© Copyright 2011
All work is property of Leah Crichton, any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal.

Prescience: (presh-uh-ns)

knowledge of things before they exist or happen; foreknowledge; foresight.

Could I even measure time in things like minutes, hours, or days when time was frozen, suspended by Orion's hand? I didn't suppose so but when I woke some time later, I wished it were all still a dream. As soon as my eyes opened, my mind began to work overtime, trying to digest everything. It was so far beyond reason, beyond explanation, I considered maybe somewhere along the line I had become deranged.  That had to be it. My brain had been damaged so badly that everything and everyone, including Orion, was a figment of my imagination. It seemed like the most justifiable explanation of any of them. 

Yet there he was in front of me. My eyes could see him, my nose could smell him, my ears could hear him, my hands could touch him. It was real, as real as it could be. I didn’t want to talk anymore and he seemed to sense it, allowing time to pass in silence. When he thought it was going on too long, he said so. “Listen, I don’t want to rush you or anything, but we really should go see Alicia and Alex. You need to see them.”

“What are they going to do?”

“They're seers,” he said, like I should know what that was. “They can help you.” 

Fear about what could be lurking in the shadows wound its way through me and I shuddered. “I don’t want to go outside.”

“We can’t very well stay here.”

“I can.” I told him. “Quite easily.” 

He sighed. “I know you’re scared, but I won’t leave your side, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You're pretty sure of yourself.”

“I told you, I’ve never had anything worth fighting for until now. C’mon, let’s go.”

Orion promised to keep me safe. I wanted to believe in him, but my confidence in his ability to do so was barely skimming the surface.

We made our way through the abandoned house and our footsteps echoed, causing me to jump, unable to shake the intense fear that Damien was lurking around every corner. I didn't know where Luke and my mom were but I was glad it wasn’t here. In an effort to calm my nerves, I reasoned with myself that Orion had to be right. Damien didn’t know anything at all. As far as he was concerned, he dropped me off and I had gone to bed.

Orion led me outside with his arm wrapped protectively around my shoulder. Even though he tried to appear confident, his eyes darted around the yard to see if there was any sign of his rival.

He drove fast, too fast, to Alicia and Alex’s place. Why he chose the car rather than travel the way we had earlier confused me. Maybe there was some sort of limitation to how often he could do it the teleporting thing. Surely it had to take a lot out of him.

His body was stiff with tension and his eyes danced around in a predictable routine: he’d look from the rear view mirror to the side mirror and then at me, then he would start the process all over again. I sat there, numb to any more emotions, and the look on his face was horrendously somber. 

Alicia waited for us on the porch, twisting her hands in her lap.  As we pulled up, she lunged to open my door and threw her arms around me. “Oh, Ireland, I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”

“Orion said you and Alex could help me.”  

“Yes,” she said. “My brother and I can help. We can show you something that might make your choice easier.”

I had no idea how Alicia and Alex were going to help but I literally had nothing left to lose. “Come in the house for a while, okay?”

I followed her through the huge front door, the same door that had led me straight into the arms of a waiting demon. My gag reflex surged and I trembled.

We went in and, although it was almost summer, my body shook, freezing.  Alicia noticed and turned on the fireplace in the sitting room.  “Do you want some tea or something?”

“Sure, that sounds nice.” Was it even real tea? Did I actually have to eat or drink? I wasn’t going to die of starvation or dehydration.

Alex, who had been loitering in the doorway, headed to the kitchen to make the tea. Orion sat in the armchair across from me and Alicia took her place next to me on the sofa.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

I glanced at Orion, not knowing what I needed to be ready for because he hadn’t disclosed anything.  His spirit, his very essence, was broken, but he managed to plaster a phony smile on his face, probably to offer me some sort of reassurance. “It’s okay.” His voice was so quiet it was a strain to hear him. “Go ahead.”

I looked back at Alicia and exhaled. “I’m ready, I think.”

“You have to relax first, okay? Or it won’t work.”

Alex brought back my tea, handed it to me, and sat on my other side. Wrapping both of my hands around the mug, I drew a deep breath. The scent of chamomile drifted up from the steam; I inhaled again slowly and took a sip. “Ready as I'll ever be.”

