happens to her, you better believe I’m gonna be haunting you for the rest of your life.”

“I’m not going to ask him that, Rose.”

Colin suppressed his grin as he pushed a branch that Akira had passed under with ease out of his way. “I don’t mind.”

Akira glanced over her shoulder at him, her cheeks pink with the cold but her eyes bright. She’d been toughing out their walk through the forest with impressive energy. “You don’t know what she wants to know.”

He lifted a shoulder. “We’ve already established I don’t watch nearly enough television, my musical tastes are sadly narrow, and ghosts can’t read books unless someone turns the pages. Shouldn’t we be on movies now? How does she feel about
Star Wars
?”

When he’d met Akira at the parking lot Rose deemed closest to her entry point to the forest, he’d handed her a bright orange vest and suggested they talk loudly. It was still hunting season, and over-eager hunters had been known to hear scuffling in the leaves and shoot first, look too late.

The conversation had been stilted initially. Colin had met Akira before, of course, but casually, and knowing they were walking with an invisible person only she could see or hear was unsettling despite his desire to accept her ability with his usual calm. For the first half hour or so, Akira herself had seemed uneasy, reluctant to say more than pleasantries about the weather, the climate, and her upcoming wedding. But when Colin had made it clear he didn’t mind talking to Rose through her, the conversation had gotten much livelier. Rose appeared to be insatiably curious.

Akira listened, and then reported, “She doesn’t like the one where the kids die, but she doesn’t want to talk about movies. She wants to know…” She paused and glanced back at him again. As they’d walked, they’d been passing through scrub pine growth, mostly narrow trees with grey trunks and sparse boughs, but they were nearing the edge of the tree line.

“What is it?” Colin took a few extra steps and fell into place next to her as they left the trees for a white sandy path on the edge of the prairie, trees on one side, tall grasses on the other.

“She wants to know why you didn’t try to stop yourself from dying.”

Colin blinked. He hadn’t expected that. “You mean the other night?”

“At all. The other night or any time in the years since Natalya’s premonition. Why didn’t you—oh, I don’t know. Move to New York City and become a big-city cop? Give up police work and move to Antarctica? Most people fight death with everything in them. You let it happen.” Her words could have been accusing, but her expression held no challenge, only interest.

Colin raised an eyebrow. Should he mention she hadn’t waited for Rose to speak? Rose might have asked the original question but it was obvious Akira wanted answers, too. “I’m a Florida boy and a cop’s kid,” he said. “Never wanted to be anywhere else. Never wanted to do anything else.” His chuckle was rueful. “If I could go back now, I’d do it different. But at the time, staying made sense to me.”

“Why?” Akira asked without hesitation.

Colin stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders. He could tell her it was none of her business. But a part of him wanted to talk about it. And someday—someday if he got lucky—she’d be a relation, his brother-in-law’s wife, so technically his sister. Maybe he’d start treating her like one a little ahead of schedule. “Nat’s knowledge doesn’t come date-stamped. I didn’t know when I’d die, just that I would. I thought it’d be soon, probably real soon.”

Her voice softened as she said, “That must have been hard.”

Colin’s lips quirked in a wry smile. Hard wouldn’t have been his first choice of description. Horrifying, maybe. Devastating. He’d had plans and they’d all come crashing down around him.

“Mostly when she sees something clearly, it’s because it’s about to happen. Take finals. She could tell me an hour before a final how I was going to do, but a week before, nothing. It’s not exactly helpful to know you should have studied harder when you’re out of time.”

“Interesting.”

“And she never had been able to figure out our future. We both wanted a big family, lots of kids, but she’d never seen them. Never seen the wedding, never seen the honeymoon.”

“Those do seem like moments she’d remember.” Akira kicked at the sandy ground, staring down at it, not looking in his direction.

Colin could feel the sympathy emanating from her. He went on steadily, saying, “Sometimes her foresight caused the problem. This one time, she was all upset. She wouldn’t let me drive to school, because she knew I'd crash the car. I got a ride with my friend Jake and he crashed his car. She still got the phone call saying I’d been in an accident, but it wasn’t what she’d expected it to be.”

“She mentioned something along those lines. That sometimes her actions created the future she remembered.”

“If I’d driven that day, I would have gotten to school on time.”

“But you didn’t think she was wrong about your death?”

“I knew what she saw would happen the way she saw it. Maybe she didn’t understand exactly what it was or maybe she had some of the details wrong, but running away wasn’t going to change anything. We argued about it, over and over again.”

Akira bit her lip. “Is that why you broke up with her? Because you couldn’t stand the arguments?”

“No, of course not,” Colin protested, but Akira was looking at the path ahead of them, her head angled as if she were listening to Rose. “What’s Rose saying?”

Akira acknowledged the question with a quick smile, dimples flashing. “She says she thinks you like to argue with Natalya. Or at least to tease her.”

“Making up always made it worth it,” Colin said, his own lips tugging up at the corners.

“So why?”

Colin’s smile faded. “She deserved better. A husband who’d grow old with her, kids who'd have a father.”

Akira snorted. “I don’t think she agreed with you.”

His hands, still hidden inside his pockets, tightened into fists. “No. No, she didn’t.”

Damn it, how could he have screwed up so badly? Had it all been inevitable? But if so, what did that mean for the future? His future? Their future?

“I wonder if quantum physics can explain her ability,” Akira said. “Maybe it’s like Schrodinger’s cat. The rest of us have to wait until the box is opened to know whether the cat lives or dies, but Natalya knows once it happens. But not until it happens. Like a wave function.”

Colin made a noncommittal hum. He vaguely remembered something about a cat and physics but he had no idea what a wave function was.

“Or maybe more like a human tide table,” Akira went on, sounding dreamy.

“A tide table?” Colin shot a startled glance in her direction. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or take her seriously.