A Walk Through The Darkness

Chapter 1

The beautiful woman gazing at me from the intricately framed antique mirror seemed weirdly familiar. It was me, but not really.

We had the same long thick strawberry blonde hair, but she looked like she belonged in beauty pageant. We had the same multi-shaded green eyes, but hers were more vivid with bright shimmering flecks of gold. If this was really me, I sure as hell didn’t put much effort into looking like this.

I’ve been getting plenty of sleep lately, yet I’m perpetually tired. I’m noticeably pregnant by the minute, but not bloated. My skin seems extraordinarily radiant in the yellow incandescent light of my bathroom.

If I would have measured the circumference of my mid-section yesterday, I would have physical evidence that the life growing inside of me is occurring at warp speed.

I turned my head slightly to the right. No double chin, yet.

I turned slightly to the left. My boobs seemed bigger. I lifted them up high, one in each hand, and let them fall back down with the force of gravity until my bra could catch them.

These puppies are huge!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s just that none of this is matching up to all of the horror stories I’ve been told by hundreds of other women. Does this mean I’m gonna have an ugly baby?

No! Shut your fat anxious brain mouth, Audra!

Stranger Danger Alert! I never did introduce myself.

My name is Audra Stennis. I live down in what some people call the deep south along the southwestern coastline of Alabama, just outside of a little town called Bayou La Batre. Yes, it's the same small town that Bubba and Forest Gump established their fictional seafood empire.   

Around here, every day has a different smell. Today, the salty sea breeze is suppressing the smell of low tide, which I must admit is superbly helping my nausea.

Even without my newly enhanced looks, I stick out like a sore thumb around here. Growing up, I went to Catholic Schools up in Mobile which cause me to dress and talk a little different than everyone who attended the local public school. Daddy says that he doesn’t know how he produced such a beautiful daughter or such knot-headed sons.

Daddy and my twin brothers, Mark and Mike, are fisherman. Out of the three hundred locally owned vessels, Daddy owns five—Minerva, Phoebe, Aura, Selene, and Iris. I asked him once why he named his boats after women in mythology and his answer was, “the ocean is full of myths and legends and it only seems appropriate to acknowledge the unknown.”

Now that I’m a ‘grown-up’, I live just outside of the city limits on a quiet road with my husband, Jack, and our four-legged- fur-daughter, Roxanne.

Our home is strategically situated in a clearing close to the river on our fifty acres of picture-perfect solitude on Fowl River. A guy once stopped and asked Jack if he could take a picture of our driveway. Each side of our driveway is lined with large Oak Trees that create a canopy of green filtered sunlight for the long narrow path to our house. Next thing we know, we started receiving checks in the mail for royalties because the photo was featured in a wall calendar. I couldn’t be upset because it was along my theory of life—why ask for permission when you can ask for forgiveness?

I’ve nicknamed our home ‘Heaven on Earth’ because I don’t particularly like being around people.

Because I’m an Empath.

Also, because unlike my driveway, I don’t have a filter between my mouth and brain.

Upon first impression, I appear to be your typical southern lady. After a few minutes of being graced with my presence, people discover that I’m full of sass and a lot of other things too. This erks the daylights out of my mom because she thinks that I should always act like a lady and not just look like one.

I’m fluent in sarcasm and speak multiple languages—redneck, social elite topped with fake mannerisms, and just enough Spanish to get me in trouble. Literally. I only learned the bad words because they’re more fun.

The sound of Roxanne’s paws trotting across the pine floors of our house quickly pulled me out of my self-critical analysis.

"Hey baby girl!" Roxanne likes it when I talk to her. Just like a human child, she doesn’t care if I'm preoccupied with getting dressed, she just likes the sound of my voice.

I paused in the process of applying my makeup so that I could place my hands on either side of her chocolate brown face to rub her smooth short fur and floppy ears. She flashed me a smiling pant.

“Did you go play in the dirt with Daddy? Y’all didn’t do anything bad did y’all?”

Roxanne is a mutt. She has huge floppy ears, a humongous head, and massive feet. She’s lazy, playful, and kind of high maintenance. She doesn’t like being away from me for very long.