Alicia lifted her right hand, bringing her index and middle finger together. She moved them toward my face as her brother mirrored her actions on my other side. Involuntarily I cringed away, the only natural reaction.  “It’s okay, Ireland,” Alex whispered. 

A subtle electric shock jolted me, snaking its way through my limbs and down my fingertips. My body jumped in the chair, but I couldn’t move anything otherwise. My heart raced. Alicia noticed and looked over at Orion. “Ry?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you should come and sit near her. Poor girl, she’s terrified.”

“Well, wouldn’t you be? Look what’s just happened to her,” he said, getting up and walking over. He sat on the ground in front of me and placed his hands on my knees. “It’s okay. You need to do this, please, for me. I’ll be right here the whole time.”

I nodded, sniffling and wiping away a tear, finding his presence in front of me strangely calming. “I’m ready.” 

Alicia and Alex placed their fingers back on my temples. I knew what to expect this time and it made the jolt less startling. Almost instantly, images began to saturate my mind. They were impossibly fast at first and made me queasy, but then they slowed down. It took only a few moments to realize I was viewing a slideshow of my entire life.

It began with my mother holding a tiny pink bundle in her arms while my father stood dutifully at her side, looking down at me in total awe. Luke was there too, with messy hair, a dirty face, and ripped jeans. He was begging my mother, “Momma, can I hold her now? Can I hold Ourlin?”

“Sit on the bed,” she told him.

He obliged and waited with outstretched arms for his own special delivery.  When I was cradled in his arms, he smiled and kissed my forehead. “Ourlin, I’m gonna teach you all sorts of stuff, like how to kick the soccer ball, and I can teach you how to read. I’m gonna be the best big brother. Forever.”

I viewed milestones of my first years, a rapid trip through my baby book. Rolling over, sitting, getting teeth, walking, talking.

Luke and I running carelessly through our yard, playing hide and seek, swimming, coloring, dancing, and playing softball. Him sticking to the promise he’d made, showing me how to kick a soccer ball, how to read.

The memories of childhood flooded me, scraped knees and stitches, cotton candy and local fairs. I saw us living. I saw the first day of school when my mom dressed me in a pink flowery dress with matching pink ribbons in my hair, and me tugging at her skirt pleading with her not to leave me.

The tree house Luke and my dad built was erected in front of me like a 3D photograph, more scraped knees and elbows. My first kiss in grade seven with a boy named Bradley Foster, who, much to my dismay, wasn’t Derek Worthington.

I watched every Christmas, every birthday, every Easter and Thanksgiving. I watched us living, I watched us grow up.

Not only did I watch, but I felt everything. My parents’ unconditional love, their pride, their uncertainty, their anticipation, every emotion they felt for me rushed through me like water.     

I saw myself getting into the car, leaving the diner, sulking. The infuriated look on my face. The downpour of relentless rain was next, followed by the car spinning, nose to trunk, around and around. It was disorienting. I watched as the truck slammed right into the side of the car my mom and I were sitting on. I saw my body fly through Luke’s window and land, limp, on the cold hard asphalt of the highway.

Orion came from nowhere and dropped to his knees, preparing to kiss me, but something stopped him. He paused thoughtfully, then he touched my face and my hair. His hand traveled and lay to rest on my chest, directly above my heart. He didn’t move a muscle for a minute and then he raised his hand so it hovered over the place it had just been laying. He splayed his fingers and a brilliant, white light shot out from his palm, directly into my body. My body arched unnaturally upwards, toward his hand. I felt the pain he did when he saw me and realized what he was going to do; he knew. He knew what could happen, but he needed me. Needed me more than anything.

I believed I had just witnessed Orion do exactly the opposite of what he was supposed to. I saw him give me my life instead of taking it away. The next images were of him and me together: the cafe, the first words he'd said to me, school when he introduced himself; going for ice cream. The lunch where I had seen his temper unleashed the first time. Our trip to the brook; I saw myself in his arms beneath the stars, listening to the story of Orion. Our sailing, swimming in the water, him outside my front door, sneaking into my bedroom.

