CHAPTER ONE
2083 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Everything was dark.
Carly See could feel that she was eerily suspended in space, her arms drifting at her sides and her legs dangling limply beneath her.
But she couldn’t see anything at all.
Where am I? she wondered. Why am I here?
Although Carly was accustomed to certain kinds of unusual experiences, she was baffled by this one. It didn’t seem to be a message from the dead. If some spirit was trying to show her something, the vision was even more obscure than usual.
I’m underwater, she realized after a few moments.
Have I drowned? she wondered.
Her question was followed by an intense spasm of déjà vu.
This has happened to me before.
I’m sure of it.
She couldn’t remember exactly where or when it had happened, but the surge of fear deep inside her told her it had been a terrifying experience.
And she was about to go through it again.
She tried to cry out, but she couldn’t even gasp aloud. Instead, she choked sharply, and bubbles poured out through her lips.
To her relief, a faint beam of light sparkled down from above, illuminating the water around her.
Maybe this will show me where I am, she thought.
As the light brightened, she saw another figure adrift in the water in front of her. It was a young woman floating much like Carly was.
Then the light illuminated the woman’s face.
It was Megan.
This has to be a dream, Carly realized.
She hadn’t seen her sister in the waking world for some ten years, not since Carly was twenty and Megan eighteen, and Megan had mysteriously disappeared, leaving her family with no idea whether she was alive or dead. But even though both Carly and Megan had changed since then, there was no mistaking that face.
Carly opened her mouth to call her sister’s name, but she only felt water pouring up out of her lungs.
Then Megan spoke in a strange, watery voice.
“Carly? Carly? Is that you?”
Carly tried to say yes, but again no words came.
“Carly, what are you doing here?” Megan asked.
Carly struggled against the water, trying to cry out in response, “I’ve been looking for you. For years. Ever since you disappeared.”
But she still couldn’t speak.
“Oh, Carly, I know you wondered what happened to me,” Megan said. “And so did Mom, and Dad, and everyone I knew. There’s so much I want to tell you, but …”
Megan let out a sad gasping sound.
“There’s no time,” she added, her face turning upward toward the light. “I’m out of time. It’s over.”
Through a superhuman act of will, Carly finally managed to force a few words out of her own mouth.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m going away forever,” Megan said.
“But … but … but …”
It took Carly a desperate moment to put her thoughts into words, then push those words out between her lips.
“But this has happened before.”
Megan’s head turned inquisitively.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s a feeling, that’s all. A really powerful feeling.”
Megan’s drowned eyes squinted with perplexity.
“Yes, I feel that way too,” she replied slowly. Then an expression of terror crossed her features. “This scares me. Is it possible to die but not really be dead?”
“I don’t know, Megan. Maybe you haven’t died at all. We just don’t understand. Please, we’ve got to figure this out…”
Megan interrupted with a burbling, heartbroken sigh.
“I can’t stay, Carly. I’m sorry.”
“But you can’t go—not yet. We don’t even know what all this means.”
Megan’s body began to float upward toward the light. Carly struggled to follow her, but her own body seemed anchored in place.
“It’s not up to me,” Megan said, her voice growing fainter.
“Megan, no! Stay with me!”
But Megan was disappearing into the brightly lit waters above Carly.
“Megan!” Carly cried. “Megan! Megan!”
Carly felt a strong hand give her shoulder an urgent shake.
“Carly, wake up,” a familiar voice said.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was sitting in a car with her shoulder harness fastened. And tears were running down her face.
“Carly, are you OK?”
It took her a few moments to focus on the African American man with the touch of gray in his hair. Her friend and FBI partner, Lyle Ramsey, was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at her with fatherly concern. The car didn’t seem to be moving.
“Lyle? Where—where am I?” she stammered in a choked voice.
“We’re outside your apartment building. You’ve been sound asleep during the last hour or so.”
A fog of confusion started to lift as Carly looked around. She and Lyle were sitting in a parked FBI vehicle outside her apartment building in Glensted, Virginia. It appeared to be late at night.
Now she was starting to remember. They had spent the last day and a half on a serial killer case in a declining Pennsylvania factory town. They’d managed to catch the murderous madman, but not before he’d almost killed Carly herself. Lyle had rescued her.
“You were crying in your sleep,” Lyle told her. “You gave me a scare. You kept saying the name Megan over and over again.”
“Megan … that’s …”
“Your sister’s name. I know. I guess you had a nightmare about her. But it’s OK, Carly. You’re awake now. Everything’s all right.”
An image returned to Carly’s mind, sharp and vivid. Again she saw Megan’s body rising up through mysterious waters into a beam of bright light …
She broke down into uncontrollable sobbing.
“No, Lyle. Everything’s not all right. Megan … she’s …”
“It was only a dream, Carly.”