You know those dogs that have the same awful annoying bark, over and over and over again? You know, the kind of bark that makes you want to go all psycho and throw a work boot at their head? That’s not my Roxanne. She has vocal abilities that range in various sounds and tunes that she uses to communicate what she wants and what she’s feeling.

I turned to wash my hands and she began a sort of growling/groaning followed by a small whining sound. This meant that Jack was ready to leave. Of course.

"I know, I know. We won’t be gone long."

I scratched her ear two good times with my right foot before I attempted to lean across the bathroom vanity to apply the last few swipes of my mascara.

My skin, hair, and eyes were not the only weird parts of me today. I swear my stomach was growing by the minute!

Unsure if I was imagining things or not, I leaned across the marble topped vanity, tilting my head back as far as possible, causing the skin on my neck to stretch tight. "Roxanne, I'm getting huge," I complained to her as I began to apply my mascara. "My stomach’s gonna have its own atmosphere soon.”

Every attempt to lean over the antique wooden vanity to gain a closer view of my lashes was useless. The lower half of my torso was pressing against the rounded edge of the vanity top. As if it would help, I sucked in one large gulp of air before leaning across the vanity again to quickly apply the black goo to my lashes when an unexpected jolt overcame my entire body.

“STOP!!!” An unfamiliar beautiful voice rang throughout my mind.

At that split second in time, I could FEEL my baby's angst! Not just my baby wiggling around in discomfort, but it's actual internal personal ‘back the hell off and don’t do that again’.

A picture flashed in my mind’s eye of my baby’s arm being squished and I could see that my child's arm had a faint pink line just above its elbow from the pressure of me leaning across the vanity.

"What the…", I whispered to myself.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Okay, Audra. You know that you can feel what other people are feeling. You know that you see things that no one else can see. You know that you’re an Empath.

"Don't panic", I told myself.

Yes, I talk to myself. Don’t judge me.

Roxanne's floppy ears perked up and she was watching me with her big dark brown eyes, examining my every move.

I’m surprised that her furry inquisitive butt wasn’t up sniffing my midsection.

I swiftly sat down on the closed lid of the toilet and put my head in my hands, attempting to get a grip on reality.

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

Roxanne managed to squeeze her large head through the small triangular hole between my legs and arms, touching her cold wet nose to my chin.

After I was certain that my curiosity had won the battle against the oncoming panic attack, I decided to conduct an experiment. I closed my eyes, focusing on my ever-growing midsection in an attempt to establish another empathetic connection with my baby.

Score!

Its mind was beautiful and peaceful and full of love! I could see all of the pinks and purples and blues of its mood and feel its weightlessness inside of me. The colorful images suddenly shifted to a blindingly bright white space. It was like closing your eyes before taking off sunglasses on a white sandy beach in the middle of August.

My mental eye sight adjusted quickly and I was able to explore my new environment. The physical image of my baby appeared perfectly clear in my mind as if a spotlight was shining into my uterus and projecting the image into my brain.

Graceful tears of delight began to run down my cheeks. My chest filled with tightness. I’m not certain, but I may have stopped breathing when the sound of the most beautiful voice returned to my mind.

"Momma?"

Uncaring of Roxanne’s chin on my knees, I sat up straight as if I had been struck by a random stray bolt of electricity.

I saw my child with her eyes closed and sucking her thumb sweetly. This is when I became certain that we were having a little girl. She had my curly hair except it was the dark brown color of my Husband’s.

There is no category for the type of ugly crying that my body decided to produce.

"Oh yes, my love." I cradled my arms around my torso, rocking my enormous belly back and forth. "Oh, my sweet baby.”

Her name unmistakably rang throughout my mind. Not in her beautiful ringing voice or in my own voice, but another. One that seemed other-worldly.

“We love you so much, my sweet beautiful Angela."

Jack and I hadn’t decided on baby names. Until now, I only referred to her by traditional nicknames—sweetheart, baby, darling, my love. No longer could I joke with myself about being the mother of a kid with no name.

I so absorbed in my new telepathic connection with Angela that I didn't see, feel, or hear Jack approaching. He stood leaning against the bathroom door watching me like I was some crazy pregnant lady.

I mean I was, but honestly!

