The Guidance - By Marley Gibson Page 0,58

to hug me. "I've been thinking about you in there on that table and how scared you must be. I haven't been very understanding or open-minded through all of this, Kendall. I've been so convinced that there was something physically wrong with you that I didn't want to accept the possibility that you actually are psychic."

Wow, was there a preview of"Psychic Kids—How to Handle Them" on the next Maury?

"And you know that would be so much easier to handle than a physical malady," she adds.

"Dur," I say with a laugh. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

"We'll get through this together, sweetheart. I know we will. Faith and family love and support. That's what matters the most."

I reach out for her hand. "I know, Mom."

"You are special, Kendall. My own precious gift from God. You'll never know how precious." She kisses me on the forehead and then hugs me again.

"How would you classify Kaitlin? She's more like a curse than a gift." I crack myself up.

Mom swipes at me and laughs. A good long one, like I haven't heard from her in a couple of months. "Let's go to the cafeteria and get a chocolate milk shake. I hear they're the best anywhere. They use real gooey chocolate fudge."

"Sounds decadent ... and perfect."

Ten minutes later, I find out she's absolutely right. This is the best milk shake evah. Made even more special because I'm sharing it with my mom.

"Just as I expected," Dr. Kindberg tells us in his office three hours later. "The CT scan came back clean as a whistle."

"Wasn't that fast?" Mom asks.

"I knew you were anxious, Sarah," he says. "What can I say? I pulled some strings."

"Thanks, Doc!" I chime in. "So, no brain tumor or other funk in my head?"

"Funk-free," he says with a straight face. "Your blood work looks fine. White blood count is normal. A slightly high blood pressure, but I'll attribute that to the 'white-coat syndrome' of being at the hospital around doctors and all the stress you've been under with these tests."

"So, I'm okay?"

"You're a perfectly healthy sixteen-year-old girl."

"Almost seventeen," I add. With a snicker.

Mom folds her hands over her purse. "What about the special tests you did, Dr. Kindberg?"

"Ah, yes. Kendall scored a seventy-nine percent on the objects test we did and an eighty-one percent on the scene images. Very high indeed. Some of the highest I've seen in a while." He runs his hand over his chin, deep in thought. "My professional diagnosis is that Kendall is exactly what she claims to be: a budding psychic. I am happy to work her into my regular rotation for therapy visits, just to keep up with her progress, but I don't feel that it's necessary."

Did my heart just stop beating? Did he just say I'm not a freakazoid?

Mom licks her lips; tension is emanating from her as she's trying to be more understanding. I can read it all over her, as if the words were printed on her cheeks.

"You don't?" she asks.

"I only offer therapy as a way to help Kendall with any questions or issues she has along the way. However, it seems she already has a support group in place with her ghost-hunting team, this fellow psychic Loreen Woods, and your priest. I would say that you and your husband, as well as Kendall's sister and friends, continue to treat her as a normal person ... only one with some very special abilities. You, Sarah, need to be more open-minded and just listen to Kendall and what she's experiencing at all times. It's very important that she knows she can come to you and doesn't have to hide anything from you."

I squint over at Mom as she struggles through this; her face is flushed and pale at the same time.

"I-I-I'm trying. I want to be happy for her, Dr. Kindberg, I do. I'm just so worried about her being scared and how I can help her through that." Mom's voice breaks on the last word.

I slip my hand in hers. "I'm not scared of the spirits, Mom. I promise." Okay, that Union soldier guy skeeves me out a lot, but it's just because I haven't gotten a handle on what his glitch is yet. "If anything upsets me, I promise to tell you. You can read all of my case files and look at our Ghost Huntress website. You will know exactly what we're doing."

Her eyes dance over my face. "I'd like that. I'd like to be involved as