The complexity of his feelings was overwhelming. They varied often: confidence, desire, trepidation, anger, blissfulness, but most of all love.  The heart wrenching, life-changing kind of love.

Then a flash back to the hospital where my father stood, defeated. Looking like he had nothing left to live for. I heard Doctor Stephenson speaking to him:

…Coma, basically a state of profound unconsciousness. She didn’t score favorably on the Glasgow Coma scale, a five. Gives her only a forty-six percent chance of any kind of recovery, which may or may not leave her disabled. Could be very mild or severe disability. Only time will tell.

Orion’s emotions were overwhelming but my dad’s were devastating. The weight of his sorrow buried me. I was drowning in it, suffocating.

 I watched the seasons change. My body remained, hanging on by a single thread, while winter turned to spring and finally to summer. My dad at least got to the point where he was leaving the hospital, but his emotion was raw, the depression consuming.

The day my eyes first opened he jumped from the chair and ran to the bedside, yelling for the nurse. I tried to speak to him, but I couldn’t. Amanda came in and put her hand on his shoulder and called Dr. Stephenson. 

She’s in a vegetative state. Depends, very little data to support any hypothesis on recovery. Level of cognitive functioning may be compromised. If she survives, may need constant care. May or may not be able to communicate, may or may not be able to provide brief periods of non-purposeful sustained attention. If vegetative state continues, you may have to consider removal from life support. I’m terribly sorry.

My dad slumped against the wall in my room, defeated. He held his head in his hands; his shoulders rose and fell in rapid succession. He was crying. He was mourning. Finally, after all the grieving came to an end, there was guilt. Endless and consuming guilt.

He refused to remove me from life support and ensured my transfer into our home. He hired round-the-clock home care, but I couldn’t see why. He did everything himself. I could eventually speak to him, but no words that made any sense.

I watched myself get older. I felt my father turn into a shell of the man he was; his emotions were almost non-existent. He had become numb.

Each day and each night was exactly the same for him and consisted only of taking care of me. I was his daughter, the only person he had left, and his biggest burden. But he felt the burden was his to shoulder for driving that day.

 As dreadful as it was to watch, the last image was by far the most horrific. Damien. Damien on top of me as he held me down to stop me from struggling. His hand gripped the side of my face as he ran a forked tongue up my cheek. Don’t worry, love, this won’t hurt a bit. I felt Damien too; it was sickening, perverse and dismal.

I came to screaming. Orion jumped, startled. “Ireland?”

I couldn’t speak.

“Tiger, c’mon,” his hand grabbed the side of my face.

Don’t worry, love, this won’t hurt a bit.

 I screamed louder.

Orion marched to Alicia, who sat exhausted in the armchair. His finger was pointed millimeters away from her face. “What did you show her?” he demanded.

“I-I, don’t know, Ry.”

“What did you do?” 

“Ry, it’s true, we don’t see what she sees. We can’t. Alex makes her see it, I make her feel it. I don't know what she saw, I swear.”

He spun on his heel and returned to where I sat, still unable to move. “Ireland. Please, come back to me.” His voice was laced with worry. I looked at him through terrified eyes. “C’mon, I’ll get you out of here.” He scooped me up in his arms and, without saying goodbye, he headed out the front door directly to his car.

He looked as though he would be sick as he placed me gently on the seat. We began to drive, and the recognition that I was safe, at least for now, allowed me to breathe again. “What just happened, Orion?” My head was groggy; my heart, heavy.

“Alicia and Alex just showed you your past, your present, and your future,” he said. “What did you see?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I wanted to send the memory into oblivion, to never see Damien’s face again.

Orion didn’t push. “Okay. We can talk about it later.” 

There would be nothing to talk about. My brain would block out the trauma.

The sun was just starting to peek across the horizon when we returned to my room. School, or the illusion of it, was out of the question. There was no way I would stand a chance of behaving normally if Damien happened to come around. Orion agreed it would be okay to miss one day, but only one.

Luke and my mom were still nowhere to be seen. He could sense I was thinking of them.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. “They’re safe,” he said. “I promise.”