Fully Aware — Bring It: Chapter 10

Pam unlocked the car door and sat down behind the wheel of a red Triumph Spitfire. Why? She didn’t have a car of her own. Why was she driving a car that I had always wanted? After inserting the keys, she started the engine. Shifting the manual transmission into reverse. She didn’t even know how to drive a stick shift. Then, she backed out of the driveway — my parent’s driveway.

In a hurry to get home, she didn’t think about the dangers. It was dark. Yet in the absence of light, I could see well enough, the lines of causality extended forward and back from the nexus, a terminal inflection point. The horrible scream of airbrakes — locked wheels, rubber sliding over the pavement, slipping over loose gravel crushed beneath skidding wheels.

Her car stalled; she couldn’t escape the impact. The truck slammed into her car, ending everything.

Panicked, I sat up in bed. Lucid nightmarish reality lingered behind eyes that stared through the darkness into their own reflections in my dresser mirror. I knew what I needed to do.

Running from my room to take up the phone’s receiver, the moment I reached the kitchen I began praying she would answer even before I dialed her number.

“Hello?” She sounded groggy.

“Thank God, you’re there!”

“Brent?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I woke you.”

“Why wouldn’t I be here? What’s wrong?”

“I had a bad dream, hon. It scared the living crap out of me.”

She drew a deep breath that I could hear through the phone.

“Pam?”

“I’m still here. I haven’t forgotten…about your Annie.”

“Look, for the life of me, I didn’t expect her to do that to me. I’m not sure how I could have prevented her from doing it.”

“Did you like it?”

“No.”

“You didn’t feel anything?”

“There’s no feeling better than when I kiss you.”

She sighed. “I know I told you that you could call me when you wake up, but I didn’t expect…it’s not even 4 AM!”

“I’m sorry about that. It’s just…if anything happened to you.”

“I’m grumpy,” she said. “I’m like this when first I wake up.”

“Me too.”

“I’ll file that for future reference, I guess.” She chuckled, slightly amused at our exchange.

“Does that mean we have a future? I mean…”

“You’re not off the hook, mister. But yeah, if I didn’t care about you, we wouldn’t be talking.”

“I love you, Pam.”

“So, what was this dream about?”

“It was vivid. I’ve had a few minutes to calm down, though. So, maybe it’s not quite as scary ‘cause… like the way it is with all dreams once you’re awake. But this one felt different. It was so real, so detailed…Usually, dreams don’t make sense when you think about them. Still, it was horrible, and you — ”

“So, it was it about me?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing has happened, though. I’m fine, Brent.”

“I’m glad.”

“I have bad dreams, too. Sometimes I wake up screaming and everybody in the house comes running.”

“Yeah?”

“One keeps recurring. It’s why I don’t like driving at night.”

“What’s that one about?”

“I’m in a sports car, like the one I dream of having someday. It stalls out and I can’t get it started and a truck is about to hit my car. I always wake up just then.”

“Wow!” I responded to the shivers her description gave me, the cold certainty of premonition.

“Yeah, it’s pretty awful.”

“Can I come to see you?”

“What?”

“I need to see you.”

“Like right now?”

“Yeah, right now. As soon as I can get there.”

“Why?”

“I need to hold you. I can’t wait. The thought of being anywhere you’re not is smothering to me right now.”

There was silence.

“Losing you even in the dream is the scariest part. I couldn’t deal with that in real life.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you about it when I get there.”

“Your parents will kill you.”

“I’ll leave a note.”

“My parents…”

“I know, but this is important, Pam.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Who me? C’mon! Seriously, I was driving before I could walk!”

“I’ll get dressed and wait for you.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Be careful, Brent.”

“I love you, Pam.”

“I love you, too.”

A hastily jotted note left on my pillow would have to suffice. After dressing in record time, I packed my things like a change of clothes, my toothbrush, and paste and put all of them into my car. I sat inside, knowing I’d need to call my parents sometime early to allay their fears that I might not have made it there safely. Dealing with their concerns was one thing, but it was the fallout of having gone off before daybreak that I truly dreaded.

