7
Jules!” Courtney hovered above her, her frightened expression illuminated by a phone flashlight. “Holy shit, are you okay?”
Julia came to her senses, astonished to be lying on her back. The ground was hard, the tall grass scratchy on her neck. Bugs flew in and out of the light from Courtney’s phone. She didn’t know what had happened. She didn’t understand. She must have fainted. She didn’t know why.
“Come on, get up! Here we go!” Courtney hoisted her to her feet, but Julia felt wobbly.
They walked to the house, where Courtney got her into the kitchen and Julia flopped into a chair.
Courtney pulled out the other chair and sat opposite her.
“Jules, what happened? You screamed at the top of your lungs! It was freaky!”
A freak. Julia swallowed hard. Her throat hurt.
Courtney’s eyes widened. “You were reaching for the moon like a lunatic!”
A lunatic. Julia tried to think, to understand what had happened.
“You were acting crazy!”
Crazy. Julia felt that way.
“I called you but you ignored me, like you didn’t even know I was there. I tried to get you back in the house, but you pulled away. Then all of a sudden you, like, dropped.”
Julia hadn’t felt any of that. She looked down at her clothes, which were disheveled. She didn’t even know where her own body had been.
“Did you see fire again? Was that it?”
“No.” Julia answered hoarsely, her voice strained. She knew she’d heard a scream, but it didn’t make sense. It hadn’t come from anywhere. It could have been an auditory hallucination. Maybe she was just tired. Really, really tired.
“Why did you scream? What scared you?”
Julia didn’t know if she should tell Courtney. She didn’t want to upset her further.
“Julia, talk to me. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I could have just imagined it. I’m so tired—”
“Nobody’s that tired. Please, tell me, I want to know.”
Julia hesitated. “I don’t know if you need to know.”
Courtney recoiled, frowning. “What? We tell each other everything.”
“Listen, you’re going through it, with your grandmother’s murder, the cops, the bloodstain—”
“I can handle it. I need you to tell me.” Courtney placed a hand on Julia’s shoulder. “If you tell me, we can figure it out together, and we need to. Whatever’s going on, I want to help you with it.”
Touched, Julia realized that Courtney was worried about her. “I don’t need help.”
“Yes, you do, girl. You were screaming like somebody was trying to kill you.”
Oh no. “Okay,” Julia agreed, reluctantly. “I heard a scream.”
Courtney’s eyes flared. “Who was it? Who was screaming?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it Grandma Kay?”
“I only met her a few times. I don’t know her voice well enough to say for sure.”
Courtney bit her lip. “But did you think it was her? Because you really did sound like you were about to be killed. Were you hearing her, about to be killed?”
“I don’t know that.” Julia could see Courtney’s lower lip beginning to tremble and worried she was doing her more harm than good. Maybe there were things no one was meant to know.
“But what do you think? I mean, what’s your gut telling you, or your psychic powers—”
“Again, I don’t have psychic powers. If I did, I’d know more than I know now, wouldn’t I?” Julia tried to reason it out, even though it didn’t stand to reason. “If I were psychic, I would’ve known I’d hear a scream when I went outside, right?”
“But what if it’s like the premonition, like you’re knowing something without knowing how, or why?”
“Okay, but it’s not—”
“So did you know it was Grandma Kay’s scream?”
“Honestly, I did,” Julia answered, reluctantly.
“Oh no.” Tears sprang to Courtney’s eyes.
Julia touched Courtney’s arm. “Don’t be upset, I don’t know if I’m right. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why I wanted to go outside. I don’t know why I wanted to stand in that spot. I don’t know why I heard her scream outside and not inside, in the living room, or her bedroom—”
“You were standing in her garden.”
“What?” Julia didn’t understand. “I didn’t see any garden.”
“Because it’s only March. Nothing’s growing yet.
You can’t see it at night anyway. She mows around the garden, then it goes to pasture, but you walked directly to her garden.
” Courtney wiped her eyes, and her intense gaze burned into Julia.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you?
You’ve never been here and you knew where her garden was, even though you’d never seen it.
Grandma Kay’s garden was her favorite place in the world. ”
Julia fell silent. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to understand what she was beginning to understand. It was a conclusion she had to resist. She remembered what Helen Davenport, the medium in Florence, had taught her. “It must be her thin place.”
“What’s that?”
“A place in nature, where the line between the spirit world and the material world is thin. I feel that way about the well in our vineyard, back in Tuscany.”
“Yes, totally, her garden was her thin place. So the scream you heard was her. That proves it.”
“It doesn’t prove—”
“Yes, it does.” Courtney pursed her lips. “Did she scream for help?”
“No.”
“Did she say ‘no’ or ‘don’t shoot’?”
“No.”
“What about a name? Did she say a name? If she knew the killer, maybe she would have.”
“No.”
“But if it happened right when she was about to be killed, maybe she was trying to tell you who killed her.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why did you scream?”
“Because I was scared? I’m scared?” Julia realized it was true the moment the words left her lips.
Courtney cringed, her regret plain. “Oh my God, what am I doing? This isn’t good for you. You’re scared, and here I am, pumping you for information.”
“You’re just asking me.”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m pushing it. You just got here. First, you see a fire, now this. You didn’t sleep on the plane. You probably didn’t eat anything. I love you, and I don’t mean to do this to you. This is a lot.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine. I love you, and I don’t mean to upset you, either.”
“We’ll figure this out together.” Courtney set her jaw. “We did last time and we’ll do it again.”
“I got you, like you got me, before.” Julia shuddered at the memory. “And what about that guy, back in college? That was bad.”
Courtney squeezed her arm. “We should go back to the motel. I’m spooked.”
Me, too, Julia thought but didn’t say.