Chapter 10 #2
“Well, you know that and I know that, but….” Eliza released a disgusted breath. “I probably shouldn’t let this get to me. Linda’s only lived here for five years, so I doubt she’s going to garner too much support.”
“No, probably not,” I replied, doing my best to sound reassuring. “I mean, all those people who signed the petition to get rid of Jim Tillman wouldn’t have done that if they just wanted more of the same.”
My comment must have cheered Eliza somewhat, because her expression visibly brightened.
“You’re right,” she said. “And I’ll do my best to emphasize that point.
It’s just annoying because I thought I was going to run unopposed, and now I’m going to have to put some time and money into actually campaigning. ”
“I’ll help wherever I can,” I told her. “And Ben’s really pretty good at the graphic design stuff, so if you need someone to put together some posters or whatever, just let me know. I’m sure he’d be glad to pitch in.”
At least, I hoped he would be. So far, he’d done whatever he could to fit in…and dating me had helped a lot in terms of ingratiating him with the old guard…but still, I didn’t want to think I was overstepping by volunteering him for something he hadn’t personally signed up for.
Eliza didn’t seem to have any worries on that count, though, because she flashed me a bright smile. “That would be awesome. But now I need to head over to Bethany’s cheer practice, so I’ll be in touch when I know more about what I need.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
She lifted one hand in a quick wave and headed outside.
After she was gone, I looked at the clock. A whole five minutes had passed where I hadn’t been worrying about these new powers of mine that had surfaced.
I figured I’d take it.
Ben and I had already planned to meet up that afternoon, so once I was safely home and knew I wouldn’t have to be back at the pet store until Monday morning, I sent him a quick text.
You can come over whenever you’re ready. Got a lot to talk about.
New developments?
Yes.
I really didn’t want to go into it in any more detail, not when we were talking on an unsecured channel.
And sure, maybe it was crazy to even be thinking in those terms, but with FBI agents asking pointed questions and my brain suddenly deciding it was time to start reading people’s minds, I thought it best to be as circumspect as possible.
Ben seemed to understand, though, because he responded with a simple,
Be there in five.
There wasn’t much I needed to do to get ready for him to come over — the house was already clean, and we’d both decided to go out tonight — so I found myself pacing around restlessly and telling myself this was all fine, that everyone caught a glimpse into someone else’s thoughts from time to time.
Yeah, right.
But Ben was punctual as always, and as soon as I shut the door behind him, he took one look at my face and immediately folded me into his arms.
That was much better.
I held on to him for a long moment. However, since I knew I couldn’t remain in the shelter of his embrace forever, I reluctantly let go and took a step back.
“What happened?” he asked. His voice was quiet, but the warmth of its timbre still comforted me.
Just having him there made all this so much better.
“Special Agent Morse visited the pet shop,” I responded.
Because we’d both already known that federal agents were roaming around Silver Hollow, asking questions, he didn’t seem too shocked. “How’d it go?”
“Fine,” I said. “She knew about my mother and grandmother’s disappearance, of course, but she didn’t ask any questions that sounded like she knew more than she was letting on. It’s just….”
I let the words trail off, mostly because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to continue. It wasn’t every day that you confessed to the guy you’d just started seeing that out of nowhere, you’d begun to read people’s minds.
If, of course, that was even what had happened. I supposed I could have imagined the whole thing, sort of like my friend Danae back in high school who wanted to be a writer and always said she could hear her characters arguing in her head.
This hadn’t been at all like that, though. For one thing, I’d never had any desire to be a writer, and second of all, while I had an internal monologue going in my brain most days, it always sounded just like myself.
Whichever voice that had been inside my head, it sure as hell hadn’t been me.
“Something weird happened when Agent Morse was in my shop,” I said, then paused again.
“Weird how?” Ben asked, still in that quiet, gentle tone. He glanced past me to the sofa. “Do you want to sit down?”
Sitting sounded like a great idea, if for no other reason than walking over to the couch and taking a seat would use up a few seconds before I had to confess this new weirdness to the man I was seeing. I went over and sank onto the worn leather cushions, and Ben followed suit immediately afterward.
