You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,25
blanket as Cheryl draped a quilt over her legs. Dear God, she was tired, and here she felt safe. At peace. A relief that was never present at the island.
“So I want you to go deep today,” Cheryl said softly as she settled into a nearby chair. “Just relax and go deeper . . .”
Ava was barely aware of the sound of her voice or the relaxing music as she slid beneath the veil. It was a weird sensation, as she wasn’t truly asleep, though she wasn’t sharply awake either, but hovering between the two states. Dreamlike . . .
Ava drew in a long breath and the tension seemed to drain from her muscles.
“Now go deeper . . . to your private place . . .”
The place of calm. That’s how she thought of it. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself in that sunny cove near the waterfall. She was wearing a yellow sundress, her hair pulled away from her face by a simple rubber band. White sand shimmered in the sunlight filtering through the trees and a gentle spray touched her cheeks. The water was clear and cool and . . .
Noah was there, too, she realized. Playing in the sand, his chubby fingers digging through grains that glinted in the sun’s warm rays, he was only a few feet from her.
“Baby,” she said aloud, and he grinned, showing off his tiny teeth.
“Mommy! See what I find!” He held up a clam shell, golden and glistening, beautiful in its complexity but broken and chipped.
“Careful, honey, that’s sharp.”
She walked toward him, her shadow falling across his upturned face, and she saw a bit of challenge in his eyes. “That’s why it’s called a razor clam . . .”
“It’s mine!”
“I know, but let Mama see it. Just to make sure it’s okay.”
“No! Mine!” he repeated, his little chin jutted defiantly, the shell clenched in his fist.
“Of course it is.” She knelt beside him, her arm outstretched. “I just want to make sure it won’t hurt you.”
But he wasn’t listening. Instead he was backing up, away from her, holding tight to the shell, blood beginning to show between his chubby fingers.
“Noah, please—”
“No!”
More blood.
She lunged for him, but on short little legs, he turned and sped off toward the water.
“Noah!” she screamed, frantic. “Stop!”
In that mind-numbing instant, she saw her mistake. She took off after him at a dead run, her bare feet pounding the sand.
“Noah!” Her voice caught in the wind as the ocean darkened from aquamarine to slate gray, shifted from a tranquil lagoon to the dark and roiling sea. “Stop! Oh, please! Baby!” Horrified, she watched him step into the water, the waves lapping, foam crashing around him.
She was breathing hard, chasing him, but just as she lunged forward, grasping at him, he turned, eyes round with fear; then his little feet slid off an underwater shelf and he disappeared into the deep water. “Noah!” she cried, desperately. “Baby—”
“And you’re waking up,” a voice said from a distance.
Sobs erupted from her throat.
“Breathe deeply. And you’re opening your eyes—”
Ava’s eyes flew open and she found herself half lying in the recliner in Cheryl’s studio. Her heart was pounding frantically, her fingers clenched into the chair’s leather arms, her mind filled with dark images that brought a soft cry from her lips.
“And you’re calm now . . .” Cheryl sounded certain.
Ava slowly let out her breath, the tension draining from her body again as she felt the relief that her horrid dream was passing. She unclenched her fingers, let her shoulders slump. “Oh, God,” she whispered, glancing up at Cheryl and feeling tears fill her eyes. Damn she didn’t want to cry.
“You relived it.”
“No.” Shaking her head, she sniffed and slapped her tears away. “That’s just it; I don’t think I ever lived it the first time. There’s no reliving it.”
“That you’re aware of.”
“Damn it all.”
“You okay?”
“Do I look okay?” she asked, then nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all.
Cheryl leaned closer as the candle burned. “It’s your fears coming to the surface,” Cheryl said, “but what concerns me is that they permeate your quiet place. Before you can completely relax, before we can go deeper, the visions return.”
“I know.” This was only her second session, and in the first, she’d had a similar experience, yet Ava was convinced that if she could ever get past the mental barrier she’d created for herself, she would remember so much more, find