Starting the engine, I waited for the garage door opener to finish its lifting cycle. Then I backed out, closing the garage door as I backed down the driveway. I turned out onto the road and shifted into first gear. There’d be nearly no traffic at all. I’d be at Pam’s house within the hour.

As I drove, the dream was still close to the surface, too close. I had always taken dreams seriously. Sometimes they amounted to little, but sometimes they served as sort of a warning for me.

Still, nightmares were rare. Why would I have such a dream, now? Was it foresight borne out of fear from recent experiences? If so, what triggered it? Was it the fight Pam and I had over Annie? Was it a hint of what would happen if we stopped seeing each other…or if we continued to date?

Listening to music improperly distracted me. A few miles into the drive, I turned the radio off. I didn’t want to lose the clarity of my senses. My attention was properly poised, piqued with profound awareness, acutely attenuated to the world.

The scents of early spring poured in through my vents, swirling around my face, bringing the cool, moist crispness of morning into my car. I turned west; the sky hinted of the rising sun as it shifted from over my right shoulder to filling the rearview mirror. The wind whistled past my car’s windows. The imperfections of the road’s surface tactilely transmitted through the floorboards into the soles of my feet.

When I arrived at her house, the front porch light was on. Though the sun lingered lazily just below the horizon, it allowed me to see well enough. I parked in the driveway and exited the car. While I walked toward the entrance, she stepped outside, wearing her tennis warm-up suit. She opened her arms and we embraced. I held her close, not wanting to ever let her go. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you. There isn’t a word for it.”

“You’ll just have to make one up.” She looked up. Our eyes met. Our lips touched and we kissed passionately. The sparks we generated tingled through me. She had to feel it too! How could she not? It was different, uniquely us.

“Wow,” she said as she drew back and took a deep breath. “Do you want to come inside?”

“At the moment I’m fine just holding you.”

“You’re trembling. What’s wrong?”

“I feel like something wants to take you away from me.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, silly man.”

“The dream I had…”

“It was that bad?”

“You were in a car accident, at night. Your car stalled and a semi rig…”

As I held her, she shuttered. “That’s not funny, Brent.”

“I’m serious. I wish I never had the stupid dream. But when I woke, I was worried it was happening right then! I needed to call you. I had to warn you not to drive — ”

“I’m here, Brent. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“Why would I do that?” As she pushed back from my embrace, she took my hand. “Let’s sit down.”

My eyes followed her as much as she led me by the hand.

“I’ve never seen you like this. I think the last couple of days — you’ve been sick and all, that’s affected you.”

“I know it has. I’m worn out.”

“You need to sleep more.”

“How can I sleep if I have nightmares? Sometimes I feel things like there are always people around me even when I’m alone.”

Her head jerked as she turned to stare at me.

“Sometimes I hear voices, Pam. Like people’s thoughts. Other times…I feel something cold passing through me…”

“You just lost me somewhere in that.”

“I feel spirits,” I said, meeting her eyes, knowing I had to convince her I was telling her the truth. When they pass through me, I know their past and what was important to them.”

“Spirits like dead people? Like ghosts?”

I nodded. “I’ve felt them around me for a while, just lately it’s become stronger. Something is growing stronger inside of me and I can feel all sorts of stuff I couldn’t before.”

“I think you just creeped me out!”

I looked away. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me what’s going on. What’s going on inside of you.”

“I don’t know if I can. There are differences, Pam. That’s what I’m aware of.”

“What sort of differences?”

“I don’t know how to say it any other way. It’s like I feel isolated like I don’t belong here, and yet, I’m connected to everything and fully aware.”

“Everyone feels strange sometimes. It’s because you are sensitive to things a lot of people ignore.”

