M Sellars: Harm none

“It’s possible. Roger spoke to me in the vision last night, and then there was the nightmare…” I mused aloud. “I was expecting some kind of presence from him. That’s why I went there in the first place.”

We were both silent for a short while as Felicity pressed the Jeep along, occasionally shifting gears up and down to adjust speed for the various intersections we crossed. The pulsing yellow and red signals gave warning at each junction, serving also to punctuate my realization that the hour had grown later than I realized.

“How’s your head?” Felicity finally asked.

“Still hurts-hang a right up here on Ashby-but not as bad as before.” I settled back in the seat and closed my eyes for a moment. “I took a handful of aspirin earlier, and they’re starting to kick in. Not quite as fast as willow bark tea, but they don’t leave an aftertaste.”

“I know what you mean.”

I could feel the Jeep sway to the left, centrifugal force acting in opposition to the right-hand turn. My eyes were still closed, and I heard the smooth, metallic click of the stick shift as the gears were shifted down then back up. The hum of the tires against pavement was pinpricked by a low, quick, electronic beep as Felicity’s watch announced the half-hour.

“What time is it anyway?” I asked, still resting limply in the seat. Before she could answer, I began a wildly disorienting carnival ride between realities.

“ Hey, mister, what time is it?” A little, strawberry-blonde girl is talking to me. She is dressed in white lace and is tugging franticly at my sleeve. “What time is it? Hey, mister!”

“It’s twelve-thirty,” she answered.

“ Hey, mister, what time is it?” The little girl is pointing above the horizon. The pregnant globe of the moon is lifting itself heavily, casting its reflected light down upon her upturned face. The hands of a clock spin urgently about the mottled silvery-white surface. “What time is it? Hey, mister?”

“Rowan? Rowan? Are you okay?”

There is a grove of trees surrounding a small clearing. Centered in the clearing is a hooded, robed figure standing with hands raised high. Moonlight glints from an object held in those hands. Moonlight glints from an athame.

A small figure lies prone before the cloaked one. A small figure clad in white lace. Preened and arranged. Unblemished and virginal.

“Rowan! Answer me!”

Trees begin to erupt from the landscape, and the earth begins to tremble and sink. The depression fills with dark water and ripples in the slight breeze. The moonlight reflects in a shimmering stripe.

Another stand of trees erupt skyward. The tall pines form a line before us, completely obscuring the view except for a few small glimpses of the shallow lake.

“ What does it say, mister?” The little girl is pointing at a small sign. Bold letters spell out PLEASE DO NOT FEED GEESE.

“Rowan! Breathe, dammit!”

I can’t breathe. My lungs are on fire, and the flames are licking up my throat. My chest feels heavy, and there is something tightening about my neck. The atmosphere feels thick and fluid around me. I want to gasp for air, but something is telling me I shouldn’t. My thoughts are beginning to cloud; my mind is turning murky and dark.

“ROWAN!”

I snapped fully back into conscious reality when Felicity combined her urgent voice with even more urgent one-handed jostling. We had just rolled to a halt in a bus turnout near the off-ramp onto Midland. The Jeep made a jarring lurch as she franticly switched off the engine and in her haste, released the clutch pedal a second too soon. At almost the same instant, I gasped, ravenously sucking in the cool air.

“Rowan! Answer me! Are you all right?”

I choked and sputtered on the intoxicating oxygen and wheezed in more as I began to catch my breath. The dull ache that had been residing in the back of my head for the majority of the evening was now making an all out assault on my skull, pounding rhythmically through my scalp. The faint tickle of oncoming nausea started down the back of my throat, and my mouth began to water slightly. I fought it back, concentrating on my breathing and forcing myself to at least try to relax.

“Okay,” I sputtered between breaths, “I’m okay.”

“What happened?” Concern permeated Felicity’s voice. “You stopped breathing.”

“The vision.” I was no longer gulping air, and my respirations were beginning to slow. “The vision came back.”

“What did you see?”

“The little girl. A small clearing and some trees. The full moon,” I described slowly, reviewing the brilliant Technicolor playback of the memories in my mind. “The moon had hands on it. Like a clock. They were spinning around, and the little girl kept asking me what time it was.” My speech started coming quicker as the vision flooded in. “There was a lake too. And a row of pine trees that hid the clearing. The little girl was pointing at a sign.”

“What did it say?”

“Please do not feed geese, in bold letters.” I painted the image for her. “It was black on white. Like a road sign.”

“A park sign maybe?” she ventured.

“That would explain what it said,” I agreed. “And the lake and trees too. Do you have your cell phone with you?”

“Sure.” She pulled it from a pocket on the side of her purse and offered it to me. “Who are you going to call? Ben?”

“Yeah. I promised I’d let him know if I remembered any of the vision. This whole park thing might be important.”

Thumbing the power switch, I began stabbing out Ben’s number on the lighted buttons. The amber, segmented digits advanced across the small display, and a second later there was a brief, mechanical trill from the earpiece as the phone rang at the other end.

“Storm,” Ben answered with a sharp, frenetic tenor to his voice.

“Ben, it’s Rowan. I remembered some of the vision.”

“Hold on a second…”

I could hear him exchanging words with someone in the background. Various noises were issuing from the small speaker in the handset. Those sounds, coupled with his tone of voice, led me to believe that all hell had broken loose, and the MCS command post was at ground zero.

“What’s the story?” Felicity queried, noticing my expectant silence.

“He’s got me on hold,” I answered. “It sounds like everything’s hitting the fan over there. I guess we can go ahead and get moving. No use in just sitting here.”

She nodded and reached for the ignition. There was a muffled plastic rattle on the other end of the phone and the clunk of a door being shut, followed by a relative hush.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Ben’s voice issued forth again. “It’s a fuckin’ circus down here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Aww, the parents made an appeal to the kidnapper on the ten o’clock news. We’ve been gettin’ crank calls ever since you and Felicity cut out. Forget about that, whaddaya got?”

The engine on the Jeep had sparked to life and was now idling smoothly. Felicity popped the vehicle into gear and started rolling forward.

“I remembered the vision,” I expressed. “I’m not sure what all of it means, but I’ve got some ideas.”

“Shoot.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s going to do the ritual outdoors where he can see the moon. I think he might be planning to do it in a park or something.”

“Any idea which one?”

Felicity gunned the engine slightly and eased from the bus turnout onto the off-ramp leading into the city limits of the small Saint Louis suburb of Overmoor.

“Not for sure. In the vision, I saw trees and a small lake,” I explained further. “The only specific thing about it I can remember is a sign that said ‘please do not feed geese’.”