Jack is over six foot tall with dark wavy brown hair. He has thick super sexy broad shoulders, panty-dropping muscular arms, and a slight belly that makes cuddling extremely fun. I have yet to figure out what causes his brown eyes to occasionally turn amber in color or how the touch of his plump lips can make every inch of my body tingle from just one kiss. His thick full beard is the envy of all men, which only adds to the extremely devastatingly magnetic pulling sensation when I look at his physical perfection.

"Hey, hey, hey. Shhhh," he whispered as he walked over to kneel on the floor in front of me. "Don't be so upset. It isn't good for the baby." Jack had read ‘What to Expect When Expecting’ before I could even say the title of the book that he brought home.

I realized that he must not have been standing there long because he seemed totally and completely clueless as to what just happened. He thought that I was just being hormonal.

Trying to regulate my breathing between sniffles, "Jack, I'm not upset. Promise." I began to explain to him while wiping the tears from under my eyes and off my cheeks with the back of my hand.

“Then what on God’s Green Earth can make you like this?”

After two years of blissful years of marriage, I still get extremely nervous when it’s time to be honest with Jack about my sixth-sense. He is the only person that I’ve ever let know all of my secrets. "It’s easy. You know how I can feel what other people are feeling and thinking?"

His facial expression immediately shifted from concerned husband to 'here we go again' in less than one second.

Jack has never been judgmental or unaccepting of my gift, but I can still shock his socks off sometimes with my quirky empath abilities. He’s the reason why I stopped referring to it as a curse and started calling it a gift. He thinks that God gave me this ability for a reason and that I should stop trying to suppress it and embrace it and see what happens.

"Yeah," he said elongating the 'ah'.

"Well, it’s changed.” I was aiming for a cautious informative delivery but I landed with crazy excited instead. “I've managed to connect telepathically with our baby in utero." I pointed with both of my hands in a double pistol motion toward my stomach.

"Do huh?" he puzzled.

Wonderful. Shock has caused my husband to speak horrific grammar.

"Jack," no longer crying, I stood up to prove to him that I was physically ok. "I just leaned across the vanity to put on some mascara and I saw where I hurt Angela and then she asked if I was her momma."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute.” He was trying incredibly hard to keep control of his emotions. “You saw who? Since when are we naming our child Angela?" And he’s losing it.

Yep. That's it. I've managed to freak out my husband. "Angela is the name of our baby. We are having a girl. When I leaned over the vanity, I saw a picture of her in my mind and how I had hurt her and then the connection just kept getting stronger and more vivid and yes, I can talk to our unborn child."

I must have exhaled every pent-up emotion inside my body because I noticed Jack’s luscious beard move from the force of my exhaled breath. I felt compelled to keep going. Jack's face was glazed over and he looked like he was on the verge of running away screaming. "Jack, honey, this is weird, I know. You don't have to believe me right now, but when I was connecting with our baby, that's when I figured out that we were having a girl and the name Angela just kind of popped in my head out of nowhere."

"Okay," he stated flatly. His facial expression morphed back to normal, his eyes no longer glazed over, and he changed the direction of our conversation with the gracefulness of a sledge hammer. "We’re going to be late if we mess around here any longer. Do you need help with your shoes? Which ones do you want to wear?"

My super thoughtful observant husband.

I was wearing my soft pink sundress that had an empire waist and a ruffle around the neckline in hopes that it would make my ultrasound appointment easier. The shade of pink seemed to make the color of my reddish blonde hair glow like my skin.

"Um, I guess my tan-colored sandals."

My empathetic radar picked up on the fact that Jack needed to walk away to regain his composure. I quickly placed a mental bet on the odds of Jack passing out when the Ultrasound Technician announced that we’re expecting a girl.

I’m so appreciative of the fact that I can’t read minds. Just being able to read his controlled panic from across the house was enough to make me want to scream.

One good last look in the long mirror to make sure that nothing was hanging out and I would be on my way.

I ran my fingertips through my long curly hair to help make it as flirty as my dress. My makeup helped camouflage the lines under my eyes and my boobs seemed a little more perky.

I touched my stomach while looking into the mirror and told Angela, "We get to see you today."

I felt her spin inside my stomach and saw her smiling at me. “I can’t wait to see you momma.”