7. CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 7
V ik took a peek at the timer on Lexi’s wrist as they continued their stroll down Market Street. “We’ve got a little more than three hours left, and the restaurant’s not far from here.”
Her head swiveled like she was watching a tennis match as she took in every sight they passed. “I feel like I’ve stepped back more than two hundred years into Philadelphia’s past, and yet it’s not exactly like that either, is it?”
The buildings were Colonial and early Victorian, brick, stone and wood. Pre-Industrial Revolution, pre-gasoline and electricity. The population density also reflected that of a much earlier era. The town felt busy enough for safety and excitement, but quiet enough to truly breathe and relax. To see the stars and hear crickets.
Yet the main roads were all neatly laid brick and cobbles, not dirt, and were impeccably clean, with none of the filth associated with cities of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. And there was unquestionably a modern air. People strolled in and out of storefronts, or socialized at cafes, exactly as they would on a Friday night in her world. They weren’t struggling for survival. There was no sense of uptight or antiquated social mores. These people were her contemporaries, in an anachronistic setting.
And there was so much more.
Her attention was caught by a young couple seated at an outdoor café. Holding hands on the tabletop, they were clearly engaged in deep conversation, heads nodding, smiling and laughing as they responded to each other, but they weren’t talking out loud. Their lips weren’t moving. The woman blushed at something the man must have silently said to her then, and she giggled as she covered her mouth with her hand.
Feeling like a voyeur, Lexi returned her focus to the street. “Okay, so no cars.”
“You mean your combustion-engine vehicles?” Vik shook his head. “No ma’am. Not worth all the noise and muss, as far as we’re concerned.”
“So besides walking, you get around by horses and bicycles?” She remembered the man she’d seen floating earlier. “Or levitating?” Just how extensive was their knowledge of psychic skills? She’d already witnessed telepathy and telekinesis. How freaking common was levitation in this universe? “What about longer distances? Do you travel to Europe by boat?” She stopped walking for a moment, a big question dawning on her. “Do you even have a Europe? I know you said you were raised in London, and your mother is from India, but in which—”
He laughed as they continued down the sidewalk. “Yes, we have a Europe, and all the other continents too. I grew up in the London of this universe. Our world is not so different from yours. Only our technology and the choices our civilization has made. And to answer your question about travel, we have several ways of getting around besides boats and bicycles.”
They’d crossed over Second Street, heading closer to the river, a threatening bank of grey clouds moving in overhead. A doozy of a storm was on its way.
Vik glanced up too, but seemed unconcerned. “The big difference between our worlds is that millennia ago our people developed powers of the mind. As we moved forward in time, we too found ourselves with the possibility of an industry revolution around the same time as your world. But we realized we didn’t need it, and decided the benefits it might have offered weren’t worth the many ills that would come with it. It seems our two worlds diverged rapidly at that point in history.”
“So, other than the portals, you don’t have any kind of advanced technology?”
“I suppose that depends on how you define advanced technology.” A twinkle lit his dark eyes. “Long ago we learned to manipulate many of the physical forces of the world using our thoughts and the energy of our bodies. We also have the advantage of the physics of our universe, which are slightly different than yours.”
“Gideon was telling me something about that earlier.”
He nodded. “Much of the infrastructure of our society is achieved using these methods.”
“You’re powering a world on, what, telekinesis?”
He smiled. “Once you learn how to control pressure, temperature, and friction, you can do almost anything. You can move mountains.”
As they reached the corner of Market and Front Street, Vik started to turn left, guiding her along as he spoke, but she looked straight ahead and halted, her arm pulling away from his.
In front of her was a straight shot to the Delaware River. At home, I-95 would’ve run right in front of her, but here the highway didn’t exist. Just the road all the way to the boat docks at the river’s bank. Nor were there ugly tankers or enormous commercial ships. No waterside condos blocking the view.
