“Yes, Tash, we both have an amazing gift. You and I, we’re special. I know of only three of us now, and all our gifts are different from each other.” Autumn gave him a big smile.
He gaped at her. “Really? You know someone else?”
She nodded. “His name is Dillon Savich and he’s an FBI special agent. He lives in Washington, D.C. We can speak—ah, connect with our minds, like with you right now. The last time we connected he told me his wife, Sherlock, was pregnant. They’re both so happy. He’ll be excited to hear about you.” She paused a moment, smiled. “Dillon told me our gifts might change and evolve, but we shouldn’t be afraid, we should be grateful because our gifts will make our lives a fun ride. Like my parents, he’s told me to keep my gift to myself and only those I trust completely. Same with you, Tash. Have you told anyone else?”
He shook his head. “All the kids in my school think I’m weird anyway, my dad and Sasha didn’t believe me, and no one else knows.”
“Good. Don’t tell anyone in town about either of us, even if you trust them. Like your dad, most people wouldn’t understand, and that makes them afraid and worried.”
“There are three of us? Really? In the whole world?”
“Who knows? Maybe there are people in India or in Italy who can do what we do, but my mom and dad don’t think there are all that many. Wouldn’t it be nice, Tash, if all the gifted kids in the world could get together, sit around a campfire roasting marshmallows, and tell each other what we can do?”
Another big smile lit up his face. “That would be so cool. No one would make fun of me.”
He was so happy a nimbus of bright colors seemed to be swirling around his head. He said, “When we were driving from Philadelphia to Titusville we stopped at a restaurant for a snack. When Sasha went to the bathroom my dad told me not to say anything that would make the other kids here in Titusville wonder about me.” He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the grass. “But I had to say something to you, Autumn, I couldn’t let you get hurt.”
“My right arm thanks you, Tash. If you ever see danger again, you warn me, okay?”
Again, Tash smiled, a blazing smile that lit up his face. “Can you see what I’m thinking now, Autumn? Like before?”
She searched with her mind, but she couldn’t tell. “No, not right now, and I don’t know why. But we’ll practice, Tash. Who knows what we’ll learn how to do?” She was as excited as he was, couldn’t wait to tell her parents and Dillon.
Autumn took his hand and walked him up the creek to another crossing, another rock they could jump off. There was a meadow of knee-deep grass on the other side of the river, and they raced across it together, Autumn holding his hand.
Chapter Nine
Titusville, Virginia
Ten days later
Monday afternoon
Rebel Navarro shut down his laptop, sat back, rolled his shoulders, and worked his fingers. They were beginning to cramp from his writing marathon. He simply hadn’t been able to stop, the ending yelling at him not to dawdle, to get on with it. He was nearly to the end—one final scary scene to go—but it was a jumble in his mind. He was tired, he needed a break. Maybe he could finish the book off later in the day if he could get his brain back to work again.
He looked up and gave a start when he saw his nephew, Tash, standing in the doorway of his study. He wasn’t the Tash of two weeks ago who’d arrived wearing stiff new jeans, a pale, painfully proper little boy who spoke only when directly spoken to. He’d put on needed weight. He was tanned, his dark hair all over his head; his jeans were grungy; his polo shirt wasn’t only dirty, one of the sleeves was ripped. Best of all, his sneakers looked like they’d been through a couple of wars. He looked like a little boy should look on a hot summer day with nothing more on his mind than having fun.
Rebel realized he’d been working so many long hours, he hadn’t paid enough attention to his nephew. His brother, Archer,Tash’s father, had seemed torn about leaving his son with him, but Sasha, gorgeous young Sasha, his wife of six months, had bubbled on about the trip they’d planned for their honeymoon. He’d been surprised when his brother had asked him to keep Tash with him the whole summer. It was a long time to be without his son, but Sasha had been so excited about their honeymoon trip she’d planned, visiting all the romantic places she’d never seen, and made Archer glow and look stupid in love.
He’d said, “The thing is, Reb, Tash is undersized, he’s shy, and he doesn’t seem to get along with other kids. I can’t keep him with me all summer, not while I’m honeymooning with Sasha. I figured being with you here would be good for him.”
Rebel had gladly accepted. He’d given it some thought and told his brother he should hire a young girl named Autumn Merriweather, a really nice kid, as much an outdoors girl as her mother, who ran a local wilderness adventure business. She could take Tash under her wing and teach him about the outdoors. He remembered Archer had glanced over at his son, who was playing on his iPhone, and said, “If you think she’d toughen him up, then yes. He was being bullied at school and the principal couldn’t seem to do anything about it.”
His brother hadn’t done anything himself about the bullying? Rebel had kept his voice measured. “I think Tash and Autumn will have a good time together. You can trust her, she’s very responsible. She’ll keep him safe out there.” He’d paused, grinned. “You should pay her well, Archer.”
And so Rebel had made a call and they’d gone over to the Merriweather house and he’d introduced his brother and wife to the Merriweathers and to Autumn. Sasha had remarked to Archer as they left, with a shudder in her voice, thinking they were out of hearing but weren’t, “The little girl and her mother, Arch, both of them look like their clothes come from a dumpster. And their hair”—another shudder—“it was falling out of their ratty ponytails.”
Archer had said, “I thought Joanna Merriweather and her daughter were lovely.”
Sasha had smiled and shrugged, said nothing more, and turned away. Rebel, always the cynic, had thought that was well done of her. You don’t want to disagree with your meal ticket, Sasha.
Rebel said now to the healthy little boy who stood in his doorway, “Hey, Tash, I’m done for the day, how about a beer?”
Tash grinned at him, a big-kid grin. “Honest? A real beer, Uncle Rebel?”
“Well, put root in front of it, and sure. How long have you been standing there?”
“Only a little while. Autumn and I got back from a hike along the Sweet Onion River. Her mom made us a picnic lunch. We ate in a meadow under Autumn’s favorite willow tree. She calls the tree Old Cletus. There were birds all around, chirping up a storm, and Autumn knew their names, like northern cardinal and tufted titmouse. Isn’t that a funny name? Gray squirrels were racing across the meadow in front of us and there was a great horned owl in a tree close to us. Autumn said she saw some scat—that’s poop—so it meant a bear was roaming around and we had to be careful. Autumn said her mom made the potato salad and she made the tuna sandwiches.” Tash wished he could tell his uncle how he and Autumn spent lots of time trying to communicate with their minds when they hiked, or that she was teaching him how to fish and climb a tree. He hadn’t managed to speak to her with his mind yet, after that first time when she’d seen herself fall. Autumn said maybe they could communicate only when there was trouble and one of them was afraid. But she believed he could see what might happen. She’d told him it was called prescience. He was prescient. He loved the word and looked it up first thing when he got home—knowledge of things before they happen. They’d agreed he shouldn’t say anything to his uncle about it, not yet. He probably wouldn’t understand,that’s what Autumn had said. He didn’t want his uncle to think he was a freak or a liar, like Sasha did, or maybe get scared.
