“Tash, I’ve jumped the creek from these rocks a thousand times and so can you, I promise. You just push off. Watch me, okay?”
He shook his head frantically. “No, no, Autumn, don’t do that. I—well, th-the rocks don’t look all that steady, and—” His voice fell off a cliff. He looked away from her, his head down. She stepped off the rocks and walked back to him, took his thin shoulders in her hands. To her shock, when she touched him, she felt fear rolling off him. “Tash, what’s wrong?”
He shook his head, wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Autumn kept her hands on his shoulders, focused on him, softened her voice, and spoke slowly. “Tash, come on, you know you can tell me anything. I’m like your big sister, right?”
Still, he wouldn’t look up. He pointed to the stacked large rocks on an incline above the creek, her takeoff point. He whispered, “That biggest rock on top, it doesn’t look very steady. Maybe it’ll slip out from under you when you push off. Maybe you’ll fall, maybe you’ll be hurt.”
Autumn walked to the rocks she’d used as a springboard for years, saw nothing unusual. She leaned down and shovedhard at the largest one. To her surprise it broke loose, tipped forward, and tumbled down the incline into the creek.
Tash had known, he’d seen what would happen, but he was afraid to admit it.
Autumn felt her heart beat faster. How did Tash know? There was no way, she’d never crossed the river with him there before. But he’d known. She looked at Tash’s white face and saw he was afraid she’d be mad at him, or worse, think he was a freak. She knew very well what that was like, always being careful, always worrying about how people might react if she did something no one would understand. She had so many questions, but she didn’t want to scare him. She held back. She smiled down at him as she took his shoulders in her hands again, looked at his small pinched face. “The rock didn’t look loose, Tash, but you saw me falling?”
Slowly he nodded, his head still down.
She hugged him. “Thank you. You saved me from getting hurt. Is this the first time you’ve seen something happen that hasn’t happened yet, something you could stop or avoid?”
Finally, he nodded, whispered, “Well, one time my father was about to drive through an empty intersection but I saw another car we couldn’t see coming fast at us and I saw it hitting our car hard and both of us would be hurt really bad. So I yelled for him to stop. He was so surprised, he did, and then the other car raced through. He stared at me, because he knew I couldn’t have seen it. He got a funny look and shook his head. He never said anything about it.”
His father hadn’t thanked him, hadn’t questioned him, asked him how he’d known. He’d probably been really scared himself they could have died, afraid to ask about what he’d seen, afraid of what Tash would say. She said, “Have you seen other things happen?”
He swallowed. “There was my mom.”
“Tell me.”
Chapter Eight
When Tash spoke again, it was still in a whisper. “When my mama was dying, the hospice doctor said she really wasn’t there anymore because they’d given her morphine so she wouldn’t feel any pain and now she was in a deep coma. The doctor didn’t say she wouldn’t wake up again because I was there, but I knew what she meant. Mama was already gone in her head and it would be soon now she’d be gone for real. I took my mom’s hand and I knew right away she wasn’t gone, she was afraid. I didn’t know what to do. I knew there was nothing I could say to the doctor or my father, so I started singing to her in my mind, an old lullaby she’d sung to me all my life. I felt her calm, her fear melting away. She opened her eyes and smiled up at me and she whispered my name and said she loved me. I leaned down and kissed her.” Tash gulped, tears sheening his eyes. “And then she died. Sh-she was still smiling. I heard the hospice doctor suck in her breath as she leaned over my mother, but I knew she really was gone now. My father asked the doctor how Mom could open her eyes, smile, and speak to me.”
Autumn felt tears clog her throat. “What did the doctor say?”
“She said she’d never seen it before. Then she shook her head and said miracles sometimes happened. I didn’t think, I told them my mom smiled at me because I was with her and I was singing to her.” He sighed. “The doctor looked at me like shethought I was crazy. My father just stood there, crying. I heard the doctor tell my father later he should think about getting me counseling.”
Tash is gifted just like I am. I’m not alone.
Autumn squeezed him again, stood back. “That doctor, Tash—she didn’t understand, Tash. That was a wonderful thing you did for your mama. You made her happy. Thank you for telling me.” His face jerked up. Autumn saw dawning hope in his pale gray eyes, eyes the exact shade of his uncle Rebel’s, Titusville’s local celebrity.
He whispered, “You believe me? You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Of course you’re not crazy. What you are is gifted.” She paused a moment, punched his arm. “And so am I.” She studied him a moment. “Do me a favor, Tash. Think about what you saw when I was about to jump.” Autumn placed her hands on his shoulders and touched her mind to his. To her surprise, she saw what he was thinking, saw what would have happened if Tash hadn’t warned her away from the rock. She saw herself planting her foot squarely on the big rock, ready to push off and jump the creek. The rock slipped out from under her and she stumbled, hurtled forward, fell, and threw her hands out to catch herself. She felt a sharp jolt of pain in her right arm, felt the bone snap. She yelped.
She said simply, “Tash, you saved me from a broken arm. I owe you big time.”
He stared up at her, licking his lips. “What did you just do? You saw what I saw?”
She tamped down her excitement, tried to sound matter-of-fact. “Yes, I could see what you were thinking.”
He studied her face as if he suspected she was making fun of him. “B-but that means you were in my mind.”
“Sort of. I don’t know if I could have seen exactly what happened, but you gave me a very clear picture. If I’d jumpedI would have broken my arm and the whole summer would have been a bust. You’d have had to do everything for me—carry my pack and the camping equipment all by yourself, make sandwiches for me, scratch my back if I needed it. So you saved both of us.”
A rare smile broke out, a charming little-kid smile, nearly from ear to ear. “But how, Autumn? How?”
Autumn took his hands between hers, felt the calluses, the new scratches from slapping brush out of the way on their hikes. She said simply, “I’m gifted too, Tash, but my gift is different from yours. I can’t see when bad things might happen, like you can.”
“I don’t see things very often, but this time I did and I had to tell you, but I could have been wrong—you really saw what I saw?”