But what really caught her eye was the sight of a grand paddlewheel boat, draped in red, white, and blue, and strung with glowing lamps, moving past at just that moment. She’d seen that boat, from that very vantage point, numerous times in her visions. It was always a bit unnerving whenever she was confronted with something she’d seen in a dream, and tonight she’d come face-to-face with a whole world of them.
Her legs became a little wobbly.
Vik moved back to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong, love? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve seen that boat before. In one of my visions.” She turned back to him. “In several of my visions, to tell the truth. I’ve been seeing your world for months now—that boat, the horse carriages, the clothing you all wear, even Gideon. Oh, and a beautiful redheaded woman I’ve yet to meet. I had no idea what the images meant until tonight.”
Vik now looked like he’d seen a ghost too. For the first time since she’d met him, he was speechless. Then his lips slowly spread into a knowing, satisfied smile.
“What is it, did I say something—”
“No, no. Nothing’s wrong.” He took her hand again and, more quickly than before, led her north up Front Street. “I’m just anxious for you to meet my wife.”
There was something other than that, and the weight of the atmosphere pressed heavier on her shoulders. She shuddered as they walked, knowing it was caused by more than just the winds whipping up from the approaching storm.
“This is the place.” He pointed to a quaint seafood restaurant tucked in an alley off Front Street. “I’ve heard they catch the fish right over there on the shore of the river and literally toss them across the distance to land in the chef’s frying pan.” He grinned. “Very fresh.”
Lexi laughed, but something had changed.
She suddenly felt that her future, for better or worse, was slamming toward her. Now that she was here in this world, bumping into her visions one right after the other, she sensed that her life was about to take a major turn whether she decided she liked what she was seeing or not. It was too freaking hard to change her destiny once it got up a good head of steam.
It was possible, of course, that none of it meant anything of importance. She was, after all, having a seriously unusual evening, and the images she’d seen in her dreams may simply have been portents of this crazy night. But often the visions showed her a place and time that would be a significant turning point in her life.
And something told her she was rapidly approaching a train track junction and the engineer had his hand on the switch.
Vik looked around for his wife. “Let’s grab a table outside. I’m sure Alana will be here any moment.”
As he pulled out a chair for her to take a seat, the heavens let loose. A crack of thunder announced the downpour only a second before it hit.
Yelps and laughter erupted from the other diners seated outside as they rushed into the restaurant, and she pushed her chair back to do the same, but Vik stopped her. “Wait.”
He looked up to the sky with outstretched arms, his fingers wiggling in the air, and even in the gray of the storm the gemstones on his fingers caught the light of the streetlamps and torches. The rains parted above their table like the waters of the Red Sea. They sat in a cone of dry calm.
He slowly let his arms drop then, yet the rain stayed outside the sphere of their table as if there were a huge umbrella over them. She stared at him wide-eyed as he reached for his napkin and gingerly fluffed it onto his lap, smiling that Cheshire Cat grin of his.
“Not everyone can be a weather master. You’re lucky to be hanging out with Vikkras Knight,” he said with a chuckle.
When she finally stopped staring again at the sky directly above her, she looked back at him. “When Gideon said you were a weatherman, I assumed he meant you studied atmospheric patterns and made forecasts, not that you could part the rain. ”
He nodded. “I do a bit of both actually. My degree is in atmospheric sciences. I make forecasts, and then if a little tweaking is needed, I can sometimes take care of that as well.”
“Why didn’t the other diners do the same? Can’t all of your people do that?”
He shook his head. “Just as some people are naturally fast runners and others have a great singing voice, people here each have different abilities, and they have different levels of strength with those abilities too. Weather is rather my thing.”
She found herself wondering what Gideon’s thing was, but before she could ask, a woman came racing through the rain to grab a seat at their table, ducking into their dry little world with relief. Drenched, she gave Vik a quick kiss and then attempted to brush the drops from her face and wring the water from her long hair.
Her long red hair.
“Lexi, this sopping wet beauty is my wife, Alana. Alana, this is Lexi Cross. She’s visiting tonight from the other side, and I’ve invited her to join us for the evening.”