“No, it was more than a dream, it was …”
She struggled to find the right words to describe her experience—and also to remember just how much Lyle knew about her mystical abilities.
How much might he be ready to hear?
I shouldn’t say anything at all, she thought.
But desperate words rose up out of her throat, whether she wanted them to or not.
“Something’s wrong with Megan. She’s … she’s … I don’t know, Lyle …”
“Tell me, Carly.”
“I think she’s … dead. But … but I don’t … understand …”
Lyle handed Carly a tissue.
“You’ve told me about Megan. You said she went missing years ago.”
Carly nodded and sobbed.
“You told me you’ve tried to find her, but you couldn’t,” Lyle said.
Carly nodded again.
“So how can you know … whether she’s dead or alive?’
Carly realized she’d already said much more than she should have.
“Never mind.”
“No, you’ve got to tell me.”
Carly drew herself up and choked down a violent sob.
“Because I heard from her,” she gasped. “Because she spoke to me.”
“You mean … in your dream?”
Carly nodded again.
He must think I’ve lost my mind.
But then, maybe it didn’t come as a complete surprise to him. Earlier that day, when they’d still been solving the case, Carly had told Lyle what he admitted he’d long suspected—that she had some sort of psychic abilities. The only other person she’d ever told about it was her mother not long ago. Carly’s mom hadn’t taken it very well, and Lyle hadn’t either, and she couldn’t blame either of them, especially not Lyle. She’d been keeping this aspect of her life a secret from him for much too long.
And now—how was she going to explain to him what had just happened?
She struggled carefully to choose her words.
“Lyle … when I hear from somebody … when we contact each other … it always means that they’re …”
Her voice faded.
“That they’re dead?” Lyle asked.
Carly nodded, and Lyle gasped.
“Carly … that’s … that’s impossible.”
Carly couldn’t reply. She was weeping uncontrollably again. Lyle took her hand gently in his.
“Carly, it was just a bad dream,” he said.
Carly shook her head.
“No, it was … I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t just a dream. I know the difference.”
Lyle squeezed her hand.
“Carly, you’re scaring me. I mean, I get that you’ve got some kind of … special abilities. I can accept that your brain puts things together … well, differently. But people just don’t talk to the dead. It’s impossible.”
It’s more than possible, Carly thought. It happens to me all the time.
But she didn’t dare start trying to explain herself right now, because she knew that Lyle himself was in a delicate state. He hadn’t relapsed into drinking again, but she’d discovered a controlled sedative in his go-bag and had taken the pills away from him.
She had to be careful what she said to him right now.
I don’t want to trigger him.
She took a deep, long breath and prepared herself to lie.
“Maybe you’re right, Lyle. Maybe it was just a dream. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it. I’m sorry I gave us both a scare.”
“But Carly …”
Lyle’s voice faded. She sensed that he saw right through her deception. After all, Lyle had keen instincts of his own, even if they weren’t paranormal like hers.
“Look, I know I’ve been keeping things from you,” she said. “I mean, yeah, I see and hear weird things most people don’t, but … talking to the dead? That was just my nightmare talking. Thanks for waking me up. And thanks for driving me home.”
She unlatched her shoulder harness and opened the door.
“Maybe I should walk you inside,” Lyle said.
Maybe you should, Carly almost said.
But she knew they were teetering on the edge of a conversation that they really shouldn’t have—at least not right now.
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” she said—a bit too firmly and hastily, she thought. “It’s really late, and we both need to get a good night’s sleep. After all, we’ve got a debriefing with Chief Voss tomorrow. You just drive on home. And be careful.”
She got out of the car and shut the door before he could protest.
When she reached the entrance to her five-story apartment building, Carly glanced back and saw that Lyle was still sitting there in the vehicle. He hadn’t started the engine.
She managed to force a broad smile and gave him a reassuring wave. He nodded and waved back, then started the car and pulled out of the parking space.
Carly took the elevator up to her floor. When she got into her own apartment, she slumped and leaned wearily against the door. It had been a long and brutal day, and it was now the small hours of the morning, and she was beyond exhausted.
She’d had a terrifying struggle against a murderer who imagined himself a sort of merciful angel of death. She’d managed to escape his deadly blade even after he’d drugged her, but if Lyle hadn’t arrived when he did, she’d never have gotten away.
“He saved my life,” Carly whispered aloud.
Then she added with a smile, “Again.”
Of course, that was nothing new in their working relationship. They had rescued each other from dire situations many, many times.
Of course our luck might run out one of these days …
She shuddered at the thought and pushed it out of her mind.
As she crossed her quiet and simple living room, she flashed back to her awful vision of Megan and those terrifying words.
“I’m going away forever.”
But Megan’s spirit had told her that exact same thing in an earlier vision.
What does it mean? Carly wondered.
Is Megan alive or dead?
Does Megan even know herself? And how can I ever find her?
- Writer
