Wherever She Goes (Psychic Seasons, ReGina Welling [novels to improve english TXT] 📗

“Upstairs, Mom. I’m in the little bedroom closet.”

Perfect timing. Suspiciously perfect, actually.

“I was just about to start sorting through some things in here.” She announced as her mother entered the room. “Want to help?”

If there was anything to hide, Anne Canton, managed it masterfully. Her face remained open and cheerful as she offered her daughter a hug. “I’d forgotten there were still things stored up here. Your grandmother was a bit of a pack rat.”

Kat had not intended to empty the closet but could not pass up the opportunity to spend time with her mother. Sharing this task gave her a deep sense of connectedness, one that had been lacking for a long time.

By the time Anne happened upon the box, Kat had forgotten it was the reason they were digging around in the past to begin with. “Look at this,” Anne carried the box into the bedroom, “It’s locked. I wonder if there’s a key somewhere.” She angled the box to look at it curiously then passed it to Kat who reached for it.

“There is, follow me.” Kat carried the box down to the kitchen where she set it gently on the table before stretching to take down the teapot with the sugar and creamer attached. “I’m pretty sure this will fit.” Her quick fingers retrieved the little key from among the rubber bands and twist ties. She passed it over to let her mother test it in the lock.

Whatever she had been expecting to find, handbills with photos of a beautiful young woman wearing period ballet dancer garb had not been on the list. “Is that grandmother?”

Anne took a closer look. “It is.” A quick intake of breath. “She looks so young, so happy.”

“Did you know she’d been a dancer?” Kat continued to leaf through the box. There was a newspaper article talking about a girl named Nora, a local ballerina being accepted into one of the most prestigious corps in the country. There were cards and letters of congratulation, dried rose petals presumably from an opening night bouquet. Then a second article with the story detailing how a promising young dancer, predicted to become prima, had walked away from the stage to disappear into obscurity.

Kat felt a chill right before she heard her mother speak, “You could have told me, you know.” She whirled to see Anne wagging a finger at the spirit of her grandmother. “You,” Kat pointed her own, “You can see spirit, and you never said a word.”

“I’m afraid it’s my fault. I knew I’d passed my gift on to your mother when she started talking to her Uncle John almost as soon as she learned to speak but as she grew older, the ability seemed to have faded away.”

“It didn’t fade, exactly.” Anne confessed something she had never even told her own mother, “a spirit or an angel came to me and said I could choose to see or not and I chose not.” She turned to her mother, “I’d forgotten it ever happened until you decided to become Madame Zephyr.”

“When your father passed, I needed to make a living and since it was my only marketable skill…”

Anne turned to Kat, “There was no sign that you had the sight so we assumed it had skipped a generation until it hit you all at once, then we lost your grandmother before she could help you learn to control it.”

“You still could have told me and how is it you’re seeing her now?”

It was her grandmother who answered, “Special dispensation from an angel named…”

“Galmadriel,” Kat finished for her. “Is she around? I’d like to know why no one ever offered me that choice.” Bitterness twisted her emotions into a greasy knot of anger.

“Nor was I,” Nora offered in a mild rebuke. “Though I believe Anne paid a price for her decision, did you not?” She turned to her daughter.

“Do you think it was easy to watch you trying to deal with what happened after knowing I had turned my back on the one thing that would have helped you the most? If I had retained my gift, I could have helped you understand yours.” Tears filled Anne’s eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Kat couldn’t stand to see her mother cry. “Of course. Don’t cry mommy, please.” She hugged Anne tightly while Nora watched.

“Grandmother, why did you walk away from dancing? Did your gift develop late in life as well?”

“No, but something else was developing. You see, I’d met this handsome young man who called me his Zephyr because he thought I floated across the stage on the back of a western wind. He was quite a poet, your grandfather. Keep digging in that box and you’ll find out for yourself.”

“He followed me across the country from performance to performance. When the company was slated to go to Europe, he swore he would follow me there but by then Anne was more than just a twinkle in his eye so we settled down here in Oakville and started a life together.”

“I’ve never heard that story before. Didn’t you miss the ballet?”

“Annie, it has always been your nature to take on the hurts of the world, I was afraid you might feel responsible for my choices. I loved to dance but I loved your father and the family he gave me so much more.”

“Now, back to the business at hand. My time runs short. Kathleen, you perceive your time of darkness as a sign of weakness because some twit of a doctor with no experience in the matter called it so. This is an untruth and an unkind one at that.”

Kat raised both eyebrows in surprise.

“Tell me this, how clearly do you see and hear me right now?”

“As clearly as I see and hear any living person. Why? Is that not normal?”

Nora smiled, “All I ever saw were misty, indistinct flashes of figures. But then I was mostly only clairsentient.