Closing my eyes, I drew in a deep breath, appraising the strength in her aura, clearly displayed. “The differences aren’t all that huge,” I said. “Just some people are aware, and some aren’t. Some want to be sensitive, and others don’t. Otherwise, I think we’re all the same.”

“Okay.”

“You’re artistic. That poem you let me read about the noises of the morning when you woke one day.”

“Yeah. It was in the summer, a couple of years ago.”

“Listen now.”

“What?”

“With your eyes closed, listen to the morning. Concentrate on what you feel around you.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said.

After allowing several moments for her to adjust I whispered, “Over to the right, across the street, there’s a dog standing up, stretching. He’s about to growl because there’s a squirrel chattering away at him, inverted on a tree trunk twitching her tail, warning him to keep his distance. Squirrels are stupid. She doesn’t know she’s out of range because of the chain around the dog’s neck. Can you hear any of that? It sounds almost like the squirrel is coughing.”

“That’s a squirrel?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know that was their noise. I guess I always thought it was a bird.”

“A porch door just opened…and there, it just banged shut.”

“I heard that!”

“The dog is wagging his tail. He’s forgotten all about the squirrel. Food’s on the way. He’s overjoyed. He just has to bark… now! There!”

“I heard it.”

“He’s been kind of hungry all night. Dogs are always hungry, by the way. They’d eat themselves to death if you’d let them. But the lady must know that. She won’t feed him too much. Still, she’s pretty good to him. He always has water and when it’s cold, she lets him sleep inside the back door. And now there’s another bark coming…”

With the sound, she withdrew her hand from mine. “How can you…?”

“Wait for it. Another dog responded, but you missed it. Now, there will be an exchange with several other dogs in the neighborhood, confirming to one and all they are also awake. It’s morning and in their estimation, it’s high time their masters feed them. I heard all of it before when I slept over. The dogs woke me.”

She drew a deep breath, taking my hand into hers again. “There’s a cat annoyed by all of this. She just whined.”

“I hear her. Every morning’s the same, isn’t it?” I asked.

“She’s been out all night.”

“Yes, and just decided to take a nap, but the dogs started barking. The chain of events begins there, at that first house.”

“Mrs. Harkens’ place.”

“Some irony in her last name, I think. The world tends to be that way. A subtle reminder of the binding force in the universe.”

“A door just slammed.”

“There will be a car starting soon. Can you hear the keys jingling?”

“Yes.”

“He must carry them between his thumb and index fingers. There are many of them. Maybe the number of keys he carries is symbolic of his importance. Lots of keys mean many doors to open so that some folks can go places others never will.”

“There’s the car starting.” She pointed in the direction.

“See, it’s all there. It’s a pattern, a routine. Break that routine and there’s strangeness until everything else adjusts.”

“This is amazing, Brent!”

“Further away, there’s a crossing signal, can you hear the bells?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s no train yet. There should be a train by now.”

“No, there isn’t a train.”

“Why not?”

“It’s stopped, of course.”

“You found it?”

“No, but there’s a switch stuck.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear the clanking of steel against steel.”

“Hammering it to make it work.”

“I can’t believe this, Brent! This is here every morning?”

“It’s the story of your world. This is where you live. This is what happens in the lives around you.”

She opened her eyes and stared at me.

“We’re not done yet. Close your eyes. Focus. Come back closer to here. Listen!”

“Okay.”

“Do you hear the mouse?”

“I hear him breathing.”

“He’s watching us.”

“I know where he is.”

“Yes. It’s easy, isn’t it?”

“It’s faint, but there’s a glow. Is that him?”

“Yes. And you glow too.”

“What color?”

“Reddish orange. And it’s bright because of the magic inside of you.”

She pulled away, a surprised look on her face. “What’s going on, Brent?”

“Everything, Pam. That’s what I’m showing you. It’s all connected…But you already knew that. You always have, haven’t you?”

She turned away, not granting me access to her eyes, her soul’s windows.