“I was talking to Agent Morse,” I said. “Nothing important — in fact, I was trying to be as boring as possible so she’d decide she wasn’t going to get anything interesting out of me and would leave me alone. And then….”
Gulping in a breath sounded like a good idea, so that’s what I did.
Ben reached over and took my hand. His fingers were warm and felt wonderful against my icy skin. “And then…?”
It’s okay, I told myself. He already knows about the portal and the unicorn and all the rest of the craziness. What’s a little mind-reading on top of all that?
“And then it was like I could hear Agent Morse thinking, like it was her voice inside my head. She was thinking that she was wasting time talking to me and that everyone in Silver Hollow was clueless about the anomalies. And she also thought of someone called Rosenthal, who thinks the forest is the source of all the glitches that have been going on around here.”
For the longest moment, Ben didn’t say anything. His fingers remained curled around mine, though, and I tried to reassure myself that if he thought I’d suddenly gone crazy, then he would have tried to pull his hand away.
When he spoke, his tone was very gentle. “Has anything like this happened to you before?”
“Of course not!” I burst out. Then I realized if I didn’t want to sound like a crazy person, I probably shouldn’t have responded so wildly.
I tried to moderate my tone as I went on, “I’m not psychic.
I never played with Tarot cards or Ouija boards or anything like that.
I never had any interest in that sort of stuff. ”
“No, you seem like a very down-to-earth person.”
I couldn’t help shooting Ben a suspicious glance at that comment. “Is that a compliment?”
“Yes,” he said. Smiling, he added, “I like that you’ve managed to stay grounded despite all the weird elements in your life. That’s a hard balancing act to pull off.”
“Except now I’m hearing voices in my head.”
His expression immediately grew sober. “No,” he replied, “you heard one person. Agent Morse. That’s very different.”
“It still feels like I’m going crazy.”
“You’re not going crazy,” he said. Before I could begin to reply, he continued, “But the world around you is kind of going crazy. Do you think the instability of the portal may be having some sort of effect on you? After all, the women in your family have been interacting with these creatures and wandering the woods for generations. I don’t think it’s too big a leap to postulate that maybe the current instabilities are bringing out latent abilities that all human beings have. ”
He’d probably meant those words to be reassuring. However, I wasn’t sure I believed any of that.
“Says the guy who hunts chupacabras.”
Rather than take offense, he only chuckled.
“I don’t hunt them,” he said. “I just research them. But sure, I’ll admit that being involved in cryptozoology has brought me in touch with studies that some people would think are pretty fringe.
Among them is the belief that all human beings have the ability to be telepathic but choose not to be, for whatever reason.
And it’s been fairly well-documented that the indigenous people of Australia have ways of communicating with one another that modern science hasn’t been able to accurately explain.
So this isn’t as crazy as you might want to believe. ”
I sat there, my hand in his, and tried to tell myself it was fine, that maybe being able to see into the mind of an enemy could only help us.
Not that I knew for sure Rebecca Morse was an enemy, but anyone who came to Silver Hollow to try to unearth its secrets by their very definition was a person I couldn’t trust.
“Well, it feels crazy to me,” I said, “but then, so do a lot of other things. I’ll just have to roll with it, I suppose.”
“You’ll do fine,” he replied. Then he hesitated for a second or two, as if wondering whether he should say anything else. He must have decided not to hold back, because he asked next, “Have you been able to see into anyone else’s mind?”
“Like yours?” I returned, and even managed to smile.
He remained serious, though, and nodded. “Yes, like mine.”
At least I could answer that question easily enough. “No, it was only Agent Morse. Then again, it’s not as if I tried to peek into anyone else’s brain today, either.”
“But you had customers come in.”
“A few,” I said. “Eliza Cartwright stopped by. She was kind of annoyed because it looks like Linda Fields is going to throw her hat into the ring for the mayor job.”
This piece of information seemed to genuinely startle Ben. Eyes widening a little, he asked, “The realtor? But I thought she hadn’t been living here for very long.”
I just had to laugh. “By Silver Hollow standards, she hasn’t. She’s been here a lot longer than you, though.”
“I’m not running for mayor.”