Shattered: A Psychic Visions Novel (24 page)

O
bediently she closed
her eyes and said in her head, “Show me my memory banks.”

Instantly she was in a room full of filing cabinets. She had no idea her imagination was so literal. But lined up in front of her was wall-to-wall filing cabinets. Walking to the wall of file drawers she read the years on the front of them. But how to know which had the blocks? She wandered the room throwing out the command, “Show me where the blocks are. What years are they in?” The drawers didn’t move.

She stood with her hands on her hips in frustration. Damn it. There had to be an easier way to do this. “I know you’re here somewhere, Trevor. Can you help? Can anyone help?”

Silence.

Then she got a shock as a tired voice answered.

“There is someone here,” the voice said. “You are asking as if you need permission to see into your own world. You don’t need that. As long as you act like you don’t own that space, then you don’t. But it is
your
space.”

“Stefan?” She could feel Trevor’s laughter but as she spun around she realized she couldn’t see him. Yet she knew he was there. In the background. Like Stefan.

“Yes.” This time the tired voice was ringed with humor. “You called. Even though apparently you didn’t know you called. Could you tone that ringer of yours down please? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

She gasped. “I woke you.”

Trevor’s laughter rolled free. “Yes, you did, sweetheart. Sorry, Stefan. She’s trying to find the blocks in her mind and is having to learn this on her own.”

“Right,” Stefan said, his voice all business. “Then stop making it linear. There is nothing linear about time. If you want to see a block, demand it show you its location regardless of the time of your life it was placed in. And do start small please. I haven’t slept all night. No rescue mission for me if I don’t have to, okay?”

“Okay,” she said in a small voice.

And his presence winked out. She wasn’t sure where he’d come from in the first place, but apparently he was there all the time.

“He is there all the time,” Trevor confirmed. “But we try to avoid calling on him if we don’t need to.”

She took a deep breath. “Right. Do this on my own, and if we have a panic, he’s there if need be.”

“Exactly.”

Armed with the knowledge she wasn’t alone and with Trevor in the background, she tried again. Stefan had said she didn’t need to know what year the block had been in. “Remove the years and just show me the blocks. Arrange them from largest to smallest.”

There was a stillness to the air then a sudden whoosh and her visualization completely changed. Now there were large cement like walls in front of her. Of various sizes. But all were menacing.

“They can look however you want them to look,” Trevor murmured. “If these scare you, turn them into purple balls of lint.”

She gasped. “Purple fluff balls?” She laughed. “Really? I can do that?”

“You can do anything you want to in here.”

Instantly the huge menacing walls that looked insurmountable shifted into purple cotton candy. She laughed again. “Oh my gosh, this is so much fun. I had no idea.”

“It takes energy to do what you’re doing,” he reminded her. “As you’re not used to this I suggest you get on with getting rid of the smaller ones as fast as you can before you become so fatigued this all disappears.”

“Right.” She turned to study the smallest. “They don’t look bad.”

“They aren’t.”

She zapped the first one and it kind of slowly sagged in front of her but still existed. “I want something more permanent than that. Don’t I?”

“Yes. I’d say so.”

Cotton candy was just sugar so she visualized water pouring over the first flattened mess, and sure enough it dissolved in front of her. “Yay,” she cried out, dancing around. “One gone.”

“How do you feel?”

“Exuberant. Happy. Free.”

“Then how about another one?”

And she realized he was serious. His tone of voice wasn’t lighthearted or teasing. He wanted her to do what she could and get out. There wasn’t urgency in his voice, but a forcefulness to keep her on track. He knew so much more about this than she did. She got down to work and found that every one after the first one was harder. But she persisted until she had the four smallest blocks done. There were another half dozen and they were all bigger. She’d have to take them one at a time – and not likely today. But maybe she could do one more.

She turned to the first of them and took a deep breath. It had grown in the time she’d been destroying the others.

“It’s bigger.”

“It is.”

“Why?”

“Either it’s got its own self-preservation instinct or someone else is feeding it.”

She gasped. “Feeding it?”

“Someone put this in here. That means someone has access to it. And that means if they feel the block is in danger then they will pour more energy into the block to keep it there.”

“So you’re saying someone is consciously keeping this here?” She didn’t think she liked the sound of that.