“It’s natural, Pam. You’re a magical being. We all are to some extent, but in some of us, the magic is stronger. The whole world is defined by the power of it, though it’s well concealed. With us, it’s a little different. You’re as strange in your way as I am in mine. You didn’t want anyone to know. Then last November I saw you — ”

“I doubted it, Brent. I didn’t want to believe it. I mean — when Catherine and I were little, it was our special secret. I couldn’t tell Mom and Dad about — ”

“Only Aunt Claire.”

“You know about her, too?”

“I can see her aura.”

“How?”

“I just can.”

“But she hides it. And she cast a spell on me…on Catherine before me…”

“I’m a wolfcat, Pam.”

She glanced down. “I know that.”

“I figured you did. When I’m close enough to you, nothing can prevent me from seeing the real you.”

She frowned.

“When I first saw you at the Western Invitational, I could tell you were a witch, just at that distance your aura appeared dim like there was a cloud over it.”

“Because Claire told us about the real danger. And she told us never to use our magic in public — ”

“Because of the hunters.”

“You know about all that, too?”

I nodded. “Last fall I met a wolfcat named Dawn. I told you about her.”

“The older girl you dated.”

“Yeah. When she was growing up, she was always around a witch named Jen — she has really strong gifts.”

“You know her, too?”

I nodded. “Dawn and Jen are best friends.”

“They explained things to you — how your magic works?”

“A lot of it. Some things I needed to figure out on my own. And other things I’m still learning about.”

She sighed. “Aunt Claire told Catherine to keep an eye on me, especially when I was too young, and to help me control my magic. Mine is stronger than Catherine’s, though I’m sure Catherine would never admit that.”

“Sibling rivalry.”

“I guess. Claire was worried that I’d do something — ”

“Around your parents, ’cause neither of them is a witch.”

“Exactly. As I grew older, I was able to control it, and mostly, I forget about it. You know? It’s not like I really want to have the abilities. I don’t want to be a sideshow freak.”

“It’s nothing you should be ashamed of,” I said. “You don’t have a choice. It’s part of you, a talent you have, like being musically inclined or being good at drawing things. After a certain age, it begins to erupt, though, especially if you try to suppress it. At least that’s what happens with wolfcats.”

“It happens with witches, too,” she confirmed. “I don’t know, Brent. I just want to have a choice about it, I guess. But I don’t.”

“My point is that we were born the way we are. And we can’t ignore it. Why should we — to keep others who don’t have gifts from being jealous of us?”

“They persecute us.”

“Yeah, there’s that too. But if they’d let us, we might do some good in the world. Dawn and Jen fancy themselves superheroes.”

“They’re vigilantes.”

“Yeah. That’s what others call them.”

“Claire told me something about that. She said it’s dangerous because of the hunters.”

“I’m not suggesting we do that, fighting crime or anything. Not unless you want to. I’m pretty sure we were meant to meet, though. There has to be a reason.”

“I feel that way, too.” She squeezed my hand. “Being a wolfcat, though, that’s how you can hear things…everything. Including the dead?”

“It’s all connected, Pam — the ones who are trapped here who want help from the living so they can move on — most of them, anyway. There’s energy underlying everything in the universe. It’s the source, but ordinary people are too numb to sense it. When we want to — when we really need to — we can do anything, Pam. The connection between us and every part of the universe is the same for everyone, for everything alive, really. But we can control it to some extent, especially whatever is close by.”

“That’s how Aunt Claire explained it to Catherine and me.”

“Then you must know that when people die, especially in violent events, sometimes they miss the calling. Then, there’s nowhere for them to go. They’re trapped on this side. They try to talk to us, but most people ignore them because they’re not sensitive enough. It’s like how we ignore all the little things in our world. Because we don’t hear doesn’t mean there’s no noise. You know?”

“How long have you known?”

“I always have, I guess. But I chose indifference. I wanted to be like everyone else, not a sideshow freak like you say. But fitting in means playing like you’re just as numb and stupid as everyone else. That isn’t me, Pam. And it’s not you, either.”