Lexi wanted to respond, say hello, shake her hand. She really did. But the sound of the pouring rain was so loud now it drowned out everything else.
Except that it had ceased to rain. Anywhere. The storm had died. The sound she heard was the blood rushing to her head, the pounding of her heart.
Alana was the calming redheaded woman she’d seen so many times before in her waking dreams.
The visions were fast on her heels now.
Alana looked as shocked as Lexi felt, but pulled herself together first. She reached out a graceful hand and Lexi somehow mobilized herself to shake it.
“Hi.” Alana tipped her head. “I think… we’ve met before, in a way. ”
“Yes.” It was all Lexi could utter until the buzzing slowly faded from her head. “Wait, you mean you’ve seen me too?”
“I’m an empath.” Alana smiled. “You’re… an oracle… I believe? A powerful one, too. You pulled me into your visions. I never saw your face, until now, but I witnessed your visions whenever they included me. I didn’t understand what I was seeing until just now—I realized who you were the moment I sat down at the table.”
Lexi shook her head, trying to sort it all out. “I’m sorry, you said I was an oracle?”
This was way out of her league, and she suddenly wondered what Margot was doing at that moment. Margot would know what to say, what to do, what to think.
“That’s what we call the stronger precognitives here,” Alana said. “They’re very important people, you know. The ability of foresight is considered quite a gift to us.”
“A gift? But you all have amazing abilities. Hell, Vik just parted the rain for chrissakes!” She realized her voice had gotten shrill and she put her fingers to her mouth.
Alana reached across the table and covered Lexi’s other hand with her own. When Alana spoke this time, Lexi felt calmer, and her heart rate slowed. There was something about Alana’s voice…
“Psychics who are naturally strong, without benefit of training, are fairly rare in our world, believe it or not,” Alana said, gently releasing Lexi’s hand. “Most of us learn to use our abilities from a very young age. The traits are passed through bloodlines, but we must be taught to bring them out, and later to control them, not unlike how one would learn a language or math. An innate ability as strong as yours, occurring spontaneously, is highly valued.”
Lexi coughed. “Not in my world. My foresight is causing me a lot of problems at home. Believe me, at the moment I’m really wishing I was a part of your world. ”
Alana nodded, the look of understanding on her face one of comfort rather than pity. “My empathic senses are telling me, in fact, that you may have even more gifts than your precognition. Telepathy, perhaps? Possibly clairvoyance, or as some might call it, remote viewing?”
“Not that I know of.” Good lord, she had all the “gifts” she wanted right now, thank you very much. Though, there was that odd experience of seeing what must have been Gideon’s memories earlier in the evening. What was that?
“Has she met Gideon yet?” Alana asked her husband, changing the subject.
“Oh, yes.” He erupted with laughter, and Lexi giggled too, her built up tension losing a little of its hold.
Though she blushed as Vik filled Alana in on the parts of their evening she’d missed, including his opinion on Gideon’s behavior around Lexi, she found she wasn’t really that embarrassed, feeling safe and comfortable with the couple.
Her temporarily heightened senses to the environment helped too. The complexity of scents on the air, the night-blooming jasmine flowers and the fresh baked bread in the restaurant, encircled her, hugged her. She was highly aware of a breeze on her cheek, a gentle caress that was almost erotic. Even the sound of laughter had a tinkling, musical quality to it.
It was almost as if each sensation was a living being, talking to her, playing with her. She felt… connected .
She wondered briefly what an unpleasant sensation would do, such as pain, but she dismissed the thought, focusing on a sip of wine instead, the flavor so alive and complex it was as though the grapes were blooming and ripening in her mouth.
By the time the waitress brought their food, Lexi was thoroughly caught up in the conversation, learning more about their world, and finding the sound of their voices and laughter warm and soothing. She realized as she sat there eating and drinking with two virtual strangers, that for the first time in her life she felt comfortable in her own skin. She wasn’t alone in her nature. She wasn’t a freak.