“Not only keeping it – but preserving it. Feeding it. Quite possibly on a daily basis.”

*

It was a
lot to take in. It was also an experience for him to see her explore her new world like a child. When she’d flipped the imposing blocks visual into cotton candy he’d wanted to dance and cheer with her. He was in her space with her permission, but outside of communicating with her he was limited to what he could do to help her. He used the same technique with his patients. It allowed him to see their progress and their difficulties without him being able to affect them. That was important. This was all about them regaining their power. About learning what they’d given up and what they could grab back and control again.

So many mental disturbances were at their root – a power issue. Once people let go of their power, often in childhood, they were unable to regain it. Or what they regained they felt apologetic for instead of realizing it was their right. Their integrity as a person that they needed to honor. Sacrificing something like that did no one any good. It was damn important to remember that.

“Is this right?”

“It looks good to me.” He watched as she approached the first of the bigger blocks, buoyed by her success so far. He knew these would be different animals altogether. He studied the six and could easily see there were two creators behind them. Some blocks were older.

She was working on a new block. He chewed on his lip while he considered the problem of doing that. “Hannah, try the block that is two over.”

“Why,” she said as she turned the bigger block into an ice cream cone and proceeded to apply a welding torch to it. He wanted to laugh, but inside instinct said this one was dangerous – that it would cause more problems at the moment than they needed.

“It’s working.”

“Well, you’re melting the ice-cream but I’m not sure it’s disappearing.” That was a concern. With his instinct prodding him to pull her out of there, he had to stop and wait…and watch as she tried to dissolve away the first of the bigger blocks.

The melted ice cream pooled at her feet.

“Hannah move back,” he snapped. “Don’t let the ice cream touch your feet.”

She jumped back. “Why not?”

But the ice cream seemed to have locked onto her whereabouts and was following her. She raced further back, but the faster she ran the faster the ice cream followed.

“What’s happening?” she cried.

“It’s your visual,” he responded, trying for a calm voice but knowing she needed to change this visual now. “Turn it back into a stone block.”

“Why?” she asked, retreating further, trying to torch the melted ice cream. But it seemed to continue to run underneath it’s crusty surface. Then he understood.

“The person who placed this block there has noticed your attempts to remove it.”

She spun to stare at him in shock. “They can do that?”

“He already has.” While she’d been looking at him, the ice cream puddle slithered even closer. “Hannah, look out.”

Too late.

Helplessly watching, the ice-cream touched her foot and instantly shot up through her body.

Her curdling scream terrified him.

In a move he hadn’t thought possible in this dimension – hell – any dimension, she shattered into small pieces in front of him – again.

*

She couldn’t have
done that. Please say she hadn’t found the block and tried to take it out. ’Cause that was never going to happen. Not as long as he lived. Jesus. He sat at his desk and held out his hands. They were trembling in shock. Then there was the headache pounding in the back of his head. That had been damn close.

He hadn’t prepared for this day.

It hadn’t occurred to him it was even possible. So why prepare? It was a waste of energy. Energy he couldn’t lose.

She’d showed no signs of personal power since she’d been a child. No signs of even being aware there was more in her life than the simple world she lived in. Of course she lived poorly in that world as well. She wasn’t whole. But that damn splintering bullshit was something else again.

For the longest time he’d thought he’d been responsible for it, but he’d come to wonder if it wasn’t a defense mechanism instead.

And that she could do that subconsciously when he didn’t want her to, and he wasn’t capable of stopping her or inciting it… Well, that just made him mad.

But this…today…it wasn’t possible.

But it had happened. She’d actually tried to dismantle a block. She couldn’t do it of course. She wasn’t strong enough. But she was spreading her wings. Accessing her power. Testing him.

He laughed in sudden joy. Oh my. He hadn’t seen
that
coming. It was late for her. Most people developed way earlier. Then he might have had a hand in that. He could crush her puny efforts like a bug beneath his feet or he could let the little chrysalis be born and let the butterfly learn what the air really smelled and felt like – then he could crush her like the bug she was.

At that he broke into a huge booming laugh.

This was exactly what he needed. Life had been so damn boring for so long.

Finally something to make it exciting.

Who’d have thought it would be the little nuisance he’d kept at his side all these years.