believe any of this is real or true?” I asked, now frightened beyond measure. To cover my feelings, I leaned down to pick up the broken porcelain pieces.
Either I was having a complete mental breakdown, or there was a spirit guide in my kitchen discussing a demon. My grandmother had told me stories when I was a child of the time-walkers who visited her village in Scotland. In her tales, they brought news of loved ones and warned of impending dangers. Free to move between the past and the future, these witches were welcomed cautiously by the villagers and warmly by women like my grandmother, who had their own gifts. I always thought they were part of a charming folklore, the stuff packed into books in the library.
Elsa smiled and set down her teacup. “It’s nice to see you get angry, Olivia. It’s long overdue, but welcome. Who do you think I am then, if not someone sent here to help you? I could have killed you while you were passed out in your kitchen. And yet, here I am and you’re still alive.”
“That’s my point,” I said. “You could be anyone. You could be some con artist off the street. Why should I believe you?”
“How would I know about your gifts if not for your grandmother?” Elsa asked. “You can try to pretend you’re not connected to any of this, Olivia, but your grandmother was a great seer. Your mother is extremely receptive. The fact that you have ignored your lineage doesn’t erase the connections.”
The mention of my mother sent my head spinning. Demons. Spirit guides. It was all too much. I knew Elsa wasn’t a vagrant off the street. Her arrival at the moment I asked for her could only be connected to my dreams. But I wasn’t ready to face these facts.
“I’m tired. I think you should leave and come back another time when I feel up to a discussion,” I said, walking toward my front door and opening it.
Elsa stared at me, a look of fury in her eyes. “Do you really think you can avoid me like you’ve avoided everything else? You asked me to come!”
I nodded. “I didn’t know what I was asking for. I don’t know why my grandmother sent you, but I don’t need your help. I will get some rest and fix everything tomorrow.”
“You cannot fight the demon without my help, Olivia. You need me.”
“That’s exactly my point,” I said as I ushered her to the stoop. “I don’t intend to fight.”
I shut the door, managed to walk upstairs to my bedroom, and I started to cry.
“God damn it,” I screamed as I tossed a pillow across the room. “God damn it!” I had asked her to come, but I truly meant it when I said I didn’t know what I was asking for. What did I need? An exorcist? A psychiatrist?
My mother and all of her warnings came back to me. I was hunched over on the edge of my bed sobbing, when my phone beeped, signaling a text. I picked up my mobile from my nightstand. There, blinking, was a message from Stoner Halbert. I glanced at his message:
Olivia, where R U?
Client has asked me 2 B project manager.
I’m up three to nothing, and we’re only in the second inning.
I threw the phone across the room, feeling sick to my stomach. I managed to make it to my bathroom before I began to vomit. Why, why was this happening to me? In all my life I had never harmed a soul. My only weakness, if you could call it one, was that I had refused to accept my Gift. I had forsaken my emotions for logic, relying on the power of reason to solve my problems. Now though, it seemed that logic could be easily overpowered by magic, for no reason at all.
I leaned against the edge of my toilet wiping a cold cloth across my lips. I hadn’t given Halbert my phone number. I had to suppose my ex-client had turned it over. I felt trapped inside my house like a mouse in a cage. Would I find him waiting for me outside one day? Elsa was right. For once, I couldn’t fix a problem on my own. I needed help. I knew she would come again if I called her.
“Come back,” I said, more quietly than I intended as I walked to my bed to lie down. “Please come back.”
I awoke several hours later from a dreamless