Here in this world, with these people she’d known for a couple hours at most, she felt normal.
Vik took another peek at her timer. “It’s after ten, ladies. We should probably head out. We’ve got enough time to wander a little, maybe check out some shops as we make our way back to the club.”
Lexi’s heart sank. She wasn’t ready to go home yet, and still had a ton of questions. Her mind wandered repeatedly to Gideon, wondering how her previous visions of him were supposed to play out. There had to be more to her future here than this one visit. Hell, she planned to be back as often as she could. Her list of lessons to be learned and sights to see was long.
They strolled back down Front Street, where many of the shops were still open and busy with customers. Alana pointed them toward a store she thought Lexi would get a kick out of as it was known for items unique to that world.
Entering the shop, Lexi picked up a particularly beautiful crystal pendant, citrine in color and shot through with sparkling silver veins, when she felt a mild electric shock to her hand. “Hey, you guys, what is this? We have crystals in my world, and supposedly they give off energy, but I’ve never actually been zapped before. This is pretty cool.”
No response.
“Alana?”
Now halfway into the shop, she turned to look back at her companions, but didn’t see them. She glanced around the store checking the corners, but they were nowhere to be found.
She stepped back outside, figuring something must have caught their attention out there, or that perhaps they hadn’t realized she’d gone in ahead of them. But no, they weren’t out there either .
A trickle of fear caught at her gut. What are you worrying about, Lex? No big deal. They’re obviously around here somewhere.
But they weren’t around there, anywhere.
She hopped in and out of the neighboring stores. Nothing. Glanced up and down the alleyways running off Front Street. Nothing.
Now she was growing irritated, and more than a little nervous.
Feeling self-conscious, she hugged her arms around herself, suddenly wishing she hadn’t loaned Alana her sweater earlier in the evening when Alana had been damp and chilly from the rain. Wearing only her low-cut, ultra-short dress, Lexi felt exposed and vulnerable. She had to get off these weirdly foreign streets and back to the club.
She turned up Church Street intending to cut across on Second when she hit a dead end. Some kind of historical structure—a battle memorial it looked like—closed off the entire street.
What? There shouldn’t be a memorial here. This street should go through. Then she remembered Margot’s warning that the two Philadelphias didn’t always match up.
She darted down an alley she was unfamiliar with and ended up in what looked like a private garden, so she headed back the other direction.
Now she was getting flustered. She leaned against the nearest streetlight to catch her breath, and glanced up at it. An actual gas lamp, flickering against the indigo of the night sky.
You may not be a freak in this world, Lex, but you are nevertheless seriously out of your element.
Looking at her timer, she realized to her horror she only had ten minutes left. Shit!
Turning around, she took a deep breath and mapped out the route in her head. All she needed to do was go back down Church Street to Front Street, Front Street to Market, and straight up to the corner at Fourth Street. Easy peasy, cool and breezy.
But she was neither cool nor breezy.
She was running now, with spiked heels on cobblestone streets, and sure enough, one of the stilettos caught in a crack and down she went, twisting her ankle as she did so.
A hand reached out to help her up. She took it, and as she looked into the face of the round-bellied, elderly gentleman who was helping her, she froze. He had a fringe of long gray hair circling his otherwise bald head, and he wore his wire rim spectacles low on his nose. He looked for all the world like Benjamin Franklin, one of Philadelphia’s most famous citizens from history long past.
No, it couldn’t be.
“Thank you,” she muttered, as she brushed herself off.
“Do you need assistance?” the gentleman asked.
She took a step back, her hands shaking. She was now in full panic mode, not trusting her senses at all. The guy had to be one of those actors, right? The ones who dressed up like historical figures and gave tours around Independence Hall. Did they even have an Independence Hall here?
The back of her throat tightened, threatening a sob. “No. Thank you.”
She gave him a quick nod and continued, a bit more carefully, and now with a limp, down Market Street.
Wanting so badly to run.