Declan let the gate close behind him, then looked out at the water, his brow furrowed.I stood up and went inside.Bracken didn’t need to hear this.I left the door open, knowing Declan would follow, and he did.
I wasn’t ready for another confrontation.I hadn’t had time to work through the last one.I went to the couch, kicked off my shoes, and curled up tight, with my head on a pillow.There was one cushion at my feet if he insisted on sitting.
“You left,” he grumbled.“You hid the sound and you left me.”
I curled up tighter.“Not you.All the anger.”
“You can talk to Bracken but not me?”
I flicked my fingers and a blanket was covering me, hiding me.“When I got here, Bracken was already on the bench.We didn’t talk about you and me.We talked about him.”
The couch moved as he sat.“Is he okay?”
“I think so.”
“Are we okay?”he asked.
I shrugged a shoulder, not knowing how to answer that.
“You shouldn’t have left, especially after your vision of being hit on that road.”
I felt his hand go under the blanket and wrap around a foot.Something inside me broke and the tears finally came.I pulled the blanket over my head as I sobbed.It was such a simple act, but it was everything to someone who’s been starved for touch her whole life.
“Bracken was right,” he said.“I should have noticed that the sea was raging and not tried to have such a charged conversation with you.”
Oh, that was what Bracken had meant.Were my emotions tied to the ocean?I supposed my uncontrollable sobbing said yes.
“Come here,” he rumbled, picking up the lump of me and holding me in his lap while I cried.“We’ll figure this out, but we don’t have to do it right now.Right now,” he said, standing up, still holding me, “we’re going to bed and getting some sleep.”He carried me up the stairs and arranged us on the bed.Not bothering with the bedding, he spread the blanket over us, curled himself around me, and we both dropped off almost immediately.
Water surrounds me and I’m racing through it, leaving unbothered fish in our wake.Kelp below dances with the current.The sunlight shining through the water disappears as a large, graceful dark shape seems to fly through the ocean.
Little fingers grip the wings as a giant bat ray twists and turns, diving deep and twirling up.Dark hair fans out from a little girl riding the ray like a roller coaster.Their joy is infectious.My heart hurts watching them.When the ray flips, I see bright aqua-green eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter.
A gray, speckled harbor seal follows, circling the ray and her rider, playing tag.I recognize this water and that seal.We’re near the gallery.The pylons appear ahead and the ray carries the rider between the tall, thick cement posts to where two octopuses live.
The ray slows, hovers, and a tentacle drops from above, wrapping around the child’s shoulders.She sits up, kneeling on the unmoving ray, as she wrestles with a familiar octopus.Finally free of her tentacled entanglement, the ray delivers her to the bottom of the rope ladder hanging from the deck of the gallery.
The little girl gives the ray a quick kiss, then scrambles up the rope faster than expected.I’m waiting at the top, leaning over to grab the little girl as soon as she’s within reach.The dream fades and then…
The same girl, older now—maybe seven or eight—but with those same eyes, is walking the road between home and the gallery.She has long, dark hair, almost as black as Corey hair, but with streaks of the warm brown of her father and the gold and red highlights of her mother.The long curls fly around her head in the wind off the ocean.
A car slows down beside her and a window opens.A man tries to talk to her, but she continues walking.He checks his rearview mirror and the road ahead before driving closer to the girl, making her walk along the sandy, rocky berm rather than the concrete path.
He drives ahead a few feet, leans over, and throws open the passenger door, trying to pen her in.
She’s so small but there is no fear in her eyes.She stops at the open door and looks in at the man reaching for her.The fingers of one hand twirl at her side while long, razor-sharp claws slide from the fingertips of the other.The dream fades and then…
The same girl—perhaps ten or eleven—is walking down the same stretch of road.Her long, curly hair is up in a ponytail today.A van pulls up beside her, and the side door slides open.A man is hunched over, ready to launch himself at her.A blink of her luminous aqua-green eyes and she hears all they have planned for her.It’s so ugly.Her stomach sinks as she twirls her fingers and keeps walking.
The men in the van have forgotten her and have fallen on each other, beating and tearing at one another.When the patrol car stops to find out why a van is stalled by the side of the road, the officer will find two dead men who apparently killed one another.That, though, will happen long after the girl has arrived at the gallery.The dream fades and then…
That same girl, hair still in a ponytail, is leaning over the railing on the deck.“Hello, Cecil!Have you seen Rayna today?”The wing of a bat ray breaks the surface.“Hi!I need to do my homework first, then we can play.”The ray splashes the surface in response before diving down again.
“Quinn?”I call from the studio.“Where are your father and brother?Don’t tell me you walked here by yourself again.”
With a last wave at the ocean, she walks in the studio and goes straight for the fresh cookies cooling on the counter.“They were taking too long.”She takes a bite of cookie, then comes to me and kisses my cheek.No visions.“Mac needed a run, so Dad went with him.”
“And you were supposed to wait at home until they returned?”I guess.
